I need...

to create. to emote. to blog. I'll do something soon... promise.

home improvement...

*Uhhhggghhhaaa* (think Tim Allen's grunt on Home Improvement)

I feel like a man... a real man.
We just happened to go to Lowe's today, which always makes me feel pretty masculine, but today we decided, "Hey, let's buy a new chandelier for the dining room and a new light over our bar in the kitchen"...

It was somewhat of a planned impulse buy... something we'd planned on doing for awhile, but something we just didn't have time to do nor money to buy.

So we are looking through the lighting section at Lowe's, and we find the one's that we want... a neat chandelier and a light that hangs from a cable with a very very cool glass colored bulb thing that covers it... so we get all that stuff and then make a quick trip to Wal-Mart where we bought this outdoor clock to put out on the brick wall on our deck.

When we got home, I had a LOT to do... so I immediately got to work... the first thing I did was begin drilling a hole into the brick in the backyard... 20 minutes later, I had a hole and a masonry screw in the wall with a clock hanging from it! One down, 2 more projects to go.

Next I went to take down the old light... disconnected the old wiring, and stripped cabling to reconnect the new light with the new wiring. I decided, "eh, you know what? I'm good enough at this, I'll go ahead and put the cool glass slash semi-expensive bulb colored cover thing on"... you can already tell where this is going. Yep! Got the wiring connected and as I was was fixing to put the screw in to hold the light fixture in place, it all came tumbling down and the cool glass slash semi-expensive bulb colored cover thing shattered into about 1000 pieces over our living room, kitchen and dining room. So Jamie took another trip to Lowe's to get a replacement cool glass slash semi-expensive bulb colored cover thing... and now, voila!

After that, I went ahead and did the same thing to our current chandelier, stripping the wiring, getting the new one ready to hang. Let me tell you, this was the first time I've ever installed a chandelier, so the whole "chain" thing was totally trial and error... and it took me an hour to install.

But it too turned out good... except we broke TWO energy efficient bulbs (which I guess are highly toxic with mercury?)... so then we spent the rest of our night cleaning the floors, vacuuming up multiple sections of broken glass and bulbs, and then making sure our house was mercury free... which is slightly impossible to tell.

So hopefully we live through the night and all is well...
I do indeed feel like a man... I felt as though I did some pretty intense home improvement projects today! Doing some electrical wiring and ensuring the safety of all eating at our dining room table underneath our newly installed chandelier... ha!

Marathon blog...

It's been a little while since I've blogged... a lot has actually happened since I last wrote which is one reason I haven't written...

So I'll try to give the 'cliff notes' version.

Let's start with Mac, our Yorkie. We got Mac on New Years Eve and he was a welcome addition to the family... for the first time in our marriage, we had something other than ourselves to take care of and, although trying, we instantly became attached to him and found ourselves treating him like our own child. Mac was always a very laid back pup, liked to sleep a lot... we thought this was normal for most puppies as we've read, so we thought nothing of it. Within a weeks time, Mac went from what we thought was a normal puppy, to a blind puppy... Our 10 week old Yorkie pup was blind and his health was quickly declining... energy level was non-existent, and it was a pretty tough thing to watch. We learned a lot about what may or may not be wrong with him, and spent literally every day for a week at the 24-hour emergency vet clinic. After a few over night stays (and a lot more money than we had to spend), Mac's condition worsened until the evening that it all just became evident he wasn't getting better. The following morning, we were there as the doc put him down... I really never thought it would be as hard as it was, but it was definitely a tough situation for Jamie and I. Really tough... We later found out he had a liver shunt which would've eventually killed him or we could've spent the 2-3000 bucks for the surgery. (2-3000 we didn't have).

Long story short, we were devastated as you can imagine... but the same day some friends found out about losing Mac, and blessed us with our new pup, Macy. She's a pretty incredible dog, and we now instantly realize how an energetic Yorkie pup is supposed to act. The dog is everywhere! Literally, everywhere. Afraid to sleep because she's afraid she's going to miss something... sounds a little like my nephew!

So that's honestly taken up the majority of my life the last few weeks! I swore much more happened in the few week break I've taken from the old blog, but I'm afraid that's gist of it all.

In the meantime, I've started doing some design and video stuff again! I've forgotten how much I miss spending hours in Photoshop and spending 3 hours to animate a 30 second clip in AfterEffects... yup! It kind of makes me want to get back into it full-time. You never realize how much you actually miss doing something until you're not doing it anymore. (of course)

Thursday night, the wife went out with some girlies, so I went out with a few buddies to a last minute Charlie Hall show. The thing about Charlie is that, although he lives in Oklahoma City, he plays Oklahoma City maybe 2 to 4 times a year... so I knew that I would have to go! The show was actually an acoustic-esque "storytellers" evening, in which they would play songs off of the new album and explain his thought process behind each song. It was actually one of the most relaxing evenings I've had in awhile, just sitting and listening to some good music... the show itself was in a pretty small venue... with about 100-150 people in attendance. They were turning people away at the door because of fire-code issues. It was good running into a lot of random acquaintances at the show as well, and getting to hang with a few of the guys after the show.

But what I'll leave you with is something that totally impacted me that evening. They did a song called "Mystery", which, I've listened to before, but it came to a new light that night. I tell you what... I'll just post a video of them doing it at the bottom, as well as the lyrics... hopefully it means as much to you as it now does to me. Thanks for enduring the marathon blog...



Sweet Jesus Christ my sanity
Sweet Jesus Christ my clarity
Bread of heaven, broken for me
Cup of salvation held up to drink
Jesus the Mystery

Christ has died and
Christ is risen,
and Christ will come again

Celebrate his death and rising
Lift your eyes, proclaim his come
Celebrate his death and rising
Lift your eyes, lift your eyes

Patience...

2008 was a year of patience.
I don't quite remember asking God for patience, buttt...

Now that 2009 has started, the ante has been upped and now seems to be the most trying times so far.

Here's to patience and endurance!

the latest Jeffrey...

I know, I know... it is rather ironic that the evening after we watched "Marly and Me" we go and buy a dog. But it has been a long time coming...

So...

We bought a dog.

We pick him up tomorrow... and he's a little guy. A Yorkie (my wife's fav), but will be a great addition to the family. Eventually, I'm sure I'll get a dog more my size... but until then, we're very excited about this one.

I have a feeling that this will help ease the 'baby' angst to a degree... no offense friends, but you're all having babies... and not that we're not happy for you... ha! It just becomes frustrating to a degree to hear about everybody's latest 'bun in the oven', especially the "oops" babies.

I'm sure you've figured out by now that we are hoping for kiddos soon. We had been hoping by the end of this year, but hey, all in God's timing, right? However, we've enjoyed our time that we've spent completely alone and together this year. But after almost 5 years of marriage and 7 years together, we feel its time for a little more.

Until then, we'll enjoy that nephew of ours, our new dog 'Mac', and the kiddos of our friends...
Speaking of kiddos, here's a video of one of our favorites!

Reassessment...

Beautiful night! Tonight, Jamie and I had a small date night... dinner with her parents and then Jamie and I watched the movie "Marly and Me". The movie was really good, really uplifting... and pretty emotional. Yes. Even for dudes. C'mon, it's a tear-jerker about "man's best friend"...

Now, this may sound really strange, but tonight, while watching crooked-nosed Owen Wilson's character, something he said clicked with me...

The movie really prompted something in me that I haven't felt in awhile. A connection missing... a wire loose that was all of a sudden reconnected and it all made sense again.

There was a line in the movie... he, being a columnist for a paper, always wanted to be a reporter, not a columnist. Either way, he's writing, but still, its not quite his passion... then he gets a chance to report, relocates and does what he's always wanted to do... then misses the freedom of writing a column. Something his wife says to him is something Jamie has said to me before... she says to him, "John, its just... exhausting sometimes. It's exhausting watching you want something you don't have."

A-ha! That was the moment. Something about that line...

Jamie's said it before, but it clicked because I could visually see a character that I identify with. I just shared 1 hr and 40 minutes of character building with a character who, I feel, I'm not too far from story-wise.

I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, yet, everyday, long for something more... I often feel that the reason I've even come up here in the first place is because of some completely different thing God has for Jamie and I. Part of me feels it has something to do with the church... with ministry. Lots of opportunity continues to present itself to me through the church and through ministry. But then again, who knows. I'm just along for the ride.

It just ceases to amaze me that I can be doing what I've always wanted to do, and still be unhappy to an extent. I've always been told by friends that are ministers that you 'know' you're called or you 'know' you're passionate about something when you're not happy doing anything but that thing. And that's where I am right now. Playing guitar all day, yet something is missing and I'm daydreaming about something completely different.

All that to say, I'm at that reassessment stage... I'm sitting down and reassessing where I want Jamie and I to be in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years... 25 years. I don't want it to be 'exhausting', and I don't want to live my life always wanting something else.

another year...

Friday was the big 2-5 for me... nothing completely intriguing about being 25 really. Nothing fancy happens. 16 you get the drivers license, 18 you can vote, 21 you can buy alcohol, 25?

Well... you can start looking forward to 30... and insurance goes down a little.

My wife planned a great little get-together on Friday with some of our best of friends. You know, it's slightly strange to relocate to a new city, church, job, etc., and look around from year to year to see the new faces that enter your life with such change. With the exception of my best buddy T-Y and his lady friend Reags, and of course, the family, it was a great evening spending my birthday with these new friends.

So... (sorry to all my friends over 25, which is most of them... ha!), 25... 5 years away from 30. My wife is getting annoyed with me because of my little 'getting older' comments I keep making. I've been hitting the sack a little earlier... tonight, I looked down at my hands and said "Hey baby, are my hands starting to look old?".

Now, now... know that I'm paranoid for a 25 year old... gray hair scares me, no hair terrifies me, arthritis happens, but I don't want it... I have a feeling I'll be the 80 year old grandpa with a faux hawk and a very un-useful knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and design. Also know that when I complain about how I'm not sleeping in like I used to, and although 9AM for me on a Saturday sucks, most would love to sleep until 9... like the V's... sorry for that comment on Saturday night guys! :)

So another year has come and gone... 363 days until 26, which again, should prove to be uneventful in itself. However, this past year has been a very crazy/eventful year and turning 25 sets a monument for me to remember these events by. If anything that makes 2008 a great year, its that we've seen so much change and adversity within this last year... changing jobs, changing cities, buying a house, buying a car, changing positions and changing churches... as scary as all of these were, God totally took us and guided us through this year...