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chores for my daughters

I’m a dad. I have two daughters who, seriously, are way cuter than yours; I mean seriously, way cuter.

Anyway, Grace is nearly 3 and at the time of this post Abby is a couple of days away from turning 1. At this point, they’re a little young for chores. We have them clean up their toys, which takes FOREVER, but it’s a start.

I started thinking the other day about the chores that we’ll have them do when they get older. See when I was a kid we had a daily chore chart where after dinner one kid would clear the table which meant taking the plates from the table to the kitchen counter and maybe putting leftovers in tupperware, while another kid scraped and loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and another collected and took out the trash. We also mowed and edged the lawn each week and did a few other things (upon writing this I realize that I got off pretty easy and may need to send my parents a thank you note).

The idea of these chores, I’m sure was to build in us a work ethic, an understanding of what it means to take care of yourself and yadda, yadda, yadda.

But here’s the thing; what chores do girls do? I mean, I feel bad when my wife takes out the trash because (and I’m sorry if this sounds sexist) it feels like something she as a woman shouldn’t be doing. Her tolerance for messiness is just a little lower than mine, but that’s another post.

Is it ok/normal/socially acceptable to have my daughters mow the lawn?

Can I expect them to change the oil on our pickup truck (by the way, I’ve never owned a pick up truck, nor do I know how to change the oil on one)?

Am I perpetuating some sort of cycle of chauvinism by assigning them chores like laundry, dish washing and vacuuming?

I want my girls to know that they can do anything they want and I don’t want them to feel like they need to depend on anyone for anything, but I also want them to be tender and maternal and feminine.

Help me friends. What chores do girls do?

UpStreet

I don’t really edit video.

But I can create videos like the one below.

It’s a cheap trick that I use often.

Alex Trebek makes 10 Million Dollars a year

The fact that Alex Trebek makes a lot of money has nothing to do with this post. It’s just something I read while looking up how to spell his name.

A few days ago I wrote a blog post about how I had a head full of useless information. A friend of mine, Mike Berk, who’s blog you should totally check out (you can do so here), commented and asked what my ideal Jeopardy categories were.

I thought I’d answer that question in a post.

So here it is. Of course just like the game, there can only be 6 categories:

1. Chicago Bulls of the early 90′s – from BJ Armstrong, to Craig Hodges and of course, Will Purdue I was obsessed with this team. The Lakers were lousy (sorry Sedale Threatt, Nick Van Exel and Cedric Ceballos) and Michael Jordan was a superhero.
2. Sitcoms – Really from the 80′s on I can name plot lines, characters, and sing a theme song. Like I said earlier, I watched a lot of TV
3. San Francisco Giants – I’m obsessed.
4. Movies – My wife hates playing Scene it with me.
5. Wrestling in the 1980′s – Hulk Hogan was a childhood hero of mine (there, I said it). I saw him fight the Iron Sheik, listened as he lost the heavyweight title to the Ultimate Warrior (it used to be that if you tried to watch pay per view but hadn’t paid for it you could here it, but they blurred out the picture); I even cried when that happened, and even tuned into his reality show for a while. I was about 19 when I could freely admit that wrestling was fake.
6. BoyzIIMen – Nate, Mike, Shawn and Wanya; I know every song, own every album (excluding their series of remakes of standards) and have sung along on nearly every road trip I’ve ever been on. Micah Foster and I also may have sung some of their songs to impress girls as well.

So there it is, my ultimate Jeopardy category list; I would clean up!

What’s your list?

 

 

 

 

A large amount of knowledge about stuff that doesn’t matter

I grew up watching a lot of TV. Like, a lot of TV. I never really thought it was an issue until college when I would casually name off the entire cast of Saved by the Bell and people around me thought I was insane.

I mean, surely everyone knows that Lark Voorhies played Lisa Turtle or that Dennis Haskins played Mr. Belding. Certainly everyone knows that there was a pre-cursor to Saved by the Bell called, “Good morning, Miss Bliss” staring the great Haley Mills and all of the kids were in Jr. High in Indiana rather than High School in LA. Everyone knows that right?

Well of course not. People don’t know that the voice of Lisa Simpson was also a star on a short lived FOX sitcom called Herman’s Head or that the original ‘Jennifer’ in Back to the Future was replaced by Elizabeth Shue for the next two installments. People don’t really care that I can sing the theme song word for word to “Full House,” “Family Matters” and “Perfect Strangers.”

If only there was a way to market this skill. Or better yet, wouldn’t be awesome if I could replace all this useless information with stuff that matters?

What about you?

What’s useless trivia is floating around in your head?

What is your worship leader really thinking?

I get to lead worship at my church on a fairly regular basis. I love it. I love engaging people and helping people connect with God.

I also love the challenge of leading worship with the unchurched person in mind and and with the goal of involving as many people as I can. Over the last couple of years as I’ve become more aware of what I’m doing and saying, my thought process has changed considerably while leading. Because of that I thought I’d share with you a list of a few of the things that I think about while leading worship.

1) Ooh, the band sounds really good today.

2) I could use more of my guitar in my monitor

3) I wonder what these people are thinking?

4) Why aren’t you singing? Do you not like to sing or can you just not follow me?

5) uh, ma’am, you’re clapping on the wrong beat.

6) man, I love this song!

7) Did I forget to check my zipper?

8) God, you are amazing!

9) oops, that wasn’t the right chord.

10) I really need to drop a few pounds

11) God, you really are awesome!

12) I wonder if what I just said makes sense.

What are you thinking during worship?

Worship leaders, what goes through your head while leading?

Fun with youtube

I don’t know much about video editing. I do what I can with a limited knowledge base. Since I don’t have a video guy on my team, however, I have to find promo videos from outside sources; pre-made stuff I can purchase or things I can contract out. Sometimes, however, I venture into the world of quick videos that I think are funny. Mostly I just rip stuff off of youtube and add a funny tagline.

So begins as series of these videos that you get to watch.

This is for one of our Children’s ministry environments called Waumba Land.

This is Church. Why are you talking?

On most Sundays I don’t get a chance to actually sit in the crowd. I’m either on stage or in the production booth or walking around checking on various aspects of our Sunday services. This Sunday, however, I got the chance to sit for a few moments during the message and take it in the same way as the rest of the crowd.

I grabbed a seat in the back and took it in. The process was made challenging, because unbeknownst to me, I sat just a few seats down from the noisy church attender. If you’ve been around church for any length of time you’ve heard this person lurking in the shadows. At some point in time they were told that participation during the message is encouraged and so they dive in.

The person I was next to got progressively more enthused, jumping from the subtle, “hmmm” to the uncomfortable-for-everyone-around-her groan; you know, the “I agree” statement that comes from the lower intestine. It has a little bit of grunt mixed with the surprise of the statement from the communicator and with a pinch of growl. The person I sat next to eventually was saying full sentences and was clearly heard by people nearby. To the noisy church attender, though, the comfort of others is of little concern, it seems. Maybe the NCA thinks everyone should be talking back; perhaps that they are not means that they are the strange ones.

I found myself getting a little annoyed by the end of the message. I was a little embarrassed for my row-mate and wanted to stop the whole service to say, “pipe down weirdo!” Perhaps that would have been the wrong approach.

What do you think?

Are you a noisy church attender?

Do you get annoyed with the person near you who responds as if the preacher is talking to them?

Remember that guy from Braveheart?

I’m not sure why, but I love that this poster is in Spanish. It being in Spanish has nothing to do with this post.

My wife and I went to see “We Bought a Zoo” for Valentine’s day this week and I loved it. It doesn’t take much to make me cry in recent years, especially stories about a dad and his kids, and this movie was no different. Here are a couple of things I loved about this movie:

1) ‘All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage and I promise you something great will come of it.’  - this was a theme that ran throughout and I love the way that they bring it to life. A cool concept to bring into my own life.

2) Matt Damon is really good - I don’t really think of him often as a favorite of mine, but all he does is make great movies. The guy is a stud and in a different kind of role for him I’m a big fan.

3) I am apparently a huge Cameron Crowe Fan - It snuck up on me, I guess, but I love everything this guy does; Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Elizabethtown (underrated) and now We bought a zoo (though I still have no idea what to do with Vanilla Sky).

4) Robert the Bruce is in this movie - remember the guy that was friends with Mel Gibson and then betrayed Mel Gibson and then took over for Mel Gibson in Braveheart? He’s in this flick! He has a smaller part and is very entertaining, but the entire time I thought, “I haven’t seen this dude in anything since Braveheart.” I’m not sure why, but I enjoy knowing that actors that I liked from movies are still working. It would be sad for me to think of Robert the Bruce waiting tables at Denny’s or something.

All in all, it was great, and we saw it at the cheap theatre which, although quite disgusting, was very inexpensive. This is a flick that you should definitely check out.

We Love Our Volunteers

 

We are currently saying thank you to our volunteers at church. It’s a great chance for us as staff and leaders to let those who serve on our teams know how much we appreciate them. I am constantly blown away by how much people will give to the church in terms of their time and energy. I’ve seen plumbers, contractors, doctors, lab technicians, college students and people out of work give their all to the church. Men and women who get here early, stay late and really work hard to do what we ask them because they care.

So to our volunteers I say THANK YOU! Not only could I not do my job without this great group of people, but it would just be a lot less fun!