Running from the Cops

The day I turned 21, I knew I'd never have to worry about running from a police officer for the rest of my life.  A pretty safe assumption, considering I would never intentionally break the law.  Well, we all know what happens to people who ass-u-me.  We had a 'situation' at the Smith house recently which had me wondering if the police were going to be looking for me.  To tell this story, I'm going to borrow a Quentin Tarantino tactic and give you the ending first, then start back over to find out what happened to get us to that point.

Friday 12/9/11 7:22 PM, The Smith House

Maren: Do you think they are going to send a police car to the house?

Ken: Why do you ask?

Maren: Most of the time they'll send a cop to check!

Ken: I'm not sure, she didn't say what they were going to do.

Maren:  We need to get our story straight in case a cop shows up!

Ken: We know what happened, what do you mean "our story"?

Maren:  If a cop shows up, we need to make sure our stories match up.  On Law & Order they always talking about criminals having their story straight.  We don't want any differences in our stories that would make us sound suspicious..........

Friday 12/9/11 7:47am, A hospital in or around Raleigh, NC

A baby girl was born.  Not just any baby though, this was Emry's cousin, Maren's and my niece!  It was truly a joyous moment for the entire family...a healthy mother relieved to finally be able to hold her baby; a beautiful baby girl taking her first breaths of air all by herself; and a proud father letting the world know what had just taken place. 

Friday 12/9/11 8:21am, The High School  

Maren got a text message from the baby's father notifying her the baby arrived and mother was doing well.  Maren was so excited that she texted me right away to give me the details.  A few minutes later Maren began receiving an onslaught of texts and emails with congratulatory messages and pictures of her beautiful little niece.  The emails and texts would continue coming throughout the day.....

Friday 12/9/11 5:17pm, The Smith House

I arrived home from work to find Maren and Emry playing on the living room floor.  Maren asked if I'd seen pictures of our niece.  Since I had only seen one picture, we all went downstairs to check out the baby pictures on Maren's email. 

While Maren and I were ogling over the pictures, Emry decided she wanted to go upstairs.  Emry was about 3/4 of the way up and decided to turn around to come back down.  She got her legs tangled and started to fall backward down the stairs.  She fell one step down on her butt, which caused her to flip backward into the air.  I sprang from my chair faster than a NFL wide receiver and dove onto the stairs.  I caught Emry just before she crashed headfirst by scooping my hands under each of her shoulders and cradling her body against my chest. 

It was a perfect catch and everyone appeared to be okay.  However, the crying and screaming started instantly...and Emry was pretty upset too!  Maren and I really were pretty shaken up just thinking about how Emry could have seriously been injured.  At first we thought Emry was just upset because she got scared.  Upon further review, we noticed Emry had a red, puffy eye from where my knee bumped her head.  That must have happened when I was fighting for extra yardage after the catch.  Once everyone settled down, we decided to go out for Thai food.  Emry seemed cool with everything...or so we thought. 

Friday 12/9/11 6:37pm, Thai Papaya Cuisine

We ate a wonderful meal at our favorite Thai place.  Not much happened here, but we really like this place and I wanted to put a link to their website!  Maren ordered her favorite dish, Phad Thai.  I normally order the Green Curry but decided to try the Red Curry.  The green is better, but they are both delicious!  Emry had some steamed veggies, and was fascinated by the fish tanks.  Great service, friendly owner and great food!

Friday 12/9/11 7:19pm, The Smith House

We came back home and played with Emry on the living room floor.  Emry had a swollen bump by her eye and was still frazzled about the whole -Maren and I not paying attention to her and letting her fall down the stairs- situation.  Secretly, she had been formulating a plot to get back at us the whole time.  Emry stole my cell phone and went behind the living room chair.  I heard her angrily babbling into the phone, and I heard a confused voice coming from the other end.  I grabbed the phone and said "hello?"

Unknown Caller:  Hello, what is your emergency?!

Ken: Oh, sorry, er...my daughter was 'playing' with my phone and must have called you.

Unknown Caller: 911 emergency! Do you have an emergency?

Ken:  No...sorry again...not sure how she called you, but it was my mistake.

911 Operator:  Sometimes cell phones have a safety feature if you hold down the buttons it dials 911.  Give me your name so I can verify who and where this call is from....

The conversation lasted another minute and I hung up the phone.  Maren went into worrisome mom mode and said that 911 usually follows up on "accidental calls."  Maren had me convinced a police cruiser was going to pull up to our house any second.  We were in a bad position...I interrupted a 911 call from an injured child and our lame excuse was "she fell down the stairs." Anyone who's ever watched L&O SVU knows that's the #1 excuse bad parents give when they've abused their kids.  What should we do?   

Luckily, we never had to face that situation.  No detectives ever showed up to interrogate us.  We went to bed that night thanking the Lord for keeping Emry safe from serious injury and for blessing our family with a new baby niece.  We are truly grateful for the gifts our family has received and can't wait to meet our cute baby niece!

Things I Discovered about Fatherhood

Since we have a new baby niece in the family, I'm taking the opportunity to share some things I've learned about fatherhood, babies and other tactics I've picked up along the way.  I've limited myself to discussing things I discovered during the first 4 weeks of Emry's life, although I may add to the list in the future.  Hopefully this list will help the new baby-daddy adjust to life with a newborn...

1. Nipples and breasts - If your wife is nursing, these words will now appear in about of 95% of your daily conversations.  Its scary how quickly you'll become comfortable discussing your wife's nipple inflammation with your family, in-laws, friends, cashiers at Babies R Us, random strangers, etc.  If you can't get comfortable with this you can at least make it equally awkward for the other person by dropping "titty" or "jugs" into the convo. 
2. Piggybacking on that thought...even more shocking is how willing other people are to ask about these things. Some people think that your life is now an open book and anything is on the table for discussion such as your finances, parenting methods, your wife's other lady parts, and (later on)your sex life.
3. Also, everyone from your parents to friends to co-workers(even this blog) has advice for you.  "We did this...we did that...you should do this...why are you doing that?!"   They all have good intentions and really are trying to help you, but not all advice is good.  When someone starts to give you bad advice, challenge your parenting methods or goes as far as correcting something you are doing, this is the best way to avoid a lengthy sermon:  1) Use the smile and nod technique while they are talking.  2) Continue your current childcare activity using your regular method.  3) When they finish speaking, follow up by sounding interested and say "I've heard a lot of people are doing that nowadays."  4) Finish by commenting on the weather.
 4. On a related note...regardless of what people might say, the only mistake you can make is not being a part of your child's life.
5. "The baby has been really fussy today." This statement is a free pass to get you out of any social obligation you don't want to attend.  Also use "I think I hear the baby crying!" to abruptly end unwanted phone calls, ward off door-to-door salesmen or quickly end virtually any other situation. 
6. The most fun you can really have with a 4 week old is to sing them to sleep.  The great thing is that they don't care what you sing, they just like to hear your voice. This is an opportunity to entertain yourself at the same time.  My favorite song to sing to Emry at 1:30am(her normal nightly snack time) was "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock.  My other go-to song was "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers.  Except I wouldn't sing the actual lyrics to that song...I'd make up lyrics about what I did that day.  Its got a great tune and is slow paced, so you can easily ad-lib.  Well I woke up this morning...I made myself some breakfast...I ate it in the dining room...then went to work.....
7. Babies are like drunks(part 1) -  The only thing newborn infants seem to do is drink until they either pass out, get the hiccups or throw up.
8. Watching your sleeping baby and/or sleeping wife is the most satisfying thing in the world.
9. Being "on time" is a thing of the past.  You'll be at least 20 minutes late for everything no matter how early you start getting ready.
10. The first time you drive with the baby in the car you instantly become the safest driver in the world.  Consequently, every other driver seems like they're Mario Andretti.
11. If you go out for a run while your wife and newborn are asleep, you'd better be absolutely sure the baby won't wake up while you are gone - or you'll have hell to pay when you return.
12. When you first -- Darn, I think I hear Emry crying. I'll have to finish this later.
See how that works :)

Where's the Remote?

Where's the Remote?  Growing up in my house, this was a very common question for one Smith to ask another Smith. It was easy to get up off the couch for a snack and accidentally leave the remote in the kitchen.  Sometimes the remote would come back to the living room, and other times it wouldn't.  Often times the remote would find its way under the couch or between the cushions.  It became such a hot topic that my parents finally designated an end table in the living room as the "remote table."  The remote had to be placed on top of that table when you were finished watching TV.  Maren says in the Bray house(with 3 girls), the question always asked was "Where's the telephone?"

Given my background on this topic, you can see that I fully expected to ask this question in my own house one day, but not this soon.  Maren and I found ourselves searching high and low for the TV remote this weekend.  This was way too early for our family to have this problem for a couple of reasons...

First and foremost is because we don't watch much TV.  We don't even have cable, a fact that has been well documented by Maren's high school students.  Anytime I meet one of her students, the first question they ask is "Why don't you let Mrs. Smith get cable?"  Truth be told, Maren doesn't want it either.  TV is too much of a distraction and a time waster.  Maren and I have found so many other things to do to interact together that have helped us grow closer together as a couple.  There are way too many other things I'd rather do than sit on the couch as life goes by.  Plus I can't sit still long enough to watch a whole TV show anyway. 

Another reason we shouldn't have a remote issue yet is because our kid(s) are not old enough to watch TV.  Emry likes to press the buttons on the TV to make it go on and off, but she is like me and can't sit still for longer than 5 minutes at a time.  So its not like she would be watching TV and running around with the remote either.  She does like to play with the remote though.  Maren or I will give it to her while we are in the living room together, but we don't ever let her take it out of the living room. 

Lastly, we shouldn't be having this problem with the TV upstairs because we never use it.  The only time it ever gets used is when I turn on a football game and mute the TV while I'm playing with Emry.  The TV upstairs is an old box TV.  Its not even capable of receiving a digital signal, so we have one of those converter boxes hooked up to it.  The signal cuts in and out all the time, and is really annoying.  We also have a VCR hooked up to that TV in the living room.  It would be a pretty sweet set up...if we were living in 1984.

Yes, it says 4 Head with Hi-Fi Stereo. Not many people today know what this
inscription means.  The rough translation is "pure awesomeness."

So if we never use that TV and don't let Emry take the remote out of the living room, what happened? 

It was Thanksgiving Day.  We had a great day which started with our family going downtown for the Turkey Day 5k.  I had to walk the whole event because of an injury...I won't go into it now, but I'll probably rant about it in a future post.  Then we went home and cooked some food to take to my mom's family's Thanksgiving meal.  We had a great time visiting, seeing relatives, watching football and eating too much food.  Emry enjoyed eating the sweet potatoes and the peas the most!  She had a blast playing with her cousins all afternoon. 

Between the tryptophan and playing all afternoon, Emry was exhausted when we got home.  She went down for a nap and Maren started doing some work on the computer downstairs.

We posed for pictures next to our passed out
daughter.  However, we resisted the temptation
of drawing on her with a Sharpie.

To avoid distracting Maren from her work, I decided to watch some football on the TV upstairs(and fall asleep on the couch.)  I turned on the TV and converter box and sprawled out on the couch.  We only get 7 channels on that TV, of which we only watch about 3, so my odds were pretty good of having the right channel.  Unfortunately the TV was on the wrong channel.  We can only change the channel by using the remote control for the converter box, but I couldn't see it anywhere. 

Maren and I had just done a thorough cleaning of the house, so I knew it couldn't be hiding in the couch or under any furniture. I asked Maren if she had seen it, but she had no idea either.  We searched high and low, but couldn't find it.  Neither of us could remember giving it to Emry recently or seeing her play with it.  We searched through her toys anyway, but came up empty.  We gave up the search and figured it would show up later.  A couple days went by and we never found it. 

One evening the following week, Emry was playing in the living room.  She was doing her routine of turning the TV on and off and pressing buttons on the converter box and VCR.  I went up there and joined in the fun.  She likes to flip open the door to the VCR, so I flipped it open, and to my surprise I saw this...

The files are IN the computer? - Zoolander(And yes, I own it on VHS)

Emry,that little turkey, had stuck the remote in the VCR.  Maren and I had a good, long laugh about it.  Normally, I'd go all Doogie Howser right here and sum up the post by mentioning a great lesson I learned from this....but I've got a Ferris Bueller's Day Off" videotape calling my name right now, so peace out!

Raking Leaves

I'll start by letting you know that this post is not meant to instruct on the quickest or most efficient way to rake leaves.  The purpose of this post is simply to inform you how we do it at the Smith house.  Basically we try to have as much fun as possible, and eliminate as much unnecessary waste as possible.  If it were my choice, I wouldn't rake the yard or cut the grass at all...landscaping, shmandscaping.  But for the sake of our neighbors, we try to keep a pretty clean yard.

As you may know, I've kind of been on a all-natural kick this year and have been trying to eliminate as much waste as possible.  So I've been raking leaves this year instead of using the mower to mulch and/or bag the leaves.  In my mind, raking seems like a better option than burning gas and oil in my 20 year old mower for many reasons.  It makes the neighborhood a more pleasant place by cutting down on the noise and smoke from the lawn mower and leaf blower.  To eliminate using plastic bags that get thrown into a landfill, we are piling the leaves behind the hedge in our backyard.  Plus raking is good exercise for all of us!

Hang on a second while I step down off my soap box.......Ok, now back to the main point of the post - How we rake leaves at the Smith house. We started by spreading out a tarp on the yard.  I suggest using a good durable tarp for two reasons.  One reason is so it stays on the ground when the wind blows.  I'll wait until later to reveal the other reason.  

Emry has been interested in helping mom and dad lately, and she has been imitating a lot of things we do.  She did a great job helping us spread out the tarp and making sure it stayed flat.   

The next step was to rake the leaves into a big pile on top of the tarp. 

Learn from my mistakes #1...
While raking, make sure to keep an eye on your children.  They tend to fall off concrete patio steps if you don't pay attention to them.  I'm pretty sure there's like a 98% survival rate on falls from less than 10 inches high, but the screams your children will produce are still pretty terrifying.

 We also removed all the sticks from the pile as we were raking.  We didn't want to get poked by sticks while we played in the leaves!

Learn from my mistakes #2...

Don't encourage your children to help you break sticks and put them in your rusty metal fire pit.  I thought Emry would enjoy helping out her dad, so I showed her how I put the sticks into the fire pit.  Unfortunately, she could barely reach over the rusty metal side of the fire pit, and her poor little fingers scraped against the metal.  She got a pretty nice cut on the back of her thumb.  It bled a little, but she never cried!  We just rubbed a little dirt on it, and it was all good.

After we played in the pile for a few minutes, the next step was to fold the tarp over like a big taco.

 

Then we strung some rope through the holes on each corner of the tarp, and we set Emry on top of the big taco. 

The key was making sure she was placed directly in the center of the tarp so she couldn't fall over.  It kind of looked like she was sitting in an inner tube at the lake, getting ready to be pulled by a boat. 

This next step was the most fun for Emry.  We had to drag the tarp-taco around behind the hedge to dump the leaves.  The following video is pretty low quality, and sorry about the airplane buzzing overhead - didn't notice the airplane noise until I was editing it for the blog. 

You can't tell from this video, but Emry actually had a ton of fun riding on the tarp!  The ride in the video was pretty tame compared to the others. Unfortunately, I could not run as fast with one hand on the rope, one hand on the camera and one eye watching where I was going and the other eye on the camera.  Emry would laugh and clap her hands, but I just couldn't capture it here.  Earlier I mentioned there is a second reason to use a durable tarp...we obviously didn't want the tarp to rip with our child riding on top. 

The final step was to dump the leaves in the pile behind the hedge and take the tarp back around to start the entire process over.  It took us 5 tarp drags to do the entire backyard.

Learn from my mistakes #3...

Don't let your children play with your cell phone while you're raking leaves.  I let Emry play with my phone while I was raking, to keep her from falling off the patio steps again.  At one point, she set the phone on the tarp.  I made a mental note to pick it up before we folded the tarp over.  When I was done raking, I got so excited to give Emry another ride that I forgot about the phone.  Needless to say, I dumped that load of leaves and forgot about the phone until we were finished.  I finally remembered about 1/2 hour later, and Emry and I went back outside to search for it.  Maren had left the house and was running errands at this point.  If it wasn't for a perfectly timed text from Maren, we would have never found it.  Not more than two seconds after I walked around the hedge, Maren sent the glorious text.  The audio signal allowed us to drastically narrow our search, and after about 5 minutes, we found it!  Below is the long pile of leaves I would have had to search through had Maren not sent me that text.   

We had a bunch of fun.  It actually took me a lot less time than it normally does to bag the leaves with a lawn mower! The only thing I haven't figured out yet is what to do with the pile of leaves.  When I started, the idea was that I'd till them into the soil this spring, because we use this area to plant our vegetable garden.  However, the pile has gotten too large to till.  I would appreciate any ideas on what to do with these leaves.  Please give any suggestions in the comments below!

Camping is Intense

So we I thought it'd be a good idea to take our 16 month old camping.  After I'd convinced Maren that no one  would steal Emry from the tent in the middle of the night, the trip was set.  We left for Scales lake as soon as I got home from work on Thursday. 

The first evening really was intense(Julie, that pun was for you), but seriously, as we pulled in to the campsite, it was already starting to get dark. Plus, it was past time for Emry's dinner.  Maren started building a fire, and I set up the tent while Emry cried from hunger pains and explored the landscape.  I didn't realize this before the trip, but literally everything in nature can either choke a child, poke them in the eye, or get them dirty.  So Maren took over the duty of settling Emry down and keeping her out of the fire while I cooked dinner. 

Maren was growing more impatient because they were both hungry, Emry was upset, it was pitch dark, and our best source of light was the the most dangerous thing for Emry to go near.  Finally I got dinner cooked...hot dogs, green beans, mac 'n cheese and s'mores were enjoyed by all...

That night, Emry slept surprisingly well.  She laid between Maren and I in the tent. It should be noted that Emry constantly rolls, flips and flails her limbs when she sleeps.  Between that and the root digging into my left hip, I probably woke up about 10 times during the night.  The next morning Maren told the same tale of a restless night.

The rest of the weekend went really smooth, and we had a ton of fun playing on the playground, walking around the park, seeing the animals at the petting zoo, and exploring all the wonderful things in nature God has given us.  Emry had a blast being outside all weekend, and as Maren said,  "Emry is the dirtiest she's ever been(other than the day she was born)!"

It was so cute to watch Emry as she saw so many new things.  She loved the slides on the playground and was just adorable sitting in her little red lawn chair.
 

We took a bunch of photos and even tried a horsemanning picture for Halloween...

We had one bad experience on the last day of the trip.  We decided to take E in the stroller to walk the road around the entire lake, which is few miles long.  Unfortunately, the road doesn't make a complete loop around the lake, so when we got to the other side we had to make a decision - either take the road all the way back around the lake or take a shortcut on a trail.  Against Maren's will, we decided to take the trail.  Maren carried the stroller and I carried Emry.  The trail is made for mountain biking, so there were quite a few hills, roots and other obstacles which made it unsafe "not convenient" for carrying a baby and a stroller.  The final straw came when we were walking on a banked wooden platform that curved its way around some trees...All of a sudden, two mountain bikers came screaming around the banked curve and I jumped off the platform while still holding Emry.  Maren decided to walk back to the road and take the long way back to the campsite.  I told her I would run the trail and hopefully it would lead me back to the campground where I could get the Jeep and pick her and Emry up.

It turned out to be a very pleasant run through the woods.  I think my new passion is trail running.  Just being out in God's creation and enjoying everything He has given us was so much more fulfilling than my normal jogs on the roads and sidewalks.  As I was jogging the trail that morning, I thought about how lucky our family is to have the things we have and to be able to do the things we do.  Needless to say, taking the trail paid off in more ways than one because I quickly got back to the campsite and was able to drive the Jeep around the lake.  Luckily I picked up Maren and Emry before they got too "cranky hungry" and "cranky tired."  All in all it was a great trip!

Warrior Dash

Sometimes you've got to run for fun!  Maren and I went down to Nashville, TN with some friends from Sanctum Gym to compete in the Warrior Dash.  It is a 5k run with about a dozen obstacles along the route.  Lucky for you, I carried my camera on the run to capture the fun!  Here's the group before the race...

Maren's doctor(and some concerned family members) weren't exactly excited that she was doing this while she was 3 1/2 months  pregnant.  She was a little nervous too.  Here we are getting ready for the start. The tension is mounting....

Look at Maren high-step through the tires!

I wonder how they got these beat up cars into the middle of the woods???

Maren was warned by her doctor not to do anything that would require her to strain herself or use upper body strength.

But she said "Forget that!"  The view from the top was just too much for her to resist!  Maren completed all the obstacles except one.  The only reason she skipped one is because it required to to lay on she stomach to get over the top of the obstacle.

Here's her proud husband acting like a dork...

The second-to-last obstacle was a wall of fire we had to jump over.  Maren and I did some cool warrior poses when we made the leap over the flames.  Unfortunately the only picture I have of that is a photo we bought from the event photographer.  You'll have to stop by sometime to see the photo.  Its posted on our refrigerator.  The last obstacle was a huge  mud pit we had to crawl through.  I put the camera in a ziploc bag to keep it safe, and luckily it worked!  You can see the bag in my left hand below....

Here's the "after" picture of the whole crew. 

What is a Warrior Dash without a few battle scars?   I scraped my arm pretty good when I jumped into the mud pit.

The coolest part about the event is that people can donate their nasty shoes at the end of the race.  They clean the shoes and give them to needy people in poor countries.  That's a lot of dirty shoes!

It was a great event and a really fun day.  I normally prefer to run alone when I am at home.  I just enjoy the time to myself and love getting lost in my own thoughts.  But I highly recommend being active and playing together with your family and loved ones.  I believe that exercising or working out with your spouse really strengthens your relationship.  It gives you an opportunity to provide encouragement and support for each other that other everyday tasks do not.  How do you encourage your wife when you two are sitting on the couch watching TV?  See my point?  Maren and I had such a great time together.  We are planning to do more activities together going forward...but we'll have to put off anymore warrior dashes until after #2 is born! 

The Transition

Like I said when I ended my last post, the minimalist philosophy really intrigued me.  I thought about how wasteful we are in so many facets of our lives.  I wanted to eliminate as much waste from my life as possible.  I wanted to cut out all the unnecessary energy and resources that my family used and consumed.  The more I thought about these things, the more I realized that I had already started running down this path well before I tried to do it barefoot...

It began as a way to save money.  Maren and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, and we were sitting in a childbirth prep class.  The instructor was talking about all the supplies we would need to care for our new baby.  All I could think was, "We need to buy stock in Babies R Us, because we are going to be spending all of our money there!"  Then the instructor gave us a handout of unique ideas of keeping down costs for child care items.  At the top of the list was nursing your child instead of buying formula.  Maren had already expressed that she wanted to do this, so I was totally on board.  Free food for the baby! Another idea was to make your own baby wipes.  I was able to talk Maren into letting me do this on the condition that, if our child developed a chronic diaper rash, we'd resort to the store bought wipes. 

So I made the baby wipes and it worked really well.  I looked into other ways to save money on caring for a baby and found several recipes to make our own baby food. During this time, I was also intrigued by a naturalist movement as well.  Maren and I had watched a couple of documentaries in the past year about the US food industry that got us thinking about the foods we put into our bodies, how they are made, and where they came from.  With those thoughts in the back of my mind, making baby food seemed like an awesome idea.  We made all sorts of different foods for Emry.  The process was simple and I posted directions on our Baby Food page.  I had always planted a vegetable garden every spring, so we literally produced much of Emry's food from the ground up!

I found that these things saved us a little money, but the small monetary savings paled in comparison to the many other benefits that we enjoyed.  Maren and Emry were able to share a special bond through nursing.  There was a fatherly pride I enjoyed by knowing we provided food for our child by the work of our own hands.  We also knew exactly what went into Emry's food, and that there were no artificial preservatives or sugars that we were giving her.

We incorporated the naturalist philosophy into our diets as well.  We started eating more fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts.  We set a challenge for ourselves at the grocery store to only buy products on the outside walls and nothing from the inner aisles(Typically processed food in boxes and packages are in the middle aisles, while fresh and natural foods are located on the perimeter in most grocery stores.)  We began looking at the labels on the products and saw how much sugar, sodium, and artificial/processed ingredients were in the foods we buy.  After label reading one day, I decided to start making two of my favorite snacks.  I started fermenting my own yogurt and making my own peanut butter.  Click on the links to see my recipes for these items.  They're much better for you than commercial varieties, and I guarantee you'll like them!

Fast forward about 10 months to my barefoot running experiment.  I knew I wanted to expand on my current practices and cut out more wasteful habits from our lives.  My focus now was more concentrated on the environment.  We have always recycled and have taken steps to keep our energy bills low at the house. But recycling is a process that still uses a lot of energy, and our monthly gas/electric bills weren't free.  So we had room for improvement.  My goal wasn't to "Go green" or "Reduce our carbon footprint."  I feel like those are just slogans companies use for marketing purposes to tell people how great they are.  And I certainly didn't want to get caught up in the carbon footprint debate for every decision I make.  My goal was simple: eliminate as much consumption as possible.  For anything our family did consume, we wanted to make it go as far as possible.

We began looking more closely at everyday tasks to see how we can get by with less.  The following paragraphs are just a few examples normal daily situations, and how I started thinking differently about them...

I take my lunch to work most days in a plastic grocery bag.  Inside the grocery bag is usually a sandwich, which is also in its own bag.  I would throw the bags away after lunch everyday.  But why not bring them home each day and use them again for tomorrow's lunch?  And why do I even need to get plastic bags from the grocery in  the first place; why not have reusable cloth bags?  And when I buy one or two items from a store, why do I get bag for them?  Why not just carry the object itself? 

I love to ride my bike anytime I get the opportunity.  I was complaining to Maren one day about how hard it is to make time to ride since we've had Emry.  It finally dawned on me one morning that I drive my car to work everyday(imagine that!).  Why not ride my bike to work instead of driving?  How much could we save on gas each year if I rode my bike everyday?  And do we really need 2 cars?
 
The more I thought about the environmental issues, I wondered what other areas of my life I could look at differently as well.  Why do I buy a shirt from a department store for $60, when I could get a shirt that is just as nice at Target for $15?  Or even buy one from a second hand store for $3?  What good could I do with the other $57 I saved?

These are just a couple examples of the many things I've pondered lately. I want to add that I'm not writing this post to tell people our family is doing great things and we are saving the world.  I'm not trying to beat my chest or toot my own horn.  We don't do all the things I mentioned in the previous paragraphs.  We still have 2 cars.  And yes, I still take showers(although the water only runs when I initially step in to get wet, and it is stays off until its time to rinse.) But there are still many wasteful things our family does.  My purpose for writing this post is the topic has flooded my thoughts lately, and I'm just really excited to share it.  I want hear what other people think too...I want to hear your thoughts and suggestions about things you and your family do to eliminate waste(time and resources), spending, energy and unnecessary consumption in your lives.  Please share in the comments section below!

I'll end by saying I would encourage everyone to think about their day and think about all the things they do each day.  How much to we take for granted?  How much do we consume that is totally unnecessary and wasteful?  How much have we been given, and we don't thank the Lord for it?   The only truth I know on this matter is that everything we have is a gift from God.  Nothing we own is truly ours.  We may have bought our possessions with our money that we earned from our jobs using our talents and skills.  But ultimately our talents and skills were gifts from God, so "our" money and possessions are really God's money and possessions that he has given to us.  By knowing this truth, I can't help but to think how many of God's gifts I've taken for granted and have literally thrown away.  I wonder how hurt someone would be if I took a gift they gave me and threw it away right in front of them.  This is my motivation for change. 

Our family is getting pretty weird, but in a good way I guess.  I've started taking a liking tot tie-dyed fashions.  And since we have our second kid on the way, our next vehicle will probably be a family van...I've heard Volkswagen made some good ones in the 70's.  Okay, we're not that bad yet, but we're getting pretty close.  Its funny how I've been discussing the topic of minimalism, but its taken me 2 extremely long posts to cover it...and there's so much more I wanted to write!

The Bare Minimum

Like every other runner in the world, I read the book "Born to Run."  And like every other runner in the world, I was inspired by this fascinating book.  As soon as I put it down, I decided to change the way I run and my whole outlook on running altogether.

Inspired by one of the characters in the book, I adopted the minimalist approach to running and decided to take up barefoot running.  I figured there was no need to transition from my cushy running shoes to a minimalist shoe or the 5-finger shoes that everyone wears now. No, I decided I would go barefoot and I would do it cold turkey.... 

Ten days after my first barefoot run, I was able to walk again without discomfort.  I had run less than a mile barefoot, at my normal marathon pace, when I was forced to hobble home with open golfball-sized blisters on the bottom of my feet.  You'd think I learned my lesson.  But that first bad experience didn't stop me, I was determined to make it work.

I went back to doing my normal schedule of running 3 to 4 times a week.  At the end of 1 or 2 runs each week, I'd take my shoes and socks off, and make a slow jog/shuffle home for the last quarter mile.  After a couple weeks I was doing the last half mile barefoot.  Anytime Maren, Emry and I would go on walks, I went barefoot.  I tried to toughen up my feet as much as I could.  I even bought a pair of minimalist trail shoes, and began to use them once a week.  Gradually I built up to where I could do 2 miles barefoot at the end of my easy runs. 

My feet were ugly enough before I started the process, but they became absolutely hideous!  The bottoms were always black and callused.  Even though the skin was starting to become tough, I still developed blisters from time to time.  I was always careful to watch where I stepped when I was barefoot to avoid rocks, glass and other things that could impale my feet.  Somehow, I still ended up with cracked and broken toenails and little bruises on my feet and toes. 

The funny thing was, I really enjoyed it and how natural it felt.  My stride had vastly improved.  I was no longer striking my heels as violently as before. Now, even when I was in my normal, cushy running shoes I maintained a good, midstep foot strike.  I wasn't ever concerned about time or pace or distance while I was barefoot.  To me, just making it home without cutting my foot open was satisfying enough. 

I'm sure I looked like an idiot running down the street with my shoes in my hands.  To add to the bizarreness of it all, during the summer I was waking up at about 4 in the morning so I could run before Emry woke up.  I often wondered if people driving by at 4 in the morning saw me running down the street carrying my shoes and thought I was a drunk college frat dude.  But I didn't care what I looked like, I was on a mission.  But the problem was I didn't know what my mission was:  to never purchase running shoes again?...to improve my running technique?...to gross out my wife with my nasty feet?...I couldn't figure out why I liked doing this so much. 

Eventually it all caught up with me.  My calves and achilles were sore all the time and were never recovering between runs.  It got cold outside one day and I realized winter would be here soon(yeah, I was very short sighted on that one!)  Maren was constantly telling me how disgusting my feet were.  But most of all, I just didn't know where I was going with this whole process.  I finally decided to put my shoes on again.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I realized it wasn't the barefoot running I enjoyed.  No, it was the natural, minimalist style and philosophy that I really craved.  It wasn't just how it applied to running either; I thought about how the minimalist philosophy could be applied to my life and our family life.

We use so much time, energy, and resources trying to be involved in so many things, trying to balance work, friends, church, church groups, kid's activities, home chores, family time, excercise, social groups, etc.  We get caught up with emailing, texting, tweeting, blogging(oops!), multitasking, working, and making money to provide for our families that we tend to overlook our family life and relationships.We try to fit as much as possible into each 24 hour day, but we do it with the good intention of providing the most we can for our families. 

What if we change our approach?  If our intention is providing for our family, why not put the focus on the home and our relationships there? We are so concerned with doing more, but maybe we'd be better off doing less?  I know, it sounds stupid to say.  Instead of putting our time and energy into getting as much done as possible, what if we focused all our time and energy on just one task?  Instead of stringing ourselves out by trying to do everything, why not try to do a couple things really really well?  

Just as an example, I thought about how many times I've sent someone an email.  Then sent them a text later that evening to make sure they read the email.  I remember when texting was new and some unnamed relatives would send Maren or I a text then call 5 seconds later to see if we got it.  Instead of blogging, facebooking or tweeting to a bunch of nameless, faceless people, or sending 20 texts to your family or friends, why not have one deep conversation with one family member?

I couldn't stop my mind from pondering all these ideas.  How could this philosophy affect other areas of our lives?  Many more thoughts and changes were on the way...