Vacation Plans

My vacation is the week of April 10 and plans are coming together! I decided that I was gonna go somewhere that I have never been before so.....I am flying up to Albany, New York to spend some time with my best friend and his wife.

Dustin and I are going to hang out in Albany for a day or so before treking down to New York City for a day or so! I have never been to NYC and I am very excited about it. The best and coolest part of it is that I was able to secure us two tickets to a New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium!! There is SO much that I want to do in New York City! I want to go to the Metropolitan Museum, Time Square, the Statue of Liberty, and Ground Zero. If time allows, I want to go to the Fox News Studio early in the morning and try to get on tv and wave to my mom :-) She LOVES Fox and Friends that is on every morning.

Another really cool thing is that my friends from Connecticut, Greg and Lisa have offered to let us stay with them (they are only 45 minutes from the city, and if we stay overnite this would save Dustin and I the expense of a hotel room) and they offered to take us up in their plane and take an arial tour of the city. That would be SO awesome.

As y'all can see, I am really excited about this trip. I have to use my vacation by the end of May so I figured this was as good a time as any. Once June rolls around I get three more weeks of vacation so there is no telling where else I will go.

Ok, I am sure that you are thoroughly bored with my blog at this point so I will close by saying Happy Birthday to three of my buddies that have birthdays coming up this week:

Bre-Happy 22nd Birthday girl..hope that it's a good one and that you get to see Ava soon!

Amy K.- Keep your chin up and keep smiling...it will all get better and I know you will have a great birthday!

Phil- P=Diddy! Have a great one man and try not to get yourself arrested for any random acts of silliness that you may or may not commit while being somewhat.....inebriated :) LOL J/K man...looking forward to seeing you Easter Weekend!

One of the Hardest Things to Do in Life...

One of the hardest things to do in life is also one of our most important duties as a Christian. Of course no one ever said that being a Christian would be easy, but it's definitely a difficult journey to partake in. Anyway, one of the most difficult things to do as a person, is forgive. It's extremely difficult to forgive another person in many cases. It's human nature to 'remember' and to 'hold grudges' and for some, even the process of 'getting even' with someone who has wronged them, be it intentionally or not.

We have all been in situations where we messed up and somehow wronged another individual. Hopefully when that situation arose, we asked that other person for forgiveness. Shouldn't we logically pass that idea on to the next person? Of course we should. It's like the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you'd want a person to forgive you, then logic would tell you that if someone asks for your forgiveness, you should grant it to them. Heck, you should forgive them whether they ask for it or not.

The Bible's mentions of forgiveness are far too numerous to even try to delve into here. The bottom line is that Christ has forgiven us of our sins and transgressions and He wants us to treat each other in the same manner. A big part of being able to forgive another person is having a good sense of humility. If God's Son was willing to lower Himself to our lowly standards, and make the ultimate sacrifice, and still forgive us of our sins against Him, then who are we to think that we are too good, or so much better than anyone else that we don't have to grant that same kind of treatment? The answer is: we're not...no one is so good that they don't owe it to another human being that gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the best, kindest and strongest tools that we have as Christians. It sets an awesome example for those around us who may not be Christians. Forgiving brings inner-peace because we are vowing not to let that person or their actions bother us or bring us down.

Valentine's Day

As I sit here and think about Valentine's Day and what exactly it means to people, I can't help but wonder how we fell into this emperialistic trap. Now don't get me wrong, I do not hate Valentine's Day at all. I am definitely not one of these people who is mad, sad, upset, or bitter today just because I am single. I love Valentine's Day and the premice behind it.

What gets me, is how people have been entrapped to believe that (a) they must go all out and spend exhuberant amounts of money on their loved one or (b) feel like they have been deprived of something if their loved one doesn't go all out. You don't need a special day to let someone know that you love them. Nor should Valentine's Day be the only (or anywhere close to that for that matter) day that you plan a romantic evening for your loved one. Love is something that should be shown and told at every opportunity. Take no days for granted because tomorrow is not promised to us.

Now all of this is not a cop-out for Valentine's Day....when I am dating someone on Valentine's Day, yes, I do try to plan something fun and romantic, but it is because I want to, not because I feel obligated to do so. Yes, there is that inate peer pressure that goes along with Valentine's Day...no guy wants to be "that guy" who did not do something special for his lady LOL If you do nothing for her on Valentine's Day then you will almost assuredly be subjected to the snarls, jeers and head shaking of your ladie's friends LOL

My point (FINALLY!) is this: Again, love is something that should be shown on every occasion and you don't need a special day assigned to you to remind you of that. Do the little things throughout the year that you know your loved one will treasure, and life will be much more easy and bearable to live!

Confusion

Life, and more specifically, people can be very confusing. I really don't understand people, nor their thoughts, muchless the motivation behind their thoughts. Take for example a friend from church. She is about 24 or so. I have been talking to her and getting to know her because I am thrilled to finally have someone my age at church. The topic of dating in general (not US dating, just dating as Christians) has come up.

She mentioned that she has recently come out of a relationship and that any guy she "dates" right now really doesn't have much of a chance with her because the pains of the relationship are still fresh. I can TOTALLY relate. Anyone that knows about what happened to me last spring can attest to that. Anyway, I have this weekend off. So I called this girl up to see if she wanted to hang out, maybe go to a movie, go bowling, just do SOMETHING to get out of the house. She tells me that she can't this weekend because she is going out of town with this guy she has been dating. Mind you two weeks ago was when she told me that she just couldn't date anyone. Now this puts me in an awkward position because she really doesn't know me very well (nor I her) so it's not like we are great friends. So now I feel kind of odd about seeing if she wants to hang out because she is dating someone. Puts me in kind of a precarious position. Oh well.

I have had a couple of incidents of people of the female gender saying one thing and totally acting the opposite way lately but I will not bore you with the details. I swear the older I get, the harder and harder it is to understand women and their ways of thinking.

Other than that, life is great. I am enjoying my first weekend off in ages. No work related stress at all. I will just try to relax and sleep as much as I can since I am still not totally over being sick. All in all, life is good.

Y'all give me some suggestions as to what to write about. I want to keep this blog interesting. Remember though it is a work in progress.

I leave you today with my favorite Bible verse. It is a good summation of the meaning of life in my opinion. Galatian 1:10 says "For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondervant of Christ." That verse speaks volumes to me. God Bless--Greg

There's not really a whole lot interesting going on in my life at the moment. The past three weeks I have spent basically at work, then coming home to rest. I have been sick as a dog, and taking medications like crazy. This new anti-biotic seems to be working, as the past couple of days I have felt a little better. Let's hope that they keep working and get me back to normal soon.
Last week my sister came to town with my niece and nephew. My dad and I took the kids to the park and I taught Sarah how to feed the ducks by hand. She screeched and hollered, but it was the good kind. She had a blast. We then headed to the slides and swings and this is where Brett had more fun. He loved every minute of it. They are growing up so fast, and not getting to see them as often as my other nephew and niece has really made me realize just how fast kids grow up. Seems like only yesterday that I was holding her when she was only a month old and here she is today turning four years old. Seems almost unreal, but she is my baby girl.

Work has been crazy and stressful lately, but at least it is not without its results. I feel that I have grown both as a manager and a leader over the past few months. My crew, I feel truly likes me and respects me, and they go the extra mile to meet goals. There are a couple of guys on my crew whom my boss wanted to fire but I stood my ground and refused to do so and they have blossomed into excellent employees. Faith my friends is the key.

I am new to this blogging thing so bear with me. I hope to be able to update it semi-regularly with random musings from my life and the world around us.