A lesson in failure

I can't stop laughing. I don't know why my Twitter experience was so funny, but I just keep thinking about how hard I tried to make it work, how miserably I failed, and it just makes me laugh even harder. It's like laughing at yourself after you trip really badly. You laugh at yourself after you trip, but then you picture what you must have looked like when you tripped and you laugh even more. You can't really explain it, but it's just...funny.

Initially when hearing about Twitter, I thought, "That sounds really cool, but I don't have a use for that". I was right. Someone told me at the beginning of my experience to figure out what I wanted to use it for. I think the problem was that I never did find a use.

What I did do was feel like a huge loser because I was desperately looking for friends that
a)I actually wanted to follow and hear what they had to say
b)would follow my tweet so I wasn't talking to myself

...that's when I realized... It just all comes down to where your people are...and my people don't use twitter.


Twitter people

People that have exciting lives-My life isn't exciting enough to update people all the time about my current location-If I did, my twitter feed would look something like this:

12:01"washing dishes"

1:30 "rewashing dish that didn't get clean in cycle". Failure.

People that inform a group of people about upcoming events- Potentially this could be great to use with my youth, but I could only find one of them on twitter, and she had her profile locked (smart girl- makes a youth leader proud). In general the youth use facebook for EVERYTHING. I ended up using twitter to post on facebook...? Failure.

People that keep up with current events- I love "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", but that doesn't mean I'm good at it." Failure.

People that network with other people that are on twitter-...Failure.

Really funny people- I would not consider myself really funny. If I'm funny, it is mostly by accident. Being really funny all the time is also really tiring.

and then there's me:

People who really want to like Twitter and wish they had a use for it...but just don't.

One of my wonderful youth, Rachel, posted this quote today on her facebook, and I would like to end this post with these words.

"Failure. Learn to do it and learn to do it well. It's the only way you get better at anything."

Speak your mind but ride a fast horse

...my new favorite saying.

I went to Babe's chicken for the first time tonight for date night, and I don't know what I was expecting, but I came out of it with a new favorite motto. Just to think all these years I have been unnecessarily getting into trouble, when I all I needed was the horse.

Snow Day Bloopers

Hate Mondays a little less

Ever find yourself waking up on Monday having a less than thrilled feeling about starting another week? Join the millions of people around the globe having that exact same feeling. Every Monday I will start posting a little something to hopefully bring your day at best joy, laughter, and something to share with your friends, and at worst a few minutes of amusement and distraction. "Making Mondays" will always be family friendly, so go ahead, share a smile with someone else who needs it just as badly as you do.

Shawn the Sheep: "Off the Baa!"
(Dedicated to all you sports crazies who are always thinking about the next game anyway)





SHAUN THE SHEEP
You can watch all 39 little videos like this in season 1 of Shaun the sheep available on instant Nexflix.

learning how to fly

Maximus vs...Llama?

Picture yourself mowing the lawn in the middle of your suburban neighborhood one normal afternoon. Suddenly you hear this crazy noise in your direction. At first you think it is some really strange dog trying to bark and failing miserably...no, no that's not quite right...what IS that sound? It is getting progressively louder, so you stop the engine and turn around to find a huge sheep starting at you from the other side of the fence going "BAAAAA" as loud as it can possibly yawp... and that's how it started.

So my parents' next door neighbors have a llama. A llama. Not to mention many many goats (including one very scary goat), sheep, chickens, and guinea fowl... oh, and a dog. It seems every time I look over in their yard, somehow there are more animals than the time before.

I don't know HOW they bribe the city code enforcement officer, but you know you are over the limit when you have to seriously consider charging admission to your backyard. They have such a large chicken coop that they sell eggs on a regular basis...naturally. They have gotten pretty famous, and there is a constant stream of families clearly not from our neighborhood that come to feed, pet, and stare at the number of zoo animals that seem to be growing at an alarming speed. Personally, I'm hoping for ostriches next.

My absolute favorite is when someone comes to our house and tells us all about our neighbors' pets with absolute certainty that we nor anyone else has noticed them before. I mean really, when you drive down your street everyday to find a huge goat and a few sheep casually grazing on some tasty shrub in the front yard...

Since my parents live in a neighborhood of missionaries who have lived in just about every country, this is somewhat but not extremely out of the ordinary; with the exception of the very VERY short time that the neighbors tried having multiple roosters (which caused serious problems for obvious reasons), there haven't been many complaints.

Now that you have a little background, you can imagine how Maximus is tormented by the animals he cannot play with only feet away. In his defense, I'm quite sure the prospect of chasing chickens to his heart's content is almost unbearable. He would get so excited at times I really did fear he would drive himself mad...or attempt to clear the fence and impale himself on the metal wire. Not being keen on either of those outcomes, we decided to start taking him to visit...on a leash. It is without a doubt his favorite part of the day, and has been quite intriguing to say the least.

Last year for our youth group Christmas service, I took my youth to the dumpster behind a hotel to help them imagine what a modern-day stable might be like. This year I know where I'm going.


Maximus wanting to "play" with the Chickens very badly


Cute baby goat


Scary goat


Partial family photo


Funky Chicken


Kissing his new friend goat


Llama llama llama

The REAL definitions of false estate.

So We are about to close on our house in a week...hopefully. My list of lessons learned...the hard way, in a market that is truly backward.

The REAL definitions of false estate.

Short Sale- The opposite of the name. Extremely long and tedious make you want to pull your hair out sale.

Realtor- The person that can pretty much make or break just about everything having to do with your house. NEVER pick a random realtor. Period. Do not choose them unless they have a high recommendation from someone who you trust. Your realtor must be someone who you can trust...mostly.

"Christian" Mortgage Broker- Someone who is a nice Christian person who is also a mortgage broker. These two don't necessarily have anything to do with the other. A really nice person that loves God can still want to charge you ridiculous fees for closing. It doesn't mean they are a bad Christian. They just make their living off of you. It's business. Remember that. If you find a better deal from a huge company that may or may not be Christian, you are not mean because you want to get a cheaper interest rate. You are also a nice person that just wants the best deal they can get. It's business.


Random things to remember

Expect nothing- Always expect the worst to happen, and you might be pleasantly surprised. If you plan for everything to go smoothly, you might ACTUALLY pull your hair out.

Humor- I honestly think that you must have a sense of humor when house shopping. Just last week, I went into a house that one of us walked in and immediately RAN out of because it smelled so strongly of fecal matter, ridiculously strong chemicals, and dead people. I will remember that house for the rest of my life. However disgusting that was, once we had left and vowed to all take showers and Clorox our shoes, we couldn't stop laughing. It was so putrid that it was really really funny. It was either that or cry. You will inevitably encounter some crazy crazy houses, and you are truly missing out if you don't look for the humor in the things that repulse you. Go house shopping with your inner-comedian ready, and hilarity WILL ensue.

Ideas to make house shopping more fun if you can't find the humor:

* Make up stories about who lived in the house before (endless fun)
* Imagine how someone had lived in the ridiculously designed space/ create your own ad for the house based on its flaws ( You don't want to miss this house! Cut down on getting ready in the morning. Go to the bathroom WHILE taking a a shower!)
*Take pictures with or posing in some ridiculous part of the house


The "House-Spouse" Philosophy
Initially, pick your house as if you were picking a spouse. Keep a mental list of the must-haves, nice to haves, and bonus categories very clear in your mind. If it does not meet your must-haves list, move on before you fall for the nice to haves or flashy bonus. It is easy to "fall in love" with a house, but do whatever you have to do to guard your heart from the wrong house. Even if a house seems perfect, like any "perfect" person that we fall in love with, we soon find that they are far from being so. Choose wisely, but getting caught up with aesthetic qualities is a slippery slope that will take you straight to a huge money pit...not to mention ulcers and living on beans. Sound glamorous now? Yeah, so there is a reason that there is a Bible song that goes

"Don't build your house on the sandy land,
don't build it too near the shore,
Oh it might be kinda nice, but you'll have to build it twice,
yeah you'll have to build your house once more.
You better build your house upon the rock,
make a good foundation on a solid spot,
Oh the storms may come and go,
but the peace of God you will know."

"Running" through the forest with Max

(my status tonight on facebook)

'running through the forest with Max'
now imagine what you think that would look like.

Idealism: Me gracefully running with Max by my side as the wind whips through my hair, and the birds chirp in the distance on a cool spring evening.

Realism: Me being pulled by Max at an alarming speed through the forest down a very narrow and steep path full of rocks, mud, and what seemed to be an strikingly large amount of holes just big enough to be unavoidable. At this point there are several things going through my mind as I slip and slide several feet in the mud while being dragged down a particularly steep hill: Max is A LOT stronger than I thought a 31 pound puppy could ever be. How long can I realistically keep up this pace? I am going to get an awesome workout, and finally, where are we? These thoughts distract me from the fact that I seemed to have picked up quite a bit of speed going down, and the next thing I know, Max, who is sprinting as fast as he can pull me, naturally comes to a complete halt to smell a shrub. At this pace, there is no stopping me, however, and in mid-air as I fly over him, I wonder: How did this happen?

In spite of all that, the entire time I couldn't stop laughing. I was almost wishing someone were watching this so at least my comedy of errors could be a form of entertainment. Truth be told, I was having just as much fun as Max was having. In retrospect, the only part of the ideal description that was true was the part about the wind whipping through my hair, which it did... but so did the bugs...through my teeth. Maybe next time smile with my mouth closed. Though it may sound crazy, I will definitely be doing this again. If I knew that all I needed for hilarity to ensue was my dog, his leash, and a big forest, I would have done this a long time ago. I'm canceling my membership with L.A. Fitness. I mean really, what more could ever I hope for in a workout?