my life, my words.

Hey again

To add to the improvement of the front of the house (and also to make use of some items we had in the back) I moved these paths/bricks to the front to make a path across the newly laid mulch.

We also sadly watched the last game of the Arizona Coyotes. They are officially moving to Salt Lake City. The team’s owners will have a few years to bring a new arena to the Phoenix area, and if they do the “Coyotes” will come back as an expansion team. All hope is not yet dead, but it is on life support.

We were allowed to go see “Unsung Hero” a new movie that was released by For King + Country. It was the true story of some of the things the Smallbone family (including their sister Rebecca St. James) experienced as kids as they moved from Australia to the States.

I also used this time on the bench to respond to some recruiters about roles that needed filling. I went for a few interviews (pictured is one below at a local restaurant). Also, can someone please tell my daughter to stop looking so grown up? Ugh.

The end of the month is nearing and so is our year’s membership to OMSI! We decided to go one last time and check it out.

The kids love dinosaurs (go figure) and had fun running around. The membership included admission to their theater thing, so Ezra got to see dinosaurs all around him. He was taking it all in.

Finally– we decided to go to Tesla and take a test drive. No, we could not afford to buy anything new, at best maybe a 2016-2017. We did however want to see if the Model X (a six-seater) would even fit all of us.

Spoiler alert: it did. The kids loved it and have affectionally named it the back in time car (due to the gull-wing doors just like the DeLorean).

After finding out that it did fit us, we took a trip to a few dealerships to see if it was an option or not. At this point, we aren’t sure if it is. Even the used Models are still on the high end of what we could afford. There was one or two in the Portland area in our price range. One sold the day after we looked at it. The other one we went to visit today.

Not sure what will happen, we are waiting on the dealer to ensure that some small items will be fixed, and if so then we may move forward.

But you know what? Before you know it…

ITS GUNNA ME MAY. (cue in Justin Timberlake)

just Pray

So,

Some kids can be nice, right?

Others are not as nice.

I remember a time when I was just a wee lad. I was playing basketball at the park closest to where I lived. I had just finished and was walking off the court. I remember that I left so that I wouldn’t be out later than when my parents wanted me home.

Some people (two girls) that I knew from school walked up to me and asked if they could play. I told them that I had to get home by whatever time it was.

They laughed and knocked the ball from my hands – teasing me and saying something to the effect of ‘Well maybe you just don’t want to play with us’

I assured them “No, I have to go”

A few minutes later, I’m starting to panic a little. I didn’t want to get in trouble for getting home late. I tried to get the ball from them but they kept playing “keep away” and kept it far away from me.

They laughed.

I started to cry. I didn’t know what else to do and I couldn’t very well take the ball from them.

Elizabeth and Kendra didn’t seem to care. They laughed some more and said “Oh you are such a baby… two girls are going to make you cry?! how stupid”

After a minute or so, they relented and gave me my ball. They mentioned that it would be funny if kids at school found out about this event.

They grew up, as all kids do. They probably never really gave that interaction a second thought. Here I am, 40 years old now, and can still remember how that made me feel from back then. It was not fun.

My kid, Arabella – recently had a run-in with some local kids.

She was wearing this beautiful pink dress that said “Barbie” across it. She is a fan of Barbie, so yeah she wore it. The kids all gathered around her and immediately started picking on her. Telling her that she dressed like a kindergartener or a first grader. They laughed. She cried and ran home.

She came in the front door, ran straight to her room, and went to bed. Sky was able to get to the bottom of things. Once I found out I have to say, my blood boiled a little.

I thought of when my mom told me she was once circled by other kids who didn’t like her in school. They made fun of her last name and kicked her while doing it.

I later was on the phone and told my dad about the incident. He told me about a story he had when he was also just a tike.

He was sick and ended up staying home from school for the week. He didn’t remember what he was sick with, only that he was sick and was at home that week. Well, the teacher let them all write letters to my dad. He read them and said the girls wrote some nice “get better” letters. But there were a couple of guys who wrote him and put “DDDD” for Drop Dead Dumb Dewey.

I hadn’t even heard him tell this story before now. Amazingly, you remember others’ actions and words so vividly.

Kids can be so harsh, and mean and never really know the impact of their words. We should be speaking life – and I know that it’s easy to say… but that’s what we strive for.

We ended up texting all the parents of the kids who were involved. What happened? They apologized, and later (3 out of the 5 she was hanging out with) told her that they didn’t want to hang out with her anymore. That she is more of a bother than not, and to just leave them alone.

Ugh.

I have no words, other than to say I held my tongue.

The words we pick hold immense influence over our reality and the experiences of those we interact with. By speaking words of affirmation and encouragement, we can help to foster positive outcomes and cultivate meaningful relationships.

{[EndQuote: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Proverbs 18:21]}

Hey everyone!

After “work” today (which involved a lot of LinkedIn Learning courses) I got the kids to lie down with me, at least the boys. I snapped a photo as they all took a quick nap before dinner.

We finally got our wall fixed inside our garage! That was so overdue to be done. It makes the garage feel nice, especially after looking at it all apart for the last few months.

I’ve been loving the rain. I want to keep these cool rainy days as long as we can. I don’t want the heat. Other parts of the world can keep that, but let’s keep it nice and cool here.

Ever since we went to the car show we had this offer to test drive a new electric Ford. Why not? You score a $50 gift card when doing so. I drove down to the local dealer and test-drove this Mustang Mach-E. It was nice. Not enough seats for my family, but if they just added another seat… well then maybe someday. Until then, well – I can say it was nice. I want to see more EVs on the road.

Why is that? I’ll get into that a little more…

If you can see the images above, one of them is a gas bill for 17 gallons and $56. Not bad? I agree. I used a $1 off/gallon coupon I had. In reality, it would have been a nice $73. Gas was brought down to 3.29 and the normal prices now are closer to about $4.75. I’m going to rant a little.

I thought when getting the Explorer I’d pay more, yes. But the distance I could go would be similar to when I had a gas-powered car (450 to 500 miles). It would make sense that due to the bigger tank and the lesser MPG, it would cost more. Oh no no no. I was mistaken. You can fill up for 300 miles at $75 a fill-up. So you pay more- go less distance, and did I mention you pay more? Ugh. When we had plugin hybrid we at least had a range to drive fully electric. Doing most of our trips using that range made our gas bill all but disappear for a few months at a time.

Anyway, we might see if a plugin or fully electric is attainable. Gas prices will only continue to rise, yet so many people are stuck on keeping only gas-powered engines. Not want hybrids, plugins, or electric. It’s nuts to me. Also when the power is sourced the right way, electricity is way better for the environment all around. Bleh.

Gas. Bleh.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset, and Mt. Hood was lit up in a pretty pink (as seen above). We laid down some new mulch on our side yard of the house… and took the baby to church for the first time.

What else? Elijah has found it funny to write on things in the house – so I took a photo of one of his masterpieces before having him clean it off.

Took the Explorer in for some recalls. Hmm… and we started to take down the back deck to help give us even more space (so much of it is taken up by that bulky rotting deck).

Until next time!

just Pray