The Winter of My Blog Discontent

Well, it is October already. Only three months left in the year. Fall is on its way (although you couldn’t tell by temperatures here in the South) and Christmas decorations are already on sale. Once again time has slipped by and we haven’t put anything meaningful on our blog. If it weren’t for these occasional laments on not writing, we’d barely have anything on here at all!

The fundamental issue is that there is too much “regular” life going on and not enough (at least in our mind) “blog-worthy” life going on. People ask how it’s going and I tell them that that I wish something was happening so that I could say that something was happening! Life is fairly routine right now, and routine doesn’t make for good story. Oh, I’m sure that I could come up with some sort of political rant, or some other pithy observation but even the ol’ writing juices haven’t been flowing lately.

As a matter of fact, life lately has been a day-to-day trudge through the snow. Not particularly difficult, but slow and mundane nonetheless. You walk and walk and walk and the landscape doesn’t change much, and when you look back the wind has erased most of your tracks so it’s hard to even recall where you’ve been.

Sure every now and then you have this epiphany and realize that life is passing you by and you need to do something, but that moment usually comes while you are driving, or otherwise occupied, and by the time you get to where you are going and reality kicks in you soon forget all about it.

Don’t take any of this as complaining. Life could be bad. There are many people that have overwhelming circumstances that consume their time. Me? I’m just ADD and can’t seem to make the time to do those things that I want to do. As our pastor recently taught, sin and procrastination are definitely kissing cousins. Like Paul said – the things I want to do I don’t do, but things I don’t want to do that is what I end up doing. Sure I want to post something on the blog, but the reality is that I am consumed by everything else. The “everything else” ranges from essential things like work, to the non-essential things like watching the Cowboys on a Sunday afternoon (although those things could arguably both be considered essential, I have to draw the line at what pays the bills and what doesn’t. Too bad.).

You would think that with 5 years of time and life management experience under my belt at Franklin Covey I would be better at this, but like the old saying goes those who can’t do, teach. I could tell you all the principles of prioritizing, but putting those things into practice is quite another accomplishment.

So, here we are again at yet another milestone in the year and unless you have talked with Melinda on the phone recently you are no closer to us than you were a year ago. Shame on us! The quick and simple is this:

• Scott is very happy in his new position at Thomas Nelson. He has had the chance to work with a lot of great people on the front lines of ministry. If there was one thing he would like to improve it would be in the area of new business. What Nelson Ministry Services does is the best-kept secret in the industry and more people need to know about it

• Melinda has enjoyed some time off over the summer and then started a new job at the beginning of September. One of the biggest reasons she is working is that she is taking early childhood education classes and they are paid for as long as she is working in a pre-school environment. She is working at a pre-school in a local church and loves having a lot less pressure. She also has a great schedule that allows her to be home in the afternoons with the girls, which is a huge blessing.

• Jessica is almost half-way done with the 6th grade and continues to grow into a (even more) beautiful young lady. Everyone at the school loves having her there and enjoy being around her. The challenge we face is that this is her last year at Bill Rice Christian Academy. Where they used to go through the 12th grade, they made the decision to stop at 6th. We now have to start looking for a new school – one that holds similar values as Bill Rice, but won’t break the bank!

• Anna is getting so big it’s unimaginable. It’s tough to look at her like a 10 year old, but she’s growing up. To be honest we have really been struggling with Anna’s behavior lately and we (Melinda) is working hard to get her on an even keel. She is on a balanced calendar school schedule (“year round”) and is currently on her three-week break. That has been a God-send for everyone (especially for her teachers). Pray that we can discover what it is that is triggering her outbursts and that we can moderate her behavior.

Well, there you have it. As you can see nothing spectacular, but a lot of stuff to keep us busy. We will continue with a random post just to keep you coming back to see something, but will also continue to aspire to more. In the meantime, enjoy this fall season and see if you can find how many places in your neck of the woods that have Halloween and Christmas decorations right next to each other.

P.S. - We need more red dots on out map to the left! Tell everyone you know to at least look at our blog! Thanks!