Twenty-Ten

Twenty-ten, I really wanted the mob mentality to adopt "oh-ten" because it's different.

Different is the word I want to embrace for this year. This year is going to be different. This year we have a baby for the entire year. This year we're going to sell our house and live some where different. I hopefully will have a different job! I want to be challenged in a different way spiritually. I want to be different in the way I impact people.

I, like many people, have chosen to live life among people who don't have a relationship with Christ in hopes that they see Christ in me by the way I live my life. I didn't want to be weird enough to turn them off to Christ but the idea was to impact them by showing them Christ's love. What ended up happening is, I wasn't different enough to make them realize I wasn't just a "nice guy." I didn't impact them enough to show them Christ has something bigger than being an American or voting Republican or Democrat.

This next part is going to sound weird but I can't stop it and as hard as I've tried, have never been able to stop it. I have grown up knowing I was designed to make an impact in the world. If you say that to people, they instantly think you want to be rich, famous, a celebrity, or crazy and some people think you're immature and vain. All my life I've listened to people tell me some of those things. I believed the ones I wanted to believe and decided to seek after them. When I accepted Christ, I realized that impacting the world had nothing to do with impacting the world the way most people think. I figured out that I could be those things or not be those things yet still make an impact in the world.

I have been involved in things big and small that make an impact, but right now I go to work, I go to church, I go home and do it over and over and over again. I might make an impact occasionally but not how I was designed. My job does not fit my personality but it does fit my skill-set. My job does not let me impact the world for Christ that fills the desire of my heart. In the church, I'm not involved in a way that makes a real impact in myself or others that meets the needs of my soul. My home, my stuff, my hobbies keep the money I have been allotted from impacting others they way my heart desires. The weight of this pressure from not doing what I was designed to do keeps me from being the person, husband and father I desire to be.

So this year is going to be different. I want a different job, one that allows me to impact people daily. Impact them in a way that makes them ask, "WHY?!" Church, job, prayer, reading, worship, money, things and relationships are going to change. Twenty-ten is going to be different, it has to be different because we're not on the right track. We're not doing what we were called to do; impact the world for Christ is my desire.

Atlanta, Georgia by morning

Ok so I just spent the last day driving to Atlanta Georgia, and after 16 hours away from home we made it to a hotel to sleep and then continue driving the remaining 2 hours.

I hate driving, I usually only drive as far as Amarillo. Then I either don't go or fly there. I used to love driving but after a while it just ends up becoming a mind-numbing experience. So you end up become one of two different types of people. The guys who "try to make good time" and get there as fast as possible or the Clark Griswold types who enjoy the locals, the sencery and their families. I'm more of the Griswold type, because I don't want to have the mind-numbing lets just push on through to the next stop. I usually stop twice on the way to D/FW, once for Kolaches in West and then in Hillsboro or Waxahacie(sp.)

What makes this trip interesting is my parents gave me a TomTom for Christmas. I thought I would never use it, but I love it. The information it gives you is great and fits right into my number crunch personality. That coupled with the fact that everyone traveling with me was pretty much sleeping 60% of the time. I became the other person... I made them take pictures from the car, I kept asking them if they thought they could hold it for another 30 minutes. Thankfully we're traveling with another group and they forced me to slow down and enjoy at least meals rather than just the snacks we had.

So today we'll finish our trip and start enjoying some great teaching and great worship at the Passion conference. I'm kind of sad that I'm not going to see my wife and baby but sometimes what's best isn't what you want. Hopefully the trip back will be faster!

Let's be realistic here

When I was in high school the first week of x-country practice was really hard. You go from not really running to running 10-12 miles per day. So by the end of the first week, you hurt. All over, your biceps, your abs, your shoulders, your neck and those are the things that just swing, you can imagine what your legs are like. While I was in High School I discovered a secret to beat all this.

Protein shakes! Sure they don't taste great, but being someone who likes to cook I doctored them up into something delicious! I made protein shake root beer floats, with cookies-n-cream ice cream because that's my favorite, or if I didn't have root beer then a Protein shake malts.

Annnnddd... They were amazing you could literally feel the soreness go away. I would drink 5 serving per day. Sure maybe it was placebo, but it worked and they were a whopping 3000 calories but I am pretty sure we were burning that during our workouts. Anyway, it was like an ace in the hole. Guys would be hurtin' but I would feel only mildly sore and I could finish the workouts hard.

SO fast forward to today. Yesterday I ran 5 miles for the first time in over a month. It was probably the 10-15th time I've run since the baby was born. I was sore, I could feel it the moment I got off the treadmill. It was that kind of sore that you instantly know you're gonna hurt tomorrow and makes you scared of the next 36 hours. So, I resorted to my old trick, though not as big because 3000 calories today will just make me fat. Within hours the soreness started receding, and this morning I feel 90%, today I'll run 5 miles again. It is part of my plan to shock my body and to at least get it ready to survive some of this 50k, but lets be realistic I'm gonna need a lot of protein shakes to recover from this dumb idea.

Christmas!

Well now we're far enough away from Christmas to start thinking of New Year's eve so before I forget I figured I would tell everyone about our Christmas day.

Christmas Excitement

I worked on Christmas Eve and when I went to lunch I saw an good deal on something I wanted to buy the wife, but the stores never had one because they were sold out due to a Thanksgiving sale they were struggling to maintain stock on. I thought I had found one and after a little negotiating (I never buy big items without at LEAST a 10% discount) I got the item at 15% off!! :-) There was however a catch, the store I bought it from was not the store where the item was located. Nevertheless, I was soooo excited, that I left work early at 2:30 to go pick up the item and return my wife's gift I had bought her, some boots. After returning the boots I headed to the store to pick up her new gift, and I was beaming with excitement!! I went up to the customer service desk to pick up my item only to be met with a disappointed clerk that said, there was a mistake and they didn't have the item in stock. Apparently, he explained, their computers only update twice per day and someone had purchased the item between the last and next update. :-(

Now Regret

So at this point my head is spinning on what to do. I now have NOTHING for Christmas... WHY did I take the boots back? Why did I do this on impulse? I thought in my head disaster! So I started thinking ok IF maybe there was a mistake to I started asking people, they checked the back of the store, nothing. There was a nicer gift in the same style as the one I purchased for her but it was more than twice what I paid for the one I THOUGHT I was getting! Hope was fading for a Happy Christmas for the wifey.

Not Really a Miracle

After trying to strike a deal with several people to purchase the more expensive gift and getting about 10% off. The manager got involved and this is where magical things started happening. At this point I am very close to being defeated. I know achieving the deal I want was probably not going to happen and I can't go back to the store and re-purchase the boots I just returned. So I asked the manager for a deal on the gift, but I told her if not can I just get an empty box for the display so that I don't just have a receipt on Christmas Day. Then when you get more in on Jan 5th I'll return the box and pick up my wife's gift. I know, I know, it sounded like a sad attempt to get a deal but it really wasn't and she seemed to be ignoring me anyway as she furiously typed in the computer. A few moments later she said, "Ok the best deal I can do is $, would you like to buy this?" I struggled to maintain composure because she gave me 30% off!!! I couldn't believe it. It was brand new, no open box, no returned item. Brand new!! As calm as I could, I politely said, "Yes!", and they processed my purchased and I ran out of there fearing they would change their minds. I love negotiating but sometimes you just get lucky.

The Real Fun

So Christmas Day I gave it to her with excitement and I think she loved it. However, I was surprised by what made the day for me. It was our baby scratching at the boxes with her little fingers, every once in a while catching the end of the wrapping paper and pulling a half-dollar size off. It was really great. She has no clue what was happening, or "the meaning of Christmas." But what she continues to show me, is if I love her as much as I do, and I enjoy watching her learn, play and explore and try new things. I cannot fathom God's love for me, for us. I have no explanation for why I don't trust His love as much as I want her to trust my love, especially knowing, I'll fail her, but He'll never fail anyone. The depth of His love is really something I'll never understand.

Seriously, I'm gonna die

and not in the, "We're all gonna die some day... blah blah blah!" I don't like to blog about the same thing repeatedly but seriously there is not stopping the approaching doom I'm about to face.

That whole schedule of running 5 miles per day and 1000 flight of stairs per day, it was just reality in my head, and while I was typing it out in the blog world. In the real world, it was cold this week, I was tired this week. I did not get up and run, I did not do anything. Oh wait that's not true, I just remember I did do something this week. I went on two short walks with the wife and kid(s), in our fancy BOB stroller that I bought to run with, but I'm sure it didn't do anything to counter-act the 1430 calories of my favorite type of candy (fruit jelly pure sugar kind) I received from Santa

I know what your thinking, "YIKES!! 1430 calories!!" But relax I didn't eat them in one day, it took me a full 36 hours to eat them all. That's only 40 calories an hour, unfortunately it amounts to almost 1/2 lb of fat no matter how you look at it.

So now you know why I'm so sure I'll die, and you know why I had to share with you again my failure to get back on the horse of physical torture they call endurance sports.

AHHHH!! Bandera 50k

OMG!! Really January 9th, might be the last day I'm alive. At best it might be the day I survived but lost any kind of status as an athlete.

I really haven't run in probably 4 weeks. Sad but true! And prior to that I had only run about 7 or 8 times since the baby arrived 6 months ago. If you miss a few days or even a week or two there isn't much difference that goes on in your body. Any perceived change is mostly mental. It takes more than 2 weeks to really start noticing an effect in your performance. Well for me it has been 6 months. I was supposed to compete in a 1/2 Ironman race the day the baby was born and can confidently say I was in the best shape of my life. Just under 6% body fat, able to swim more than 2 miles without stopping, bike 56miles maintaining a 21mph speed, and run a 1/2 marathon with a 7min/mile pace, all on the same day without a rest in between. NOW if I could just swim 2 miles, I'd be happy. I don't even want to bike 56 miles and when I ran the Rock-n-Roll 1/2 I was just happy it was over. But 50k is 31 miles and it is 31 miles of rough terrain, steep hills, and loose soil. I am sitting here thinking what was I thinking?!

The only good news is I've got a partner that is faster than me, which will help me push harder. I have a good idea and experience on how to handle my nutrition during the race and hopefully enough experience to know when to take it easy. We were supposed to do the 100k, but due to my partner's injury we're cutting it to the 50k so if anything I can just be glad I'm only doing half what we originally planned.

Here's what I'm thinking, I'm going to start running 5miles every day in the morning, and 1000 flights of stairs on the stair-treadmill thing at the gym. It might not do much but at least maybe I can shock my body back into shape. Pray for me!!

Teething!!

Ok so you hear stories about how teething is terrible and how the babies hate it. Well I can now say to other parents I feel your pain.

The baby is cutting teeth! The past week she just didn't seem like herself, we thought she was just tired from all the traveling we did. All the while people were saying, I think she's teething but we would feel her gums and look and we wouldn't see anything. This weekend pretty much everyone said, she's teething, but we would feel her gums, look and see nothing. Then last night, my mom and grandmother took one look at ther and said, she's teething!

My mom pulled her bottom lip back and NOTHING! Then she pulled her top lip up and there they were. 4 little teeth, clear as day! Turns out, I didn't know how to feel or look for teeth. I was looking in the wrong place. Someone should do a better job written how to check for teeth. I thought I was follow the directions correctly BUT I wasn't.

Anyway it was a huge relief because I was starting to think all this sleep loss had messed her up. Normally one good nap fixes all problems for miss Daisy, but not this time. So to have an explanation was good. Now hopefully we'll get through these teeth and have a few months before the bottom ones show up.