A Great Way to End

Today is my last day of work before my wedding and honeymoon.  I’ll be off work for three weeks.

The last couple of hours have been transition meetings with both my auditors and my boss since my boss will be carrying the majority of my workload while I’m gone.  I’ve been killing it here to get this to as smooth of a hand-off as possible.  I have a folder of several instruction Word documents to guide him through each of my daily and weekly duties.

My boss just paid me the biggest stream of compliments on both my overall performance but also on how I prepared everything for him in my upcoming absence.

• I am everything he wanted in a Controller.
• He knows he doesn’t say it often enough, but I’m doing a great job.
• Everything I prepared for him is clean, organized and easy to follow.
• I made great progress on the audit even though it isn’t done yet.
• If we did performance reviews as often as we should, mine would be all positive.
• I’ve come a long way since I first started and he’s very happy.

We’ll see if he still says that after covering for me for three weeks.

This kind of affirmation goes a long way.  Totally makes it worth the crazy hours I’ve been putting in the last couple of months, even more so the last couple of weeks.

Okay, back to work.  Two more reports to hammer out and then I'm shutting it down and going home.

Birthday #29

I am blessed.  This year has had its rough spots, but I am consistently amazed at how God provides.

I turned 29 on Tuesday.  It was a wonderful birthday, but a very different one.  I'm just more conscious of getting older I guess.  I know that probably makes many people want to slap me, but that was my main reflection.  I've always been told I'm wise beyond my years.  Now I'm purportedly catching up to that wisdom in years.  Am I still as far "ahead" as I was credited with being as a teenager, or has my advance in wisdom slowed down?  I feel like I’ve made more stupid mistakes in my 20’s than I did as a teenager, which I don’t think is the normal trend.  But it did take until my 20’s for me to start taking more risks.  Too many variables in this dilemma.

I can't remember if I've done this consistently the last few birthdays (I know I did it for one of my birthdays where I was working in Modesto, probably my 26th), but I like the idea of literally running into my next year of life.  So at 11:45 p.m. on the eve of my birthday, I donned my running shoes and shorts, and hit the pavement.  Everything was lining up for a perfect run.  My Garmin watch found the GPS signal inside my house (I often have to wander outside for it to pick up my location).  My music player put on "’Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus" as the first song, one of my favorite hymns.

I started running east along the canal, one of my normal routes, but I realized a half mile in that I wanted to break up the routine, so I veered off the canal bank onto Dakota to continue running east.  When I arrived at Blackstone, the busiest N/S street in Fresno, there were NO CARS in sight.  Even at midnight, it's usually not deserted.  I continued until I got to Fresno street, and actually turned south into a subdivision just prior.  I was now officially in new running territory.  I zig-zagged through the neighborhood.  I encountered a small dog barking, but even though it appeared to be unleashed in the front yard (Ugh!), it didn't come out into the street and chase me.  I made it across Shields and turned west when I arrived at Princeton, another new neighborhood.  I made it back across Blackstone and turned south when I passed this guy, presumably homeless, walking north.

As I was running, I felt God telling me to turn around and tell this guy that God loves him.  I struggled with that for a moment, not wanting to break my awesome pace thus far.  But eventually I dutifully turned north and started to catch up to this guy.  As I ran past, I pulled out my ear bud and called to him that God loved him.  Then he enthusiastically responded to me.  I forget the exact wording, but he called me God in thanking me.  So I'm pretty sure he must have been high on something to think that I was God, but at least I passed on the message.  He called out to me to be careful running out here this late, concerned for God's well-being I presume.  I turned west on Michigan, then north on Maroa, west on Shields, and back into my neighborhood on Harrison.  I had been planning on three miles, but I got in five.  Perfect kickoff to training for my first half marathon of the year next month.  Pace was excellent, mid-8's!  And the closing song as I sprinted back into my neighborhood was Jo Dee Messina’s “My Give-a-D*mn’s Busted,” one of my favorite country songs.

It took awhile to wind down for bed, but I eventually showered and crashed.  I ended up sleeping until 9 a.m. the next morning.  Mixed up some fruit smoothies for breakfast and headed off to work a little later than planned.

My staff wished me a happy birthday, and all day long my phone was buzzing with Facebook greetings.  I know 90% (maybe) of those are from people who wouldn’t otherwise remember my birthday, but I am always touched by those posts nonetheless.

The best text I received by far was from my sister Joy.   “Hey big brother!! Happy birthday! Just wanted to say you are awesome and a huge inspiration to me. I appreciate how you've always been there for me and am amazed at how well you exemplify Christ through serving with hard work and diligence while somehow finding time to maintain social relationships at the same time! I hope you have an amazing day! Love, your littlest sister!”

I had planned to go to my chiropractor after work, but he had to reschedule for tomorrow.  So I went home to get ready for Bible Study.  We do a potluck every week, with an assigned person bringing the main dish and everyone else bringing an unassigned side.  Sometimes we end up heavy in one food group or another, but usually it’s pretty balanced, so it all works out.  I was planning on claiming a birthday excuse to not bring something since I would be at my chiropractor, but this gave me time to steam up some vegetables so I didn’t have to go empty-handed.

This Bible Study is a new one I just joined in February.  It’s a group of career-age (25-35) singles that is part of another larger church in Fresno.  I found out about it, decided to try it out, and it was a great fit.  Phil & Sandy, an older couple in that church, host it in their home every week, we all bring the food, and Phil leads the group in a discussion on our topic the Harmony of the Gospels.  The group even sang Happy Birthday for me during the dinner portion before the study.  It was an impressive rendition!  The found the right key to start in so that it didn’t get too high or low out of anyone’s register.  Heidi even brought cupcakes for dessert.

Finally I headed over to Amy’s house to cap off the night.  Her kids had made me a card, but afterward, Noah and Aislynn each decided to make an additional card for me and each of them wanted to stay up to give them to me in person.  I was so touched.  It’s those cool moments when you give them free expression that you see that you really mean something to them.  Noah’s card had me almost moved to tears as he read it to me.

Then Amy and I sat down to watch an episode of Army Wives.  She’s finished the series already, but she’s very graciously (because she usually hates watching anything a second time) watching them again at my pace. So we’re in Season 5, and this was the episode where Trevor is grappling with being home from war and all the changes that went on while he was away.  It was looking pretty bleak, but the reconciliation and the communication between him and Roxy toward the end as they finally saw the other person’s point of view.

We could have squeezed in another episode, but I was so happy not to have a cliffhanger on this episode, that I decided not to press my luck.  Amy and I talked and caught up for awhile longer and then I drove home.

It was an awesome birthday, but the celebrations didn’t even completely end there.

On Wednesday, my staff surprised me with cake and ice cream (well, frozen yogurt, I guess, because we’re all trying to eat healthier).  It was a combined party, because my A/R clerk Jeannie’s birthday was on Monday.

And on Saturday, Amy cooked brunch for me: an amazing egg bake, fruit salad, and apple pie.  I brought over orange juice and champagne, because what is brunch without mimosas?  We invited a few other friends over and planned to eat out on her deck, but none could make it, so we just ate in her living room and watched a couple more episodes of Army Wives.  Then we went to pick up her brother Aaron and join her parents to watch the movie Home Run, the movie promoting Celebrate Recovery.  It was pretty well done in my opinion, but it rushed through the main character’s transformation at the end, which took away from the believability and build-up of emotion.

By this next year, I want to say I left less undone.  I don’t know exactly what that’s going to entail, I’m sure seminary will be a part of that, but I’m excited to see what God’s going to reveal in my last year in my 20’s.

Year in Review

As I was wrapping up the last few months of this year, I was reflecting on how I’ve felt closing out past years, particularly by looking at my past Year-in-review blogs.  What I disliked the most was being relieved that the particular year was finally over.  I didn’t want that to be my mindset anymore.  I want to celebrate what’s going on now, not just be waiting for rest “just up ahead.”  So I decided that 2012 was going to be a banner year, and that I would be happy about it coming to a close only because of the wonderful memories it contained.  Yes, some horrible things have happened this year, two in particular, but here is not the place for dwelling on that.

One overarching highlight to this year is that I finally got around to doing a lot of things I’d been putting off for a few years, things like household repairs.  No more waiting.  Life is now.

What have God and I have gotten done this year:

·         Survived a tonsillectomy, kicking off the best year of sleep in my adult life to date

·         Joined the singles small group that my Fresno church started
·         Unrelated to the above note, met an awesome girl with whom I had almost nothing in common, we dated for a few weeks, and then she got a job transfer to Denver.  It was a short-lived but valuable relationship in that God showed me that His spectrum of relationship compatibility is much bigger than mine.
·         10-year high school reunion
·         Took first place (among 7 guys) in our church’s 10K
·         Coached Sparks for the Awana Games this year, completed and started another year as Games Director.
·         Per my Garmin watch, ran over 400 miles this year
·         Completed five half marathons, but only two Rock ‘n’ Roll races (my goal was three to beat 2010)
·         Completed my first year at my new job
·         Survived being on the other side of the audit table.
·         Two unsuccessful attempts at half dome.  Oh well, I tried.  Next year.
·         Emceed for VBS
·         Acquired a cat in June
·         Lost a cat in October (I am not discussing this further)
·         Celebrated four years of home ownership on September 1.  Oddest fact: I’ve removed three interior doors (two closets and one bathroom).  Doors just start to get in the way when you live alone.  This has been my longest stint of no roommate, a year and three months so far.
·         Started (and ended) an ASL class taught by a friend in my church.  I enjoyed my three months in it and would have liked to continue, but I have other activities I want to pursue in 2013.
·         Attended the annual AgOne Foundation BBQ in Madera as a guest of my auditors.  I was great to become more connected with the Ag community here in the Valley.
·         Took Aislynn on my Fresno church’s Father/Daughter campout.
·         Orange and then Purple belts in karate (February and November, respectively.
·         With the help of my friend Mike (plus Phillip and Seth), did a valve replacement on my engine
·         The wedding circuit ramped up again this year: attended four after seeing them trail off in the last couple years.  Yeni & Megan, James & Amy, Jordan & Molly, and Daniel & Hanna.  Only caught one of the garters.
·         Celebrated the signing of a new and better bank deal at work and oversaw/survived the horrific implementation process.
·         Acquired a lot of new-to-me furniture this year.  Still trying to figure out how to arrange it all and what to give away.  A little more furniture matches than before, which I’m not thrilled about, but I’m accepting.
·         Did the most Christmas decorating in my house to date, but still didn’t get outside lights up.  So close!
·         Set a new record for shortest time in Orange County: 17 hours.  Really wanted to come down for the VBC Christmas service, but I had Christmas caroling in Fresno Saturday night and work Monday morning.  Beats the previous record of 22 hours in 2005 for Joy’s late notice baptism.
·         Hosted a Christmas craft day for 17 kids in my home
·         Completed my first year in my own Spades group (while continuing to regularly sub in two other groups).  My group has seven singles who got tired of waiting to get married so they could join a group.  So we just find enough single and/or married friends to fill the tables each month.  For December, we actually combined with another group I sub in for a massive Christmas Spades night at my house.  It was so much fun!
·         Published my first Christmas letter!

What’s in store ahead:

·         Taking a seminary course.  This is just a sample course through Corban University’s School of Ministry.  After this I’ll decide if I want to pursue the full degree.  If I do, it may lead me toward a career change into ministry utilizing my finances background.
·         Coaching Kindergarten Upward Basketball at my church.  This one’s a big stretch for me.  I played basketball on a home school team during my sophomore year.  I was probably the most disciplined but least talented guy on the team.  I’d do whatever the coach said, but lacked that natural rhythm on the court.  But our children’s pastor assures me that the Kindergarten team is just about teaching them a few fundamental skills and having fun with them.  I'm still skeptical.

For 2012, my goal set last year was to gain a better understanding of God’s ministry plans for me.  I feel good about my progress in this goal.  I finished another year of teaching Kindergarten and serving as Awana Games Director.  I enrolled for a seminary class.  I’ve helped several friends move or with home & yard work.  Another thing I’ve been trying to do is help single moms in our church.  It breaks my heart to see husbands/dads give up on the responsibility they “didn’t realize” they were signing up for, particularly what it does to the kids.  I had signed up with Big Brothers Big Sisters, but didn’t really feel like I could work with the structure of that program.  There are a couple single moms in my church, so I’ve been informally helping them out as time allows.  I took Aislynn on the Father/Daughter Campout with our church.  Noah got a turn to spend the night in my spare bedroom.  And just a bunch of afternoons/evenings at my house or around town doing errands with each of the kids.

I’ve been holding this post back (drafted on 12/29, now 1/3) because I haven’t been able to figure out where I want to direct my focus for 2013.

I have some smaller goals: I want to do well in the grad school class(es) as I take, however many there end up being.  I coasted through some of my undergrad work and didn’t learn as much as I could in some of those classes.  I also want to make some healthier eating choices.  I run off whatever junk I consume, but I’d like to be more disciplined in portion-size and healthy choices.

I keep pondering a question my friend Terry asked me back in April.  If you were to look back on your life ten years from now, how would you evaluate your life?  In some areas I think I’d be very proud of myself.  In other areas, I should really be doing better.  Details on that are for another blog post, but I want to be more content with my retrospective review by this time next year.  Too vague, I know, but that’s all I’ve got for right now.

Birthday #28

I'll be honest, I did not have high hopes for this one.  I've been frustrated with work, specifically the lack of flexibility that I had with my former job.  The perks of not traveling anymore and not working an insane amount of hours are wonderful, but I miss the flexibility of being able to take off from the office midday and make up the hours at 2 a.m. if I so choose, which I often did.

My boss got married a week from last Saturday and he was still on his honeymoon, and since one of us always has to be here, I couldn't take the day off.  That wasn't too big of a deal, I've definitely had rougher work days on birthdays past.  But having him gone a week and half had left a heavy load on my plate.  I had to finalize the bank loan negotiations that I hadn't been involved in at all, dealing with the owners, banks and attorneys.  I was successful, but exhausted.

But trying to figure out what a birthday means in my late 20's when I'm single can be awkward.  In a romantic relationship, you have someone to rationalize making a big deal of it.  How much can you expect of your friends for joining you in celebration?

My mom was actually going to come up for my birthday so we could hang out.  I hadn't seen her since my visit down south in mid-February.  Even though I stayed with my parents during my whirlwind trip in March for my high school reunion, she was working during the brief windows that I was at the house.  Mom and I have always clicked, and she's also been helping me brush up on my memorization of Philippians to recite it in my adult Sunday School class next week.

It turns out that I have awesome friends.  My friends Amy and Stephanie volunteered to host and cook dinner for me and some friends.  I decided to defer my mom's visit.  Even though I knew she'd love my friends up here, if we did that, she and I wouldn't get time to really spend together.  And this also gives her a little more time to recover from tax season.  She was grateful for that.

We mainly invited church friends, particularly families I had been adopted into because of having their kids in Sunday School.  The kids, my friend Bryan and I were the only ones who were adventurous (crazy?) to go swimming.  The weekend had spiked probably 20 degrees in temperature, but that heat was gone by Monday evening, and the pool water was cold.  But it felt so good to be back in the water again.  I'm too cheap to stomach a gym membership, so I actually have something to look forward to in the heat of summer.

Amy had barbecued tri-tip, and Stephanie brought a triple-chocolate cake from Costco, and everyone else brought side dishes.  The food was all delicious, and the perk of it all was that Amy made double the amount of tri-tip she ended up needing, so I took home a lot of leftovers.

As we were cutting the cake, I was struck with how profoundly blessed I am.  I may not have my own family yet, but I am surrounded by friends who share their awesome and adorable kids with me so I never feel unloved.

The families with kids left after cake (some crazy line about bedtimes).  So Amy, Christine, Stephanie and I broke out the cards and started playing Nertz.  Amy's older two boys joined us for a couple rounds after homework but before bed.  Usually I dominate at Nertz with this group because I was raised on games more than any of them were, but Stephanie was pulling out way more wins than I.  Amy usually likes keeping score, but I don't, and she didn't even bring it up.  It was nice not even bothering to count cards afterward.  We just separated them, shuffled and played round after round.  That's what makes it fun for me.

We finally all went home around 11:30.  I sat down and read all the comments that had been posted on Facebook throughout the day.  It was a great capstone to an awesome day.

High School Reunion

This past week has been a rendition of my Fresno church friends exclaiming, "You're only 27?!?"  When I shared that my ten-year high school reunion was happening, they did the math and it shattered the mass illusion that I am in my mid 30's.

I will be fortunate enough to experience this twice as I graduated from a public high school but spent my freshman and sophomore years in a home school program.  The home school group is having their reunion in June.  But my public school had theirs last Friday.

I was on the fence about attending this one.  I hadn't kept in touch with anyone from that high school, aside from a couple teachers.  I didn't remember many of my relationships being that significant.  But it became a I'll regret it if I don't go, so I went.

I went through my yearbooks in the days beforehand, and was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of amazingly complimentary signings in regard to being a nice person, a Christian, a good student, a good friend, etc.  I didn't think I had been an unkind or miserable person, but somehow I had developed this idea that I had been extremely shy and withdrawn to where no one knew me, and to where I had little-to-no impact on my classmates.

I took Friday off work, and was pleasantly surprised by being able to leave work on Thursday at 2 p.m.

It was nothing like what I expected.  I think I was one of the few coming in from out-of-town.  I saw several people I recognized: some friends, some acquaintances.  There were many people I was sad to realize hadn't attended, but everyone makes their choices about these events.  There were several people whom I had no memory of from high school.

The reunion had a casino night theme.  I went over the blackjack table, and exchanged the play seed money ($500) I had been given for chips.  I was about a breakeven player.  I rarely busted, but usually I'd stay and the dealer would end up with a higher count.  And I would watch the next hit after me and note that the next card more-often-than-not would have busted my hand.

Where I shined, however, was in the dealer's quiz.  He was only using one deck of cards and shuffling it every hand.  He would tell us to watch the aces.  After he had collected all the played cards to a discard pile, he'd ask each player how many aces were left in the unused deck in his hand.  If you got that right, he gave each correct player a $100 chip.  The other guys and occasional girl at the table were mediocre to terrible at this per-hand quiz.  I batted a thousand, including one hand where he thought I was wrong but rechecked his hand, and subsequently handed me a chip.

The chips ended up being exchanged for raffle tickets ($100 for 1 ticket) for prizes donated or purchased for the event.  I had 21 tickets, but unfortunately, no winners.

The rest of the night was mingling and dancing.  Christina, the class president, dragged me and a few others onto the dance floor.  I'm grateful for all the times I've been pulled out onto a dance floor for contemporary (or hip-hop?) dancing in the past so I didn't feel too self-conscious.  I've come to realize that as much as I like order and structure, there is no pattern to this style of dance, and all that is required is a series of ridiculous movements in some seemingly random order.  Now that I've accepted this, I feel generally comfortable out on the dance floor because I don't look any more ridiculous than anyone else out there.

I stayed until about midnight, and then got on the road for home, because I had a 10K to run in Fresno at 8 a.m.

All in all, our class officers did an amazing job putting this together.  I'm grateful for an awesome night of memories!

A high school reunion is an interesting phenomenon: an opportunity to revisit a pivotal time in your adolescence.  As I speak to so many friends today, most either loved or hated high school (the majority having hated it).  Very few express ambivalence.  I count myself blessed to be one of those who loved high school.

2011 Year in Review

So it's time for the annual wrap-up.  2011 was a year of monumental changes.  I had no idea I'd be where I am now.

Can I say that I'm glad 2011 is finally over?  It's been absolutely exhausting.  There's not a lot on this list quantitatively, but qualitatively, it's been huge.

• Finished most of Busy Season #5, this one was a tie with #4 for worst one.
• Got a new job in April
• Took up kenpo karate, and have so far advanced to yellow belt rank
• Completed 5th & 6th boys' leader term in Awana and started term as Games Director (who would have guessed that from the type of kid I was?)--and I thought 5th and 6th grade boys was a stretch last year
• Did my first (sprint) triathlon
• Biked the Fresno Classic Mini-Metric (35 mi) ride
• Injured my heel doing sprints to train for a marathon
• Ran the Trail of Two Cities Half Marathon in near-record time
• Started my own Spades group
• Daniel moved out in September, amicable departure, but it was time for me to live alone again
• Started feeling as though I actually lived in my own house
• Started teaching Kindergarten Sunday School once a month
• Flew up to Seattle to move my sister Joy back into the dorms for her sophomore year
• Bought a new car, 1999 Toyota RAV4
• Bartended at a wedding (just wine and champagne, very easy, but very fun)
• Flew an airplane through a Groupon deal
• 2nd Christmas spent in Fresno
• Got my tonsils taken out

That second one, the new job--WOW!  My whole life has changed because of that one.

And I wonder what's next.

My 2011 resolution was to actively work at getting more rest.  I think I'm sleeping more (or at least doing better at not skipping sleep like I used to), but all the change and stress of this year triggered my sleep apnea diagnosis.  That's the goal behind getting my tonsils out.  So I'd say I did a decent job at that resolution in 2011.

I think in 2012, I want to work at having a better understanding of what God has planned for me in ministry.  I love what I'm doing in my church now and wonder how God wants me to better use this extra time I have when I'm not working now that I'll soon have a year of experience under me in this new job.