I wear plaid. I'm a blogger.

Since the creation of facebook and twitter, funny stories that occur throughout the day are lost in 120 character posts that are buried underneath themselves. The following are a few highlights of the past couple weeks: -Today, I ran out of milk and only realized so after I boiled the mac and cheese. The logical thing to do? Just add water. The taste bud's response? Gross. -Had a great conversation with Zach Steever about wood today. -Took the top off of the MooMobile and found out that it looks like he is taking care of business, while taking care of business.... -Taught my son how to toss a ball. This one is not funny, but very sweet! :) -Aaaaaand, I'm sure there are more, but now it is time to finish preparing worship plans and get ready for tonight's softball game against Parkside #1

I ran 11 miles this morning after being invited by Brian and Don to join them on the second leg of their training run this morning. This marks the longest run I have been on to date, and while it wasn't easy, it's amazing how I was able to stay with the pace we set out on when I knew that I had an experienced runner who was on my side, by my side, rooting me on. Application? It is good to be in step with someone more experienced than yourself (perhaps in a mentor/mentee relationship) in order to push yourself further than you would be able to go alone. 'Nough said.

Everyone needs a good dose of humility every once in a while. Especially me. Sometimes that happens unexpectantly. 

I recently read an article  that addressed the idea of gluttony as sin. All too often we, as American Christians, find ourselves in a compromised situation where we have to say 'no' to our flesh even though the availability to indulge in greed is constantly bombarding us. The article's gist is that selfishness, lust, greed, and gluttony are all acceptable forms of sin in a North American context. No one bats an eye at things like obesity or excess material wealth but we will get bent out of shape over drinking, sex, or rock n roll. I find myself daily struggling with this same pattern of selfish desires and greed and usually failing to it. Because amenities like food and comfort are readily available to me in my day-to-day life, it is difficult to turn them down. If I want more of "that thing", then I take it. I eat it. I wear it. I do it. It is easy to feed my addiction of comfort. What's more, it is easy to think that I deserve it. For instance, last n...

Let it never be said that God doesn't exist. Nor that God doesn't have a sense of humor. I found out both the hard way yesterday. The short story: I was planning on running the Flying Pig half-marathon and then going to church afterwards to lead worship. I had a big head about doing both and God said that I could only do one or the other. The long story: May 5th. Cinco de Mayo. The Flying Pig Marathon . I signed up to run the half marathon for the Flying Pig back in January. It was $85 to register, which suddenly makes the race a big deal. Though a hefty amount, the registration fee was a justifiable cost on two accounts: 1) The money goes to charity, 2) What better way to motivate yourself to work out than to reserve a spot in a half marathon? This way, I don't buy a gym membership but my money is now an incentive to keep working out. So I started training. It started by running a 5k in March and worked on getting my pace faster. Then I started running 4 miles ...

Squirrel Revenge. I have been a relatively happy home owner for the past several months since I have successfully evicted the family of squirrels from our attic. I don't mind them living in the trees all around us and messing with the lawn--all in all, I genuinely like squirrels. Until yesterday. Yesterday I was outside laying some grass seed and taking care of some routine lawn maintenance (perhaps due to moles....we'll see about that later). I was walking along my driveway at the base of the tree and was almost struck with some pieces of wood shaving, falling from higher up in the tree. Perplexed by the notion that a maple tree could have dandruff I decided to investigate what could be causing this strange case of flaky skin. I looked up, and there, about 15 feet off the ground I saw a squirrel, looking down. Our eyes locked in a 10 second stare down--each of us daring the other to make the first move. Well, because a squirrel is a squirrel, he decided he had other A...