finite speck

This week feels like more of a normal week. We haven't had very many of them in 2021. We're just doing normal things, no work trips to Alabama, no time in the hospital, no funeral,... and in the middle of thinking about this week and writing right now, my wife just texted me. Reminding me we need to get back into our schedule of running. She's running right now and said let's just get it done this morning, so you don't have to do it later in the day. She's right. So here I go. Here's to a more normal week. 

Over this past weekend, we've gone on 3 walks looking for painted rocks. One of our neighbors came up with a treasure hunt with her friend where kids in the neighborhood have to look for painted rocks and could even win a basket of art supplies. So we took off and started looking for rocks and probably found 20 on Saturday, but when we showed them to our neighbor we found out that none of them were hers that she'd hidden! So we went on a few more rock walks and found some of hers, but we never found the special rock where we could win the basket of art supplies. But this sweet girl then decided to make a special painted rock for our daughter and hide it and so we went out on another walk to find it yesterday afternoon. And our daughter found it. She was super excited about it. It's been fun to just go out looking for things on a walk with our kids. It's made us look in places we don't normally look as we walk and while walking we even found a duck's nest with a

All I can think about lately is the list in my head of things that I would like to get done. It's Saturday morning and I think it's supposed to be rainy today. I'd love to just tackle going through some closets today. Organizing and getting rid of stuff so we know where things are. I feel like if I just went through an area a week it wouldn't take that long to get things to a place where it was somewhat organized. I also think what about our kids today? Maybe they can help. Sometimes they get excited about doing some tasks. Then I just have to have patience with them as well. They get excited through the process and sometimes it doesn't go like I planned in my head. Actually, who am I kidding, it rarely goes like I have in my head. I know this is God's way of showing me I'm not in control. He is. 

This is my second night where my daughter was in the hospital. We took her to the ER on Sunday afternoon because she was having pain in the area where she had her appendix taken out last month. After a CT scan and many hours, we found out it was an abscess. Yesterday we heard she could be in the hospital for a while because they had to install a drain to remove the fluid from the abscess. It's been quite the ride this year so far between Brittany's grandma passing away last week, our daughter having her appendix out and now having this abscess, our renovation of The Little Lady in Gulf Shores, and all the challenges there. It feels like it's been one thing after another. Every week there's something. Oh and we had COVID at the beginning of the year, how could I forget that. But, one thing always remains through all the unexpected. God is still in control of all things. Nothing passes by Him without Him knowing what we will face. We take comfort in this. We don't kno

Should I post this week? Should I have posted last week? Should I get ahead of it and start having scheduled posts for every week? I'm thinking mainly of our rental property social media accounts. One property is booked up through the end of November and the other is booked up through mid-August. It feels less urgent to get people to book... but then it also seems like we need to keep our posting to remind people that we're out there. To continue to gain more followers, so that when the time is right they will book. There's always 2022. Believe it or not, we already have 8 bookings for next year as of today! The other thing I need to get on is changing up our website to reflect that we have 2 properties now. We haven't made any updates since late last year to our website.

I'm still struggling to really get motivated this week. I haven't felt great. I guess in saying this I'm communicating that I'm finding my worth in what I've accomplished. If I had gotten a lot accomplished and others saw it and gave me credit would I feel better? Sadly, I probably would. My blog has been littered with posts similar to this lately. How do I get myself back on track? In a rhythm of getting things accomplished. There are days when working from home is great and there are days when it's tough. Today is as good a day as any to get things knocked off a list or to decide on the top 3 things to get done and do it. So no more complaining. No more distractions. It's gonna be a productive day. Here we go.

Gone. Forever. I saw my wife's grandma for the last time yesterday afternoon. She died in the middle of the night last night. We knew she probably wasn't going to make it much longer and so we decided to go see her in the nursing home. She had been struggling to breathe more and more and had been on pain meds for quite some time. It was just a reminder to me that life is fleeting. Our bodies are only made to last so long and then they give out. Yet most of the time I live like I might last forever. I don't think about eternity. I don't think about others. God help me to think about the future of what we were made for. A life with you where all is made right. Where there is no struggle to breathe and there is no pain. Help me to think about others and ask whether they really know the Christ that has made a way to live forever. The one that conquered death, so that we could live with an active hope, knowing that we will not truly die. 

Yesterday I spent a lot of the day with a can of white paint and a brush painting all of the black grout of our fireplace white. I've probably got another half day of painting yet before it's all done. What a difference it makes in a room though. Going from a dark red, orange, and black to white. It's going to really brighten up our rooms. We also took out our inserts to paint the brick and we may end up leaving them out. I like the way it looks without the inserts in the fireplace since it's open on both sides. Now you can see all the way through it. 

My son loves to color pictures of characters and animals and when he's done he wants to cut them all out. He has tons of pictures that he's colored that are all cut out and then he plays with them. It's kind of funny that it's his thing he likes to do. My daughter doesn't do it at all. So whenever he's done coloring a picture he'll either ask for scissors or go and get one himself. 

I'm not sure exactly what my deal is, but I've been slacking lately. Slacking on writing my blog and slacking on getting going as early as I have been. My motivation just hasn't been there in the morning. I feel like there's a lot of things I want to get done and I don't know where to start. Home projects, personal projects, work projects, cleaning things up, ordering things, new business work,...  Well, today's a new day and I didn't get up super early, but I can get back on this. I also stopped recording daily videos in 2021, but I've really missed that this year as well. I'm not sure if I'll start that backup or not.

My best friend's dad passed away last week. His dad was 73. It came as a shock to me when I opened up Facebook this morning to see his dad's face as the first thing on my feed this morning. So I read his obituary. It stated his occupation and his schooling, then his involvement at his church, and then his love for his family. He died of heart failure. It made me think of my dad who just turned 69 last week. How much more time will my parents be here? I have grandparents that are still living in their 90s, but you never know how long you will live. We won't live forever. I need to reach out to my dad more often. I don't think I would ever regret initiating something with him. But I think if I never do I will regret that. I was with my parents and one of my sisters last night and I'm always struck by how much my dad reads. He seems to be an avid reader and smart. He's been studying some books on Revelations lately and is beginning to understand there are some pret

Enjoying a warm cup of coffee. I don't want to set it down to type. I think about my weekend this morning and know there is a lot going on. It doesn't seem like it will be restful, yet today is the day that God incarnate rested in a tomb before he was raised to life on Sunday. God this morning as I think about a day filled with visiting friends, visiting family, and desiring to do a few projects at our home, help me. Help me to love my wife and kids. Help me not to put myself above them. Help me to serve others. Help me to be engaged in others' lives. I can not do this on my own. I need your Spirit's help. Fill me with these desires and rid me of selfish ones. Rid me of perfectionism that stems from pride. Keep me from wasting my day on things that don't matter. 

What do you do with a pool table you don't use? How do you even get rid of it? They take up a whole room and ours happened to be in the basement. We called around to companies that sell pool tables and found a company in Bloomington, IL that would come pick it up for free. They came yesterday and disassembled it and packed it all up and took it. And now we have a whole other room in the basement that we can use that we didn't have before. I don't know what they will be able to sell the pool table for, but we feel like it was worth it. I wouldn't have known how to disassemble it, even though I may have been able to figure it out. I also would have had to find a buyer and then they would have had to reassemble it. It just sounds like a big hassle. They also are giving us a coupon to purchase something from their store at 40% off. The place is called Altman's Billiards and Barstools .