Category: Uncategorized
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was a treat.
Here’s our day in pictures – in reverse order, because that’s how my phone loaded them onto WordPress. You can just pretend I’m super-creative and I’m blogging Thanksgiving in reverse like that episode of Seinfeld.
MC and I crashed on the couch after the kids were in bed and discovered The Godfather on AMC. We fought with all our might to stay awake, but waved the white flag and called it a night at 9:30.
After the kitchen was clean, Nana went home and everyone laid around for a while. I played some Wii with the baby. The big kids did crafts in the kitchen. Then we played a big family game of Cranium. Boys against girls. Here’s a shot of the boys team:
Of course, before all that, we sat down as a family to share in a big Thanksgiving feast. Here’s a look at the meal. Clockwise from the top you’ve got roasted broccoli, mashed potatoes, oyster casserole, chestnut dressing, a roll, turkey and cranberry sauce.
Yum.
This was only MC’s second year doing a whole turkey. The bird turned out great, mainly because it brined overnight and then she stuffed it full of apples and onions, sage and rosemary, then massaged the thing with canola oil.
By the time we started cooking, we’d already had a pretty busy day. We were up and out the door by 7:45 to report to the starting line for the annual Turkey Trot. We joined 4,000 of our closest friends for a 3 mile stroll through Johnson City.
The great thing about a town this size is that at an event like that, you can’t help but bump into a bunch of people you know, so we got to say hi to lots of folks as we made our way toward the finish line. At the end, the kids got a medal for finishing, so they were pretty excited.
We treated ourselves to a post-Turkey Trot trip through the Starbucks drive-through on our way home to cook. Here’s a pic of the fam before the Turkey Trot:
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Any good stories to share?
The park
I’m testing to see if I can post photos to my blog from my Apple Internet Cellular Telephone Version 4.
These pics are from a trip to the park on Saturday. Unless, of course, you don’t see them. In that case, just imagine a beautiful day at the park.
Go first with grace
You can’t earn it.
I wonder how much would be different in the world if we could really understand that.
In what ways am I teaching my kids that they can buy my affection? Do I withhold my praise, my affirmation and my encouragement until I see the results I want?
In what ways to I try to perform for Mary Craig? To buy her love? To stack up nice words and gestures so that I’ll have her approval?
Grace is unmerited favor.
God’s love for me is unmerited. I’ve done nothing to earn it.
I can’t earn it. You can’t earn it.
He loves us because He loves us.
And still, we make each other perform.
We dispense our praise and affection and encouragement in response to what others do for us.
We even do the same thing to God.
We praise Him when we see him moving in our lives. We love him because of what he does for us.
Could your family stand to be loved a little more like God loves you? I’m sure mine could.
Here’s what I’m committing to do at my house. Give it a shot at your house if you like:
Love your wife because you love her. Love your kids because you love them.
Not because of anything they can do for you.
Or you think they should do for you.
Or used to do for you.
Or the neighbor’s ___________ does for them.
While we were enemies of God because of sin, we were reconciled to him by the death of his son. Because he loves us.
Go first with grace, knowing that you did nothing to earn the greatest love you’ll ever experience.
Sunday notes
I don’t know any better way to describe the way I’m feeling right now than this: I’m full.
This has been a great weekend.
We kicked it off Friday night at the Fall Festival at the big kids’ school. The kids jumped on inflatables, played carnival games and buzzed around their school while MC and I chased them around. Things got so exciting that Son decided to get his hair sprayed blue. As we were leaving, we discovered that MC was the high-bidder in the silent auction for a reserved parking space at pickup. And fortunately for us, my parents kept the two year old so that we could move smoothly around the Fall Festival with the big kids.
On Saturday morning, the big kids lucked into a doughnut on the way to pick little sister up from the grandparents’ house. We did some chores around the house and had some rest time, because in the afternoon it was time for…
Son’s birthday party! He’s been taking tae kwon do for a couple months now, and we discovered that the tae kwon do place offers birthday parties. MC checked into it and asked around for references and got good feedback, so we booked it. We had a feeling it would be a good party, but they dramatically exceeded our expectations. All the kids had a good time playing games in the big gym, learning a few martial arts moves and even finishing up the day with a kids-against-parents game of dodgeball.
We grabbed a Papa Murphy’s pizza on the way home (have you done these pizzas before? – they’re really good!) and got the kids bathed and fed. Then MC and Son at th table and played with some of Son’s gifts (someone gave him the game Operation) while Daughter and I watched Florida beat up on Kentucky.
After the kids were down, MC and I settled in for a little Friday Night Lights and some ice cream. How good can one night be?
Today we wrapped up the Leave Your Mark conference at church with preaching and teaching lead by Matt Chambers from SafeWorldNexus. Matt has done a phenomenal job leading the conference this week and I really think we’re going to look back as a church in a couple years and see this year’s missions conference as one of the turning points in our growth.
The balance of the day today has been pretty mundane grown-up stuff. I did yard work and hung pictures on the wall. MC organized her closet, then washed and folded clothes. I played badminton in the backyard with the boy and got chewed up by mosquitos.
Tonight we ate dinner with my parents, which is the perfect bookend to the weekend.
Somewhere along the way, I managed to finish reading a book, start another one, and demolish a whole bunch of doughnuts.
It’s no wonder I feel full.
How about you? How are you feeling after this weekend?
30 Words: Finished
Whew!
We made it.
Thirty straight days with new content posted here every single day.
You know what this means, right?
It means I get to take like a year and half off. See you in 2013, suckers!!
I kid, I kid.
Producing 30 days worth of content (even though it was only 900 words) actually helped me find great clarity and a tremendous amount of momentum. With those two things on my side, I’ve been putting in some late nights and early mornings to lay the foundation for what I hope will be the best days yet here at My Best Investments.
But it will be a while before I get that stuff where I want it to be.
In the meantime, I want to use today’s post to simply say
thank you
for joining me on the 30 Words journey in June. Whether you read every one faithfully or only caught one or two, it’s a gift to me that you spend time here. Thank you.
Writing the series was fun for me. If you’re a writer, I’d encourage you to do something similar sometime. Having constraints is a great creative challenge to work with and against.
Here are some of the posts that seemed to be the most fun/interesting to write or that resonated the most with you as readers:
Thanks again for reading.
The best lie ever
A recent “Let’s go get some Thai food and then walk around Barnes & Noble” date night left us with a 60-minute roundtrip, so we did what any shellshocked parents of three wild and crazy couple would do to help pass the time.
We grabbed a big stack of our old CDs that we listened to when we were in college or first married.
On the drive home, Mary Craig put in the 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged CD. A classic.
As we listened, I caught a line that never landed with me years ago when I’d listen to the song. In their song Noah’s Dove:
“In your reckless mind, you act as if you’ve got more lives…”
That’s a big thought.
And I know there are echoes of that truth in the way I live.
I procrastinate on ideas.
I starve relationships that need nourishing.
I see myself doing different work at some ambiguous point in the future. But I don’t know what and I don’t know when.
I see myself and Mary Craig visiting and serving in Ethiopia.
But today I’ll just go to work and put in my time and tonight I’ll come home and love on MC and my kids like crazy and then we’ll file today away.
No progress. No movement. No alignment with what I say I value.
I act as if I’ll get to all that other stuff in another life. Or at least later on in this life.
I wonder if anyone has ever checked – I mean done a scientific study – to see how many of those things we say we’re going to do later ever get done?
Sometimes I think “I’ll do it later” is the best lie ever, because we believe it so easily when we tell it to ourselves. We really swallow it and let that lie inform our thoughts and actions.
What’s on the list of stuff you tell yourself you’ll do later?
Here are a few, but not all, of the things on my list:
I’ll have regular, scheduled one-on-one dates with each of my kids.
I’ll get my hands dirty serving other people.
I’ll give my life to something I’m passionate about.
I’ll ask Mary Craig to pray with me at bedtime like we did a few years ago.
I’ll clean up the garage.
I’ll pour more into friendships.
Do you act as if you’ve got more lives? What’s on your list of things you say you’ll do later?
Four tips for better relationships with your kids
When our son was born, we had a nurse who liked to give what I would call “unconventional” advice about how to care for him – stuff that she’d learned simply by being around a lot of babies over the course of her career.
You know you’re in for something good when your nurse starts a story with:
“You won’t find this in any medical textbook, but…”
And when she said those things, I knew she was either 100% right or 100% insane. No middle ground.
I like her approach enough that I’m going to steal it and use it here.
You may not find this in any parenting manual or psychology textbook, but I have a theory about young kids: Kids will establish how they relate to you forever based on how you relate to them when they are very small.
Here’s what I mean.
If my son learns at five that I laugh at him/fuss at him/ignore him when he brings me what he thinks is a problem, how much communication is likely between the two of us when he’s 15?
Based on this idea that kids will solidify how they relate to you when they’re small, here are a few notes based on what I’ve seen in my life:
1) Be a receiver. I’ve posted about this before. My goal when my kids start a conversation is to keep them talking and draw out what they’re saying as much as possible.
While I was driving Son home from school the other day, he said, “Daddy, I like Saturdays.”
I asked him, “What is it that you like about Saturdays?”
I kept drawing things out of him and eventually he told me that he likes Saturdays because we’re all together as a family.
Made me glad I didn’t just say, “Me too,” or “Yeah, but Saturdays can be really busy sometimes.”
2) Lose the sarcasm. Mary Craig and I like to think we’re pretty funny people. Sometimes when one of the kids says something, I’ll reply sarcastically. Kids don’t speak the language of sarcasm. Getting a laugh off my kid while they’re trying to talk to me is cheap. I think they don’t know, but they know.
3) Remember they’re kids. Kids have kid problems and kid fears. They celebrate kid stuff and cry about kid stuff. Their reality is their reality. I think kids feel disrespected or diminished when you don’t recognize that their stuff is real to them.
4) Be mindful of what they really want from you. What I mean is, answer the question in your mind, “How would I want my mom or dad to react in this situation?”
If I hit a homerun on the tee-ball field, I’d want to hear my parents cheering the loudest in the stands. If my friends picked on me all day, I’d want someone to love on me. If I brought them a problem I’d created, I’d want them to listen without reacting harshly.
That’s not to say it’s my job as a parent to always give my child what he/she is wanting from me, but I think being mindful of them is the best place to start.
Like I said, you probably won’t find those in any textbook or parenting manual. So like our nurse, there’s a chance I’m 100% insane with this.
But if I’m on to something, and the preschool and kindergarten years really are when you begin to set patterns of relationship and communication for the later years, what would you add to my list?
Coming September 1
Thank you for stopping by Intentional Family Life.
We have some great stuff in store.
Check back on September 1 for our launch!
Getting started: But I can’t write
“But I’m not a writer.”
That’s probably the Hail Mary excuse you’ll throw as you feel yourself being nudged to try blogging.
It doesn’t matter.
It. Doesn’t. Matter.
No two people are the same, so no two people are going to have the same approach to typing out some thoughts. That’s one of the beauties of the blog world – the diversity of the people you meet and the many ways they write.
But I bet that Hail Mary of “I’m not a writer” isn’t really you digging your heels in, I’ll bet it’s just resistance. I’m guessing it’s your way of trying to ask the question: “How do I write?”
For a personal blog, I think the best practical advice is this: open up a new post and write like you’re writing an email to your best friend.
If you can train your mind to think that way for a few minutes, what you’ll see is that you have a more relaxed and conversational feel to what you’re communicating than you would if you went into it with the mindset that you need to write a term paper about the new corn muffin recipe you found. Leave the formality to the lawyers. Sorry, Dad.
The other style you could try is lists. Open up a new post, write a sentence to let us know where you’re going with the post and then spew your thoughts into the bulleted list. If I don’t have time (or just don’t feel like trying) to organize my thoughts into some kind of narrative, I just make a list of what’s on my mind.
Whether you think you do or not, you already have a writing style. You have wit or drama or encouragement or story built in to you. Just go back and look at the last few month’s worth of your Facebook status updates. Or look in the “sent messages” folder of your email and read the messages that you send to the people closest to you. You’ll see your most natural writing style emerging.
There’s a few pointers on how to write. If you’re still struggling with what to write, refer back to Getting Started: I don’t have anything to say. Or leave me a comment or email me. I’ll help any way I can.
Getting started: Create your blog
If you’ve decided that 2011 is your year to start a blog and if you’ve decided that you’ve got something to say, you need a place to say it.
I created my first blog sorta out of curiosity because I clicked a button on a friend’s site that said “Powered by Blogger” or something like that. The link took me to the Blogger platform, and I set up my original blog. Today I use WordPress and wish I’d started here. Hindsight.
If you want to something that’s easy to use, I’d point you toward WordPress or Blogger. You might also want to take a look at Tumblr.
The vendor you choose, in this case let’s assume you’re using WordPress, will walk you through setting up your account. My experience has been that setting up a new blog is as easy as setting up a Gmail account.
One of the coolest things is that you’ll get to browse through a gallery of pre-made themes, which means you get to pick what your blog looks like. You don’t have to have any programming knowledge at all to get a very nice looking blog up.
Congrats! Now you have a blog!
The next step is posting some stuff to your cool new blog. We’ll tackle in the next installment.
