Wading through life

Things have been pretty slow in the blog world lately, as you’ve noticed. Just been pretty busy; not finding much time to write about all the stuff going on. I’ll hopefully get to it next week. We’ll see.

Got back fairly late on Sunday from Thanksgiving in the Thumb, which was quite fun. Lots of family time, free time to do considerable reading (Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere–I highly recommend it for intellectuals like myself struggling to surrender to movements of God that are beyond explanation), and fun time with the Steakers. During Warehouse basketball I had what one of my friends claims was one of the best ally-oop dunks he’s seen at the Warehouse. Fun stuff.

I had Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and Wayne and Joyce Keim, parents of one of my best friends. It was good times, just wish Darin could have been. The rock star that he is, he had a show the night before and got back pretty late and didn’t make the trip.

Saturday was family Thanksgiving day. Eric and Andrea’s families pulled in soon after midday and we had dinner around 2 or 3. REAL good food. REAL good. I had a good time playing with Chase — and watching Chase and Kristin play. Though they’re about four years apart, they still like playing together and Chase is doing an increasingly good job of being a good “big brother” of sorts.

Eric and I had a good time playing a game from our childhood: Crossbows and Catapults. We couldn’t really use the crossbows since we were playing on carpet, but building mini castles and then launching the tokens at each other’s kingdoms was classic. I won the first five or six much to his frustration, but he broke through with a couple good victories before it was all said and done. He vows to purchase it for Brody and Lane when they’re old enough to battle….though I doubt they’ll need any game to convince them to duke it out. Eric and I sure didn’t.

When I got back to Jackson Sunday around 9 (I-75 was backed up for some unknown reason), it was too late to conference call with Clark to plan for small group, so that had to be pushed back to Monday. I worked and worked out late on Monday, so when I got home at 8:30, I had to go right into small group planning and then grabbed something to eat around 10:15.

Tuesday was equally busy. I got back from work around 5:30 and felt ZERO percent full of God and completely incapable of being used at small group. So, I spent until 6:10 in my room praying and worshiping and making sure I was filled with him before going to small group. Things turned out great. Clark did a great job of leading the group through our discussion, which revolved around the truth Jesus delivered to establish the Kingdom.

In midst of our Kingdom of God study, we’re looking at how Jesus established the Kingdom. In Luke 4:18-19, he delivers his mission statement and from that we pulled that he established the kingdom with a Gospel of truth, power and freedom. Clark did truth yesterday, Scott will be doing power next week and I’ll focus on freedom the next week.

Tonight was church at Real Life Ministries. And I just continue to be amazed and how quickly God has reconciled pretty much all the reasons I used to have for not going there. I want to do this topic justice, so I won’t get into details now. But it’s pretty exciting.

Have a good Thursday. I have dental work a smidge after noon tomorrow, so if you want to cast a few prayers up…that things would go smoothly, I’d appreciate it.

Per Eric’s prompting, I updated my Amazon wish list. Those who are shopping for me can get some ideas there. You can direct link to it by clicking my "If I had 1 million dollars" pictures on the right, or by clicking the link above. Clicking the link above will ensure that the items are sorted by "priority"–a new feature on Amazon…at least since I used their Wish List last.

Of course, there is no obligation to order items from Amazon if you can find them cheaper elsewhere…

Highlighting the list is POD’s new, limited edition EP The Warriors EP, Vol. 2, which I heard some great stuff about. Also on it is Season 4 of 24 and Donald Miller’s travel memoir Through Painted Deserts : Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road. I’d like to write travel memoirs someday, so I figured reading them would be a good place to start. And why not with Donald Miller, author of several accalimed Christian books such as Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What. 

Eric just sent his Christmas list. The punch line is pretty obvious, but I bolded it in case you weren’t aware of our $50 price suggestion.

1. 24 2nd Season DVD
2. Ocean’s 12 DVD
3. iTunes music gift certificate
4. U2 Vertigo Tour DVD
5. Dri-Fit, Coolmax, etc workout shirts (size large)
6. Pontiac GTO or Acura TL

We’re definitely brothers. His list could be my list, if you substitute 24 season 4 for his 2nd season.

Thanksgiving dinner party for small group tonight. Good stuff…though I got full WAY too quick. Just one plate…and a fairly small plate at that. Of course some dessert as well. But still; one plate is rather weak.

I took a stab at doing some real cooking for the first time in a while. Scott and I volunteered to take care of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy. So, I scrounged up some recipes and did my best. Didn’t follow any of the recipes to a T…especially the mashed potatoes, which morphed into a double-recipe-inspired concoction.

The turkey was a South Beach Roast Turkey with Herbs. Brined that bad boy and everything. Variations included cooking it in a bag and not being able to track down some fresh sage for the herb bundle inside. Think I couldn’t find the ancho pepper as well.

Mashed potatoes started with this recipe from NapaStyle for Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes. As it turned out, I couldn’t track down garlic paste, let alone roasted garlic paste. So, having purchased lots of butter and cream already, I tracked down another recipe to make use of those. I found this one at cdkitchen.com for Creamy Whipped Potatoes.

After it was a bit too late, I realized I didn’t have the cream cheese it called for. So, I began to improvise, taking a little direction from them both and basically made it up as Scott mashed. Ended up pretty garlic-y, but tasty. I enjoyed them. Went pretty well with the herb-y turkey.

Gravy came the closest to the recipe. Nabbed it from ReluctantGourmet.com for basic Turkey Gravy. Sadly, I didn’t take on the challenge of their Thanksgiving Turkey Gravy recipe. It was a bit too complicated. Homemade turkey stock??? Not gonna happen. The basic one seemed hard enough at first glance, though it ended up being pretty simple.

I think the food turned out ok. I got some good feedback. Most importantly, I keep reminding myself (since, of course, I’m not living my life to earn the approval and affirmation of others), is that I enjoyed both the work and the result. And I look forward to the leftovers.

Less than two months after Iggy’s surprise engagement announcement came the not-so-surprising announcement from my bud Scott. He got engaged Saturday evening around 7:30 p.m. in our humble abode. I got to play a small role in the festivities by fixing his room up with 2-dozen roses laid in a heart pattern on his bed, putting the ring box in the middle, setting up a couple dozen tee light candles and positioning shinny balloons.

It’s always fun to be a part that. I still have fond memories of setting up the room for Puffy and Laura’s New Year’s Eve engagement.

Crisis almost struck with Scooter, though. The plan was for him to call me when he was on the way home from dinner so I could light the candles and get out of the way. Otis called for some camera-purchasing advice and I chatted with him while cooking. Much to my horror, Scott pulled in while I was on the phone (where was the call-waiting, Sprint?) and I didn’t have the candles lit, nor the kitchen freed of the venison-burger smell…

So I cut off my conversation with Otis, saying there were some "events" taking place tonight (since I wanted Scott to be able to tell him the real story) and pulled Scooter aside while Julie did her usual bathroom-break-upon-arrival. I confessed I hadn’t gotten the candles lit. Scott was pretty smooth about it and just started lighting the candles himself, awaiting Julie’s entrance.

I skedaddled downstairs and turned on some "appropriate" music, hoping it might leak through our hardwood floors and help the mood. I don’t know if they heard it or not; I doubt in those moments you remember hearing much of anything. But, it’s the thought that counts, right?

About a half hour later, I heard Julie’s voice thanking me for helping with everything. I gave her a hug and Scott a hug and then we had fun recounting the event from our individual perspectives. She was surprised: mission accomplished.

And so the countdown to true, solo, roommate-less bachelorhood begins.

As Randy put it so appropriately, it feels like the end of an era. Scott and I grew up together, gave each other bloody noses playing snow football, competed in countless street-ball tournaments, drilled people from the inside linebacker position side-by-side for two years, experienced a frustrating freshman year of college being roommates and having divisive girlfriends, returned to our roots our junior year, traveled to England and Scotland together, started our first real jobs on the very same day, bought a house together a year later, and conquered the canyons of Utah last fall. Not to mention the hours upon hours we’ve spent in the weight room together, always (or nearly always) valuing the time together as much as the fitness benefits.

There were the sleepovers in his basement, video games after video games, our 22-2 senior year of basketball, euchre tournaments, always competing against each other for the role of best athlete (he, obviously, has more raw skill; I’m in better shape)…I could write a book about the stuff we’ve done together.

But even deeper than all that stuff and experiences we’ve shared, we’ve developed a true, God-based brotherhood that I haven’t really experienced with anyone else. Living together can do that. But we lived together for years before turning the corner in our friendship. It happened when we started being deliberate about it–going to breakfast with Clark and talking about deep stuff. Sitting down to plan small group together, usually resulting in a four hour conversation. Ministering together via small group. Praying together. Stuff like that.

So…though it is an end of an era of sorts, we can be confident that the Lord is always doing new, exciting and better things with our lives. On to the next thing; we’ll only be growing apart in proximity.