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I don’t have birthdays, I level up!

birthday-level-upFor those of you who know me, you know that the month of October is pretty crazy for my family…we have 4 birthdays during the month of October, including mine… I have decided that I’m not going to see it as a birthday though. I loved video games growing up and my favorite one was Final Fantasy (I still have it on my Gameboy Advanced). Final Fantasy was a role playing game where your team of four Warriors of Light, each carrying an orb representing one of the four elements, travelled the world defeating the enemies that were keeping the orbs dark and thus saving the world. Like most role playing games, as your characters fought battles and beat enemies they gained experience points. When they had accumulated enough experience points, they would “level up” which would result in them becoming stronger, more intelligent, and for those with magical abilities, more magical abilities. I made a decision this year when I had my birthday, I would no longer see it as getting older. I see that every day in the new gray hairs in my beard and hair that greet me anew each morning and the hairline making that slow, painful march towards the back of my head. What I want to focus on is this, “How did I “level up” with regards to Faith, Family, Fitness, Fun, & Functions?” After thinking about it, here is what I have come up with. This year I leveled up in the following ways:

  • Faith: While I have always tried to have an active devotional life, this year, I figured out what works for me. Thanks to the Bible App, I have found plans that work for me to get a good dose of the word (almost) every morning. I have always tried the route of reading through the Bible in a year, but most of the time it just wouldn’t sink in the way I wanted it to, the chunks were too big. This year, I started with a Joyce Meyer devotional plan and a Billy Graham devotional plan that were offered within the Bible App and I love it. I get a daily dose of Word along with the opinion and insights from people I greatly respect. In addition to this, I have been listening to the Church on the Move podcast on a regular basis. A few years ago, my in-laws bought me a 160 GB iPod and I filled that sucker up…I have sermons and podcasts going back to 2009 from Church on the Move and I figured out a nifty little trick on my iPod to be able to listen to them in chronological order so what I do is just start the first sermon and the let them go while I am working, mowing, or doing other things…it is awesome!
  • Family: Our family continues to get better and better. Caleb is reading like a champ and his teacher says he is just doing amazingly. Carrie is blossoming more and more each day. Abbie is coming full force into her personality and it is amazing getting to know this little fireball that is our third child. Mandy and I are more united than we have ever been, we don’t even fight over finances anymore :-). That is huge! The interesting thing about our finances and the stress it used to cause and how we resolved it was that it was one small change that we made to how we budgeted that got us on the same page and revolutionized how we communicated about our finances. It wasn’t a huge revelation, it was tweaking the way one piece of our finances was represented on our budgeting spreadsheet that helped us see exactly where we were with our money and with that one little clarification, we got it and we were able to see things eye to eye.
  • Fitness: If you have been reading my blog or known me for any length of time, you know I struggle with my weight and have been trying to lose weight for a long time. This year I had a revelation in how to structure my workouts so that they were actually doable. Previously, I had been trying to do P90X either in my morning or in the evenings but with 3 kids and running a business on the side I was very sporadic in my workouts and wasn’t seeing the results that I wanted. I tried working out at work by running on the elliptical but the frustrating thing was it took me 45 minutes to an hour during work to get a 30 minute run in, then I remembered that our workout facility at Phillips 66 has a pool…light bulb…if I go down and swim for 20 to 30 minutes, it only takes me a minimal amount of time to get from work to the pool and from the pool back to work…bingo…and the pool is open enough in the morning that I an get there almost every day because I can almost always find 30 minutes to get down to the pool. By getting consistent with the pool workouts it took the pressure off me trying to get an hour workout at home so I was able to cut my lifting routine down to 30 minutes a night which makes it so much easier to do.
  • Fun: The big win for Mandy and I this year was that we took the kids to Disney World. While that was the highlight, we have also tried to make sure that we do something fun on a regular basis. We just recently had a staycation where we went to Incredible Pizza, the Tulsa Children’s Museum, and had a movie night. We have fun. We also like to win and right now Caleb’s soccer team (the one I coach) is one win away from being undefeated this season. Carrie started dance lessons this past summer and absolutely loved them.
  • Functions: I hit a major career milestone this year. The interesting thing about it was that it came with very little fanfare through an IM from one of my co-workers and I didn’t even realize it was that much of a goal for me until I hit it. In my side business I also have a major announcement coming very soon which will be very cool for us and become a great avenue of blessing for us in addition to my main job at Phillips 66. I need to keep quiet on these things right now but will let you know as soon as I can.

Overall, this has been a great year, I’m looking forward to how I will level up next year and what God has in store for me and my family. Sound off in the comments below with how this year has been a great year for you!

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My 3 Words for 2011 and How They are Changing Our Lives

If you are familiar with Chris Brogan, you are familiar with the concept of 3 Words for the Year. For those of you not familiar with the concept, instead of coming up with a new year’s resolution every year, Chris Brogan comes up with 3 words for the year. He comes up with those words based on what he wants the focus of the year to be, then bases his decisions throughout the year on those three words and how the decision will affect his focus on those 3 words. What’s interesting is that even though I haven’t blogged about my 3 words yet, I have already told you what they are with the recent redesign of this website. My three words for 2011 (in this order) are:

Continue reading “My 3 Words for 2011 and How They are Changing Our Lives”
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P90X – Day 1 – 30

Day 1-30 P90X Workout CalendarAs many of you know, I purchased P90X and have been on the P90X journey since April 19th, 2010.  Today marks Day 30 of my journey which in the P90X world means that you need to supply pictures.  First, let me say that as you can see from the image on the right, I haven’t been able to be as consistent with the workout as I would have liked.  Between 2 kids, owning my own business, being sick for a week, and traveling for a friend’s wedding I started off really well, but I haven’t been very consistent the last couple weeks.  The sad part is that I really wanted to workout, I just couldn’t.  I have never had a workout regimen that I looked forward to as much as I have looked forward to P90X.  We are currently traveling for a friend’s wedding and on the days I have traveled I have felt not doing my workouts and couldn’t wait to press play.  I worked out in my in-law’s basement today (sorry for the lighting in my 30 day pictures) and it felt great.  So now on to the pictures.

Front:
Day 1-30 Front

Back:
Day 1-30 Back

Side:
d0130-side

The front and the back pictures don’t really do it justice, but the side shots are where it shows how much I have improved.  I started my journey at 332 pounds and I have lost around 10 pounds total so far.  I have lost 3 inches off my waist (even after 30 days my pants are fitting looser!!!).

Nutrition Plan:
I can’t talk about P90X without talking about the nutrition plan.  I absolutely love it! I have never eaten this much, I

am on a 3,000 calorie diet.  If I get hungry it is my own fault (or the fact that my metabolism is in high gear).  I have tried to stay true to the nutrition plan even with everything going on that I have had going on but I will admit, I haven’t followed it completely.  However, I have noticed a few things:

  1. I feel great!  Like I said, I have never eaten this much, but I am eating really good, natural foods, and not a lot of carbs (on my current phase I am allowed 1 portion of carbs a day).  I have a ton of energy and just feel better.
  2. I can feel it when I deviate from the nutrition plan.  Mostly when I eat more carbs than I should, but if I deviate from the nutrition plan, I am sluggish and just feel altogether gross.
  3. I am craving junk food less and less.  This was a major revelation for me.  I haven’t given up soda (one of my biggest vices), but I am needing it less and less.  This also applies to sweets.  Mandy and Caleb will have ice cream every once in awhile and I have no desire to have any whatsoever because I know how it will make me feel if I eat it…and it is not worth it.
  4. Before P90X I was starving myself and that is why I was gaining weight.  I am a part of the P90X Fan page on Facebook (an amazing forum for encouragement) and I regularly see people who can’t believe how much food they are supposed to be eating because like me they were used to starving themselves which pushed their bodies into starvation  mode where your body stores everything as fat.

P90x Fan Page on Facebook:
I know they really aren’t called fan pages on Facebook anymore, but that’s what I am going to call it for right now.  If you are doing P90X and are not a part of the P90X Fan page on Facebook you are missing out.  The people on this page are amazing.  They are constantly encouraging each other and pushing each other to do better.

Equipment:
One of the first questions people ask when they consider P90X is what equipment will they need…here is the equipment I use.

  • Gold’s Gym 6-Piece Puzzle Mat – I really like these mats…I have duct taped them together by flipping them over and running duct tape down all the seams and absolutely working out on them.
  • P90X Pullup Bar – This bar has been tested up to 500 pounds whereas the other ones wouldn’t work for someone my size.
  • Gold’s Gym 40 lb Cement Weight Set – I actually have 2 of these sets so that I can switch between weights pretty easily.  On this trip I have weight bands with me, but I haven’t had a workout yet that requires them so I can’t recommend them yet.

Resources:
Besides the official teambeachbody.com site and the P90X Fan page on Facebook, in order to help keep myself accountable, I created a tracking spreadsheet in Excel to help me track my progress.  Check it out.

In my next P90X update (Day 60) I will post a picture of my workout area and why I really have no excuse not to do P90X which has helped me out a ton.  Hopefully, you are encouraged by my progress to the point that you join me on the journey.  BRING IT!!!

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Would someone light a match?

match Tomorrow marks 4 years of marriage for me and my wife (get that guys, I even remembered the day before my anniversary).  Things have been great, my wife and I have a great marriage.  A couple weeks ago, my wife made a comment though that kind of stopped me in my tracks.  After I walked out of the bathroom after stinking it up she said,

“Can you light a match, you used to do it all the time, but you don’t anymore.”

For the uninitiated, women’s poop doesn’t smell, but men are known to lay down a few stinkers and nothing shows her you care more after you drop the duece is getting rid of the green fog by lighting a match…There is something about the lighting of a match that gets rid of the nasty smell.

After she said it I realized the implication, I had forgotten to be considerate of her in the small things. (I’m pretty sure) My wife would tell you that we have a great marriage and that I am a good husband, but somewhere along the way, I had forgotten the little things.  A good friend of mine before I got married gave me some sound advice, he said,

“Take a walk…when you have to fart, go in the other room, she doesn’t need to smell it.”

Another one that I hadn’t been doing a good job on…  I even know a couple who has been married for over 10 years that has never farted in front of each other.  In fact, now it has become kind of a competition…(ok, the bodily functions will cease to be discussed after this).  Wouldn’t that be something, have a competition to see who could be more considerate of the other person?

It wasn’t even just bodily function related, things as simple as cleaning the dishes after dinner.  We have a rule in our house, whoever cooks does not clean the dishes, but somewhere along the lines between the kids, owning our own business, and the myriad of other things we are involved in, that rule has gone by the wayside as well.  Here is what I realized though, if the little things are slipping then you have a problem…because you don’t see the little things slip away…they just slowly slip away and then one day you realize that you have nothing left.  (Please don’t read into what I just said, Mandy and I are great, our marriage is not in trouble).  But after Mandy pointed out that I wasn’t lighting matches anymore, I realized that I needed to step up my game…I needed to start treating her again like I did when we were dating.

Our pastor is doing a marriage series right now (I asked Mandy to take me off the children’s church schedule so that I could make it to every sermon, I have to miss this weekend’s because we will be in St. Louis, but I built the website, I know where the secretary puts the sermons…) and 2 weeks ago, he said something that really stuck out…He said (and it was our assignment):

  • When you think something good, SAY it.
  • When you think something special, DO it.
  • When  you want something special, BE it.

Well, here is me trying to BE it.  I have always loved this quote by Mahatma Gandi

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi

It is a quote that I have tried to live my life by, in my business, in my ministry, but I had forgotten to do it in my marriage.  It is easy when during a bout of intense fellowship for when Mandy says something in a tone that I don’t like for me to fire right back…that’s not the way it should be.  Christ called us to give up our lives, to love her as Christ loved the church…(yeah guys, the Ephesians passage doesn’t stop at Ephesians chapter 5 doesn’t stop at verse 24, the heavier stuff comes after it…)

Wives and Husbands

22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
– Ephesians 5:22-33 (NIV)

For those of you paying attention in the audience, she has the easier part of the deal, she just needs to submit to you (which if we are doing it right, it should be easy for her to do, because let’s face it, how hard is it to submit to someone who you know without a doubt loves you, is willing to die for you, and has your best interests in mind) we, as husbands, have to be ready to lay everything down (notice I didn’t just say die, I meant work, ministry, everything needs to be an item that is chopping block material if it is what is needed).

Here’s the kicker, I’m excited to step my game up, because what could be better?  I want to have a good marriage.  Early on, Mandy and I decided that each year, we wanted to go to at least one marriage seminar or do at least 1 focused thing on our marriage each year.  After the debacle that was last year’s marriage seminar (don’t bring someone who is not going to bring what the Bible has to say into a Christian Marriage ministry event), we didn’t go to the annual Madison Family Ministry this year, but we are excited to be going to the [DVD] [Book] small group that our pastor is offering.  We have been to the live event but are super excited to go through it again with a group of close friends.  I would recommend it to anyone who wants to work on their marriage.  Mark’s story is a good story on how he got into doing marriage seminars (our pastor knows Mark so I know the story) but I’ll let him tell you some day.

Sorry this was such a long post, but I wanted to 1. kick myself in the butt and get myself going & 2. encourage people who might read my blog to do the same.  And for those of you who are wondering, I get to take my wife to the restaurant she has always wanted to take her husband to down in St. Louis, it is the restaurant that her dad took her to on her first date ever.  (Smart man by the way, he took her on her first date so she would know how she was supposed to be treated on all the dates that followed.  I’m going to have to use that one with Carrie)

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So, we’re a little behind on the Christmas Card

I know, we still haven’t sent anyone a Christmas card from 2009…and it looks like it just isn’t going to happen so here is the picture we were going to send you.

On another note, here are two more pictures that we wanted to show you as well.  Buster finally got his spring trimming done…he doesn’t even look like

the same dog…but you be the judge…

DSC01493 DSC01494

At least now he looks more like a terrier than a sheep dog…

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I have a great family

Prevailing opinion seems to be that I don’t blog enough about my family so I wanted to throw up a couple more pictures taken from this last weekend.  Enjoy!

DSC01489 DSC01490

Carrie is now 5 months old and starting to enjoy the pleasure of rice cereal & Caleb just rocks.  Mandy plays superwoman as she watches both of our kids and usually at least 1 other child to help some friends out.  Things are going well, we can’t wait for the Spring so that we can get outside more!

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Seven Questions about the last year

On December 29th, 2009 Michael Hyatt posted a very thought provoking article on processing what the last year has contained.  You can read it here.  The gist is that there are 7 questions you should

ask yourself about the last year.  This post is my attempt to process these questions for myself personally.  I will also be blogging about this from a business perspective as well, head on over to the TwoMilesSolutions.com blog to check it out.  I will be doing resolution/goal setting posts next week, but here is a look back.

  1. If the last year were a movie of your life, what would the genre be?
    I would have to say adventure.  My second child was born this year and it was a year of learning a lot of different lessons.  We never knew what was around the corner, but God always came through.
  2. What were the two or three major themes that kept recurring?
    – Gaining a deeper understanding…this was a year of understanding myself, my wife, my son, and my business better.
    –  Survival of the Fittest…as most of you know this was a tough year economically for a lot of people because of the recession, but we made it through, sometimes just by the grace of God, but He always provided.
  3. What did you accomplish this past year that you are the most proud of?
    Along with raising a great boy, having a great marriage to a wonderful woman, and the birth of my second child, I also became the Director of SERVOLUTION (coordinate service ministries for the church) at Metro Believers Church.   This was a huge thing for me as I love to serve and now we are able to put a focused effort on service in our church.
  4. What do you feel you should have been acknowledged for but weren’t?
    This one is a personal question that I don’t feel I should post for the world to see.
  5. What disappointments or regrets did you experience this last year?
    From a personal perspective (see my business blog for my business answer), I am mostly disappointed in myself for the amount of time I didn’t spend with my family and focusing on my weight loss goals that I have set for the past few years.  This is mainly due to the work schedule that I keep (it is a regular occurrence for me to work until 2 am.)  I make it a point to always have dinner with my family     and spend time after dinner with them, but I want to work towards more time with them and there are things in the works that will help get me to that point.
  6. What was missing from last year as you look back?
    This could probably go in the disappointments question as well, but I missed a lot of good quality quiet time with the Word this last year.  Along with time missed with my family, I should have spent more time in the Word.
  7. What were major life-lessons you learned this past year?
    – When with your family, you need to disconnect from the office.  This is a huge thing for me given that I work from home.  What this means for me is that sometimes I leave my cell phone in my office so that I am not checking my email at the dinner table.
    – Sometimes you just need a break.  As much as I would like to think that I am superman, I am not, sometimes I just need to stop and relax.

Hopefully, you found this post insightful, I would recommend doing the same as you get ready to start the new year and set goals for the upcoming year.  You can’t figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you have been.

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Caleb & Carrie

I am too tired to post more pics (I’ve fallen asleep with her in my arms twice today), they will come tomorrow, but for now, check out big brother Caleb and his new little sister.

I’m posting from my phone so please forgive any typos and the short post.

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Carrie Anne Miles is here!

Carrie Anne Miles was born at 12:10 am on 10/2/2009.  She weighed 6 pounds 3 ounces and was 19 inches long.  Mommy and baby are doing great!

Be warned, the pictures are full size once you click on them so you will have to scroll around to find the close button in the bottom right corner of the popup.

Carrie Anne MilesCarrie Anne MilesCarrie Anne Miles FootprintDSC01153Carrie Anne MilesMommy & Baby

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Baby update…or lack of baby update…

If you have been following my Facebook or Twitter updates then you know we went to the hospital today because we thought today was the day for little Carrie to arrive.

To get the full story we need to actually back up to last week, here is what has happened up until this point…

Some time in January…just kidding…we won’t go that far back.

Last Wednesday (9/2/2009) Mandy began having contractions to the point where they were about 5 minutes apart.  We are advised by the on-call physician to head into the hospital for monitoring.  After running around and getting everything ready to go we head towards the hospital.  We take Caleb to a friend’s house and another friend stops by to pick up Buster.  When we arrive at the hospital we are sent to the OB triage unit for monitoring.  After a couple hours they decide that the contractions are not productive and that the cervix is completely closed.  So we go pick up Buster and head home (Caleb was already asleep so we leave him at the friend’s house).  The next morning we pick up Caleb and go about our merry way.  All during this time Mandy is having sporadic contractions.

On Tuesday 9/8/2009 Mandy has an OB appointment and she is dilated to 1 cm and we are told that the Dr. doesn’t think that this baby will go the full 40 weeks (Yay!).

Fast forward to today (I guess it is technically yesterday at this point, but I haven’t gone to sleep yet so for me it is still today).  Around 9 am, Mandy starts having more contractions.  At 10 am, she is to the point where the contractions are 5 minutes apart and lasting around 60 seconds apiece…so according to our handy dandy discharge papers from last week, it is time to call the doctor and the doctor said no more monkeys jumping…(oops, that’s what Caleb would say) anyway, the doctor says that it is time for Mandy to head to the hospital.  I do the stupid thing and alert the whole world via Facebook and Twitter that today is the day….then we finish packing and head to the hospital all the while making arrangements for our two boys (similar setup to last week with a couple different characters thrown in).  Once we get to the hospital we head to triage again (we know exactly where to go this time) and are checked in for monitoring.  At this point the contractions are still pretty regular but after about two hours (about the time it takes to watch 13 Going on 30) the resident checks Mandy’s cervix and reports that she is still at about 1.75 cm so we are sent “home”.  We decided that instead of going home we will try to get something to eat, then run a few errands so that we can stay close to the hospital in case we need to head back (at this point we are still thinking Carrie is still coming today).  So we go to Panera, Home Depot, Madison Lighting (there is no way we are spending $180 on a light fixture for Carrie’s room to replace the one I broke), Menards (2 for $25 works for us, we’ll replace the one in Caleb’s room also), Josh Wanta’s (from Legacy Custom Remodeling) so that I can drop off a key so he can get started on our basement repair from our basement flooding since I “might” not be there in the morning, then on to Borders so that Mandy can get a new book and I can pick up my door prize for my presentation in the morning.  After we get done at Borders I call the hotline because by this point the contractions are taking Mandy’s breath away and are about 2-4 minutes apart.  They advise us to come back in.  We go straight to triage (we’ve been there before, have I told you that?) and get checked in and set up (in the same room as before).  They hook the monitors up to Mandy, the heart rate is great and she gets rocked by a big contraction right after they put the monitors on, here we go…(or so we think).  Mandy gets one more smaller contraction, then they mysteriously vanish for about an hour (but her uterus is doing something, because it is not happy).  The resident comes in and chats with us about what is going on

and it is decided that we will head home for the night since the contractions are gone.  Mandy was also advised to take the rest of the week off from work, but we will see, she wants to see how she does tomorrow.  We’re not happy at this point because we just want to meet our daughter and had gotten our hopes up and then nothing, but we head home anyway (making arrangements for us to get Caleb and Buster back).  We get not even 5 minutes from the hospital and the contractions start back up.  So the short and skinny is that no one really knows what is going on, but we don’t have a baby girl in our arms yet.

Hopefully you are still around after my long winded telling of the story.  I will try to keep people up to date via Facebook and Twitter as much as possible.