Labor Day

I don't remember the last time I blogged about my favorite holidays. I am sure I have in the past, but in honor of today, I will once again drop my top 5 on you. They are my favorites for various reasons, but not the greatest, but my rationale covers it. (That probably doesn't make sense in your head, but I know what I'm blogging)

5) Labor Day - It is always nice for the kids to get a day off right after school starts, and the consistency of it being the first Monday of EVERY September helps me not forget it. (That is a common theme among most of my favorite holidays) I also usually throw a pretty sweet cookout on LD also. 
4) Easter - This is a true holiday I am grateful for and is worthy to be on the list. Many people might think it should be first, but this is my list and my  reasons have little to do with the reason for the holiday and more to do with the day itself. Every Easter, my daughters get together with their cousins for a HUGE Easter Egg hunt. (Very spiritual) It is a fun time for the whole family.
3) Memorial Day - To me, Memorial Day is the Labor Day of the spring. It is almost the kickoff of summer and I LOVE summer. I cookout every Memorial Day and truly am excited for it.
2) Thanksgiving - TG used to be my favorite for years and years. AMAZING food, the Dallas Cowboys and a long weekend. I enjoy getting together with my whole family the day after TG at my house each year also. It is a tradition my wife and I started after we moved to Valpo. Such a great day! 
1) Fourth of July - Independence Day took the title this past year. I have always enjoyed the fun of the day, the warmth of the middle of summer, the food and fireworks. However, the past 2 years I've begun putting a LARGE fireworks show on for our church and that has moved this bad boy to #1.

So there you have it. Not deep or incredible, but a little insight on my thoughts and favorites. No intention of spiritual breakdown or respect of the day, otherwise Christmas, Veterans Day and St. Patty's would have made the cut. President's Day used to be in there too, but it's too commercialized now.

We shall see, we shall see.

I have decided for the tenth or eleventh time I will attempt to blog. Back in the previous decade I was a blogger of lore on MySpace. I would blog weekly with a decent group of readers (over 100) and we had a nice little community. Then Facebook hit and MySpace started dying. I don't hate Facebook for killing MySpace I hate Facebook for all kinds of reasons. It's in my earlier blog here. As my time at MySpace wore thin my blogging came an end as well. MySpace was my ego filler. I truly blogged waaaayyyy too much about myself and fed my ego to an enormous size. I eventually turned my blogs into a 1 copy book that is over 400 pages long. It is a beast. I guess it is like a public diary or journal. I enjoyed it greatly, but when it came time to part with MySpace, my heart never really bought back into blogging. Also the fact my readership dropped by 95% when I entered the indie blog circuit. I also missed the feedback. So here I return with another attempt to restart my blog. It will probably last a month or two and then fall off the planet. My conflict has been, do I blog for myself or others. That has a huge influence on my content. We shall see, we shall see.

I know my twitter account is pretty goofy. @dougjusttweeted I did a self-invented tweetrun of about 10 or more tweets in a row for 20 minutes. It was fun, but was much more blog worthy than tweet worthy. I may have wiped out a bunch of my tweet followers after that, or they may love me even more. And again I say, we shall see we shall see.

That Didn't Take Long...

It's funny how getting away from something for just a little while can catch up with you quickly. I guess my blog is a great example of that. I started to blog again and was having fun, but then after a few short days without blogging, it turned into weeks which later became months. I admit, I blog for various reasons, but I thought I was back on and sure enough I got off track. The point of all this? Our life is much like my blog. We have to pay attention to it. If we don't, it will get away from us. By that I mean, I life with God, our health, our finances, you name it, without attention and discipline, things get lost or out of control. No damage was done by me missing blogs, but it was a good reminder.


It's funny, I started blogging again to prepare for a blog on our church website, and now that it's ready for me I am not quite ready. I'll have to get a few more blogs like today to cover up some of my goofy ones from the past.

The Book Is Getting Closer

I have set a goal to write a book this year. Now this is not a normal book. This is a children's book. I came up with a concept for it about 3 years ago. The story is based off a character named "Irwin the Incredible." I have several other characters slightly planned for the book including his two best friends, his annoyingly perfect younger brother, his arch nemisis and "the girl." I am looking for inspirational kids books right now. Michael Ian Black has several kids books that I am looking into. My problem is I find myself trying to avoid being too much like Calvin and Hobbes or Phineas and Ferb. Oh well, I'll work on it, I am excited for it.

In Through Nose, Out Through Mouth

"In through nose, out through mouth. Don't forget to breath, very important Danielson." - the always wise Mr. Myagi

I had to remind myself of this today. Sometimes I get so busy that I forget to breath. Mr. Myagi was right. The "in through nose, out through mouth" is called a deep cleansing breath. I learned that in pregancy class. (I call it pregancy class because I don't know how to spell Lamaze) I am catching up with things, but I haven't put in this many hours in years and years. I know that the hard work and effort will be worth the cause.

I must admit, I can't wait for May!

A Saturday Night Blog

Us vs Them. I just saw a commercial that mentions Us vs Them. It was interesting because it is from our friends at PayLow who generously let us use their parking lot on Sunday mornings as an overflow. It just struck me funny to hear that phrase.

My Twitter account is rocking. I still have no followers, but dang I am funny with it. I don't announce everything I do, but I do put a few funny ones out there.

Today I announced a few of the movies that were based on my life. Here are a few:
The Dark Knight
Stomp the Yard
O Brother Where Art Thou
The Godfather
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Nacho Libre

I've never seen Stomp the Yard and I am watching O' Brother right now, so that could have a little influence on why it is on the list.

I've participated in a bunch of Fantasy Baseball Mock drafts to prep for my league draft in a few weeks. It's a lot of fun. I can't wait for Fantasy Baseball.

This is an old school goofy blog with no rhyme or reason. I guess it doesn't matter until my blog gets linked to the church website and then I'll have to make some sense.

Glorious

Yesterday was a pretty cool day. I got in my first mock draft for Fantasy Baseball, I did a few things around the house and I GRILLED STEAK! Yep, with snow all around in the middle of February. I typically pull the grill out in maybe late March, but usually April. This was so awesome. I know it's not a big deal to most, but for a freezing cold NW Indiana boy, it was a treasure. I probably won't grill again for a while, but this was a nice treat.