Two months into the year, time for a check up on my 2010 goals (since I can’t think of anything else to write about at the moment…)
Goal: Increase emergency fund to 3 months of expenses
Category: Financial
Time Frame: End of the year
Status: Right on target!
Grade: A+
Goal: Get to work on time
Category: Personal
Time Frame: Daily
Status: No where close…
Grade: F-
Goal: Perform a Random Act of Kindness at least once a month
Category: Charity/Community
Time Frame: Monthly
Status: So far, so good. RAoKs performed include: cleaning snow off a co-worker’s car anonymously, letting someone in front of me in line at the grocery store and taking donuts to work, anonymously.
Grade: A
Goal: Participate in a 5K/10K
Category: Exercise/Health
Time Frame: End of October
Status: Going to do the Redleg’s 5K with Dan (and hopefully Kristy!), but haven’t started training yet.
Grade: D
Goal: Read a chapter of Proverbs every day
Category: Spiritual
Time Frame: Daily for 6 months
Status: Started off strong, but have slacked through February.
Grade: C-
Goal: Visit Cuyahoga National Park
Category: Travel
Time Frame: End of the year
Status: Have savings for the trip and a potential time frame of Memorial Day weekend
Grade: B
Goal: Read 20 Books, at least 12 of them non-fiction
Category: Hobbies/Leisure
Time Frame: End of the year
Status: 5 down so far, working on 3 more. I’ve picked out 14 of the books I want to read.
Grade: B+
Non-fiction:
- Uprising – Erwin McManus
- Men Are Like Waffles-Women Are Like Spaghetti – Bill and Pam Farrel
- Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
- What the Dog Saw And Other Adventures – Malcolm Gladwell
- Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely
- Church History in Plain Language – Bruce Shelley
- Love and Respect – Emerson Eggerichs
- The Prodigal God – Tim Keller
For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women – Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn(Finished)How the Mighty Fall – Jim Collins(Finished)Choosing to Cheat – Andy Stanley(Finished)
Fiction:
Goal: Finish painting house
Category: Home Improvement
Time Frame: End of May
Status: Umm, no progress. Maybe warmer weather will motivate me…
Grade: F
Goal: Reach 175 found geocaches
Category: Hobbies/Leisure
Time Frame: End of the year
Status: I’m currently at 147 found geocaches. Planned out another dozen to find as weather/time permits.
Grade: B-
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a week or so now but got caught up in the overall busyness that tends to define my life these, contrary to my attempts to scale back, so it’s going to end up as a quick and dirty post instead. I apologize for any typos, spelling and grammatical errors!
Vacation, here I come!
July is going to start off with a bang! July 1st through July 12th are going to be some crazy but totally awesome days.
First up was the STARS day camp on July 1st. Basically, this is a day long activity camp put on by the STARS organization (read this previous post about STARS for more info about the org). This is the second year I’ve volunteered at the camp, and it was just as heart-wrenching at the first. It really pulls at the heart strings hearing the kids talk about their losses. The kids this year were GREAT! 35 attended the camp and with the exception of only one or two, they were all very well behaved. The camp basically consists of fun activities such as trampolines, wall climbing, arts and crafts, etc. that are the related back to grief, with the goal of helping the kids deal with losses. I worked a group of six 10 yr. olds, who had lost 3 fathers, 2 grandparents and a sister. Tough stuff, but most of the kids are strong and will make it okay. Though it’s an early and long day, it’s totally worth it.
Next up is a white water rafting adventure! A group of 7 from church is heading out to WV for 2 nights of camping and a rafting trip down the New River. The weather looks PERFECT! I had tried to plan a trip last year but it fell through. Not this year! WV, here we come!
We’re getting back from WV Saturday afternoon, then continuing my road trip adventures, I’ll be heading down to Lexington for a grill out and fireworks on Saturday, then back to Lexington on Sunday to visit Southland Christian Church, both with some great company! 
Monday (or maybe Sunday evening), I’ll be doing something I’ve never done before – taking a vacation by myself. I’ll be packing up the car and heading for Maine! This is a trip I started looking into in 2005 but never could find the people to go. At the end of last year, while having a conversation with someone in my LifeGroup, I caught myself saying “One day” and “I hope to” and “I wish” concerning trips I wanted to take and things I wanted to do. I’ve grown frustrated trying to find people to go on trips so I decided I wasn’t going to wait any long. Originally, a group of 10 of us were supposed to go to Gatlinburg for a week, but as seems to the case often these days, it fell through. Having already asked for the time off, I decided I wasn’t going to sit at home for a week. Then Maine popped in my mind.
This trip is going to be a challenge for me. First, I’ve done very little planning. I barely have the route planned out. Those of you who know me know this is very uncharacteristic. It’s partly intentional. I haven’t had much time to plan, between my class (which ended last week), planning for rafting, stuff at church and trips out of time, but I also decided I didn’t want to be stressed by following a detailed, structured, scheduled agenda; instead, I want to relax and enjoy the trip and just “go with the flow.”
Another reason for this little planned and solo trip is that I want to spend time with God. We’ve gone through quite a bit this year and through my intentional busyness, I’ve often ignored him, avoided things and haven’t fully processed all he’s been teaching me. I’m packing a couple books on which I want to focus and take notes, so I’m looking forward to sitting out on the beach or on top of a mountain, enjoying his vacation and learning and growing from what he will teach me.
Of course, I’ve realized in the last couple of days that I do need to plan somewhat. I need to make reservations for some of the things I want to do, and I hear hotels are everywhere up there, and will be crowded this time of year, so I needed to try to plan out that part of the trip as much as I can.
I have a few destinations/activities in mind: Acadia National Park, Freeport (L.L. Bean store), Mt. Katahdyn (northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail), Portland (light house) and Bar Habor (whale watching). I’m also going to try to hit the states I have not yet visited while up in New England: Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hamphire and Vermont in addition to Maine. I hope to go geocaching in each of these states.
I’m going to try to be as minimalist as possible during my travels. I’m planning on taking a cooler and pack lunch meats and such for my meals as well as snacks with the intention of avoiding fast food as much as possible. I will definitely make room in the budget for a lobster dinner, though.
I’m also planning to avoid hotels for all but a couple nights. My camping gear will be making the trip with me, so I’ll be sleeping under the stars several of the nights.
That’s a quick rundown of my upcoming adventures. If you follow me on Facebook, watch for status updates and pictures throughout the trip. (Sorry, Twitterers, I won’t be posting there for safety reasons.)
As with my Shenandoah backpacking trip, I plan to keep a journal and post when I return, along with pictures.
Until I return, ciao!
Hello readers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a meaningful blog post. Most of my entries lately have been links to videos, music, articles on other sites and the like. Last week, I even took a break from that and didn’t post anything. Honestly, the break felt good. As with many things in my life, I put too much pressure on myself to live up to certain self-expectations and as a result, the thing in question loses its fun and becomes a burden. Making the conscious decision to not blog last week lifted that burden off my shoulders, for at least that week, and restored at least some of the appeal to me again.
Though I did spend some quality time with the couch and ice cream (topped with Magic Shell and rainbow sprinkles FTW!) over the last couple weeks, down time which I’ve needed, it wasn’t all laziness. So here goes an “in review” post covering the last week or so, from what I’ve been doing to things that have been on my mind.
Camping
Two weekends ago, I headed down to Red River Gorge with 3 other guys from my Tuesday night small group for a night of camping and a day of hiking. A few days before we left, the weather forecast called for sunny skies and great temps. However, the day of the trip saw nothing but rain, rain and more rain, with some thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. There were even thunderstorm and flood watches and warnings issued for the counties surrounding the gorge. Thankfully, it let up just enough that we were able to get a tarp and the tent up without too much difficulty, though the tarp did take some work. The next day, after a breakfast of bacon and pancakes, the skies finally cleared and it ended up being a great day for hiking. We did a 5 mile loop trail – Auxier Ridge to Courthouse Rock to Double Arch Trail, one of my faves in the gorge. While there, I logged three more geocaches, these of the Earth Cache variety (Haystack Rock, Courthouse Rock and Double Arch), bringing my total up to 108 found caches. Pictures from the trip are in the gallery.
NEXT Small Groups Conference
This past Saturday, a group of us from First Church of Christ went to the NEXT 2009 Saddleback Small Groups Conference. The conference consisted of three session centering around Saddleback’s (Rick Warren’s church) small group model. Specifically, the sessions were about Authenticity and Character, both led by Steven Gladden, and Core, a session led by small group master Lyman Coleman. Core was by far my favorite session. Lyman led us through parts of his 32-page “cook book” of exercises, drills and skill-building concerned with taking a small group to the next level. I was a little disappointed with the conference as a whole, but still came away with several good ideas and things to implement.
Church
Sunday night was a great cookout with people from church. Can’t go wrong with grilled meat, cornhole and good friends!
Health
As for my health…You may remember my twitter/Facebook status from a few weeks again. I had mentioned consistently waking up in the middle of the night, being very thirsty (drinking about twice as much water as normal), among other things. There was a discussion on Facebook about this and several people mentioned it could be diabetes. With that concern in mind, and getting fed up with not sleeping well, I finally called and booked a doctor’s appointment. The appointment is scheduled for June 11th, when I’ll get my first physical in years, as well as have blood work done for the first time. Thankfully, over the past few days, I’ve slept a little better and haven’t been quite as dehydrated as in previous weeks, so things are looking up.
Mat Kearney
The much anticipated new album from one of my top 3 favorite musical artists was released this past Tuesday – City of Black and White by Mat Kearney. It’s been three years since his last album and I’ve absolutely worn it out. Well, as much as you can wear out mp3s at least. The new album is really good. Maybe not as good as his first one and a half albums, but still really good. Expect to see some of his new songs on future Music Monday posts. Next anticipated album release: Needtobreathe, another top 3 fave, due out in August.
Books
I have a TON of books in the queue, some I’m very anxious to read. Two of those books are Faith and Doubt by John Ortberg and How Long O Lord by D.A. Carson. I’m currently reading Boundaries (something I very much need to put into practice to avoid a repeat of the past few months). Unfortunately, my exhaustion and other factors have really slowed up my reading output. I’ve only been able to get to a few pages before falling asleep. Normally I could get chapters under my belt before drifting off. Those aforementioned books are incredibly relevant to where I am right now, so I want to devote special time to not just reading them, but taking notes and truly learning and growing from the knowledge that lies within.
Processing and Resolving
I have two weeks before my summer class starts and I really need to make this time productive and meaningful. Much is on my mind, many things which I have avoided thinking about but need to be processed and resolved before I can finish healing and moving forward. Though it’s something I hate, I need to sit in silence, process and work through these before I end up getting busy and overwhelmed again.
Well, that’s about all I have at this point. Hope each of you are enjoying the days of spring/summer weather!
Woohoo! Found geocache #100 today!
One hundred down, 780,890 left to go (as of this second)!
Pictures of all my finds are in the geocache gallery.
Many of you know that I enjoy Geocaching, which can be best described as “using multi-million dollar satellites to find tupperware in the woods.”
Podcacher.com has a forum in which participants share some of Murphy’s Geocaching Laws. I thought I’d share a few of the funnier ones that I read on the forum.
- When showing friends about geocaching, you’ll have several DNFs [Did Not Finds] in a row
- You’re always on the wrong side of the river or stream
- You’re always on the wrong side of the fence.
- It will always take you longer to find than you expect.
- The muggles sitting near ground zero are always settled in for the long haul.
- You always find the easy way in . . . on the way out.
- You realize you could have parked 10 feet from the cache after hiking in 1/2 mile.
In June of 2005, I posted about a new sport I was getting involved in: geocaching. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to find 46 caches across four states – Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee. That’s only a small drop in the bucket of geocaches around the world. According to geocaching.com, the primary site of the sport, there are 248925 active caches in 221 countries. I’ve got a lot of work to do!
When I reach the milestone of finding my 50th cache, I’m going to “celebrate” by hiding my first cache. I have three places in mind. One is at Boone County Cliffs State Nature Preserve. There are a couple of caches hidden right down the road at Middle Creek Park but none at Boone County Cliffs. The Cliffs aren’t too far away from me, and it’s a really nice place to hike, so it would be fitting to hide a cache there.
A second place that I have in mind is Pioneer Park. It’s a small park off of KY 17 in Independence, KY. I’m surprised that there are no caches there yet, though three are located at Doe Run Lake, which isn’t far away.
The third place I have in mind is at a spot that many people associate with Florence, KY and is often the first thing a person mentions when I tell them I’m from this area. It’s a landmark that’s recognizable to just about anyone who has driven through this area. Yes, that’s right – the Florence Ya’ll Water Tower. (Read the history behind the water tower) One of the objectives of geocaching is to draw people to landmarks, and this is certainly one of them. Hiding a cache here would be a bit difficult, though, considering it’s a high traffic area and not many trees, bushes, etc.
So, while I’m deciding where to hide my first cache, I’m taking some suggestions on a theme for the cache. Caches don’t necessarily need to have a theme, but I think it’s more fun if it at least starts out that way. By theme, I’m simply referring to the name of the cache and the types of items that I will initially leave inside. As people find the cache, they have the option to take an item and leave an item, hopefully based on the theme, though it’s not necessary. Some of the themes I have in mind are right now are: UK sports, technology and books. Any other suggestions?
While shopping for supplies for my cache, I ran across this shirt and couldn’t pass it up. Lol, how true it is!
Follow my progress of finding and hiding caches with my stat bar, courtesy of geocaching.com. (You’ll need to sign up for a free account if you want to view my profile). This used to be in my sidebar, and I’m thinking of putting it back there eventually.
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