Be Careful What You Wish For

I think I'm one of the 7% of New Englanders who actually like snow. It's amazing....how many people who have been life long residents of this area can't stand the white stuff. My next door neighbor DESPISES the snow. I've literally seen him flip the middle finger to a snow drift. I'm sure he's not alone.
Me? I love the stuff. I was quoted earlier in the season as saying "It could snow 5 feet a day, every day, all winter, and I'd be o.k. with that". I'm starting to think Someone's taking me up on that challenge.
The meteorologists called for 5-8" of snow....they were way off. add a foot to those projections and they would have been close. Let me show you something:


This photo was taken on January 11 after our first "big" snow. At the time it felt like the biggest whitewash of all time.


Yeah, I took this picture this morning. I gotta say, I still love it, but I'd be lying if I said that I'm not a little concerned.
There's gotta be 2 tons of snow on the deck. While shoveling, I had to concede the passage to the Hobbit House. The ice dams on the roof are producing 5 foot icicles in a day. We are literally running out of places to put snow when blowing out the driveway.


That's my dad. He's about 6'3". That's my van. It's about 6'4". Notice how the snowbanks are bigger than both of them? Yeah..it's definitely getting a little sketchy around here. Still fun, but a little sketchy.
Now, I know the Weather People love to pour gasoline on the fire...they are already talking about ANOTHER nor-easter for next week. Wednesday into Thursday....that's way too far out to call at this point, but talk of 12+ inch accumulations are already being thrown around. I don't buy it....but there is 5 feet of snow on the ground already around here so, anythings possible.

I was off of work again today...Chrissy's mom, twin sister and nephews are up from Jersey (they made it in just in time before the heavy stuff started falling). It was fun to get snowed in. Pancakes and sausage waiting for me after moving all the snow...got in a 45 minute nap....had a tall, frosty, diet coke at around 3:30 pm....got into a project in the workshop with my son and nephew (both 4 yrs. old)....good times, good family, good sausages.

Good God.

Frozen Pipes and Divine Intervention

So, On Monday nights, our family worship time is usually centered around talking more about what our pastor preached on Sunday. He's been going through the book of Hosea and was talking about "Spiritual Stubbornness". I like to use some sort of object lesson when teaching The Word to my family but this time...I had nothing good. The bit in Deuteronomy about stoning the stubborn son seemed a bit intense for a four year old and an 18 month old. I had thought of 50 ways to illustrate "Stubbornness"...and all of them sucked.
I got home from work and Chrissy told me that the cold water pipe running to the washing machine had froze. It's been colder than cold lately (-7 last night...-1 right now). I had just walked through the door after a super busy day at work....not exactly the project I wanted to tackle at that moment....but, duty calls, ya know?
Gavin was interested in what was going on with the washer. Now, he's a great little helper but, he's still at such a young age that doing a project with him alongside me usually takes about 50% longer than if I were to just do it myself....I was sorta hoping to just fix this thing quickly and then eat some dinner BUT, it's a great opportunity for him to learn and it's good quality time spent with dad so I had him help me out. We pulled the washing machine hose off of the cold water line and ran the water...it flowed out of the pipe no problem. O.k. so, it's not the pipe, it's the hose. We then pulled the other end of the hose off of the washing machine...I tried to blow through it.....nothing. Plugged.
We took the hose upstairs and ran hot water through it....and about 5 minutes later, I blew again, this time blowing a 3 inch cylinder of ice out of the hose and shattering onto the laundry room floor. We wrapped the threads with plumbers tape, reinstalled the hose, and were back in business. As we were putting away our tools....it hit me. Straight from The Lord. Like a ball peen hammer between the eyes:

"There's your "Stubbornness" illustration."

Just like that.

At family worship...we talked about how the hose was plugged...it couldn't do it's job and prevented the washing machine from doing work as well. Only when the hose was cleared could it do the job that it was intended to do..and only then could it provide the means for the washing machine to do the job that IT was designed to do. When it was sitting there all clogged up...it was useless.

We then parallelled that to our own hearts...how we hang onto things that we want...and make decisions based on what WE want to do...not what HE has for us...and we clog ourselves up with selfishness, disobedience....sin...our own agenda. We sit there with our hearts plugged with filth...useless...unable to do the work that we were designed to do. Unable to reach those that we are supposed to be reaching...all because we are clogged with our own selfish desires.
It's when we submit to Him and humbly allow Him to move obstacles out of our way that we begin to be able to be used by Him for His Glory.

Thank you, Lord. What a gift to be able to use this fix-it project as an opportunity to teach my family God's Will for us. I am continually blown away by the places that we see God when we are interested in finding Him. He will literally use ANYTHING to teach us about Him...if we are open to learning.

He's so cool like that.

Winter Weather Robot Roundup

O.K. so...

It's 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday. Ivy is asleep.

It was 13 degrees outside.

The snow in my yard is up past my son's torso.

I COULD take 25 minutes to get him all geared up to go wander around outside for 10 frozen miserable minutes....OOOoooorrr......



We could build us a ROBOT!!!!! BOOYA!!

Chrissy has been working with Gavin on each letter of the alphabet...this week is "R"...so we put together a robot...not just a robot...but a recycled robot...and not just a recycled robot, but a resourceful recycled robot...and NOT just a resourceful recycled robot...but "RUSTY" The Resourceful Recycled Robot.... man, you gotta love alliteration. Anyways...

We used all kinds of stuff that Chrissy had saved for occasions such as this as well as stuff that was laying around the house...cardboard boxes, foil, Styrofoam, pipe cleaners, buttons, old wires, milk caps, orange juice caps, cardboard tubes, duct tape. Here's us at work:


building us a head


we currently have a patent pending on our juice lid "control panel"

And when the dust settled in the Leo family's own personal Frankenstein workshop...


Rusty was born! Complete with carabiner hands to "bring you stuff". Oh and by the way.....


He's Mobile!!! We fabricated a little bracket on Gavin's remote control car so that Rusty could seat right on top of it and ride all over the place. Watching this little guy come rolling at us was the funniest thing we've seen all week.



I gotta say...I'm not telling anyone what to do or how to spend their time...but throwing some crappy Sunday jazz on the radio and spending some time creating with my boy was just about the best Sunday afternoon I've had in a long while. I love that my son loves to spend time with me like this. There's such an opportunity to connect in such a valuable, vulnerable and real way with him during times like these. I know I've mentioned it here before, but there's that verse in Ephesians that I love about "redeeming the time because the days are evil"......Being able to engage my son for 2 hours in something creative and wonderful....being able to work along-side of him, building, problem solving, training him to use tools, laughing with him, guiding him....man, what a blessing those times are. I pray for thousands more opportunities like today.

The kid played with his creation all night...and really, why wouldn't you? The thing is cute as nails:


Who needs a hug?

Priorities and Perspective

I have actual green paint from Fenway Park stored in a shadow box.
I've been on the field at Fenway...walked in the dugouts..the outfield..pretended to catch a fly ball against the green monster.
I've recreated Fisk's "Wave It Fair" home run from the '75 World Series on the exact spot where it happened.
I have a pennant from every Patriots Super Bowl and Sox World Series win.
I have an autographed photo of Adam Vinatieri kicking the game winning field goal in the "Snow Bowl" against the Raiders.
The first time I ever swore in front of my parents was during a patriots game because of a crucial dropped pass.
I owned both "Squish the Fish" and "Berry the Bears" t-shirts.
I was at the 2001 Patriots Super Bowl parade.
I've sat court-side at The Garden and high-fived Bird, McHale, The Chief, DJ, Ainge in the 80's.
I've watched Neely, Bourque, The Sweeney brothers, Moog, Janney, LB...in person.
I stalked Doug Flutie at the Boston Garden while he was watching a Celtics game after his '84 Heisman Trophy win just to shake his hand.
I have Bob Cousy's autograph. Bruce Hurst's too.

I love Boston professional sports.


Let me rephrase that.
I loved Boston professional sports.

Now, I just like them.

Tonight, The New England Patriots lost a historic playoff game against the New York Jets. This game was one of the most talked about playoff games in recent history. The amount of negative chatter back and forth between these two teams during the week led to unprecedented intervention by the administration of the NFL.

The Patriots lost. I didn't care.

I didn't care because I didn't know.

I didn't know because right about the time the Patriots lost the game, I was wrestling on "the big bed" with my two kids.

There was a time in my life (and not that long ago, I may add) when this loss would have affected me to a great degree. The disappointment of this loss would have followed me for at least a couple of days.

I've met and seen so many people invest so much time, money, and emotional energy into their favorite team. I've seen people derive a disproportionate amount of self esteem from the success of their favorite professional sports team.

About 2 years ago...The Lord gave me a wonderful, and much needed, new perspective on professional sports. I still enjoy my local sports teams, but I don't live and die with their successes and failures. During the Summer, there'll be plenty of nights when we have the Sox game on the radio in the background of whatever it is we're doing as a family. It's fun...but it doesn't matter whether they win by 10 or lose by 10.

If the Pats, Sox, B's and C's won or lost every title game for the next 20 years...I'd still need to get up and go to work every day. I'd still have the same duties as a husband and parent. It literally wouldn't make one bit of difference to my life and the tasks that I've been given to handle. My children would still need to learn about compassion, love, work ethic, responsibility, Truth...and my wife and I would still need to teach them. The success or failure of these teams wouldn't make our job any more or less easy. Their success might provide a pleasant temporary distraction, but not much more.

Now, I'm not thumbing my nose at pro sports. I still really enjoy the competition. As a chubby, out of shape, former athlete, it's enjoyable to live vicariously through these individuals who have been blessed with talents that have given them the opportunity to compete for a living. It's fun to root for something bigger than yourself. It's fun to be a part of the collective enjoyment of a city or state when your team wins it all. All these things are great....but perspective is important.

Right now there is an entire region of Patriots fans who are bummed out. I was bummed out....for maybe 3 seconds....then I wrestled my son and read my daughter a book before she went to bed. I hugged them.. Tickled them. Loved them. I laughed with them. They couldn't have cared less that the Patriots lost. The Patriots will never wrestle them, read to them, hug them, tickle them, love them, laugh with them. It wouldn't matter if they won by 30 or lost by 300.

I'm grateful for the perspective The Lord has given me.

But truthfully, I AM a little bummed that I won't be wearing my Bruschi throwback on February 6.

Buried

Well...when all was said and done, we ended up with just about the biggest snowfall since we moved back to MA 10 years ago. The snow tapered off around 5pm. We bundled up the kids and headed out to investigate. It was CRAZY deep so we stayed on the porch and dug out some fun. In no time we had carved out our own little Snowy Six Flags complete with High Dive, Snow Slide, Snow Fort w/ Escape Tunnel, and Snowy Hobbit House Hideaway. The kids have never seen anywhere near this much snow and had a BLAST bombing around in it. Mama and I did as well. Here's some pics:


The boy and I.


Navigating the Eastern Passage


I Can't Put My Arms Down: The girl gets in on the fun


Gavin in the Snow Tunnel. That there is a load-bearing slide.




I mean, Every parent should stick their kids on top of a sketchy snow pile and take their picture, right?


Family Pic. I hung the camera on the outside sconce and used the timer on the camera...took 5 tries to get this.

All in all, it was such a fantastic time. I'm sure that there's families all over the area who got to have some crazy snow fun with their families over the past 48 hours. I was blessed in that my work was cancelled (We own vans and transport clients, if our local schools are closed, so are we) for 2 days, so i got to spend tons of time both in and outdoors with my family. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my job, but being able to hang at home while 20 inches of snow dumped on our town...that's the kind of stuff you relish in the moment and cherish in memories forever.

Wow, that last line was a little campy, to make up for it...I give you:


Frozen Beard

Now That's More Like It...UPDATED

11:45 am


3:45 pm

still a few hours left, too.
scroll to the bottom of this post to see our stormy visitor....



The Weather Channel was hesitant to throw out the "B" word this time, but at about midnight, the forecast switched from "Heavy Snow/Wind" to "Blizzard". Our 8 inch "dusting" that they called a blizzard last time had me skeptical, but this storm definitely has bark AND bite. 15 solid inches down already and a call for 5 to 8 additional inches throughout the afternoon.

Too deep to play in.

Too early to shovel.

Guess I'll have another cup of coffee and play cars with the kid.




We also had this little lady brave the snow and wind to visit us for an afternoon snack at the suet cage:

Downy Woodpecker

Possibility of cancellations tomorrow as well...could it be a double whammy double day off? We'll see.

A Winter's day...time to play.

The ice is safe. We got 2 inches of snow last night...just enough to make it festive. Today was our first full on Winter outside fun day....and Gavin's first ever time on ice skates. here's how it went down:

I went out before breakfast and shoveled us a skating rink on the pond. After a delicious french toast breakfast, we made our way outside and got our skate on.



Before today, Gavin had never been on ice skates. I haven't skated since about 1992. I grew up on this lake. I skated and played pond hockey pretty much every possible day from age 10 through 17. at 18, I went to college in Pennsylvania and then lived in New Jersey until I was about 27...with no real availability to get on the ice. At age 30, by the time I had moved back to MA, I broke my right ankle so severely that it required 3 surgeries, 2 metal plates and 8 screws, 4 months of rehab, and a 10% permanent range of motion loss. I have no feeling on the top of my foot or in 3 of my toes. In my mind, I pretty much put ice skating behind me. This Winter...I bought Gavin and I ice skates. We tried them out for the first time today. Not to blow too much sunshine in either of our directions but, we both skated great. (I bought that hockey stick in 1989...still works like a champ :^)



I had big plans to fabricate an ice skating trainer out of 1/2" PVC for the kid...kind of like a walker...something he could hold onto and push while he got the basics down.....no need. The kid was a natural. He was all over the place. he had a great attitude. He took some colossal diggers but got right back up....his first time on brand new skates and he rocked it for almost 2 hours. I was one proud papa today.



Chrissy took this picture. Pa taking Ivy for a ride on the sled. Me and Gavin cruising around. Gramma in the background with the crash helmet....she took a major digger early in the day...call it damage control.



Too young for skates....just right for sleds.



Like a champ, I tell ya.



The girls getting their sled on....the boy getting a hot cocoa fix.



we ended today's session with a bonfire AND the annual tradition of.....



Christmas Tree Burn Down.

A wonderful New England Winter's day outside with the family.

I am so thankful to be able to teach Gavin how to skate. Honestly, after my ankle injury, I pretty much had it figured in my mind that I'd never be able to be on skates again. I thank the Lord for the second chance to be able to be out there skating today for the first time in decades.....and to be able to teach my son how to skate....what a blessing.

Praise God from who all blessings flow.

I'm uncool, and definitely not Almost Famous

The kids went to bed early tonight...it's been a busy week. I needed a night just to chill. I poured myself a big, icy Diet Coke and decided to watch a DVD....headed down to the basement to scrounge around for our old box of movies and found one that I haven't seen in years but really dig....Almost Famous. If you haven't seen it...I'm not going to bother explaining the plot lines and characters...so the rest of this might not be worth reading....heck, even if you've seen it, this may not be worth reading...I guess I'll leave that up to you.
Anyway, about 20 minutes into it, Chrissy comes in and sits down...and after about 45minutes or so I start asking her stuff that leads to an exchange that goes through stuff like this...
Here's a movie that I like very much (for many personal reason, which I'll get into in a minute) but it's a movie that pretty much glorifies broken, sinful lifestyles of people in various levels of rock and roll life devoid of any conviction to God. The characters in the movie are doing things that I'd never want my kids to grow up doing in a million years. Will I ever introduce this movie to my kids? Or at least the music in it? I mean, how can I not teach my son about The Who. I mean, half of them are dead and probably burning in hell, but they freaking rock. They meant so much to me at some point in my life and influenced much of who I became musically. So did scenes like the ones portrayed in the movie. I'm not looking for answers, really...just enjoying the ponder of the questions.

I guess at some level the attachment to that movie comes from life experiences that, in many ways, mirror the conviction, emotion, and actions in the film. At one point in my life, I too spent a great deal of time following a band around. I too shoveled booze and drugs into my body while I invested a great deal of emotional energy, time, money, life into the music of a band. I quit jobs to follow them around. I went from Maine to Georgia to Las Vegas to San Francisco to be near them. I had friends in cities all over the country...great friends, but friends within that scene....many with nicknames who I never learned much more about other than who they were within the context of the music scene we were in...but yet others who I still regard as very dear friends. My home was an East Coast hub and a magnet for others in the scene to gravitate to...to live...to party...to spend one more precious weekend chasing The Buzz.
When Penny Lane and William talk about life on the road juxtaposed with "the real world"..and the lines continually blurring between them...I get it. When they talk about The Buzz...I get it.

It's weird, though...I'm so glad that I'm removed from that scene....but I'm still drawn to this movie that glorifies it...or at least parts of it. The fun and the Buzz and the party and the laughter and the friends....these are the topics played out....what isn't shown ( or IS, but to a much lesser degree) is the stupidity, the irresponsibility, the guilt, the selfishness, the emptiness, and the inevitable collapse that staying too long in that scene brings. William's mom, in the movie, represents all those outside the scene who are hurt and let down by someone who's too deep in the scene. I learned alot while living in between those 2 worlds...both good and bad.
I know there's lots of people who would disagree with me on this stuff...and i'm not looking to debate...i'm just looking to dribble on about this for a hundred more words or more...then i'll be done.

In the end, though....Virtue, Integrity, and Truth prevail. Once the protagonist leaves the false security of the scene behind him and wraps himself around these positive things...the ship rights itself (right on cue, about 7 minutes before the closing credits). I guess I COULD show this movie to my kids someday...as something of a poetic biography.
In simple terms:
Sin is fun.
sometimes it's FUN.
but it eventually takes over and starts to hurt.
and bring disappointment.
and selfishness.
and guilt.
and eventually, death.
But,
The Truth saves us.
THE Truth.
Our wonderful Father God.
Clothed in Majesty and Light.
His Truth rights our ship.
and points us toward truer ports.

I wish I had some brilliant epilogue to close with but...i've got nothing so i'll leave you with my favorite quote of the movie:

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool." - Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs

and i'm definitely uncool. thanks for letting me share.

Year End Wrap Up.

Just a quick post today, but first....I know that I didn't post a "Part 2" to my blizzard post, but that's only because the storm didn't amount to much. The wind gusts were for real, and it did get a bit sketchy for a minute or two, but when all was said and done, we didn't get much more than 8 inches of snow. I know some areas got pummelled, but I think that our local weathermen got a little over-zealous.
We still had a blast, though. Ivy made her first snowman and we got to try out the new sled the kids got for Christmas.

All in all 2010 was a good year for our little family. Looking back, we've seen how far we've come in many areas and how far we've still got to grow in others. But thankfully, The Lord loves teaching His children.

A few priorities for us as the new year dawns:

- drop some pounds. Chrissy and I gotta get down to our fightin' weights...or at least baby making weight. We're hoping to be preggers in 2011.
- Family ministry. We're praying for The Lord to show us ways for us to minister as a family. Perhaps some cleaning at our church, or some type of family ministry to a local rest home/nursing home.
- Upping our gardens. My dad and I put in a bunch of additional gardens at the end of last season. I think we about tripled our gardening space. We're hoping to try a bunch of new crops and herbs as well as start canning. Our plan is to be able to eat off our garden's yield all year long, as well as to be able to give away much more stuff.

Anyhow. I hope you all had a wonderful 2010 and that your 2011 is one that brings you closer together to your families and ultimately to Our Lord.

God Bless.