No one ever "finds" time - it must be made.

The last few weeks have been a little weird for me. I took a break from school until next spring. I also have very little additional duties at work. So with the little that I have to do, I have learned a few interesting things about myself.


1. Despite my best efforts, I am still a workaholic. I am completely uncomfortable not having "too much on my plate." This is especially true with my job.


2. If I don't have things I have to get done, I am extremely tempted to do things that have absolutely no meaning in them (TV, games, blogging - ha!).


3. Any lack of deep relationship with my family and friends isn't caused by being too busy. It's caused by being relationally challenged. I actually have a very hard time putting down work or activities just to look another in the eyes, talk about life and each other, and being known by another.


4. When I slow and calm myself down enough to relate with others I realize my "business" has made me too busy to know myself. One can't share what one doesn't know.

Thank God for His grace both to reveal my weaknesses and to allow His power to change me.

Forever and just a moment ago

Mrs. Pipes and I celebrated our 9th year of marriage on Thursday. We took the morning (because I had to work later) to drive up the beautiful Summerhaven on the iron horse to enjoy some fresh, fresh air and stone oven pizza. It was a great time together.

We got caught in the rain for the second time coming down the mountain. That's just another highlight that we have no pictures for.

You load 14 tons and what do ya get?

These are belated pictures are of the yard work last week. Special thanks to everyone appearing below, Changing Times Travis (who came on a very busy day and weekend, put in at least two hours of hard labor at the Sickels minimum security prison), and Don (who lent the use of shovels and a good wheel burrow). You'll have to come over for dinner if you want to see the yard (mostly) finished.

The one of Dean and me is the ceremonial last shovel full.

Thank you, Nori, for taking the pictures.

Thank you, Candi, for encouraging me to not quit.

Thank you, God, for healing us all up and giving us great rest for recovery..

God's in it all

I've had a good 2nd week of "vacation". We are putting rock in our backyard, which until this point has been dirt and weeds. The plan was to get some dirt to fill the holes, remove all the weeds, get the sprinkler system set just the way we want it and get the rock on Thursday morning.

I've been amazed at how God has been there every step of the way to help me finish this. The first two days I worked mostly alone. The weather was hot but cloudy almost all day so I could keep working.

On Wednesday Candi put school on hold to help and Candi's dad, Dean, who arrived Wednesday morning, helped, too. The McKee's are a hard workin' family. The bad part is that it rained hard for half the day. The cool part is that God, knowing that it was going to rain, turned it into 3 vs. the yard.

The Wednesday rain seemed to be a problem at first. I had to postpone the rock delivery, in fear that they would tear the whole yard up with wet ground. In reality, though, I wasn't ready for it yet anyway. I pushed the delivery off until tomorrow and was able to get everything else from the to-do list done.

Once again, my time table wasn't in accordance with God's, but as always, His worked better! And He's involved in the little things.

Day 6

Well, I fell behind on the last day of vacation and couldn't post the days events. Actually, it's because I was driving from 7pm until 3 am.

So this is how that day went. We left my cousins late, around 9:30 or 10, after an unusual dead battery experience. I'm glad God took care of us there. I would have hated for it to be the alternator or something worse.

Then we drove to Bible John's abode in Burbank. After surveying his pad and seeing some of the work he does in the Hollywood business we headed out for some fresh air. Our first stop was to eat. But our second stop was IKEA. This was our first time there. I had heard a ton about it from our friends but never felt the desire to go in. John said the place is cursed - no one enters without buying something (actually, he said one cannot enter without buying a lot more than one actually came for). I have to say that IKEA was one of the vacation highlights... I'll leave it at that.

Our next stop was a railroad engine museum. We expected Wyatt to really like it, but in reality that was an understatement. He loved it. There's pictures below.

Finally, we went to Griffith Park, which actually has a lot of things in it, but we played at the playground.

Overall the day was awesome. Any time I get to spend with John is good time. The weather was beautiful. The kids had an great time.

In closing, Nori and Christian made me so proud. They had somewhat of an allowance on our vacation and they had both saved most of it. Nori decided to buy Wyatt a $10 Thomas the Train toy and Bubba asked out of the blue if he could buy Wyatt ice cream at the park. I'm cheesing now just thinking about how proud I am that they would consider others so much.