You and your dear Ivy

MM#90 Dancing in the Minefields, Andrew Peterson [New]

H/T to my friend and regular reader @BooksForMe who posted this song on my Facebook...and nailed it.

I was nineteen, you were twenty-one

The year we got engaged

Everyone said we were much too young

But we did it anyway

We bought our rings for forty each

From a pawn shop down the road

We said our vows and took the leap

Now fifteen years ago

Yeah. I was nineteen when I got engaged.  (Which made a very interesting conversation on my 20th birthday two weeks later.)  And, yeah, people questioned our readiness.  My youth, how far I was away from getting The Job™, how things had went with her last relationship, etc.  But we did it anyway...We said our vows and took the leap.

And we went dancing in the minefields

We went sailing in the storms

And it was harder than we dreamed

But I believe that's what the promise is for

I underestimated the challenge.  I overestimated myself.  And it was harder than we dreamed.

'Cause He promised not to leave us

And His promises are true

So in the face of all this chaos, baby, I can dance with you

With everything I've been through, I can tell you that God has been with our family.  He hasn't forsaken us.  But often He's let us go through enough to remind me that I'm not all that.

believe me, I havent figured out a song that fits you better

MM#51 Second Chance, Shinedown [Xanga 2009 Aug 17]

There are two songs that are atop the list of Monday Melodies.  One won a weird bracket competition that my brother and I ran years ago.  This is the other one.

You know the sign that says, "Teenagers!  Move out while you know it all!"  Well, when I was 20, I thought I knew it all.  And I had a bachelor's degree to boot.  And I was in love.  And I was, to a degree, arrogant, naive, and stupid.

Some of my friends and family discussed their concerns with me.  I blew them off.  They declined to attend my wedding.  That hurt.

I burned some bridges that weekend in April.  And it took a long time for some of them to be rebuilt.  Years.

"Tell my mother, Tell my father. 
I've done the best I can. 
To make them realize. This is my life. 
I hope they understand
I'm not angry.  I'm just saying
Sometimes goodbye is a second chance."


HBD Rachel.

Colonel's Toyota, sans radio

MM#2 Someday, Out of the Blue, Elton John [Xanga 2007 October 15]

As the MM clock ticks towards current time, we move to the 11 months where I was a double-bachelor.  (BS, Compsci & Unmarried).

"Well, a lot changes in a few months for a man who falls in love with a woman.  Especially when it's love unrecognized, followed by love lost (x 2).  And during that crazy summer - oh, and trust me, it was crazy - this song haunted me.  Something about it being a big hit in the summer of 2000.  I told my brother, "I hear this one more time, and I'll tear the stereo right out of this truck...oh, wait, it's Grandpa's truck...never mind..." "  - Excerpt from blog 15 October 2007

Yeah, pretty simply, I had one more chance with that friend from Iowa.  And with our paths crossing as often as they did (church, choir, Mom's sewing business)...maybe it was inevitable.  Maybe it was destiny.  Maybe it was...but that's a comment for another blog.
By mid-June 2000, things were back to the way they were before my East Coast trip.  (Long story).  And you put two good friends together that much...sometimes...

Where those years have gone

MM#74 I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack [Xanga 2011 Sep 5]

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,

Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,

Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance, 

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance...

Lee Ann Womack, "I Hope You Dance"

I had a few very good friends in college.

"He wasn't a great friend.  He was a lifelong friend."

POTUS, Clear and Present Danger (film)

I exchanged gifts with one of those friends upon my graduation.  I gave her a biography of a recently deceased person who had the same first name.  She gave me a CD of Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance."

First...even at the shindig / formal dance events, I was the guy who sat out a lot of dances.  Heck, I remember one party where I was talking to the dog.  I've never been good at social functions like that.

Second...yeah.  After sixteen years, the idealistic me has been kicked to the curb, with a sadder but wiser and scar-covered me.

But...as sappy as this song is, it's ok.  There are songs that exemplify perseverance (see MM#8, later this year.)  But there's some that discuss the attitude.  The love and wonder and all that sappy stuff...that we actually need.  That makes the journey worth taking.

Thanks, Cassie.

Steve,
People with such strength in faith and the blinding light of Christ in their hearts will never be unimportant or invisible.  You have been such an inspiration in how to live a God-dependent life, I'm so thankful for your amazing presence, your friendship.  The future is never clear, but I know that God has you in His hands, He will lead you.  May He make your way clear, full of His peace.

3rd down, give Steve the ball

MM#79 The Boys of Fall, Kenny Chesney [Xanga 2011 Sep 26]

It's I got your number, I got your back

When your back's against the wall

You mess with one man, you got us all

The boys of fall

Some songs have a catch line that hits you long before you listen to the whole thing.  (Also see Carrie Underwood's "Change" - "You're just a fool, just a fool to believe you can change the world")  This one first caught my ear for the band-of-brothers / musketeers part of the chorus.

I have four brothers.  But, as it can be imagined, I've always been closest to my twin brother Robert.  We rocked the world.  (Sort of.)  We were legends.  (In our own minds.)  We were part of the greatest team ever.  (No, we won actually finished 2nd to those rascals from Maryville).

But from bike rides to mowing lawns to killing lawns playing backyard football to programming backyard football to programming classes...we were a great team.  He had my back many times, even after we went our separate ways.  And the day he offered his help in my darkest hour - I am eternally grateful to him.  And to a God who thought that I needed a friend from day 1.

"I kicked him out.  Then I got bored."  - Robert Pratt, on being the second-born twin.

@Romans_837:  I still think that @Romans_837 and @rjmarathon could rock the free world.

@rjmarathon: the whiz kids, amateur philosophers, political sports junkies, red team for apologetics, or just two dads with used minivans?

@Romans_837:  replacement and stunt double for World's Most Interesting Man™.

1,500th tweet.

So, after participating in something called #g5qs, where @GeneWillis asks (generally) 5 questions, and a bunch of tweeps answer most of them (I usually skip movie-related ones), I noticed I was at 1,499 tweets.  Thought I'd do something meta for 1,500.

Then I forgot about 1,500.

On Monday, July 18, Captain Dave Melton was shot and killed while responding to a call in Kansas City, Kansas.  The second cop-death in the Kansas City area in less than three months (the other one, Brad Lancaster, was also in KCK), and another one right after the ambushes in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

This one was different, because Captain Melton had served in the Kansas National Guard, including two year-long tours in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Captain Melton was going to be buried at Leavenworth National Cemetery.  (The same cemetery my grandparents are buried at.)  The procession was going to drive up from Childrens' Mercy Park (where Sporting KC plays soccer), up K-7 through Lansing, into Leavenworth, then a right turn on Muncie and to the cemetery.

Right past a home improvement retailer that pays me to wear an orange apron and find online orders.  Right in the middle of my shift.

@Romans_837 #1,500
"The procession for fallen KCKPD CPT Melton will go past my workplace while I'm at work tomorrow. @LVTimesNews (link to article)"

So...I was outside, helping a customer load their product into their vehicle when the first motorcycles drove by.  I called the store manager to let him know that the motorcade had started - but he was already out there.  The motorcade took somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes to pass.  I wasn't able to be outside for all of it, but...

Rest in peace, Captain Melton.

Change, measured by the five rings

My life is full of changes.  A friend once challenged me to think where I want to be in five years.  My supervisor wants me to think about where I want to go with my career.  (Let's start with learning a few more of the tools, getting full-time status, and being able to pick my hours)
But, using a regularly scheduled event as a metronome, let's look at how things have been in my life for the last five Summer Olympic Games.

The 2000 Olympics began in Sydney, Australia on 15 September 2000.  I lived with my parents and eight sibs (youngest wasn't born yet) on the west side of Leavenworth.  My mom had just started a sewing business with my girlfriend's mother, so I got opportunities to see my girlfriend and her daughter whenever my gf's mother (future m-i-l) would bring them down to sew.  I'd just started a temp job on Shawnee Mission Parkway, an assignment doing data entry that would last four months.  And I was borrowing my grandpa's gray Toyota truck.  "AIBUBAT"

The 2004 Olympics began in Athens, Greece on 13 August 2004.  I lived at the house I'd just bought in Severance a few months earlier.  My wife and our four children called that place home.  I was working down in Leavenworth as a computer programmer.  I'd hit a point where I wondered, "I'm 23, married w/4 kids, own a house, have a good job, what's left to conquer?"  We'd just bought a red Ford Windstar.

The 2008 Olympics began in Beijing, China on 8 August 2008.  Still lived in Severance with wife and four children.  Still worked down in Leavenworth as a computer programmer.  I was a day away from my fourth and final trip across the Pacific for the war games.  But by then, several challenges had hit me - my faith, finances, and relationship were all suffering badly.  This was the time I owned a old piece-of-junk gray Dodge Caravan (over 12 years old, held together by a shoelace and wire, pray to God it doesn't rain)

The 2012 Olympics began in London, United Kingdom on 27 July 2012.  Still lived in Severance with wife and four children.  Unemployed for over a year - it would be another six weeks before I landed the job as a call-center-from-home rep.  Ivy had a job working at the nearby nursing home.  By this point I'd hit a major low, with my faith, finances, relationship still troubled.  And other storms were on the horizon.  We had a blue Ford Aerostar (a really old one), but it was on the fritz so Ivy was borrowing her mom's car.

The 2016 Olympics begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 5 August 2016.  Living in the middle of Leavenworth with wife and four children.  I'm working part-time at a major retailer, my wife is working at the nearby grocery store.  (Between London and Rio, I've went from unemployed to call-center-from-home to retail to call-center back to retail.)  By the grace of God, I've survived some of the major storms of the last few years. Currently driving a gray Mercury Grand Marquis.
But, I've got no idea what's in the future.  Besides my children getting close to graduation, adulthood, etc...and, looking back, I've never had a clue what was coming up.
God be with me.