watching the lake freeze and gas prices fall

This morning I watched the lake freeze in my backyard. It’s been an exciting morning. I also ventured out to buy a paper and test out the roads, since it’s been sleeting on and off the last two days. I always think it’s kind of fun to drive in bad weather, if I don’t have to go out of town or any long distance. It’s sort of a challenge I guess, to prove to myself that I’m not some wimp who is afraid to drive in the snow and ice (no offense to those of you who are wimps and are afraid to drive in the snow and ice). The roads were only a little bad this morning, mostly just because they had not be cleared yet. But the big news while I was out and about was the cost of gas. I posted it below to make those of you who live in the more expensive parts of the country jealous. And also, here’s a picture of my frozen lake. It’s not really my personal lake, but it is in my backyard, so I think it’s safe to call it my lake.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Today is my mother and father’s 49th anniversary! What an achievement, to be married to someone for 49 years! They were married in 1958 in Topeka, Kansas and if I remember right, they took a short honeymoon trip to luxurious Salina, Kansas before heading back to Topeka where my mom was in nursing school and my dad was goofing off. Seriously, I don’t know what my dad was doing, maybe going to school or maybe working. I wasn’t alive, so I don’t remember. Here’s a photo from their wedding.












And here’s a family photo from the 70s, just for fun. I'm the cute one and my brother Kevin is the tan one. The other two are my parents.

Reading the One Year Bible

On of my 2007 goals is to read the Bible through in a year. I did it in 2005 and it was a great experience. In 2006 I made it through until April, but then life got me all stressed out and I got so far behind I just eventually gave up. But this year I'm trying it again and I've decided to read it in The Message version, to do it a little differently. I'm a little not happy with the Message version though because in Psalm 1 verse 1 it talks about how God is pleased with people who don't go to "smart mouth college". Being a bit of smart mouth myself, I'm not liking this choice of words to describe God's pleasure. But I'm trying to get over it, or at least make sure I drop out of smart mouth college, whatever that is!

But back to my main point....I was searching the internet to find a good one year reading plan I could print off because the only way I can do this is if I have a written plan where I can check off each day that I read. That's what keeps me motivated....those little check marks proving I have accomplished something. I know it should be the joy of reading scripture, but honestly, it's the check marks. So in my search for a printable plan, I found this great blog that I'm very excited about and I wanted to share it in case anyone else is trying to read the Bible through this year. It's called the One Year Bible Blog and if I was smart enough to make that a link I would, but I'm gonna have to have someone show me how to do that first. You can find it at www.oneyearbibleblog.com. Each day there is a new post with commentary on the readings, and at the top there is a link you can go to for the readings and you can chose whatever version you want. I typically prefer reading scripture from an actual Bible instead of on the computer, but I'm kinda liking this set up. It's full of links for more information and lots of pictures for those who like visual representations of the scripture.

And speaking of Bibles, here's a photo of Bible Man and Bible Girl and their baby sister Rachael. I got Lesa's kids a Bibleman video and dress up stuff for Christmas so they graciously modeled it for me within 30 seconds of opening the presents. I think Chance makes a much better Bible Man than Willie Aames.

Happy 2007!

Happy New Year! My 2006 success rate ended up at 27%, which means I met 4 of my 15 goals. I had to walk 6 miles on new years eve, but I got my 100 miles in so I could meet one more goal. The goals that I met included walking 100 miles, I found a new doctor, joined a new small group, and visited the Oklahoma City memorial. Pretty easy goals to meet actually. As I mentioned earlier, 2006 wasn’t one of my better years for achieving goals. I have high hopes for 2007 though!

I accomplished a lot of my cleaning/organizing that I was trying to get done last week, but not everything. I didn’t get the garage organized (I’ve been avoiding this for months!) and I didn’t get my new budget set, but I am planning to work on that tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, I feel bad for President Ford having to die and all, but I am VERY excited that I get another day off because of the national day of mourning. It gives me one more day to get through my to do list!

To start the new year right, I went out to dinner and to the movie with friends Jennifer and Lesa, both old MCC alums. Here’s a photo of us at the Warren theater.

The next future Jeremy Camp

My friends from church, Kris and Joe, gave their two year old son Noah a set of drums for Christmas. I think they might have been drunk when they bought the drums, but I'm not sure. I can't think of any other reason why someone would buy a noisemaker like this for a two year old. But today when I was at their house, Noah performed a few songs for me and I was actually quite impressed. For a two year old, he's got quite an interest in music and can already play the drums, the guitar, the keyboard, and sing vocals. He likes to sing along with the Jeremy Camp DVD and knows the words to all the songs. Here's a video clip of part of his performance. The other little guy wandering around in the video is his one year old brother Paul, and fortunately this video was taken before Paul smeared his dinner in his hair. He's an animated eater.

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

Happy Birthday Konner!

Today is my niece Konner's 12th birthday! She got to pick what her family did to celebrate and last I heard they were going bowling, to a movie and dinner at Taco Tico. Why Taco Tico, I just don't know. Twelve year olds don't have very good taste in restaurants if you ask me. Tomorrow she and I are going shopping so she can pick out her birthday present. Unfortunately, Konner is no better than I am when it comes to making decisions, so I'm sure this will take all day. But I love her anyway :)

Here's a photo of Konner with Daffy Duck this summer when we went to Six Flaggs over Texas.

New year, new goals

I always look forward to New Years Day. It’s not because I like to watch the bowl games, because actually I hate watching sports on television. It’s because I always love a new start. One of things I loved about being a college student was the semester cycle that your life revolves around where every semester had a end, then a break, then a time to start all over again. So no matter how bad a semester was, you knew that it was eventually going to end and you were going to get a fresh start with a new semester. That’s how New Years Day is for me, a fresh start.

I’m also a big fan of new years resolutions and over the years I’ve developed a system for myself on how I set mine, although I call them goals and not resolutions. At work I have been involved in the writing of many grants over the years and have learned how to write outcomes that are achievable and measurable, so that’s how I try to write my goals. So instead of writing a goal to exercise more, last year one of my goals was that I would walk 100 miles. I realize that's not very many for those of you athletic types, but for me, it's enough. I have 14 left to go. Think I can get it done during this last week of 2006? I keep a tally on a white board on my refrigerator. It’s just a bunch of tally marks with no title, although in July one of my friends thought they would be funny and wrote “number of times I cursed” on it. I didn’t notice until another friend saw it and asked about it. I pointed out to her that I lived by myself, so why would I even curse in the first place, not to mention tally it on my refrigerator?

This year, 2006, has not been a very successful one as far as achieving goals go. I think I will have about a 20% success rate, meaning I will have achieved 3 out of 15 goals. Still, this is three goals that I might not have achieved otherwise. For the past several years I have set 15 goals each year, three each in five different categories. I always type them up, and usually I post them on my bathroom mirror, although I never got around to that last step this year, which could be part of the low success rate. I need constant reminding of what my goals are. I never expect that I will achieve all 15, but I figure even if can achieve half of them I will be doing good. 20% is sort of pathetic though. I think it’s my lowest success rate ever. That’s why I’m looking forward to 2007, so I can set new goals and start all over again. I spend the month of December thinking about what my new goals will be, but I never put them into writing until New Years Eve and often I stay up all night working on them because I’m so excited.

This next week I am taking vacation time from work. I spent last week cleaning and organizing my office at work so when I return in 2007 it will be nice and neat. This week I plan to do the same thing at home. I want everything clean and organized by new years eve, so then I can write my goals and wake up on new years day with everything in its place, ready for my fresh start. It will be a great day! I can’t wait!

I like to put photos on my posts, but I don’t have any photos that have anything to do with my goals. So here’s a cool photo that I didn’t take, but I like. My friend Jason the cave diver took it on one of his trips. He just got back from an expedition to Nepal, so maybe he’ll let me post some photos from that trip. I like to think of myself of his mentor, since I sort of gave him his start in the photography business back when he was in high school and I let him help me take team photos before every mission trip. I'm not sure he would be the successful photographer he is today without my influence.