Weekend in Brandon

This past weekend took us to Rebecca's parent's home in Brandon. The initial reason for the trip was Mrs. Melanie's birthday. It grew into also celebrating Philip and Chouna's engagement along with taking engagement pictures for them and another couple whose wedding is coming up in May. So another weekend was spent mixing business with pleasure.

Another theme through the weekend was animals. Mr. Chip's passion is horses. Unless something else needs his attention he is at the barn or on a horse. So along with the horses he also has some cows and chickens. One of the mares was very pregnant. We were on watch all weekend for a baby horse, but she didn't go into labor. There is also a pond on the property and for the first time I took a fishing pole. I love to fish, so I don't know why I haven't in the past, but I will probably make it a regular occurrence from now on. I spent a couple hours on Friday before the engagement party fishing and caught 6 bass. I was the only one out there so my cell phone was the only camera available. They were all 'keepers' if I had been keeping them.

Massaging the pregnant horse.

The chickens were also a new addition. Rebecca has always had a soft spot for chickens. I think it was because she never really had one. She came close as a child when she got some chicks, but their cat got hungry one night. So we went out to see them. He has two roosters and two hens. One of the roosters has an hourly alarm along with the traditional sunrise notice. Their bobbing movement was very interesting to me. One of the hens got very protective of he food we brought them and lunged at Rebecca. I think she got her fill of chickens for a while.

These chickens were not bashful at the crowd

As we were walking back to the house that evening we came across Mr. No Shoulders. Rebecca and her mom were on either side of the driveway and walked right beside him. Rebecca noticed as she was right next to it. I was a few feet behind them, so now the water moccasin was in between me and the ladies. It was about 3 feet long and very still. Mrs. Melanie ran back to the house to get a shovel. She handed it to me and as I was coming down with my first whack to the head, it took off towards the water. I chased it and continued to swing as it dodged my every blow. Just before it reached the water I made contact. It tried to lunge at the shovel once it was wounded, but I continued the barrage. It eventually stopped moving and I carried it to the garage for closer inspection.

The water moccasin. A good portion of him had been chopped off by this point.

New Toy

Most of my business equipment is leftovers from high school days. All of it still runs fine, so I haven't had a reason to get anything new. However, even during our high school days we always had our eye on a Walker Mower. In many ways the Cadillac of mowers, it was always out of our price range. This past fall picking up leaves was definitely the limiting factor in my efficiency. This type of mower allows you to 'bag' while covering a larger area in shorter time. Along with the suction of the blades, it also has a fan that acts as a vacuum. The container on the back holds about 6 times the amount a bag on one of the Honda push mowers. Another future benefit it the ability to exchange implements on the front instead of the mowing deck. So all that and I get to sit down while I mow.

Dad found one on Craig's List a few weeks ago and we made Longscape's first big purchase. I'm still getting the hang of her, but I think she is going to be a great addition.

I think I have settled on the name 'Giselle'

Samford's Step Sing

This past weekend while I was out of town my wife was consumed with arguably Samford's biggest event of the year, 'Step Sing.' While most schools have tickets scalped for sporting events, this is the one Samford event where tickets are very hard to come by. Step Sing is basically a show choir production where various groups are competing for bragging rights. Rebecca and Caroline brainstormed the idea of creating and selling posters using their photographs to raise money for their photography department. They took pictures opening night, Rebecca designed the posters, and then sold them Friday and Saturday night. Since posters had never been done before no one knew about them and sales were slow at first. By the second night word had gotten around and they were a huge hit. Some groups sold out and had to take additional orders. I joined Rebecca this past Wednesday on campus to set up a table for order pick ups and last chance purchases of extras. The beautiful weather made for a great midday of hanging out with my wife.

Like Old Times

This past weekend was a trip back to high school days. A while back, my friend Brad suggested we go down to Spanish Fort, AL to visit our friend and former roommate Matt Cook (here is his blog) . We've all been friends since middle school, but since the end of college we don't get to see each other as much. So we made the trip down and had a great weekend of just hanging out. It was nice to sit around and not do much. We cooked steaks on Friday night. Saturday, Cook and I worked on his raised beds in which he plans to plants vegetables. We only had a circular saw to work with so Brad added helpful insight, such as "You need one of those saws that cuts the angles."  Cook had already done the base, we just put on the top cap. I think it turned out very nice. Sunday we went to church and then Brad and I headed back to Birmingham. I'm so blessed to have an abundance of friends from all my stages of life.

Hanging on Cook's Inversion Table

Its suppose to help your back.

Showing us how its done.

The Old Gang.

Snow Day

Snow has been forecast several times this winter, but every time it didn't happen, it was only ice, or we were out of town. I feel like that has happened to us a lot over the past couple of years. The snow always happens in places we just left. Our time finally came last week. We got several inches through the evening hours. Rebecca and I went for a walk and came to this grassy area out by the main road. Since Rebecca lived in eastern Tennessee for a while, she was a much more experienced snowman maker than myself. We quickly assembled frosty and set him up by the street. We were only able to get cell phone pictures, because by the time we got back with the real camera he had fallen over at the mid-section (my contribution). Twas fun while it lasted.

Condo Updates Continued

I have a good bit of down time during the winter, so I've continued to work on some projects over the past couple weeks. Changing outlets and light switches has taken up most of my time. The 1/2 bath is done except for a second coat of paint and decorations, which don't fall into my category. Hopefully we can continue painting the upstairs this week.

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.