Bucks and Spurs

25 day. That's how many days are left. You know. I thought there would be a little more going on but right now we are looking at bed and breakfast places in Springfield Missouri. Bucks and Spurs is the name of the one that we will not be staying at. Tell you the truth I'm not to picky. I'm rather excited about the whole marriage bit and being husband and wife with all that entails. Don't be so fast to head the gutter. I can't wait to have a consistent companion, someone to share my life with, not that we haven't been sharing our lives for the past year, but after the wedding it seems like we will stop a lot of traveling between houses, and began to really settle down and make a home. Jen has done a wonderful job of that in the time I've been in the apartment. The Kitchen and Bathroom are decorated and coordinated.

The apt really feels like home now. Laundry is still done at the parents house, causing my clothes to come back terribly wrinkled. Oh well, it could be worse. I could have to do my dirty laundry at a laundry mat. (shame upon shame)

Me and Jen saw a movie that we missed seeing it the theater. Away We Go. I can't really explain the plot but its mostly about a couple have a baby, or rather, being pregnant. They don't even have the baby in the movie. So I don't really know what the movies is about, but I enjoyed it, and I'm pretty sure that Jen Liked it too.

Please ignore the subtitles.

Sick Day

So I know that I haven't blogged much in the last few days. Its been the holiday season in the retail biz, and as everyone red-blooded American knows, stores become overwhelmed during the winter months. Last night I started filling ill, and so this morning I called in. I need a day off anyways. Yesterday was Christmas, but unlike the childhood memorizes, Christmas with a fiance can mean travel. With travel and more family can also mean more presents. I got a bunch of Swag and gave a little bit. The last three or so weeks have been a blur. Between finishing school and work and moving, time just flies by. The next month hopefully will be a little more relaxed, but as it is the last month before the wedding there will be much to do. Did I mention that my sister is also getting married this month. Yep, one week from today. Super excited. But I digress.

I took a sick day. Jen and I went to look at wedding bands. Men's bands are WAY cheeper than girls. Thats cool though, Its Jen's B-Day and I got her a whopper of a gift. (serious bling) She got a me a ring and a suit, so all in all a good trip. But I am still under the weather. Something strange is going on though. I am actually at my apartment during the day. I think the is the first time i've been here at 11 o'clock. Watching psych chilling on my bed and blogging is just what the doctor called for. Alright, I'm about spent on here. Laters people that may or may not be reading this thing.

Everybody Has Bad Days

... and this guy just had one. Would you like to hear about it? Whats that? You would? Well great, I will tell you all about it. It started off just fine, in fact, it started off good. I got to sleep in a little bit. I've been waiting to do that all week, and finally Sunday came around and I got to sleep past 7. So I got up, puts some clothes on, and went out the door. Only, there was a sign of things to come. I had bought a beanie the day before at Davis (where I work) and I couldn't find it for the life of me. But I thought that I might have left it in Jen's car and went on. Besides, it was going to be in the 60s and there was no need for cold weather gear. So I went on my way to meet my dad.

I rounded the turn to my father's house and I heard a noise. My car makes lots of noises. It is a rather noisy car, but this noise was a bad one. After the noise the ride got very rough, but I limped the rest of the quarter mile to my dad's. When I got out of the car I inspected the car. I had a nail sticking through the sidewall of my tire. If you have had this happen to you, you know that this is death to the tire. There is no plugging a tire with sidewall damage. (that is if you want to have any type of reliable tire on your car) Why was I on my way to my father's this morning? I will tell you. My brother is in the process of moving his family from WV to Tyler, TX. Much closer to the Bayou State than out east where he was. He had loaded a large trailer and had it delivered to the house he is renting in TX. My Dad and I were head out there to unload the trailer because the next day it would be hauled away. My plan was simple. Unload as if my life depended on it and be back in LA in time to have dinner with Jen. The moment the door was lifted from the trailer my heart sank and my back planned a walk-out.

Good thing that backs can't walk by them selves. I worked hard and fast. My dad, in his fifties, is somewhat past his prime, so decide to try to take the brunt of the load. My self, not in peak physical condition, strained to do everything possible to move the process along. All in all we worked till twilight and barely got things done before running out of light. (did I mention that my brother was not there) We returned home, aching from head to foot, past eight o'clock. I returned to my love at nearly nine. I didn't return to the apartment till much later. It had been one of the longest, hardest, toughest days in a very long time, and I still had a donut on my car. All was not well in the world of Carl but at least that was behind me.

I'm glad to say that there is a tire on my car once more and for the most part my body doesn't ache. I look forward to a good night's rest and time well spent with my fiance. I guess you've read enough of my complaints. It's now time for Jen to read my blog and tell me where I've made my grammatical errors.

Later.

The Couch

Jen and I have a barren living room in the apartment. We don't yet have any furniture to put in it so it is just the large room that we don't use for the most part. That is just fine by me, but we have this tv that we can't use unless we stand and watch it. That doesn't seem pleasant to me so all is left unused.

Then there is today.

As Jen and I left for dinner we noticed a couch on the curb. I sized it up. It wasn't broken are in disrepair. It actually looked to be in fine condition and it was a sectional meaning I could manage it by myself. At first it was a joke at dinner. "We could have a couch", we laughed. But it turned serious when we returned home and the couch was still there. I took a good look at it and we talked it over. It seemed to be in good shape, nothing horribly wrong with it. It was a go. Before I knew it I was heading back to the apartment with section in hand, or arms rather. The ends were beasts! My second trip was aided by an older black man that lives in the apartment building beside us, and then it was there. The Couch. A trophy of my valiant efforts.

Jen didn't like it.

So there it sits, unused, in limbo. Will we ever use it? Was it energy wasted? What of our recently acquired seating? Time will tell, but for now there it sits, potential or folly.

Love Is A Mighty, Mighty Good Thing

As one man said, "We get a lot of mileage out of this tired, English word 'love'." I agree. We use it way too much with out really knowing what it means. It's really hard to know it when you really don't know what it is. So I guess this is my explanation of it. If you want to know what I think then please, continue to read.

Love is God.

Or God is Love rather. Somethings sit in paradox. Take for instance the case in scripture that states that God hates Sin. Lets take this thing down to its roots. God is Love, or God=Love. Basically you can exchange Love for God in any piece of scripture. So Lets do that. God Hates Sin, so Love hates Sin. Can we just ponder that for a second. Love hating anything sounds like a contradiction or oxymoron. But I think that if we really understood Love/God then it wouldn't be so confusing. Maybe Love isn't the opposite of Hate. Maybe Love is something completely different. Maybe Love isn't this emotion that leads us to feel mushy, warm and fuzzy.

We have to distinguish between Love and horny hormones.

There is so much telling us that Love is this want to gratify someone else and yourself. The main motivation for "acting out of love" is the gratification that we get from a job well done. Lets face it, it feels good to do something kind, or generous. (this is totally great, but there is so much more) Real Love does these things that feel good, but it also does the things that hurt. I see Love when a child is punished for acting badly (it's easier just not to anything or give in to a kid is it not), sacrificing gain to give to someone else, or giving for the sake of others. Real Love always stems from truth, from good, from God. To Know Love we must first Know God. This is why Love seems so far away when we lie, cheat, act perverse, or commit any type of injustice. We think that Love is something we learn about from movies and songs on the radio, or stories we read about in a book. The truth is that we can't know Love without know the true giver a Love, The author of Love. Apart from Him we have our warm and fuzzies, and they will always let us down.

I want warm and fuzzies (and I have them to)

God (Love) is for warm and fuzzies. God is our Father. Like a father, he delights in our joy. He is happy when we are made happy. Think of a father. He gives his son a kite. The son take the kite outside and puts it in the air. It flies high into the sky and the son take great pleasure in this. The father watches and is pleased. Take the same father and son. The father bring his son the same kite. The son takes the kite and starts to tear it apart, ripping the fabric, breaking the string and doles that hold it together. The son enjoyed his deviousness. The father is dismayed. God is the same way. He gives us Love. We can do with it as we should or we can turn it into something that it was never meant to be.

God Is and Was the greatest example of Love. The sacrifices of Jesus was the greatest gift of Love that was ever displayed. I think that we can't separate Love from Love. Real (honest to God) Love still steams from when Jesus hung on the cross and died. Sometimes it get out of focus (at least for me) when I use the word love. I Love my fiance, but I also Love Tacos... The word is used in serious and rather non-serious context sometimes even in the same sentence. I Love my fiance much more than tacos...

So Love, It is a Mighty Mighty Good Thing.

Trash

Something that I've notice is that when moving in one produces a large amount of trash. I've never noticed it before like I have now. Everything that I buy I have to unpackage and then take that packaging out to the dumpster. We do have a trash can in the apt but most of are trash is large boxes. I can't wait for all the settling to be done with. We still have to get the bathroom door to close, but as for most everything else, the apt is fine. Jen and I have several boxes left to go through and unpack. It's crazy how much we can do and still have left to do.

That's it for now. Peace out ninjas!

Long Day

Today I got up a little earlier. Actually thats kind of a lie. I woke up at six, but I didn't get out of bed till 6:30. I did however go to work a full hour earlier. I punched the clock at 7:08. Do the math kids... I went from work to my folk's house. Saw the old room. It didn't look like mine anymore. It was pretty much to same as I left it, but I guess everything is switching over in my head. It's cool though. I like the place and I dig the independence. Work has been killer. Got a good ten hours in today. This next check ought to be massive.

My grandmother gave Jen, my fiance and I a little bit of money as a wedding gift. Honestly I felt a little guilty taking it, but if you've read the last blog then you know my situation with money. I'm rather sick of computers because I work them all day, but they are the only source of entertainment around here since the tv isn't hooked up. Even if it were we don't have much of the way of seating. Reminds me of an episode of the office were Mike mentions his tiny flat screen tv and says that he stands there and watches hours of tv. I think the best thing about watching tv is the fact that you are sitting and being a bum. Lately the best thing about watching tv is that I sit there and be a bum with my fiance.

I unpacked a box today. I like to feel like I'm doing my part around here. Jen has done so much, but sometimes, at the end of the day, I don't feel like being productive. I have to fight my lazy ways and help out around here... said the man typing on the computer while his fiance currently cleans. Oh well... Looks like she's done, gotta go

I'm Broke

Today I paid my rent and electric. Honestly, who do you people do it. I mean, I have a week left and its down to my last few bucks. Don't worry, I'm not destitute by any means. I mean, I am a man of means, and by that I mean that my fiance can help me out till payday.

Sometimes I say all the right things all the wrong ways. I mean, I know what I'm saying, but there is so much left to be interpreted. I have a notion that girls and guy speak different languages and we have to translate each other without even thinking about it. I love my fiance more than anything, but sometimes its like the only thing I can say it the wrong thing. Girls and guys are just so different.

Its like the overused gag. There is a guy standing there, and his girl walks in. He says to her, "Baby, you look great today!" Every guy in to world is thinking at this moment, "Man, that's a great line. I should write that down." But then the girl replies, "What!? I don't look great everyday?"

Sometimes it can just be the wrong time. each side faces it, but the real test of a relationship is when it's the wrong time and everything is sideways and it just doesn't feel good, but we decide that the good times are good enough to weather the bad. We know that we love each other more than it hurt to work things out. The good times wouldn't be the good times if we had nothing to compare them to.

Morning One

Don't worry, I don't intend to number my days here. This is the first morning in the new place. Mornings usually come after the previous days, but all this have been data-logging, so you, and I at a later reading, know when this has been written.

New Places are filled with new and strange sounds. A noisy ice-maker, a cat in heat, the way rain sounds when it falls outside your bedroom window, all these things seam to be amplified at night. The place is filled with familiar things but that is about it for the familiar things. Everything else is strange. The path you take to the bathroom at night, the morning routine, where you clothes hang, everything is oddly out of place. But I've been involved with more than a few moves in my life so this is nothing that's not expected.

My path to work is going to be much different. Wanting to give my self more time, I woke up a little earlier than usual. I guess with all the anticipation, I got ready in a hurry and don't have much to do. No TV to watch the news on, so I jumped on here to let you know just how everything is. I hope this place works out ok. It has a few quarks, if that's what you want to call them. I took a shower this morning with the door half open. Not because I'm alone and want to express my freedoms, but because the door just does not shut. My Nightstand for the time is a cardboard box, which I guess is an upgrade from the last one. There are many more things to share but I've wasted enough time this morning on this. It is Time to spellcheck.

New Beginings Are A Lot Of Work

So this is the first of many blogs I intend to write in the next season of life. I guess it would be somewhat helpful for you the reader to know a little bit about the person that is writing what you are reading. First of all let me let you know that I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ, but I have some major issues with religious cliches and nonsensical babble passed off as spiritual. I don't swallow anything before taking a good long look at it. That includes everything. I may be a tad too analytical. I am a horrible speller. Just then I tried to spell the word, "speller" with two 'E's. No matter, I spell check like a mad man but somethings still fall through the cracks.

I am starting a new blog obviously but there is something else that you don't know. I have just moved from my parents home into an apartment in the neighboring city. "Trying to gain some independence?" You may ask. Well, yes and no. You see, I'm getting married in six weeks so I have to get some type of home in order. My parents, who are loving and supportive, don't seem to have any strong feelings about my moving. This may be because they have had three other children do the same thing. I being the forth to do so, they may just be over it. My wife-to-be's parents on the other hand have been enthusiastically involved with the entire process. They, having only one child if you don't included the paraplegic-wiener-dog, have been very enthusiastic about the whole wedding/home preparation thing. I am grateful for all of it

New Beginning, New Year, New Guitar, New Kitchen appliances. Its all so new. New freedoms, New house, New Home, New Wife, New Life, I just can't take it all in. I want to take advantage of all of these thing at once, but I can't, so I jump from one to the other. All the while time flying by. I want something to make me pause and reflect. Maybe even capture the moments and the thoughts that I've had along the way. So, really this thing is for me, but I'll allow you to come/read along. Don't get to overly excited, my life can be a little humdrum for most, but maybe you can appreciate the simpleness.