finite speck

Yesterday I was stoked about starting the "hole" project. This morning I'm sore and a little less excited about it. I made a lot of progress. There's a ton of dirt in my backyard, but I didn't make it all the way down to the foundation yesterday. I hope to finish up the hole today.  What did I find? It looks like the previous owners of our home tried to fix the issue from what I can tell. There's definitely some sort of coating over a lot of the block in the area where I believed the leak to be. But I can see a couple areas where water could be seeping into the basement already and we're gonna get that fixed. I'm thankful for my wife's help yesterday. As she helped dig and move dirt away from the hole so I could keep digging more out. Part of the challenge with living in Morton is it's built on swampy land and therefore it's super wet and a challenge for people with basements. Hopefully, we can get this issue fixed and not have to deal with

I'm digging a hole in the backyard today with a shovel. It's gonna be about 8 feet deep and about the same across and 3 to 6 feet away from the house. We've had water getting into our basement and we're hoping to get it fixed by digging it out patching it, tarring it, putting in pea gravel, and covering it back up. After it's all done I really hope it works. Because I think it's going to be a lot of work. We'll see what I find out once I get to the bottom of it. Bad dad joke.

There are a few musicians who stand out in my mind as great creative artists. Ben Rector is one that's at the top of my list. Take a year like 2020 where you can't be on tour because of the Coronavirus pandemic and you see what a musician is really made of. I don't know him personally at all, but follow him on social media and noticed that his family had twins this summer, plus they have a toddler... so they're definitely busy. Earlier he released a song called "It Would Be You" and challenged people to make music videos and share them on social media tagging them with #coffeedadshuffle. It was something fun to follow along with as part of the craziness of covid. There were hundreds of people that submitted videos and here's a link to the compilation . But, that's not all... this week he just released another new song, that I understand came from a void he noticed while working on a new Christmas album. He noticed that there are tons of Christmas songs

We are down to only buying diapers for our youngest now. Baer over the last month is sleeping through the night and not peeing in bed. We promised a Paw Patrol toy when he made it 10 days in a row with a dry diaper and he did that! He's almost 4 now and has been potty trained for about a year and a half. Getting over the hump of not peeing in a diaper at night though was a big one. With our oldest, it happened really quick. Basically, as soon as she was potty trained she was also not peeing at night either and she was potty trained before 2 I think.  This example is like many other things for some people change comes easy and for others, it's more work. You may have more determination and desire to make a change. You may have to just keep showing up day after day even though you "wet the bed again" or "peed in your diaper". Eventually, it won't happen anymore if you don't give up and you keep at it. 

That deadline. It drives action. It looms out there and you know you have to get it done by the date. So why do we wait? Why do we procrastinate? How does that help? I've written about this before . When I did a search there's are quite a few posts about deadlines. Not sure what that says about me... I wait until the last minute? I would argue that even if we're not "working" on the work, we're still thinking about it somewhere up there in our brain. We know the deadline and there are solutions that we have half baked. Now whether or not the scramble is the best work compared to the daily plod... I would say it depends. I'm sure it's better to be plodding along more than just in your subconscious so the final product doesn't suffer. I have a print ad due in less than a week and I'm barely started and after a meeting yesterday the direction changed as well. So what do you do? You buckle down and do the hard work because there's a deadline. I

I slept last night. I woke up this morning. My eyes opened. I could see. My arms pulled the covers off of my bed and I was able to get out of bed. My legs moved me through the house. I was able to make my coffee. My mind is working. I could smell the coffee being made. I could hear my kids getting up. I was able to type on my computer and read words and comprehend them. I was able to speak words to my kids and comprehend what they said. I was able to taste the coffee and swallow it. These are just a few things that seem small but are actually huge that I'm able to do each day that I probably take for granted. This doesn't take into account all of the things going on inside my body to make them happen either. For example, my heart pumping blood to every area of my body. My lungs expanding and contracting to bring oxygen into my body. My brain sending signals to different parts of my body to move muscles and bones together to do things. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by Go

What's happening in our world? As a parent of our three young kids, it's very concerning to me. My wife and I were talking about it last night during dinner. None of our kids are in school yet, but what all will they be taught? We're becoming a culture where everything is acceptable... you can be whatever you want to be including something that you're not. Like a woman if you're a man. And then there's becoming special treatment for those that choose to make these choices as well. There's also plenty of falsifying of information for political gain or pushing certain agendas and I wonder how that then will impact our youth. I see the breaking down of the family. The belief that it's not important. That mother and father figures in the home don't matter and that they don't impact the way a kid grows up. I can see it being very confusing for a kid growing up in the world today if they don't have a parent figure teaching truth and explaining what

We've been wanting to fix a leak in our basement and we've been working on trying to figure it out but hadn't really started tackling it yet, until yesterday. That was when we started tearing out some drywall and insulation in the basement. I had the day off again yesterday and we started planning what to do I decided to call my brother-in-law that's a home builder. He gave me the low down on the full project to get the leak fixed and said the first step he'd do at this point was to confirm where the leak is at by tearing drywall in the basement. So that's what I did yesterday morning. Next Friday and the weekend are going to be the big part. Friday I plan on digging a huge hole in the backyard to the foundation of the house, cleaning the wall, filling any cracks, and then tarring the wall, before filling the hole with a bunch of pea gravel. It sounds like a bunch of work, but we hope we'll eliminate the water in the basement.

The crazy started early this morning at 6AM and I had the day off today. Josie got up at 6 because I thought I set her alarm on her clock for 7 and for some reason it went off at 6. Then about 15 minutes later Baer got up and then 15 minutes later Mac was up. So I put Mac back to bed, but he woke back up by 7 I think. Since the kids were up I let them watch an old episode of "Dennis the Menace" and then we got going with breakfast. It's 8AM now and we're all wide awake.  Not much of a plan for the day today at this point. I'd say the mornings when I don't get much quiet time are definitely harder. And sometimes I throw a pity party for myself thinking wouldn't it be nice if I had more quiet time. Of course I could have gotten up earlier, but I didn't. The day is going so I better to. I need to be thankful for these kids that I have. I really am. They're not going to be little like they are right now forever.

I have a very distinct memory of elementary school in our music class. We sang a song called "Chocolate" and we got to try out for a couple lines in the song of which I tried out for the line "You know I ain’t no jokuh, give me all your Almond Roca" and landed it. I remember thinking it was fun because of the way the line sounded. And probably 30 years later it stuck with me. I also remember singing this with our class at a Shriner's Hospital and totally forgetting my line in front of a bunch of kids. Maybe that's why I remember it too. I couldn't remember how the rest of the song went but actually found it on YouTube performed by an elementary school here .

What will you do today? Today is halfway through the week. It's a Wednesday. Today I plan to work about 8 hours from home... the new normal since COVID became a reality earlier this year. What will I work on? That's a good question. Probably the highest priority is some new material around a newer product that needs to be put together for next week. But, then there's catching up on emails, a couple of new platforms we're incorporating for our dealer network that need more attention, a new dealer initiative, and there are probably some things I'm forgetting as well. How do you prioritize? Then once I'm done working I'm done really done for the day. Upstairs I have 3 kids and a wife that will require my attention for the rest of the day? What will we do? I know we'll have a meal together. Tonight we have Awana Cubbies. So either I or my wife will take our older 2 kids to that and the other will stay at home with Mac. Then our plan for the rest of the week

We all like being recognized for work well done. I'm working on entries for the annual National Agri-Marketing Awards this week and it takes a decent amount of time to get them all together. Cutting boards, taping boards, mounting the work, writing up the entries, printing it all out, and then getting them mailed out to the entries office. It's only Tuesday morning, but I'm hoping I can get these wrapped up and out by tomorrow. I've been submitting these entries for the last 4 or 5 years and in the last 2 years, we've received first place at nationals... which I think is a big deal. Especially when you look at some of the competition like Pioneer, John Deere, Bayer, and Case IH. Then there's also the fact that we do most of our work in house and we're going up against a lot of agencies.

Just finished my third book this year. 3 more to read to get to 6 by the end of the year. I forgot how much I enjoyed reading a good book. My plan right now is to finish the Wingfeather Saga (2 more books) and then I'll probably try to finish "Capital Gains" the book from Chip Gains. Yesterday I was just feeling kind of punk with the weather getting cooler and not much sunshine. Today is kind of similar day as well. It's good book weather. Yet there are other things that I want to get done as well... only so many hours in each day.

The more time you spend with someone or something the more you tend to enjoy that person or thing I think. Maybe not in the case of work for some, or cleaning the house, or cooking, or cleaning... maybe this doesn't necessarily play out like it sounded in my head. Maybe it depends on what it is or who it is. I think in the case of my kids I do enjoy them the more I get to know them and spend time with them. The same with my wife or other family members. The same is true many times with things I enjoy listening to or reading. The more I get into it the more I enjoy it. Maybe my point here is it takes time many times. Most times it's not "love at first sight"... it takes work or time to enjoy or love something or someone. You get to understand the quirks, the little things you like, the things that are hard, you think about them, and you pursue them.  This all started with thinking about my father-in-law as he's in the hospital this morning and they're doing som

I said to myself last night I'm gonna run this morning. That's as far as I got. This morning I didn't get up until about 7AM... I justified it because yesterday was a long day with an early morning, but I didn't go to bed too late. The other thing is I'm in Georgia and they're an hour ahead so it was really 6AM.  Had I told my wife I was going to run or some co-workers I more likely would have done it. That isn't always true, but I would say a lot of times if I say I'm going to do something I'll follow through. So, tomorrow morning I'm going to run. I brought running clothes and the weather down here is great. So, I'm going to do it. What are your plans for the day today? Have you shared the ones that you're less excited about that you still want to do with someone? Let's get after it today.

Do you sing with your kids? Last night was the first in a while that we've sung some songs with our kids at home. I played the guitar and our kids made some pretend guitars that they got to play too. Even our youngest Mac had some sticks and he was playing pretend drums. The best part is they were singing loud. We found some Ellie Holcomb songs that had the guitar chords to them and played a few of them. One of our kids' favorites right now is "Sing". Did the waves make a song as they crashed to the shore? Or was it the whales? Or the lions' first ROAR? Did the first flowers hum as they burst into bloom? Or was the first song when the thunder went BOOM?

Over the last 4 days we spent time with my wife's brother's family in Indiana. We also traveled there with her parents. On our way back we were commenting on how are kids really have some neat opportunities when they visit their cousins to spend time outside. Her brother, Chris, has a place on about 10 acres and the kids had a blast taking out the power wheels on some paths in the woods. Chris also took us out around the property on all an old Jeep that he restored. The kids got to paint pumpkins, have a bonfire with s'mores, watch some movies, play games, crack open hickory nuts, and just play outside. When we first got married I thought of vacations as only when you have a big trip planned and you stay at a vacation property or something like that. But, I've come to think of these little family trips to visit family as a sort of vacation as well. When your kids are little it helps for them to have other little kids to play with. A couple highlights for me were seeing

Yes. I look at the photos that I take currently with our DSLR camera and though I've learned some I still want to get better. I like to think if I only had a better camera I could take better photos. I also think if I only knew photo editing in Lightroom better my photos would look better. How much better can I get? How many things can you be good at? I think I've gotten a better understanding of lighting for sure when taking a photo. I'm not great at the composition of the photo though with a group of people. And then getting good at using my camera... well I typically shoot in aperture priority mode with a high aperture setting and I let the camera adjust the ISO and f-stop for me. A lot of my photos still turn out blurry and I haven't totally figured out why either. I think I have a hard time getting my focus locked where I want to or I'll have one person in focus and then another not-so-much. I hope one day I'll get there. But for now, I'll just keep pra

After Hurricane Sally, I thought our vacation home made it through the hurricane season fairly well unscathed, but Gulf Shores just had all vacation guests evacuate yesterday with the anticipation of Hurricane Delta. It sounds like Delta isn't going to hit Gulf Shores, but will probably be further west. We will probably see some impact though from it... which means we'll be following another storm this weekend. I think it's supposed to hit land late Friday afternoon. I feel so bad for the people that live in these areas along the coast that get hit by these hurricanes. I'd never really realized the impact of them until we bought a rental property down there. They can be wicked. It's unbelievable the amount of water that can come with them and the amount of damage they can do.

Who pays when you go out to eat? Do you do separate checks? Do you make it complicated? Do you try to keep it simple? Do you fight over paying the bill? In my opinion, if it's a family thing, in general, one person should just pick up the tab. When I say a family thing... I mean you're all sitting at the same table and ordering food together. But if it's you and say one other person, you make the call ahead of time if you're doing separate checks or together. I'd say also in general you can never go wrong in picking up the tab, especially if you're the client or you're taking someone younger than you out to a meal. But, what if someone else is insistent on paying, but you'd really like to take care of the meal? Sometimes you just have to feel it out. Don't make a big deal over it, but see if you can get them to back down or not. If it starts to seem like a verbal argument back down and let them pay. It almost feels like a little bit of an awkward dan

Would you rather work for a big dog or an underdog? I've been both at different times. There's definitely a sense of safety that comes with being part of the big dog and you may get the opportunity to do things that many others don't. But I would argue that working for more of an underdog company is the place to be. It's usually a much more nimble company. The culture is typically more collaborative. You're always looking to see if someone's coming after you. There's lots of room for improvement. Typically you're doing things that no one's done before. There's a lot of excitement. You get to wear a lot of different hats. You're always learning. When big things happen you realize it was a lot of hard work and pushing through and not just that you were a big dog and everything was calculated so it had to happen. Yeah, I'd rather work for an underdog.

I've come to the end of what you can get done with the free version of Elementor. I know there are workarounds, but the extra time it takes to figure them out with other apps would be saved by just biting the bullet and moving up to the paid version. Things like having different headers aren't possible in the free version of Elementor. And you can't create a blog easily in the free version. It's tougher to have consistent fonts, colors, as well in the free version. There's probably more that I might never use that's part of the paid version for $49 a year as well, but I think I'm coming to the conclusion that there's definitely value in the paid version. Once I start using it I'll let you know here.

I love quiet early mornings. Grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting on the couch, and preparing for the day. This time of year it's getting colder outside and I can tell in our house a little and pulling a big blanket over me as I read or type just has a good feeling about it. No one is up yet. It's relaxing to me. The crazy hasn't kicked in yet. Sometimes I think it'd be good to try and actually do some picking up or cleaning this early in the morning, but that never happens. It's typically more about trying to think through what I'm going to try and accomplish today, reading the bible, praying, and writing. Right now it's 7:10 AM and no one is up yet and that's pretty abnormal. Usually, I hear some little feet around 6 something. Enjoying a few more minutes of quiet.

Why is it that we can so easily be discontent? Especially in a place in the world where we have so much? Why is it hard to be thankful? These are good questions for me to ask myself. I think a lot of it stems from us being made for something greater than even the things that are good that we have. We are constantly on a search for something that will fill us. Many in the United States are hungry, not necessarily in a physical sense, but hungry in a seeking sense. I think they believe things should be different than what they are, but they don't really know what that looks like. They think they know. That thinking might be different government policies, more or less government involvement, different leaders, more or fewer taxes, more justice, less discrimination, less racism,... the list goes on and on. I have my own opinions on some of these matters, but I believe more than anything else we need a savior. We all have a sin problem. We have pride. We think we know best. We think we

At around 4:30-5 AM... "I peed my diaper!" "I peed my diaper!" "I peed my diaper!" That's what I've been waking up to from my son. At least he's realizing he's peed his diaper now and doesn't want to be in a wet diaper, but oh if he could just hold it a little longer or get up and go. He's almost 4. I keep hoping we'll get through the night consecutively, but it's very hit or miss.