Ok, now it's getting real

Makenna became ill late Wednesday night. Stephanie finally got sick this morning after five days of glorious anticipation. Ryan was stricken with the stomach bug late this afternoon. When shall I go and meet with the porcelain god?

Tricks for Your Body

Check out this list of tricks you can teach you body that will help with ice cream headaches, throat tickles, the urge to urinate, and other bodily annoyances. I'll be sure to cough and make other violent movements the next time I'm getting an injection at the doctor's office.

Reason #3 to Not Buy a House

Plumbing.

Oh wait, that was number one. The up-side is that now we have a brand new hot water heater.

Blogging Thanksgiving

Updated 11/26 @ 12:20 p.m.

12:30 a.m. - Begin getting settled for bed. I hear my daughter crying so I go in to check on her. She's sitting up in her bed bawling and looking down at the pool of sick that had just projectiled (and violently it appears) from her mouth.
1:15 a.m. - After hosing off my daughter in the shower and cleaning up the mess of hot dog bits and unidentifyable organic material, we retreat to the bedroom knowing it will probably be a long night of poor, interrupted sleep.
3:00-9:00 a.m. - Repeat cycle of waking up, attending to Makenna and her sickness, and going back to bed. Well, Stephanie, that is. For the most part, I slept soundly enjoying the soft hum of my CPAP machine.
9:00-9:30 a.m. - Attempt to squeeze in another minute of sleep while the kids are causing bedlam in the next room. Worry about which of the other three family members will be sick and when. I vote for me because I was the one last night who was sticking my fingers in Makenna's mouth and letting her stick hers into mine. Of course, Steph will feel sick all day because she's the most worried of all of us.
9:30 a.m. - We decide we need to call the family who invited us over for Thanksgiving meal at the last minute, since we were going to be alone as a family, and tell them we would not be joining them. We had been mostly prepared to create an entire meal for ourselves, complete with a 21 pound turkey, except for one integral piece: a roasting pan large enough to fit a 21 pound turkey.
10:00 a.m. - Matt goes to the local grocery store to pick up 5 items: the aforementioned roasting pan, Gatorade (at Steph's request because she's already feeling ill), Cool Whip, pie crust, and the coveted Thanksgiving edition of the local newspaper containing the agenda for tomorrow's masochistic, pre-dawn ritual. Local grocery store out of newspaper and roasting pans.
10:10 a.m. - Bolt over to Sheetz to secure said newspaper lest the wife banish me to the snowy outdoors if I return empty-handed. Purchase last newspaper and receive dirty scouls from other customers. Leave Sheetz before mob forms.
10:20 a.m. - Arrive at Wal-Bub's Super-MegaPlex to purchase a $1 roasting pan. Endure condescending looks and snide comment from the cashier for purchasing a roasting pan on Thanksgiving Day.
10:45 a.m. - Return home and begin helping Steph with the Thanksgiving Feast...

• clean turkey (did I mention it was 21 pounds?)
• slice onion for homemade stuffing because Steph is a wuss
  
• cut up many pounds of potatoes
• peel cooked yams for Stephanie's scrumptious candied yam recipe

2:00 p.m. - Chill with the kids. Play games. Wrestle. Tickle. Wait for 21 pound turkey to cook.
7:00 p.m. - Finally pulled turkey out of the oven after 8 hours of cooking and got the rest of the fixin's set (mashed potatoes, candied yams, gravy, etc). Stephanie still feels sick.
7:36 p.m. - Sat down to eat our Thanksgiving feast. Steph was nervous to eat because of the thought of tasting it again on its way out. Ryan, to my surprise, tried almost everything except for the homemade stuffing. The one thing besides the green beans and turkey he liked was the mashed potatoes. Understand this: from the first day Ryan tried mashed potatoes out of a jar as a baby he couldn't stand them. He's never wanted to have anything to do with cooked, baked, or mashed potatoes. We'll put them in soup and he knows right away what it is when he tastes it. His face grimaces and the potato piece exits his mouth at a rapid pace. So, for our almost-eight-year-old to start liking potatoes is a break-through for us.
8:30 p.m. - Dig in to the pumpkin pie made from my mom's recipe. I would consider myself to be a pumpkin pie connoisseur because it's my absolute favorite kind of pie and my mom is a culinary genious when it comes to making one from scratch. I'm sort of a snob when it comes to pumpkin pies because I'll only tolerate fresh pumpkin; canned pumpkin won't suffice. In fact, I can detect it like a drug-sniffing canine and I won't eat it. Steph did a wonderful job making this one and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
9:30 p.m. - After putting the kids to bed, we cut most of the meat off the turkey and began to boil the carcass to make soup. We had to use the large pressure cooker for canning because it was so big. Steph admitted she was feeling better and said that she probably felt sick because she was hungry.
10:00 p.m. - Chilled out on the couch watching programs we had recorded with TIVO. Steph looked at the ads to figure out where she wanted to shop in the morning. What a psycho. Went to bed.

Relocated Writing Project

Since my collaborative writing project, the Late for Work Excuse, has received so much attention (ahem... BS!... cough!) I decided to relocate it to its own little space on the web. Hopefully, it will make more sense and it will be easier to participate. All you have to do is provide, through a simple comment, a sentence that fits between the two sentences provided. Thanks to all those who have contributed thus far.

Late for Work Excuse Project
http://www.bookfamily.net/exquisitecorpse/lateforwork/

Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Earlier this month, I found a web site devoted to a contest where each person's goal is to write an entire novel (50K words) during the month of November (which apparently is National Novel Writing Month). I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination but the idea intrigued me. It piqued my interest not because I'm jonesin' to write a novel (I can't even maintain a constistent, logical thought with a few short paragraphs!) but because of what they said on their site.

Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?
NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month.

It interests me because at the beginning of the month thousands of people are establishing a goal for themselves and are setting out to reach it. Last year there were 42,000 participants and almost 6,000 reached their goal of writing a 50,000 word novel. Even though 36,000 people didn't reach their goal, kudos to them for setting a goal and at least trying to work at it.

I'm not very good at reaching goals and even worse at setting them. That's what some people like to call "lack of ambition." According to Ben Franklin's list, I'm not doing well at Resolution. I guess I figured sometime a while back that if I aim at nothing, I'll hit it every time. For a while, lack of aspiring to anything feels better than failing at something you set out to do but then you're left feeling empty after having tried and accomplished nothing. In the world of romance, Alfred Lord Tennyson put it this way: 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

So, in the spirit of this post and attempting to put some ambition back in my life, my goal for the month of November is to not write a 50,000 word novel.

Disturbing Things Taught in School

At dinner this evening, Steph told me what our son's teacher taught him in school today. She instructed him and the rest of the first-grade class how to open a medicine bottle. I guess that defeats the purpose of "child-proof" containers. Maybe next she'll teach them how to make bombs out of common household substances.

Things Matt Can't Do

I can't...

• do impressions of famous people or foreign accents
• draw worth crap
• get no satisfaction
• seem to keep my car/desk/inbox/dresser/etc. clean
• talk intelligently about the current football season
• remember Don Henley's name whenever I hear one of his songs
  
• iron clothes
• use a garlic press without breaking it
• tolerate country music

Will the real Carlton Banks please stand up?

Busy November Follow-up

I want to expand on my previous post about being busy. All of us from time to time go through seasons of busy-ness. For example, I, at this very moment, am busy with many things but overall I would not characterize my life as being crazy or busy. My lifestyle is not a busy one. Each one of us goes through periods where we feel like we're just holding on for dear life and I understand that. My earlier rant was mainly about a lifestyle of packing as many things possible into your 24 hour day.

As I said before, I don't think it's a bad thing to have some flex time in your schedule and not be busy all the time. It's ok to watch a little television in the evening as long as it isn't consuming your time and taking priority over other things. It's not a bad thing to be available to take care of something last-minute for someone in need. It makes me feel good when my wife decides to go out with a friend on a whim and is able to because I'm not obligated elsewhere.

However, I do believe that an idle life can lead to wrong behavior. But, I'm not talking about being lazy but rather not overcommitting yourself so that you don't have the opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends or be able to slip something in that's important, necessary, or purely for fun. Does that clarify things?

Ok, I'm convinced.

My soul hurts.

Busy November

Things have been a little crazy, busy, and not normal for the past week or so. Even though I just said it, I really despise that cliche because everyone says that and it has almost completely lost its meaning. "Oh, I'm SO busy! Life is crazy right now." Yeah, so what. Like I haven't heard that one before.

Seriously, though, I try to keep my life's schedule fairly manageable which I'm sure goes against the grain of society and files in the face of what we think of "success." Some people put their busy and crazy lives on display like a trophy. They jokingly complain about it but inwardly they feel elevated and proud of all the things they are doing and accomplishing (or trying to do and accomplish). As for me, I don't buy into that mentality. As I said, I like to keep things manageable and I don't think I'm sinning against the laws of nature and mankind for doing so.

I have a family with whom I like to spend time. I may not be actively engaging in every activity each one is doing but I think it's important for me be there interacting with them and not being preoccupied by a project or something else that requires my attention all the time. Also, I have a family who also has their own interests and obligations. Between church, birthday parties, friends, school, and work, four people can fill up a schedule pretty quickly. If any one member has a full schedule, that impacts the rest of the family. I have my obligations but I try not to do too many things so we can have some flexibility. We can have a week like this and can get back into the family groove without much bloodshed.

Various Notes and Thoughts

From time to time you may see comments from spambots appear in some of my posts. Blogger has provided a way to prevent those from happening through using a system whereby a commenter must type in a series of letters and numbers that shows up within a graphic that spambots can't read. This ensures that the commenter is indeed a human being instead of a piece of software evangelizing the blogosphere. I've decided, for now, that I'd rather make it a little easier for you peeps to comment and remove the garbage myself. That's my gift to you.

I have almost ten posts saved as drafts that I haven't finished. Some of them are stupid and I'd be embarrassed to show them to anyone.

Some people I work with are not respecting my suggestions. That grieves my soul and pains my butt.

I got on the scale yesterday and I weigh about 5-10 lbs. more than what I thought. I guess I'm not doing very well at this.

I had a thought today about using spiritual gifts and talents/abilities in the church. The way I'm currently serving in the church has more to do with the talents and abilities I've developed and very little to do with my spiritual giftedness. Should I/people be involved in the church based on spiritual gifts or personal abilities? (Some would say there is a fine line between the two or they could be one in the same.) For example, maybe God built into Pete the gift of evangelism but he's well-trained in mixing sound. Pete's involved in that area of the church but not in evangelism. What should Pete do?

Please, don't forget to contribute to my writing project.