Guilty Pleasures

Thank you Mr. Mielke.  I had not posted in a few days and began to get the “itch” to put something down, but, alas, I really had nothing to write about.  However, Nick was kind enough to inspire me via posting on his guilty pleasures.  As I have several of them, it shouldn’t be too easy to put them out there.  Go, go, gadget bullet-points!!

• Movie News: I incessantly check the trades websites to see who got cast for what, what’s coming out, and so forth.  I love pondering celluloids and make-believes, and so I enjoy my daily excursions to Ain’t It Cool News and JoBlo.com.  I know it is a complete waste of time and I will never be able to use much of the information I glean from these websites without looking like a total dork, but yet I continue to visit them.
• Horrible movies: Case in point….The Fifth Element.  I can not divert my eyes away when it is on.  It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it on TNT, I feel compelled to watch the whole thing whenever it comes on, which is a lot.  I know how bad it is, but I can’t look away. Additional example….The Underworld movies.  One of my guilty pleasures is vampire movies (laugh all you want, I know how sad it is), and so a film, no matter how flawed, that pits vampires against flippin’ werewolves is a must-see in my book.  Horrible dialogue….check.  Ridiculous plot…..check.  Campy acting that would make Adam West proud….check.  Joe watching it…..double check.
• Hand motions and/or skits set to Christian songs:  I assume I will really get it for this one, but I can’t help it, I love those things.  I have watched the LifeHouse “Everything” skit on YouTube about a million and a half times and I almost cry every time.  I said almost, get off my back.
• Fonts: I really like finding cool fonts on teh intranets.  Enough said.
• American Idol/Extreme Makeover: Home Edition : I just really like both of these shows.  While I may not have the exhaustive list that Nick does (I spend too much time being an elitist to watch that much TV), I do watch AI religiously.  AI was a show that Brit and I watched all the time when we first got married, so I guess it holds a small sentimental value to me.

I hope I have sufficiently embarassed myself for the sake of your reading entertainment.  Have a good one.

No Mas

Last week was so nice.  I was able to focus on school, the kids, and of course, my lovely bride with little to no distractions.  These are all things that I thoroughly enjoy as well as spending time with my Oasis peeps.  Other than Brittany working a million and a half hours, last week was pretty perfect.  This week, however, reality is crashing down around me as I prepare to reenter the pits of Sheoul….the Buckle.

Most of you who know me know that I am a fairly positive person.  Alas, I have gotten so discouraged with my current work situation that I am ready and willing to jump on anything else that comes along.  I enjoy the people I work with and enjoy most of the people who actually shop the store.  My discontent stems from many of the things that have been mentioned in this here blog many times before.

Poor leadership (even though I personally like both of the managers)

Constant turnover (no matter how good of a job I do, there is always this feeling that I could be the next to go)

Having to be a pushy salesperson (if I try not to be pushy about Jesus, the most important person/thing in the world, I sure as heck am not going to be pushy about jeans)

Erratic schedule (it is so hard to plan life without knowing when or what time I will be working week to week.  Trust me, it is as random as it comes)

I know you guys are probably tired of hearing me bellow and moan about my job situation, especially when new figures are showing the highest unemployment rates in years.  I should be more thankful that I even have a job, but it is hard to get excited or thankful for something you don’t want.

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School continues to go splendidly.  I am really enjoying most of my classes.  The only class that I have any issues with is Music Appreciation.  We have had two meetings so far and I have almost nodded off both times.  Yesterday was so bad, I had to get up to go throw water in my face to wake up.  The professor is a very nice guy, but his voice is extremely monotone and the room is dimmed way too low.  These factors combined, along with the fact that this class directly follows my lunch break, makes for a deadly sleep aid.  Red Bull is your friend.

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New website stuff for Eastdale is moving along rather quickly.  With a little luck, it could be up and running by the end of the month.  This is  really aggressive target, but they are saying it can be done.

I talked to Josh last week about purchasing CS4 to aid in updating our printed materials and signage and it is looking like a go.  I have been using a “borrowed” copy of CS for the last two years and it is simply ancient.  I love to do graphics work but I feel very limited by the tools currently at my disposal.

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I don’t know if this new baby thing is already bothering Channing or we simply haven’t been spending enough time with her, but her behavior as of late has been terrible.  She is developing a very serious attitude problem.  She has talked back more in the last two months than she has the entire six years of her life.  I don’t know what the deal is, but we need to figure it out in a hurry.  If she keeps it up, I will be pulling a Major Payne and performing an “attitudinal adjustment.”

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That’s it for me.  Time to go to work.  Blech.

Productive I Am

Considering this was the first Saturday I have had off from the Buckle in the last several weeks, I was really looking forward to sleeping in a little late this morning. As usual, any plans of actually resting were kaputzed rather quickly. Normally I have to literally pull Hayden out of bed to get him ready, but for some unknown reason (aka God’s sense of humor), he was up and raring to go at 6:30 this morning. Brit had to go in for a little while (surprise, surprise) so the kids and I hung out, ate some breakfast, and watched a few cartoons.

We hung out for a little while and then about 8am the productivity bug bit me and I took on the task of cleaning out our den. For those of you who have been over lately, you know this area had become a catch-all for every useless thing in the house. If it didn’t have a permanent home, it was tossed in the den never to be seen again. It adds to the overall sadness that the den used to be a functioning living space until the dog totally ruined it. When we first moved in, we set it up as a office/extra tv viewing area where the kids could hang out and watch cartoons when we wanted to watch something different on the big tv. It worked well for a while.

The room is an addition that was built around the mid-80s and instead of normal carpet they installed that indoor/outdoor putting green carpet. No, it was not green, sadly. We already hated the floor and then Logan the dog, in the process of trying to house train, absolutely ruined it. We pulled it up and since then it has not been a usable space due to the concrete underneath. So, it became a junk room.

I resolved this morning to at least make it less of an eyesore. I cleaned up our computer desk and reorganized our filing systems. I prepared all of our miscellaneous photos to be sorted, redid our bookcase, and threw away a ton of random things that we haven’t used in months. I felt useful for the first time in a long time. I would post before and after pics, but quite frankly it would be too embarassing to post on “teh intrawebs.”

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Brit got off in time for lunch and came home to make her world famous club sammiches. They really are delicious. It is truly one of my favorite foods.

I am really starting to get concerned over the amount of hours she is currently working. Today pushed her to right at 55 for the week and she has to go in for a few hours tomorrow morning. It is frustrating because I actually like her and enjoy her company, but more importantly I don’t know how much longer she can keep this pace up. She is already exhausted because of the pregnancy and working this amount of hours can’t be healthy. We are going to have one stressed out fetus if this continues.

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On baby news, Brit has an appointment Monday so hopefully we will get a positive report. The name debate continues on. Parker has really started to grow on me, but Brit has been a little slower to come around. She was also very hesitant on Channing the first time I mentioned it, so maybe with a little charming I can break her down.

We are going to try desperately to get the den converted into a playroom by July and then the baby will most likely share rooms with Hayden. We go back and forth about where to put him/her and neither solution is truly a good one. The best solution would be to have the baby stay with us for the first few months, but there simply isn’t room to add a crib. Our master bedroom is tiny and is crowded as it is. We really shouldn’t have bought such big bedroom furniture, but we went a little crazy, what can I say. Hopefully my mom will hit the lottery or we will find an abandoned suitcase filled with millions of unmarked bills. Then we could just buy a bigger house. I am sure one of those will happen….

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I haven’t written about politics lately. It’s not that I haven’t had the desire to, or that I haven’t been following the transition, I just have been so busy with other “real life” things that I haven’t had the opportunity to formulate many coherent opinions. I have several friends who are actually attending the inauguration and I couldn’t hate them more for it. Should be a good time.

I know the whole selection of Rick Warren is way old news, but I haven’t had a chance to write about it, so if you don’t want to hear my take, scroll down to the next paragraph. Obama’s selection of Warren to do the invocation at the Inauguration supported my theory that Barack wasn’t going to govern as “left” as most people thought he would. Barack, in my opinion, will be a very centrist president. I felt from the beginning that he would lean more to the left on issues that are important to me (i.e. middle class tax relief, ending stupid wars, fixing American healthcare) and would be more centrist on issues that are either hot-button or issues where I disagree with the Democratic stance (abortion and such).

The fact that people are mad at him for doing what he said he was going to do is ridiculous. He ran his campaign on the promise of bringing people together. No red states, no blue states, just one country. He said over and over again it is okay if we don’t agree on everything, it doesn’t mean one of us is evil or doesn’t love the country. So for the far left to get mad when he selects a pastor who disagrees with him on some controversial issues is simply hypocritcal. Do you want a President who reaches across the aisle and across ideologies or do you want a President that simply pushes his own party’s agenda through and ignores the other half of the country? No thanks, that is what we had for the last 8 years. Enough is enough. It is okay to disagree and still work together and even, dare I say it, be friends. I hope both sides of this issues will see the merit in what Rick and Barack are trying to do.

Blagojevich is an idiot. I try to be life-giving and be positive whenever possible, but that buffoon makes me want to forget my oath of non-violence and rabbit punch him in the teeth. I am so utterly sick of corrupt politicians and the mess they try to put over on the people. His press conference the other day was the most nausea-inducing 15 minutes of my life. If anyone believed anything he said, I have a piece of gum that was chewed by the Chupacabra that I will sell you. Anybody?

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The next few weeks should be really fun. On the 21st, we have the shindig at the Lucas house, which is something we are actually counting down to on the family calendar. LOST ftw!!

Then on the 23rd and 24thwe have a two-day conference in Birmingham. This will be our first over-night trip with the Oasis peeps and I am really looking forward to it. We have a small group going, but the ones who are going are all awesome. It will be a great time to get away and focus on strengthening our friendships and our relationship with God.

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Well, we are about to head to Home Depot and run some other house type errands. Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Peace.

Joe.

Words!

Long day.  I never really stopped going.  It seemed like we went from one thing to another.

Got up this morning, took the kids to school, and then it was off to a meeting about the design and content for our new church website.  I am really excited about this project.  Our current website just isn’t very effective and more importantly it’s not very pretty.

Like most smaller churches, a web site hasn’t really been a priority, but I think we have realized how important a top-notch website can be to attract new families.  It should be a fun project.  The good folks we are working with at Productive IT have done an excellent job so far of putting our vision into graphic form.

After the meeting, I had church office time until I picked Channing up from school and then took her to her first piano lesson.  Hayden and I hung out at Starbucks while she tickled the ivories and after that it was on to the Kent home for the game.  We left a little early in order to get the chitlins ready for tomorrow.

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I slept really well last night.  It was the first time in several weeks that I have actually had a long, good sleep.  I was reading the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and I think it exhausted my brain to the point where I was able to doze off.

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Florida just won the National Championship…meh.  I really could care less.  It could have gone either way and it wouldn’t have affected me in the least.  Many people, and probably many of you, support the SEC when their team is not in the hunt.  I am not this way.  I am not a conference kind of guy.  It will be interesting though if Utah jumps up to #2, like many expect they will, Alabama would have only lost to the top two teams in the country, which is pretty cool.  It stinks that we lost those games, but it could be worse, we could be Auburn….zing!!

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I had a great first day at AUM.  The only issue was a very minor one as my US History class had moved rooms.  Overall, I really like my professors, although the instructor for Music Appreciation is still suspect.

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Bedtime.  Tomorrow should be a challenging day as it will be filled with housework and common house hubby type things.  In the words of Weekend Update…have a great day and a pleasant tomorrow.

You know how I know, because it’s Tuesday…

Today has been a good day.  In actuality, this week has been a really good one.  I was very fretful going into Monday because this week had the potential to blow up in my face.  I had my first advising appointment Monday morning at AUM and I was really worried about what news or information I would or would not receive.  So far so good.  I was really late registering and applying for financial aid which was stupid on my part, but everything has worked out splendidly.  Thank God.  Not only did my financial aid come through, but I was able to schedule my classes in the most effective way possible.   I got all of my classes in on two days and even better, the two days I wanted.  Even better than that…no math classes this semester.

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Sleeping continues to be an issue.  This has got to be rectified soon.  I can’t go much longer on 3-4 hours a night.

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At this present time I am hanging out in Starbucks drinking my usual Soy Latte, blogging, and listening to This American Life. My yuppiness startles me.

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Channing started back to school today and I am hoping that this return to her typical routine will help all of the Martin clan get back on schedule.  We have struggled to get back into pre-Christmas form.  Why is it so hard to maintain normalcy?

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We started a new study this past week on the  church and how the body of Christ is so much more than a building and programs.  I hope during this month our students will gain an intimate understanding of what the church is truly meant to be.  We get so hung up in programs and events that we miss the reason we gather together in the first place.

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Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. 1 Corinthians 8:2 NLT

We looked at this verse last week and it has stayed with me since.  Pride is an area I struggle with (among many others), and I have adopted this verse as a call to humility.

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The new Kings of Leon album, Only by the Night, is super fantastic.  Go buy it now.  “Be Somebody” is my favorite song in years.

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LOST in 15 days!!!  I absolutely can not wait.  It is going to be a huge challenge to top last season, but I have high hopes for what should be the season that brings it all together.  FTW!!

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Random thought: Why do text books cost so much?  I mean, seriously.  Four hundred dollars for books you will read (or not read) for four months?  This is ludicrous.

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That’s all I have for this lovely Tuesday.  I hope you all have a great day.

Peace.

Neos Ergo

i have not been able to sleep lately. this is about the third night in a row that i have been unable to turn my brain off when i need to. i really want to sleep. i really do. i was at luke’s house way too late last night and was a walking zombie at work today. i need the rest.

my lack of sleep can probably be attributed to a couple of things:

1) i’ve been staying up later

2) we’ve been behind on house work for the last few weeks and i can’t stand to go to sleep in a dirty house

3) God has me thinking about a lot of things.

my brain is going a hundred miles an hour at all times right now. there is just so much going on. i start classes at aum next week, tons of great stuff going on at eastdale, new baby on the way, and a new ministry that is really starting to pick up steam.

most of you don’t know this, but i have been meeting with a group of guys over the last several weeks about the possibility of launching a new faith community in the tri-county area. get this straight…..this is not a church in terms of what most people consider a “church”. i have no plans of leaving eastdale. this is a community of believers. our mission is to create a network of small missional communities or house churches. these house churches would function as a weekly “church” service as there would be teaching, prayer, and worship. there is no building involved. no dress code. no denomination. simply christians living in community with one another and living out the gospel. we would bring all of these smaller groups together once a month to have a giant celebration and share a meal together.

there is a group of three (although that group seems to be expanding soon) that all have similar visions of what the body of Christ is supposed to look, feel, and act like. we see the body as a family that is brought together to serve others and grow in Christ. i serve in an established traditional church and i love it. there are great people with great hearts. God still works through that model. however, i truly believe that God is beginning a movement to reach the next generation. this movement will be a transition back to the foundational model of the early church, which is a focus on organic worship, intimate relationships, and serving others.

i am so excited about what is beginning to take shape and I know that God has big things planned for this ministry. now that i have written that down, maybe i can sleep…..