There's so much going on in my life right now. The most pressing being church camp quickly approaching next week. There is so much to do, lessons to plan, music to prepare, skits to put together, camp fires to get ready for, and plenty of other things on top of that. Most things are pretty well lined up, but there's always more stuff to work on. Then I'm taking classes right now full time so I have all of that work that I have to work on. I'm behind on my school work so that's some added stress. On top of all of that I leave in about three weeks. Whew, that's alot and I'm not even mentioning all the other things that just come with life.
You'd think with all of that I'd be here fully present here and now. Funny thing is that I'm not. I'm constantly dreaming about one year from now (when I come back from Iraq) and even two years from now (seminary). The problem is that I need to be here now. I have to earn a degree before I move onto seminary, I have to get through church camp in less than a week. It's getting tougher for me to stay focused on things. I'm easily distracted. I don't want to be this way, but I find it hard to change.
In other news I truly am enjoying my time before I leave. We built the cabin last week (pictures coming soon) and I've been spending time with Karyn. The next three weeks should be very fun, I'm looking forward to them.
So Justin made a comment on my last post about building that cabin that sparked a really funny memory.
The year was 2000 (?) and we had several of us were camping in Selbyville. If I remember correctly it was a church related trip (that didn't turn out at all like we had planned). One thing you have to know about Selbyville and my brother is that when he was in high school anytime he went back to camp he had to bring camo that covered him head to toe. I mean facepaint, leaves sticking out of him, the whole nine yards. Well he was standing inside the cabin (the one we're replacing) and he leans up against a cabinet. Now leaning up against a cabinet isn't unusual, but what happened next is. A mouse jumped from the top of the cabin and went right down the sleeve on Matt's long sleeve camo shirt. He started jumping around and yelling like a crazy person yelling something about a mouse in his shirt. To make it even better he had his shirt tucked in so before you know it he was taking off his pants and rolling around on the floor because the mouse had travelled from his shirt all the way to his pants.
That memory is hands down one of the funniest things that I've ever seen.
For years my brother and I have talked of building a new cabin in Selbyville, WV. It's where our great grandmother used to live but now we just use it as a retreat, or simply camp as everyone calls it. Well after years of dreaming my Dad is finally onboard so it's actually happening. This week the whole family will be in Selbyville to build the new cabin.
I leave tonight, and when I get back I'll be sure to post some pictures. I'm really excited about getting away for the week. It should be a great time.
So I have this knot in my stomach that just won't go away. Sometimes I can forget about it while I'm reading, or when I first wake up in the morning before I get oriented to where I am or what I'm doing. It's driving mecrazy to tell you the truth. I'm about one month away from my deployment. Last night I dreamed that instead of going to Iraq we actually ended up going to Virginia Beach like I did before. I'm only lucky enough for that to happen once so I'm sure that I've used up all of my good fortune. I'm not too afraid to go, just anxious. I don't want to leave my wife for a year. She's been gone this week and I feel like I've just been wallowing in self pity with out her around. It's tough to imagine what a year is going to be like. I think I've gotten a small taste of what it will be like for Karyn this week and it's not very fun. Sitting around waiting on her to call, not hearing from her for extended periods of time, and not having much time with her when we do get to talk.
So this knot of mine. I don't think it's going away for a while so I think I should get used to it. The problem is that it's almost incapacitating. I find it hard to do anything, and it's even harder to care. It's certainly that I don't care, it's just hard to feel like I care. There's so much going on and I just wish that I could fast forward to a year from now. Since that's not possible I guess I'll have to take it as it comes. In the days and weeks to come I hope I can get rid of this knot.
It all hit me one day while I was running on the treadmill at work. Usually the TV gets tuned into CMT, which is not the most conducive thing to watch to working out. It just seems that country music doesn't seem to get me to pumped up to work out. This day was no different than any other day. I wasn't paying much attention to the TV until a Kenny Chesney (I know, don't judge me) song caught my attention. He was in what looked like a small town in Mexico. As I was running on the treadmill I was thinking how great would it be to be able to live in Mexico for a year if I wanted too. I often have dreams like that. Dreams of traveling the country, living in a cabin, moving to Oregon, or becoming a whitewater rafting guide. The next thing that pops into my mind when I have these dreams is the reasons that I can't do those things. Car payments, a mortgage, and student loans all demand a payment from me every month. I don't thinking being a hermit or a mountain man pays much. This dream was a little different however because I started thinking, "What if I didn't have those bills?". Such a simple thought but it opened up a whole new possibility for me.
I began looking at all of the bills that Karyn and I had and crunching the numbers. I read a few personal finance blogs thesimpledollar.com and getrichslowly.com and found the debt snowball. You can read more about it here. I started my figures using February 2012 as the date that I wanted to have all of our bills paid off because that's the time frame that my enlistment ends with the West Virginia National Guard. The idea of not having to stay in the guard appealed to me. If 2012 came and I wanted to stay in it would be because I wanted to, not because I had to.
With the news of the deployment however the plan has been adjusted. Karyn and I's plan is to have the majority of our bills paid off by the time that I come back from Iraq. This opens up a world of opportunities to us, especially when we look at moving to attend seminary. The thought of being debt free is liberating. It certainly isn't the answer to all our obstacles, but it will go a long way into making the road so much smoother.
So the 2012 plan is for me is less about money than it is about freedom. Freedom to live my life more simply and be able to enjoy my wife, my family, my vocation, and all the things in between. So here's to the 2012 plan and the freedom it offers.
When I found out I was going to be deployed I made a list of things that I wanted to do before I left. My list included going on vacation with Karyn, building a cabin (more to come on that), watching the Mountaineers, you know real important stuff. Another thing on my list was to see The Avett Brothers in concert. If you've never heard of The Avett Brothers you're really missing out. They had been touring with Dave Matthews, but I wanted to see them as the main event. As I was looking around only one date worked in Karyn and mine's schedule. The only problem was that it was at a college in Kentucky and it was being advertised as for students only. I emailed a few people and after pulling the Iraq card got the thumbs up to go to the concert. It's about a five hour drive to the college so we were going to spend the night Friday and come home on Saturday. I didn't want to pay for a hotel room so Karyn and I tossed around the idea of camping, but I thought the weather might not work out for us. Then I remembered couchsurfing.org. If you're not familiar with couch surfing it's pretty simple. You register and offer to host someone in your home who will be in the area. Well we're adventurous so we decided to go for it. I logged on and found Laura who graciously agreed to host us. Laura lives in Wilmore KY and I knew that Asbury Seminary was there. I've wanted to attend seminary for a while and I've been looking into different online, and intensive programs so that I could take classes and continue to work. I thought that since we were in the area maybe we should try to get a tour of the seminary. When I asked Laura (who works at Asbury College, across the street) she said she could give us a tour.
Laura grabbed her neighbor Wes (who just happened to be coming home when we pulled into town) and asked if he could give us a tour and he agreed. Now you should know that I had a preconceived notion of what Asbury would be like and what the students would be like. I pictured a stuffy atmosphere with people walking around in shirts and ties wearing penny loafers talking about how great John Wesley was. Not my type of crowd. Wes totally blew any of those stereotypes out of the water. He had bushy beard (I'm jealous) and wore cut off shorts and sandals. He gave us a great tour of the facilities and answered all the questions that Karyn and I had. To top it all off the weather was amazing and spring was in full swing. We talked long about church and about the hope that can be found there. Wes, Laura, Karyn and I had many of the same critiques and dreams and thoughts. It was wonderful. I started wondering what I would miss out on if I didn't attend seminary full time. Too often I spread myself to thin.
On the trip home Karyn and I started talking about what attending seminary full time might look like. It's an exciting thing to be thinking about. One positive thing about the deployment is that the educational incentives that I'll received after the deployment will be enough to pay for seminary, however I choose to do it. This much I know for sure is that I want to attend seminary, and I want to be involved in ministry as a vocation. I have no passion for Military Pay. As Karyn and I wade through all of the options in front of us I pray that we can do it with an open mind and with a faithful heart.
Alot has happened in the last six months since I've posted anything here. I seem to go in waves, however I've had alot things that I wanted to blog about, but was just too involved in other endeavors to make it happen.
The biggest is that I'm going to Iraq for a year at the end of July. I found out the Friday before Valentine's Day and have been reacting to that news ever since. I've joked with people that it's difficult to care about much else; maybe that's why I haven't blogged much. I leave July 29th. I'll blog pretty regular here just for my own enjoyment and for anyone who wants to know what's new.
Karyn and I have been trying to make the most of the time that we have together before I leave. We've gone away for a week of vacation, we're headed to Selbyville next week with the family to build the new cabin and we're going to church camp in a couple of weeks.
I have tons of other stuff that share, Seminary plans, deployment plans, books I've read, great conversations I've had, but those will have to wait for another day. Check back because I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat.
I just got back from a good night at youth, even with the weather it was a good crowd of kids. I just sat down and started playing the very first CD that I ever bought, Pearl Jam: Vs (1993). Actually I'm listening to the mp3's I downloaded recently. It sounds as good as I remember.
It's funny because I can remember listening to that CD for the first time very distinctly. I had just saved up and bought a CD player, I plotted for months on how I could save the money to buy one. I did all the research spent $40 bucks on a CD player you could get today for maybe $10. For any seventh grader with his first CD player the pressing question is what CD should you buy first? My taste in music wasn't quite as refined as it is now, but I still managed to pick a great CD. I probably chose it because I saw alot of Pearl Jam T-shirts at school. So I bought my first CD, Vs. It must have been the weekend because I was sleeping downstairs by the stove, we had a wood burner then, and listened to the entire CD. I remember reading all of the lyrics, checking out all the pictures on the cover. I was blown away by this new sound, these new ideas. Simply beautiful. There is no one with a voice like Eddie Vedder, no one.
I'll leave any readers that I may still have with a clip from one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, Daughter. Enjoy.
Here are a couple of new videos that I've done. Check them out. I'm most proud of the music.
We did the annual Scavenger Hung at church last Sunday night. There were over 200 pictures to go thru afterward but I did pick the most creative. Check it out.
What makes this picture so great is something you can't see. Ryan drew in a little Duddley Doright mustache. Classic.
I went to the chairopractor yesterday and he "fixed" me. I say "fixed" because I know I'm better than I was, but I'm still not good. I still grimace when I'm getting up and down and Karyn is still waiting on me hand and foot. She's been very good to me, but I suspicious that she may expect me to treat her the same when she's sick. I don't know about that.
I was hoping to take tomorrow off to test out my new meat smoker but I can't do that since I've already missed some work this week. Some time soon though. When I do it'll be a feast.
Over the weekend at my office they did some remodeling. When I came in on Monday morning there were walls missing, furniture rearranged, and dust over everything. The word on the street is we're getting new furniture in the near future. Until then however we've got the old stuff.
So yesterday I was attempting to put my desk back to a state of normalcy and I decided that I would lift heavy things by myself. I had just picked up one piece of furniture about a foot off the ground when my back suddenly disagreed with the action that I was taking. I dropped the now incredibly heavy object and proceeded to walk around like an old man. I ended up going home early yesterday and today I'm laying around thinking that I wished my back would stop hurting. I'm going to the doctor today, maybe he'll give me some magic pills to stop the pain.....we'll see.
Yesterday afternoon I got to be a part of a great milestone for JJ. JJ came to church camp this year and was incredible, especially since it was his first year. Shortly after he told me he wanted to be baptized, but he wanted to wait until his cast came off because he wanted all of him to be baptized. So on Sunday night I saw him and asked if he still wanted to get baptized. He said yes and we decided to do it the next night. JJ's family and some friends came out and it was incredible. The afternoon was perfect. JJ truly is a great person and I'm so excited to see what the future holds for him. Below are a few pictures from the baptism.
JJ and I (Karyn didn't tell me she was taking a picture)
Matching Chaco's how cute.
JJ trying to decide if he trusted me.
A few weeks ago Karyn and I went camping at Dolly Sods and hiked a couple of trails. Below are a few pictures from the Sods. It was a great weekend. We both want to go back soon, maybe we'll catch it again in the fall.
