The Revolution

Sometimes it's a mad house around here.  This is an actual skype conversation I had with Glen. Today. About 5 minutes ago. Please feel free to amuse yourself at our expense.

[12:22:35 PM] Lindsey Newsome: if i had tweeter my hashtags for right now would be

#isitnaptimeyet

#pleaserescueme

#therevolultionhasbegun

and that's why i don't have twitter, because i write things like tweeter. #notatechie

[12:25:24 PM] Lindsey Newsome: #iamusemyhusband

[12:25:25 PM] Glen Newsome: the revolution has begun?

[12:25:28 PM] Glen Newsome: lol

[12:26:37 PM] Lindsey Newsome: the children staged a cu ku coo, whatever, they staged it

[12:26:49 PM] Lindsey Newsome: especially the climber

[12:27:09 PM] Lindsey Newsome: he's the ringleader, don't be fooled . . .the oldest is just the spokesperson

[12:27:26 PM] Glen Newsome: coup de ta

[12:27:39 PM] Glen Newsome: you are really funny right now

[12:27:57 PM] Glen Newsome: I think Anna is the ringleader

[12:28:05 PM] Glen Newsome: the boo behind the curtain

[12:28:59 PM] Lindsey Newsome: that's because they've destroyed the house and driven me mad

[12:30:06 PM] Glen Newsome: and you've retreated to skype and let the house fall?

[12:30:31 PM] Lindsey Newsome: yes, though in a new development i took a tiny hostage

[12:30:38 PM] Glen Newsome: lol

[12:30:40 PM] Lindsey Newsome: i straped him to my back and gave him a banan

[12:30:42 PM] Lindsey Newsome: banana

[12:30:54 PM] Lindsey Newsome: i think i'll be able to make him talk

[12:31:10 PM] Glen Newsome: what information do you plan to get out of him?

[12:31:52 PM] Lindsey Newsome: the location of their headquarters and their next plan of attack

[12:32:12 PM] Glen Newsome: I think he will be difficult to break

[12:33:00 PM] Lindsey Newsome: if he won't crack, i'll just put him in a small wooden cell and let him sleep until 4

[12:33:08 PM] Glen Newsome: good plan

[12:33:12 PM] Lindsey Newsome: by then, he'll be calling my name!

[12:33:18 PM] Lindsey Newsome: begging to talk

[12:33:25 PM] Glen Newsome: lol

 [12:34:31 PM] Lindsey Newsome: my location has been compromised! this might be the end. I love you!

[12:34:41 PM] Glen Newsome: I love you!

tiny hostage.

Motivation Monday

A few links to encourage a thankful heart.

1. Here is a great something from nothing story. If you're feeling like something is impossible, check out this movie based on the life of  Dr. Ben Carson.  He was born into poverty, raised by a single mother with only an elementary education, and he became one of the greatest neurosurgeons the world has ever known. Dr. Carson was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins. He recently retired from a 36 year career at Johns-Hopkins where he was director of pediatric neurosurgery and a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center. What an inspiring and amazing man! You can read more about him here if you don't have time for a movie.

 


 2. I am so thankful for my "boring" husband! I posted this link on facebook a little while back. As I've been reflecting on some things I am thankful for, my sweet husband is at the top of the list. We don't have an exciting story, it wouldn't make a good movie, but it's ours and it's perfect. Glen and I met when we were young, we married young and we had kids young. We've moved 5 times in 8 years and we had 3 kids in 4 years. We've been up all night with babies, we've hiked in the rural mountains of China, we've stood watch in the hospital over loved ones, we've sat on the couch holding hands on Saturday nights, and we've grown in love and commitment for one another. Thank you Lord for blessing me with this man that isn't afraid to work hard for his family while striving to be the best husband and father. Here's a picture when we were still dating  . . .






3. Who doesn't love free printables?? These are super cute. I can't wait to print the Christmas ones for the open house . . .I know y'all are going to look for them!




 4. After going overseas for the first time I felt like my eyes were opened in a whole new way. The world is so much bigger and so much smaller than I realized. It was bigger and more beautiful and more real than I could have fathomed sitting on my cushy couch, in my temperature regulated home, with my refrigerated food and clean water. And yet it is small, because I met people that loved and smiled and hurt and ached and laughed and cried, just. like. me. Just Like Me. Just like Glen and just like my family. They had goals for the children to grow up and be better than themselves. The experiences have changed me, and as my cushy couch life and my third world country life collide, I've had difficulty reconciling the two. Just recently we filled up shoe boxes with toys, toiletries, and school supplies from The Dollar Store for operation Christmas child. I love doing it, I loved sharing the experience with my girls and allowing them to take ownership in helping someone else. And then as we were packing the boxes I began to wonder if the children receiving the gifts might be the very ones that made those toys. And I was horrified. And saddened. And I felt guilty that we probably daily contribute to child labor and slavery. I don't know a good resolution to this problem, but it's not something I want to ignore. We support the International Justice Mission who works to end slavery and human trafficking and provides care and support to those who have been freed. I also just read this blog post about ethical shopping and I want to incorporate that more into our lives. So, if your Christmas present looks something like this, don't be surprised. P.S. it's from Johari Creations, check it out.



5. Sometimes the holidays are tricky with families. Sometimes it's stressful. Sometimes it's not so nice. I'm so thankful that usually things are quite peaceful around our house. But here are some tips to make sure it stays that way, and doesn't turn into this.




6. I sure am thankful for laughter, especially funny stories from friends. A dear nursing mama friend of mine is winding down the process. She bought some cabbage to help with the process. Later, she got a text from her husband around lunchtime. He was wondering why the lettuce on his sandwich tasted funny. . .




And here is a funny of my own . . .he wasn't too thrilled about me taking the picture before helping him get out.

7. Need some last minute recipe ideas for incoming guests? Check out these 12 make-ahead recipes! I made the breakfast casserole and the sticky buns this week and they were both ah.maz.ing. I mean I ate that breakfast casserole 3 meals a day for 2 days it was that good! Don't judge. I just wish I had taken a picture of the sticky buns, they turned out great too, and so super easy!! They are both now go to recipes.


8. Happy Thanksgiving y'all . . .may it be filled with Thanksliving!

 

	A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the LORD, he is God!  It is he who made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations Psalm 100:1-5

All about the Pentiums (Confessions pt 2)

All about the Pentiums (Confessions pt 2)

*Warning the following post involves a lot of Dilbert comics*

As you all know I have a weird sense of humor. It’s largely the result of these two influences:

Marx Brothers

Abbott & Costello

I could get into why I love them so much and why I find them so entertaining but that is a post for another time. However, I will say that I got my appreciation for them from my Papa. With my particular personality type (INTJ) I have tendency to retreat into my own mind pretty quickly. I also have a tendency to entertain myself with other people. Hence the following stories from when I worked at megabank.

Interviews:

So while working at Mega Bank we were purchased by  Even Larger Bank. I appreciated the irony since it happened less than 2 months after our CEO made a big show of going to all the major sites specifically to stress the point that the company was not for sale.

With the merger, even though there was an almost 100% likely hood our department would be eliminated, we got to double the size of our department via temps.

My boss, not being technically oriented, choose me to scan the resumes, conduct phone interviews, & on-site interviews and eventually send the precious few to her for a final decision. I enjoyed this since it gave me a break from the phones and presented a new challenge. What questions do I want to ask during an interview? 

There were the obvious relevant technical questions to see if they really knew what they were talking about.  Then there were questions about stress management & previous work experience and then came the hogwash questions.These are random questions I would ask with a straight face mainly for my own amusement. By the time I got to this part in the interview I had already made my decision to pass that person on to my boss or not.

What is your greatest  weakness? I would ask this mainly to watch people squirm. After all how do you answer that question in a way that makes your weakness a good thing? 

Why are manhole covers round? I got a different answer to this question every time.

What kind of animal would you be? Best Answer: Koala. Reasoning: They are cute, cuddly, and they like to wrestle. Note that this answer came from my friend Cody. I hired him.

My favorite question:

Who would win in a fight a hurricane or Chicago Bears football coach Mike Ditka? Ditka What if it was Hurricane Ditka? Best Answer:  That would be WW3.

Over the experience of interviewing and recommending people to be hired was very beneficial to see what it was like on the other end. I ended up with more hits than misses and the first 3 people hired were with us until the very end of their contracts and did an excellent job throughout.

Fierce Gaze

One of the first three that I hired was my friend Cody. I hired him because I knew he would show up on time, work very hard, and do as he was told. Cody is very laid back and jovial, a tremendous asset to the overall mood of the department.

As the team lead every morning I went to a turnover meeting. No, this was not a meeting with delicious pastries, which would have been awesome. This was a meeting with all the other IT departments where blame was shifted around about whose fault yesterday’s disaster was. It was about as fun as you might think.The first couple of times I went to this meeting I was woefully naïve & unprepared. Everything ended up being my departments fault. Lesson learned. So I finally created a report that covered all the bases for my department with print outs and started appearing at the meetings with this. After the third department tried to blame us for something and was refuted with printed out evidence they stopped trying to blame stuff on the helpdesk. 

When Cody was hired I trained him. This meant he went with me to these meetings. Even Larger Bank employees were popping up all over the place by this time and they were never introduced. They typically scowled a lot and their appearance meant layoffs. Before the first meeting I told Cody that would not introduce him to anyone and that I needed him to look very serious and occasionally frown at people as they were talking.  When two departments would start bickering over stuff I would have him lean in and whisper something in my ear or write furiously on his legal pad that he had for this specific purpose.

I would give him an Emmy for his performance in those meetings. The terrified looks people would get when he frowned/whispered/scribbled were priceless. This went on for days until one of the network engineers figured it out. He kept the secret but shortly after that the rest of them realized he was just a temp and not the grim reaper of layoffs. It was hilarious, or at least I thought so. 

- Glen

They only move forward

They only move forward

So, me and my buddies used to play this game:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroscape

You built a map and then drafted an army and would try to either defeat the other armies and/or achieve your objective. You could build some really cool looking maps.

However, with a game like this you would have to set everything up on a different day then when you actually played it or you spent more time in setup than you did in actual game play. My friend the Swoosh always had a very interesting strategy with his units “They only move forward” he would say.  I think it worked more often then it didn’t and it was always quite entertaining. The tendency in a game like this, and life in general, was to avoid risks and playing not to lose vs. playing to win. Pretty profound thought from a board game but God has filled our lives with teachable moments some more obvious than others. 

Tennis Shoes and a Suit

I’ve had a speed impediment my entire life (still do) but I was in speech classes for most of elementary school and I learned a lot of tips/tricks to deal with it. It’s only noticeable if you spend a lot of time with me. I also discovered via PE and attempting to play sports that I was horribly uncoordinated. When puberty hit it brought with it some rather severe “flash” migraines. Imagine having the collective pain of an entire migraine in roughly 30 seconds in the form of a pulsating wave that drives you to your knees and ends with you vomiting. These were usually triggered by motion like running, tennis, basketball, swinging, trampolines, etc. I would talk to Doctors about them but not really get an answer and since they were sporadic I just learned to deal with them. I equally have spent most of my life feeling nauseous more often than not especially first thing in the morning.  I never thought all these things were related.

Late 2000 I started getting a tingling in my pinkies kind of like when your foot falls asleep only milder and it wouldn’t go away. I also started having more co-ordination issues than normal. My girlfriend (now wife) bugged me enough to see a doctor about it. I was thinking that being an IT guy that Carpal Tunnel had come early. I was wrong. After a few months of testing, x-rays, and one rather amusing test that involved strapping me to a chair and shocking my arms to watch nerve conduction they scheduled an MRI for me. 

 I was diagnosed with this: Chiari 1 Malformation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiari_malformation#cite_note-Conquer_Chiari.2C_Connective_Tissue_Disorders-9

To spare you all the medical mumbo jumbo my brain is too large for my skull.  It explains all my various assorted symptoms and even ones I never thought much about. So within 2 weeks of diagnosis in April of 2001 I had this done:

http://www.mayfieldchiaricenter.com/chiari_surgery.php

I don’t mention all this to gain sympathy. In fact I’ve been resistant to write much about it or share it a lot specifically for that fact. It’s something I’ve learned to live with and in the list of things to have there are much much worse things. I’ve been blessed with the ability to live a normal life minus restrictions.

http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Neurological-Disorders/Activities-to-avoid-with-Chiari-and-Syringomyelia/show/986?cid=186

http://community.pressenter.net/~wacma/bhm-list.htm

As a bonus I have a medically documented reason to always wear Tennis shoes and casual clothing.  Most days it doesn’t bother me that much and I run about 80% of capacity. When the situation calls for it I can usually push past that with Caffeine & Ibuprofen but there is usually a price to pay for how long I do it and how much down time I will have after that. So for the month of October I pretty much ran at full throttle almost every day with everything we had going on. That finally came home to roost this week and it’s been rough and I have spent most of this week feeling sorry for myself and angry at my body and ultimately God for letting me be born this way and not removing it even though I have prayed about it repeatedly across the last 12 years or so.

Then the Lord used Agents of Shield (one of my 2 favorite shows this year along with CW’s excellent Arrow) to put me back in my place and remind me that His grace is enough.  

Quotes from Agents of Shield: Episode 6

*Agent May is looking at huge scar on Agent Colson as a result of a previous mission in which he almost died*

Agent May: "Whether it was 8 seconds or 40, you died. There's no way you can go through a trauma like that and not come out of it changed. You know how long it's taken me to --"

Agent Coulson: "I know."

Agent May: "The point of these things is to remind us that ... There is no going back -- there's only moving forward. You feel different because you are different."

It hit me right in my wheelhouse.

The Thorn in the Flesh

⁷ And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. ⁸ Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. ⁹ And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God fills our lives with teachable moments, some more obvious than others. Thanks Lord. 

- Glen

1 Week Post Move

There was little while this past week that I wondered if we were going to make it out alive. But here we are. It started with Sam and a 104.9 fever the night before we were scheduled to move. Pitiful, right?

Then a fast and furious move with sick kid in tow. We are super thankful for all the wonderful friends and family that helped. We are so blessed.

Next, the kids christened this house with vomit, diarrhea, bruises, and blood. Welcome home.

But we had some good times too.

Like Boston won the World Series.

A spontaneous pajama/pumpkin conga line.

A smiley pumpkin.

A Redsox fan pumpkin.

It was quiet. You know that's a bad sign with a toddler. This is what I found. A little climber. He pulled out the chair and climbed up and onto the table to eat his sister's leftover mac n cheese. Busted.

I have about a thousand boxes left to unpack and ambitious plans to have an open house at the beginning of next month . . .but hey, I finally wrote a blog post right? ;)