the vomit vigil

• approx 7:30, Holls loses her dinner...followed by lunch and anything else she ate/drank today.
• between 8-9, Holls continues her chunky festival a few more times for good measure
• It's around 9:15 or so that Kelly and I realize it's going to be a really long night.
• 10:00, she's spewed again, this time in the bed...time to change the sheets!
• approx 11, it's officially a party and HUDs all in this time!  Here we go baby!...wake him up, kell gives him a quick bath, I change every thread of his bedding, we give him some juice, watch a couple of his favorite coldplay performances, and he's back in bed
• But wait!...it's 12:15 and KELLY, you're the next contestant on Vomit your eyes out! 

       yeeeeaaaaahhhhh boy.

• and now it's 12:30, and I'm sitting here thinking..."am I just a ticking timebomb??"

church

The Help

Saw The Help last night.  I didn't read the book, but my wife did.  It's kind of hard to say it was a "good movie" seeing as the subject matter is so difficult, disturbing, and upsetting.  I feel more appropriate saying it was really moving.  Impactful.  Life disturbing (as in abrubtly shakes up everything you've set up in your mind, kind of like a snow globe) in a good way.  Growing up in the South, this movie hit me on multiple levels and I'm glad I saw it.  I would highly reccomend it.   

In other news, I've been working all week on a kids kitchen play set.  Finishing today.  What I love so much is that I made it from scratch out of trash wood, pallets that were being thrown away or left to rot.  Seems appropriate after watching The Help to see the beauty in what some are throwing away or treating like trash.  Here's a sneak peak...

And can you believe it...today I'm not sure that it got up to 100 degrees!!!  In the middle of everything, if we don't stop to thank the Almighty for our nice day which was proceeded by rain last night, then I think we're missing the point. Who knows, maybe tomorrow it will snow.

One Day I Could See It (Lyrical Tuesdays)

OK, kidding.  I've not decided to make every Tuesday "Lyrical", but posting these lyrics today is what I'd like to share.  A side note to this song is that my son and I have jammed on our acoustic guitars countless times to this tune.  He loves it.  Of course what happens is I end up playing the song and singing the lyrics and Hud stands there with his guitar doing his best interpretation of one of the Avett Brothers (the taller one....we saw them on the grammys and hud was hooked).

Anyhow, here's most of the lyrics:

Head Full of Doubt
There’s a darkness upon me that’s flooded in light
In the fine print they tell me what’s wrong and what’s right
And it comes in black and it comes in white
And I’m frightened by those that don’t see it


When nothing is owed, deserved or expected
And your life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected
If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it

There was a dream and one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid with a head full of doubt
So I’ll scream til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out......


A Head Full of Doubt??  Oh yes, that's been me.  "What am I doing?".  "How stupid could I be?".  "This idea to make furniture for love, it will never work!"

But as I let go of these nagging questions, I see it clearly. It's not about the furniture, it's not about the practicalities. It's about letting go and stepping into this mysterious unknown step by step, letting The Mystery lead us the whole way, and not worrying about what it will all turn out to be.  And in doing that...we're the bird once in a cage, but now set free.

Oh, and as far as jamming with my son, Hud and I have moved on to Coldplay. (sorry avett bros, we still love yall) So it's all Politik and Viva La Vida now!! We're just doing our best to get ready for their new release this fall...bring it!! 

Wait!...bonus lyrics.  I find myself walking around the house singing "If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway, would you have my baby?"...Kelly hasn't started picking up the duet part yet, but I'm giving it time.

a shared life

It was well over a year ago that i started my first blog.  It felt like a good idea at the time, but i wasn't sure why.  Because i didn't know the "why?" i really lost interest.  I was a sporadic blogger at best.  Oddly enough during the time that I was "sporadically" blogging, i probably had the most consistent stream of life changing events flowing through me than i can imagine in recent memory. i was in a new city, my young family was growing, i was working a job as a salesman (something I personally never wanted to be), i pastored a small church plant (again, although a great experience, something in life that never really matched up with who i really wanted to be, but this one was way better than the salesman thing although I was doing them at the same time!), i was struggling with my own personal identity....obviously!, i was meeting with my mentor and being led into real life (through death mind you, but that's a post for another day), and i was inching closer and closer to realizing my dreams and deciding to go for them, because if they were put in me by The Creator I was learning that was enough. Writing that out helps me see why i kept up with my blog so poorly! Kind of had a lot going on.

Well, that begging question of "why?" was answered recently. And the answer....me!  I need to write it out.  I need to share it.  Although, now this is important, you don't have to read it!  I just have to share it, because a shared life is Van Gogh hanging in a gallery for all to see.  But a life not shared is a Van Gogh hidden in an attic.  And each life, afterall, is a Van Gogh, a Picasso, a Mozart....you name it. why not share them?

Well i realized one reason why i'm hesitant to share my own life.  Judgement.  But not just any garden variety judgement....MY judgement!  Yes it is true, if i know you, i have judged you.  Good or bad.  And to think of you placing the same harsh judgement on me...well that's horrifying and paralyzing, but only until i lay down the judgement, and once i do i fear nothing.  The harshest critic, the loudest voice yelling "you're crazy and stupid", the eagle eye picking apart my every move...they move me not because i am starving those voices, letting them be (thank you J.S. for the Beautiful Mind analogy).

So here we go!  Follow if you like, or don't. No worries!  I'll be over here sharing my life...for me really. Getting it out.  Letting it go.  Don't get me wrong, I'd love for you to be encouraged, inspired, moved, entertained, whatever, but it's ok if your not.

So let me share a quick bit and them I'm out for today. Recently, as in the end of April 2011, I quit my job, my good paying job. Why?  Because i wasn't being true to me.  What else, i started building furniture in my garage because i love it, and i started a small company with my wife.  We make things with our hands with the hope that as we do we'll have opportunity to give away love in the form of tables and beds.  Yes we sell our stuff, but when we sell, we also give away (i.e. toms shoes).  This is our dream.  It's even bigger than that, but I'll just start there today.  But even with all of that, that's not really the main thing we are doing.  The "main thing" you ask?....we're letting go.  Dying.  We're giving up.  There's a way we've personally helped create here on planet Earth which involves climbing to the top, making and keeping as much money as possible, aquiring as much stuff as you possibly can, relentless competing, gamesmanship, manipulation, selling, and stealing....and well, it just hasn't worked for us.  And yes I've personally tried ALL of those with quite dissappointing results.

But on the other hand, there's another way.  There's this mysterious unknown begging us all to explore it.  And we're stepping into it.  With our whole life.  And I'm going to share it.

The Way We Were Meant To Live

(Originally posted on my old blog in August of 2010)

It's not everyday things make sense. Like today, or actually this whole week, for instance...kinda confused really. But there has been clarity recently. I knew months ago i was supposed to build a table for a family in philly. I don't know them. May never meet them. But this table is meant for them. A good friend says they need it.

Months have gone by and life, death, self pity, and a heavy dose of complete confusion about what im doing with my days (work wise that is) are my excuses for a pile of wood sitting in the garage. Oh yeah, and an absolutely cluttered and messy garage which i could not work in.

Well, clarity arrived at my door and here's what it said... "just build the table, ship it to philly, and go from there." The great thing is that the "clarity" really goes against what makes sense in this world. For crying out loud the shipping on this table alone to Philly may cost more than just buying a table online at IKEA and having it delivered probably for free! But that's not what clarity told me to do. So i'm going with the still small voice on this one. Screw everything else "rational" and thank God for a wife who supports my interpretation of that voice...no matter how crazy it sounds.

So ok. I cleaned the garage. And last weekend i started building. Soon a family will get a table to sit around and have a chance in life to do something they were truly meant to. Living like we were meant to. For me, the "meant to" is sitting around the table with your family more times a week than you don't, it's kids sitting at the table with mom or dad or a tutor sharpening their young minds. It's stories being told and heard. It's a late night cheesecake slice around that same table when you just need to talk (thank you Golden Girls). This family didn't have a table to do that at. Now they will.
Peace!
c

Love for Ray

Leave it up to Ray Lamontange to write a song that I'm living. Clearly, I'm not alone. Thanks Ray.

Growing Old Before Your Time
When I was a younger man, lookin' for a pot of gold
Everywhere I turned the doors were closed
It took every ounce of faith I had to keep on keepin' on
And still I felt like I was only losin'
I refused then like I do now to let anybody tie me down
I lost a few good friends along the way
I was raised up poor and I wanted more
And maybe I'm a little too proud
Lookin' back I see a kid was just afraid
Hungry and old before his time

Through the years I've known my share of broken hearted fools
And those who couldn't choose a path worth taking
There's nothin' in the world so sad as talking to a man
Who never knew his life was his for making
Ain't it about time you realize it's not worth keepin' score
You win some, you lose some, you let it go
What's the use of stacking on every failure, another stone
Till you find you've spent your whole life building walls
Lonely and old before your time

It took so long to see
That truth was all around me

Now the wren has gone to roost, the sky is turnin' gold
And like the sky my soul is also turnin'
Turning from the past, at last and all I left behind
Could it be that I am finally learnin'?
Learnin' I'm deserving of love and the peaceful heart
Won't tear myself apart no more for tryin'
Tired of lyin' to myself, tryin' to buy what can't be bought
It's not livin' that you're doin' if it feels like dyin'

Cryin', growin' old before your time
Cryin', growin' old before your time