My Best of 2012

 “The only point of clocks and maps, the only point of looking back, is to see how far we’ve come”

- Dawes

2012 ends today and the news, itunes, you name it, is flooded with various Best of 2012 lists.  I thought I’d add my own list to contribute to the cacophony (whew! Finally finished my last New Year’s resolution; to use the word cacophony at some point during 2012.) 

My top 5 of 2012

My 17^th anniversary – In a world that is full of things that tear couples apart we celebrated our 17^th year together. I am truly a blessed man, because God has given me an awesome soulmate in Krystal.    Truly something to celebrate.  I love you Krys.

Spending time with my kids – We have laughed, danced, cried & learned together.  I have watched them discover more of who they are (sometimes with a little parental guidance.) 

Journey Campus - An awesome group of friends that are seeking to follow Christ’s will in their lives.  Blessed to call them my church.

Perdido Key, FL – Our family spent a week at Perdido Key Coves.  Sitting in a beach chair, with toes in the sand, while your kids frolic in the waves.  Hard to beat.  Did I mention the seafood?

26.2 – Trained for and finished my 1^st Marathon.  Something I never would have imagined a few years ago.  

Cleaning Out Gutters

Cleaning out gutters is never fun.  However, a few weekends ago, while performing this enviable chore, I experienced one of those thought provoking moments that only come while completing menial tasks. 

I began to think about how many times that I have cleaned out my gutters and how many times I will clean out my gutters in the future (insert gutter-guard commercial here.)

I mused about the fact that no matter how impeccably I cleaned out the gutters this time; I would have to do it again & again & again & again.  So, why waste time trying to do a good job?  These were MY gutters.  Beyond that, the quality of the job that I performed spoke of me as a person.  Would anyone ever come up to me and congratulate me for doing such an awesome job of cleaning out my gutters?  No.  That’s the beauty of this task…if I did the job right; no one would ever notice the gutters.  If I didn’t do the job right, the gutters would begin to fill with water regularly, sag, & eventually be pulled from the eaves of the house.  There are many things in life like this.  This is the definition of character to me.  Doing what you know is right whether anyone will ever know or even notice.  Doing it repeatedly, season after season, oftentimes without reward, because it’s the right thing to do.  Like cleaning out gutters, it’s not a lot of fun sometimes, but over the long run it’s worth the effort.

During this chore, I also contemplated the frailty of the leaves that I lifted out of the gutter and into the bag.  These leaves had given me hope in the spring and shade in the summer, but their time had come and gone.  The leaves are like many things in life, they come and go.  We worry and fret over things that seem permanent, but are only there for a season.  And like these leaves, they may seem beautiful at first, but before we know it they turn into a real pain!  We allow these fleeting things to consume and control us.  We want things fixed and we want them fixed FAST!  We don’t like cleaning gutters or dealing with problems that are clogging our lives, but I have found that it’s not really about the problems, but the process we are going through.  We can learn more about ourselves in difficulty, as it shapes us, than we ever could otherwise.  Dealing with difficulty is a part of our existence.  Jesus said “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33   Our Heavenly Father knows what we go through and he sees the eternal purpose of our situation, not just the temporary nature of our troubles. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us to “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”  So, don’t let the weight of your worry drag you down.  Lay it at the feet of the only one who truly understands.

The Marathon Journey

I ran my first marathon in Memphis last Saturday and it was an experience that I will never forget. 

I had a friend tell me that it’s about the journey not the finish, which is very true.  The journey included 4 months of training, which was difficult.  A little more than a month before the race, I had decided I was just going to run the half marathon instead.  Then, I drove to Oklahoma with some buddies to help pace Jimmy Brown as he ran 100 miles in 25 hours and 11 minutes.  After witnessing this incredible feat, I decided that if he could run 100…I could run 26.2.  I ramped up my training to be able to finish the marathon.  Along my journey of 26.2 miles I saw some interesting & inspirational things. 

Mile 3 - I saw the back of a girl’s shirt that said “Life is short…Running makes it seem longer” Not long after I spotted it she pulled over to the side and began walking.  As I ran past, I noticed that she was about 6 months pregnant.

St Jude Campus – Running through the campus of St. Jude Children’s Hospital was a humbling experience as patients & their families cheered us on.  This was, without comparison, the most inspiring section of the race.    

Mile 12 – This was the mile in which the half marathoners split off from us.  It seemed about 75% of the runners left us.  I had a moment of weakness about 200 yards past the turn. I considered taking the easy way out and running back to the turn and finishing the half only.  I’m really glad that I didn’t.   

Mile 18 – A couple of things happened in mile 18 that messed with my mind a little bit.  I caught up with a girl who was limping along on the side of the road like a zombie.  She was really having trouble with her left knee.  She would limp along for a little and then work up into a run and would go for a while before she had to walk again.  I don’t know if she finished or not, but it was painful to watch.

The next thing that happened is a little painful to admit.  I had been using a 70-something year old woman as my pacer up ahead.  She was running at the pace I had pre-determined for my first half and was a really steady runner.  In mile 18, grandma left me like I was standing still.  There.  I said it.  At this point in the race a lot of runners were sitting on the curbs and stopping to stretch and stopping period.  The herd was thinning.    

Mile 21 - I was passed by a one legged man.  I ended up passing him again, but needed to stretch.  I was stretching near a light pole and he ran by and called out “come on man, you can do it!”  Pretty inspiring that he was calling me out, but at the same time, pretty depressing that he was calling me out.

Mile 23 – some guy was holding a sign that said “Remember 4 months ago when this seemed like a good idea?”  It took everything I had to not punch him in the face.

Mile 24 – Oscar the Grouch was passing out water, standing there in his trash can.  I asked him “Am I hallucinating Oscar?”  he replied “I’m real man!”

Mile 25- One mile to go to the finish line inside of AutoZone Stadium and every time I looked up at the stadium lights, they seemed farther away. 

Mile 26 – DOWNHILL entrance to AutoZone Stadium.  Ran along the warning track & saw my beautiful wife Krystal on the front row yelling for me.  I was more happy to see her face than I was the finish line.  Thank you Krys for cheering me on and being my soul mate!

I am now a marathoner.  Crazy to think that a little more than 2 years ago I had not run more than 1.5 miles at a time.  I thank God for the ability to run and I enjoy spending time with Him while I run.  As Eric Liddell says in Chariots of Fire, “when I run I feel His pleasure.”

Contentment

Earlier this month I was able to take someone on their first tour of our community’s high end subdivision.  There are some mammoth homes there and they responded to what they saw with a great question…”How?”  That’s something we often ask ourselves when we see somebody pull something off we can seemingly only dream of.   How are they able to do it?  We come up with reasons that they are able to pull it off and we are destined to never come close.  Their parents are doctors and lawyers and we come from a long line of failed paint-by-number artists and carnival folk.  Their grandpa and grandma on both sides gave them a sizable inheritance and the only inheritance we’ll receive from our grandparents is a short-fused temper.  They are selfish and we, on the other hand, are so very incredibly charitable.  They got a full ride college scholarship or their parents actually paid for their college, while we will still be paying off our student loan debts when we receive our first Social Security check.  They achieved it by cheating others and doing the wrong things repeatedly, while we always try to do the right thing.  We justify the difference by telling ourselves that they have had an unfair advantage.

 

We go through these justifications to make ourselves feel better.  If we were truly content we wouldn’t need to justify to ourselves why we don’t have a 7,000 square foot house and somebody else does.  Paul is a great example for us as he writes in Philippians Chapter 4 “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”  Keep in mind that he wrote this while imprisoned!  Now that’s contentment.           

Let’s change gears now…what about the opposite situation…when we see someone who has virtually nothing?  A few weeks ago I saw a guy who was pushing a shopping cart along Stadium Blvd. and it was obvious that he hadn’t bathed or ran a comb through his hair in a really long time.  To what do we attribute the difference between him and ourselves?  We often think of several character flaws that could have put him in that situation; things like addiction, laziness, or an inability to function in society.  We wonder what went wrong along the way that could’ve led to homelessness and we unfairly put the fault squarely upon him or her without knowing the full story.  We justify the difference by telling ourselves that we are and will never be like them.   

If we are honest with ourselves, we are often discontent when seeing someone who has more and we are bothered, yet content with someone who has virtually nothing. Why is that?  Has our culture prized possessions over people to the point that this is normal?  I know that we are fearful to extend help to the homeless because we don’t know them and they could take advantage of us and possibly harm us.  We don’t want to give them money, because we think they’ll spend it on their addiction.  What they need isn’t more possessions to push around in their cart or a house with a garage to park their new cart in.  What they need is love…the love of Christ.  What we need is contentment…contentment to stop striving for the newest gadget and the biggest house.  Then we can focus all of that energy we previously spent on getting more and more stuff on showing the love of Christ to our fellow man.

Showing mercy to those who’ve been shown no mercy. 

Offering grace to those who’ve been condemned. 

Forgiving others as we have been forgiven.

I hope I never forget the piercing blue eyes of the homeless man pushing a shopping cart through town, who could have just as easily been me.             

Vacation Lessons

When it comes to vacations, Clark Griswold and I have much more in common than I would like to admit.  That’s why our recent nearly seamless vacation (if you don’t count the tornado warning and one of my kids falling down a flight of stairs) was incredibly relaxing.  We went to Perdido Key, Florida and other than seeing the Blue Angels one morning and going on a dolphin cruise one night, we had absolutely nothing planned.  There was no rushing from thing-to-thing; we just did whatever we felt like at the time.  This gave me time to read, reflect and relax.  There are a few lessons that I brought back from this vacation that I’d like to share with you.   

It’s more important to do things WITH your kids than it is to do things FOR your kids.  You’re probably not like me, nerdy and an embarrassment to not only your children, but to children everywhere.  So, be yourself and have fun with your kids.  Play!  I know that your knees probably creak like mine do, but get down in the sand and build sandcastles with them.  It’s so easy to sit in your beach chair, chill and watch them build sandcastles, but it’s so much more important to build sandcastles WITH THEM.  Do you want your children to remember you as a passive spectator or as an active participant in their childhood memories?  What do you remember of your dad?  Do you remember playing catch with him in the back yard or him dropping you off for your practice with your pitching coach?  We as a culture have farmed out much of our chances to interact with our kids to professionals.  It’s more important to do things WITH your kids than it is to do things FOR your kids. 

       

Live in the moment.  This is something we really tried to focus on while at the beach.  As soon as we would drag the beach cart with all of our supplies and get everything set up, the kids would begin to ask when we were going to the pool.  We tried to get them to focus on what we were doing right then, instead of what we were doing next.  By the end of the week they were repeating back to me in the most bored, monotonous tone they could muster, “We know Dad, live in the moment.”  In our culture today it is hard to do this, because everybody is always wondering what’s next or what everybody else is doing.  Smart phones and social media have only made this natural tendency worse.  This week I sat next to a gentleman at a St. Louis Cardinals game who was in his late 50s, early 60s.  He easily spent 75% of his time at the game looking at his phone…no exaggeration!  Why did he buy a ticket?  He basically paid money to sit in a stadium seat at a sporting event and play on his phone!  I realize that he may not have been a huge baseball fan, but I’ve seen this happen in many a venue.  I’ve seen groups of friends completely ignore each other to communicate with their friends that weren’t present.  I know that you have too.  Part of living in the moment is being “all in” with your surroundings and the people around you.  Experience your life, not the digital representation of somebody else’s!  Live in the moment.

Catch as many sunrises and sunsets as you can.  We go through life at such a hurried pace that we don’t often take time to appreciate the breaking of a new day or the magnificent hues of a sunset.  I love to run early in the morning or late in the evening, because you get to witness one of the most incredible moments of the day.  It also gives you time to think about the coming day or reflect on the events that transpired during the day.  We sit in our air conditioned & heated homes and tend to lose touch with creation & the beauty of daybreak and dusk.  Start off or end the day by enjoying the gift of another day that God has given you and the uniqueness of it.  Catch as many sunrises and sunsets as you can.       

It's Over

If you haven’t heard, we caved and didn’t last for the entire 12 months as a one car family as planned.  Are we failures?  Losers?  Two-car dorks?  Undisciplined?  I guess to some extent, yes, yes, yes and yes.  You risk being called all of these when you put a goal out there in cyberspace. (does anyone even use that term anymore?)  Our goal was 12 months and we made it 10 months.  Not bad, but that’s like finishing 21.83 miles of a 26.2 mile marathon.  DNF.  We did not finish. 

But we are OK with that.  We learned a lot about ourselves and our culture in the process.  We also hopefully taught some valuable lessons to our children about needs vs. wants.  Hopefully, they will remember this crazy 10 month period when their goofy parents decided to embark on a nowhere near mythic adventure of being a one car family. 

I must admit that the one car thing wasn’t as challenging or exciting as I thought it was going to be.   No breakdowns that left us stranded, no accidents that totaled the only transportation that we had, only a few times of conflicting schedules – which were quickly and easily dealt with.   It was actually kind of boring!!!   

I can’t go any further without thanking my beautiful wife and her willingness to sacrifice the convenience of having a vehicle at her command when she wanted to go somewhere.  She is an incredible soul and I don’t know of many who would be willing to do what she’s done over the last 10 months.  God blessed me undeservedly when He put us together.  Thanks Krys.

I would also like to thank our incredible friends who gave us rides when we needed them and also my Mom & Dad who would let Krys borrow their car on occasion.  You guys rock!!

Before I close, I’d like to share one of the things that I learned during this process.  It’s that we tend to over-plan and over-compensate for any potential problems & perceived risks.  Most of the things we worry about never happen.  Jesus says in Matthew 6:34  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.   This is one lesson that I found to be incredibly useful and true over the last 10 months.  We worry about things and try to take care of them on our own by planning with Plan B, Plan C,  Plan D, and The Doomsday Scenario.  What if the energy that we used planning for tomorrow and minimizing risks was used to live in the moment?  What would your world look like if you viewed today with hope and optimism, instead of worrying about tomorrow in fear?  I don’t have it down yet and I may never, but I think that our little experiment has helped me to grasp this truth more tightly.     

Our New Quest

Our family of five committed last August to being a one car family for at least one year.  It has been inconvenient at times, but we’ve managed just fine.  There have been certain challenges that have been car model specific.  For instance, the limited space in the backseat of our 2010 Corolla has been very challenging with 3 kids (especially with one in a car seat).  This also results in a significant amount of time for the entry/exit of the kids.  So, we have been considering upgrading to a larger vehicle for more space and I drove by a few dealerships last Saturday to check out their van selections.  Yes, I know… vans are what every little boy dreams of driving when they grow up.  However, they do offer incredible amenities for a family that few other vehicles offer:  Sliding side doors and a walk through middle row, seats so wide apart they have their own zip code, and a cargo bin in the back that can comfortably fit any respectable mobster.  We hope that these features will produce the benefits of saved time entering and exiting the vehicle, fewer fights between the kids in the car (because they can’t reach each other), and not having to leave something behind on a trip because we don’t have enough space.  Another added feature is that someone else will be able to ride along with our entire family on our exciting adventures.

We knew that the base MSRP on most vans is knocking on $30k and that we wouldn’t trade unless it made sense.  There were several 2011 models of the Nissan Quest at a dealership that were deeply discounted, due to being last year’s model.  Let me say without going any further, that God’s hand was completely in this transaction.  How many times have you gone to an auto dealer and got what you asked for without any haggling?  Anyone???  Anyone???  Check this out…I was able to buy a brand new 2011 van for less than its clean trade-in value and received more than clean trade-in value on my 2010 Corolla!  How many times has that happened in modern automotive history?  I’m not bragging on myself, because I had nothing to do with it.  I’m bragging on God.  The monthly car payment increase and insurance increase add up to a total of $30 a month.  Not a bad deal, eh? 

We are really excited about this new chapter in our one car family adventure and believe that this new Quest will enable us to continue this adventure beyond August, if we choose to do so.  For those of you who think I wimped out, so be it.  We are still on our One Car Family Quest and are headed in the right direction.      

Adversity - A Lesson from Grandpa Polk

Adversity is not something that we like to go through or even think about, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about this last week.  I think it goes without saying…but I’m going to say it anyway…. that adversity is relative.  What seems like a true hardship to one person is actually a lifestyle improvement to someone else.   Being a one car family in our culture would seem to be experiencing adversity to most observers, while it would be a blessing of enormous proportions in another culture.  As I’ve been thinking through adversity and its effects, a certain person that I know who experienced adversity kept coming to mind….my Grandpa Polk. 

Grandpa Polk was a lead miner in Southeast Missouri.  Beyond the obvious health and environmental concerns that went along with his profession, I don’t think it paid much.  Grandpa and Grandma had 6 kids and lived in a 2 Bedroom house.  To help keep this in perspective, I’ve got half the kids with twice the number of bedrooms. 

In the late 60’s something happened that changed Grandpa’s life forever….. something went horribly wrong at the lead mine.  There was an accident and Grandpa Polk was run over by a rail car.  He almost died and had to have one leg amputated at his knee and the other at his ankle.  I only have two memories of my Grandpa walking and they are both just little snippets of him walking through his house.  So, I didn’t know much about him prior to the accident.  My personal knowledge of Grandpa Polk is after adversity hit him hard.  There are several things I want to point out about his life after being hit with adversity that I think we all can learn from.

He didn’t give up.  He learned how to drive a vehicle using hand controls for the gas and brake pedal.  He went on many a camping trip and he would hook up the camper, drive, and set up the camper when he got to the campsite.  Setting up a pop-up camper isn’t much fun, but I can’t imagine doing it from a wheelchair!  I remember him building things, including a back deck and one time he tried to get out and mow his yard using a push mower….in his wheelchair!  He didn’t give up.  

Adversity brought out things that might have remained hidden.  Grandpa wrote a LOT of poetry.  I don’t know if he wrote much before the accident, but I believe that he had a lot more time to wax poetic after the accident.  The accident probably gave him a perspective that he previously did not have and could have provided fodder for his work.  Adversity shaped him in a way that let certain aspects of his being shine that might have otherwise remained untapped.  

He laughed with what he had left.  When Grandpa laughed, he shook.  I remember him, time and again, sitting in his wheelchair, bouncing up and down from laughing so hard.  Sure, I imagine that he had days that he felt down and wondered what-if, but I never saw it.  He laughed in spite of adversity.       

I don’t know what adversity you have experienced, are experiencing or will experience….but you will face adversity at some point.  It may not be as traumatic as the adversity Grandpa Polk faced or it could be worse.  My advice to you is to do as I have and learn from my Grandpa Polk….

Don’t give up.

Realize that adversity can bring out something beautiful and poetic in you.

Laugh with what you have left.

Dude, Where's My Car?

"Dude, Where’s My Car?"  I have said this to myself on a few occasions over the last 6 months as I have exited my workplace only to find an empty parking space.  It usually occurs when I have just hung up the phone with someone and told them that I was on my way.  I hurriedly step out of the door and then….SCREEEEEECH…”Dude, Where’s My Car?”  Oh yeah, Krystal has it this afternoon!  This hasn’t happened often, because we have a fairly steady schedule.  However, there are times when Krystal needs the car on a day that’s out of the ordinary and that’s when it tends to happen.  We have been doing this for 6 months and this has only happened a few times.  It is inconvenient, but not that big of a deal. 

If you would have told me 6 months ago that the “Dude, Where’s My Car?” experiences and having to downsize while packing for a two night camping trip would be the only memorable inconveniences that I would experience on this one car journey, I would not have believed you. 

This 6 month period has given me time to reflect on life and the choices that we make.  We often go through life making choices based upon what we see others do or what we perceive others think about us.  Our homes, cars, clothes, hobbies, etc. don’t always reflect who we are, but often who we want others to think we are or, ultimately, who we want to be.  It reminds me of the Styx song “The Grand Illusion”….  

 But don't be fooled by the radio, the TV or the magazines
They'll show you photographs of how your life should be
But they're just someone else's fantasies
So if you think your life is complete confusion
'Cause you never win the game
Just remember that it's a grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same
We're all the same

You would think that anyone who has taken a basic Marketing course in college would see through “The Grand Illusion”; yet we get tripped up by our own pride and our desire to “be somebody”.  Beyond the life is like high school mentality, we are constantly on the prowl for comfort, a/k/a luxury.  We often have these things driving us as we make decisions.  Time and time again, we find that the material things that we thought would bring lasting joy only bring fleeting happiness.  Why do we continue down the road that leads to disappointment, without ever trying anything different? 

We chose to try something a little different.  It hasn’t been convenient all of the time and it hasn’t always been comfortable, but we have learned more about ourselves from trying something different than we ever would have by not challenging ourselves and just following the crowd.  We are half-way through our 1 year experiment and we are glad that we have made this choice for this season in our life. 

My encouragement to you…Step out of your comfort zone.  Be different.  It's worth it!  

Keeping Your Balance

The other night I ran 3 miles through our neighborhood.  It was about 40 degrees with a slight wind and I had some new tunes playing on my iPhone to help keep me motoring along.  After the run, I had a walk of about a quarter of a mile to the house and for the first time that night I looked up and noticed the canopy of stars above my head.  It was amazing!  The winter air was crisp, the moon a thin crescent and the stars seemed to pierce the sky with their white light.  I had run underneath this beauty for almost 30 minutes without ever noticing it!  Distracted by the task at foot and my music, I was oblivious to the majestic display above me.  I began to think about how we live life often passing the beauty all around us without even noticing it because we are so busy & worried about getting things done or are being completely distracted by technology.  Yet, if I would’ve focused on the stars above while running, I may have been seeing some stars spinning around my head.  For all of us, there’s a delicate balancing act between having your nose to the grindstone and stopping to smell the roses; each of us is unique and have our own natural bent towards favoring one or the other.  How do we insure that we are not becoming unbalanced as we run this race called life?

What follows is an admittedly incomplete list of things that will help us keep our BALANCE.

Be aware.  If you are like me, you can get so focused on a particular task that you are completely oblivious to your surroundings.  There are times when you could sneak an elephant passed me.  We each need to be aware of the roses around us before we can stop and smell them.    

Accountability is important.  Have people in your life that you respect that will tell you when they see your life getting out of balance.  Make sure that you heed their admonition.  Just because it’s something you don’t want to hear, does not mean that it’s not truth.

Proverbs 16:20  Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.

 

Live each day as if it were your last.  It may be.  Live each day in view of eternity.

Avoid extremes. This seems redundant, since we are talking about balance, but it needs to be said.  This applies to all of life.  The way that you work…working 70 hour work weeks or having so much leisure time that people wonder if you even have a job.  The way that you spend your money…..having a monthly house payment that is more than you give annually to charity.   The way that you spend your time…. having every waking hour of the day scheduled out for you AND your kids or waking up every day wondering what in the world you’re going to do that day.   I could go on, but I think you get the point.  Philippians 4:5  Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

Never forget where you came from.  This will help you to become more humble.  When you understand who you are in the grand scheme of things it helps you to stay balanced. 

Philippians 2:3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Carve out your down time.  Don’t wait for it to just happen, because it won’t.  Don’t just call it your down time, make it your down time.  Unplug.  Tell all your texting, twitter & facebook friends that you are going on the other side of the digital divide and turn your phone off.  Don’t worry!  They will all be there when you decide to plug back in.     

Excel in all that you do.  Be the best that you can be at work, home and play.  I know that you’ve heard the idiom that anything worth doing is worth doing right, but it is true.  

Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

Four Months and Counting

It is hard to believe, but it has been over 4 months since we became a one car family!  We are already 1/3 of the way to our goal of one year!  I have to admit that becoming a one car family won’t be a reality show anytime soon, but it is not as boring as you might imagine.     

We have been able to handle it pretty well.  There are usually 2 afternoons a week that Krystal has the car to run errands, but sometimes more.  Krystal has been awesome throughout this entire experiment and we couldn’t pull it off without her cooperative spirit.  However, the biggest test is yet to come, with the Christmas season bearing down upon us.  This is the time of the year that we usually have schedule overload.  For example, this year we have a kid’s band recital, an employer Christmas party, and a family Christmas party…..all on the same night!!!  Luckily, that is an anomaly this December and everything else is spaced out fairly well.  If we can make it through the Holiday Season unscathed, it will bode well for the rest of our journey.

As you probably know, I’m a number-crunchin’ geek.  That being said, here are a few REAL DOLLAR statistics from the last 4 months.   Over the last 4 months we have averaged saving $91 a month in gas expense when compared to the previous 5 month average.  I believe that I know what you’re thinking right now…..all of that sacrifice for that?  But check this out….conservatively assuming $3.30 per gallon of gas and 25 mpg, we have driven 689 miles less a month than when we had two cars.  That adds up to 8,271 miles a year or 330 gallons of gas.  So, in three years, the mileage would be roughly once around the earth and roughly 1,000 gallons of gas!!  Put that in your carbon footprint pipe and smoke it Mr. Gore!!  I’m not willing to say we’re doing it for three years, but that’s pretty amazing!  Keep in mind that in addition to the gas savings, we are saving by not having to pay car insurance, maintenance, or a payment for an additional car. 

The factors that contribute the most to us being able to pull this off are that Krystal is a stay-at-home Mom and that we homeschool our kids.  Krystal has been a stay-at-home Mom for 9 years!  I believe that was one of the most important decisions that we have made as a couple. When we began that journey we knew that there would be sacrifices involved, but we have found that those sacrifices pale in comparison to the rewards that we have experienced.  

Camping with the Corolla

It had been 10 weeks since we embarked upon our journey as a 1 car family, so we felt it was time for a family celebration.  What better way to celebrate than to load the Corolla up and go camping?  We chose one of our favorite places, Petit Jean State Park.  There are a couple of teepees that you can rent there, which sounded good for several reasons. 

1)     We wouldn’t have to pack a tent in the trunk of the car.

      2)    The kids have been studying about Native Americans.
      3)    The teepee came with a canoe!
      4)    None of us had ever slept in a teepee before.

So we packed up the Corolla’s trunk to the nth degree and headed out.  In order for it all to fit in our trunk we had to incur some costs that included buying a smaller cooler and ditching two of our bulky, older sleeping bags for a couple of lighter, more compact, new ones.  

We arrived at Petit Jean at 5:20 pm, which was 20 minutes past closing time for the camping registration office.  We went and checked out our teepee and found that it had 4 wooden bed frames with rope netting as support.  The pads for the beds were locked up in a large wooden box inside the teepee.  The only problem is that we didn’t have the key to get into the box!!  I imagined my poor family sleeping on the ropes in sleeping bags and how they would tell the story for years about the one time that Dad was 20 minutes late for something it turned out to be the worst night of their lives.  “Hey Dad, remember that one time when you ruined my life?”  Krystal began inquiring about any nearby lodging options.  (I thought that maybe she wasn’t excited about the teepee’s rustic accommodations and was looking for an easy way out.)  I decided to drive the family up to Mather’s Lodge, where Petit Jean’s cabin reservations are handled.  They were open (whew!) and best of all…..they had the key for our teepee!!!  We moved our gear in and set up camp next to peaceful Lake Bailey.

Keep in mind that we haven’t gone camping in five years.  Why?  I don’t know.  We used to do it all the time when the girls were little, but haven’t gone since before Jack was born.  If I have anything to say about the matter, which is debatable, we will go more often.  There’s nothing like camping to make great family memories.  For example, the last time we were at Petit Jean camping, the girls were between 2 and 5 years old and Lauren still remembers a snake swimming across Cedar Creek as we were hiking across the bridge.  Lauren and Katy both remember watching a road runner catch lizards at the Petit Jean lookout.  I’m getting old, but I remember those things as well as many others.  But I digress….we got the campfire going, ate some s’mores and then bedded down in our teepee.  The half-moon lit up the night sky and the canvas of our tent as we dozed off to the sounds of nature around us. 

I wish that I could say we got a great night’s sleep, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I think I would’ve preferred sleeping on the ground to the wooden frames with rope netting (not to mention the incredibly noisy geese).  We awoke at 7:00 am and had breakfast.  After we were fully awake, we decided to tackle the Cedar Falls Trail, which is a strenuous trail that has steep switchbacks that lead you down the mountainside and then back up again.  The payoff at the halfway point is the longest continuously flowing waterfall in Arkansas.  It’s a two mile down and back trail that we hiked with the girls the last time we were at Petit Jean.  Which led Krystal and I to reminisce and wonder what in the world we were thinking doing that when they were so little?  I remember carrying Katy up the mountain switchbacks on my shoulders. 

After one mile of hiking we made it to the falls and found that “continuously flowing” could also mean a few trickles of water spilling off the mountainside.  Still, they were the longest trickles in the state of Arkansas!  We had some snacks and replenished our liquids and headed back up to the trail head.  The trip back up was daunting and pushed us all to our physical limits.  I got to carry Jack (32 pounds) on my shoulders up the mountain this time.  I was pleased to find out that I’m in better shape than I was a few years ago!

We loaded up in the Corolla and headed to the Petit Jean Lookout.  It was a beautiful day and we watched vultures soar above and below us as we listened to cattle bellow in the fields far below us.  I read the Legend of Petit Jean (Little John) from a plaque as the girls listened intently.  The story is that a young French girl disguises herself as a young boy and poses as a cabin boy, so that she can accompany her fiancé on his excursion to the new world.  Of course, her fiancé doesn’t have a clue and her identity is only discovered later as they are preparing to head back to France and she comes down with a strange illness that leads to a coma.  She croaks and is buried.  The plaque presents the story much more eloquently.      

The afternoon activities started with Lauren and Katy going with me for their first canoe ride.  It was a sunny day with a little bit of wind and I think all three of us could’ve taken a nap on the water.  After our excursion, we all headed to the Rock Cave Trail.  It’s a half mile trail that is much easier than our earlier hike.  The Rock House Cave contains some cave paintings and there are some really cool “turtle rocks” along the way to the cave.  The cave was large and everyone was impressed by its size.  However, the faint cave paintings along the back wall did not impress the girls as much as I had hoped.  I thought they were pretty cool! 

After the hike we headed back to civilization and had some ice cream at the Outpost, a folksy pit stop just outside of the state park. 

If you’ve read this far you will find this next remark hard to believe.  After all of this activity the kids still seemed to be full of energy!  We took them to a playground at the park to burn off some energy, while we sat and relaxed.  We then headed back to the teepee and threw a few rocks into Lake Bailey, which was Jack’s favorite pastime.  I tried to show the girls how to skip rocks and how to pick out one that’ll skip.  They tried and tried and one of them (who will remain nameless) got a few of them to skip at least once.  Check off that rite of passage! 

We built a fire and had hotdogs for dinner with s’mores for dessert.  We slept a little more soundly the second night, mostly from exhaustion. 

We awoke at around 7:00 again and had breakfast.  We packed up the Corolla and left for home around 9:00.  We had to stop by the Petit Jean outlook one last time.  On the way home we stopped by one of our favorite eating establishments…The Bulldog in Bald Knob.  I recommend the Double Bacon Cheeseburger.

We had an awesome time and will definitely be going back to visit Petit Jean again soon.  If you haven’t been there, I suggest a trip in the next few weeks, when the trees are turning autumn colors.  If you haven’t been camping in a while, I suggest that too.  There’s something about spending time with your family outdoors that creates indelible memories. 

We’re living proof that you don’t have to have a 14 mpg 8 passenger SUV to pull off a camping trip with 3 kids!

BORRRRINGAH!

     It has been well over a month (6 weeks and 4 days, to be exact) since we began living life as a one car family.  To make my blog worth reading, I would love to tell you that the first month has been fraught with panicked compromises that made us truly FEEL our level of commitment and sacrifice.  So let’s just pretend that is true.  There….do you feel better?

    The truth is that it has been quite ordinary.  Maybe even boring!  I thought going into this experiment that we were the perfect candidates for one car family status.  My wife, Krystal, is a stay at home mom and my children are home schooled, so that eliminates a lot of the potential scheduling conflicts.  We have worked out a schedule where Krystal drops me off at work after lunch a couple of days a week, so the kids can attend music lessons and other educational opportunities.

One of the most exciting developments is that the aforementioned schedule has inspired me to invent a new “politically correct” term for suffering the fate of being stuck at work car-less……Automotively Challenged.  It’s not the greatest, I admit, but it rolls off the tongue much more easily than Vehicularly Challenged.  I have yet to trademark the term, so feel free to use it as opportunities arise.  (I told you it was exciting.  I’ll be available for autographs after the show) 

Besides becoming a term coiner, I have also learned that we rarely test our cars to their full capabilities.  Who would’ve imagined that you could fit three 3 ft. x 6 ft. folding tables into a Toyota Corolla?  Or a 12 ft. x 12 ft. tailgate party tent?  Upcoming challenge…..next week I will attempt to fit $45 in gasoline into the tank at one time.  I know that a lot of people do that on a weekly basis, but it’s never been done in the Corolla. 

Before I bore you by waxing poetic about miles per gallon, I thought the best way to end a boring blog post was to break out the statistics!!!                  

In a study of households with at least one vehicle, Experian Automotive found that households with three or more cars are the single largest group among American car owners.  Their survey also revealed that households with a vehicle have an average of 2.28 vehicles per household.  Two vehicle households made up 31 percent of car-owning households and one vehicle households comprised 34 percent of car-owning households.  There are a lot of cars on the road, yet there are more one car households than I ever imagined.      

    AAA has been publishing annual reports on the cost of owning a vehicle since 1950, when gas was 27 cents per gallon.  In its 2011 report, AAA estimated the annual cost of owning a vehicle by type using gasoline cost of $2.88 per gallon (times have changed!!) in addition to estimated finance costs, depreciation, insurance, tires and maintenance costs.  They estimated that for a 15,000 mile year a small sedan would cost $6,758 to operate and a minivan would cost $9,489 to operate.  If saving $9,500 a year is boring, count me in!!   

The Plunge

         The first step that we had to take in order to officially become a one car family was to sell one of our cars.  We chose to sell our 2007 Mazda 5 and keep our 2010 Toyota Corolla.  It may seem like an odd choice for a family of five to sell a 6 seat minivan and keep a 5 seat small sedan, but we made this choice based upon our recent travel experiences in both vehicles.  The big difference is that the Corolla has a trunk, which makes for much easier packing and hauling versus the Mazda (one back seat down with all of the luggage stacked precariously right next to one of the kids).  The Corolla also gets about 5 more miles per gallon!    
         Even though we knew we were becoming a one car family, I started off the car-selling process by talking with a couple of car dealerships about what they would give me as trade-in value.  The highest figure that I was quoted was $9,000 and the lowest was $7,500.
         I thought that if I spent a little money, (replacing the windshield, getting some paintless dent removal, and getting the car detailed), I could get quite a bit more than $9,000.  We spent just south of $500 getting the car ready to sell and paid an additional $100 to park it on a park & sell lot at a busy intersection.  So, if I could get more than $9,600 I’d be ahead of the game versus a trade-in scenario.  I put a price of $12,795 (wanting $12,000) on the window and prayed for the best.   
          Our Mazda 5 is not at all common in our town and the nearest Mazda dealership is over an hour away.  A search on AutoTrader.com yielded a total of only three used 2007 Mazda 5’s for sale within a 100 mile radius.  It was definitely going to take a certain type of buyer to make the deal work. 
          I got a cash offer of $10,500 two days after we parked it on the lot, which I turned down without much thought.  Five days after I put the car on the lot, I got a call about a test drive.  It was a couple who had previously owned a Mazda 5 and currently owned a Mazda CX-9.  They were very brand loyal to Mazda and were looking specifically for a Mazda 5.  Cha-Ching!  The test drive was nothing short of other-worldly as the wife kept talking about how much she liked her previous Mazda 5 and how this one had features she wished were on her other one.  The husband wasn’t saying a whole lot, but I imagine on the inside he was wishing she would quit showing her cards so they would have a little more negotiating power.  After the test drive they said that they needed to talk it over and would get back with me.  The next day, he called and opened the conversation by saying “Man, my wife really wants your car.”  I told him to make me an offer and he offered $12,000!!  I know some of you are thinking that he would’ve met me in the middle, but I had prayed about getting 12k and when he offered it, I took it.  The car was on the lot less than a week and we had it sold for $12,000!!  33% more than offered for trade-in and 25% more than trade-in offer + costs!  God is good!
          There is one thing that I have learned from this process that I hope to apply going forward.  If I can help it, I will never again trade-in a car.  I know that the used car selling process is not always this easy and sometimes takes much more patience, but 25% more than trade-in + costs…that’s a no-brainer!  Plus, you tend to get distracted by the excitement of the new car and your old clunker becomes worth much less in your eyes as you test drive the new ride with all the bells and whistles.  Then, there’s the fact that the dealership gets to work both sides of the deal…the buying of your old car and the selling of their new car.  I cringe to think how much money I’ve left on the table over the years by trading in my vehicles for a new one.  I know that there is the convenience factor, but I am no longer going to be willing to let go of a couple of thousand for convenience sake.  Doesn’t sound very convenient to me! 
          Speaking of inconvenience…. with the sale of the Mazda we are officially a one car family now.  We’ve been living life with one car for two weeks now with no big issues.   I’ll keep you posted!

Am I becoming Amish?

That’s a question that I don’t get asked a lot, but one to consider.  I have grown a beard, have a strange urge to name any future sons that we may have Jedidiah and Jehoshaphat, and am selling one of our modern modes of transportation.  I also believe that I could rock a straw hat and have always considered going rogue Amish before my daughters hit their teenage years.

We recently drove through an area with an Amish population and I have to admit that I am fascinated by their way of life.  It’s like they hit the pause button years ago and are content with living what is a seemingly simple life, but is in reality a very difficult existence.  Most of us marvel at their commitment to specific lifestyle choices and don’t know why they do it or even how they can do it.  They probably look at us in the same way. They probably marvel at the lack of thought that goes into our lifestyle choices and why it seems that our spending urges go largely unchecked and why marketers and the media strongly influence the choices we make (not to mention the Joneses). 

For a second, imagine that you are Amish and presume to take an outsider’s perspective looking into our modern lives.  To me, it appears that we are not consumers, but instead are being consumed.  In our consumer culture, we are bombarded with messages implying how shallow our lives are without the latest and greatest thing; whether it be an electronic gadget, a car, or the latest in a series of New & Improved laundry detergents.  If we’ll just fork over the money our lives will be so much happier and fulfilling and we will be the envy of our friends.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to walk around smelling Spring Fresh? 

No matter what your hobby may be you are not at the top of your game without the latest gear.  For example:

Golf – aren’t you going to get the latest technologically advanced driver so that you can hit the little white ball 2.7 yards farther?.... or the putter that’s got a face insert that contains a rare element that was just discovered last year? 

Running- your shoes don’t have tubes, zigs, or lunaglide…what are you thinkin’?...Barefoot running is the new fad, why are you still wearing those old tubes, zigs, or lunaglides?  
It’s a never-ending parade of dissatisfaction and discontentment!

We are driven from many different angles to increase our consumption…marketers, media, family, friends, people we don’t even know, and our own perceived needs ( to feel worth, happiness, etc.).   We spend a lot of our time focusing on what we want, what we don’t have and how we are going to get it as soon as possible.  We can easily spot these qualities in our children.  They plead with us for the new Barbie with a straight face; as we focus on the fact that they have enough Barbies under their bed to represent every man, woman, and child in North Dakota.  Unfortunately, even though we can spot it so easily in our children, we have a very  tough time spotting it in ourselves and in our own economic decision making.   

We can see the evidence in the long-term historical trends toward increased consumption, such as the average home in the U.S. growing from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,422 square feet in 2009.   Yet, we have difficulty seeing our own long-term trends towards increased consumption.  

I have to admit that it’s easy to be blind to it.  I mean, everybody’s doing it and we aren’t in danger of being on the show “Hoarders” yet, so it’s all good.  We get into a groove living a certain way, constantly buying goods and services to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives.  Knowing that the things we have bought in the past do not satisfy anymore, yet hoping that the things that we want so badly will.  We buy that new Mercedes because we CAN (or more likely, because we CAN’T and we want people to think that we can).  We buy the newest gadget because we CAN, not thinking that it will be the equivalent of an 8-track player in 15 years.  Then we use our newly purchased tablet computer to do what?  That’s right, go shopping online!  We rack up thousands upon thousands in credit card debt because we just can’t wait any longer.  Some of us can’t even park our cars in our two car garage because it’s loaded with stuff that we’ve yet to make room for in our mini-storage that’s also full of stuff!  When anybody downsizes their lives in any aspect, whether it be in home size, number of cars, etc. we tend to think the worst and wonder what in the world is going on because they are not playing the game anymore.  I mean, don’t they get IT?   I’m really surprised that the Amish don’t laugh hysterically at us as we drive by in our shiny new rides going 60 m.p.h. to nowhere!

 

Although there is no danger of me becoming Amish, our tendency to over consume is one of the many reasons that we are living this one car experiment.  It’s not an easy thing to step back and evaluate your lifestyle choices, but I hope that this has helped you evaluate your lifestyle along with me.  Ask yourself….are you a consumer or being consumed?

Big Step

We are becoming a one car family.  There.  I said it. 
We are selling our Mazda 5 minivan and our sole means of transportation will be our 2010 Toyota Corolla.  It is a BIG STEP toward leading a simpler (but not always more convenient) life.  
Our plans are to conduct this grand experiment for at least 12 months.  With 3 kids, ranging in age from 3 to 10, this could be interesting.  However, we are the perfect candidates for being a one car family since my wife is a stay at home mom (SAHM) and we homeschool our children.
There are many reasons that we are doing this, along with other life-simplifying steps, which will be expounded upon in-depth at a later date. 
So, feel free to join us on this journey.  Live vicariously through us as we share the joys and pains involved in the process of becoming and being a one car family.  Who knows, you may want to join the club!!