Trick or Treat

Yes it is good old Trick or Treat night here. It looks like the weather could be yucky so we'll see what kind of a turn out we will have in the way of trick or treaters. I will be taking Ephriam out either way, but K.C. may not go out if it is raining too bad. I don't need any sick babies. It should be a good time either way because we get together with my family and have a little party in the garage. Its fun to see all of the costumes on the kids.

Well, we are hopefully going to finally have some closure to the issue with Faith's kidney stone from Hell. They have decided to do surgery to remove it tomorrow because she is swelling quite a bit and it isn't moving. So I have been cleared to work from home tomorrow so that I can get her to and from the hospital. I know that it is going to be so nice to work from home and it will suck to come back into the office on Thursday, but it really is fortunate that I have the opportunity to do that. But hopefully this will take care of the issue and stop bothering Faith.

We are 54 days from Christmas and the Christmas music is about to begin in my house. It is time to get festive. There are so many things to do between now and Christmas and there really isn't that much time. "Just hear those sleigh bells jing a ling ring ting ting a ling too." Ok, I have been ready for some time now, but that doesn't make me any less excited. "SANTAS COMING, SANTAS COMING!!!!!"

Ok, enough for now.

Chris

Another Unpredictable Weekend

It was another fine weekend that went by way too quickly. I think that something out there likes to try to find new ways to take time away from my potentially productive Saturdays. Last weekend I kind of expected a little and I did get to accomplish the biggest things, but this weekend was a return event of Faith's kidney stone. I will get more into that in a minute.

Saturday is the only day that I consider my day off. I work my regular job Mon-Fri, and Sundays I spend half of the day at church between services and Youth Group. So my Saturdays are in a way sacred because that is when I try to get as much done as possible. Last weekend my plans in reorganizing the basement were to begin. I was supposed to have most of the day to work on it, but I was going to have to watch the kids in the Morning because Faith had to work that Friday night. Normally she does not work on Fridays. So I figured I would be able to start by early afternoon, but that turned out to not be the case because I needed to show Faith how to get to Parky's Farm. I had to go out anyways to purchase the wireless router, but then we had to take a trip all the way down to Winton Woods so that she could find where she was going. By the time we got back it was dinner time and I went to pick up some pizzas. So I finally got to start rearranging things sometime after 5 PM. So I didn't get as much done as hoped. It has been the ongoing project all week when I have a free minute here or there. So my plan for this Saturday was to try to put a major dent into the project as well as some other yard work that needed to be completed.

So Saturday morning I am up and ready to get moving after getting to sleep in a little bit. The only thing we had planned was to go to the Zoo in the late afternoon for their Halloween night. I also needed to make a trip to Sam's. Well, Faith starts saying that her back is hurting again like it did when she had her kidney stone a couple of weeks ago. As it got worse she decided to go visit the emergency room and I took care of the kids. So that pretty much shot my Saturday free time in the foot. Faith finds that it is the same kidney stone that she had before and she never passed it as she had suspected. So that is very frustrating. I did finally get to do some work on the basement late in the evening, but it is still a work in progress.

Next Saturday is a shopping day with my mom. As long as everything goes as planned, I should have no babies or distractions and I can enjoy the day getting some Christmas shopping done. Its a tradition that my mom and I do every year. So hopefully I will actually get a free day for a change.

Thats all for another exciting weekend in my chaotic life.


Chris

Overslept....Arrrggg

No this is not Pirate day again. I had a good night with K.C., that wasn't the problem. But I remember when my alarm went of this morning, I hit the button to turn it off like I was going to get up and then I didn't get up. K.C. woke me at 20 til 7. I had to have her and Ephriam at the sitters and then go to work. I am supposed to be there at 7. Well, not today. So I got here a little before 8. So I will work through my lunch today to make up my time. Its so frustrating that I have this waking up problem sometimes. Although I have to say that since I got an extra 2 hours of sleep I am feeling quite refreshed. When K.C. starts sleeping through the night, I am going to sleep like a dream. She is getting close though. She was down last night at 11 and woke up to eat at 3. That was the only time she was up. Hopefully she is finally gettin the message from daddy that she had better shape up because she ain't no different than Ephriam. I ain't puttin up with much crap even if she is the little princess that she is. She doesn't have that much pull yet. I must stand my ground. Ok, well back to work for me.

Chris

Last Night......

It was soooo nice to be home last night. The kids got their baths and to bed at a decent hour. I was able to spend some QUALITY time with my wife. It seems we get to spend time in passing lately. So when we do get time to catch up with each other it is a really nice thing.

My brothers came over for dinner and it was delicious. Mark does a very good job on pizza making. But I am not sure if he was feeling yucky last night or if I pissed him off because he left pretty early. Matt stayed the latest which is unusual, but it was nice to hang out with him. We also got the love seat moved into my basement as well. Now I have a nice place to cuddle up with my wife and watch movies. That is if the children ever give us the opportunity to do so. We have had XMen 3 now for like a month and haven't watched it yet. That is kind of the way life goes when you have kids.

It is almost the weekend again. We are taking the kids to the Zoo for Hallzooween. They can collect treats and see some cool stuff. It should be fun. Our next trip to the zoo will probably be for the lights. I am a little bit excited about that. Well, I guess I should do some more work.

Chris

I got some sleep.

Faith actually got called off for the whole night last night and I got to sleep for more than 4 hours. It would have been more, but I keep staying up to watch the World Series. The Cardinals won last night to take a 2-1 series lead. I expect the whole series to be pretty good.

I got some more of my basement organized last night too because she was home. I am getting closer everyday to making it more Ephriam usable. There are still just a few things laying around that he doesn't need to get into. Very soon though the space will be useable again.

Tonight we are having Wed dinner at my house because mom and dad will not be around. Mom is probably going to need a grandkid fix before next week. We should be getting the love seat tonight too since we will have Mark and his truck. I am adding that to the space in the basement as well. I have actually opened a lot of room up down there by moving the desks. The office area is a little crammed, but the living space is much more open.

There is my update for today. Check back for more later if you are interested.

Chris

Still Sleepy.......Christmas Music

Its only Tuesday and I am still dragging. Have I mentioned how much I am looking forward to K.C. sleeping through the night? I sure could use a couple of days of sleeping. But I won't start earning any vacation until I am on permanent with Compucom. My official start date was supposed to be yesterday, but I guess things are taking longer than expected. I guess that I don't really care as long as I get some time off for Christmas.

Have I mentioned how badly I want to start listening to Christmas Music? Faith keeps telling me no, but eventually she has to give in. I read a Blog yesterday about how early is too early and I agree that Thanksgiving isn't soon enough because that only gives you 4 weeks of Christmas Music and that just isn't enough. I don't know how much longer I will be able to stand it. I think that once Halloween is past, I can get away with it. I will definitely be playing it on Nov. 4th because Mom and I are going on our Christmas shopping trip that day. That is only a week and a half away so HAH!!!!

Anyways, I think that I am more awake now that I have had some food. I should be able to stay awake for the rest of my work day I hope anyways. We'll see if I come up with any other crazy things to blog about.

Chris

Back to the Grind.

It was another whirlwind of a weekend. They just go by so quickly. Faith had to work on Friday night this weekend to cover for someone. So I was up with the kids on Friday night. That made for a bit of a late start on Saturday. We all made a trip to Best Buy and we picked up our wireless router. We also made a trip out to Parky's Farm so that Faith knows where she is going this week.

I finally got to start working on the basement at about 4 PM. I took a little break to eat some dinner, and worked well into the evening. I got the big things accomplished. The wireless is up and running so Faith and can roam freely about the house with her Internet. I got the big furniture moved. Now the big animal to tackle is reorganizing all of the crap that was on my desk.

I should have a lot of trash to take out tonight after all of the cleanup. I will probably have a lot of trash for a while actually. Hopefully I can get the kids to cooperate so that I can get some things accomplished. I also would like to find a way to help Faith get caught up on laundry. There are so many things to do and so little time. It will get easier as K.C. get bigger and less dependent on constant care. She is already getting much better. She likes the TV a lot.

You can read about the Youth Night updates on BLOGEDGE.

So that is my weekend update. Check back to see what the rest of this week has for me.

Chris

Weekend Good!!!!

Okay, I have been looking forward to this weekend because tomorrow, a Saturday, I actually have nothing planned except to work on things around my house. Particularly I will be working on the basement and hooking up wireless Internet in our house so that Faith can get her Surf On from all over the house. It will be easier with the little ones when she can email and blog from upstairs or wherever. The number 1 rule though is to protect the laptop from Ephriam because he thinks its a cool toy. I also fully expect that Faith will blog more often now because she will have access to do so.

But it is not very often that on my only day of the week that I consider a day off do I get to hang out at home and do stuff. This is one small step towards the completion of the Man Room. I am sure that I will do some other things as well. My grass will probably need cut since I put fertilizer down last weekend and it rained all week.

I have been feeling much better today. They Tylenol Cold is a good thing. I still feel tired though, but that is part of the deal. I should have enough energy to work on things tomorrow. Hopefully K.C. will be a good girl and go to sleep in her bed for me again tonight. It sure is nice when she cooperates.

No Baseball to watch tonight. The Cardinals beat the Mets last night in an exciting game 7 to go to the World Series to play the Tigers. That starts on Sat. Night. I will probably have that on. Maybe tonight I will pop in a movie while I try to get K.C. to settle down. Well there isn't much day left in my day. So enjoy your weekend.

Chris

Title Change - Did you notice??

I decided to change my BLOG title to something a little more interesting than Chris' BLOG. Gratifying Chaos is a pretty good explanation of my life. Although things in my life can be very chaotic and sometimes feel like it is spinning uncontrolled, it can be very gratifying to see my children grow and learn new things. Or to see one of our Youth kids get excited about spiritual things as they begin to truly understand the mysteries of God.

You may hear me vent about my business here a lot and how nice it would be if my children didn't take up so much time. Yes it would be nice, but when it comes down to it, I love it. I wouldn't trade any of them. I may threaten to on occasion, but don't believe me. Its all worth it when they smile at me and tell me that they love me. I have been blessed with my family and I want to enjoy it for the time that I have with them.

A funny story about Ephriam - As an example of things that happen that bring me great joy and laughter with my children. Last night, somehow my son who is following in his father's footsteps in his desire to be naked, managed to take off his diaper. The amazing part about it is that he was fully clothed at the time and was wearing overalls. It was his first time going commando and he is not even 2 years old yet.

Pure entertainment I tell ya. It never stops and there are so many more moments to come. Life is short so enjoy the time you have with your loved ones.

Chris

Getting Better I hope....

I was feeling quite better yesterday evening although tired. This morning I woke up feeling very rested, but my throat was a mess. My throat gets so swollen sometimes that I can gag myself. I stopped and picked up some more Tylenol Cold on the way to work and another pack of Hall's Defense. For some reason those things help my throat a lot when it feels like this. It has gotten much better so far today. Hopefully if I keep the medicine goin, things will get better. Aside from that, I feel pretty good and motivated to get things done. I am looking forward to a weekend of getting a lot of things accomplished. So I have to make sure that I am not sick.

Other than that, it has been a pretty typical day. Just trying to get by for now so that I can enjoy the weekend. Well, back to web surfing on my lunch hour.

Chris

Under the Weather

Hey all, I started getting a soar throat yesterday and this morning I had snot falls going down the back of my throat. Lovely isn't it? I am doing much better now. The throat is better and the drainage is better. I owe my good feelings to Tylenol Cold. Now I am just tired. At least I can get some sleep tonight.

Tonight I have the Board meeting and dinner at mom and dad's. Should be good times. Well, I gotta get ready to jet.

Chris

Back in the day.

It was only 6 years ago that I could go for days with very little sleep. All-nighters were a common occurrence. Now I look forward to the day that little K.C. sleeps through the night so that I can sleep through the night.

I have always enjoyed sleeping, but never have I craved a good nap so much. But such is life that does not allow the time for naps. And when the kids get their naps, it is prime time to get stuff done when they aren't in your hair. Having the little ones can be so entertaining though. Ephriam is doing new stuff all of the time. When he starts putting sentences together, I will probably never stop laughing around him.

Not much to report from here today. We started off really busy this morning. This afternoon would be good for nap time, but I can't exactly do that at work. I think that management might frown upon that. Ok, well I am going to sit here and think of other things to post about. I hope that your days are filled with good nights sleep.

Chris

Weekends are never enough.

What a blast of a weekend I had. Don't worry Faith, I am not going to just talk about Youth Ministry. My biggest project recently has been my basement. I have been working off and on trying to get it straightened up and reoganized. I actually got quite a bit done with that this weekend and I am preparing to go to wireless Internet next weekend. Faith needs more flexibility to stay plugged into the Internet so the wireless will allow her to access from anywhere in the house. I am also trying to clean up a lot of the clutter, so I am converting all of my CD's to digital format. That is going to take a long time to do because we have like 500 CD's, but I have made small dent.

Saturday the whole family went out to Shaw's Pumpkin Farm with Matt, Angie, and Victoria. We got to pick out some pumpkins and we went through a Corn Maze. It was a lot of fun. We also went and had Cider Pops at the Apple Orchard place that I can't remember the name of. Its Router's or something like that. That was a lot of fun too. It was very enjoyable spending time with everyone and actually getting to visit with some friends.

Sunday we did the church thing and then worked on Youth Ministry for the rest of the day. I did have to do some yard work too in the middle there. But we spent the day with my brother Mark and we got quite a few things accomplished. We are getting geared up for the rest of 2006. It should be a lot of fun.

So there is your weekend update.

Chris

Hello!!!! Is anybody out there?

Ok, so I am starting to wonder if anyone reads this cuz I never get comments. I know that my wife usually does, but she is pretty busy right now. Oh well, if you aren't reading, then I guess you have better things to do than to listen to my ramblings.

Here is a little contest - the first person to comment to this posting gets a special prize. You have to post to find out what the prize is.

Chris

Youth Blogging

It appears that my Blog is my idea sharing space today. I don't know why, but I am always coming up with crazy ideas to do things different. I think it is because my mind leans heavily towards the science and engineering side. Its the creative side that I sometimes lack the necessary tools.

Anyways - I have found lately that I am not able to devote as much time as I want to things outside of my busy home life. You may know that my wife and I have a beautiful new little baby girl now and she likes to eat every 3 hours and wants to be held and cuddled all the time. She is only 2 months old. We also have a very curious little boy who will turn 2 in December. He is not as high maintenace, but he has taken on a new name of homewrecker because he destroys any room that he is allowed to have free reign in. The real issue is that free time once devoted to website updating and DVD creating is now spent feeding, changing, and picking up messes. The free time that does exist is devoted to those things very necessary for living like eating, sleeping, and paying the bills. If my wife and I ever get to sit and watch a movie together again, it will be something special.

So on with my idea. The problem I have is that I don't seem to have the time needed to update the Youth Website on a weekly basis like I want to. My idea to solve this problem is to go almost completely to a blogging format using Blogger to host it. Basically events can be posted with pictures and funny stories while they are fresh in my mind. I can also access this from work and update it from there. Work is the only place I have any free time. The blog would allow for comments so that we could get feedback from the kids about things. These comments could also testify to others who visit the page. This would be targeted at the kids themselves not so much parents and other church members. This would work better for them because students to focus more on the present and what is happening right now. If it were updated all of the time, they would be more likely to return to the page to see what has changed. The full blown website is not that flexible and my update time is basically non-existent.

The full website would remain up for general information and a good source for parents and others to visit for more info. I may add a Google Calendar to that which can be updated from work as well. This will keep the events up to speed and people who visit that page. Big updates can be done from time to time, but aside from the calendar, it would not require any kind of daily or weekly maintenance. The Blog would remain the main source of up to the minute happenings.

So there is a download of some things happening in my brain. I may start setting some of this up today if we are not too busy. I already have a lot of them in process, just have to create it and go live. Feel free to leave comments about what you think.

Chris

Read, Think, Pray, Live

Today I have been inspired by a sort of new way of how to approach reading the Bible. I was reading through the introduction of the Message Remix Bible and learned about something called lectio divina. The basis of it is that you read scripture, think or meditate on it, pray about it, and then take action because of it.

I know that it doesn't sound like anything new, but it made me think about how my scripture reading approach has been lately. I think that I have read it so much that I don't give it quite as much time as I used to. I always seem to be powering through scripture like a champ, but I don't slow down and stop to listen for God's still small voice. I think I used to contemplate scripture a lot more when it was more unfamiliar. Now I always seem to have an answer or explanation for each written word, so I just plow forward looking for something new. What I really need to do is chew on it for a while and focus on the little.

I am currently brainstorming how I will plan to use this in the Frontline Bible Study. I really have a desire to see our youth kids grasp God's Word and start thirsting for more. I just know that I am not capable right now of putting together deep weekly encounters with the Scripture like I want to. So the sudden God inspired answer to this problem is to slow down and dissect the scriptures instead of plowing through them.

Please comment if anyone reads this. I would like to know what others think.

Chris