Cake, Grasshoppers and Screams..

Saturday night, we are picking up the kids to head home after a night on the town. The kids have made a cake with Grandma and we have all piled into the car to head home. As we driving home, my wife proceeds to start screaming and I can not quickly figure out what is going on. After the initial screaming has passed, she proceeds to explain that there is a grasshopper jumping around her side of the vehicle. The grasshopper jumps down her dress top, jumps out onto the dashboard where I proceed to try to grab it. As I reach across the dash for the grasshopper, it makes a leap onto the cake the kids have made. Through the tears of laughter I now am experiencing, I grab the grasshoper out of the icing and proceed to throw it out the driver's window. What an exciting way to ride home - the kids are now worried about the cake being contaminated, worried about what happened to the grasshopper and their mother is now laughing hysterically along with myself.

I knew when I signed up to be married and to be a dad, I would be called upon to "save" my family from these types of "attacks", this just might have been one of the funniest I have experienced.

Happy Mother's Day...

I have an amazing wife - she is incredible and I thought that it would be cool to try and spread the word about just how incredible and amazing I think she is. We have 3 kids, my occupation usually causes me to be MIA for about 2 - 3 months during the early part of the year. She has really been a blessing in how understanding she is about my job and the way that she keeps things running smoothly around the home.

She has and still is working to help keep things organized and taken care of around the home and just in general. I realize that I have been given a great gift in the form of my wife. The love that she demonstrates each and every day to me and also to the kids is unimaginable. Now I do not want to make it sound like she is perfect because there is not one that is perfect, but she really does a GREAT job striving to be a great example to the kids and other wives and mothers. I am definitely undeserving of this SUPER, SPECIAL WOMAN. Thank God for her!!!!

To all those other moms out there, I hope the special people in your life take some time to acknowledge and share their appreciation with you. Happy Mother's Day!!!

Pain vs Discomfort

I spend a great amount of time sitting in front of a computer for work. Because of that I have found that my body is in revolt - I have upper back strain from looking up and down (up to the monitor and down to write things, look at papers, etc.). I also have lower back problems. I call them problems because they lead to definite discomfort but is it really pain or is just uncomfortable. I know that I have a fairly low tolerance for pain and that might lead me to lean more towards the side of pain, but really if I can get up and walk, play with the kids, hold my wife's hand - I will choose to count those all as blessings.

As author and speaker Jon Gordon has suggested: "cultivate an attitude of gratitude" and "remember, you are too blessed to be stressed".

Have a great day.

Matt's Initial Musings

I am visiting my friends, Dave & Rebekah Floyd in Denver, CO. The weather is amazing - it is snowing and that is very different than what I am used to living in Phoenix, AZ. I look forward to being able to post my thoughts, ideas, sharing thoughts.