finite speck

I see little glimpses of my three-year-old boy maturing... glimpses. Usually, he's pretty crazy, a typical boy. But, last night we burned a bunch of wood from some tree limbs I cut down and he helped cut the branches down and put them in the fire and he was so calm. Maybe it was the seriousness of a fire that could harm him that made him calm down a bit, listen to me, and work together with me, but it was nice to see he can do it. He can be a helper. He can control himself. The other thing I noticed is the difference between boys and girls. My daughter just sat in a chair and watched us cut limbs and put them in the fire. She was totally content to observe. While my son just couldn't help himself. He wanted to be right in there cutting limbs and throwing them in the fire. There's something about a little danger that draws a boy in. That desire for excitement and a little unknown of what will happen when I throw this branch in. It's fun to see our kids growing up.

I finished my second book of the year and started my third. I really do enjoy reading, but like I've mentioned before it takes me a while to get into a book. Now that I started the Wingfeather Saga series of books I'm guessing that I'll get through the next three rather quickly. My goal was to read 6 books by the end of this year. If I read the full Wingfeather Saga plus Andrew Peterson's "Adorning the Darkness" that will put me at 5.

With 3 kids and our oldest only 5, sometimes we have a hard time coming up with something to do as a family. Obviously, an easy one is to just put on a movie, but we really try to limit the amount of TV we watch. So what did we do on a Sunday afternoon? Well, we ate outside for lunch. Then we filled up the water table and our kiddie pool for the kids to splash around in for a bit. Then we played a little game of whiffle ball. We had naps, while I fixed my daughter's ceiling fan and my wife and daughter did a puzzle. Then we had a frozen pizza for supper and afterward headed to the Morton high school football field to just run around for a while. The football field was probably one of the kid's highlights of the day. They loved running around the track and on the field itself. It's the astroturf style field so there's something kinda cool about that for them. Then once we got home we played a game of Go Fish and Old Maid before bed. Oh, and we even let our two oldest sle

I've got to get that project done. I ran out of materials. The kids need to stay out of the way. It will just be a little bit longer.  Have you ever had scenarios play out like this over a weekend? I do. I feel like it's the challenge of owning your own home and keeping up with it. The other side of this is spending time with my wife and kids. Yesterday I ended up running to the hardware store 3 times. To times in the town we live in and then once I had to go to the next town over. It took longer than I expected for sure. How much time should I devote to projects? What actually needs to get done versus what do I just want to do? I know my family is important so I don't want to neglect them.

My older son is three and he loves to have something in his hands at all times. I've written about him before usually holding at least 3 things in his hands. Yesterday he got a bunch of free McDonald's toys from a garage sale and that means they got carried around everywhere and probably will for a few days now. They all were in his bed last night and right now they're all on the couch with him this morning. I forgot to mention he also won a Megablocks car at a church movie night last night. So he also slept with that car last night too. I don't know how he even had a place to sleep!

I used to think I was a good gift-giver... and I enjoyed giving gifts. But, I'm not so sure anymore since I've been married. You see my wife is not a big gifts person, in general, she'd rather have some quality time with someone than get a gift. She's also super practical, so she likes practical gifts. I'm still trying to figure it out and in the process, I feel like opportunities come up really fast like her birthday or Christmas. So, we're about a week away from her birthday and I don't have anything figured out. I'd kind of like to get her a nice photo book made from the last few years, but it's a decent amount of effort to get that pulled off and it probably won't be done by her birthday. I would guess that just doing things that make her feel like she's thought of would make for a good birthday for her. And maybe that's where I should start.

I'm not a web developer, but I decided earlier this year that I would build a website. So I did it. I built a website for our vacation rental property in Gulf Shores, Alabama called The Lazy Lady . After failing to understand the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org I got back up again and built our website on the wordpress.org platform using Elementor (the free version). I also had the help of a lot of YouTube videos to get it started. Now that the website is up I'm learning about SEO (search engine optimization) and that there's constant tweaking to try and get your website to show up better in organic search. We've got a lot of challenges because we're such a small business... 1 vacation rental home at this point. So we're probably not going to show up in the first page results of Google much unless someone searches for "Lazy Lady Gulf Shores". We're up against all the large vacation rental companies and even the mid-size ones tha

What will 2021 be like? It's only 3 months away. Who will be our president? Will there continue to be riots? Will there still be fear around COVID-19? Will we know more about the virus? Do 3 months and a new year even make a difference? We tend to put markers on things and think that at the end of a timeline things will be different. We say things about getting through this time or it will be interesting to see what happens when this is all over. I don't know what 2021 will be like. I don't think it will be like the beginning of 2020. But in the meantime, I want to be praying for our community, our leaders, and our country. There's more and more division and I don't see things getting more united. I see the divides getting greater.

We had a sort of plan that my brother-in-law that lives in Alabama would go down and clean up the debris outside our property after Hurricane Sally later this week. His plan was a wheelbarrow and a bunch of hand tools and hours and hours of work, possibly in the rain. One of my other brother-in-laws has family that also has a place down there and they had some connection with a guy and a skid steer and so they hired him to do work clearing away the debris. The skid steer guy was able to knock out clearing away everything in no time at all yesterday evening. There's still work to do down there at our property, but things are coming together! We got a few photos of what it looked like after everything was cleared away and we now have a beach! Before Hurrican Sally, we weren't able to touch any of the grasses on our property or disturb anything because of the beach mouse. I wrote about the beach mouse before here . Because of the hurricane that just happened, it gave us the abilit

It typically takes me a little time to get into a book, but once I'm in about 50 to 100 pages then it's easy to keep going. I was just thinking about that last night as I'm about 150 or so pages into the first book in Andrew Peterson's Wingfeather Saga. It just takes a while to figure out the characters and the places and the things talked about. Many times you don't get right into all the action either. But, now I'm to the place where it's easy to pick the book up and read a few chapters at least and want to keep going. What's my point in sharing this? If you're not a big reader I would encourage you to push through those first few pages... keep going. You'll get to the exciting stuff typically. I would also say just read. It's good for ya. Good to imagine things and think about things in a different way than you do when you watch TV and it's all been done for you. I'm going to finish my second book by the end of this month for the y

A direct hit. That's what happened this past week in Gulf Shores, Alabama where Hurricane Sally came through. We were following it pretty closely at the beginning of last week. Thankfully we didn't have anyone staying at our rental property. The storm was bad. It took us a little while after the storm to get an idea of the damage to our property. Thankful for our neighbor, Tom, who Facetimed with me and showed us some of our property. Then we had some family take a look at the inside, as well as my brother-in-law's co-elder from church. In the end, there really was little damage to our place. There was a small amount of water that came in around a few windows. There was a little bit of soffit that came off and a couple of picnic tables that got wrecked, but that was about it.  We are so thankful because there's a ton of damage down there.

I've been working from home for the last few weeks because my kids had a little bit of a temperature. Working from home means working in the basement in a room with a large egress type window. A couple of days ago I was talking on the phone to someone and I look out the window to see a baby bunny huddled in the corner of the window well and a few flies buzzing around it. Then I saw the bunny blink and realized it's still alive. Then I noticed blood on the window and on some of the rocks in the window well. So, I decided I'm going to attempt to hop in the window well and get this little bunny out. I put on some gloves and grabbed a bucket. First I dropped the bucket in to see if the bunny would move. The bunny didn't budge. Then I lowered myself in the window well and the bunny still didn't move. The little guy was so scared. So I bent down and with the bucket and my hands kind of pushed the bunny into the bucket. Then I lifted the bunny out and put him on the grass.

My son's favorite word this year made it into a song by one of his favorite artists, Randall Goodgame. I missed his initial reaction when he heard this song, but my wife said it was hilarious. I don't think he could believe that someone would sing a song about poop. Way to go Randall Goodgame! Way to write a song that sticks in your head and that's catchy and includes the word poop in it. It is hilarious. I haven't had a chance to listen to the entire album, but there are definitely some gems for kids and adults together. Here are the lyrics to Poop in a Bag. Poop in a Bag by Randall Goodgame Walking my dog Down the street Leash in my hand Shoes on my feet We slow down when she starts to squat I scoop the poop and I tie the knot I’ve got poop in a bag Poop in a bag I’ve got hot fresh poop in a bag Poop in a bag Poop in a bag I’ve got hot fresh poop in a bag My friend Suzanne Rounding the block With her best friend Cody Out for a walk They slow down when Cody starts a sn

We got a call last night from one of the judges of the Morton Pumpkin Festival pumpkin decorating contest. My daughter right away heard who I was talking to and started jumping up and down and told my wife, "I think my pumpkin won the contest!" She was right. She won first place in the 4 to 6-year-old age group. She was so pumped that she couldn't hardly control herself. We're not sure what she actually wins, but we go to pick up her prize today at the Chamber of Commerce. She worked on decorating her pumpkin for a lot of time this past weekend and spent a ton of time even thinking about decorating it ever since she picked up the pumpkin from the farm. So I'm glad she did win! Sadly, our "jazzy shark" pumpkin that we did as a family must not have won because we didn't get a call about that one. But if I had to pick which pumpkin should win I would have rather it been my daughter's because if hers hadn't and our other won it would have been a

 I'm not sure how long I've been doing this now, but it's probably been a year at least. Almost every weekday morning I will have the exact same thing for breakfast. Peanut butter oatmeal. I take some oatmeal and milk and heat it up in the microwave. Then I add in a large spoonful of brown sugar and the same of peanut butter. I mix that all together and that's my breakfast. It's super easy, I'd say pretty healthy (at least the oatmeal and milk is) and I don't have to spend any time thinking about what I'm going to eat. I also typically will have a coffee first thing when I get up. My favorite coffee is a Starbucks Pike Place with a little half and half in it. Pretty plain.

Our first week with no renters at our vacation home happened this week. Our renters backed out last minute because of the weather this week in Gulf Shores. They are supposed to get 12 inches of rain in a couple days. It took us a while to figure out how they were able to cancel the last minute though. Typically you're not able to cancel your booking within hours of when your rental starts, but evidently, if the weather makes you feel unsafe Airbnb will allow you to get a full refund and cancel your reservation. We also decided we will not allow weddings anymore at our rental house. We had a wedding party at our place last week and between a few things we heard from our handyman and then complaints we got from one of our neighbors about a group of people going through their property and getting in a fight with them it sounds like no weddings would be a good idea.  Between these two incidents, there was a lot of back and forth between all of the partners in our property and my poor b

If you would have told me in high school that I'd get up every morning (or most mornings) and write I would have said you're crazy. Twenty-some years later though that's what I've been doing. For almost 2 years now I've been writing every morning in an attempt to become a better writer and just as something to be disciplined in. I don't have a bunch of followers and that's fine. I'm not writing to gain a big following. I think it will be fun to look back someday at all that I've written about. I've actually had this blog going for longer than my youngest son. This makes me think of him and all that's changed with him in the last year. He's walking everywhere now. He likes putting his shoes on when anyone else does. We have to be careful when we say things like outside because he knows words and will want to go outside then. In the last week, he's started to be interested in trying to say words. We can't make out much of what he tr

Right now all my daughter can think about since we picked up pumpkins to decorate is decorating her pumpkin for the Morton Pumpkin Festival pumpkin decorating contest. She's sitting right beside me already this morning and I asked her what she's looking forward to today and that's what she said. She has the biggest smile on her face as I told her that's what I'm writing about this morning. She has some sticks for arms for her pumpkin. She has some rocks for shoes. She wants to use marigold seeds for her hair. The pumpkin is going to have a dress made of fabric. She's thinking maybe acorns for the eyes. She's been thinking about this a lot since we picked up the pumpkin. It's fun to see her excited and I need to remember that she's excited about this during the day today to make it fun. There's nothing worse than looking forward to something and no one else really cares. What are you excited about today?

I've been working from home this week and so taking a day off means I'm still at home. Still at home means the kids are all here and it's a little chaotic. Which makes me think of my wife. Day off? There's rarely a day off unless my wife and I take a day away, which has never happened to date. And dates haven't happened for a while either. Right now I'm sitting at the table and all of us are eating cinnamon rolls. I didn't get up until 6:30AM this morning and so I only got about 20 minutes until kids started waking up. And then the... "I want, I need, Dad, Mom,..." starts. Today is also September 11th. A day in 2001 I will never forget. It was my second day of work after college at my first full-time job and I remember going into the office, walking over to my cubicle, and seeing a bunch of people gathered around a little tv in someone's office. They were watching the towers in New York City get hit by a plane and explode. I remember our office

I like to think I'm pretty good at what I do. What does that even mean? I like to think that I have a good eye for design. I've had experience working for some large advertising agencies and working with a lot of very talented individuals. I can tend to think pretty highly of myself and not listen to others if I don't think they have as much experience. I also am not afraid to tackle doing something new if I have a little experience in it and instruction from an expert.  What if I didn't think so highly of myself though? What if I would sit back some and let others with less experience also talk, share, and bring ideas to the table? What if I didn't think my stuff was better than others, but other people's stuff was really good too? Could I be more of a team player? My wife and I were talking about work a little last night and I mentioned how this year has been a little tougher because it's been a year of growing in size of our department which has been real

You may not like every new fangled gadget that comes out, but chances are pretty good that you enjoy something new every so often. What is it about a new thing? It could be a new song, new shoes, a newly organized area of the house, or new food from the grocery store. We enjoy it don't we? But a week or two or three later do we still enjoy that song, those shoes,...? Why doesn't it last? I believe all these things are good, but they point out something about the world we live in. It's passing away. These things are pointing us toward something in us that longs for something new and that's a kingdom that is coming someday when all things will be made new for those that believe in Christ's payment for their sin. We long for all to be made right one day. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more." Revelation 21:1

We went hiking with all 3 kids yesterday at Rocky Glen Park and had a good time. It's a little tough with small kids especially when you hike down in the bottom area, but we did alright. I know the kids enjoyed it.  And my son just woke up as I was writing this carrying his Simba costume. My sister dropped a few things for us over the weekend and one of the things was the Simba costume. He's had that costume on most of the day yesterday and as I type he has it on right now. He didn't wear it hiking yesterday or swimming, but I'm sure he would have if he could.  Baer just cracks me up because he's always got one or two things that are his "favorite" thing for a few days and then it's on to another one or two things.

We have a website for our rental property and I created it a couple months ago now. I know it's a solid website with the correct information and it looks good. But I've since learned that there's also a whole other side to a website as well. SEO. Our website address is lazyladygulfshores.com . It's not a super long website address, but most people aren't going to type it in. Most are either going to click to it from somewhere else like social media or they're going to Google something and possibly find it that way. The challenge is getting our website to rank very high for more general terms since most people aren't going to type "lazy lady gulf shores". That's where SEO starts to come in. I'm learning that there are all kinds of things you can do to help your pages rank better. For example, you can change your title tags (the name of your web page), you can change the meta tags (the description that you see about your web page in search),

I sanded a desk with my wife and our two oldest kids yesterday to get it ready to paint. It's been a project Brittany has been wanting to do for a while. Once we got it all sanded I took the kids for the rest of the day and let my wife (she wanted to) paint the desk. I can be really critical of how things are done and it was good for me to step away and let her do it. I checked in a couple times and just gave some positive encouragement. It's something I've learned through work being on a team. It's much more helpful to other people, in general, to let them do a project versus micromanage it. I could have grabbed the brush and said do it this way or I could have said I don't know about how that's looking, but instead I chose to let her do it and encourage her. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but it's looking good and I believe she's going do an awesome job refinishing our desk.

We're into September of 2020. It's been a long year, but these last four months typically go by quickly. I'm sure they won't be quite the same as they have been in the past. I can't imagine there will be huge lines for Black Friday this year, but Cyber Monday might be really big. Lines for other things like Santa probably won't look the same either. This weekend is Labor Day Weekend. The weekend where you take a trip or get a bunch of stuff done at home. We won't be taking a trip and I'm not sure what all we'll get done at home. My wife wants to repaint a desk, so that will probably get done. I'd love to see us get more of our stuff put away and organized if we're able to this weekend. It seems like our life is a lot of picking up and putting things away or finding a home for them with little kids. Mac our youngest also woke up at 4:30AM this morning to start our Labor Day weekend and went back to bed a couple times, but he's now up for g

I got out of bed at 5:30 it's now 6:09. Where did the last 39 minutes go? I got distracted. I made some coffee, checked some boxes on a health app, then sat down to read the bible, read the blog, and write,... It wasn't until about 6 that I started those last three things because I decided to open up Instagram, Facebook, Google, and my email. All of those are bottomless. They're easy to get into and hard to get out of and should be reserved for rewards, not starts to the day. Of course, if you want to start your day on Instagram, Facebook, and Google or Twitter feel free to. I just know they're really good at sucking time out of your day fast.  Where did it go? Down the "social" hole.

This week has felt really long. I think it's because we had plans and they got canceled and I started working from home yesterday. This is one of those mornings where I just don't even know what to write about and I even had thoughts of why am writing. Does writing a blog article every day really make me a better writer? Should I stop for a while? I guess I don't know the answer. What I do know is that it's been a discipline that's been good for me. Overall, it helps me in getting going in the morning. I rarely get up later than 6AM and usually, it's a lot earlier than that. Being at home one day for work was a little tough. I hope today will be a better day than yesterday. I just seemed to be annoyed a lot and took it out on my family. I would see things to do around the house and want to take care of them, but know that I had work to do and also knew that my wife needed to take care of the kids. I need to be thankful like in my post a couple days ago for what

About this time today, we would have been getting ready to leave for a short trip to Michigan. But, I'm at home instead. After I got home from work yesterday my oldest said her tummy was hurting her and she had a little bit of temperature. So, we canceled our trip. I also decided I would work from home for the rest of the week in case it's anything serious. It just makes me wonder what things are going to look like as flu season picks back up. What are other people going to do when they have a sick kid? Will everyone stay at home for a few days? Because people are going to assume it could be COVID-19. Yesterday I wrote about being kind of pumped that we were able to move our day for this little vacation by one day and still stay at the place we wanted because of the weather being rainy. Well, that all changed with a sick kid. Life is like that with some major ups and downs. Yesterday morning I also heard our company had our best sales day ever! We went over our goal. But then h

My wife has taught me something about being persistent. I've watched her on the phone before with customer service stay on hold until the right person that can do something gets on. I've also watched her confront people when the price is wrong. She's typically patient and knows how to ask the right questions. So I put it into practice yesterday when we ended up having to switch our free Chase anniversary night through IHG. We needed to move our hotel reservation one night because of the weather. Unfortunately, the next day had no more free anniversary nights available for that hotel. The first person I talked to at IHG said she couldn't do anything about it, but she could check on other days. So I hung up. I called back later and talked to another customer service person at IHG asking for the same thing, to switch to the next night. This person said he couldn't do it either, but he said what I can do is have you call the hotel and ask them if they can make an except