Little Lucy

Ever since a video chat last summer where we were surprised by the picture of the sonogram, we have been anticipating David and Emily's baby. Whenever the subject has been mentioned since then Rebecca's usual response is either "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" or "Widdle Wucy." Lucy Jean was born last Wednesday to some very proud parents. Once we got the call from David they were headed to the hospital, Rebecca and I tried finished up our work for the day and hit the road. Rebecca actually got to video chat with them when they got to the hospital and waiting for Lucy to come. They signed off to a crying Rebecca, who has a habit of getting more emotional for others big events over her own. We made it to Starkville a few hours after she was born. David and Emily appeared to be doing great when we arrived and said Lucy had come without any trouble. We got to go look at her through the glass in the nursery before we had to leave for the evening.

A trip to Starkville also meant we got to see some friends and spend some time with Mammie. We got to eat dinner with Brett and Megan. Mammie runs on college time so she always stays up late and therefore usually sleeps late. I hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving so it was great to spend some time with her. Rebecca and her also got to do a little shopping while I went up to campus to see Matt and the turf crew.

We then got to go back to the hospital to see Lucy one more time. This time she was in the room so we both got to hold her. I believe this was my first time to hold a newborn. The whole process is amazing to think about, but when you get to hold a new life it takes it to a whole new level. What an amazing gift from God. We are very excited for those two and know they will be fabulous parents.

Hide Yo Hedge Trimmer, Hide Yo Backpack Blower

I was just thinking yesterday how I haven't written anything in a while. Not much had really happened that I wanted to write about. Well something did happen today, but I wish I wasn't writing about it.

I have been in this business on and off for 12 years now. In all those years I have never had anything stolen. Until today. With an open trailer, unlocked equipment, and me out of sight for periods of time, I had often thought about the possibility, but never done much to deter a potential perpetrator. Like many things in life we're reactive instead of proactive.

I was at one of my newer yards today. The client lives in a garden home community and appeared to be a very safe neighborhood. I was going through my normal routine, so after finishing mowing the backyard, which took me no more than 8 minutes, was getting ready to blow the driveway. I got to the trailer and my blower was gone. I stood there and stared at the empty blower rack for a second perplexed, but knowing in my heart what had just happened. Surely not. This must be a mistake. I then did a check of my surroundings hoping to see some sign of my equipment. Maybe I'm being punk'd? Of course all was quiet. I then called Mom for the one in a million chance Dad had used it the night before, forgot to put it back, and I was just now missing it. As I was talking to her, I noticed my hedge trimmer was also gone. No way Dad used both the night before, so I knew the answer Mom was going to give.

The helpless feeling set in. I wanted to run in all directions scouring for the low life that robbed me, dreaming of the things I would do to that person if I found them, all the while knowing it would futile. They were no doubt long gone.

I called the police to report the crime. I also needed the police report so I could file my insurance claim. Officer Johnson came to assist me. Like a scene out of the movies, as he arrived it started raining. So I was standing there, out two pieces of equipment and getting soaking wet. He let me sit in the patrol car with him as we filled out the report. The most likely result is the equipment ending up in one of many pawn shops or the thieves actually using it. Either way, only the winning the lottery chance that it would ever get reported to the authorities as stolen.

The whole process of police and insurance dealings took about an hour and half. I decided to call it a day after that. I wasn't much in the mood to work anymore and I was scheduled to trim hedges that afternoon, so that would have to be put on hold. Much like after my bike got stolen I suddenly became super paranoid and didn't want to let my stuff out of my sight until I got an extensive lock system. So my first stop on my way home was at Lowe's. There I purchased nearly $100 worth of locks.

• 4 Locks for the racks
• Cable and lock for mowers and other loose items
• Lock to keep trailer connected to hitch
• Lock to keep hitch connected to truck

It will now be several extra steps in my daily routine, but the crooks will have to work for my stuff from now on.

I then went by Riverchase Mower to price the pieces that got stolen. It will be about $850 to replace the two items with similar models. Both of the stolen pieces were about 10 years old, and I had gotten lots of use out of them. Because of depreciation I doubt I will get any insurance money for them.

It absolutely could have been much worse. Like the hard drive failure from earlier in the year, I will take it as a good reminder to better care for my stuff. When I got home Rebecca reminded me of the story of when she was just a baby and her parents brand new lawn mower got stolen during the aftermath of their house getting destroyed by a tornado. It takes a real low life to steal from a tornado victim. Despite the wrongdoing and her warranted anger, her Mom's prayer was that the thief was using that mower to feed his family. She then felt a peace about the situation. At some point later they purchased a new lawn mower. After waiting some time the amount for the check had still not come out of their account. They checked with the store owner and he had received his payment from the transaction.

It was a much needed reminder and how we should live as I came home very frustrated. In no way do I expect the same divine reimbursement Rebecca's parents received, but I do see how richly blessed we are. The Lord has given us so much to be thankful for, its not worth staying upset over a couple material losses. No matter the size of the storm in our life, he deserves to be praised.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." - Matthew 5:43-48

So Mr. Robber, as hard as it is for me to say, my prayer tonight is that those items are helping you to meet some need that you had no other foreseeable way to meet. If you ever come back though, you better bring some serious bolt cutters.

P.S. While looking for product images, I came across this photo on Stihl's website. Maybe this can be Rebecca and me someday.

Data Dilemma

We recently had a minor disaster at Rebecca Long Photography. I came home one day to Rebecca telling me that "Fat Bear" (Rebecca gives all of our hard drives names involving a bear) was ejecting itself from the computer. Trying not to panic I examined the situation and came to similar results. All our photos from summer weddings thus far were on the hard drive. Now, we had multiple back-ups of these photos, so completely losing clients photos was never in the picture. However this is the hard drive we were working off of, so all the time put in to sorting and editing on those weddings was potentially lost. I'd estimate about 60 hours of work.

We spent most of that night exploring different options for our situation. I read some forums about similar problems and we tried the drive on different computers ruling out various potential issues. Nothing worked so we figured the drive had "crashed." We then explored various recovery options. They all had one thing in common: expensive. I had no idea about the world of data recovery. It must be much harder than I imagined and not many people doing it.

The next day Rebecca went to a guy here in Birmingham who had a nice website. He ended up running the business out of his home and looked like he had not left his home in a long time. Jorts, unshaven, ratty t-shirt, and open fly were just a few of the first things noticed. He then proceeded to tell Rebecca the doom and gloom of data loss. "Your hard drives will probably only last 6 months and all the things you've been doing have been wrong. At this point I wonder why the manufacturers don't tell you the proper way to use their products. He told Rebecca even he can't do the recovery himself and has to send it off for a mere $1200. We decided to keep looking around. She found a company in Florida that actually does the recovery. She talked to Richard and after her sob story he gave her a quote of $800 if they are able to recover your stuff. We decided it was worth it and sent it off.

In the mean time we decided to revamp our back-up protocol. We purchased a Drobo S. I'm not the best at explaining this, but I think its like a mini server. It has 5 slots for 3.5" hard drives. It uses the RAID technology and automatically makes back-ups of your stuff. So if one of the drives fails, everything is still on the other ones. So we also got four 1.5 terabyte drives to put in it. I also bought a battery back-up for her computer and new storage device in case of a power failure. So $2000 later, we feel more protected and now follow the "3-2-1 back-up method"

• Make 3 backups of everything
• On 2 different types of media
• Take 1 to a different location

With there being lots more digital information and all of it needing to be stored, the ability to do this indefinitely seems like quite a challenge. Hard drives keep getting bigger and files themselves keep getting larger. The fear of losing things can be quite haunting.

All of this was a good reminder on where you store your treasure.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Matthew 6:19-20

Breaking Habits

This past Sunday in small group we discussed things we learned about our spouse after marriage that we weren't aware of before. Most things mentioned were funny habits about one another that were usually neither good or bad, just unique characteristics. Rebecca told everyone that I'm kind of a messy eater when we are at home and how you can tell if I enjoyed the meal by how much remained on my face. I mentioned how Rebecca has restless foot syndrome in the morning and will rub her foot back and forth as she wakes up. Aside from bad manners and worn out sheets, no real harm done.

The stories from fellow small groupers reminded me of a lesson I had to learn in relationships. Rebecca and I have been married for over 2 years now and I still have to remind myself of this. Relationships in marriage, family, and friends can sometimes be brutal. I've noticed how easily frustrated people can become with one another the longer they've known each other. A seemingly insignificant thing can cause a huge argument. Sometimes these 'things' are the result of things deemed bad habits. A lot of times these 'bad habits' are not necessarily bad, just annoying to the other person.

I have seen in others and I know I have seen it in my own marriage, that I can let these things build up in me and become such a source of frustration. You marry someone having a pretty good idea who they are, but then there is so much more to learn. While you are dating its hard to find anything wrong with each other, then when you are married some have trouble finding anything good. I mean how often do you hear a person talk good about their spouse when the other is not around. Most of the time its just joking, but there's always some truth to a joke.

So the lesson I've had to remind myself is to not take someone's uniqueness as an annoyance. I married Rebecca because I love the person she is. So why after marriage would I try to change that personality? I think it is our nature to question things that our different than ourselves. So when we are constantly around that difference it starts to bug us. Sure there are things we need to keep each other accountable on and definitely build one another up in love. But I've noticed there are so many indifferent things that seem to bother us the most.

For instance. Rebecca and I differ on our sleep schedule. The nature of my work lends me to go to bed early and get going early to beat the hot portion of the day. Rebecca doesn't really have a set schedule. Her nature is to work real late (often after midnight) and then sleep later than most. It isn't that she is lazy. She actually works more hours than anyone I know. She just likes to sleep at a different range of hours than myself. This use to bother me because I've always been around the conventional wisdom of "early to bed, early to rise" mentality. So if you're sleeping in, then you are lazy and wasting time. The fact is she just works better at night and functions better during the day if she doesn't have to get up early. Why she can't just shift her body clock, I don't know. So rather than letting it bother me, I realized that's just who she is. Her sleep/work schedule is not wrong, its just different than my own. By changing it I'm not making her a better person, just more like myself.

We all have a sin nature so there are going to be things that need correcting from our spouse. But there are also lots of things that don't need changing, because that's just who we are. We are all created uniquely by God and made that way for a reason. We should rejoice in the nature of his creation, not get frustrated at it.

It definitely would be a boring place if we were all the same.

Priase You in this Storm

Rebecca and I rode out the storm almost wondering why it was so calm at our house. As we ate dinner and watched the live stream of a Tornado, it was like watching a movie, yet going through areas just miles from our house. Relative to other areas we were never really in danger. It barely rained, the wind was not bad, and we never lost power. As we watched we knew so many people were hurting, yet what could we do? As the pictures and videos rolled in, the destruction we knew would be there was now evident on our TV. "Warzone," "bomb exploded," "destroyed," were as common phrases as "what's for dinner?" These type of images and phrases are pretty frequent on a global scale, but to realize how close it is to you and how it easily could have been you, puts it in a whole new perspective.

Why were there lives thrown into an uproar and mine spared is such an easy question to conclude. I have to remind myself that we all deserve this and much more, and we will all face this in one way or another. Our sinful nature will ultimately lead to eternal destruction and turmoil if not for the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The destruction from the storms paints such a clear picture to me of how putting our hope in anything else can be taken away in a minute. Houses, cars, and other possessions that people spend their whole lives working for can instantly become worthless. Having these things is fine, but how much more valuable to invest time in loving God and loving people.

I woke up this morning planning on going to work like any other day. I am behind on my yards from the bad weather so I was anxious to get caught up. While I was eating breakfast, I scrolled through the news photos and each one striking at my heart. I continued on to my parents house, but felt so weird about taking care of mostly cosmetic needs from my customers, when there were so many who had real needs that were much more pressing. My dad is on the chainsaw team of the Birmingham Baptist Association Disaster Relief Team and was meeting up with them this morning. I debated in my mind for just a minute more, and then decided to tag along with them for the day.  My yards were such that they can wait another day, so I made myself available to help. One of the benefits of being self-employed is the ability to be able to do this. I'm so glad I was able to help even if it only was to a few people.

Here's a map to show how close the houses with massive destruction were to my parents

The really bad areas of town that are constantly on the news are not open to volunteer relief yet because they are still in first responder search and rescue mode. So we went to four houses over the course of the day that are so close to my parents house, yet by the destruction felt like a different world. All of them had numerous trees down in their yard and on their house. As volunteers we aren't allowed to work on trees that are affecting the house for insurance purposes, but everything else is fair game. The association has a trailer full of chainsaws and we got to work. All the houses we went to were extremely grateful. You can sense their sheer overwhelmed feeling from the destruction and the relief to see somebody come to help. Again it points you to the gospel of being overwhelmed by your sin, and there is a perfect Savior willing to help you.

Pines, oaks, sweetgums, tulip poplars, it didn't matter the type of tree, they were possible victims. Here are just a few photos from our days activities and other houses around. There is still so much more work to be done.

A good reminder to move my car away from trees during a storm

This guy told me he was asleep when this happened

Tim Herrington showed up at the last house with a food trailer to feed the neighborhood. A great time of fellowship to lots of people hurting.

It All Evens Out

We had two interesting stories happen to us the other day. Rebecca and I were out shopping for supplies for our work weekend. As we were walking into Home Depot, I noticed a leather container on the ground by the pansies. I picked it up and sure enough it was a ladies wallet. We took it in the store and gave it to customer service. They paged the owner over the intercom to come to the desk. Seeing that no one was coming and the fact that it was outside, Rebecca and I figured she had already left. We asked if we could look at it closer to see if we could find a phone number knowing she was probably frantically searching for it and canceling her credit cards. We couldn't find a direct number for her, but after making a couple calls based on some other information, we were able to get in touch with her. She was ecstatic that it was found and said she was on her way to where we were. She pulled up and appeared to be on the verge of tears. She thanked us many times and shook my hand. I didn't catch it as it was happening, but when she let go I realized she had put something in my hand. A glance at my hand confirmed what it was. I looked back up and she was already getting back in her car. I told her I couldn't take it, but she would not listen and was adamant that I have it. The meeting probably didn't last longer than a minute as she got back in her car and dove off. We went back in the store to continue our shopping and I looked at my hand a little more closely. Instead of one $20 that I originally thought, there were two $20. When we were trying to return the wallet I never envisioned getting a tip for it, but in the end who doesn't like getting $40?

The second story occurred about 8 hours later. That afternoon/evening we went to Lowes to get the other portion of our supply list for the weekend. We had one 10% off coupon so we were trying to get as much in one purchase as possible. Also the store was running a deal where if you spent so much on bath items you got $25 off. We met the criteria and one of the associates had told us it should show up on our receipt. After we checked out we looked at our receipt and didn't see any indication of it so we asked the cashier. Our inquiry resulted in a 15 minute wait as she and the manager tried to figure out the reason the register didn't ring up the discount. In the end, she had not scanned one of our bath items at all, so it failed to show on the register, thus failing to meet the minimum amount spent to get the discount. So the manager rang up the item and gave us $25 off of that. Had we not asked we would have gotten out of there 15 minutes earlier and $50 more in our pockets.

Looking back there are couple lessons learned.

1. You make money when you go to Home Depot and lose money when you go to Lowes.

2. More importantly, I learned more about my own flawed nature. While the thank you money that morning was unexpected, it immediately became mine and I thought of ways I could use it on myself. If for some reason it got taken away from me 10 seconds after I got it, I would put up a fight and claim it was mine. While she did give it to me, we certainly would be fine without it. That very night at Lowes, an error on their part ended up costing us $50 more than thought 15 minutes prior. It was their merchandise and we wanted to buy it, so of course we needed to pay for it. That's the right thing to do. However, as I walked out of the store, I somehow felt I had been wronged, even though we paid exactly what we should have. A few minutes later it hit me that after the morning and evening events, we had just about evened out by receiving an unsuspected $40 and then paying an unsuspected $50. Even though I didn't realize it at the time the Lord was taking care of us through it all. He provides for all of our needs and now I understand that this whole episode was just a way of showing me that it is all his anyways, and that I get way too caught up in what is 'mine.'

The day reminded me of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant from Matthew 18:23-35. Where basically the servant is forgiven of a large debt from the King, but later fails to show the same mercy to the people under him who owe him a much smaller sum than what he was forgiven. When God gives me something unexpected I often take it for granted and act like I deserved it, much like the money from the wallet. Then, in the very same day, I get bothered about paying a sum that I rightfully owed.

The Lord took care of me and taught me a lesson even though it took me a while to realize it.

DIY - Compost Bin Update

The compost bin is still getting settled into the back yard. Both sets of neighbors have come over to inquire about the new addition. Fortunately they both think its a good idea and mentioned wanting to do something similar themselves. I have almost filled up the 1st bin and have a good bit of material in the second. When I was 'turning' the pile the other day I noticed steam coming out of the pile. I first thought it was dust, but when I stuck my hand down I could feel the heat coming out. I knew it would generate heat as it decomposed, but was surprised at the amount with it being so cold outside. Today we took Mom's infrared thermometer to see just how hot it was. Just a few inches down we took readings well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit with the highest being 135 and the air temperature outside in the low 40s.  So if the heat ever goes out in the house, there's a free source outside.

Seeing this process first hand reminds me of the perfect design of creation. With relatively minimal inputs, plants grow providing a plethora of benefits to us. One not often mentioned is that the shedding of their leaves every fall, contribute to the soil. What we often consider waste, is really of great importance to the continuation of growth. Such an amazing design of balancing human life with plant life always reminds me of our creator. An amazing creation points to an amazing God.