May 14 - "Grass"

If I would've planned ahead, I probably would've saved the picture from Saturday for today and found something else that makes me happy. But I didn't. So, for the second lackluster day in a row, I bring you a rerun. But this picture is actually the first thing I thought about when I saw the word "grass". Because flipping through my DG albums and seeing all of the dead, yellow grass through the winter and then getting to spring time and seeing this shock of colour is always stunning. Not quite as stunning as the fact that I used to have friends who would go play disc golf with me, but you know. (* that makes two jabs at my responsible, grown up friends this week. Just wanted to acknowledge that.)

May 13 - "Mum"

I thought about being a wise guy and posting a picture of a hardy mum today. But being's as I already commented, several weeks ago, on how I'm an anglophile - I don't suppose anyone would've bought it as coming from a place of ignorance.

Part of my mother's day gift to my mum, while we ate an extravagant lunch at Ruby Tuesday this afternoon, was not pulling out my camera and taking a picture to use for a blog post. So you'll have to make due with this throwback photo. And before you ask, yes, I do still have that outfit. And I'm wearing it right now.

Happy mother's day!

May 12 - "Something That Makes You Happy"

In the past, whether shoveling snow or mowing the lawn, I'll put in the extra 5 minutes and clear the back alley for our neighbor Bob. Bob's a truck driver and often gets up very early or works very late - sometimes both. I don't do this extra work because I want praise for it - in fact, I probably would feel really awkard if it was ever actually acknowledged to my face. It's just something I can do to be a good neighbor and show a little Jesus.

Today, I woke up knowing that I needed to mow the lawn. As I got my shoes on, I was trying to decide whether I wanted to do the back bit (which really needed it) first or second. Then as I went out the back door to fetch the lawn mower - I saw that I didn't have a decision to make. Because Bob had apparently mowed our back lawn this morning when he did his. And you know, that genuinely made me happy. Not just because it meant that I didn't have to do it, but also because it means that our neighbors do notice the little things and they think enough of us to return the favor.

May 11 - "Kitchen"

The evening that we settled on our house, 2 years ago now, we walked in to find that the bathroom drain pipe over our kitchen was leaking. "Welcome home!!" Luckily, our new house came with a home warranty, so repairs would be covered. Not covered, however, was gaining access to the pipe. So my dad helped my take down the cabinets and expose the offending plumbing. We planned on make several improvements in the kitchen anyway, so we weren't necessarily concerned about being careful. One such improvement planned was getting rid of this ugly green formica. Ugly, green and cracked as a result of our creative removal. Fastforward to today - yup, that's the same ugly, green, cracked formica. And the worst part is that it's not that we don't have the money put aside to get this project done. It's just that, thus far, I've lacked the actual motivation to put the wheels in motion. The rest of the kitchen looks passible, if not nice. Maybe one of these days I'll actually finish the job! (Or pay someone who knows what they're doing to do it.)

May 10 - A Favourite Word

Two days this week with a picture of text. Sorry.

This post will be equal (or less than equal) parts truth and snark. FYI.

I like the word "sincerely". I went through a phase of writing letters to people, mostly because I got tired of how simple emails were. You could type them without thought. So instead of meaning something, it basically ended up being an endless stream of consciousness where you ended up knowing EVERYTHING going on in someone's life instead of hearing actual intelligent thoughts.

A good portion of the letter I wrote were to my friend Sarah, who as chance would have it was studying abroad in France. I signed some, if not most, of the letters with the word "sincerely" - because those letters were just that; sincere. I thought long and hard about what I wrote - not with any ulterior motive or goal in mind, other than communicating with a friend in a far away place.

So what brought the word "sincerely" to mind today? Why, it was a letter - which is what this picture is of. It was written to inform me that my rear driveway (which I already spent $20 fixing potholes in a couple weeks ago) is "violation of the Driveway Ordinance" and must be fixed within 45 days, or I'll receive a citation. Did I mention this "sincere" letter starts off as most deeply personal things do: "Dear Propert Owners." My heart is touched.

So yes. I like sincerely. I like it better when it's applied properly... nay, sincerely.

May 9 - "Something You Do Every Day"

Some five or so years ago, we got a dog. For the first several weeks we owned said dog, I took her for walks in the morning and at night - dutifully chanting, "Just go poo... just go poo...." as I'd read in some masochistic dog training book. Once she got the knack of going outside, walks sort of segued into me opening the door and waiting for her to do her thing and come back. Our frequent (read: almost daily) trips to various disc golf courses filled the exercise need in Jessie's life and everything was grand.

But then the great snows of Winter 2011 fell upon us and disc golf was made difficult, if not impossible. So as a means of filling the void, Jessie and I started taking walks again. Mostly around the neighborhood - a veritable cornucopia of streets and alleys - but occasionally down through the John Heinz wildlife refuge as well. And all this walking led to a very horrible thing - I now have a dog who doesn't just like going for a walk each day, but rather a dog who needs to go for a walk each day. If we miss it for whatever reason - be it busyness or be it torrential downpours - bad things happen. Not during the day, mind you. During the day we can sit on the couch watching Netflix and dozing in and out of sleep. But then around 9:30pm, she becomes what we like to refer to as "crazy dog". This manifests in multiple ways - including, but not limited to: running figure 8 laps between the dining room & living room (around the table and up over the couch), attempting to murder stuffed animals and lick attacks (which are normally sort of gross, but when your dog consider cat poop on of the 3 major food groups in her life - so much worse).

So anyways, that was a long story for a simple sentence. What do I do everyday? Walk the dog. (And if I happen to miss it, God help us all!)

May 8 - "A Smell You Adore"

There's lots of smells I like. Only a few I adore. Pipe smoke is one of the latter. Both for it's odor and also for the memories associated with it. So many wonderful, late night conversations with Patrick. Bird watching with Bill at the John Heinze Wildlife Refuge. Poker with the fellas.

Yes, I know smoking is bad for you. So are a lot of things that we do every day. All things in moderation, people.

And lastly, people often ask me what flavor tobacco I smoke. To answer this question, I defer back to Mr. Crawford who taught me: There are two kinds of tobacco - one smells good to everyone around you but tastes like garbage and one tastes good but only smells good to real pipe smokers. Guess which one is in my pipe?

May 7 - "Someone Who Inspires You"

This topic puzzled me. Inspire could be taken many different ways.

If it wouldn't have been disruptive to those around me, I might've tried to a take a picture of the women who sat in front of us at when we went to see The Avengers this afternoon. Bringing your 3 children - approximate ages 5, 3 and < 1 years old - to a loud, violent, PG-13 movie inspires lots of thoughts. Most probably not fit for public consumption.

No, let's not taken inspiration down that road. Let's be positive.

So this picture is a little packet of orange papers I've had for over 2 years now. I got these pages at a worship leaders retreat in Asheville, NC during an afternoon workshop on creativity lead by a fellow called Terry Butler. The first year we went to the retreat, Terry lead worship at one or two of our sessions and he wasn't a guy that I thought I'd gravitate towards. To begin with, he's one of the original Vineyard guys - so he's a good 20 years older than me. On top of that, he plays keyboard. Keyboardists and I have a tenuous relationship, mostly because I tend to associate keyboard music with the sort of cheesy sounding worship music that I can do without. But as I looked at the list of optional workshops for the day, this one just sounded interesting to me and I decided to give it a go.

I'm not sure I remember much about the actual workshop that afternoon. There was probably some discussion, probably some laughs, probably some exercises. But what I really got from it was Terry. Here's this guy who is just plan interested in worshipping Jesus and helping others do the same. He navigates his way through A.D.D. (literally diagnosed, not just jokingly stated), depression and bipolar disorder and still comes out praising God. Note - he doesn't do this in spite of these issues; he does it in the midst them. No shiny coating, no subversive ways around life. Just living. And living beautifully.

Honestly, his outlooks (and many other interactions with him in the years that have followed) have shaped the way I approach worship in more ways than anyone else. So I hang on to these pages and read through them every now and again when I start to lose perspective or inspiration. Because, really, there's nothing better than perspective given by someone who literally has no filter! I'll end with the closing paragraph from these old orange papers. Hope you're inspired to do something creative too.

So, go on and LIVE CREATIVELY! Read children's books. Take the long way home. Save up and go to Russia! Make dinner for a bunch of your friends sometime soon. Take a bubble bath. Learn to paint. Visit a great museum of art. Start a book club. Visit a Monastery and walk the stations of the Cross. Go a whole day without speaking. Read the Book of Common Prayer and begin writing prayers to be used corporately. Keep a prayer journal with you wherever you go. Save all your Starbucks money and buy a winter coat for someone who can't afford one. Sing out loud at Borders or Barnes and Nobles. Live with wild abandon! Perspire and inspire. Let this be something that could be said of you at your funeral someday, "What a ride!"

May 6 - "You"

How could I not pay homage to The Breakfast Club with a topic like this? There's not much else to say, besides:

"Who are you... Who ARE you... I am a walrus."

May 5 - "Bird"

We found ourselves in Philadelphia (for a change) today - in order to attend a training seminar at the West Philly Vineyard. As we were leaving, Melissa mentioned she was hoping that she'd see a "city bird" (pigeon) to take the photo of the day. Just then, I looked across the street and saw this cool building with a concrete owl built into the ledge, presumably to keep those other city birds away. Tried to get a picture, but it's not too clear. So we'll call it art. Enjoy.

(PS: The concrete owl must be doing it's job. Missy didn't get a pigeon picture.)

May 4 - "Fun!!!"

Woah. It's Friday night and I actually did something that could be classified as "fun" to someone other than people who think sitting on the couch and watching Fringe is fun. (Which, judging by the fact that it's been uncertain whether or not it would be cancelled after this season, isn't too many.) But I digress.

Tonight we had a fundraiser at our church called "Quizzo With A Heart". $15 a head to play and all proceeds go to  Love 146 - an organization of modern day abolitionists. No booze, which I'm pretty sure is what usually makes Quizzo awesome, but it was still pretty fun.

When it came time to pick a team name, we decided to give a nod to this weekend being the release of The Avengers - especially since our team happened to have 6 members! (For the non-nerds: There are six members of the Avengers in the new movie - The Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow & Hawkeye.) To add a small degree of wit, I did a take on the tag line "Avengers Assemble" and named our team, "Avengers.. resemble?" Again, I'm pretty sure anyone who isn't a nerd wouldn't get this at all. But I did. Draw your own conclusion.

There was word of a "best dressed team" award, so of course we dressed up. As our friend Christi (Black Widow) put it - not actual costumes, but kind of like the Power Rangers when they went to school. Some of us got a little more into it than others, as evidenced by this photo of my lovely wife wearing a collander with wings taped to it. Those big green fists and my (kelly green) Eagles throwback jersey were my take on The Hulk.

(One last word to the geeks: Thor with hulk fists? What is she, a Skrull?!)

Obviously, we won the best dressed award. Which was a small consolation considering it's a trivia contest and I consider myself a pretty trivial guy. We did not win the trivia contest part. Though, in fairness, I did get some pretty obscure answers correct and our team (thanks to myself and Ms. Jessica Scott) swept the "Movies of the 90's" category - which is pretty much validation of an entire decade of my life.

Hope you had half as much fun tonight!

May 3 - "Something You Wore Today"

A rare appearance on day work today (and tomorrow) in order to accomodate an early morning conference on Saturday. This made the choice for what to wear today a lot easier: "Hmm.... I think I'll go with the navy blue polyester!"

These normally fashionable trousers are now even more attractive thanks to a smart looking reflective stripe down the hem. The official reason for this is highway safety, but the actual reason is that too many guys were wearing their uniform pants at their other part time jobs. (Which I don't suppose would be a huge problem, except when you damage them while working that part time job and then make your full time employer pay for the repairs. That's what we call fraud!) I guess the idea is supposed to be that if you wear these at your other job, it'll be easier for people (who make more money than me) to spot your indiscretion.

So here's to you, people who have too many jobs and too little integrity!

I always suspected my uniform would look that much more professional if I got to wear track pants with it anyway.

May 2 - "Skyline"

On most days, we have a decent view of the Philly skyline from our house. (We're maybe 10 minutes from downtown.) But unfortunately, it's rather overcast and drizzly today. So instead of majestic skyscrapers, I present you with the fake chimney on our house against the beautiful gray sky. B-E-A-utiful.

May 1st - "Peace"

I walk past this house sometimes with the dog. I know the last letter is flipped up so you can't see it, but I think it's safe to assume that these people are fans of "PEACE" as opposed to "PEACH". Or maybe not. Might have to check back later.