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Lesson From the Biggest Loser About Saying No

March 29, 2011 in Faith and Church, Family and Parenting, Health and Fitness, I Was Broke. Now I'm Not, Leadership and Growth, Marriage and Relationships with

Shawna and I like to watch the Biggest Loser.  It has something to do with life change and we all somewhere inside want to be healthier people no matter what our weight.  I heard an interesting comment on the show the other week that caught my attention.

One of the contestants said something like “Saying no to junk food is saying yes to myself” and they were referring to the positive health benefit.  It struck me as a very strong statement.  Think about that for a minute and consider all the things we could put in that sentence in the place of junk food.

  • Saying no to the brand new car, or house, or boat, or whatever THING is saying yes to my future financial position.
  • Saying no to watching 4 hours of TV per night is saying yes to more quality family time.
  • Saying no to porn or facebook is saying yes to relationship with spouse.
  • Saying no to “me time” is saying yes to having time for God.

Anything you put in the place of the no and yes position is ultimately a benefit to you.  It is a discipline issue.

What other ways can you think of to make a no a yes for our own good?

Where’s The Adventure?

December 13, 2010 in Faith and Church, Family and Parenting, I Was Broke. Now I'm Not, Leadership and Growth with

In going to work every day to earn enough money to pay the mortgage, insurance, dance lessons, cub scouts, and cell phone bill?

In being spoon-fed your whole life, never knowing what it is like to wonder how you will pay for your next meal?

In going to the beach every year for your 1 or 2 weeks off from the job you’ve had for years?

In never seeing new places or experiencing new things?

In living life alone, without a spouse or family or friends to share life with?

In living life without God, depending on him for our every need, spreading his gospel every chance we get?

Cool Cousins

July 9, 2010 in Family and Parenting with

It breaks my heart to know that I have not-so-distant cousins I would have loved to have known better.  Instead they are all very loose acquaintances and at age 32 it seems too late to try and form any sort of real relationship with them, not to mention awkward. 

I hope my kids don’t have to experience that.  I’m not doing a very good job letting my kids get to know some of their cousins that are 2nd or 3rd cousins.  Is it normal to have relationships with 2nd or 3rd cousins? 

King of the Hill Appreciation

July 8, 2010 in Family and Parenting, Marriage and Relationships with

A few weeks ago Perry preached about men being the leader for their family and used an analogy of how it is like playing king of the hill as a kid.  No matter how many times you get knocked down you’ve gotta fight to be the king of the hill.  Your family is depending on you to fight to be the king of the hill, the leader of the family.

The message really spoke to me and helps me keep a good perspective on what it is like succeeding and failing as a husband and father.  Here is an observation I’ve made as I pay closer attention to this in my life.  It’s nice when I succeed but I often feel under-appreciated because it is what is expected of me. The other side of my observation is it really sucks when I screw up because it gets a lot of negative attention.  I end up feeling like I get more negative attention than positive attention because I either screw up way too much or my bad outweighs my good or something.  Or maybe it is just that appreciation thing.  Maybe I’d like to be shown as much appreciation for when I’m getting it right as I am shown negative when I get things wrong (even though getting it right is what is expected of me). 

So I challenge myself – how much appreciation do I show to my family (or everyone for that matter) when they do what I expect of them?  Why should I expect others to appreciate me when I probably need to do a better job showing appreciation too?

Devin Got Baptized – Baptism May 23, 2010 11:15am

June 14, 2010 in Faith and Church, Family and Parenting, Stories with

Time Budgeting

November 12, 2008 in Family and Parenting, I Was Broke. Now I'm Not, Leadership and Growth, Marriage and Relationships with

I don’t normally care much about the interviews Tony Morgan has on his site, but this one is applicable to everyone. I’ve written a lot about budgeting money, the Joe Sangl ministry, and living within means. But I haven’t put enough thought or effort in to budgeting TIME. The last sentence of the interview ends with ‘live within the budget’. I’ve learned to do that with money but I need to learn to do that with time. 

More on Finances & Relationships

November 7, 2008 in Family and Parenting, I Was Broke. Now I'm Not, Marriage and Relationships with

I track a few blogs, scim them mostly, but read the ones that grab my attention. Check out the following in this order – good stuff:

Marriage & Money – Can Love Overcome Financial Incompatibility
The answer is NO by the way – they’re not compatible – it’s obvious. They’ll have to CHOOSE to become compatible or they will split – guarantee it. Love is a CHOICE – in all areas of the relationship. They’re gonna have to get together and be realistic.

Marriage & Money – Allowances for Adults
I like this one because Shawna and I need to do this. We usually do a pretty good job agreeing on what discretionary spending we’re gonna do, but it might be better to make it an official allowance, or ‘blow money’ as Joe Sangl calls it. We don’t normally do ‘blow money’ on the budget because the way we’ve been doing it is to reward being under budget by using some of the left over for pleasure.

This blog was linked in one of the posts linked above and it caught my interest. I’m going to add it to my feeds at least long enough to see if I like it. 

Dalton Bombing

October 20, 2008 in Family and Parenting, Misc with

Many of you probably already heard about the bombing in Dalton, GA (where my parents and siblings live). If not, here’s a news snippet:

What you probably don’t know is my brother was among the first firefighters allowed in the place. I won’t go in to all the details as he told it, but I will share a pic – Matt is the one to the far right – that’s his buddy AJ in the flourescent vest and gym shorts. AJ obviously manned the truck gadgets on the safe end of the hose rather than going into the flames in that attire. We’re proud of these guys for the job they do.

Here’s a link to more pics of the scene:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmcconkey/sets/72157608123581467/

Many prayers for the people and families affected by this tragedy.

Funny Moment

August 28, 2008 in Family and Parenting, Stories with

Shawna and I were talking about some kids down the street who used to home school but now they’re doing private school. Skyler overheard us and said “Private School! That’s gross”. If you don’t get it just think about it a minute. Needless to say we had to explain to Skyler what ‘private school’ really means. 

Vacation!!!

August 15, 2008 in Family and Parenting, Marriage and Relationships, Misc with

Last week was vacation (8/2 – 8/10). Yeah baby! A week of mostly no phone calls, mostly no emails, and mostly no stress (we did still have the kids with us so there was still just a little bit of stress). It was very fun and relaxing. Here’s the highlights from the week:

Sunday – drove to Montgomery, AL (which is halfway to our destination) to stay the night before proceeding to Gulf Shores, AL. While there we went to Circuit City because we had noticed the Wii was on sale for $249 (which is the best I’ve seen it). We’ve been talking about getting one for our family for Christmas, and I had already put the money aside for it, so we did it (yes – we’re already shopping for Christmas, but the Wii probably won’t wait til Christmas befor we use it).

Monday – drove the rest of the way to Gulf Shores (more precisely Orange Beach, AL – just down the road from Gulf Shores). You might be asking why did we go there. The answer is we know some people who own a condo there and Shawna’s mom had been given a free week to stay there, so she let us take advantage of the free week with her – thanks GG (Grandma Grace). After we got there I took the kids straight to the ocean and after about 10 minutes they wanted to go straight to the pool, so we did.

Tuesday – slept in. Went to the pool and ocean again (ocean a bit longer this time and more than once, but still spent more time at the pool). Lost my sunglasses in the ocean. Bought some new ones for an outrageous $10 at ‘Surf Style’ (that was $5 too high for my taste because I can get sunglasses any weekend at the Jockey Lot for $5). Relaxation deluxe – all day long. Ate good. Had TCBY ice cream.

Wednesday – got up at 6am and walked the beach. I knew the tide would be low and wanted to find some sea shells for the kids because they hadbeen looking for them since we got there. I happened to find 3 pairs of sunglasses washing up with the seashells. One pair is Oakley and the other two aren’t bad either. They’re a little scratched but not too bad. Took the kids to the pool and ocean again. This time we stayed at the ocean for quite a while because I bought them some sand toys to play with. I built a sand castle and Devin immediately tore it down with the shovel I got him. Went to Lambart’s (http://www.throwedrolls.com/). What an experience. They literally throw the rolls to you. Excellent food.

Thursday – took Devin to the National Naval Aviation Museum. Another wonderful experience. There are so many planes on display. Devin loved getting in the cockpits of several different types of planes. We also saw a pretty cool Imax movie. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to go do that again when Devin is older so he can learn more about the planes and their history.

Friday – The girls went shopping which left Devin and I without transportation and with little interest in going to the pool or the beach by ourselves. So we made an adventure out of it and walked down the beach about a mile to the nearest souvenir shop where I bought Devin a snorkel and goggles. Then we walked back. That was as close as I got to a workout all week so I’ll have to pick up the slack now that we’re home.

Saturday – Pretty much all day was spent at the beach. Someone in our building pulled the fire alarm so the fire trucks came. That was interesting. But we spent most of the day playing in the sand and enjoying the ocean that we rarely get to see. It was nice and relaxing but at the same time I was already starting to dread the packing up and driving home.

Sunday – We drove all the way back home in one day. We stopped probably 5 times in the first 5 hours (3 hours of it was actual driving time) to get souvenirs, get snacks, pee, etc etc, then stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel. Then after we ate we drove 5 hours straight without stopping. Home sweet home.

What a wonderful vacation. We really enjoyed the gulf coast of Alabama. It’s really quite nice for family vacationing and we’ll most likely do it again. I’m sure there are so many details I’m not thinking of at the moment but I don’t want to delay posting something about our vacation any longer. When I think of more stuff I’ll write about it.

I’ll upload a bunch of pics for the next post. 

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