"the biggest killer of relationships is busy"

i think i heard the quote a little differently, but i simplified it to this:

"the biggest killer of relationships is busy."

Kendra Fleming is a really great leader i've respected for several years. i've always valued any conversations or time i've been able to spend with her and always learn a lot. when she said this last week i thought it was a great bottom line summary of what our lives often look like.

"busy" is our enemy.

and we're always busy.

but you can't begin, cultivate, deepen, restore, or even ENJOY relationships in the middle of busy.

no, you need margin to do that.

i need less busy and more margin. 

and i'm getting there.

because relationships are more important than busy.

busy sucks.

busy is the enemy.

relationships are our friends. literally :)

and when we look back on life 20 years from now & 40 years from now i am CONVINCED...

relationships will make us smile

and 

busy will make us frown (or maybe even cry)

relationships will be our greatest memories

and 

busy will be our greatest regret

   

29 things to know before you hit 30 (part 2)

crazy bummed about when i will turn 30. feels like it will be crossing a huge line that i desperately don't want to cross.

but at least i will be prepared after reading The Pocket Guide to Adulthood: 29 Things to Know Before You Hit 30
thanks to Jason Boyett for putting together a guide for peeps like me closing out their 20s to help us know what we need to know to be an old person.

(i already posted #s 1-5 HERE.)

6  Being all weird about food safety is a pretty good idea
wow. i DEFINITELY learned a lot from this chapter! i was breaking ALL these rules that were shared big time. i.e. - eating pizza that had been left in my hot car for a week!
not any more - because i'm about to be an old adult.

7  How to change a flat tire like a real live mechanic
this is the one mechanical thing i actually did know already. pretty much the only thing i can do.

8  Marriage is not necessarily a rowdy sex romp, and other misconceptions
wait, for real?
wait, is that after you turn 30 or before? :)

9  How to stop worrying and be an optimist
i really love being & so thankful i'm an optimist. but i still have to battle worry like everyone else. i need to work harder at relaxing too. (oxymoron?)

10  Establish your own coolness with an amazing card trick
now this was awesome. i've never really known a card trick. i love playing poker, but i've never really known how to do a trick. NOW I DO. so, someone please - ask me to see a card trick! or do i have to wait til i hit 30?


*that's only 10 down of the 29 things you have to know to be an old 30 year-old.
more coming tomorrow.

conversation with the postman

i've written a few thoughts about money lately. HERE & HERE (& even HERE within the context below.)

so, when i was reading my buddy Scott's blog recently i was really intrigued by his post. it's about money, but it's changing the subject from what i've been writing about money. it's a different kind of conversation. and it is brilliant (in a sneaky sort of way).

Scott is a brilliant guy. getting his doctorate right now, but that's not what makes him brilliant. he could be teaching those classes. this guy's brain works in fascinating ways.

he's a great writer too. he has written posts here on renown several times. his writing style is different than mine and obviously more polished, but he has an ability to be transparent, raw, and authentic at the same time.

btw - i asked Scott for permission to post this, of course, but in the conversation i never asked if the postman is a literal postman or even a literal, real person or not. i guess you can attempt to interpret that for yourself.
hopefully i'll actually get to sit down with Scott up in NY this month if our schedules sync up. maybe we can talk more about this.

maybe you have found yourself having these types of conversations with a "postman" of your own?

Postman by Scott Grace


The postman told me that money can’t buy happiness. 


I told him I sure doubt that’s the case. 


I have yet to see a rich person sad for having come upon a large sum of money. The only crying is a happy sort of crying. 


The postman assured me that with more money comes more problems, 


but I assured him that if my worst problems were what to do with all my money then I would be ok with that. 


The postman never seems to care that money is what pays for his service and his service pays his rent and buys his food and cares for his young children. The postman always seems to preach that life is not measured by the number of zero’s in your bank account. I have never seen more than five zero’s in my bank account including the cents, but I promised the postman that if there was a time in my life when I saw ten zero’s in my bank account then I would certainly feel a measure of satisfaction and perhaps some sort of success. 


The postman assured me that money is like a bird, and soon flies away. 


But I told the postman that I would much rather watch money fly away than never be able to watch it fly away. 


I guess the postman thinks that money is somewhat overrated. 


I kind of sympathize with the postman, but I sure would like to know money problems, how much happiness money can buy, and how it feels to see a lot of zero’s in my bank account. 


I trust the postman though, seems to have a good sense of things, especially when it comes to money.

any thoughts for me or Scott or the postman?

your words are more powerful than you think

a couple weeks ago i was working at a table outside Starbucks. it was a beautiful day and i was "in the zone" writing or ideating about something when the conversation of 2 college girls sitting behind me caught my attention.

it was obvious that they were both college students, probably at UNCC. 1 of them was really upset and the other friend was just trying to "be there" for her.

Because...
1 of her close friends had just committed suicide the day before.

let that sink in.

pretty heavy.

Her friend was obviously in mourning and i was putting my head phones in to try and give them some more privacy... but as i was cranking up some music i heard the friend of the girl who killed herself saying something like...

"She had posted on Facebook a couple days ago - 'my life is a mess. i don't have anything to live for.' i sent her a text and told her it's OK and that we could talk any time..."

the other girl at the table said - "Yeah i noticed her status saying that. then today i saw hundreds of people writing on her Facebook wall about how much they were going to miss her, what a wonderful person she was, how great they thought she was, etc..."

then the girl whose friend had just died got really passionate and said - "See, if all of those people would have just told her how they feel BEFORE, she would have never killed herself! Why did they wait til now?"

YOUR    WORDS   ARE   POWERFUL.

let me say that again...

your
words
are
powerful.

sitting at that table that day brought new and powerful meaning to the quip from Proverbs that = "The tongue has the power of life and death."
or, as another translation puts it = "Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose."

no wonder Proverbs says that. it's because your words are more powerful than you think!

so use them wisely. use them LIBERALLY. GIVE THEM AWAY!

speak those kind words you want to say.

let those encouraging words fly off your tongue.

when you think something awesome about someone TELL THEM! don't just sit on it.

SAY IT! because who knows...
you may not get another chance.

don't be too busy or too wrapped up in yourself to speak powerful words to someone else!

you really should SMILE more

smiling is awesome. everybody likes a smile :)
actually, smiling makes us FEEL GREAT! seriously.

research proves that 1 smile can generate the same brain stimulation of eating up to 2,000 bars of chocolate. (but you don't get nearly as fat)

& a smile can stimulate the same good feelings as receiving $25,000 in cash!

did you catch that? has anyone ever walked up to you and handed you $25k in cash? well, the same kind of positive experience happens in your brain when you simply smile!

not only is it good for you, but smiles are CONTAGIOUS! 
have you ever tried to frown while someone was smiling at you? it's almost impossible!
i tried it on my daughter when she was barely even old enough to smile. all i'm doing in this short video is smiling at her & it causes her to smile back.
check how contagious it can be...

me smiling at her causes her to smile back.

i don't really know what bad can come from a smile? ever thought about that? like i've never heard a sad story or a tragedy or something bad resulting from a smile.

but for some reason in our culture we're a little stingy with a smile. that's dumb.
i say, give that stuff away man! it's free. it makes YOU feel better. it's contagious and will make someone else's day better.

maybe we'll even make a little bit better world, 1 smile at a time.

"I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish." 

- Mother Teresa

i LOVE the smell of a book

i know, i know, i'm probably really weird, but...

i LOVE the smell of a book.

i'm not talking about scratch & sniff books either.

it could be a brand new book with fancy gloss pages that has that new car smell...

or a regular average book with that regular page smell...

or even a really old old book with that kind of musty smell... like you just stumbled onto something mysterious in an old chest in an attic somewhere...

don't matter what kind of book. i love the smell.

it's ok if that makes me weird.
i love books and i even love the smell of a book as i sit down to read it. hard to explain, but i love it.

of dallas, weddings, & scottie too hottie

my boy Scott is getting married TOMORROW!

it's so crazy that he's tying the knot.
Scott was my roommate in college. we met our 1st day as freshmen and were great friends ever since. played soccer together, hung at the beach together all the time, & had some awesome good times together.

i think i invented the nickname for him - "Scottie too hottie", but don't quote me on that. i remember being an ardent user of it at least.

i haven't actually seen him in person since my wedding over 6 years ago. that's a long time, but we picked up right where we left off. i had to beat him down in FIFA just now (4-1) just like the olden days when we were roommates :)

he's actually teaching some fancy classes at a local private college - DBU. check out this classroom he teaches in. that's what i'm talking about! i never remember a college classroom looking like that. really nice campus and facilities.

then next door to the college is The Potter's House where T.D. Jakes is pastor. i had no idea he lived so close. it's a pretty massive place with an overflow parking across the street that rivals the parking of a small stadium.
i thought about seeing if i could talk to T.D. but i didn't have an appointment or anything, you know...

anyway, really good to hang with Scott again after all these years - & i've hung with 2 of his bros so far & the rest of the fam is on the way in. rehearsal & rehearsal dinner tonight. maybe i'll surprise Scott with an embarrassing speech or something.

i met his fiance for the 1st time today and she seems awesome. we hung out for a while as we were looking for Scotts' passport for over an hour :)  haha, i don't think he would have thought to look for it yet if she hadn't asked him.
found it though, so no worries.

pumped to celebrate Scott & Katy getting married tomorrow. proud of you bro.

shocking stats

(i originally wrote and posted this to renown on February 18, 2010.)

my Pastor is awesome. He's not only my pastor, but he's also my boss... & my mentor. I'm honored to stand behind him and serve with him & I've learned so much from him these past few years.
He is a great man. He loves God + is a brilliant and corageous leader.

But I still pray for him constantly. I pray that God puts His hand on him and makes him an even greater and godlier leader. I pray that God protects him from Satan's attacks. I pray for his wife and kids. I pray that he can stay strong for the whole marathon.

Because I know that great men and women fall all the time. The statistics are dramatically against my pastor (and me, and your pastor) over the long haul. 

These are 2 sets of stats below that are nothing short of SHOCKING.
[My thoughts and comments are in brackets]

-  Pastors who work less than 50 hours a week are 35% more likely to be fired

-  Church peeps expect their pastors to juggle an average of 16 major tasks

-  Pastor has greatest impact in years 5-14, but average only lasts 5 years

-  40% report a serious conflict with a person in their church at least once per month.
[hey church peeps, how bout get off your pastor's back!]

-  80%of pastors believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively

-  75% have had a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry

-  50% feel unable to meet needs of the job

-  40% of pastors say they’ve considered leaving their pastorates in last 3 months. [whoa! i wonder what % consider it once a week?]

-  33% confess inappropriate sexual behavior with someone in their church [that is crazy]

-  20% say they view porn at least once per month

-  51% say internet porn is possible temptation [I'm just curious here... what do the other 49% say? That it's NOT a temptation!? That's the half I'd be worried about. those pastors gotta sign up for XXXchurch ASAP!] & 37% say it’s a constant struggle

-  13% have been divorced

-  80% say they have insufficient time with their spouse

-  66% pastors & families feel pressure to model the ideal family to their congregations & communities

-  70% don’t have a close friend! [that sucks]

-  90% feel they’re inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands

-  45% say they’ve experienced depression or burnout to the extent that they needed  to take a leave of absence from ministry.

(I read these stats from Mike Erre who got them from H.B. London, Jr. & Neil B. Wiseman, Pastors at Greater Risk: Real Help for Pastors from Pastors Who’ve Been There)

(The stats below are from Mark Driscoll & are at The Resurgence)

-  1,500 pastors leave ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches

-  50% of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce [that is unbelievable!!! 50/50 chance you'll get divorced if you're a pastor. scary. that's messed up. but i guess it's 50/50 for every person... pastors are no different.]

-  80% & 84% of their spouses feel unqualified & discouraged in their role

-  50% are so discouraged they would quit if they could but have no other way of getting income

-  80% of seminary & Bible college grads who enter ministry will leave within 1^st5 years

-  70% constantly fight depression

-  almost 40% said they’ve had an affair since beginning their ministry

-  80% of wives wish their spouse would choose another profession

“The majority of pastor’s wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.”

[wow! that hurts & is really scary. God, may that never be true in our lives!]

My heart just hurts after reading those! My heart is breaking.

I think there's only 1 thing to say after all that = PRAY for your Pastor!
Pray that God protects him from these attacks on his life and family! Pray that God renews and rejuvenates him so that he can be at the top of his game. Pray for his wife and kids. Pray that God will help you back him and be the kind of support he needs!

I know i need some peeps praying for me. Because i plan on being in this for the rest of my life. I want to be part of a revolution... But i am desperately dependent on God's grace to keep me and my wife from being any of these statistics!!!

DO YOU PRAY FOR YOUR PASTOR? 

update on my Mom's new lungs

it doesn't feel like there are a lot of updates to give, although a lot has happened in the past few days.

The biggest news to us i think is that my Mom will be in ICU for months. that was not expected at all to me. i don't think my Dad expected that either.
not great news at all, but i would rather know that to prepare myself.

They have tried taking her off ECMO (the heart-lung machine) a couple times and it hasn't quite worked out yet. getting her off of ECMO would definitely be a good step.

they did take her off the heart pump though.

she had been having some internal bleeding and they did get that stopped too.

Getting this fluid off of her lungs is probably the biggest issue right now.

and her Kidneys started to have problems too so they put her on a type of dialysis.

they also put a trache in a few days ago which her vent is now attached to. and i think they are going to put in a feeding tube soon as well.

probably the hardest news to swallow was that 2 other lung transplant patients that have been on the ICU hall there with my Mom both died this past week.

it's all so much to handle. not sure how anyone might carry it all without Somebody to lean into... without Someone to trust in. Someone to trust in Who knows what's up even more than these Doctors do.
Dumping some cares on That Guy i trust in daily.

and i still have absolute hope that the God we've trusted in this far will heal my Mom. i believe that one day my Mom will be running in the backyard chasing her granddaughter, Keira... with an awesome pair of new lungs.

ups and downs

it feels like it's been a long journey already. and it's only been like 5 days.

Today the Doctors found out my Mom has 2 infections they need to get out of her lungs. they are what's causing her lungs not to work well. Plus all that fluid they need to drain.

Plus they're going to trache her and run the vent through that.

it feels like a long journey already and it's going to be much longer. my Mom will probably be in the ICU for a while.

it's been an up & down, high & low emotional journey.

The highs are when my Mom is alert and we can talk to her and she understands and tries to communicate back. we can see her personality come through.
i showed her pics of Keira and she smiled, tried to giggle, pointed, etc... she was loving it. those times are awesome.

but when we hear that she wakes up and we're not there & she's is scared. i hate that.

when i walk into her room and see her hooked up to 15 machines and all these lines and tubes and realize they're just keeping her alive. it looks like nothing i've even seen in the movies. it's pretty disheartening. it's scary and i hate it.

when i talk to her one day and ask if she remembers talking to me and Dad the day before... and she shakes her head "no"... pretty disheartening. feels like we're stepping into 50 First Dates. but of course that's only because of the meds she's on.

but then when she DOES remember talking to us/seeing us. that's pretty cool.

ups and downs. i guess that's what it will be for a while. i'm just hoping and praying for the day when she gets to go "home" there in Durham. or at least out of the ICU. it's still a long recovery from there, but at least this battle will be won.


and of course there are my other fears i dare not mention out loud or in writing. the fears and emotions i only talk to God about in the moments i'm pouring out my heart.

He gets it.

He's even "been there" in some way.

so i beg for mercy. for healing.

i beg for God to act in a way that heaps glory back onto Him.

for God to act in a way that makes people say "Wow"... their God is awesome.

for God to "boost" His renown through this situation.

but i know God is good. no matter what. that's just who He is.

detailed update on my Mom's lung transplant

(This post is from Crystal. She is a lot better at explaining details than me. heading over to see my Mom again right now.)

Today (yesterday) was a little bit rougher than yesterday for Edith. The new lungs are not quite ready to work on their own yet. It's hard to say what is expected at this point because there is no "normal" for this. She is on 40% oxygen & is occasionally, but not regularly breathing over the ventilator. Her heart has been having to work harder than normal & she has had some trouble keeping her blood pressure up. Around 4pm she was put on a intraaortic balloon pump (IABP) to help give her heart some rest. Her blood pressure had come up some later in the evening. Earlier in the day they had turned off her sedation drip, but had to restart it this evening when they did the IABP. Gary got a call around 11pm from the hospital letting him know that they were going to put her on ECMO tonight.
I'm trying to give more details than facebook status updates allow for, but it's quite difficult as there is so much going on and most is pretty difficult to explain (I'm digging in my brain way back to nursing school for most of this stuff). For those of you who want to get a mental picture, here it goes. She has the following... ventilator, multiple central lines, foley, 2 chest tubes, 2 JP drains, IABP, oral gastric tube, peripheral IV, cooling blanket, and probably several more things that i'm forgetting about.

Specific things to pray for:
•Cardiac index to improve- should be above 2 & hers has been between 1.6-1.8

•Temperature to come down- she seems to be running a low grade temp. Blood & sputum cultures were sent last night & today to check for infection.

•Lungs to work fully on their own!!

•Pain- she seems to be comfortable while sedated, but i cannot imagine the pain she would be in while awake.

update on my mom's new lungs

from about 8PM Friday night until after 4AM Saturday morning a team of surgeons took out every little piece of my Mom's old diseased lungs. The doctors said the old lungs were so bad and diseased (they used the word "friable") that when they just touched them they crumbled to pieces and fell apart. so they had to spend hours just making sure they scraped out every little piece of the old diseased lungs so there wouldn't be anything left to corrupt the good ones...
then they transplanted these 2 life giving lungs in their place and put her back together.

it was crazy hard waiting all night to hear something! my Dad didn't sleep at all... just waiting. hard to sit and wonder if things are going well or not. i remember just kind of pacing... wondering when we would hear.

but the tranpslant was a success! my Mom has finally received the perfectly matching pair of lungs.
so for that we celebrate! finally my Mom is rid of those lungs that have plagued her for a lifetime. she has a chance to start over. thanks to God. we've trusted Him for this & He gets thanks and glory from us for this.

I do feel kind of a tension between wanting to celebrate fully - that "YES! it's finally over & everything is good" kind of celebration
VS.
still not being totally out of the woods yet.

not sure if that makes any sense to anyone? it feels like i exhaled a little but i'm still holding my breath a little at the same time.

i walked in to see her after the transplant and it was a little shocking. she must have been hooked up to about 800 different tubes and machines running all up and down her body. A Ventilator running into her mouth + blood draining out everywhere. she is swolen all over. her hands and head for example seem to be TWICE their normal size.
i've seriously never seen anyone hooked up to so much stuff. tough to see my Mom this way.

so it seems a little too early to say whether everything will all go perfect or not. so i want to celebrate this huge step and I DO celebrate it. i'm pumped. but still kind of just waiting to see if she can come through all this.

How is she doing?

great Q :)  i'm a big picture guy so i don't remember all the details the doctors and nurses are telling us. so, if you're a detail person, i apologize. you should probably talk to my wife or Dad... they can tell you all the fancy terms and technical stuff... here's the big pic:

she looked and was doing not all that great Saturday. but later in the day around 5 or 6pm she made a massive turnaround. all her stats came up a lot and she woke up for about 5 minutes. That's when my Dad and I got to talk to her. we told her we loved her & she had some new lungs :)

she smiled - as best as she could with tubes coming out of her mouth.

we told her about all these tons and tons of friends and people like YOU praying for her.

i told her that Keira started giggling this week and showed her a pic Crystal had just texted me of Keira giggling. she smiled really big then!

i think she was feeling pretty good at that point. (she ought to be - she's getting the good stuff.) she could squeeze our hands, wiggle her feet, and shake her head.

she went downhill today. her stats were back down. she'll probably stay in ICU a while. her new lungs aren't really working yet. right now they kicked us out of her room so they can hook up a balloon pump to her heart. it's gonna pump the blood for her heart i guess. soon they're going to give her an epidural for pain once she stabilizes a little. right now they're having to keep her sedated. they say it's much more painful than open heart surgery.

the best i can tell = she's not necessarily doing "bad" but not really "good" either. there is no "normal" when it comes to double lung transplants. we're just being patient.

feels like we're just waiting again. waiting for her to improve.

but all these doctors and experts said that my Mom should not have been alive for these last 10 years. these diseases should have killed her 10 years ago. and now they're gone. along with those old worn out lungs...

so we're hopeful.
we have One Hope. the God who knows what's up. the God who keeps all our lungs working every second of every day and has kept my Mom alive all these years. the God who holds this big spinning ball of dirt together we call home...

He is our hope.

2 lungs on the way...

just heard from my Mom that there are 2 Lungs on the way to Duke Hospital specifically for her! they have to get them there & then her Doctors should know by 7pm if this is the perfect pair of lungs for my Mom. if it's a go then she will get her Double Lung Transplant. about a 10 hour procedure. i'm heading up to Duke to be there.

i wrote about this a little before HERE.

we've been praying for this for a long time. for God to heal my Mom. i'm hoping this is it.

i hope this is the miracle.

that this is the moment.

i hope that tomorrow is a new day.

i'm praying that my Mom wakes up tomorrow and it's the dawn of a new day - a new life.

God gets all the credit for that.

i love you, Mom. i'm praying this goes perfectly and pretty soon you'll be breathing like never before... and holding your new granddaughter.

learning from the mastermind behind starbucks

we would all do well to take a page from Howard Schulz's book. Schulz was the mastermind behind Starbucks.

this was his mantra & i love it. the world would be different if many of us adopted it as our mantra as well:

care more than others think wise

risk more than others think safe

dream more than others think practical

expect more than others think possible

never stop playing

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” 

– Wound & Wound Toy Store, Hollywood, California 

There's something beautiful about a child playing. 

the way they run 

and jump 

and just roll down a hill. 

they don't care about grass stains on their clothes. 

the way they laugh and don't care what they sound like.

the way they sing at the top of their lungs whether it sounds good or bad.

their big fat smiles when they're playing.

they play with abandon.

they enjoy life to the fullest.

and somewhere along the way we lose that. we "grow out of it". or is it the other way around? do we only "grow out of it" because we choose to stop playing. we're self conscious about what people see and think about us. 

we lose out on a lot of fun.

we stop smiling as much and laughing so loudly and playing with abandon.

i say never stop playing.

renown bag (thanks Natalie)

when you have written on a website for over 4 years now that you named renown you tend to notice when the word "renown" comes up other places. (which just for the record isn't a whole lot.)

but maybe other people start to notice for you too?
i have this awesome friend Natalie and today she gave me this awesome gift!

it's a little carrier bag. she said she got it for me because it says "renown".

well, she volunteered at Passion 2012 and grabbed this bag for me there.

but (probably) little does she know that Louie and the Passion gang are the ones who even taught me what "renown" is and that it's the only thing that matters.
(probably) Little does she know that it was the ethos of the Passion movement that was a catalytic and life changing movement in my life's extremely formative college-ish years & is why i now call this blog "renown".

thanks for thinking of me, Natalie. the gift came to me through a delivery girl (my wife) so since i didn't get to tell you thanks in person, so... Thanks, Natalie!

the bag actually has the full "passion version" (2 versions mixed) of Isaiah 26:8 printed around the bag - "Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your truth, we wait eagerly for you; for YOUR NAME AND YOUR RENOWN ARE THE DESIRE OF OUR SOULS."

that was the founding deal for Passion. that little idea changed my life. still is...

DJ Stout hyping my mom's lung transplant tomorrow

i've never heard of DJ Stout, but apparently he's pretty famous on Country Music radio stations (explains why i've never heard of him). He's pretty big on CBS radio stations like 103.7, WSOC radio, WFNA, WFNZ, etc...

if you listen to him or if he's on in your area make sure to check him out tomorrow - he'll be talking about my Mom's Double Lung Transplant all day long.

Pretty cool of him to give this kind of attention on all his stations. hopefully it drives a lot of donations toward my Mom's transplant. She still has to have $100K for the transplant!

12 years! - happy 7th

12 years ago today Crystal Mitchell (then Crystal Pagels) and i went on our 1st ever date to Applebee's. 12 years later we ate there again to the same Applebee's for date night. back where it all began.

January 7th, 2000. i can remember it pretty vividly. Crystal riding with me to Applebee's in my awesome Honda Civic. she was 16 & i had just turned 17. that was a really long time ago. crazy.

and i was just happy a hot girl like Crystal would go on a date with me. who knew she would be the most amazing woman i ever met. the wife that i would get to grow old with... and an amazing mom.

12 years and it just gets better & better!
happy 7th, Babygirl. i love you more than you'll ever know.

this is going to be the best thing we've ever seen

exactly the way i feel & what i want to say to you, Crystal...

"We should get jerseys cause we make a good team
But yours would look better than mine, cause you're outta my league
And I know that it's so cliche to tell you that everyday
I spend with you is the new best day of my life
Everyone watching us just turns away with disgust
It's Jealously, they can see that we've got it going on

And I'm racking my brain for a new improved way
To let you know your more to me than what I know how to say
You're OK with the way this is going to be
This is going to be the best thing we've ever see

Maybe I'm just lucky cause it's hard to believe
Believe that somebody like you'd end up with someone like me
And I know that it's so cliche to talk about you this way
But I'll push all my inhibitions aside
It's so very obvious to everyone watching us
That we have got something real good going on

And I'm racking my brain for a new improved way
To let you know your more to me than what I know how to say
You're OK with the way this is going to be
This is going to be the best thing we've ever seen"

- thx old school relient K for putting words to what's in my heart

& thanks to my amazing wife for letting me experience something so amazing.

need to feel like a better parent? just read this

My wife's grandmother from New York has had the privilege to stay at our house and hang out with Keira twice since she's been born. and in that time i've probably heard this story about a half dozen times.

just letting you know up front that this is a true story! i didn't make it up and i didn't just steal it from something i saw on Tosh.0 or Ridiculousness.

here you go:
back in the day when my father-in-law was a baby, his mom (my wife's grandmother) was driving through town and made a U-turn...

the back door of the car came open and the baby FELL OUT!!!

he straight up fell out onto the street on his head!
out of a moving car!

she got out of the car, threw him back in the back seat, and kept driving.

wow.
hard to top that one.

and he turned out just fine (you know, for the most part). she seems like she was a wonderful mother & of course this kind of thing wasn't the norm.

but hey, stuff happens. we're all going to make mistakes. i'm sure i'll make TONS. thousands. i'm trying not to, but i'm sure i will.

but when i make those mistakes i'm going to remind myself of this story and say to myself "at least i didn't eject my baby onto the street from a moving car."

hopefully i never top that one.