I wear plaid. I'm a blogger.

There. I said it.  Of all the things Jesus cares about that you get to decide on a daily basis, who you cast your ballot for in the upcoming 2020 election is far from the top of the list.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Jesus doesn't care who the next president is--the Bible is pretty clear that God does care who the governing authorities are (Daniel 2:21)--fact is, he already knows who it will be!  What I am saying is that you have thousands of tiny decisions to make throughout your day. Most of which, God doesn't really care about: Do I wear my red tie or blue tie to work today?  Should I leave my house before rush hour traffic or at the last possible minute? How many helpings of Lucky Charms can I get away with before someone notices how light the box has become? Each decision has its own ripple effect and you have to live the consequences of each micro-decision. But most of our decisions on a day-to-day basis are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of th...

Cool moment for #spiritofahandyman I got an email from feedspot.com saying that my YouTube channel is on their list for Top 15 Handyman Channels on YouTube! Thanks to Feedspot.com for selecting me to be on your page and thanks to everyone for supporting this channel!

So I just watched this incredible video that a YouTuber posted of a one-take Queen compilation. It was amazing! And both left me feeling inspired and depressed simultaneously. Inspired to see how this guy has 771k subscribers and thousands of views for each video. Depressed because I have been cranking out a video a day for the month of February (leading up to 2/21/19) and I have only 51 subscribers and a handful of views per video.  So I started feeling totally helpless, like it isn't even worth posting videos anymore. This guy has all the view, all the talent, and is leaps and bounds ahead of me in every capacity. But then I got this notification from my most recent upload: LillyMayPianist, thank you so much for your kind words. They have built me up today and given me inspiration to keep going. I am so blessed to provide little moments of inspiration to other musicians and people :)

Halloween. Ah yes, that magical time of year when I get to teach my kids about America and the power of Capitalism! What's that? You don't use Halloween as an object lesson to teach your kids the same principles on wealth distribution and profit? Well, allow me to enlighten you on my teaching method. You see, just before the neighborhood opens up to the ritual taunting of "trick-or-treat" on the evening of Halloween, every child has a choice. They can choose to stay home and eat the candy their parents purchased or they can go out into the neighborhood. If they choose to sit at home and eat the candy given them by their parents then they will not need to exert any energy at all and they will have some candy immediately at their fingertips. However, this option also requires that they share their candy with other children who knock on the door and they will soon discover a rapidly diminishing supply of sugary sweets in their bucket. If they choose to go out in...

I came home from teaching piano lessons tonight right as the kids were brushing their teeth in the bathroom. After setting down my things, I immediately went upstairs to help with the bedtime routine. I was promptly greeted at the top of the stairs by the twins' warm smiles and exaggerated hugs. When I asked Isaiah if he was ready for bed his only response was, "Dada, I think you should take off your shoes." This is not the first time he has instructed me in this. Especially if I am upstairs on the carpet, Isaiah is the first to remind me to take my shoes off. While on the surface level one could deduce that Isaiah is concerned for the well being of our luxuriously thread bare flooring area, I see a much more prominent statement that he is making. Dada, won't you stay a while? And it cuts me to the quick every time. Maybe much like your family, we only wear shoes when we are headed outside. And that means that there is only one logical explanation for wearin...

I've seen a disturbing trend among prayer circles within the Christian Church.  It goes something like this: -The group leader asks if there are any prayer requests we need to be considering. -Someone in the circle raises a hand and mentions a dear friend of theirs (whom no one else in the circle knows) who is without a job, and could we please pray for them to get a job. -Another person in the circle raises a hand and mentions their neighbor whose mother-in-law is battling cancer. Could we please pray for her. -Another person asks for prayer for an unspoken request. ...and on and on it goes. There are 3 things about these prayer circles that have me concerned: 1. We have a tendency to only mention prayer requests that are not personal (to us, anyway). We are more than willing to share what is going on in someone else's life, but not vulnerable enough to share what is going on in our own lives. (Now I realize there are a couple reasons for this. One is that it ...

When you throw two Christmas parties over the course of 2 days to two different music groups at church, and you only get a .231 appearance rate....is it really worth it?

I've recently come into a great partnership. I have often wanted a place to store my tools and keep my car dry on rainy days. But I haven't figured out a good way to pay for such an expensive proposition. Of course I could build one, but I recently found that there is a company here in Ohio who builds these garages for a small mark-up and will deliver it ready to use. Cincy Sheds offers these garages for sale or in a rent-to-own option. You pay 36 payments on a monthly basis of somewhere around $500 and you own the garage at the end of everything. Why pay to have storage space at some location at a big storage facility when you can have a storage unit brought to your house? And these look classy too! RTO www.cincysheds.com

We completed the Whole Life Challenge!! Hallelujah! It was tough. It was fun. It was worth it? Tough It took a lot of extra time (roughly an hour) each day to make sure that we were able to complete all the tasks at hand. The hardest thing was definitely the food piece (it's amazing to see that 80% of what we eat on a regular basis has some kind of additive sugar!), but it is also difficult to carve out the time to exercise, stretch, and meditate each day. Fun The only way it was fun was through comradery. We had about 20 people from our church join the same team and we would all post daily about what we were learning/going through. Much of the fun was commiserating together and laughing about how deprived we were making ourselves (borderline masochistic if you think about it). It definitely made the nutrition part easier when your co-workers and family were participating in the same dietary restrictions you have. Worth it? Overall I gained 2 lbs through the challenge. N...

"The worst that could happen is wet shoes and a broken ankle." Those were the encouraging words Katie offered as we walked around the backside of the pond a second time. On the front side of the pond was a little island, about 7 feet away from the shoreline. It appeared to be the home for the geese and ducks who flocked about the water that warm winter day. From a distance it looked like an easy jump to make it from the bank to the island, but the closer I got to the edge of the pond, the further the jump appeared to be. I definitely knew I wouldn't be able to make the distance from a standing jump but I felt fairly confident I could make the jump with a running start. If it was just a matter of jumping from point A to point B, I would have attempted the jump with no hesitation, but there was some risk involved. Wet shoes, a broken ankle, and wounded pride were all fairly low risks overall, but still, it was enough to make me second-guess my parkour abiliti...

A guest blog post from Ken Read: Scripture for Reading : Psalm 119 (v.1-16,45,105,129-130) Theme : Loving the Law Song : “Trust and Obey” Summary : “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” So begins the famous poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning describing romantic love. Psalm 119 is a similar love poem, celebrating mystic romance with the Word of God. For 22 stanzas, each with eight verses, and each line within the stanza beginning with the same Hebrew letter, the worshiper “counts the ways” that he loves the Law. Perhaps each of the lines represents the eight different words for the Law that are employed throughout. In each stanza, these words come in a different order. Nothing less than the longest psalm, the longest chapter in the Book of books, could convey the magnitude of devotion to the Law of God that the psalmist feels. Indeed, the Word of God has been refined seven times. (Psalm 12:6) It is the whole alphabet, it is all the synonyms, it is poetry, and it ...

WLC Day #32 I have been going through a wonderful read lately, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes . Totally worthwhile! In it, the authors mention the difference between Eastern and Western views of wealth. The Western way of thinking of wealth is that there is enough to go around; everyone can be wealthy if they just try hard enough. Eastern views on wealth are that there is only so much money and in order for one person to grow wealthy, other people have to grow poor. I do not claim to know much about economics but I have a feeling that the Eastern viewpoint is more accurate than our Western mind would care to admit. The more wealth I accumulate, the less wealth there is available to other people (insignificantly, but still, the principle is there). Thus, if the American Dream is to become rich and famous then the underlying goal is to make other people poor and insignificant. Ouch. Katie and I would like to grow our wealth someday. Mostly because we want to become debt-fre...

WLC Day #30 It's been a traumatic weekend at Parkside. A teenager in our community decided to end his life a week ago in his own backyard. He decided that the pain of death was more welcome than the pain of depression. What had started out as a beautiful weekend day in February turned into a rainy, haunting, cold night. I was called on to help take down the tree on Monday afternoon. A group of 5 men worked quickly without saying a word to one another as we hauled away limbs and branches from the enclosed backyard. And that is exactly what it was too--enclosed. The moment I stepped past the chain link fence I felt the gravitas of the space come upon me. The naked trees closed in upon a tiny backyard, leaning over the fence line to make a small space feel smaller. The yard was still wrecked from the spiritual battle that had occurred just two short nights beforehand. The mixture of a budding tree with the pungent smell of chain oil and 2-cycle exhaust mingled together in...

I can’t help but wonder if we have made a bigger deal out of communion then Jesus intended for it.  I get the impression that communion is a sacred time for most people who attend Parkside. And that is wonderful. Nothing wrong with it. Unless…communion itself becomes the object of holiness and not the one it represents; or if the time spent reflecting is too holy to interrupt, yet our personal time with Jesus daily we allow our iPhones to disrupt. I fear that we place too high a level of importance on a little piece of bread and a little cup of juice. There is nothing magical about Sunday morning communion. When compared to the other 21 (or more) meals we have throughout the week, I believe it should be treated equally as significant. Every time we have community (communion) with other Christ-followers, we should thank God for the gift of Jesus and use that time to realign ourselves with His purpose for our lives. Now, how do we teach children (and adults) that? I don’t kn...

WLC Day #22 I recently listened to an audio book called " Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be " by Marshall Goldsmith. It is full of wonderful advice that is practical to every person at every level. He has an easy-going conversational tone that still challenges you to step up your game and truly become the person you want to be. We all have an ideal us. The ideal us is probably 10 lbs lighter, with a better physique, makes better food choices, doesn't binge on Netflix, meditates regularly, exercises daily, and is super tuned in for every waking moment. Then there is the real us. We give into temptation. We lack self control. We have limited will power. Interestingly, there have been numerous studies that have shown that this is absolutely true. We do not have an unlimited reserve of will power. Will power is like a muscle --once we use it for so long, it grows tired and we start to give in to temptations more readily. This i...

WLC Day #20 I just witnessed a car crash about as close as I would ever care to witness it. I was sitting 2 cars deep at a stop light when a light-sized Saturn SUV came plowing into the back end of a Toyota RAV4 in front of me in the next lane. There was a startling loud noise, an explosion of plastic and metal, and a horn that didn't shut off. The offending SUV was thrown sideways a bit into the median and the receiving SUV was pushed into the intersection with it's back tire bent in shapes that can't be described. Both women seemed relatively unharmed (thank you safety mechanics and all the crash dummies who gave their lives to make that happen) and I stuck around to give a report to the police once they showed up. I am amazed at how life can change in just the simplest activity at any given moment of any day. The RAV4 lady had left work early because she wasn't feeling well. The Saturn lady said she had just been in a big fight with her husband and was feel...

WLC Day #17 Isaiah threw up. It hasn't happened in the past year but it did happen the other day. When Isaiah doesn't eat enough dinner then he wakes up uncomfortably hungry. So hungry that he will cry and get worked up enough to vomit . It's almost predictable when it will happen, because the morning Isaiah throws up is right after the night Isaiah refuses to eat more than a couple bites of his dinner. But this time it was a bit different. Katie made a delicious sweet potato/apple/sausage dish (Paleo friendly) and the kids loved it. We all gobbled it down and made satisfied lip-smacking sounds as we finished off the last couple bites. Katie was impressed. Usually the kids don't respond this enthusiastically about eating unfamiliar dishes. So Katie didn't think anything of it when she put them to bed that night. They ate their portions and seemed content with their dinner. Later that night, when I got home from rehearsal, the first thing I did was grab a sna...

WLC Day #12 The dietary restrictions are no longer the big issue for me with this Whole Life Challenge. In fact, I feel like I am tasting things more fully and appreciating fruits as being far sweeter than I ever thought they were before. Now the big issue is finding the time to do the exercise, stretching, and reflecting. If I don't tell my schedule what I want to do and when I want to do it, it will tell me.  That is the big challenge I am currently working on. How to plan and schedule my day in such a way that I am the one in control, instead of being at the mercy of the loudest demands on my time. I need to get better at portioning off time and spending my time well on specific activities during those time frames. Any bright ideas out there that have drastically helped you?

WLC Day #10 My truck needs the front windshield wiper replaced. It isn't awful yet, I just am aware that it needs to be done sooner than later. But I'm also aware that the sooner I replace it, the sooner it will wear out; and the sooner the new one wears out, the sooner I will need to buy yet another wiper blade. So, if I wait to buy a new one until it is absolutely  necessary, I actually will end up saving myself a little bit of money. For that matter, if I choose to delay buying everything that isn't a need  by one day, I will have one extra day's worth of money in my bank account at all times. If I delay buying something for 2 full weeks, then that gives me an extra 2 weeks to save money before my buying frenzy begins. And chances are, if I develop the habit of waiting 2 weeks, I can also manage to wait 4 weeks, or 4 months, or not have to buy that thing at all. Buy practicing not spending my money in small steps, I can practice saving my money in small steps. ...

WLC Day #9 Yesterday our family celebrated a Sabbath rest. We do this every Saturday: we play, rest, and wrestle (and indulge in sweet foods). We know that we aren't commanded to keep the Sabbath in the same way that Jews are--we Gentiles aren't under the same Levitical laws that Jews must keep. But we also know that God's yoke is easy and His burden is light, and that keeping His commands is for our own good. So though we don't have  to keep the law of Sabbath, we still keep it because we know it is for our own benefit. There are many laws that God gives us throughout the Old and New Testaments. Living on this side of the cross we know that Jesus has forgiven our lawlessness and that grace abounds; we don't have  to keep the law anymore because every time we break God's law, grace covers our brokenness. Romans 6:1-2, 15; 7:12 What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?   2  By no means! We are those who have died to sin; ...