A little deeper

What words, phrases, or images are surrounding you on a daily basis?

I've been thinking a lot about what I surround myself with or what I "consume" in my mind and heart. I am challenging myself to really focus on what goes in the "temple". I was already thinking about this concept and had the last straw last weekend when I voluntarily watch a movie in its entirety that I should have never even rented. Johnathon and I both felt the same way. We looked at each other and pulled one of these: "why didn't we just turn it off?"
We both knew it was crude within the first 10 minutes and I had to fast forward through about 1/3 of the movie...so again "why didn't we just turn it off?"

A kick in the butt is sometimes just what I need to pursue more godliness ;-)

So what words, phrases or images are surrounding me NOW?

Scriptures I read through out the day that I have taped on my computer:

"Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you." - Matthew 7:7

"Glory in His Holy Name; let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad."
- Psalm 105:3

A quote I read today that is pressing on my mind:

"You will never leave where you are, until you decide where you'd rather be."
- Lewis Dunnington

Of course I must throw in my fortune cookie fortunes I have taped to my computer that I see everyday:

"Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force."
(what am I desiring today? is it righteous? is it selfish?)

"You are the master of every situation."
(this is by far the biggest joke. i think it is very funny that people actually believe we could be master of anything)

Wisdom Teeth, Baby Darcy, Jello and Drugs

I had all four of my wisdom teeth surgically removed Friday. I would be doing fine if it were not for my top right side...it is extremely painful.

I was able to recover from surgery at the Neyland household. Darcy helped me a lot. We bonded while I was healing. We slept on the couch together and at times of wakefulness we stared at each other...neither one of us really had much to say.
I think everyone was a little nervous that I might drop her because I was pretty doped up on pain killers. Nonetheless I prevailed.

So I'm eating a lot of jello and soft cold things although not very filling it feels good.

I am a little out of it because of the Hydrocodone...I will explain with a story:

Early Sunday morning around 4am I was in a lot of pain so I decided to take a whole pain pill rather than half like I had been. Around 7am when I was feeling my best Johnathon got up to get ready for church and says to me..."hey I'm getting up, but if you need anything just yell for me" after he left the room I had remembered I needed something so I started shouting in a groggy, drugged tone "mom...mom..." It took me a little while...then I realized Johnathon indeed was not my mother and when he came back to the room I apologized for calling him mom.
He has been quite amused with all of this.

Words to live by...

...From NBC's The Office: season 3

Michael: "Dwight, what was the most inspiring, life changing thing I have ever said to you?"

Dwight: "'Don't be an Idiot'...It changed my life"

Dwight (interview with the camera):

"When I'm thinking about doing something I ask myself- 'would an idiot do this'- and if the answer is- 'yes' - then I don't do that thing."

Simple, yet life changing.

The Official Long over due photo update

**Disclaimer: at the time I published this the spell check was not working.**

Disney 2007:

First family vacation we have ever taken...if you don't count the last one - which was when I was 4 years old.

Here is the Happy couple celebrating their 30th anniversary!

We look really good in 3D

O' how we ate and ate and ate...and then we would have lunch then eat and eat and eat some more then we would go to dinner. Its a good thing Disney is so big because we had a lot of calories to burn.


And when we weren't walking and had to wait in line...we did what every other normal person would do...excersize!

Very Excited to see Mickey
Yes, Corey thinks he is pregnant too...
We had morning devotional as a family!


HAPPY NEW YEAR! My friend Angela from Teen Mania came over for New Years. We shot fireworks. Well really I just watched.

This is how Lulu celebrates New Years...by selling her honor for a drink and smoke...poor Lulu I think she will learn soon enough that those things don't get you very far...

Happy Birthday Corey! He was a New Year baby. He was very excited about what Mom and I bought him.

Then it was my Birthday January 6th. Johnathon cooked and invited some friend and family over. It was fun.

Kyle is looking very angelic...how special

Aaron is busting out a dance move

Lulu is not too impressed with the party...I guess because there was no drinking...

Johnathon bought me a really cool outfit for my bday and took me out to one of my favorite restraunts for sushi!

Well that's it. I hope you have enjoyed the update!

Where O' where have we've been..Part 1

Well- it has been quite a while and I do apologize for my delay in blogging. But I'm back and ready to blog.

Let me first start in chronological order

I'm terribly saddened by The Office reruns. I say...just pay the writers their just reward for making your show the most popular on television and lets get on with our fictional lives as usual! I don't think it is too much to ask.

Then there was Thanksgiving...fun and lots of food. We saw the movie August Rush and we both thought is was wonderful.

Next we took a family vacation to Disney World. That's right an official vacation with my parents and all of us kids and spouses. Which comes to a grand total of 10 including Marcie's Fiance' Zach. That's right if you haven't already heard Zach arrived at Disney a boyfriend and left as a fiance'. He popped the question while we were at Disney! Very good, way to go Zach.

This is a replay picture of the actual popping of the question.

The vacation was a lot of fun. We went in celebration of my parents 30th anniversary and Christmas wrapped in one.

I am going to post more later. Including many pictures. At this time; however, I must be getting a move 'on because tonight our family is going out to dinner with Zach's parents who flew in to meet and greet all of us. Very fun.

Ran-dom-ness

70's Halloween party we had for the youth group. Thank you to whoever brought the Afro I desperately needed it to complete my outfit.

I finished the book (on disc) Rich Dad Poor Dad- what the rich teach their kids about money- that the poor and middle class don't. By Robert T. Kiyosaki
It was very good.
Most eye opening line in the whole book "the difference between the wealthy and the middle class is - the wealthy buy luxuries last and the middle class buy luxuries first" very good!
I plan on listening to it over and over and over as I sleep at night so that I can subconsciously learn how to become wealthy and then I will just start making great investment decisions with little to no effort.

I am officially addicted to Dave Ramsey's podcast, website, and basically anything he says about how I should be handling money. I look forward to reading one of his books soon.

Huge kick right now - Books on disc. Great time saver!

Just started listening to The 360 degree leader by John Maxwell I know it will be good.

Currently working on a youth group project called "Katrina Beach - The Real Gulf Coast" This is a lot of fun. I will have to see if Aaron (director, producer and basically my boss for this project) can post some video of it once we have an episode completed.

The Office on NBC still takes the cake for best over-all entertainment!

Go see "Dan in Real Life" at the theatre...wonderful, heart warming, funny, funny, funny...need I say more.

check ya later.

Good Read...

So there is a bit of tradition in our little city Long Beach within the high school during the week of homecoming. It never fails that some of the Middle school kids try and get in on the tradition. This "tradition" is the act of toilet papering "rolling" people's houses. (You might be familiar with this type of shenanigans) For this 1 week out of every year the police will not make arrest or try to intervene while youth roll people's homes. Usually it is a sign of appreciation and great love if your home is rolled. So...after working all day 2 weekends ago preparing for our cattle sale we came home to this -

This tree -----------^ has a HUGE bee hive in it so the rollers are lucking they did not get stung.

I'm not gonna lie...it was a good roll job; however, it could have been better had they used the whole roll of toilet paper.

I found this whole roll! You might be wondering how I could look sooo good at 1 AM, especially after working all day and evening at the farm...it's all natural.

The left overs. These people had so much potential, but fell short of what could have been even better! No good underachievers.

How do you get toilet paper out of the tops of your trees??? You set the paper on fire! WARNING: Do not try this unless it has rained recently!

So who were these underachievers...well at first we assumed it was my mother and all my siblings. Come to find out it was Lulu and James (my youngest sister and brother). Evidently my mom would not allow James to go rolling seeing as how he is only 13. Lulu; however, felt it was vitally important for James' development as a child to participate even though he is not in High school. So my mom suggested for him to roll "the middle school youth leaders house" i.e. my house.

Even though the idea was my mom's Lulu was indeed the ring leader and most at fault. So revenge was in order. This may not be funny to all those reading this blog unless you know a few things about my sister Lulu: 1) she is VERY concerned with the care and condition of her car 2) she is not happy with her current single status and the lack-age of a male relationship in her life 3) she would not appreciate the Vaseline under her door handles.

Notice the front passenger door window.

All is well that ends well. =)