Howdy,

The new stuff just keeps rolling in right now.

I’ll list a few things, but as I was thinking to say that this year has been full of a lot of firsts for our family, the thought came that we’ve been living a ton of firsts and witnessing new experiences for a long time.

Just starting at …

Sarah and I getting married. All new, and good. (It’s still good!) And it was around the time of new jobs. And our new life together in a new home grew into the move of “first-time home buyer.”

Then we had Jasper. And all those first when you’re loving and caring for a newborn, infant, squawker, floor-swimmer, sitter, talker, crawler, toddler, walker, water-swimmer, reader, translator, and all-around grow-er who’s known to run and jump and holler …

Then Ti. Now Riah. Reminding us of firsts again as they take their initial spin. Us, too; we’ve never had three kids before.

But back to the new now. This week simply has that feel.

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Howdy,

Quick note in regard to yesterday’s post: no offense to the wrestlers out there in their spandex (“stretchy pants!”); I just never pictured myself competing in those suits.

Today was the last day of Community Bible Study (CBS) for this season. A wrap: on ice until the fall, like a spring semester leading into a summer break.

But you don’t just stop reading and studying God’s Word as if it were a school subject. A completed subject. A grade. A credit. I hope not. Because that will never be the case.

I need to be alert and diligent not to let that happen to me, to slip into a habit, slipping out of the Scriptures, of not actively studying the Bible just because Community Bible Study is “out for the summer.”

Don’t get me wrong, CBS is a fantastic thing in Turlock and, it definitely seems, all over the nation and around the world, and I highly recommend it, but also it’s wonderful to reach the end of journeys (or even just stages of journeys), so there’s a freeing and accomplished atmosphere and attitude with the conclusion of this CBS study, Red Sea to the Jordan River. (Next fall is Romans, if you’re interested in going CBS Turlock. It’s great; do it.)

Nevertheless, the Bible lives, as continuous communication and instruction and the reading of it is active obedience and life. And, yet, like any habit, just a few days or opportunities away from it and a life-giving routine can too easily wither.

So, two things, right off the bat, that I am going to do to keep in the Word are:

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Howdy,

Okay, so, in my Scrivener folder entitled “Post drafts/ideas” (yes, I have a few ideas before I snap on that spandex wrestling suit and wrestle words to the mat with vicious and sweaty competitiveness) I have a draft reactively titled, “#?: Rings in the clown’s mouth”.

The start of a rough draft, “#?: Rings in the clown’s mouth” doesn’t have a lot to it yet, only a sentence, 36 words, but it holds a scratched out idea: “Feeding the boys (while they’re young: we’ll see about as teenagers) can feel, repeatedly, like trying to toss a brass ring into the clown’s mouth on the famous Looff Carousel on the Santa Cruz Board Walk.”

Obviously, I haven’t made — ahem, crafted — that flashed thought into a larger narrative for a blog post yet — though by working on this now I did just add the detail about it being the “Looff” Carousel and “brass” rings, so it was really 34 words and counting — but I do plan to someday (and if you’ve been along the whole way from now to then, just think of the payoff you’ll have, being on the in — I try to give the treats I can, a little something, something for putting up with “spandex” and “sweaty”).

Would you believe that’s all an intro? Part of the plan, original intention, with the idea I have, but I admit it grew …

Okay, so, the eating idea that I mentioned, unfortunately, I still fully believe it will be apropos in the near future — feeding bouncing of off grinning cheeks. Tiny humans that need to eat.

But today is different. Different because I’m writing about yesterday, last night, when 40% of my pizza was inhaled by only two of our three boys.

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Howdy,

Ahh … I just took a sip of my cold coffee and guided it, absent-mindedly, back down to the cork (flooring) coaster on my desk to the right of and beyond my laptop, past the screen, a reach away.

Cold coffee is good if it’s cooled from sitting quietly waiting for you while you write words. (Knocking out in a sliver of mins. a 437-word free write, like, POW! Ahh … a start. Pressure off, going into this. And, now, rolling again.)

Ahh …

Can you feel it? Smell it? Sense it?
(Not fair questions to a reader, I realize, sorry, but I can, and I want to share that with you.)

It’s a good day, with a shake of spice and restructured recipe.

Got a late start, but it doesn’t feel like the day is slipping away: already lost. It doesn’t feel like that. Like when you hate what you let get by and it makes 90º harder to enjoy what you have ahead.

No, the late start was nice and the afternoon is out-front and evening … who knows. Maybe a swim, with Summer 2017 leaking its New Release to the public early: high heat. (Have you checked the weather?! Have you? Do it, no, don’t! Don’t do it! I warned you. You saw it, didn’t you? That 97º on Thursday! No need to worry too much, though, it’s a digital rollercoaster, the forecast, full of 90’s, 70’s, 80’s and rain mixed in. Rain, risking a 100 degrees and covering it up with a wash of cloudburst. May, doing what it may, I guess.)

Ahh … today feels different.

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Howdy,

Here’s a wonder … to a man.

To a man, as in to a guy, his brain, his wiring: and as in to each of us firing that way.

To a man on a mission, it’s a wonder to see a woman on a wander.

Recently, my lovely wife Sarah (wonder woman in this case) was scrolling a significant online sale from a store she likes, that intrigues her even. A place she happens to have some gift card money to, ready for use, growing cold, stale in its stash.

Gifts from me. Money for the mission, ammunition for the hunt.

Honestly, I was thinking more hunt than mission; I was drawn in thinking we could get something.

Definitely the hunt more so than the mission, because it was the wonderful woman who had deployed herself, logged into the mission, without me: only she was wandering.

Which put me on the hunt. Practically forced me. The scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling … The 25% discount — off of clearance! An extra 25% off. With money already budgeted, already paid for!! The scent of an accomplishment, of a kill that could be, should be, made.

Nope.

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling …

Him: “Have you found anything?”

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Howdy,

If you happen to live in a condominium complex in California, in the Central Valley region of the state, and in that complex is a community swimming pool* and in that “public” pool today there was a man swimming or sort of swimming but more so doing something strange that made you ask questions in your head, questions like, Who is that weirdo? Dork? Loner? Neat-freak nerd? Self-proclaimed pool guy?

It’s me.

The guy who was both either afraid of those leaves in the water and (or, but) willing to get in that there gross sludge water and fish ‘em out by hand (and hand basket).

That might have been what a few others at the pool, sunbathers and posers (the people actually afraid of the water ‘cause “It’s cold!” and don’t even bother to worry about leaves in the water, because they have no intention of testing the waters anyway), may have been thinking.

That, or Who is that weirdo? Dork? Loner? Neat-freak nerd? Self-proclaimed pool guy?

But I’m just a guy, a community member, scooping leaves out of the hot tub and pool before the summer swimming season has official hit and we get better, more consistent pool maintenance service.

So, I went around and pulled out all the baskets ‘round the pool that came up “choking” full of leaves to be dumped in the trash cans. That’s not too weird.

So, I used a dumped filter basket then-cleaned as a skimming net while wading in the hot tub. Sue me. For being a good guy. For getting the relaxing, not-pool-freezing, spa with jets ready for adults to enjoy a soak. Leaves swirling in the bubbling currents isn’t the romantic idea of a hot tub that patrons have in mind.

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Howdy,

Well, it’s been a full day.

And, now, the race will be to try to get this blog entry written and posted by midnight today — rather than super “early” tomorrow …

I’m thinking it’s not going to be a post with a lot of beautiful and well-placed photography. Not this time. Not usually.

It’s been a good day, though, especially for all that was going on yesterday and today, and how it’s just been busy in general — with Sarah wrapping up a semester of college instruction and Jasper breaking back into kindergarten after a really nice week off for Easter.

It’s also a good day for the San Francisco Giants. Climbed out of the gutter, peeping their heads out of the cellar, of the West Division of National League, with a win over the San Diego Padres tonight.

Sure, the Giants had to beat a terrible team from the NL West — to pass the Padres by a half game — to get out of last place. But one step at a time. Baby steps. Like this: look alive, last place, not in last place, moving on up … first place?

Hmm, well, first place later or not … and that we’ll have to wait and see — it’s a long season, remember that … — the SF Giants can still make the playoffs and do their damage there, where it counts. When it counts.

That’s how they’ve done it, and it’s been good when they have. Three World Series championship in a recent and short period of time, and never in that stretch have the Giants been the dominant or favorite team going into the playoffs.

So, tonight a 4-3 win against the lowly Padres — can say lowly because San Fran is now a half game ahead, way ahead, way up there — on a Friday night (orange night) in late April.

To, tomorrow positioning for winning a series. Keep winning series. That’ll get it done. Unadulterated, uninterrupted winning streaks are nice, of course, but winning series after series …

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Howdy,

I’d like to think that I don’t suffer from writer’s block too often, but at the start of this session, the start of this sentence, I stared for an awkward pause of beats at that blinking cursor …

Top, left corner.

Blink.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

If you stare and then let it get to you, in the pausing, it grows. blink. Blink. BLINK.

BLINK, BLINK, BLINK!

That’s why I just jumped in and went for it!

Besides, I felt it a little unfair that the blinking cursor was “waiting” so impatiently. It was rude of it, since immediately before I had completed about “a post’s worth” of words (~550) in a free write session. It wasn’t that I had come to the computer without anything to say or without being able to find words.

It’s more that I had just used them, and was taking a beat to shift gears, switch topics …

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Howdy,

I’m pretty sure that I crisscrossed the town of Turlock in the driver’s seat of my car yesterday more than any Uber driver in the city. (Are there Uber drivers in the “city” of Turlock?)

Maybe I should take it up, ‘cause I wasn’t getting paid.

Anyway, yesterday I wrote about my morning’s tracing of town. It was just as convoluted and “backtrackie” when I dared venture out again in the evening to get the older boys to AWANA’s and Riah “to Grandmother’s house we go …” but I’m not going to detail all that here.

Let’s just say that yesterday truly was day today day-to-day, or as Proverbs 27:1 says, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”

It’s like the day enjoyed proving just how true the idea could be, as yesterday was day today day-to-day, even more than I thought when I wrote it before early afternoon.

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