Still waiting...

I have been reading two books, sets of books, over the past two months. I have been waiting on a response to my application to the Institutional Review Board, that has to be approved before I can continue on with my research for my dissertation. It feels like this step in the process is taking far too long, but I guess I must be patient. While I wait, I will continue to read.

The two pieces of literature that I am reading could not be any different if I wanted them to be. One is a classic novel of Russian literature the other is the latest in fan fiction.

The first is War and Peace. I once read that a person only had to get past the first 100 pages and then the novel picks up and gets better. I have found this to be very true. The first 100 pages took me a long time to read. I had a hard time getting into it, and a very hard time focusing on it. There is something about a six year old and three year old that makes it hard to read Russian literature. I am very glad that I stuck with it though. I am around page 500 and am thoroughly enjoying the novel. I find myself wondering what is going to happen to each of the characters. As one "Book" or "Chapter" ends and you find yourself in a completely different setting for the next, I have found myself trying to guess what happened with the characters and wondering when I will find out their fate. It is very rewarding to read. I am having a tough time reading some of the sections written in languages that I don't speak, but I think I have the point of what is said as I move on.

The second piece of literature I am reading is something I never really thought I would read. I loved the Harry Potter books and it took me no time to read. Then, I picked up the Twilight series and read through them in a couple of weeks, but did not enjoy them as much as I had Harry Potter. In fact, I thought some parts of the series were poorly written, while I was still captured by the storyline.

The latest in fan fiction that was actually somewhat inspired by the Twilight series is the Fifty Shades series. There are currently three books in the series, and the author is discussing adding a fourth. Before picking up the novels, I had read an article talking about how current literature is setting women's rights back several decades. The article referenced the first book in the series (Fifty Shades of Grey) and mentioned how the leading female character in the book is a slave to the leading male character. It further talked about the negative message that this was sending to our daughters and condemned the series as bad for women's rights. It was only when I was speaking to a friend about the article that I was encouraged to read the books to decide for myself if that was the message portrayed. So, I decided to pick up the first novel and begin the journey through the series. Speaking with friends and acquaintances about the series, I heard many references to the series as "typical romance novels", "mommy porn", "trash" and other terms that would lead one to believe that the entire series was nothing but a continuous sex scene.

As I began reading, I again found it difficult to really get into the first book. I decided I would push on, despite really not having any interest in the series. I will admit that there is a lot of course language, but not any more than what one would hear watching daytime talk shows. The sexual content that people talk about in regards to these books isn't as pervasive as some would like you to believe. The main point of the series is a true love story, with a deep story line. I have to give the disclosure that I have not finished the entire series, but I currently want to finish the series to see how the story ends. It isn't about the "sexual content" and the female character is not a slave. I do not agree with the premise of the relationship, but the storyline of change is intriguing.

I have had a lot on my mind lately. I am having a hard time with some news that I have gotten recently. I have a "niece" who is expecting her second child. My brother and his wife have custody of her first and are taking care of him. She is not married and doesn't really have the mental faculties needed to care for children and really doesn't have any business having sex. At the same time, I know of a couple of families who have recently lost children at different points gestation, and even some who were young children. I am having a hard time understanding why some people who would be great parents have not been able to carry a child to term, and some people who have no business having children continue to have them without even wanting them. I have had to spend a lot of time in prayer about this because it really does bother me. Still, I don't have an answer.

I will keep you all posted on my adventures in War and Peace as well as my doctoral dissertation. Until then, you will find me still waiting....

Love you,

Hello blog world. The worlds worst blogger is back on again to provide a couple of updates. I am probably only on here today because I am really missing a very dear friend. I feel like blogging draws me closer to her a little, but it has been almost a year since the last time I actually got to sit down with her. Today I am really wishing that we lived closer so that we could talk more and our kids could play together.

I was looking at pictures a couple of weeks ago with my 3 1/2 year old daughter. We came to some pictures of her playing with my friends daughter and her eyes lit up. She asked me, "Daddy can we go visit them so I can play with Brianna again?" I told her, "We will see." Then she asked, "Can we go tomorrow when I wake up?" I said, " I wish we could, but we can't go tomorrow." The conversation continued a little longer until she jumped down to go tell my son about seeing pictures of a girl she loved to play with. My heart was aching, because I wanted to visit as much as she did, but we just couldn't.

Two weeks ago, I successfully defended my research proposal for my dissertation. That was a big step, because that means that the 75 pages I wrote for the proposal did their job, and also because it gets me one step closer to doing the actual research. It also gets me one more step closer to my doctorate.

I am exhausted, so I am going to end this blog. To my friend, you know who you are, I love you so much and you have been on my heart and mind a lot lately!!!

Love you,

A lot to update

I am sitting at the office today, and my head is pounding. The last thing I want to be, at this moment, is awake. However, I can't change that. I have had a lot going on in my life recently, and while that should never be used as an excuse to ignore my blog, I have found that it has been too difficult to take the time to write. I have had the time, but for those of you who don't know me, I have to be "in the mood" to do anything. Writing is something I love, but I have to be in the right emotional state to be able to write. This is most true when it comes to my blog.

I have been adapting since the first time I wrote a blog. Initially, I didn't want to share too much. I wanted to let people know the basics of what was going on in my life, without putting too much personal information in it. The personal information takes more from me emotionally. As the years have gone on I have started to put more of my heart into my blog. I want to share parts of myself, at a very personal level, because of the special person that I hope reads this blog. Almost every time I blog, I mention that I am going to try to be better at writing only to find months pass before I sit down and write again. There is so much I want to share, and pictures that I want to post, that I hope I am able to actually spend more time over the next couple of months talking about my life.

A big hoarder of my time is work. The sad thing is that I feel like a lot of my time when I am at the office is wasted. There are many days where I don't know what I have done all day, but I know that I have been busy all day. I have started to get a little bored with my job, mostly because there are large sections of time where I am performing repetitive tasks, such as reading documents that are nearly identical. I really like the company that I work for, so I'm not ready to leave, but I am getting tired of doing the exact same thing month after month.

I believe that I mentioned that our parent company is selling the entire healthcare business, of which I work. We still don't know anything new and the deal was initially planned to be closed by the end of this year. It doesn't look like that is going to happen.

Another big time taker is school. I think that I mentioned previously that I passed my Comps this past summer and started on my dissertation. I am in the process of writing my Proposal and hope to have it read to defend by February. I am at 73 pages write now and think there is about 5 to 10 more pages of information that I need to add in. I am just having to solidify my data source, which has been a little more work than one might think. The dissertation process has several steps that have to be taken in order, and I am happy to say that I am still on track to finish next summer and hope to have all of my signatures in place to graduate in December 2012. I don't know what I will do once I finish and won't have any other school. I have already ruled out Law School, so I think I will finally be done.

Nathan has started to understand the different levels of school, how each progresses and what each means. We were talking last week about it, and I think it was good for him to know that I was still in school. It gave him an example to strive for. Ultimately, I don't expect him to get a doctorate just because I am. I just want him to do his best.

My last blog I mentioned that Sharon and I decided to leave the small congregation that I had preached at for the past year and couple of months. It was a difficult decision, but one we felt we had to make. After visiting around a couple of places, we placed our membership with a larger congregation in Nashville. It happens to be where Sharon grew up, but it provided the best opportunities for service, and our kids really love the classes and the people there. I mentioned that it was a larger congregation, the average attendance on Sunday morning is between 475 and 515. It has been a big adjustment for Reagan who has only known congregations of less than 80. Nathan was born while we attended a congregation of 225, so it wasn't as much of an adjustment. He has really loved getting to know the boys in his classes.

This is going to be a long blog, but I want to give updates on things going on with my family. I know that much of the focus of this blog historically has been me, but I want to spend more time sharing my family.

My wife Sharon was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes last month. Of all of the adjustments we have made in our lives the past few months, this has been the biggest. It required a complete change in our diet, which is still proving difficult now. Sharon and I have both lost weight because of the diet change, but we still have work to do. Sharon's blood sugar has come down, but she still has work to do so that she can stop taking the medicine.

On top of the diabetes, she has had high blood pressure. The doctor thinks that when her blood sugar is brought under better control, the blood pressure will come down. I hope so. I hate seeing her have to take four different medicines a day.

Our daughter Reagan has had an equally tough past couple of months. She is three, so any time she is sick it is hard. In November she was diagnosed with Impetigo, which is treated with antibiotics, but is very itchy. It took several days for that to start to go away and provide her with any relief. As the Impetigo was going away, we noticed that one of the spots on her bottom didn't look like it was fading. One Sunday morning when she got out of the bath, Sharon noticed that the spot had gotten bigger and was very red. Reagan told us it didn't hurt, but when Nathan asked her to play something with him, she said "I can't, my bottom hurts." So, that prompted a call to the doctor's office. Half way through the Sunday morning worship service, the doctor's office called back and told us to take her to the ER immediately because it sounded like a Staph infection. Nathan chose to stay with Sharon's parents so he could go to class.

At the ER, it was confirmed that she had a Staph infection, which is pretty scary. We have a friend who had MRSA, and lost a big chunk of his leg to the infection. The doctor in the ER, said it was too early to try to drain the infection and test it, so they gave us an antibiotic and told us to see Reagan's pediatrician in a couple of days. When we called the pediatrician's office they scheduled an appointment for Wednesday, to give the antibiotics some time to work. Well, they weren't working. Reagan spend two and a half days unable to sit down comfortably and the infection just continued to get worse, although at a slower pace than pre-ER visit.

Reagan's visit to the pediatrician was one that a parent never wants to experience. The doctor had to open the site and squeeze out as much of the infection as possible and take samples for testing. Despite the attempts to numb the site, Reagan appeared to feel everything that was being done and screamed the entire time. It was truly heartbreaking, but at the same time necessary. The results from the lab indicated that it was not MRSA, but it was a strain of Staph that was resistant to the antibiotic the ER doctor had prescribed. I am happy to say she has recovered now and is back to her old self.

Those instances alone would be enough for any family, but it just wasn't enough for ours. Our son Nathan turned six this month. His birthday party was on last Saturday, the 10th. Nathan is kind of shy, but when he is around his friends, the shy part of Nathan tends to disappear. On Saturday, Nathan was a little different than he normally would have been, but it was hard to point out any one thing that would tell us if he was feeling bad. Sunday morning during Bible class, his teacher said he sat there with his head on the table, which is not like him at all. We wrote both of these off to him being tired from the long weekend, since he wasn't running a fever, coughing or showing any other signs of being sick.

Monday morning, Nathan didn't want to get up for school. This is completely out of character for Nathan, because he would rather be at school than anywhere else most days. When he was getting up, he kept saying that his feet and legs hurt, but nothing looked different with them, so we again decided he was just tired. After he got good and awake, he was back to his normal self and ready for school. In our eyes, Sharon and I had correctly diagnosed him as being tired and having a case of the Mondays (this reference for me comes from the movie Office Space).

When Sharon picked Nathan up from school Monday afternoon, she noticed he was moving much slower than normal and that he wasn't putting much weight on his left leg. When he got in the car he told her that his left foot and leg hurt. When she got home and took of his shoe, his foot was swollen. By swollen, it was twice the normal size. It was bad. A call to the doctor's office meant an appointment on Tuesday morning for possible x-rays. You might ask why he wasn't sent to the ER, and it was because he hadn't fallen or suffered other trama to his foot or leg, so the doctor felt that it could just be a bad sprain. By the time I got home from work, he could not straighten his leg out completely without hurting, and it still hurt for him to walk.

Tuesday morning when Sharon woke Nathan for his doctor's appointment, he had spots that looked like bug bites all over his legs and bottom. On the positive side, the swelling in his foot had gone down a lot, and he could walk with little pain. At the doctor's office, we saw a parade of people come into his exam room. First was a nurse, who looked puzzled by the spots. Then a student Physician's Assistant, than the full time Physician's Assistant, and finally our least favorite doctor out of the office. They were all talking to each other, almost as if we weren't there, planning what tests to run and what the possible diagnosis could be. After everyone else had left the room, the doctor turned to Sharon and I and said, "We are going to be running several tests. We want to try to rule some things out. In some cases, Leukemia presents this way." At those words, both of our hearts sank. The doctor had just told us that there was a possibility that our son had cancer. This had never even been a thought in our minds before that time. That was a sentence we never expected to hear. Other things thrown around that they were testing for were meningitis, several other serious conditions I had never heard of and the best option of all, Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP). After listing all of the things this could be, again cancer was the first thing he said it could be, he said that in most cases it was the last thing, HSP. There were too many things that were unknown at the time to determine for sure what it was. They drew two vials of blood, took a urine sample and scheduled us to come back on Wednesday for the results of the lab work.

The car ride from the doctor's office was very difficult. Two young children were in the back seat who didn't understand any of the conditions the doctor said it could be. My wife was stuck on the fear that it could be Leukemia and while I tried to present the aura of strength and reassurance, in the back of my mind I wanted to break down and cry.

Tuesday afternoon, we went over to Sharon's parents house to go to dinner with them. Sharon's sister had a baby earlier in the day and Sharon and the kids were going to the hospital to see the new baby. This was going to help take Sharon's mind off Nathan if even for a short time. Sharon wanted to show her mother the spots on Nathan's leg and the swelling in his foot. When she pulled up his pant legs, a knot the size of a golf ball had formed on the front of his leg. At that moment, Sharon lost it. She called the doctor on call and was told he would call back. It was over an hour later when the doctor called back and said this was actually a good thing. This knot on his leg ruled out many of the possibles, including Leukemia. He said he was sure it was HSP and warned us that Nathan's legs would see other places of swelling and bruising over night.

At 8:00 Tuesday night, Sharon called me from the hospital where they had gone to see her sister and the new baby. Nathan's knee had swollen up and he could not walk at all. It had gotten worse in a matter of hours and all we could do is give him something to try to ease the pain.

Wednesday morning, Nathan's pediatrician confirmed the diagnosis of HSP and proceeded to assure us that Nathan would be fine and make a full recovery. There is no treatment, it just has to pass on its own, but we could give him Tylenol for the pain. Nathan nearly started crying because he was told he would have to miss the rest of this week of school. He missed four days this week and has been very saddened by it. I am happy to say that Nathan is on a course of recovery with very little pain, and the spots and bruising are going away. He has another doctor's appointment today, but we don't expect anything but good news about his recovery.

On November 12, Nathan's peewee football team, which I was one of the coaches, won the championship. We were on the top of the world that day. Who could have guess that in four short weeks, we could go through all of the medical conditions mentioned above. I would never have guessed that less than four weeks after seeing my son run off the field as time expired in the championship game, I would see my son lying in pain, unable to walk.

The world is starting to right itself again. I just hope that the next time I add to this blog, I don't have a lot to update.

I finally have time to breath...

The last two months have been an extremely busy time for me. I have promised to blog more and keep you updated on the things going on in my life, and I really do intend to, but things keep popping up. Let me try to get you all caught up and then this week I want to go back and spend some additional time talking about some of the things from the past six months and apply pictures to them. That is going to be something new, since I haven't put pictures in my blog before.

Let me start with a topic that I have talked a lot about: school. In May I wrote my comprehensive exam. It consisted of three questions and the instructions said to be concise while answering all of the questions completely. My goal was to write 4-5 pages for each question and leave it at that. The first two questions I thought went very well. I was pleased with the result and felt that they would pass the grading without question. The third question was not so good. Despite my best effort at research, I could not find the theories I was being asked to present and discuss. I instead found methods and try to write them to where it sounded like I was talking about theories. I know, that isn't how to write a sound academic paper. I then waited three weeks for the results of the grading. I knew that there were a couple of grades I could receive. 1) Pass all Questions 2) Fail all Questions 3) Pass some Questions, Fail some Questions with a rewrite of the failed questions 4) Rewrite all questions. I was hoping for a grade of Pass on all questions, but expected to pass the first two questions and be asked to rewrite the third question. To my complete shock and dismay, I was asked to rewrite all three of the questions. Fortunately, I was able to use what I had previously written if I wanted to and I was given a list of issues that the two reviewers had from reading my exam. I then took two days to touch up the first two questions with what I considered to be very cosmetic corrections, and then spent the rest of the two weeks I had doing additional research and making considerable changes to the third question. When I completed the rewrite, I had added eleven pages to my exam from the first version. I was very pleased with myself. I found out a week later that I had passed the rewrite and am now working on my dissertation.

That brings me to a frustrating area that I am working through right now. I have never written a dissertation before. I have a dissertation chair that is supposed to guide me through the process. My luck is that my dissertation chair has never worked with a student on their dissertation. So, she has no idea what she is supposed to be doing to help me. I am so frustrated!!! I have gotten no guidance and am trying to keep moving through the process. I know that I only have a couple of weeks in the current "class" to reach a key milestone of completing my prospectus and forming my dissertation committee, but I don't know exactly how to do everything in the prospectus. I may have to seek out additional help, because I have to get this done.

I mentioned in my last blog that I was getting a pool. The pool has been successfully installed and I have enjoyed it on five occasions over the last month (I told you I have been busy). We officially opened our pool with a 4th of July cookout with my wife's family. It was fun, but a lot of work. I still have a lot of work to do getting my yard back level again. To get the pool level, they had to dig down 19 inches on half of my yard. Needless to say, I have a lot of dirt to move when I have the time.

After having the pool in, we had to have a deck built. I built it myself with the help of my wife's husband. We spent one Saturday working and got most of it finished. I have one section that is not finished as it is going to be done a little differently. For most of the deck I used a composite material to keep from having splinters and warping, so we will see how that works out over time. We have been happy with it the past week and a half. I have to correct that on Saturday we didn't have everything done. We have the one section that is still not finished, but this week I did the banisters and added some additional supports that were not initially expected because I have never used the composite material before. I am hoping to finish up the rest of everything Saturday evening, if I have the time.

Last week my little girl turned 3. It is so hard to believe that she is getting so big. I am going to have to add pictures. We had a pool party for her birthday on Saturday, which is why the deck had to be done when it did. Everyone had a blast.

I have been working a lot lately. We have had several people taking their summer vacations, and that means that I get to pick up a lot of their work. 50 - 60 hour weeks have been very common, but it seems that I can breath a little now.

I am still preaching at the little congregation we attend. I don't know how much longer I am going to do it, because I think we are almost ready to look for a new church home. There is a lot of drama with some of the families that only seems to be getting worse, and people try to drag us into the middle of it. It is not an environment I want to be in, let alone have my kids in. If things don't get better soon, we will have to really consider leaving. I was asked by the elders to teach the high school class on Sunday mornings as well. Now I teach that class on both Sunday and Wednesday. It is starting to wear on my a little because we only have been having two people come to class for various reasons. Normally, the class would not be exhausting because of that, but both of the people that have been in class have mental disabilities and don't have the ability to really participate. I feel like I am lecturing for thirty minutes to people who don't understand and at times aren't even listening. That is emotionally draining. To build on that, my daughter doesn't like class most of the time, because she is either in the baby class where the teach doesn't do anything but sing songs, or in the kindergarten class where it is a little above where she is at. It is tough with her being the only child her age in the congregation. The final issue that I am personally having with the congregation is that there are not any other people the age of me or my wife. The closest people are a single college age kid who is 19/20 and a couple that is in their late 40's. I feel like I really need some people close to my age range to associate with.

The last thing that I am going to touch on today, and again I am going to say now that I need to get pictures uploaded, is a new endeavour that I have taken on. That is coaching Pee Wee football. My five year old son decided this summer that he wanted to play football. We found a team for him to play on and signed him up. During the first practice, they asked for some help coaching, so I volunteered, applied, went through the interview, took the online coaching class that is required for certification, and paid the fee to be a volunteer coach. It has been an extremely rewarding two weeks so far. Being able to see the growth of these 5 and 6 year old boys learning something that they have never done before has been amazing. To see the drive and desire in their eyes and to help them through the times they wanted to quit and when the helmets were "hurting" their heads has already made it worth the money. (They just had to get used to the helmets.) It is frustrating at times to know they aren't working their hardest, especially when it is my son who isn't running his hardest, but they will learn and get better. They have come so far. I am really glad that I offered my time, even when I had so little to offer.

I will right more this week, even as the work is piling up again. I just got an e-mail asking me to help do some things I normally wouldn't work on. At least, for now, I finally have time to breath...

It has been too long...

Well, here I am a long time since my last blog. So much has gone on that I probably won't cover it all. I am just proud of myself for actually sitting down and blogging today. I have gotten really bad about this whole blog thing, but I really think I am going to block some time on my calendar atleast once a week to blog. We will see how that goes.

Since I last blogged a lot has happened. I have found out that a lot of people around us are now expecting babies within the next year. And I do mean a lot. I can think of 5 that I know and if I waited five seconds to think, I might come up with a couple more. I am not going to say who they are, because I think that is their business not mine. I am excited about all of them though!!! :)

I completed all of my coursework for school and took my comprehensive exam. It was horrible, although I am still holding out hope for a "Pass". I definitely do not want a "Fail" and I really don't want a "Rewrite". It was bad enough writing it the first time. I guess if it came down to a rewrite or fail, I would rather rewrite it, but I am hoping for the pass. I still have another week or two before I find out how I did, and it is killing me. I don't like waiting to find out how I did on stuff. I always want to know now!!! I will let everyone know when I find out.

We decided that we were going to get a pool this summer, so assuming I get all of the permits, sand, HOA approvals, and all of the other 10 million things done it will be up in two weeks. I am already almost ready to not get the pool, but I really want it, so we will have one.

Work is pretty busy, and it is calling me away for now. I will try to catch up some more soon, It has been too long...

Frustrated

For lack of a better word, I am going to call myself frustrated.

I am frustrated over the fact that I submitted an 18 page paper for class a week and a half back and have not received feedback from it, with another 15-20 page paper due in four days.

I am frustrated because we are supposed to get snow, and although we were promised snow by 11:00 AM, it is now 3:20 and we still have not had a single flake fall. To add insult to injury, I get to see pictures of a 100 year record for snow get broken in the part of Oklahoma I grew up in.

To top it off, I have people who complain about having to do their jobs.

Finally, I have not blogged much this year because I have been so busy.

Add all of that up and I am Frustrated!!!!

Until next year....

Well, I am back just as I promised I would be. It has been two months since I actually blogged about anything and a lot has happened in that two months. Let's see how much we can cover before you get tired of reading this.

School:

I mentioned yesterday that I got an A- in the class I completed earlier this month. I am mostly okay with that, because I just wanted the class to be over. It was a class with just me and the professor, so I was getting tired of not having any other thoughts and ideas. I guess it was a good warm up for the class I have starting in January. January and February will be filled up with the Independent Study that I have mentioned before. I recently received a little more direction on what it will be, which makes me a little more comfortable with what to expect. I will be spending this time doing research for and writing my Literature Review for my dissertation. That is exciting to me, because that will be half of my dissertation being mostly written. If I am able to accomplish this, which is required to get an A, I should have little problem completing my dissertation by May 2012. The biggest thing holding me back will be waiting on responses from the survey I will submit as part of my research.

So, January and February I will be reading a lot of articles and finding information that will help me focus in on my research topic and prove that it is a valuable area of study that has not been done before. The end result will hopefully be 60 pages of my dissertation done.

Weather:

This year has been an odd year for us here. Normally we don't see snow until January, but we have already had at least three inches of snow on two occasions and one or two other occasions of a dusting of snow. While three inches of snow doesn't sound like much, it reeks havoc on our roads. Since my family and I live on some back roads, our roads are usually the last to be cleared, and we have hills all around us.

This leads to a fun story about the first time we got a few inches of snow this year. It was a Sunday, and the expectation was that we would see snow in the morning with no accumulation. Sunday morning it was snowing when I left for worship and was still falling when I got home. It snowed all afternoon and started to build up on the grass. My wife told me that I needed to stay home Sunday night and not got worship because she was afraid the weather was getting too bad. My daughter was sick, so she was staying home with my wife. My son and I left to get to worship. I am the preacher and felt like I shouldn't miss. By the time we made it to the church building(it's a 25 minute drive), the snow was starting to gather on the roads. Salt trucks had not been sent out because the weather people were not predicting any accumulation. After services when my son and I left, the roads were getting bad. We made it to the Interstate, which had finally had salt put on two of the four lanes, and began our drive home. When we got to our exit, I had a bad feeling. The roads were completely white and you couldn't see the lines, just some tracks from where others had driven previously. We get to the road we live on and turn. Right after the turn in a small but steep hill. We make it two thirds of the way, and start sliding back. I back up to get a running start and the same thing happens. This goes on for three more attempts, it is the best way for us to get home. On the fourth attempt, I drive off the road where this a little gravel shoulder which allowed me just enough tracktion to make it up the hill. The roller coast just began. We made it over a couple of smaller hills and began our decent towards the biggest hill we would face. It is tall, has a three foot drop off on one side and a five foot drop off on the other. There isn't a shoulder to drive on, so I start up hoping for the best. Three fourths of the way up, we lose our traction and start sliding backwards. If you have never been in this position, sliding down a steep hill backwards is very difficult to control. The van started to slide sideways, but I get it straightened back up and stopped about halfway up the hill. The only option I have is to back down the hill and pull into a driveway. Fortunately, my brother-in-law has a four wheel drive and was able to pick us up and take us home. The little front wheel drive mini van just wouldn't make the hill.

We had a white Christmas this year. It was the first one in 17 years for our area. I knew that I hadn't seen one in the 14 years I have been out here. It was beautiful. The roads were bad again, but this time we stayed in until they could be cleared. One of the elders preached for me that Sunday morning and was very understanding in why we weren't there. Total we had 20 that Sunday morning.

Church:

I am still preaching for the small congregation. We have hit 80 on 2 occasions, so the elders set our new goal to be 90, even though we average 65-70 on a regular basis.

Friends:

I greatly miss some friends. My best friend in Oklahoma is the one I miss the most. We have some friends that have worshiped with us for the last ten years that may be going somewhere else, and that is upsetting to me. Their daughter is my son's best friend and he will be devastated if they leave.

Family:

I have a great family. As a part of my New Year resolution to write on this blog each week, I will be introducing them to you. I am going to add pictures too. I have been really bad this year, so look for that to come in 2011.

Me:

I am exhausted. With work, school, church, family and anything else that decides it wants to creep up going on, I just get worn down. I took three days of vacation last week along with the holiday and am more tired now than I was before. I just hope that staying up to bring in the new year will provide me with the rest that I need, or at least the excuse to sleep in new years day.

Until next year....

In short, Merry Christmas!!

I want to take a few minutes to say Merry Christmas, even though it is a few days late. I plan on writing more tomorrow to catch up on the past two months. I also plan on spending more time each week next year on my blog. I am actually going to schedule time on my calendar where I write in my blog. I hope that it will provide me a time to step away from all of the things going on in my life.

I made an A- in my most recent class in school. I would have had a solid A, but I turned 6 assignments in atleast 2 days late. Those points really add up. The thing that stinks about the A-, is that now my GPA is a 3.96, despite never getting lower than an A- in a class. Oh well, I guess it can't all be perfect.

Well, I am going to go for today. I will write more tomorrow. For today, in short, Merry Christmas!!

I miss my friend!!!

I am hurting today. I have had a friendship with one of the greatest people I know for 14 years. We have been through it all. We almost hated each other when we first met, but then we got to know each other and decided that the other wasn't as bad as we thought. We struggled with maintaining a close relationship while we were hundreds of miles apart. We were there for each other during difficult times in our other relationships. We laughed with each other and we cried with each other. We saved our friendship after it almost fell apart because of my stupidity a couple of times. We rejoiced with each other as we found the ones we would marry. We rejoiced together with the announcement of my becoming a father and cried together when the struggles for her to become a mother. We rejoiced together again when she bore her first child and fulfilled a dream. We have shared almost everything over the past 14 years, and we have been there for each other. Today, I feel like we are slipping apart. We have not spoken in several weeks and reading each other's blogs seems to be where we learn everything that used to be first hand. I know that life moves forward, but I don't want to lose this friend. I miss her so much!!! I miss my friend!!!

Heading home....

I am writing this blog from the 14th floor balcony of Surfside Resort in Destin, Florida. In less than eight hours, I will be waking up to begin the drive back home. I had forgotten, since last year, just how much I really love this part of the country. There is just something about the feeling of being here. The feeling that life is so much simpler and the pace of life is at one's own leisure. I am sure that there are people here who feel the same about their favorite vacation spots, but I can't image a place more peaceful and more beautiful than this. Hearing the waves lap against the shore, and the roar of the Gulf as it pushes another round of waves to their end. It brings a peacefulness that I miss out of my everyday life. For the last eight days, I have negotiated around the desires of my kids, wife and parents to provide a great vacation experience. I told my wife that I have done everything that everyone else wanted to do and have not done anything just for myself. As I look back, I find that I lied and told the truth both in that statement. I did do everything everyone else wanted. I juggled the concerns of everyone and made sure that we all had a great experience. That is what I did for myself. I like to make people happy and I like to make sure everyone has a good time. For me, in making sure that everyone else was satisfied, I was doing what I wanted the most. I guess at some point I will have to tell her that I did do what I wanted. Tonight, though, is all about me. I am sitting here on this balcony just for myself. I have spent the majority of the last eight days away from my computer. I was almost completely unplugged from work, with one minor slip on Thursday. I wanted to get back to a life that did not revolve around my job, and give myself back to my family. I had planned to check my e-mail every morning, but I was instructed by my manager not to even think about work, as I was heading out of the office last week. All of that is about to change. I will be plugged back in and working hard to catch up on Tuesday. The rat race will begin again and I will let my love of this place slip back from the front of my memory. Tonight, I celebrate my last night in paradise, for tomorrow I am heading home.

It's been too long

I was just realizing that it has been over 20 days since the last time that I blogged. It might seem like nothing is going on in my life, but really there is stuff. I am just too lazy to blog all the time. Really, I am too busy playing pointless games on Facebook. So, this blog is going to be a catch up on what has been going on. I know that I have previously promised pictures, and I will try to get to that sometime. I just have to make myself a list and get it done.

So, I believe that I mentioned that I accepted the preaching position at Mission church of Christ. It has been a great experience and I really love being able to share my knowledge and understanding of the Bible with others. It is really hard to gauge how well people like my preaching, because no one walks up and tells the preacher, "That was a horrible lesson this morning. Why don't you get a new job and quit preaching." No, everyone always says, "That was a great lesson. It was just what we needed." I think the worst part of preaching is being able to see the faces of the people in the audience. It doesn't bother me to know that they are looking at me, but I wish I could read their minds. Sometimes I think they are wondering if I am going to finish my lesson anytime soon. I also think they are wondering what the point is. I think these are just my self conscience side working on me, but I will never know. I have really enjoyed getting into the scriptures and bringing out the true meaning in context with what was going on in the first century and how it still applies to us today.

My parents are in town visiting. They spent the last week staying with my sister and her husband. They are staying with us this week and traveling to Florida with us on Friday for a week at the beach. It is nice to have them visit. The kids really love seeing them. They brought two of my nieces and one of my nephews with them for a few days last week. That was not as pleasant of an experience. Don't get me wrong, I love my nephews and nieces, but some of them are starved for attention. I have enough trouble making sure my kids feel like they are getting enough attention without having others in my face wanting me to poof my cheeks out so they can push the air out with their hands. It is annoying.

I am looking forward to my trip this weekend. As I mentioned we are going to Florida for a week. We will be in the Destin area, staying in the same condo building we stayed in last year. I am ready for a break.

I got my schedule problems worked out with my school. I start a new class on September 7. I have two scheduled for this fall and that will leave two for next spring. I am scheduled to take my comprehensive exam starting the morning of May 16. I will have seven days to complete the three question exam. It sounds pretty easy, but considering each question will require 15-20 pages of an answer, it is going to be very time consuming.

Since my last blog, we celebrated my daughters second birthday. It was great to be able to mark that milestone in her life. It was a Strawberry Shortcake party, which she refers to as Cake Cake. I love that girl!!!

Well, I am going to be stopping here. As I say every time, I am going to try to be a little better about blogging in the future. I was going to comment on the New Coney at Sonic, which is great, but I will save that for another day. That would just be in response to a friends blog. I will try to do better in the future. I realize it's been too long.

What's been going on...

I was recently reminded that I am the worst blogger in the world. I was also reminded that some people consider it unfair that you read what is going on in their blog if you don't put anything in your blog. So, today I am going to try to make up for both of those things with a blog that will fill you all in on what has been going on in my life.

My last blog filled you in on my class that I had finished and the fact that I got an "A". That was very exciting, so I am going to take a little time to update you on my school. I am now only FOUR classes, my comprehensive exam, and dissertation away from completing my Doctorate!!!! I am very excited about that. I had a couple of weeks of frustration when I realized that none of the classes that I need are being offered in the fall, for either my local campus or the online program. I met with the Dean of the College of Business for my local campus yesterday where she assured me that something would be worked out. The resolution was that she is creating three classes where I will be in a class with the one other student in my concentration. The professors for the classes are being worked out. The fourth and final class will be an independent study that will focus on my area of interest and will be taught by the professor who will head my dissertation committee. So, while I was very frustrated and concerned about being able to complete my degree in a timely manner, Dr. K resolved those concerns. So, all is right in the world with my degree, well except not having a 4.0 despite getting an "A" in every class.

In my work life, I have had some pleasant developments. I don't remember what I have written about my job, but I love my job. I love the company I work for, and the work that I am doing. It makes it very easy to come into the office everyday. The downside to that, is that I have a hard time with taking time off. I will get to that a little later. The developments with my job go back to the end of February. At the end of February the contract that I work on underwent some reorganization to combine two contracts under a central Director and Quality Assurance team. At that time, I assumed the responsibilities of Lead over one of the QA teams. For clarification, we have two contracts that each have dedicated QA resources we call teams, but we all fall under the central QA team. So I assumed the responsibilities of leading one of those contract teams. Since that time, work has been going on to create the position that would give me the authority and title of that role. After long wait, on June 27, I officially became the Technical Lead for the QA team I am working on. To say the least, I am excited about the promotion and the pay increase that came with it.

I mentioned that I have a hard time taking time off. There are exceptions to that. My family and I are going to Florida in August, and I had to problem requesting the 7 days off work for that trip. I just have a hard time taking a day here and a day there. I would rather just come to work. Tomorrow is an exception to me taking time off. After many months of talking about having a yard sale, we are finally going to put the plan into action. Friday and Saturday we will be selling everything we have been storing up to sell for a long time. We have big black trash bags full of kids clothes and adult clothes. We have about 50 pair of men's slacks, 5 or 6 complete suits. We have a coffee table, boxes of books, toys, and many little odds and ends. I hope we sell it all, because it is too much stuff for me to store for any longer. I want it all gone.

We had pictures taken this past weekend. Most of the pictures were taken for Reagan's two year pictures. I will try to get some of them posted here so you can see more current pictures. I love some of them.

Finally today, I want to talk about something I have mentioned in my blog in the past. It is the most important part of my life. That is my church life. I have talked in the past about the fact that we were looking for somewhere that we would place our membership and work. We have visited all of the congregations in our area that we were interested in and each of them had something we liked and something we didn't like. One of the things that we looked for was a place where we could be active and make a difference in the lives of people. Last week we made a decision on where we will be spending the next chapter of our lives. One of the congregations we had visited had asked me to fill in and preach for them on a couple of occasions. It is a small congregation and the elders were good friends with some of the people we had been worshipping with at Cane Ridge. Apparently, several of their members really liked me and asked the elders if there was a chance that I would be given the chance to preach for them on a more consistent basis. The response was, at that time, that they would have to meet and discuss it and think about it. Last week I was offered the position of pulpit minister and after discussing it with Sharon, I accepted the position. Beginning this Sunday I will be the new "full time preacher" for Mission church of Christ. I am excited about the opportunity. It comes with a nominal salary, but the pay isn't the reason I accepted. I am hopeful that we can grow the congregation spiritually, which will enable us to grow numerically.

I know this has been a lot of information, but that's what's been going on.