A Slower Pace

Today with snow still on the ground and temps not above freezing, I took the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite winter snow pasttimes — pulling the kids on the 4 wheeler. I’d rather not have snow on the ground for more than a day or two, otherwise I’d live in Minnesota. But if it is going to be on the ground, I might as well make something of it. So pulling the kids around is it.

We spent about 45 minutes in sub-zero (Celcius) temps. I circumnavigated the front yard over and over as the kids held on to the rope and slid around on their saucers, letting go on the whip turns and careening across the white lawn.

On one tour of the back property, I spotted 5 deer on the farm behind us. They jumped the fence and ended up about 20 yards ahead of us. Noticing that the kids had fallen and dropped the rope, I used the opportunity of no tow load to take off full speed after the deer. They took off across the field towards the sod farm behind us and soon I was about 10 yards behind them. They accelerated and it got to the point where my 4 wheeler could not make any ground on them. I did get a good look at them as they made their way to safety and they were beautifully prancing away. I looked down at my speedo and it said 34 miles an hour. They were quite speedy deer.

I returned to the kids, loaded them up on the rope and headed back to the front yard for more sledding fun.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

I woke up very early this morning so I could leave the house at 5:30am and serve breakfast down at Wayside Christian Mission as I have been doing every Friday lately (see this previous funny post on an earlier incident). My son put a small whiteboard outside of his door with the message for me on it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverence.” — James 1:2-3

Bye Dad – have a good day at work – love you

I am touched and know this will be a great Friday. I wish the readers of this the same.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

In my previous post, I wrote about sitting down to watch the Rose Bowl game. However, I ended up recording the last 8 minutes (which can last 30 in football time) because I was having family movie night with the kids. The movie to be cued was “Facing The Giants”. The internet movie database sums it up like this — A losing coach with an underdog football team faces their giants of fear and failure on and off the field to surprising results.

So the kids and I head down to our almost finished basement (which only needs a ceiling) to watch “movie style”. For all you parents out there, this is a good movie for your kids and family. There is no language to worry about and no challenging or compromising scenes. Unfortunately the MPAA gave it a PG rating due to what they called football violence and “adult” situations of infertility. Ugh! Give me a break. Which means every Sunday the NFL would get a PG rating — maybe more due to the cheerleader close ups (which I am not opposed to, by the way). But I digress. It seems the MPAA might have been intimidated by the heavy spiritual overtones of the movie.

For believers, the movie is a great reminder of where we need to place our faith, what our role is, and what we are called to do. For those of you on the fence about Jesus or do not believe, you might think this is just a warm, fuzzy feel good story, but don’t dismiss it so quickly. You see, when I finished watching the movie I sat down to finish watching the TCU/Wisconsin Rose Bowl game and noticed a few parallels. I noticed a smaller, private, Christian school battling with a much larger, repeat Rose Bowl attendee. TCU has never been to the Rose Bowl; Wisconsin has been 6 times with 3 victories (not counting yesterday’s game). This truly was a David vs. Goliath match up.

And yet, TCU was able to compete, survive, and win! I watched the last half of the game and it was exciting and entertaining. And to hear TCU quarterback Andy Dalton quote a Bible verse in his after game victory interview on mainstream TV was awesome. The verse quoted by Andy Dalton was:

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” – 1 Peter 5:6

So if you missed yesterday’s Rose Bowl, you can get a similar story by watching the movie “Facing The Giants”. Even if you saw the Rose Bowl, I suggest putting the movie on your “to watch” list. And make sure to share it with your kids.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This morning, rather than working at work, I was on “vacation” working at home. I was determined to finish the last mile of our 4 year basement finishing project. The basement has been very functional however one last section of it is cluttered, has become a dumping group, and needs finishing touches like paint, trim, and a ceiling.

So I started by hitting our local Walmart/Lowes center. While at Walmart picking up a few things I decided to ask the clerk how her Christmas was. She was talkative and said she really enjoyed it with family. It was her little neice’s first Christmas which made it special. She is very close to “Daisy” and it seems like she has a larger, close family.

The next stop was Lowe’s for paint. After several grueling rounds with my wife on paint color which included negotiation, paint swatches, paint samples, and wall painting, we had come to an agreeable color. They say opposites attract and it is clearly evident in our selection of decor and choices. If she said black, I would say white. If she said plaid, I would say solid. If she said light, I would say dark. Need I say more? So it was a victory for both of us that I was even standing at the paint counter with an agreed-upon selection.

While at the paint counter, I chatted with the countergirl. As at Walmart, I asked how her Christmas was. She was not so positive as the Walmart cashier. She just said “Uh, it was tolerable”.

I asked her what would have made it better. She replied that if members of her family would stop alienating each other and picking fights, it might be a nice time. It seems her dad passed away 2 years ago and there is still a lot of pain and anger. Her family is not dealing with it well and is taking it out on each other.

I told her that I would pray for her family and for healing. She thanked me as she gave me my paint cans. As I was walking to the cashier, the Lowes and Walmart employee stories reminded me of a video I posted a few weeks ago where the guy starts his day with a bad attitude and is grumpy but gets a pair of “compassion” glasses and sees labels on everyone he sees about what they are going through. While we can’t wear those glasses literally, we can definitely take a few moments throughout our day to talk with folks and possibly learn what labels they have, what burdens they are carrying, and how we might be able to love them. If you haven’t seen the video, go check it out — http://www.aslowerpace.net/?p=1012.

Upon exiting Lowes, the sliding doors separated to reveal a glorious crisp new day with the sun just peeking over the horizon bathing the area with orange light. I had lots to accomplish but already the day was off to a great start. I ended up getting all the painting and trim work completed thanks to help from my middle daughter K who stuck with me in the basement all day. It was hard work but I treated her to her favorite — Graeter’s Ice Cream, after my wife and I took her to dinner at our local BBQ Mark’s Feed Store.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

On the way home from the Lights Under Louisville the other night we swung by the grocery store. My middle daughter K was with our family friends spending the night with their girls so we only had my son D and older daughter R with us. My wife and R went in to get things we needed and D and I stayed in the truck.

Upon returning, my wife and R were talking about the cute cashier guy or something like that. D picked up on the conversation and named him “Brian”. He then started to tease R and sang the teasing kid song which I am sure you are familiar with. However, he butchered the last part of it which cracked us all up.

He started with…..
“R and Brian,
sitting in a tree,”
here’s where it gets funny. Instead of “K – I – S – S – I – N – G”, he said,
“H, I, J, K, LMNOP”

We all cracked up and he thought he was funny…..until we told him why we were laughing and that he butchered the last part.

It’s the simple things in life, I guess. I still chuckle about it.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Normally this time of year our tradition has been to drive around a local neighborhood and look at Christmas lights while enjoying coffee and hot chocolate. This year, however, we tried something new. First, we met up with some family friends for dinner at a local pizza place. The kids all had a good time and the food and conversation was enjoyable.

Afterwards, instead of aimlessly navigating around a strange neighborhood on a wild goose chase looking for visual jackpots of Christmas lights, we went to “Lights Under Louisville”. You see, there is a megacavern under the zoo. It was an underground rock quarry that was also developed into a civil defense site during the cold war. They have over 3 million square feet of cavern-ness and they decorated an automobile path for Christmas. While the admission price of $25 a vehicle was steep, I really liked the fact that all I had to do was put the Tahoe in drive and idle along following the vehicle ahead of me. No meandering, no searching, no wild goose chase, no whining that there are no lights — just a 20-30 minute trail of lighted holiday goodness out each side of the truck. And it was nice and warm in there too — a constant 61 degrees displayed on the truck mirror in contrast to the 25F outside. And they had a Christmas music soundtrack blaring all throughout the caverns which added to the Christmas cheer.

It was Christmas light extravaganza one-stop-shopping. Below are some pix that K took.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This afternoon my daughter K had a piano recital. She has one in late spring and for Christmas every year. Her teacher is a very talented and creative person who is good with kids and mixes it up by having formal recitals at her church, informal “coffee shop” recitals at her studio, and community “give back” recitals at the local Masonic home.

Today the recital was at the Masonic home. It was nice because, not only did the kids get to perform their musical piano pieces, but the elderly residents were able to enjoy the seasonal musical pieces. K played two songs — “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Carol Of The Bells”. And her rendition of “Carol Of The Bells” was one of the best I have ever heard. I love the song and she did a wonderful job and it made my day to hear her.

One of the funny things I whispered to my wife during the 2 hour recital was around the keyboard. You see, they did not have a full size piano, but rather an electronic keyboard. The piano teacher was changing the sound output between each song so it did not always sound like a piano. She was partial to strings, organ and woodwind. And she did this because you can only hear “Jingle Bells” on the piano so many times. Changing the sounds mixes it up and extends the audience’s tolerances to little kids pounding through their piano songs. K used to be there a few years ago but she is at the end of the program now rather than the beginning. And her songs are now more than one stanza. But back to my funny.

I leaned over to my wife and said how cool would it be if the piano teacher selected the electronic dog sound. Think “Jingle Bells” barked out — Arf, arf, arf arf, arf, arf arf, arf, arf, arf, arrrrrf. Or the “moo” of a cow. Or even better, how ’bout the cool helicopter sound. THAT sure would have livened up the recital. Anyway, since that didn’t happen, the highlight was my daughter’s “Carol Of The Bells”.

K, you sure did a wonderful job and I am so proud of you!

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

I was blessed enough to take my daughters to a Matthew West and Josh Wilson concert tonight. I have more to blog about but I wanted to immediately post lyrics to an impactful song Matthew West played called “Two Houses”. It is about divorce from a child’s perspective. Any couples thinking about that as an option for them need to hear this song first.

Two Houses
Matthew West

But tonight my heart has finally found a home

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

My son recently started playing flag football. I have been spending time with him teaching him the different aspects of the game I love. We have been out throwing the pigskin, talking about professional football teams, and discussing the game basics.

So this evening, my son has been by my side watching the Saints-Niners Monday Night Football game. I used the DVR to stop plays, point out play development (fakes to the running back, long passes to receivers, etc) and discuss the hard concept of first downs. Now, remember, he is 10. And now with my guidance, he knows more about some of the basics than I did at his age.

While he and I were watching the game, the TV cameras panned the crowd. Someone in the crowd had the traditional “D” fence sign. My daughter turned to me and asked “What is D gate?”.

I cracked up and had to explain to her that the “gate” part was a fence and to try saying it. She said “D – fence” and then smiled knowing the innocent mistake she made. And then, of course, my son had to jump in and give her a hard time chanting “D-gate”, “D-gate”, “D-gate”.

I laughed again. Pretty funny.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Now that Fall is officially here (as assessed by the falling leaves, not the calendar or weather) our family has been in full swing of our daily, weekly and monthly calendars. We have had so much going on lately that my wife made the comment today that we were not doing a slower pace. And her observation is very accurate. Below was what was on tap each day last week.

Monday – wife’s Bible study and evening Emmaus Formation (she is preparing for the October women’s walk where she is on the agape team)
Tuesday – Scouts
Wednesday – church youth group
Thursday – football practice
Friday – football game

And this last Saturday we had a college visit for R to Georgetown College, had to drop off my son for an overnight Scout campout at Taylorsville Lake, and the wife and I had the Ohio dinner cruise that I posted pictures from. And this pace doesn’t look like it will be letting up through Thanksgiving.

What do y’all think — do I need to look into getting the “notaslowerpace” internet domain?

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net