The Official Coffee of The Otter Creek Camphouse

      I have liked in or many cases loved coffee for a very long time. Now, I won't claim to be a coffee connoisseur or anything of the sort and I definitely won't claim to have the sophisticated palette necessary to be a paid expert in the act of coffee cupping (or "tasting" to us lay folks). I'm pretty sure my palette couldn't even spell sophisticated if palettes could spell. It likes Waffle House too much to be able to do that. But, I do love coffee. I will also say that I really do wish coffee tasted
 like it smelled; that would be truly amazing. However, I have never found that to be the case no matter the place, price, roasting or brewing technique, etc. I will also quickly say I don't know everything about coffee, but I do know a little about how it is grown and what is required to grow it, but have read in the past few months about people growing it in places where I never thought coffee would grow. I also know a little about how the coffee bean is harvested and then how it makes it's way from being a fruit, the coffee cherry, into the very recognizable "bean" that we all know.

A coffee orchard in Hawaii.

          And for those who don't know much about how coffee makes its way from where it is grown to the confines of your morning cup, I'll give you a very quick and simple primer. I picked most of it up from reading and listening to things here and there over the years, but here are several neat "coffee" websites: Coffee Crossroads, The Coffee Review, and Fair Trade USA. And if you already know about coffee, you probably know much more than I do. Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia and has been enjoyed by humans since the tenth century. Most all coffee is grown at high altitude, in rich, dark soils, that receives plenty of rainfall, but not all coffee has to be grown this way, but most is. The main variable for growing coffee is that it must be grown in a region where the temperature doesn't vary too widely or where there are no weather extremes. However, most coffee is grown in South America, mid-Africa, and several parts of Southeast Asia with the country of Brazil producing the largest crop in the world.

A clump of ripe coffee cherries.
      

      As seen in pictures above, coffee is usually grown in a grove, much like oranges, apples, pecans, etc. A tree, of either two main varieties, produces a fruit referred to as a cherry, several times a year. And odd item about the coffee tree is in how often the cherry is produced on the tree. A mature coffee tree can produce ripe cherries as often as 3-4 times a year, so it is possible for there to be blooms, developing cherries, and ripe cherries all on the same tree. The coffee tree is an evergreen and holds onto its large, waxy leaves all year long. And as already mentioned, most coffee farms or plantations are in places where the elevation is above 1000 ft. The famous coffee's of Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Hawaii, and Costa Rica are all grown in the regions of those countries that contain its highest mountain ranges.
 

The interior of a coffee cherry. The "bean" we roast and brew our coffee from is actually the seed or pit of the coffee cherry.

      The fruit that is produced by the coffee tree is called a cherry. It is an edible fruit and in the countries where coffee is grown, they also use the cherry to produce juices and other food items from the edible fruit. But...But...But this post is not about that really. It is about our official daily coffee, so I'll try to get to that a little more quickly! But let's finish the harvesting bit first.

      Once the cherry is harvested, it is either chosen for it's use as a fruit or it's to be used to produce the beverage we call coffee or in Spanish, café. Once it has been chosen to be used for coffee production, the cherry is washed and then dried out in several different ways. And once it is dry, the outer part of the cherry is discarded and the seed or pit of the cherry is saved. This is very similar to what we all think of when someone eats a regular cherry; except that the pit is saved for growing a new tree or thrown away rather than for use to make coffee with. The seed of the cherry that is produced by the coffee tree is what will eventually become the "bean" that we all equate with the beverage we call coffee.

A sample of dried and roasted coffee beans.

        Once the seed has been removed from the fleshy part of the cherry fruit, it is set aside and put through another round of drying techniques which may include time in a drying oven. And then depending on the brew that the coffee will be used for, it is roasted till it appears burnt, which is what gives it that classic, dark appearance that we are all familiar with. The darker the bean, the longer it was roasted, but this does not actually mean anything when it comes to bean's caffeine content. The lighter the bean or the lighter the roast, the more caffeine content that the coffee will hold and vice versa. This last bit is not what we usually think; especially since espresso comes from one of the darkest roasts for the coffee bean, but the caffeine content of espresso has to do with proportions and brewing techniques rather than roasting procedures.



      My love for "coffee" products has traveled the taste spectrum as far as coffee products are concerned, but I would say that I've been a coffee lover since I was in elementary school. Now when I was in those elementary school days, I wasn't guzzling that cup of joe every morning as a ritual, but would occasionally get to drink a cup while staying with my father's parents and always felt so grown up when I held my cup and drank it with my grandpa in the early morning hours before everyone else was awake. My coffee consisted of milk that had a hint of coffee in it and it sort of stayed that way for a longer period of times than I'd like to say. After those days, I drifted into the sweet and flavored drinks that also had a hint of coffee in them, but about five years ago or so, my desire for flavors and sweet tasting coffee fled me and now, I'm a dash or so of half and half and mostly coffee guy. I don't think I'll make it to the "strong and black" stage that a lot of people pride themselves as being, but I do like the coffee to be strong and taste like it is supposed to rather than the many favored varieties than many people like. And I'm not a decaf guy like so many I know. I don't actually get this, but I also don't get the non-alcoholic beer thing either, but that isn't a topic in this post. Caffeine never really does much for me really. I just like a hot beverage in the morning or with dessert. I could drink an espresso and then go to sleep, but that could be because I have a two and half year old and nothing to do with caffeine content.

    Coffee is actually very important to us and is how we, Mel and I, like to begin each day. The days we look forward to the most are the days that contain the slowest of mornings where we can leisurely drink several cups of coffee a piece and move into the day rather than dive headlong into it and sprint the whole day through. 99% of the time, we live in the second type of day. And, we are also pot coffee people. I know the trend has been the Keurig machines where you can choose to have that wonderful single cup of coffee, but we don't drink a cup of coffee, we drink cups of coffee. And to add to the specialness of coffee,  we actually went to a coffee shop after dinner on our first "official" date. Mel ordered hot chocolate and I ordered some drink titled something like, The Edge, or something like that. It was a flavored coffee. My how things have changed!

    Ever since we have been married, I have been on the search for the perfect coffee brand to call "our" coffee. And believe it or not, I have tried to be somewhat methodical about my approach to this in the same way you'd attempt to study something using the infamous Scientific Method. I started out just sort of buying this brand and then another one after we had gotten married and when money was a little easier to come by. I originally made it my goal to buy a pound of coffee from independent coffee houses we would go to and enjoy their coffee, but this isn't a normal thing for most people or at least people where we live or have lived. Rather, most people are stuck with the brands at their nearby grocery stores.  So, I guess, I'll finish this post in much the same way I make my students write out their "Scientific Method Projects" each year when we study it. Here we go:

1. Problem or Observable Phenomenon:

     Mel and I like coffee. We enjoy drinking it seven days a week. We need a coffee that you can be purchased in a larger quantity than a single serving, can be found in a wide variety of places, and can be found at an agreeable price.

2. Questions:

     How much coffee do we actually go through in a week? A month? How much can we afford to spend? Can we find this coffee in a wide variety of places? Is there a brand that offers an economical coffee that isn't roasted and prepared the same way as brands like Folgers's, Maxwell House, etc.?

3. Hypothesis:

    Knowing that we like the darker roasted coffee varieties and knowing that we usually go through about 2-3 lbs. of coffee a month, I believe we would need to settle for an economical, espresso or French Roast varieties. I'm not completely sure about the brand that we'll like, due to the large quantity of brands at the local supermarket.

4. Tests and Collection of Data:

     I have tested this for over six and a half years. When we were first married, we bought coffee at will and price was not really a concern. When we moved to Macon in 2008, we had decided that we'd like to buy at least a pound of coffee a month from our favorite coffee shop and it cost us about $16 a lb. I tried so hard to get us to like Community Coffee because it stood out as the lone, "Southern" brand, but Mel and to be honest, I did not take to it. We both love Starbucks (go ahead and snicker, we're typical white folks drinking our "Bucks" and driving our single child to a state park in our Subaru.) and our favorite blends of theirs are, French Roast, and their, Pike Place Blend. However, not everywhere sells Starbucks coffee and as of two years ago, it seems a little crazy to spend almost $30 a month on coffee that we brew at home. We also really like Jittery Joe's coffee, a small Georgia coffee company, but their pound coffee is almost $15 a pound. I have also had Intelligentsia Coffee and it is very good, but it should be at almost $20 a pound.

     So, after many years, and many, many purchases, we finally settled on the type of coffee that fit all our needs and wants. If I were to go with you to your local supermarket, somewhere like Publix, Kroger, or Wal-Mart, I really could tell you how almost every variety of coffee that they offer tastes or which other type it could be compared to. I'm in no way bragging. I am only trying to let you know that we really did try almost every brand that is offered at a normal grocery store; so much so that Mel begged me about a year ago to just settle on a single brand. And so I did, and the brand we chose is....

The bright yellow bag of Café Bustelo!

  

5. Conclusion:

 



          We chose Café Bustelo for a variety of reasons and here are a few. Café Bustelo is a dark roasted coffee made from Arabica coffee beans. It brews a strong, robust beverage that is medium to high in it's caffeine content. And the price is just right, at around $3-$4 dollars for 10 oz. ,it is a great deal. It is one of the cheapest coffee varieties on the coffee aisle. And actually right now, you can buy 2.5 lbs. or 40 oz. of Café Bustelo for just shy of $20 at Wal-Mart. I know, I know, evil Wal-Mart. I'll start shopping somewhere else when teachers in America start making the same as shift managers at McDonald's or Chic-fil-a. That's a great price considering it is just a few dollars shy of a single pound of your favorite Starbucks variety And often times, you can catch a, "2 for $6", sale or sometimes even cheaper. And although, Café Bustelo is made from Arabica coffee beans, like Folgers's and Maxwell House, just from a single cup, you can tell that a higher grade of bean was used in its preparation. And to sort of seal it's acceptance as "our" coffee, Café Bustelo can be found in all three grocery stores in the town we live in and when we lived in Macon, it could be found in every grocery store there save one.

      And to make things even better, Café Bustelo has a pretty good history. It is coffee that is labeled a "Cuban" coffee, which describes how it is roasted and the rich and dark brew that it yields, but it could also be called that since it was founded by a Spanish immigrant who went to Cuba to learn the coffee business, married a Cuban lady, immigrated to New York via Puerto Rico, and started his own coffee business in the area of NYC known as Spanish Harlem using the methods he had learned in Cuba. And by 1931, Café Bustelo had fans that reached far past the perimeters of East Harlem. I'm not sure if its popularity had reached The Peach State, but I know it has today.

Café Bustelo is for lovers, right?

 

 

    I'm pretty sure we'll keep using Café Bustelo for quite awhile. It is easy to find, fits our budget, tastes great, is consistent in taste and price, and beats the majority of coffee's of equal or greater value. If you ever stop by Otter Creek Camphouse and find a warm mug of coffee sitting in from of you on a lazy Saturday morning, you can probably rest assured that it's Café Bustelo and there is a whole pot of it waiting to be drunk and plenty more of it to brew in case one pot is not enough.

 

   I know there are many other varieties of coffee. I know because we've tried them once or probably, more than once. Yes, Publix brand coffee is great, but you can't get it cheaper than $6. Yes, Starbuck's roasts great coffee, but a pound is going to run you at least $8 if it's on sale and $8 won't buy you anything where we live. A pound of the ole' Bucks starts at $11 where we live. And yes, you can buy 30 pounds of Folgers for about fifty cent, but tell me the last time you've enjoyed a cup of that. And please don't tell me about the fair trade varieties. Yes, I'm a believer in that, but I'll jump straight for a cup of fair trade coffee when I see you at a rally marching for the fair trade of Apple products, J Crew clothes, or your Kavu purse. Give Café Bustelo a try. I know you'll like it. And if you don't, then you're only out $3; which is $6.50 less than your last movie ticket on the 300th installment of the Fast and Furious or the Expendables 35. I'm pretty sure they brought John Wayne and Charlie Chaplin back for that one, but it actually would have been better if they'd had done so.  

 

 

 

   Happy reading, happy brewing, and happy, slow Saturday mornings full of coffee, good food, and time to watch more than one episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or time to eat a long breakfast outside and let the morning fade into the afternoon.

 

 

DAVID

A Funny Discovery

 * I told you, my loyal readers, that some short post where on the way. Here is my attempt at putting one out. Enjoy and if you don't, at least it's short.

Ganadora descalificada por tramposa en un maratón de Estados Unidos

La corredora debería haber batido el récord mundial de media maratón en la segunda parte de su carrera para hacer el tiempo con el que ganó.

      

---

                                                       www.jdaviddark.blogspot.com

 

    The internet is an odd, odd thing. I know you can say that about a billion times and then a billion more times. A few nights ago, my own sweet Melissa was using our home computer and I had just published a post here and I was trying, in a very narcissistic way, to find out if anyone had read it yet and I was doing so on my phone and I typed in my blog address into the address bar and instead of going to the address, it went to Google and up came a search of all things: www.jdaviddark.blogpost.com. There were 5750 of these. How is that and why is that?  Many of the items didn't surprise me to see. There was my actual blog and one of my recent posts and then there was my old Twitter account that I can't remember my password for, for the life of me. There were also several links to Pinterest where folks had taken pics from my posts and "pinned" them. This kind of made me feel good. And there were somehow links to far too many of my Instagram likes. This made me feel a little sheepish about "liking" photos on Instagram for a small moment. There was also a link to a company called, Alexa, which keeps track of the amount of traffic coming to your site and found out that of all the sites on the internet, my blog, The Darkroom, is ranked 2,405, 924th out of all the websites on the world wide web. I think that's crazy and it makes me a little happy. Who would have thought! As you can see, I celebrate even the smallest of things. I have to and you should to. However, the oddest or most laughable item that I saw on the first few pages of links was the above. It came straight off a Spanish website, Atletas. The title, intro, and picture from a little story about marathon running and the experiences of two Latino runners who ran the 2010 Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon; the same marathon I ran that same year. But the picture is not of them at the race, it is of me finishing the race. I'm the guy in white on the left. I got the Spanish teacher at the school I teach at to read the story to me and some of the lines they used were oddly similar to what I wrote in my recap of that race on this here blog. I'm not offended or anything of the sort. I just think it is pretty funny that Spanish speakers the world over who might read that story have to see a pic of me running that my wife took and sort of read my words. I think that is pretty funny and a little odd. There was a also a similar Spanish website called, bodygeek, that used a lot of my post about Plantar Fasciitis, for their post about the same thing. I don't mind, but I once again, think it is odd and funny.

    I guess the best thing I could really say to end this post is for those of you out there blogging away and "surfing" the Net: be careful. You never know where your words or opinions may find themselves being used at or by whom. I know I'll be thinking about that for sure. But it will also make me think that someday, one of my posts may be read by some person in Argentina and they may be reading my words on some other site, "written" by someone else. We live in a weird, weird world!

Happy reading and even happier writing,

DAVID

New Year, Old Me

 

*I had every intention of having this blog out somewhere near the beginning of the new year instead of 24 days into it, but I began 2015 with a GI virus that kept me from doing almost anything for almost 10 days and sent me to the ER instead, It wasn't a good way to begin a new year, but it is what it was. And now I'm back. Enjoy the post.

 



    Although, it is never easy to know what a new year may hold or what may be around the next turn, I've always been a fan of the idea that a new year is a fresh start because by the end of the year,  I'm always in the need of one and although I've never been a fan of the, "New Year, New You", shenanigans that seem to appear on every magazine and news source come January of every year. I could do a whole post on the latter, but I'll save you from that, but just to give you a little taste know that I miss the old me and would love to see a cache of articles about how to get him back and explain just where he's been hiding and what he's been up to, but I don't think they exist and people look at you like you're a lunatic when you bring up anything of the sort. I don't want to get to know or try to shape a new me. I'm not Madonna or Cher or Lady Gaga. I don't want to or need to reinvent myself. I want a lot of the old me back. No, not the past mistakes and no, not the guy who hasn't learned through experience, but a lot of the old me. I want the past energy. The past enjoyments. The past metabolism. The past youth that I'm slowly, but it feels so fast to me, losing. And oh yeah, the full head of hair I used to have. That old me. The guy who had whole afternoons to read or weeks to go hiking. The guy who had whole weekends to date this super fine brunette named, Melicious, instead of a few minutes or hours here and there. I'd like that guy back. But...as usual, I digress. This is a post about my 2015 goals.

   And here at the headwaters of this year, I'd like to set a few goals. Unlike years past, I'd like to attempt to set them a little more realistically this year. I know the importance of setting goals and trust me, I know or have heard all the little sayings and read all the little banners about the opposite and to be honest all of those things really give the largest of all tingles. All that, aiming somewhere is better than nowhere and setting small goals is better than having no goals and all of that. That kind of stuff, really gets the best of me sometimes. I'm sure the guy who gets shot from a stray bullet isn't the first one to be proud of the his shooter because, "at least he had the courage to pull the trigger". I know this sounds very pessimistic of me, but trust me, I'm actually an optimist, so much so, that I've been called illogical many times by those closest to me. And for a change, I'll get right to those goals. And even though they'll be in a list, they really don't come in any order.

 

My 2015 Goals:

 

1. Join a church and start giving to it emotionally, financially, and with the gifts God has given me. Yes, we miss FPC Macon, but I need to get my wife and my son and my person in church and we need to give back. I miss this part of our lives, a lot.

 

2. Stop putting things off, or just sort of plan for them and then not follow through with them. But actually put them in front me and do them. Yes, life happens, but there are some things I just have been putting off and there's no reason for it. Take for instance, the shelves, or to be more specific, lack of shelves in our hall closet. All it would take to finish them would be to put paint on one board, make three large cuts, and make a single notch in each of those three boards, and then then nail them into place. This task has been on my list since August. It's time to do it. It's actually far past time to get it done, this and about a hundred other things.

 

3. I want to read 10 good books. This may sound easy, but I read so slowly these days and I only get to read at night and I usually only get about a page done and then fall asleep with the book on my chest and the light on. Oh, of course, if this were a kid's book, I would have already met my goal quota, but those don't count. FH and I get in about 5-6 a night. I love reading and really have some good books in mind for this year. I hope to get to them.

 

4. Really get back into running again. I'm not going to put a real number of miles down, but I'm shooting for no less than 1000. This past year, I peaked out at around 450. My lowest total in over six years. Yes, life was crazy and hard and super busy and extremely stressful, but not so much that I couldn't have gone running twenty minutes each day. If the rumors are true, I'd like to follow this up by running the "supposedly-planned" Jeff Davis Marathon to be held about 20 minutes from my house. This may not happen, but I am going to shoot for it.

 

5. Ride my bike 2,000 miles. I'd love to make this happen and know it will be harder since most of the 1450 miles I rode this past year were due to my almost daily bike commute and then a lot of city miles running errands and cruising the streets with FH, but I have some plans and we'll see how it goes. And one of these plans is a very crazy idea, but I really think I can make it work. Yes, there'll be a post about it.

 

 

6. I want Mel and I to really get our financial lives out of the toilet. Neither of us are good with money which isn't good when you don't have a lot of it, but we do have enough of it; especially in our new life here in South Georgia. We've already begun this a little and I'm really celebrating our small successes and Mel's hard work. We're now in the third full month of having a budget and living by it. We're starting to see a little progress. Things are looking up. Now it's time to start taking the very hard steps to rescue our credit score. It's about nine levels beneath crappy. That is mostly my own fault, but I also want it to be our "fault" that it gets much better.

 

7. I want to start hitting some dates with my bride. This is one of the many things I took for granted before FH was born. We didn't go out enough. We should've gone out 3-4 times a week, but as Mel and I have said since FH was born, we laugh so hard now when we see couples with no kids posting pics or status updates and titling them as "date night" because now it seems that every second when you're childless is a date. I know that sounds stupid, but if you have kids, you get it. Thanks to my gracious in laws and our proximity to them, we've already started begun this and just the few we've gotten to go on has let me know how much we need to go on more. I love my sweet Melissa and don't know where'd I'd be without the love and care she has given me through good times and some very, very dark times. I love spending time with her and have really missed it. She's a great date and I look forward to going on some good ones this year.

 

6. I want to really get the "farming" side of our lives going again. I loved growing our little garden when we had one in Macon and I loved owning the four little chickens we had and taking care of them. Yes, they all add work, but we live in a great spot for this now and it wouldn't be that much to really start taking advantage of this aspect of our new lives in Fitzgerald. We live in a beautiful place with a lot of good, free land that my father in law wants us to use. As it get closer to time, I'll keep you updated, but there is a big garden in the works and some chickens to be purchased. I'm so excited to see this all take place.

 

7. I want to keep this place up and running. I love having a blog. I love putting forth the effort and writing these little posts and I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that someone in some place out there is reading them and getting something out of them. I published 14 posts in 2014. I know why. But this is a new year and I'm going to try to double that. And if you're keeping count, this is already post numero tres for this year.

 

8. I want to go camping. Long before this blog, I loved to go camping and hiking. I still love this, but truth be told, I haven't been camping in several, several years and let's not even bring up hiking. I'm done with thinking there'll be this time in my life when I can set everything down and hike the AT or some other long trail. I'll have to save this for retirement if that's even a thing anymore. But to be even more honest, I don't really want to do anything like that anymore. I don't want to leave Mel and FH behind and go marching off into the proclaimed wilderness looking for something. I'd be just as happy to set up a tent in the yard and build a campfire, cook something on the fire, and then fall asleep in a little tent with them two of them. This is happening even if it can only happen once, I'd still be happy.

 

 

9. Begin writing again. I love writing. I have about 15 little Moleskin journals scattered around my house and in my classroom and most them have the tid bits of a story or poem I started and just didn't finish. Each year, I think that this just may be the year where I suddenly have all this time to sit down and write the short story collection that I've been mentally planning to do for years and years, but this year, I'm not going to say or even think that. But I will say this, I'm going to finish writing a single story this year. That is my goal. Yes, I'd love the time, energy, and inspiration to sit down and finish all the little stories that I've started, but I know this isn't going to happen. I'm not a writer. That isn't my vocation. I am a mediocre hobby writer at best, but that doesn't mean I don't get a lot of joy out of it. The story I am going to write this year is called, The Server.

 

 

 

10. I want to begin learning some skills that I do not know. First on this list is that I want to learn to fix my bike. I've been looking around and have found a mechanic class and am hoping to get to take it, but we'll see. I know this may sound odd, but if you take a few moments and look around in hope of finding places that teach you skills that you usually pay for, they just aren't around. I feel like this say volumes, but I'll leave the interpretation up to you.

 

 

    I'll stop with ten for now. I'd like to add a few more and maybe I'll have a midyear review and add them then, but we'll see. Reading through them again makes me seem overly ambitious and not very realistic, but even if I only accomplish five of them, I'd be proud sitting at the end of the year and looking back. Thanks again for taking your time to read. Let me know your 2015 goals. And if you don't have any, maybe you could make one to help me accomplish mine because I'm fully confident I'll need help with mine. Hope your new year is going well.


DAVID

2014: A Year in Review-Part B

*What began as a sort of longish post that made an attempt to recap our year, has turned into a very long double post. I apologize and will throw you guys a few short posts in the nearest future. All I'll really do for now is thank you for taking your valuable time to read the previous post and now this one. And the saddest part is that I really did leave out so many things. And don't worry, I have learned my lesson for now. 2015 will most likely get a highlights reel instead of the play by play.

The newest member of the Dark Family: Pecos Bull

      Sometime midsummer, through a series of events, we acquired the little guy above: Pecos Bull. My father in law let a friend of his keep about 30 cows on his land during the summer thanks to a bumper crop of millet. The fellow who was borrowing the use of the land is a great guy, but is one of those guys who has more money than time and in a series of unfortunate events, mistakenly sold off the mother of Pecos at a livestock auction and didn't realize that he had done so until about a week after the fact, which is a very sad fact considering Pecos was only a few weeks old. And during this week, no other cow took him on, so the fellow had an orphan cow on his hand. He was going to sell it, but somehow gave it to my father in law after attempting to bottle feed him for about a month. And my father in law knew we were wanting to get into the cow business, but greatly lacked the necessary funds and knew that we're suckers for a needy cause and so after a full day of home renovation, we met beloved Pecos in our cow barn, took a lot pictures, and then later that evening began our life as cattlemen and cattlewomen when we mixed up a bottle of cow formula, took it to Pecos, and fed him his first of what seemed like 1000 bottles. Raising a bottle calf is no joke and really does take a lot out of you financially and physically. You have to feed them on a schedule and have to be about 98% consistent with the set schedule and no matter how close the calf is to you, it still takes about an hour or more each day to feed the calf and that is if everything goes ok. I'm sure there are more efficient ways to do it, but efficiency has never been one of our talents. But having and raising Pecos has been very good for us and hopefully, in the long run, it will be good for us financially. If fact, we are contemplating saving up to buy another bottle calf because if you lack money, getting a bottle calf is about the cheapest way to get into the cattle business. Beef prices are very, very high right now and it doesn't look like they'll drop anytime soon. A heifer is around $1600 for a cheap cow and a cheap bull will put you back $2000. A bred heifer will put you back $2400 or so. A bottle calf will put you back a little over $100. However, for me, for FH, and for Mel, the best part about having Pecos has been the idea of investing in our future and the fact that he slowed us down and this may seem super odd, but there is something very calming about bottle feeding a calf and hearing him or her breathe. It forces you stop. It gives you a few moments to think. And I'm becoming more and more thankful for things like that.
 

Pecos' getting his evening feeding. And for the record, he's the only mammal I've seen accomplish what is dubbed, "The Milk Challenge".

A little clowning around during a renovation break sometime at the beginning of August.

The infamous Periodic Table in my new classroom.

 

 

        When we left Macon, I had every thought, and to be honest, intention, of leaving the vocation of teaching. I had every plan to try to get on at a nearby factory where I'd be paid by the hour and receive a full benefits package. It was in no way easy to come to this, but I did and as I already stated, it felt like a piece of me was dying. I did not choose to become a teacher based on the days off or the fact that I just love young people or want to "invest" in the future. I felt called to be a teacher. I know this sounds pious and I wish it didn't, but I really felt God pushing me into the profession. And as I always say to people who ask if I like teaching, I do love the job, but it is harder than anything I've ever done for money and I've had some pretty hard jobs; digging footers and pouring concrete in the Florida summers for around 70+ hours a week is no joke. What makes teaching so hard, you say? I'd easily say everything about it. You aren't always respected by parents, kids, peers, etc. Your pay stinks and if you teach in a private school, it really stinks. Yes, I know you get so much time off, but because of the pay, you spend that "time off" at a second or third job trying to make up for what you don't get paid. And the benefits....how do I really say that there aren't any real benefits; especially when you teach at a private school. Yes, there are those wonderful benefits of relationships and seeing students learn and mature and succeed, but those have never paid a single bill. And I know I talk to so many people who "guffaw" when they hear I teach and they tell me that they wish they got paid all year to work nine months. And all I'll really say to that, is that I wish I did too. I've heard of teacher who make a lot, but they don't work in the South and I've heard about great benefits packages given out to teachers at mostly public schools, but I've never been at a place like that. Generally, I work about a 50-60+ hour week. I get paid for 40. I work a lot of Saturday's and there are many nights when I work at night after working a 10+ hour day. I'm expected to attend school activities and be a chaperone. I usually, if I'm truly lucky, get around a 20 min lunch that I spend supervising students. I know I've read articles that said teachers have the real good life of getting to work at 8 or 9 and getting to leave at 3. I'd love that too, but I'd have to get a job at my bank, not the school I work at. I'm sure this sounds like a rant against all the things I hate about teaching, but it really isn't. All I'm really trying to say is that teaching is hard. Very hard. But I really don't mind it. And after 10 years of it, I don't know what I'd do with a different schedule. I know I work a different job in the summer that has an hour lunch built into the day and I eat so quickly that I really don't know how to spend the other time. And I didn't go into details about the lack of benefits, but of the four schools I've been at, not one of them offered health insurance at no cost to you and only one offered anything that resembled a retirement plan. And for the last three years, we've gone without both, but couldn't qualify for anything because I "made too much money". It sure didn't feel that way. 

It is always so weird to see my name like this.

 

        Anyway, enough of that. Teaching is so very, very hard, but I do love it. It is a part of me. And when we left Macon, I did everything I could do to acquire a job somewhere else. I applied for something like 20+ jobs in a time frame of a few weeks. And nothing came of any of my applications, my emails, the tests I took to apply, my face to face meetings, or anything of the like. It felt like everyone had job openings, but no one was hiring. And being the almost sole breadwinner for my little family and looking down the road and seeing no real job to speak of and knowing the last time I'd get paid was at the end of the summer was nothing short of a constant and daily heart attack. I knew God had a plan and I knew he'd be faithful, but I also worried like it was my job. You can quote Scripture at me if you'd like or remind me that "worry hasn't solved a single problem yet", but I'd like to set you where I was several months ago and tell you not to worry and to sleep easily next to the pile of bills you won't be able to pay next month and I'm sure you'll be the perfect picture of the trusting follower.

 

      I knew there was a private school nearby, but when we arrived in Fitzgerald and I began my job search, I kind of didn't give them a look and when I did, they didn't have any openings. Midway through the summer, they had a part time opening and I applied and interviewed, but told them I couldn't really take it because I needed a full time position. They told me they understood and that it was only a part time position. I put no hope in getting the job because I knew I couldn't accept it and it's not usually a good thing to tell an employer that they need to meet your needs. And I was getting out of the teaching profession and attempting to follow Dave Ramsey's advice when he says there is nothing wrong with just making money and supporting your family as God has called us to do. I was ready to work in some factory or job where I got paid by the hour and had to work a year to earn my one week of vacation because I'd actually get paid for my time and I'd actually be given health insurance along with my pay instead as included in my pay and I'd actually get to put money into a retirement account where the employer matched what you set aside. I was ready for this life. I was ready to be a "cog in the wheel". I know this sounds like giving up on a calling, but there is a lot to be said about resting in the fact that there is enough money, and going to bed each night knowing you are supplying for your family, and knowing that you aren't going to break the bank by taking your wife out to dinner at Olive Garden. I was ready for this life. BUT...God had a different plan. Several days after my interview, I got a call from the headmaster and she told me they'd made a full time position for me and that she wanted me to come back to school to talk about it. I drove over there with a list of the reasons the job wasn't for me and I drove home several hours later knowing God had provided me with a job.

 

    Being a Christian is not easy and I don't think it is suppose to be. I'll never claim to be a "good" Christian and I'm not attempting to be humble. I'll be quick to admit I'm not even a mediocre Christian. However, God is so very good to me. I don't know why. If the shoe were on the other foot, I'd drop me pretty quickly. But I will also be glad to quickly tell you that God always is faithful to me and gives me not only what I need, but most of the time, He gives me something I want. No, it doesn't come exactly like I want it to and it never looks like I think it should, but it comes and it is pretty amazing. I left Macon thinking my teaching days were over and that I'd have to turn my back on what I thought was a calling and the silence I felt from God felt like a thousand pounds on my back. Now, I sit at a desk in a classroom where I'm the new Physical Science, Advanced Chemistry, and Physics teacher at Tiftarea Academy in Chula, Georgia. I'm also the head Cross Country coach and assistant track & field coach. God once again gave me what I thought life had taken from me. I'll never think it was me who won the administration of this place over. God gave me this job. That's the only way I can look at it. When it looked like I couldn't even get a job working as a janitor at Lowe's, God gave me a job doing what I've loved doing for the past nine years. And so on August 14th, I began my tenth year as a teacher. I am still surprised by what led to my job. No, the school isn't perfect and the position is far from ideal, but it is a job, with a paycheck and a pretty good salary, and health insurance that I don't pay 100% for, and the comfort of getting to do a familiar job. Yes, it is hard and the classes I teach make me work a lot and the 100+ students I have keep me on my toes every minute of every day, but God gave me this job. When I thought every door was closed, He opened this door to me.

 

      God is always the Great Deliverer even when deliverance doesn't seem possible. And although deliverance is assured to us, often times we wonder why it hasn't come to us yet and when it does come we often wonder why it cost us so much. The deliverance receive is never promised to be painless or to cost us nothing. This is something that is so hard to understand and to receive. God has delivered me so many times and each time it takes me by surprise, both by it's drastic necessity and for what it does cost me and how I'm always unworthy of it's arrival. This time was no different in every area.

 

      I like my new gig. Tiftarea Academy is a good school. I'm glad to be here. It's really, really different from the schools I've had the opportunity to teach at in the past. It is almost the polar opposite of the school I just left. It is an odd thing to be the "new guy". I have often heard that your first year of teaching is the hardest, but I'd be willing to say that your first year at a new place is just as hard as that first year when all of your ideals run into the realities of the classroom at about 500 mph. I have now had four of these "first" years and I'll say it is so very hard to learn all the nuances of a new place. Every school I've taught at has a handbook, but most of the machine of the school day is run on 90% of what is made up of word of mouth items and unspoken rules or expectations that you don't know about until you've been somewhere for a couple years and made about 100 mistakes a week. And as with all places, the exceptions to the "rules" are always too many to count. I'm still learning most of them. They are sometimes hard to catch onto and most of them don't make sense. One that is taking me awhile to learn here is that 7:30 means 7:20 and so if a meeting starts at 7:30 or a game and you show up five minutes early, then you'll most likely be about 5 minutes late. I know, I know, this makes a ton of sense. I'm learning this new place and am so glad and thankful God gave me this job.



 

My varsity and junior varsity XC teams at a XC meet in Warner Robins

 

 

          Part of my job here at Tiftarea Academy is that I'm the new Head Varsity and JV XC coach. It is a step up for me in the coaching world and I was a little nervous about the step up at first. At my first school, I was the head coach, but then followed that by six years of being an assistant varsity and head jv coach. Here I'm both. And it really is a lot. You plan the practices. You manage the practices. You plan the season. You register for the meets. You arrange the travel and send home the travel plans and directions. And sometimes, actually, most of the time, you are the travel (i.e. the bus driver). You basically do it all and all for around ten cents an hour. I love it though. In my opinion, there is no better sport and I love begin a XC coach. I look forward to the XC season all year. And I'm so glad that part of my job included a chance to get to coach XC because I thought when we left Macon that, that was one of the many things I was having to leave behind, but I was surprised by God once again and given something I didn't deserve. 

 

The start of the Varsity boy's race in Hawkinsville.

 

 

        I inherited a great group of kids, but in reality, it was a team and a program in semi-shambles. It had gone through its glory days as most programs do, but even the fumes of those days were gone. The boys team won the state title in 2006, but that had been one of the last years they had excelled and the girls team had qualified a few years here and there for the state meet, but had never been real contenders. Please know that I'm in no way downplaying the accomplishments of the former coach and the former runners.The program at my current school was begun and carried on by a very charismatic and gifted coach and they had a lot of great success. They had several region and state titles under their belts as a program, but those years had passed and that is where I came in. Morale was low and the desire or hope for success was really low or seemingly, from an outsider's point of view, non-existent. Making the kids I had actually want to come to practice because they actually believed we could do something better than mediocrity and then talking kids who had either quit the team altogether or who had given up the sport were two of my biggest battles this season.

 

       XC is an odd sport and generating interest in the sport is almost 70% of the battle for a coach. Add that to the fact that south of Atlanta, there is only one sport and its name is football. Students would rather sit the bench for a losing football team or cheer for that losing team than wear a state championship ring from another sport. I don't understand that and probably never will, but that has been my experience for the past nine years. You have some exceptions, but those exceptions come from years and years of a coach or a succession of coaches really spending a lot of effort building what I always call a "culture" at a school. My first school in Macon was like this. In a big football city, the XC team at the school was very popular because two coaches had begun the program with a lot of spirit and had carried that excitement into the kids and then into some winning seasons. That doesn't always work, but it does in some cases. My first school was the exact opposite. The XC team had region and state titles and when the Fall sports program came around, the XC team was usually left completely off.

 

      I took over the team in mid-August and began training them the same way I had helped train my previous two teams with a set weekly regime of workouts. I will easily say that there is much about running I don't know about and that there are a multitude of theories and an even greater multitude of workouts that people have designed to to make every runner better, but in my small bit of experience, there are four main workouts that you cannot skip if you hope to get better and those are: the long run, the speed work, the tempo, and the heavy, heavy enforcement of having easy days. No matter what you've heard, you can't give 100% every day. No, I'm not condoning slacking, but if think about a motor or some other machine, if you attempted to put them at max capacity every day, they'd be quick to burn out no matter the manufacturer. The human body is no different and XC is a sport that is hard on the body. Daily running, high mileage, mostly super high temperatures, pedal to the metal races (sometimes 2x a week), and lack of good, easy days or rest days can really take a toll. Yes, other sports are really hard, but take football for example. Yes, it is very hard and requires a lot of physical skill and prowness and also takes a lot of mental skill and prowness, but the next time you are near a football practice or game pay attention to how much they are actually working or actually playing. Yes, a college football game may last 3-4 hours on tv, but the players are only playing an hour and not every player is actually playing that much time. In soccer, they'd still have another half hour to just be on the field. But during a XC practice, you are moving towards running or actually running the majority of the practice and you are usually covering somewhere between 30-50 miles a week on a high school team; jump to college and the mileage alone jumps to somewhere between 70-110 miles a week. Some people don't even drive their cars that far in a single week. And to add to that there are no time outs in XC.

 

    In an attempt to make a super long reliving of the past a tad bit shorter, I will attempt to summarize. I got a team that had almost given up on winning even the small meets and had arrived at a school where XC had become a "has been" sport. I took over, added some folks from here and there, pushed them really hard, did every workout right along side them (the #1 way to really motivate a team. It never fails. They may complain at times, but they'll soon cease and never accuse you of being unfair. Crazy, yes, but never unfair.) added some "funtivities", threw in some ultimate Frisbee, and pushed them through a pretty difficult seven race schedule that including two public school races, a first for the private school I'm at, and we began a slight reemergence of the sport at the school. We took home four trophies from four races. We came very close to winning a few of them. The morale is up. The love for ultimate Frisbee has caught like wild fire. We took home two third place finishes in our region and qualified, both varsity teams, for the first time in three years. And my JV squads were contenders at our state meet. We accomplished a lot. I'm very, very proud of the runners and I am really looking forward to a great year next year. I think and know there is much left for us to accomplish and my desire is to have a plaque sitting behind my desk that says, "Coach of the Year", in about 2-3 years from now and a state title trophy sitting in the case from my years here. We have much, much work to do, but we've begun that work. I'm just glad I get to be apart of it.



The best little cowboy around...

 

 

      After school began, the rest of 2014 went by in what seemed like a supersonic blur. Teaching and XC had me busy from early in the morning till late at night. In addition to all the new items, I had begun having to drive 66 miles a day as opposed to the 8 miles I used to drive. Mel and her father  had to pick up my slack when I went back to work so that we could move out of my in laws home and into our house. Mel also jumpstarted her business, Greener Grass, again and she has begun trying to figure out what having a business looks like when it is far away from your intended audience and trying to figure out how to generate a new audience while holding onto the old. And FH is trying to figure out just what his new life on a farm and in the country looks like. I know this sounds like hyperbole or more me than him, but he does know that things are different and things have changed. I don't know exactly how much he knows or feels this, but when we moved to Fitzgerald, it took him several months to begin acting "normal" again and get into some sort of normal schedule for him. We are still trying to get him to see that our new house is his new house and that it is where we live now. He is coming along, but he did notice that everything was different. We are just blessed that we got to make such big changes when he was young as opposed to older and more in tune with what really occurred. 

     What was left of August went by in a flash followed by a very busy September. By September, we had moved into the house, but were still living in, and out of, and around boxes as we attempted to set up house in a place that was 300+ sq. feet smaller than our house in Macon and completely lacked an attic. We sorted, and resorted, and moved more and more items into piles to give away or attempt to sell. Late August and early September, FH got accepted into a program for children with developmental delays, struggles, or lapses and we were and are so very thankful. Ford has always struggled with a swallowing and eating lapse and a delay when it came to a swallowing and sensitivity delay. He had a hard time nursing, didn't start eating even baby cereal until he was over 9 months old, and still at 2 and half struggles with eating. It is a huge concern and worry for us, but due to his acceptance in this program gets to work with a speech therapist to help him move past his delay. He has progressed, but is still lacking. But he is getting better.

    September finished and blended into a very hectic October with Mel cranking up her sewing jobs and classes, trying to and eventually making her business to become and LLC, and XC hit into overdrive with me having an out of town meet about twice a week every week of October. October also saw Mel celebrate a birthday and me too. I also got chosen to be a lead chaperone for the 8th Grade class trip to Savannah which landed right on my birthday. It seems like every year that I teach, I spend my birthday somewhere odd, like in a bus headed to a XC meet, or at a Zaxby's, surrounded by people much younger than me, singing me birthday songs, just so they can get a piece of cake that someone's mother was kind enough to bring. At the end of October, we celebrated Halloween, with the little cowboy from the above picture. I'm not a real fan of Halloween for a lot of reasons, but right now, it is very fun to sort of let FH choose something he wants to dress up like and let him go get some candy. And this year was especially fun since it was the first year that FH really started to understand a little or in some cases a lot of what was going on. He was slow in wanting to approach folks he didn't know in one of our arms or holding onto our hands, but after a little while he caught on to the fact that if he said, "trick or treat", to the right folks, they'd give him M&M's. He realized its a pretty good scheme and though it is now January, he'll still occasionally say it in hopes of getting a "lil' treat".

    October bled into November and we saw a few things change. We fed Pecos his last bottle; a fact he's still not too keen on, and we finally got some cooler weather and the gnats left us. I've been a lot of places, but South Georgia has to be one of the hottest places I've ever lived. Florida gets hot, but there seems to always be a breeze. Alabama gets hot, but the gnats aren't that bad. Fitzgerald is hot and there's no breeze and the gnats hover in swarms looking for people to get. It is sometimes to the point of driving me absolutely crazy. But...November brought cooler weather and when the temperature is in the upper 90's, the day it drops to 85 is a very good day. We celebrated a good Thanksgiving in Fitzgerald and FH really got into telling folks, "Happy Turkey Day", and talking about pumpkins and making the sounds of a turkey. November also spelled the end of XC season and I started to get to come home before 6 pm and that is always a blessing. I love XC very much, but I love coming home earlier and spending more time with Mel and FH about a 1000x more.

In December, FH joined my Physics class in our Mexican Bowling night. He loved the kids and they were very kind to him. He also really loved the bowling alley and with the help of this super neat apparatus got to bowl with us. He even bowled three strikes and really got into the celebrations of a good bowl. I'm seeing a Dark Bowling team in our future and I could not be more excited.

 

 

        November sprinted into December and we were left sitting and thinking about how much "life had taken place in 2014. I had gotten a second job. We had completely moved and begun a new life. I had applied for and acquired a new job. FH had turned two. We had sold a car. We had gutted a house and completely renovated the insides all in the span of three months. Mel had restarted her business. We had moved twice and that is only a few of the largest items of the year. But we survived and at each turn, even when things we very dark and seemed like life would never get better, there were small joys and sometimes large ones too. I think that is one of the great surprises about life too. There is always joy to be found. It may be almost invisible, but it is there. Trust me. 

FH and me at the Tifton Christmas Parade. Easily one of the best nights for me in the whole year. We followed the marching band (one of FH's favorite things in all of life) through the whole parade route and then ate from street vendors and rode a few of the free rides and had a lot of great laughs. I will remember it my whole life.

 

 

 

   We had a pretty good December. Life was starting to feel a little more normal. Our house was feeling a little more like a home. We had found a small PCA church and had gone to it several times. And FH fell in love with Christmas and it made it's coming so very wonderful. He loved everything about it. He loved the carols. He loved the characters. He loved the decorations. He loved the treats. He loved the parades. He loved it all. We had so much fun watching him enjoy the Christmas season. Everything was good and he was so funny about it all. To be honest, it is January 22nd today and we re-watched that old Frosty movie staring Andy Griffin just two nights a go. FH does wonderful impressions of the characters on those old holiday shows. It is really too funny. At every bend in the season, FH would do something even more funny or sweet than he had previously done. On the night before we celebrated Christmas with my in laws, my mother in law tried to get Ford to lay out cookies and milk for Santa under the tree, but a few minutes later, we couldn't find FH anywhere and he had crawled under the tree and begun quietly eating the cookies and drinking the milk. I'm still laughing at that.  

 

 

 

Mel and FH enjoying the light in Mt. Dora, Florida.

 

 

 

     We finished our December and our year with me finishing up my first semester at Tiftarea and then a trip to Florida to visit my parents and celebrate Christmas with them. It was so good to see my family and spend the holiday with them. My family is so spread out that it is really hard to get everyone together. It is a very sad fact of life right now and a very rare thing to see my family all at one place even once a year with us being spread out from Florida to Chicago to Texas and all having lives so very full of obligations that are not so easily left for later. But we got to visit with my youngest sister and her husband who live in Chicago for now. Ford had only seen them a total of three times in his whole life and we got to spend time with my other sister, her husband, and their sweet son, Jackson, who quickly became fast friends with FH and who now Face Time's FH or FH Face Time's almost every day. We got to do a lot of very fun things in Florida, everything from bike rides to a riding a real train, and the weather was beautiful and warm and it was a good way to end the year. We made it back to the Fitz. to finish the year out. 

 

       If someone were to ask me, what I thought the hardest thing about life was, I'm not exactly sure what I'd tell them, but I feel one of the things I'd try to tell them would be about trying to find one's truthful and right place in the world. Two years ago, I would say that Mel and I sort of knew our place or at least what our world looked like. I was a science teacher who coached XC and track. Mel was a worker of many odd and part-time jobs and a woman of a multitude of varied talents. We had a church. We had a new child and were learning how to be "new" parents. We had a circle of friends and places we called our people and places. We knew where our home was and had a great affection for our lives and all that made it up. I'd say we are not there anymore and are busy trying to relearn our place. I'm learning everything I can about a new school, new subjects,  a new schedule, new bosses, new kids, and new attitudes. We don't have a home church yet and we don't really have any friends. We have a house and it is only now beginning to feel like we actually live there. Mel is trying to find her place in a town she no longer feels apart of because she has changed and the town has changed. We are still learning how to be parents. We, maybe mostly I, still don't really know how it is all suppose to feel and look and I definitely don't know how it is all suppose to work and fit together. We have much to do and much to think about and an even greater amount to pray about. 2014 was a good year, but it was also jammed packed with hardship and we had some pretty dark and hard days and even harder choices to make and go through. I'm sure 2015 will be full of those items too, but I feel so hopeful about the year. We've made the necessary changes to allow for things to improve. We've done the hard stuff. I know more will follow, but we are in a great place to grow in every facet of our life. We're in a place to begin living by choice again. We're in a place where we can move beyond were we had slid. I have such great hope for the new year, but my greatest hope is that, "He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it", and, "all things will work together for the good of those who love God...". I now am beginning to get those verses a little better and there is a great and triumphant hope in that. We haven't exactly found our new place, but I'm beginning to see the outlines of it for now.

Thanks again for taking your precious time to read my posts. Shorter posts are on the way. I promise.

DAVID





2014: A Year in Review-Part A

FH leading the charge in early June at our new home.

       Some people are great at looking up ahead and seeing the lay of the land and seeing how every thing blends into the bigger picture or issue. My wife is this kind of person. I envy her. And some folks are great at looking back and seeing the goodness that lies amongst the hard won and hard learned lessons of the past. I wish I were one of these people too, but must confess I'm neither and I wish it weren't so, but it is. So, as I sit typing this many days after the start of this new year, I try my hardest to see exactly what type of year 2014 was. I had such great expectations for 2014 because 2013 had been so tragic for myself, my wife, and my little family, but in life, I'm learning that one doesn't just leap from tragedy to triumph in a single bound; that the phoenix did rise, but that rise was still covered in burnt debris and charred ruins. Lazarus did rise, but he had to walk out of a tomb. I believe that is what I'm slowly, oh, how ever so slowly, learning. That loss and painful tragedy are still there when we rise and always will be. It is not rubbed out. We are all Jacob walking with a limp. We've defeated the angel, but now will carry that wound wondering many times if the blessing was worth the everyday pain. We are the wounded warriors; not the valiant, courageous, untouchable warriors we once thought we were. I know there are all those great quotes about the "honor" of being wounded because we have had to chance to really live life, but in life, at least for myself, that wound or wounds, feel so much different and don't exactly feel like inspirational poster material, but feel like experiences that I may choose to skip if I had to go through them again. I know how this sounds and that is ok. I'm not counting myself even amongst those branding themselves as wounded warriors. I'm cowardly at best and most of the time wish the line from that Patty Griffin song, Top of the World, "...I wish it would have been easier, instead of any longer…", were true rather than just a line from a really good song. I'm only being honest to you and if you know me, you already know that. I have and do tackle challenges, but only those challenges that seem easy and pleasurable and in the end just prideful; running a marathon is easy compared to having a right relationship with my wife and loving her as Christ loves the Church, biking 50 miles is easy compared to using my resources wisely on a daily basis, etc. And I have a wife who is highly patient and very, very forgiving and my resources are small and should be easily manageable.

     So….looking back at 2014 and wondering just what type of year it was isn't exactly easy from where I am sitting. 2014 was begun with us just trying to hope that the nightmarish way 2013 ended would not follow us and wondering if we could or if we would survive and if we did end up surviving, would the two people at the end even remotely resemble the two people who were at the beginning. And I was really doing this same thing last year about this time. I was only trying not to lose what I had left and seemingly living every facet of life in what I can only call survival mode; which is really no way of living really. I feel maybe the best way for me to explain the year to you is through the lessons I began learning and from a few pictures. I'll begin with the lessons and end with the pictures. No matter what, I'll apologize early for a post that is going to be too long and too sentimental for most of you, I'm sure. And I'll refrain from saying the lessons are ones that I've learned and understand because I know this isn't even close to the truth. I merely know that I am beginning to see the foundation of the lesson and will spend many moments and the rest of my life attempting to understand all that has occurred over the past year.

    I have begun learning anew that God is completely faithful in the very face of my complete and almost hourly unfaithfulness. This is more humbling each time I have to learn this. I am forever the prophet Jonah cursing the shade tree that God has provided for me amidst my grumbling. I've learned that the most precious possessions that I have are not possessions at all, but rather gifts that were and are given to me on a daily basis whether I deserve them or not. I've learned my wife is more forgiving, humble, wise, and stronger than I ever guessed or imagined her to be. I've learned once again that silence is the loudest when an answer is about to come right at you. I've learned that beginning again isn't so easy and has to be stronger than a few moral platitudes. I've learned that holding my sweet boy in my arms is the greatest feeling in the world and one of my only true refuges. I've begun learning that the things in life that slow me down are the things most worth doing and paying attention to. I've learned that family, both biological and inherited, are so very forgiving, generous, faithful, helpful, and so very hard to live rightly with. I've learned that growing up is nothing like you beg for when you are too young and unwise to know differently. If you knew what it really was like, you'd scream for someone to protect you from it. I've begun learning again the sufficiency of God's Word and of heaping upon that Great God Jehovah all that I can no longer carry. I've begun learning that even in the darkest and most trying times, there is still a small glimmer of light and it is so very hard to hold onto it. I've now begun to finally see that there are two ways to live life, by choice and by circumstance, and am working everyday like crazy to regain the privilege of getting to live by choice. I've begun learning that the amount of items in this world that I do not know about or understand greatly outweigh what little I do know. I've begun learning what the real me looks like and enjoys. I've begun learning that saying you believe something and actually living like it couldn't look anymore differently. And lastly I am beginning to learn that I'm never enough and that I'm never suppose to be. I know this is a lot and please, please know that I am in no way saying this is all I have learned. I will spend the rest of my waking days attempting to learn all of this and probably will die not really understanding all of this and that is fine. All I am saying is that I have begun anew learning so many things and 2014 was the reemergence of this.

FH and I getting in a little "no" time before we realized how cold your hands can get. 

       2014 began with cold and more cold and then snow, real snow and I had to miss something like 6 days of work because of it. During the snow, trapped in a house with a little toddler who didn't understand why we couldn't go outside for longer than a few moments because he is restless inside like his father, I wished for warmer days, but now 12 months away from those moments, I'd give up a lot to spend those moments again with Mel and FH and watch him experience his first snow and hear him look around in awe and keep saying, "no", "no" which is how he sounded when he tried to say snow. 

FH and I chasing our shadows late in the day downtown Macon.

        2014 was when FH and I really hit our stride on the old, steel wonder horse. We rode around 550 miles give or take a few. We rode early and late and warm and cold. We rode so many places and I had so much fun; fun I'd forgotten you can have on a bike going about 10 mph. We rode and rode and rode and sometimes we even got off and found some pretty great places to play, explore, get muddy, eat snacks, and even take a few long autumn naps. I hope my memory never lets me forget any of these moments. 

My home away from home from February till June. 

      2014 was the year I didn't coach track for the first time in eight years, but instead got a second job. We needed money. It was funny to make the Walter White comparisons with those who felt the need to do so, but I will easily admit it was very, very humbling to change out of a coat and tie and leave a place where I was the head of a department where I was completely respected and then change into a t-shirt and pants and vacuum cars and trucks and then detail them for hours on end in the cold and in the heat for a few dollar bills in order to pay the bills each week. It was also a very odd feeling to be on your knees wrist deep in the nastiest of cars and look up and see the spires of the college you used to once study at in what felt like seventeen lifetimes ago. It was humbling to wash the cars of people I knew, or of students I taught or had once taught, or vacuum the cars of people who we were friends with. For the past several years, I have often said that I, like my dream literary and life mentor, Wendell Berry, believed all work was good work and when done with integrity is highly worth doing, but this job at the car wash made me slam up against this at about 1000 mph and although I still will say this, I only now actually believe it and understand it. and I'll probably never say it out loud unless asked about it. It is an odd thing to be treated like trash knowing the "low class" people I'm working around are far better people than the man or woman who thinks its okay to treat people who are serving them poorly. I respect and look at people in a much different light and learned so many things about myself and life during the 4.5 months I worked at Fountain. I actually miss that place and would work there again if I had the need or the chance. Yes, it was hard and extremely humbling, but it was also an education and at times very satisfactory.

The ole' Trek waiting patiently in the tunnel at the car wash. 

The Biria loaded down with a day's worth of belongings. 

     2014 was also the year I got a new bike and attempted to become something I'd wanted to be for a very long time: a bicycle commuter. I had ridden my bike for errands and to work on and off over the years, but nothing to really speak about or count myself amongst the rank and file of bike commuters, but I really gave it a go in 2014. I used my bike to go to both my job at Covenant and my job at the car wash and to just about everywhere in between for around 100 days in 2014. I'm not exactly sure about that number, but I feel it is pretty close and may actually be a little small. I could write a lot about this and I'll spare you, but all I really say is that I loved just about every second of it. Yes, it is really hot when it is hot and yes, it is really cold when it is cold and yes, there are about 100 downsides to being that guy who rides his bike everywhere, but the next time you are sitting once again at a red light or stuck in traffic or thinking about how you could just get a little exercise if you didn't spend so long in the car or the next time you begrudgingly pay for gas, think to yourself that you could skip all of that if you just rode your bike to work. I know everyone can't do this. I'm back in that situation again myself, but I'm so happy that for many months of 2014, I got to be that guy who rode his bike to just about everywhere. And I'll leave you with this thought and with the knowledge that I'm actually not so great on the bike, but my job at the car wash was exactly 5.5 miles from my classroom door at Covenant. In the car, that trip took me about 25 minutes on a good day. I could make it on my bike, loaded down with all my things, in about 15-20 minutes. If I could, I'd gladly give up my car for a bike as my main mode of transportation in almost any situation. 

A basketed Biria enjoying a quick ride after work on a back road somewhere in Ben Hill County in July.

    What about the new bike, you ask? Well, I won't bore you with too many details about the bike. There's a full post on that waiting in the wings. I will tell you it is an olive green Biria CitiBike. It is just about the most fun bike I've ever had and ever ridden and it has helped me really change how I think about cycling. I know those folks out there that are very financially conscious are wondering how a guy who was working two jobs just to make ends meet can afford a new bike and is maybe thinking that if I spent money on wiser things than stupid bikes, I wouldn't have to work two jobs and all I'll really say is thank you for judging me without knowing the full situation and to please ease your fears; nothing is ever as it seems. I bought the bike just like this. The bike came to a grand total of $401. My brother in law gave me a $150 doll hairs for Christmas. I laid this money down at Cherry St. Cycles in February. And almost every single day at the car wash, I did what no one else wanted to do: I cleaned out the filters and the lines of the industrial vacuum cleaner that ran the 12 hoses at the car wash. And everyday, these filters and lines contained piles and piles of change that had been sucked up. And each day, I sifted through hair balls, moldy food, finger nails, insects, dirt, dust, skin, and every other disgusting thing you can imagine to get the change that lay in there and each day I walked away with around $2-$20 in change and I'd put it in a glass jar at home and when that jar was full, I'd take it one of those Coin Star machines and get dollars for the change and then go make a payment on the bike. And I did just that for most of February, all of March, and three-quarters of April until I walked in one day in April, laid my last payment down and walked out with a brand new bike. I have changed several things on the bike and there'll be posts about that too, but this is a great, great bike and I'm so glad I sifted through all that crap just to get it. It was well worth it. 

Our group standing in front of the NYC skyline while visiting The Statue of Liberty.

    In March of 2014, I got to chaperone the class of 2014 at Covenant Academy on their Senior Trip to NYC. I could spend many posts talking about this trip, but I won't. I'll only say that although it was very hard to spend a whole week away from sweet little FH and dear girl MelBelle, I'm so glad I got to go on that trip; especially since 2014 was my last year there at Covenant. It was a trip for the mental history books. We left Covenant at 5 am on a Monday morning in Macon, Georgia and for the next five days we did not stop and it was amazing. I had been to NYC nine previous times, but never gotten to go like this. We did just about everything one thinks about when talking about a NYC trip. We rode the subway, went to Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, toured the Met and the Museum of Natural History, jogged (for a about a half mile) in Central Park, saw where John Lennon lived and was killed, ate out a lot, worked at a food pantry in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem, saw a show on Broadway, went to Macy's, shopped in China Town, ate in Little Italy, went to Tiffany's, ate from street vendors, toured the Statue of Liberty, walked through Time's Square, saw the NYSE, and visited about a dozen famous churches, and walked through Greenwich Village. We did a lot other things too, but those were the main items. The trip was truly wonderful and the Covenant students were exceptional. I was always proud to be with them and they made me look good. I could type a lot more about that too, but I won't. The trip was amazing and I made memories with the other two teachers and the 21 students who went that I'll be thinking about for the rest of my life. 

FH and I at Covenant Academy's 2014 Prom. 

     2014 was also the year, that FH and I really started to go. I've always taken him with me just about everywhere I've ever gone, but this year, we really started to get out of the house and take off. I love this little guy more than anything in life save Mel and it gives me so much pleasure to have him around. Yes, it makes everything take longer and yes, I have to bring many more items than I sometimes would like to bring, but having him around and getting to watch him experience everything anew is something  worth far more to me than all of those other items. We went to breakfast on Saturday mornings on the bike and in the car, we went to countless sporting events, we went to XC practices like it was our job, we went to church and to concerts, we went out to eat, just us guys, we went to the grocery store and to  Lowe's and Ace Hardware, and we even went to Prom 2014 and he stayed till 10:30. I am so proud to be FH's father and hope he shadow's me his whole life. He's a great boy. Yes, he's bad, but I love having him around. 



FH sampling his cake before he blew out the candles!

    In April, FH turned two. He was addicted to the, Itsy Bitsy Spider, at the time and to be honest, he still kind of is and sweet Melissa threw him a really cool Itsy Bitsy Spider party. The house we were renting was transformed into a really cool and hip spider web and we partied for hours! My mom came up from Florida and my in-laws came up from Fitzgerald and so many of our friends in Macon dropped by to help us celebrate. FH loved his cake that his Lulu (Mel's mom) made for him and loved having everyone over at his house to play. I had a good time, but the really the only thing I could think about at the party was that it was really hard to believe that my dear boy FH was already two. How had it already been that long since he was born? I will never understand time and it has never made that much sense to me and having a child has not helped that at all. I cannot believe so many times that I am married and have a child and often times it feels fake and then to get to give your son a party for being alive for two years of living, you have to step back and bite the insides of your cheeks because it can't all be so real, but it is. I will say that FH is the third best thing to happen to me behind my salvation and then my marriage, but he has changed me. I can't believe that I foolishly walked around and claimed so many times that having kids was not for me. I love being a father. It is so very, very hard and takes so much out of me and leaves me frustrated and exhausted so much of the time, but everyday all it takes is getting to hug my sweet boy or get to read him a few books, pray with him, and put him to sleep and all of that makes up for the "hardships" of being a dad and they seem to fade away and it all becomes worth it. I'm not claiming I know anything about being a father or that I'm a good one because I know that isn't true. I've made all the mistakes one can make from ages 0 seconds till the age that FH is now and I'll continue to do so, but I love being FH's dad. It is a true honor. 

A quick pic on the porch before the party began. 

The "ole' gettin' about town car", the Forester. 

   Around the end of March and beginning of April, we had to sell a car. Our in laws had graciously given us not one, but two of their older vehicles and we were a two driver family with four cars sitting in our driveway and on our insurance bill. When we had only two cars sitting in the driveway, it was already almost too much to keep two cars on the road full of gas and everything else and the added two cars were not helping us. You know that verse where Paul says that he boasts only in the grandness of God, well, I'd like to follow suite in a small way. God does big things for me and for us. No, we're never, or I'm never so good at remembering this, but He does. He sold our house in Dothan in two weeks when the housing market had just crashed. He gave me my first teaching job in Dothan and they hired me with no experience and 0 hours of education classes. He gave us the house we rented after we lost our house in Macon the very day we needed it. He gave us not one, but two Subaru's when both of our other cars had seen their last mile. And in 2014, I put up the Forester for sale for exactly what I had paid for it and a guy drove up, gave me exactly the price I asked for in cash, and drove away without almost asking a single question about the car. God sent him and God sold the car. We tried to sell the other car and it just wouldn't sell no matter what we did or who came to see it, but God didn't want it sold because He knew we'd need it shortly. It was sad to see the Forester go. It had been mine since 2006. It was a great car and I'll always remember it. It was a member of the family.

My sweet family at "the happiest place on Earth", The Magic Kingdom

          After some pretty intensive internet research by our sweet Melissa, we loaded up the car and headed south to take FH to Disney World.  My parents had invited us and had given us two tickets to us as a present for FH's second birthday. We love Disney and my parents live about 25 minutes away from the place, so half the battle of finding a good place to stay is something we never have to do. And due to the proximity of where my parents live to Disney World, I grew up going to Disney a lot, mostly because we knew so many people who worked there and one of the perks of working there is they give you a certain amount of passes for you to use every month. I don't know the actual number of times that I've been to Disney World, but to throw out a number like 200 wouldn't be too crazy, I don't believe. If that sounds crazy, know that in the last seven years, I have been to Disney around nine times and I currently live 5 hours away from the place. Even if I just kept that pace up, I still would have gone to Disney almost 30 times if I only had the chance to go for 20 of the 35 years I've been alive. Please know that I'm not bragging. I'm only telling you facts. Most of the times, like 98% of the time, the reason I've gotten to go is that I was a chaperone, a coach, or a child getting his way paid for by someone else. Anyway, I greatly digress. Mel and I love Disney. My mom and sisters do as well. And it was a real treat to take FH there and watch him react to the place. Mel did her best to indoctrinate him in all things Disney before we arrived and I'll say it was mostly a success. We had a great day there and FH was a true trooper and did amazingly with everything considering he is two and that it was almost 90+ degrees and extremely crowded. We got to go with both of my parents and FH loved the rides we went on and the big parade. I won't say he understood the idea of waiting a half hour to ride something for about a minute, but that isn't something most people can grasp. I do look forward to bringing him back as he begins to understand characters and stories more. I believe he, like his mother and me, will end of really loving the place.

FH trying to take in all things, "It's A Small World".

            There is a blog post sitting in the "Drafts" section of this place that I stole the next several pictures from and it hasn't been published because I still haven't gotten my mind and my emotions around it all. At the end of the 2014 school year, we made the very hard and excruciatingly painful decision that if all things stayed the same, we could no longer afford to live in Macon anymore. I had been looking for a new job for three years to no avail and had applied for around 200+. I had asked for raises, but life in Macon is pricey and considering our place, financially and emotionally, we just couldn't do it anymore. We were forced to make a change in order to continue to exist in a good way. To be honest, our credit after foreclosure was shot, and renting in Macon isn't even close to ideal and there are no in between places there. There are the scary places that we could afford and then there are the just "mostly" scary places that we could almost afford to live for around $700-800 a month and then there are the nice, safe places that you could live in for over a $1000 a month and that is just something we can't afford to do. And so, after being at Covenant Academy for three years and in Macon for the last six and four more during our college years before we moved to Dothan, we had to walk away from almost everything that had been our life there for almost a decade. I cannot express in words how terrible this was and is. I was almost completely sure that my days as a teacher and coach were over and when you realize that an era is over for that part of your life that makes you who you are, it is not an easy pill to swallow and to be honest, I'm still chocking it down. Saying goodbye and driving away from Covenant and then saying goodbye to our lives in Macon was and I think will always be one of the hardest things I've/we've ever done. Covenant Academy isn't a perfect school by anyone's picture. It has about a thousand things wrong with it, but I love that place and am so glad God placed me there. It is a fine institution. The teachers I got to work with are amazing people and the kids, for the most part, are the finest overall students I've had a chance to teach. I would let FH go to school there. It is the only place I've taught that I feel that way about. Covenant took a chance on me and loved me, loved my wife, loved my son like he was theirs, and gave me three wonderful years as a teacher and I will remember them for the rest of my life. 

          And so on June 3rd, for the fourth time in as many years, we backed up a van to our front door and loaded our lives into it and several other cars and attempted to move. Mel had worked tirelessly for several weeks earlier with almost no real help from me, due to my working two jobs, and while being a mother and packed up everything we've acquired over our eight years of marriage and beforehand into boxes and expertly organized and labeled all but the last few. My gracious in laws and my mom came and moved us. We once again moved in a single day, but this time was a little better since we weren't seemingly fleeing something that is still shameful and scary to think about. A few nights before we left, Mel came to the realization that in the period of less than a year, we will have moved and fallen asleep and attempted to make a home under four different roofs. No, that is not good and I hope it is no one's normal and if it is, I cannot say I'm sorry enough. I have been there once and I hope to never enter that zone again. I also cannot tell you enough how much my in laws have rescued us, both figuratively and realistically, over the past two years. When it was known that we would in fact lose our home, they came and moved us and all of our stuff without almost a single word of judgment and wrote us a check for money we needed and had no way to get. And when we came to the realization that we needed to move from Macon, they were the first to offer help and were at our door helping us. They have been a constant blessing to me/us and have humbled me by their kindness, care, and acceptance of me in the greatest failures that I've gone through of my adult life as of yet. They are highly imperfect people, but have shown kindness to the most imperfect person I know of, myself, and have done so when it would have been far easier, both emotionally and financially, to leave me behind.



   As I've already stated, I cannot, nor will I ever be able to put into words what leaving Macon was for me and for us. It has been six months already and my feelings haven't changed that much. I spoke to my dad on the phone as I was driving to Fitzgerald in a truck full of our junk following a full U-Haul and had my mom following me and I  sort of cried to him saying that it was so hard to not wonder if the best of what life had to offer had happened already and had now passed me by. He was very kind and very understanding in his reply, but even now, it is still something that I contemplate. And sadly, I think this is a question that is a part of growing up because often times you look at your current life right square in the eyes and it seems to mock you a little with the joys and happiness of the past and kind of lets you know that those times are gone and will never more be. It isn't exactly true because there will be true joy and happiness again, but it will not be those same joys and happiness that once were. When we left Macon, I thought I was leaving behind a large portion of who I was, we left our friends, some of them were people we've known since college, we left our church, we left almost everything we knew, loved, depended upon, and valued and headed towards a house we had only been inside of for less than ten minutes and towards a great fog over every other facet of our lives. I didn't have a job. We didn't know of a church. The house that was there needed an overhaul. And that is only a few things we didn't have answers for. I sat in the cab of my old Dodge truck and almost shook from the anger, sadness, bitterness, and everything else I felt about leaving Macon. It felt like a whole piece of me was dying or getting ripped from my being. I know that sounds too strong and Macon isn't that great of a town, but it is where we went to college, where we met, where we fell in love, where we got engaged, where we bought our first home together, where we remodeled a place and made it a home, where we grew into adults, where we became members of a church family, where our son was born, where he spent the first two years of his life, and where a million other things happened. We love Macon. It was part of us. And it desperately hurt to leave. 

The Trek taking in the surroundings of our new "hometown".

    

     And so on June 4th, 2014, we woke up in the third bedroom in the house of my in laws and it didn't feel like all that had transpired had really done so, but they had. And we also woke up not as visitors to Fitzgerald, as we had done countless times before with a place to return to, but were now in the place that was our new home. And it is a very strange feeling to look around you at a place where you didn't specifically choose to be and had never visualized yourself being and attempt to see past your nose and see the future in your surroundings. As I have already admitted, this is not my strong suit, so as I helped to unload our U-Haul truck and then as we began to work on what would be our house and as we started living as residents of Fitzgerald in those first few weeks that quickly became a month, I will say that I would travel the emotional spectrum each day. I'd wake up and see so much hope for carving out a really good life here, but by the end of the day, I would have been angry and so very bitter about where my mistakes had gotten us and so very angry about how could God have made us move there and then so very sad about where we were and then we'd finish some job, or the sunset would be so pretty, or I would watch the joy on FH's face as he really got to play in the open spaces of our new home and I'd be so mad at myself for feeling any differently than graciously thankful and so happy to be there. I know how this sounds and it is what it was and is. I will also say that I will never read or think about the story of Abram the same. Yes, he got to have God choose him and he got to see God do miraculous things, but he still had to leave "his kindred and his home". I now know this is something I'll never simply gloss over. I now have done this in a round about and small way and I now know in a small way how costly this is. Yes, God gave Abram so much, but it also coast him so much and just because someone wants to point to an end point and almost ignore the passageway to get there doesn't negate its existence. Please know I'm in no way saying I completely understand the story of Abram, nor am I saying we went through the exact same thing because that couldn't be farther from the truth, but I have felt great affection for a place and have had to leave that place.   

Day 1 at what would be come our new home.



      I will not give you a line by line detailed account of our full scale renovation of what we have dubbed the, "Otter Creek Camp House", but I will say that for the rest of my life or at least for a very long, long time, I'm completely uninterested in home renovation. On the afternoon of June 4th, we made a little trip over to what would be our new home and did some little jobs around the house and then for the better part of the next three months give or take a few days here at there we worked on that place day in and day out and for many days, we'd work anywhere from 5-14 hours a day at the house. We had originally thought that we'd just do a bunch of smallish things like paint and pull up carpet and we'd save the really big things till much later, but that changed quickly as we began working at the house and what was suppose to be a small "fixer-upper" operation blew up into almost a full gutting and rebuilding of the inside of the home. This may come across like we really know our way around home construction, but that is also the wrong idea. I will say Mel has great vision and is more talented and gifted than you can really think about and I can occasionally get something right, but this was a daily task of love and extreme patience by my in laws. My mother in law spent the better part of three months watching little FH as his parents left the house in the morning and came back in the evening and she fed us, washed our clothes and everything in between. My father in law and brother in law did everything from take us to Ikea to pick up our kitchen, to rip out whole walls, to build new walls, and countless other jobs that seemed like countless other nightmares rolled up into one. We could not have ever done most of the work that was done without them and we'd still be living in that third bedroom had we not had their help, their talents, and most of all, their patience.



Looking at the front door area of our house. It ceased to look exactly like this after June 5th. The place is drastically different from what it was.

      I have included a few pictures of "before" and "afters" for you, but they really do not do the renovation much justice. What began as a really sort of nasty house where we were unsure about letting FH walk around there turned into a place that looked like it fell out of a magazine. We redid, or reworked, and completely rebuilt almost every area of the house from the inside out. We did about 85-90% of the work ourselves and as already noted, when I say ourselves, I'm including Mel, my father in law, my brother in law, and myself. We tore down walls. We ripped cabinets out. We took out electrically items. We primed and primed again. We sanded. We painted. We rewired. We built new walls. We made a thousand trips to Lowe's, Home Depot, and the Fitzgerald hardware stores. We planned. We threw tools. We cut our hands on the saw and hit them with our hammers. We got angry at each other and grew very irritable with each other. We gave each other the silent treatment. We started to see the daylight. We made bad cuts and tried things over until it worked and in the end, we saw it taking shape. I will say nothing was easy and nothing went like it was supposed to go. And there were many days where I would have been very happy to take a loan out somehow and begin living in a used camper trailer and never look back and there were even some days that I would have gladly bombed the place and even some days that I began thinking that knocking that place down all together and starting from the dirt would have actually been easier. 

The front room on the first day we began working on the house; nasty red shag carpet and orange shellac walls and all.

         In hindsight, it might have been wiser to complete one room at a time and feel our accomplishment in that, but we didn't do that at all. We just went in and ripped everything out and attempted to work on every room at what felt like at the same exact time. That was very, very hard and I wouldn't advise it, but it is what we did. And I'll also say this about doing it that way and that is when you are getting near the end, it is actually the end for the whole place and not just a single room and that is really rewarding. As I've said, we redid or reworked every room in the house completely. We sanded the walls, primed them, and painted every inch of the interior of the house. We took out two closets and reworked/rebuilt the hallway and a whole wall in our bedroom. We ripped out the entire kitchen and built a new one. And when I say ripped it out, I mean that, including two of the four walls. We ripped up the carpet and put down new flooring in about 90% of the house. We put up all new fans and lights and reworked the electrical flow in the house. We ripped out the three window units and installed a central heating and cooling system. We did all of this and about a thousand other small things. And as I've said, we did about 90% of the work ourselves and the only things that were done by someone else were the drywall jobs, most of the electrical work, and then the central heat and air, but we were there when those jobs were being done and were quick to lend a hand and some days it felt like we were actually doing those jobs ourselves. 

The transformed front room

   The house is about 95% finished on the inside for now and we got to move in near the last weeks of August. It is hard to really know how to know how to feel or think about the house, but most of all, the house is a blessing; a blessing of the type that almost no one I know is given. We lost our home and didn't have even a small place to call our own and now we have a whole, nice house that we are working so hard to call our home and it is a home that we can never lose and it is a place that we did not have to qualify for or pay for. Yes, it cost us a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and yes, it initially cost my father in law a lot to help us pay for the renovation and we've begun to slowly pay that back, but we were not required to "buy" the house. And that is a gift and to be honest, I'm never so good at receiving gifts at first, but have to slowly ease into the idea of it. We've now lived in that place for a little over four and a half months and it is beginning to feel more like where we are supposed to be and less like somewhere we are staying till the storm blows over. The ideas that Mel had and that we all worked so hard to attain really paid off. The house, when it is clean and sometimes even when it isn't, is really something to behold. No, it's nothing that shimmers or really blows you away, but it is an almost completely transformed place and went from being a coldish, very dark, and dingy place to a place full of light, color, and warmth. I'm proud of the place and the drive up that half mile drive way at the end of a long day is starting to feel less like I'm lost and much more like I'm headed in the right direction. It is starting to feel like home.

The other side of our living room/dining room that makes up our big front, main room.

My two favorite people in the world at one of our favorite places: the beach.

            Sometime near the end of July, we packed up our bags from what little we had that wasn't in boxes sitting in a storage shed and headed to Ormond Beach. In all reality, we really shouldn't have gone and didn't really have the time or money to do so. We were beyond knee deep, it felt more like throat deep, in our all-consuming house renovation and we really should have stayed put and gotten in another week of good work. However, it was so very good to get away from everything and my very kind and generous parents gave us a full week at the beach as an anniversary present and it more than hit the spot. FH is a lucky guy because he, at age 2.5, has already gotten to do so many things and go so many places. This was his third trip to the beach and I'm so glad we got to experience the beach this past year with him. The first time we went with him, he was a month old and it really was a living nightmare and in all honesty Mel faced most of this nightmare by herself. And two summers ago, we had to be so careful with everything and really had to watch him and he really didn't get beach life, but this year was really awesome. We just set up the tent we borrowed from my parents, lathered FH up in sun lotion, and let him do it all and he loved every second of it. We'd get out there early, hit a nap when it got hot, and then head back out to the beach in the late afternoon and stay till almost 8 pm. We loved it all and FH cried each time we had to go in because he loved the beach so much. There were even a few times that, even though we knew he was so tired, we let him stay and he'd almost fall asleep in the sand trying to keep playing. He loved the sand. He loved going out into the waves. He love chasing birds. He loved looking for shells. He loved eating snacks under the tent. He loved trying to catch those sand fleas. He loved the pool. He loved it all and so did we. And after all we had been through and after living with my in laws for the better part of two solid months, it felt so nice to be by ourselves and just rest amongst each other and do everything on our own schedule. It felt nice to skip a meal or eat later or stay up late or get up early. It felt nice to just get to talk to FH alone or to get to only talk to Mel and FH during a meal or to make a little family pile on the couch and watch "our" shows. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it felt so nice to just be "our" little family again. We had so many great moments when we are at the beach and I'm already looking forward to a possible 2015 beach trip and FH really is. Sometimes, he'll go to our closet and bring me a towel and ask if we can go to the beach and it is really, really hard to explain how we can't just drive there. Or sometimes, he'll lay down in the sand that's in our driveway and ask me to play "beach" with him. FH is ready to hit the beach again and so are we. We love it there.

     And so for now, I'll close and ask you to be looking for a Part B to this post. I thought I could just summarize our year in a somewhat longish post, but I also don't want you to have to spend the better part of an hour trying to read a post here. Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for reading.

Looking forward to a great 2015 with a lot of hope,

DAVID