A Weird Dream, or an Ominous Prediction?

The other night, I dreamed that the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series. That would be very unlikely, since the Pirates' last winning season was in the early '90s. However, if that actually happens this year, you heard it here first.

Another Carbondale Trip

Guess what? We went back to Carbondale this past weekend. It wasn't as long of a trip as last time, and this was more for business than for pleasure (I went down to help wrap up our old church's files), but we still had a wonderful time with the Staleys. Angie and I ate at Booby's (you read that correctly) for lunch, and then went out with Noble and Lynnette for pizza at Quatro's for dinner. Later on, Angie and I did some shopping in Marion to buy some baby things that our stores in Decatur don't carry anymore.

On Sunday, we attended the worship service at Vine Community Church (a place I would recommend visiting), and it was awesome as always. The "random moment" of the weekend soon followed, when we had to detour on the way back to their house becuase a big moving truck got stuck in the ditch pulling out onto Pleasant Hill Road.

We have to thank the Staleys yet again for providing us a place to stay and for the good times that we had. With our little guy coming in less than a month, this was our last trip for a while.

The Inauguration

I consider myself pretty lucky that I was able to watch the Inauguration at work today. No matter how we all feel about politics, it was quite a sight to see, and an event that will go down in history. I never plan on giving away my political affilation on this blog, but no matter what, I hope that I always remember to pray for my president and the decisions that he makes.

I hope that the next four years go well for us, and that we remember that if we expect the president to fix all of our troubles by himself, we will be greatly disappointed.

One more thing: President Obama is a White Sox fan, and that's pretty sweet. Take that, North Siders!

My Goals for 2009

I know we're already in the 11th day of 2009, but I thought I'd share some of my personal goals for the year. I got the idea for doing this last fall, when I read the book 48 Days to the Work You Love, by Dan Miller. It's a great book that deals with how we approach our careers, and how our career should be more than just a paycheck. It's a book that I recommend, no matter what you think of your current job.

One of the chapters in this book mentioned that often we want our lives to improve, but we don't lay out a plan for making it happen. I have been guilty of that; sometimes, I want to change, but I'm too afraid to take a chance, or I'm simply too lazy to do anything about it. So, for 2009, I decided to set some personal goals. I made 11 goals total, although I'm going to keep some of them private. Here they are, by category:

Spiritual
1) Read the entire books of Psalms and Proverbs, as well as all four gospels.
-I want to deepen my relationship with God, and I can't expect to do so if I am not more diligent about reading his word. I often lack the motivation to read the Bible, and I hope that challenging myself to do so will help. I will need about two months for each book. I'm cheating a little here; I was already halfway through Psalms when the year began. But Psalms is a pretty big book anyway. Hopefully, I'll have a better understanding of these books at the end of the year.

2) Pray every day, and pray for Angie and our (future) son every day.
-If you never talk to your spouse, the relationship never goes anywhere. Thus, if you never talk to God, that relationship also goes nowhere. I learned this during a good sermon that I listened to a few weeks ago. As a result, I'm going to try very hard to pray every day, even if it's just a small prayer, and I always want to be praying for Angie and our boy.

Finances
1) Work 300 hours at the M.E. Barber Company and teach two summer courses at RCC.
-The summer courses are already in the schedule, and I made a month-by-month account of how I will get to 300 hours for the year, based on what I worked in 2008 and how my schedule will be this year.

2) Bring our emergency fund to have three months of expenses saved up.
-We were at that point near the end of the year, but car repairs set us back. However, it was nice to have the money to pay for those repairs. This is where the extra hours at the Shop and teaching summer courses comes into play.

Physical and Relational Health
1) Spend 30 minutes on the treadmill (or walking outside) at least once a week.

2) Have a "date night" with Angie at least once a month.
-This will especially be important after our boy is born, so that our marriage can stay strong.

Personal Development
1) Read six books (one for every two months).
-I can already see some of my relatives laughing at this one. Reading, at least reading books outside of work, has never been a passion of mine, but I know that I need to read if I want to get ahead in life. I read two books for pleasure in 2008, so I hope to increase it this year.

2) Cook a meal once a week.
-I'm lousy at cooking, and that needs to change. Angie shouldn't have to cook every meal, so I want to help out.


And those are some of my goals for 2009. Why have I posted these on my blog? It's easy; it's a good way to stay accountable. All of you who read this are allowed to e-mail me anytime this year and ask how I'm doing, and you can demand that I be honest. I hope that this has inspired you to think about what you want for this year, and how you can make it happen.

Here's to a fantastic 2009!

My Griswold Moment

I mentioned in a previous post that my dad bought me a shirt similar to the one that Clark Griswold is wearing when he is putting up the outdoor Christmas lights. Well, as I went to take down the lights last Thursday, I wore that shirt and had Angie take a picture of it.


I don't have the cheesy '80s Bears hat that Clark wore, but a current Bears hat will do. I also got out the staple gun, even though those lights are not stapled to the house. I can also happily report that there were no mishaps or injuries. Next Thanksgiving, I'll be sure to wear that same shirt when I put the lights back out.

The First Nursery Photos

Angie and I have worked hard over our holiday break to get the nursery put together. Here are a few photos. More will come as the nursery progresses.

Here's the crib and the dresser. The crib was pretty easy to put together; the dresser, not so much. They both look nice, though.

On the other side of the room are the changing table and the rocker. These were some lucky finds; the changing table came courtesy of my sister-in-law, Jill, and we bought the rocker when One Way had its church sale.

We also bought new curtains for each of the windows.

Here's the closet. The boy already has more toys than he needs. This is what happens when Angie's siblings couldn't wait to unload some unneeded toys. We are very thankful, however, to have so much. We don't plan on washing the clothes for a while, hence why the clothes are in a big pile.

Here's his bookcase. He also isn't hurting for books. The train on the top is a piggy bank train, where we can write in his name, height, weight, birthday, favorite food, etc. Next to it is a teddy bear from the Chicago Symphony. Both were wonderful gifts from my brother Danny and his fiance, Marianne. On the right is Woofers, a bear we made at Build-a-Bear when we were in St. Louis this past fall.

Finally, here's a closeup of the dresser. The ultrasound picture is on the left. That frame was a gift from Betty, a co-worker at my side job at the M.E. Barber Company. The picture book and piggy bank came from my parents, and my parents and grandparents combined to save over $120 in quarters to put in it. I gave Angie the elephant photo frame for Christmas, with a note saying "Insert baby picture here" in it.

It was hard work, but a lot of fun, to put it together. Now comes the waiting. We're pretty excited to see him come!

Want to Take Control of Your Finances?

At the beginning of 2008, we took a class called Financial Peace University. It's a 13-week class that was offered at our church. I can't recommend this course enough. One year later, we are still reaping the benefits of learning about our finances. Right now, we make less money that we did at this time last year, and yet we no longer have credit card debt, we increased our savings account significantly, and we were even able to put some money away in a Roth IRA. Plus, we still sit down before every month and make a budget. I never wanted to do a budget (I know, a math guy who didn't like to budget; who knew?), but now I see no other way.

The class was created by Dave Ramsey, a well-known author and radio show host. His videos are very entertaining. Picture a crazy, animated, middle-aged man from Tennessee, and there you have it. I read his book, The Total Money Makeover, earlier this year, and learned much from it.

This class especially helped us out, given the current market. The way I see it, when there's a recession, we have two options: we can panic, watch CNN and Fox News all day, and assume it's hopeless, or we can choose to take charge of our finances. We chose the latter, and couldn't be happier.

If you are in the Decatur area, this class is being offered again at First Christian Church. It's on Wednesday nights starting January 7. It only costs $99, and you can sign up here. They even serve dinner beforehand, for $5 per adult and $3 per child, but no more than $16 per family. This class is being led by Shane Woodrum, who led our class last year. Stand-up guy, and a great teacher. If you're not in the Decatur area, there are classes offered nationwide, or online. Check out the website for more information.

It's a new year; why not make it the year of financial improvement?


(Note: After typing this post, I saw the commercials for the "Rich Dad" seminar that is coming to Decatur on the same night. I wasn't referring to that event, although I'm not endorsing or condemning it.)