We Survived

A crazy day, a crazy week…actually a crazy month. And we survived. Sigh.

But I can’t help but ask the question: Is that what it’s about?

I find myself saying, “If only I can get through the month.”
“If only I can get through the week.”
“If only I can get through the day.”

And then what?

I think I’ve focused too much on just surviving. God doesn’t want us to just survive, but to overcome:

Rev 12:11. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.

I have nothing to complain about, just a busy season, and so many blessings, so many things to be thankful for. And Jesus’ blood covers over my sin. And my life is not in jeopardy.

God is not calling me to lay down my life. I pray that if He ever did, that He would give me the grace to remain faithful to Him. But I can give Him glory in the craziness and trust that He will give me what I need, not to just survive, but to overcome.

Jesus, please forgive me for my attitude of wanting to just survive. Thank you for Your sacrifice and for giving me the ability to overcome, by Your strength. To God be the Glory, great things He has done!

Beat at the Cube

Twenty-five years ago, we gave my dad a Rubik’s cube for Father’s day.  They were a bit expensive at the time and hard to find because they were such a fad.

I was quite enamored by the Cube and how it moved and you could mix it up in so many ways.  By that afternoon, we had gotten the Cube hopelessly mixed up beyond our ability to fix it.

Later on, after we had given up ever getting it restored, I came across a book that described how to solve the Rubik’s cube, and bought it with my own money.  After a few tries, I was able to solve the Cube. Once you learn how to solve it, the mystery is gone, and the only thing to do is to solve it faster.

I actually got pretty good, and could get my times down to less than a minute.

A year ago last spring, we got the boys each a Cube for Easter.  ~K~ thought it was neat for a few minutes, but ~D~ was really interested.  After getting it mixed up, he was hopelessly stumped.  But Dad, being the cube expert, could fix it. (Don’t you know, dad’s can fix anything.)  I got to a certain point, but then got stuck.  The moves were gone and no matter how I racked my brain, I couldn’t recall how to fix the rest of the Cube.  I had to resort to the instructions that came with the cube to be able to solve the rest.

~D~ was relieved to have his cube back in the original condition, but didn’t get the instructions. After a while, he got tired of working on it, but then gave up.

About a week ago, he picked it up again, and with a little help was able to solve it himself.  Then he memorized the instructions. Then last night before bed, he challenged me to a race.  I agreed, but only if I could use the directions as needed.

It wasn’t even close.  He beat me soundly. I’d say that I could brush up and get my Cube skills back up to par, but who am I kidding? Who has time for it?  But my days as Cube Champ are over.

Do You Believe in Olives?

Last night after supper, my wife was serving dessert. The kids wanted ice cream, a favorite in the family, but not a favorite of mine. So ~K~ went and brought me some new cookies that my wife had gotten at the store–the Keebler Elf sandwich cookies.

“Yeah, they’re shaped like elves and have cool sayings on them. Like this one says, ‘Do you believe in olives?'”

“What?! Olives!?” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what it says.”

“I think you mean ‘elves’.”

My wife took a look at the cookie, “I don’t know, it kind of looks like ‘olives’ to me.”

Judge for yourself:

You Know It’s Monday When…

…you walk into work and the restrooms are blocked off with yellow caution tape.

No, really.

Snakes in the Bed

[WARNING!! This post contains a bedroom scene and may not be appropriate for our more sensitive readers.]

My wife and I were getting ready for bed last night, with the normal, everyday bedtime banter.

<Insert normal bedtime banter here. (Ok, to be honest I don’t remember much of the conversation.)>

She had beat me to bed and was pulling down the covers and slipping in the bed while talking to me.  I was standing across the room getting ready to brush my teeth.

“Hon, don’t forget you have that…Gasp! <insert startled gasp here>…tsk….Those little stinkers!”

“What?” I turn around to see what is going on.

With a slightly amused, and somewhat annoyed look, she holds up a plastic snake by the tail.

“Where did that come from?” I asked, knowing the answer within 50% probability.

(Feeling around the bed for more.) “Well, they didn’t get you.”

Although too tired to do anything right then, I was already planning my retribution.  You can’t just walk around being afraid of your own bed.  Something must be done….

Tasks vs. People

No concrete thoughts here, but when talking about relationships, I’ve noticed that I tend to focus on the task above the person. To me, the person is secondary to getting the job done, and if you’re in my way when I’m trying to get the job done, my natural response is annoyance and frustration.

It doesn’t matter who you are, either. (Wife and kids are unfortunately included in this as well.)

There is something defective in this thinking, and (not surprisingly) it has to do with trust.

When I respond in frustration with people, it is because I don’t trust God to take care of the task. When I take the task on as my own responsibility (instead of God’s, ultimately), I respond in frustration and annoyance toward people.

Ouch.

Solution for Sorry Sound Card

I’ve been really happy with my Dell Dimension E510, which I’ve had for almost a year. It is a solid machine and much faster than our 1998 350MHz Compaq Presario. The Presario has now been relegated to the kid PC and serves as a typing tutor, Spanish teacher, and all around home school computer.

The E510 is for all the processor-intensive tasks like editing video or sound and pretty much running any program that 350 MHz would gag on.

The one thing that I’ve been disappointed in has been the sound card. It is the motherboard-embedded cheap sound card which uses Sigmatel 92XX C-Major drivers.

It’s not that I’m looking for good sound, I really don’t care that much. I’m not a gamer, and I don’t use the PC to watch movies or anything, so just a basic sound card is fine. However, it doesn’t have a system mixer.

What’s that? you say. Who cares? you say. The system mixer is the thing that allows you to record just about any sound that comes into the PC. Streaming audio or any sound from a program that would play through the PC speakers, you can record with a program like Audacity and a system mixer. This is a must have feature because like to record streaming audio programs that I could listen on my MP3 player later.

But my sound card doesn’t have drivers with a system mixer. I had resigned myself to thinking that I was going to have to spend money on a sound card, but that seems drastic, when all I’m looking for is a software solution.

But this week, I’ve found a program, Total Recorder, that fixes all that. It installs a virtual sound driver that intercepts the signal going to and from your sound card. So basically, anything that your computer can play through the speakers, you can record and save to an audio file of various formats (WAV, WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis).

It can also record on a schedule, so you can record for a specified period of time or start and stop at a scheduled time. I downloaded and tried it out this week and it works great.

It does cost $18, but is cheaper than a sound card, and I don’t have to install any hardware!

Just a Saturday Evening

One son is in the shower singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” The other son is squaring up the cash that I owe him (or he owes me) after going shopping for his brother’s birthday.

We have just finished after-supper devotions where we were discussing Question 18 in the Westminster shorter catechism, where we discuss how sin not only corrupts us from birth because we came from Adam, but also because of the sinful things that we have done.

“We need a Savior!” – a statement from our devotional book, but also the cry of my heart, as I am reading these devotions and seeing how desperate we really are without God.

The discussion went to talk about how our lives have been changed as a family because we know Jesus. What would our lives be like now if we didn’t know Jesus?

Just a cool, sunny Saturday of soccer games, Wal-Mart shopping and the Savior of the world. My heart is flooded with gratefulness for all the blessings God gives in these little and big things today, provided by His Grace.