When Kathy organized the 5 for $5 contest earlier this year, I decided to sign up (even though I was the only person of male persuasion to do so). I knew there wasn’t a chance I would win, but I wanted to motivate myself, and I figured it would placate Kathy. Now that she has kept her weight off for more than two years, she casts an appraising eye on me, with a physical makeover in mind.

“How’re those push-ups and sit-ups coming along,” she’ll ask, pretending to be subtle. “What are you going to do to get some kind of cardio workout?”

Not my actual power nap strategy.

I bite back a sarcastic retort and smile ambiguously, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll figure something out,” I mumble vaguely. Whenever Kathy begins to be satisfied with her weight, she pays more attention to mine. “Maybe we need more magazines around here with unattainable, waif-like female bodies on the cover,” I muse to myself. (Sometimes when I’m musing, I’m not very kind.)

Anyway, the point of the 5 for $5 contest was to come up with five health-related goals that you could measure and track over a five-week period, with a maximum of 100 points each week. I came up with four pretty easily, but I couldn’t seem to think of the fifth. Then I remembered a recent study I heard about where they tracked sleep patterns of two groups, and found that those who slept at least 7 hours a night were more likely to lose weight than those who slept less than that. So I set my fifth goal such that I would try to get 7 hours of sleep at least four days a week.

Have you ever seen a giraffe asleep? I haven’t. Maybe this giraffe is dead?

It is surprisingly difficult to get that much sleep in this season of my life. I have to get up pretty early most days, either because of my commute or in order to meet with ‘my boys’ for prayer before work. I’m a night-owl by nature, and there always seems to be one more thing I want to do before I sleep. Because of my involvement at church, evening meetings are not uncommon. From time to time I do some side-work, much of it volunteer labor for non-profit organizations. I try to spend time with my wife and my five children each day, and I do like to play a half-hour chip’s worth of computer gaming whenever I can fit it in. And then there’s writing blog entries whenever Kathy comes up empty. There just don’t seem to be quite enough hours in the day, and so I cut it out of sleep time, more often than not. To compound the problem further, during allergy season (late February to early May, for me) I don’t sleep very well and often wake up in the middle of the night, sneezing and congested.

This could have been me on the train this morning.

Some people get by on less than six hours of sleep a night, while others need at least eight. One friend of mine routinely sleeps less than four hours a night, and I know several who view sleep as an enemy to be vanquished or avoided. People vary, but nearly everyone I know complains of being tired, especially on Mondays. I find that when I’m tired, my view of life darkens and narrows considerably, yet I’m unwilling to give up many of the things that vie for my time.

I thought about posting pictures of myself asleep, but the logistics were kinda tricky, so I settled on sleepy animals.

Scripture seems a bit divided on this topic. On the one hand, sleep is portrayed as an enemy to financial security:

”How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.” – Proverbs 6:9-11

Yet on the other hand, even God rested when He had completed His work, creating the world. And Christians are encouraged to look forward to their eternal “Sabbath rest”. As I get older, the idea of eternity as ‘rest’ begins to seem a lot more attractive to me.

”There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” — Hebrews 4:9-11

We have a bear like this at our local zoo …

So I’ll take an informal comment-poll: What is your philosophical view of sleep? Is it important for your health, or is it a necessary evil? How much sleep do you get, and what steps do you take to improve your chances of getting enough sleep?

Tim

A couple of days ago, Kathy drove my car for some reason or other. “Your car makes an ugly little screech-screech-screech noise,” she informed me with a sniff of disapproval.

“It doesn’t do that when I drive it,” I responded haughtily.

“Oh, yes it does; but you probably just play your music so loud, you don’t hear it.” She had me there — I do play my music loudly, and my stint as a forward observer in the National Guard ensured that my hearing would not be perfect, especially as the years advance upon me in their relentless fashion.

I went out on an errand with Joshua, and had him listen out the passenger window, since the alleged noise was allegedly coming from the alleged front right alleged wheel. “I hear it,” Joshua pronounced. My oldest son already, at the age of 14, has the ability to make pronouncements in somber tones, with gravity and dignity, as though he were the guy with the gong in The Ten Commandments — “So let it be written, so let it be done.” It makes me so proud … but I digress.

I still couldn’t hear it, so I took refuge in my usual strategy for mechanical problems:

ignore it and hope it goes away.

This is a surprisingly effective strategy, but it failed me this time. By Tuesday night, the noise, perhaps feeling neglected, elevated itself into frequencies and decibels that I could actually detect. “Screech, screech, screech,” it nagged.

David and Sarah were drafted for some human interest, to redeem this blog.

“See, I told you there was a screech-screech-screech noise,” Kathy informed me, with just a touch of smug self-righteousness. For reasons that have never been adequately explained to me, car maintenance falls solidly into my domain of responsibility. For most men, this makes a certain amount of sense — some of them have mechanical skills, and others have actual knowledge of mechanical components. “That’s an engine,” they’ll assert confidently, pointing toward the front of the vehicle. “And those round things on the bottom: they’re tires.”

I am not one of those men. I’m on the level of Joe Junior, in While You Were Sleeping, who tries to repair his carburetor with a hammer. When I try to ‘fix’ a car, it is not a pretty sight, and it usually involves a lot of walking.

Car problems always bring a certain terror to my heart. I tend to be rather cheap frugal about car maintenance, and (whenever I do break down and take a car in to the shop) I often feel that I am grossly manipulated by the mechanics. I expect that they will take advantage of my ignorance, and the bottom line of the bill seems to reflect the legitimacy of that fear.

I called up a local tire and brake shop. “Um, I need to have someone look at the brakes on my Honda”, I stammered, desperately striving to convey a sense of lofty mechanical knowledge. “It seems to be making a screech-screech-screech noise.” I hoped I wasn’t being too technical.

I could almost see Brian’s toothy smile on the other end of the phone. (We’ll call him ‘Brian’, because his name is, um, Brian.) “Sure, bring it in. It will probably take us a few hours, so you’ll want to have someone come by and pick you up. You won’t want to hang around the shop all afternoon.”

No doubt about that, Brian.

Not my actual car.

Later, Brian called me with the damage. “Let’s see, you need new brakes in the front, that’ll be $189 for that. We’ll polish up the rotors and fringlebok the amvarthingtone, but that’s included in that price. Your rear brakes have about 40% life left on them, but we’ll need to adjust and clean them for another $29. Your brake fluid needs to be completely flushed, which is another $89.”

I did some rapid calculations in my head. “Hmmmm. That seems a little steep on the 40% rotor flushing. Can you offer me anything better than that?” I patted myself on the back for such bold, savvy bargaining ability. Maybe I could hold my own with these opportunistic mechanics, after all! There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, while (no doubt) Brian reeled in surprise at my unexpected depths.

“No, that’s what it costs. If you just bleed off the fluid without flushing, all the sediment stays in the system.” Obviously, sediment was bad, but I dared not push any further, since it was obvious that Brian was not duped by my gearhead braggadocio. I un-patted myself on the back, and folded with a whimper.

“Then there’s the tires. Yours are legally bald in the front, and nearly so in the back. I can get you a new set of four good tires (better than the ones you have on there now, which are pretty good) for $451. Also, the dipstick shows no oil and your air filter is filthy — just $30 for an oil change and $15 for the filter.” He really had me on the run, now. I’d heard of being legally blind, but legally bald? It didn’t sound good.

“It’s been a while since I changed the oil,” I chuckled ruefully. Trying to regain the upper hand, I challenged the tires. “I think I’ll hold off on the tires for now — I think I can get a better deal than that.”

When the dust settled, I talked him down to $260 for tires he wouldn’t sell to his worst enemy, and I refused the air filter because it is the one thing I can do for myself. (Actually, if you buy one at Wal-Mart, they’ll put it in for free … but if I wanted to, I could replace an air filter. Really.)

Total bill: $701. I have to say, the brakes feel great, and the tires seem to hug the road in ways I hardly remember — the car seems to handle the way it did when I first bought it from my older brother, almost two years ago. And there was no little screech-screech-screech noise.

For some reason, my brother didn’t sell me this car.

My mind goes back to a road trip in the early 80’s with my good friend Phil. Hopelessly lost in the wilds of West Virginia, we discovered the brake pads on my little car were totally shot. (They made a very loud screech-screech-grind noise, as I recall.) Somehow, we managed to find a parts store and Phil (who claimed he knew about such things) talked a local mechanic into loaning us some tools. We jacked up the car and Phil swapped out the pads in a jiffy. In less than two hours (including a break for lunch) we were on our way; total cost, $30. I have to wonder — could I have just ignored that screeching noise, at least until it became a grinding noise? Did I really need the new brakes, or the new tires? Would my brake fluid have been just fine without being flushed? And what is an amvarthingtone, and how do you fringlebok it, anyway?

Burning questions, all.

Tim
Project 366, Day 65

Kathy and I were flattered and thrilled to discover that our blog has been nominated for the 2007 Homeschool Blog Awards, an informal organization of bloggers desiring to promote homeschooling excellence through weblogs.

Click on the image above to vote

Since both of us write articles for our shared blog, we thought there was a natural fit with the Best Family or Group Blog category — we feel that our collaboration is a key factor in the success and uniqueness of our blog. Besides, Kathy is (by a two-to-one margin) the more prolific author, despite my earlier dominance over our entrée into the blogosphere. We were not, however, nominated for the Best Family category, and so we take joy in the category for which we were nominated: Best Homeschool Dad Blog.

There is one very obvious problem: although all five of my children are homeschooled, as Dad, I don’t do a lot of the actual homeschooling. Oh, we started out boldly enough:

Me: “OK, sweetie, if we’re going to homeschool these kiddos, how are we going to go about it?”

Kathy: “Well, I can handle the Bible teaching, language arts, history, geography, spelling and read-aloud curriculum, but I could really use some help in Math and Science.”

Me: “No problem! I can just see it now — the kids and I doing experiments in the back yard, working math problems on the whiteboard, it’ll be great fun!”

Fast-forward with me, eight or nine years:

• Total number of science experiments conducted by Dad: 2
• Total number of math lessons given: 3

It turns out that I was mostly talk. I do help with specific math problems from time to time, and I am fairly vigorous in my role as principal and disciplinarian (especially when I work from home). I’m verbally and financially supportive of Kathy in her role as teacher-of-five, but when it comes down to it, I haven’t made homeschooling instruction a priority, in terms of my own time.

So now we come to the crux of the matter: I’ve been nominated for ‘Best Homeschooling Dad’, but I have minimal credentials supporting such a nomination. Will I have the ethical fortitude to admit this lack, or will I shamelessly promote myself in spite of my inadequacy? You be the judge, as I present this snapshot:

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“A Day in the Life of a Homeschool Dad”, by Tim

4:59 am: Dad leaps out of bed cheerfully, a minute before the alarm, quoting an inspirational Bible verse for Mom’s edification. He quickly dresses in shorts, t-shirt and running shoes.

5:02 am: Dad wakes the kids and lead them in a rousing program of calisthenics and a two-mile run around the neighborhood, singing homeschool cadences while the children echo in chorus:

Happy homeschoolers run and think,
they don’t stop to take a drink!
They don’t rest and they don’t slow,
working hard to learn and grow!
Sound off: 1, 2!
Sound off: 4, 8!
Bring it on down: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024!

Not our actual family.

5:45 am: Everyone hits the showers, the first one clean is appointed sous-chef and selects the breakfast menu. Children work together (under Dad’s benign eye as Chef de Cuisine) to assemble a five-course gourmet confection and serve Mom breakfast in bed on an attractive tray with fresh-cut flowers. The kitchen is cleaned by the tardiest two children.

Not our actual breakfast.

7:00 am: Dad prays with the children, and heads off to work, after distributing writing assignments and reviewing daily coursework lesson plans with each child.

Noon: After finishing his own Bible reading and prayer time, Dad spends his lunch hour editing and grading written assignments (submitted via e-mail) from each child, including an inspirational proverb and an encouraging comment in each response.

4:00 pm: Because of his efficiency at work and in order to demonstrate the priority he places on his family, Dad has arranged shortened work hours with his employer. He bursts through the front door promptly at 4 pm, and is mobbed by laughing children. Hugging each, he dismisses them for a short recess while he talks and prays with his wife (and presents her with a small gift he procured on the way home).

4:15 pm: Dad helps the children assemble the necessary equipment and ingredients for a science experiment and conducts a short lesson in the back yard. If it is raining, the experiment occurs in a gleaming utility shed/lab that Dad and the kids built last summer.

5:00 pm: All the kids and Dad work for an hour in the yard of an impoverished widow down the street, putting their love for God into practice as a service project.

Not our actual science experiment.

6:00 pm: Over dinner, each child reports on the things for which they are thankful, and Dad moderates a short role-playing scenario featuring peer pressure and temptation. Applicable Bible passages are read and discussed. Mom is thanked and praised for the evening meal.

6:45 pm: Dad washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen while the children complete their science projects. He fixes a few loose drawer handles and re-arranges the freezer while waiting for the kids to reassemble.

7:15 pm: Each child takes turns working math problems on the whiteboard while Dad corrects and grades their problem sets. Dad assigns extra work or other punishments to any who have come to Mom’s negative attention over the course of the day.

8:00 pm: Dad reads the Bible to the children and tucks them each into bed, praying with each one individually.

8:30 pm: Mom and Dad discuss the day, their dreams and hopes for their children, and re-connect emotionally.

9:30 pm: Dad sits down to write an insightful blog article about parenting, marriage, homeschooling, or theology, carefully supporting his position with scripture (in the original Greek or Hebrew, of course).

Not my actual profile.

10:00 pm: Dad corresponds with any church leaders or heads of State who may have written to him for ethical and spiritual advice or counsel.

10:30 pm: Mom and Dad go to bed, happily snuggling each other close.

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As you now no longer have to imagine, that is exactly how my day plays out (I’m lying). So remember, vote early and vote often (according to the applicable rules, of course), for your favorite Homeschooling Dad!

Tim

Some of you may have wondered at my absence from the family photos that were posted yesterday. Let’s just say that I came to the negative attention of the Blog Taunting Police, whose authority is much more far-reaching than you might suspect. Kathy and I agreed not to further aggravate the matter by posting any pictures that featured me; I didn’t want to come across publicly as defiant or unrepentant, after all the wife- and blog-reader taunting that transpired.

Based on advice from legal counsel I have retained, I may further jeopardize my precarious standing with the BTP (Blog Taunting Police) unless I am very careful with any public statement. Suffice it to say that it is now permissible for me to post one of my favorite pictures from the CD, if only to prove that I did, in fact, attend the photo-shoot:

As you can see, all was forgiven, at least by my daughters.

You’ll just have to take it from me that my ‘interview’ with the BTP (let’s just say they didn’t offer me any Nutella) has produced in me a sudden desire to cater to our discerning blog readers. I heartily repent of my evil and ill-conceived picture-posting-post (PPP).

As Kathy mentioned, I was very pleased with the CD of pictures we received, and was forced to eat some humble pie after all my swaggering statement: there is no way I could have taken these pictures (especially since I was, in fact, in several of them.

Today we had the privilege of lighting the first Advent Candle at church — we all wore red shirts and many of us dressed in black pants or skirts. (To clarify, Kathy wore a black skirt and I wore black pants, not the other way around.) We read a passage from Isaiah and related one of our family Christmas traditions. As we sat down, I felt vaguely disappointed … we dressed up all ‘matchy-matchy’, but nobody took hundreds of pictures of us! Gone was the happy chatter of camera shutters … how fleeting was our fame!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6-7

Tim

After eight days away from our children, Kathy and I were agreed: it was time for them to come home.

Too bad Grandma and Grandpa brought them home in the van — this way would have been more stylish.

We thoroughly enjoyed our break away from our duties as Mom, Dad, programmer and teacher, but as the days slipped away, our hearts returned to our little family. In short, we missed ‘em.

Brick paths and brick buildings under a cool October sky …

We are spiritually and relationally renewed; or if not, it wasn’t from a lack of trying. The church leadership retreat challenged the depth of our commitment to our Lord, and helped us to build some closer relationships with the staff and ministry leaders. Our trip to the east coast was a delightful mix of catching up with old friends and revisiting old haunts without feeling too er, old.

It was wonderful to connect with Rachel and to see several other good friends, like Emily and Dave.

I had hoped for a little more time for Kathy and I to spend alone, but (in retrospect), I think the weekend was a perfect mix of unhurried time with friends while still leaving some ‘down time’ for Kathy and I to be alone together.

One thing I always liked about W&M was the reassuring fact that nearly 300 years’ worth of students had attended and (apparently) survived beyond their college years.

Kathy and I were graduated from the College of William and Mary, one of the nation’s oldest colleges. Located in Williamsburg, Virginia, William and Mary was the first U.S. college to become a University (offering a graduate degree program in 1779). Nestled up against the restored historic district of Colonial Williamsburg, and just a short drive from Jamestown, the College enjoys a rich heritage and historic charm that is well appreciated by many students and their families.

It is always fun to walk around Colonial Williamsburg and interact with the costumed actors.

I first attended the College in the Fall of 1983, taking advantage of a full Army R.O.T.C. scholarship. After two years of playing wargames and frisbee (while attending only about 40% of my classes), the Army decided that my lackluster grades did not fill them with confidence that I would be fit, in spite of my oath, “to protect the Constitution of the United States against enemies, foreign or domestic.” In the summer of 1985 I was informed that the scholarship was no longer in effect, and so began a hiatus from school while I scrabbled to earn the money to return. Eventually I was required to pay back all the money they had spent on me, having been found in breach of contract as a result of my poor grades.

Perhaps a little less time playing Star Trek in the computer lab … ?

After working for the Department of Agriculture for a year or so, it became evident that the best way for me to repay the money I owed while still earning enough to return to college was to join the Army as an enlisted man. At the time, the G.I. Bill and Army College Fund were generous enough for me to serve a three-year stint and ‘earn’ funds sufficient to finish school. My parents generously helped me to pay off my debt to the Army, and I signed up for a three-year enlistment as a Chaplain’s Assistant, which turned out to be just the thing I needed to grow up a little.

Many a game of Ultimate Frisbee was played in these Sunken Gardens.

In 1989 I returned to the College of William and Mary as a sophomore (again). By this time Kathy had transferred in from a school near Richmond, and began attending Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) and Campus Crusade for Christ, where I quickly noticed her. We became acquainted during a Spring Break work project through IVCF and Habitat for Humanity, as we worked to build homes for people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Jodi and Alan and their delightful family

At the end of the week, I drove Kathy and her friend, Jodi, home from South Carolina, since all three of us needed to be back in Virginia a day earlier than the rest of the group. After we counseled Kathy’s friend on her love life (she met her future husband, Alan, during the same week-long trip) and Jodi fell into an exhausted slumber, Kathy and I talked and laughed the rest of the ride home. As we crossed the border between North Carolina and Virginia, I realized that I was beginning to fall in love with her.

It was great to breakfast with the Purks, who encouraged and mentored us both as individual followers of Jesus and as a couple, heading for marriage.

Kathy and I spent some very happy years in school together, and we greatly enjoyed the opportunity to renew our acquaintance with a few of the local landmarks.

Extending from the Wren building at the tip of campus through the historic district, Duke of Gloucester Street (aka Dog Street) serves as the preferred promenade for students and tourists alike.

Kathy’s parents also attended William and Mary, as did my brother and his wife. Kathy enjoyed a quick chat with her Dad while waiting for the redcoats.

Kathy waits for a package from home …

Kathy and I never really ‘dated’, per se, but moved quickly into an intimate friendship that avoided some of the games that people play as they try to gauge the heart of their beloved. While we served on the Habitat for Humanity work project, our Inter-Varsity leaders asked us to write 3×5 ‘care cards’ of encouragement to the other members on the team, a practice which was very effective in building us into a more cohesive team. Returning to campus after the project, Kathy and I kept the practice alive, although it soon devolved into a way for just the two of us to woo each other in words. Postage at the time for on-campus mail was free, and the kindly workers would distribute new mail in our boxes three or four times a day.

Silly Kathy, doesn’t she know the Campus Post Office has moved to the new Campus Center?

We wrote hundreds (maybe thousands) of cards to each other, three or four at a time, bundled into an envelope for privacy and posted through campus mail in the basement of the Old Dominion dormitory. We quickly attracted the mail handlers’ attention and became a mascot for those who approved of young lovers — our mail was always sorted and placed in our boxes with the utmost in efficiency and courtesy. We found reasons to pass by the post office three or four times a day, and were rarely disappointed, as we shared little 3×5 slices of our hearts in a variety of pastel colors.

One of the most romantic spots on campus was the little bridge over Crim Dell. As legend has it, kissing a date on this bridge results in a future marriage with that person — Kathy and I were careful to preserve the legend … on several occasions.

Life in college isn’t all roses, as everyone knows. Sometimes classes were hard; paper and exam deadlines seemed to come pretty fast and furious at times. I remember on several occasions being rather stressed-out, especially the first year back at school after four years away. Once I met Kathy, though, I walked around campus with a sharp eye, watching for a smiling face that brightened even the worst of days.

Some of those professors get downright testy when you skip their classes.

Whenever our schedule permitted, we used to meet at the Sundial, which stood near the library at a crossroads of paths among some of the academic buildings on ‘new’ campus. There were many other semi-secret meeting spots whose names still bring a smile to my lips, including the Phoenix, the Hippopotamus Stapler, and Oliver.

I’d better not leave this cute girl waiting long, or she’ll be snapped up.

Looking back over the years, I’m filled with a sense of tremendous gratitude for God’s sovereign hand and His love and kindness for us both. In spite of the squandering of my scholarship, God gave me a second chance at college, and threw in true love with Kathy, just because He can. Whenever I feel that I’m going through a hard stretch in life, and it seems God has abandoned me, I remember what good things He has given me, when my life seemed dark and grim — it helps me to hold on and wait for His goodness and grace.

Tim