Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: Calvary, cars, church, communications, concerts, faith, life, marketing, money, travel, vacation, work
I’ve been dealing with money issues lately. Hasn’t everybody?
For me, it’s been this insatiable desire for stuff. We stayed at this old hotel in Reedley, CA that had all this cool, antique furniture. What got me though was the high-def TV in our room. On the drive back from the Sequoias, we stopped in at Circuit City in Bakersfield and I was seriously tempted to just buy a huge TV on the spur of the moment. Even after experiencing all of the beauty of God’s creation and spending a week getting to know some amazing people on a deeper level – all I really wanted in that moment was a great, big TV.
Then on Saturday, we met up with Leslie’s family at a classic car show in San Pedro with these amazing old cars and bikes. I left wanting to get a 1932 Model A hot rod truck, dropped and chopped with a big, exposed engine and white-wall tires. We then met up with my brother and his family at the OC Auto Show, where we also got to see a free Sugar Ray show. I left wanting about a dozen cars, but if forced to choose – I would settle for a 2009 Challenger.
On Sunday, I spent time in the afternoon looking online at new digital cameras after all the glitches we’ve been having with our old one. I could feel my lust for stuff spiraling out of control.
My money issues escalated today as I spent most of the afternoon working through budget numbers at work. The budget I’m in charge of for communications and creative arts is $100,000.00. That’s a small percentage of the church’s total budget, but it still represents the donations of thousands of people. It’s an awesome responsibility that I don’t take lightly.
The irony of it all hit me when I came home tonight to get a letter in the mail regarding our property tax that states that our home is now worth nearly $100,000.00 less than what we agreed to pay for it a mere 2 1/2 years ago.
In the midst of the current financial crisis the nation is experiencing, I can’t help but think that the root of it all is a priority crisis. I fee like I need to go on a spending fast and make sure my priorities are in the right place. I need to figure out if I really do believe that it all belongs to God. Not just the budget at work, but my own budget at home. My prayer is that I would be a good steward of whatever God decides to entrust to me and not get caught up in the constant striving for stuff.
I’ve bought more than my fair share of Ikea furniture. I’ve mastered the do-it-yourself construction process to the point where I hardly need the wordless instruction set.
I’ve also gotten to a point where the painful labor and time draining experience of building Ikea furniture and then watching it fall apart within a couple years has begun to outweigh the benefit of Ikea furniture cheapness.
So, when I got the email from my mom saying that Ikea is now going to sell cars and had the pictures below that show Ikea’s first production model … I could really relate.
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Pack includes:
I feel like I’m officially in my 30s now. I turned 31 on Monday. Looking back, there were a lot of things about my 20s that I regret and I have a feeling that my 30s are going to be a much better decade. It’s just a feeling. You can ask me when I turn 40 if it actually worked out that way.
As I wrote earlier my beautiful wife Leslie surprised me with a rented Dodge Charger for our get away to Vegas. It was so much fun. We stayed at Planet Hollywood, which had a lot of nice design choices. On Monday we did some shopping, checked out the Red Rock Resort in Vegas, went cruising through the Red Rock national conservation area, had dinner at Trader Vic’s on the strip and saw Stomp. The whole day was just really good and I’m so thankful that I have a wife who has an adventurous spirit and puts the thought into planning things like this.
Speaking of adventurous – today we took advantage of the amazing weather and drove out to Trabuco Canyon. It’s such a gorgeous drive. If you take a turn at Cook’s Corner and go just past O’Neil park, there is a ROUGH dirt road that leads about 4 miles to a hiking trail for Holy Jim Falls. Doing this in my Rodeo was an absolute blast. I couldn’t stop smiling as we bounced along and held on tight over all the rocks, through the creeks and around the gnarly corners. We drove most of the way in and then hiked for a bit, stopping for lunch next to one of the smaller waterfalls.
I think hiking is going to be one of the keys to getting back in good shape this year and feeling younger as I get older (I’m down 20 lbs since Jan 1 and 50 lbs in the last year). But, I may need to find a better hiking partner as Leslie is definitely a city girl. Hiking around the mall is heaven for her – hiking up the side of a mountain, not so great ; )
