I’ve been going back and forth for several months now about whether or not to do this, but I think the time has come to give ‘social media’ a break. I just really need to quiet the noise, turn down the volume and re-evaluate my priorities, where I am in relation to where God wants me to be and where my family needs me to be.

You see, I’m the kind of person that gets easily distracted and sidetracked – especially when it involves something I’m passionate about and enjoy – things like social media and technology for example. These things regularly fill up large amounts of time in my day – which honestly, is the one thing that has kept me from pulling the plug before now. I’ve made so many new acquaintances and friends as a result of joining Twitter last Fall. You guys entertain me, while at the same time inspiring me to passionately pursue Christ. That’s mainly the reason I know it’s time to take a break.

I’m not kidding myself here, I know I’m not a well known blogger like Jon Acuff or Matthew Paul Turner. I kind of equate it to the old ‘tree falling in the woods’ analogy, except that I’m more like a leaf, lol. I am me and that’s all I’ll ever be and I know my ‘online presence’ won’t be missed. But that’s another reason for this break, I’ve been caring way too much about what other people have to say, than what Jesus is trying to say to me (Twitter). I also care too much about where I’ve been than where God wants me to be (Foursquare). And I care way too much about everyone else’s life, than the life God’s blessed me with and has called me to (Facebook).

I don’t know how long the break will last – maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or two – I don’t know. All I know is it’s time to quiet the noise and turn down the volume and start paying more attention to the physical world around me and to the God whose voice often gets drowned out in all the noise I surround myself with on a daily basis. Easier said than done I know, but it must be done. See you after the break.

Hardcore bloggers will tell you that in order to be successful you need to post regularly, write well, provide value, make it easy for readers to connect and to be unique. Well, I know for a fact I don’t do any of those things well, except for being unique perhaps. I don’t have a ton of blog readers, Facebook friends or Twitter followers, but that’s ok. I’ve spent far too much of my life trying to please men and caring what others think of me, I don’t need this blog to be another avenue for it. Besides, there are far too many talented bloggers and Christian personalities out there who have a God-given talent for such things, there’s no need for me to try and re-invent the wheel.

When I started this blog however long ago, I had no purpose in doing so other than to be transparent in sharing my life and what God is doing in it. I know a lot of my blog posts recently are songs or lyrics to songs, this one (in the end) will be no exception. I honestly can’t tell you why this is, but for whatever reason, God speaks to me through music unlike anything else. Some days it’s almost as if I can hear him audibly in my ear, it really is surreal.

Early this week as I was running around our neighborhood (in the 40mph winds no less)  Jeremy Camps “Trust In You” song came on. I wasn’t sure why God wanted me to hear this song at the time, but now that this week has come and gone, I can see why He wanted me to hear it. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll take a second to  read these word or listen to the song. I hope it will be an encouragement to you as it’s been to me.

“I Will Trust In You” by Jeremy Camp

When I can’t see You I know You’re there
When I can’t feel You I will not fear
I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.
When the battle is close at hand
Though You’re with me and help me stand
I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.

I will not be afraid
I will not be afraid
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you

When the darkness is close at hand
And I‘m running against the wind
I will trust in you and I will not be afraid.
When I’m standing upon that shore
All the battles I’ve gone before
I will trust in you, and I will not be afraid.

‘Cuz I will not be afraid
I will not be afraid
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you

‘Cuz I will not be afraid
I will not be afraid
‘Cuz I will not be afraid
I will not be afraid
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
I will trust in you.

For several years now, Christmas just hasn’t felt like Christmas to me. Perhaps it’s just a feeling that dissipates with age? Am I the only one that feels this way? All I know is that it’s been a really long time since Christmas didn’t just seem like any other day on the calendar.

There’s a sappy Faith Hill song called “Where Are You Christmas” I’m sure you’ve all heard a million times already this season… it says “if there is love in your heart and your mind, you will feel like Christmas all the time.” Maybe you’re on to something there Faith…

When I really stop to think about it, Christmas stopped feeling like Christmas as I grew up and started to understand economics, marketing and PR. Just like a present wrapped underneath the tree, these ‘three kings’ of our culture have absolutely buried the true essence of the Christmas season behind paper and bows. I rarely see love this time of year, just cash or credit.

What’s worse, Focus on the Family recently published this website asking consumers to rate which retailers are “Christmas-friendly”, all under the guise of “Standing for Christmas”. For example, according to their readers, Bass Pro Shop is 97% friendly, while GAP is 85% offensive.

So does that mean I’m not supposed to shop at GAP? Do I add them to my Christian Boycott Handbook: Christmas Edition now? Do I forward this information to all my friends and family, post it on Facebook so they know to boycott GAP too? What do I do with this wealth of information?

Wait a second… where’s the ‘golden rule’ being applied here? And if ratings really matter, shouldn’t WE (those of us who profess to know Christ) be the ones being rated on our ‘Christmas-friendliness’? We’re the one’s that know the true meaning of Christmas after all. We’re the ones that are called to be the light of the world, are we not?

While the ‘three kings’ mentioned above have certainly taken their toll on Christmas, we can expect that from our materialistic society. But what are WE as Christians doing differently? If Faith Hill is correct (and to an extent I believe she is), what are we doing to show love to others?

According to Focus on the Family, we should expect the world to wish us a hearty “Merry Christmas!” while we grab our bags of clothes and toys. Because if they don’t, by gosh, we’ll rate them into the ground! But wait, for us Christmas isn’t about presents, lights and trees and fat old men in red suits — at least it shouldn’t be, right? Or have we just bought into society’s definition of Christmas?

This year, I want Christmas to feel like Christmas again. I want to care less about what I receive and focus more on what I can give and how I can demonstrate God’s love for others. I believe this is one reason why Christmas has lost it’s “magic” for me.

Maybe it’s something as simple as letting someone ahead of you in line or donating clothes and food to the homeless. Or maybe, just maybe, taking the initiative and wishing the retailer a hearty “Merry Christmas!” without expecting one in return.

Has Christmas stopped feeling like Christmas to you? What are you doing to share God’s love with others this season?

I recently redesigned my wife’s blog, based off a new theme by my favorite WordPress template developers, WooThemes. The theme I selected has some nifty little java-script to display your latest Twitter update. Since Carrie isn’t a Twitter user, and likely isn’t going to become one anytime soon, I tried to find a way to replace this with her Facebook status updates.

This wasn’t easy, and maybe even isn’t the best way to go about this, I don’t know, but thought I’d share what I did for anyone else out there that may want to do the same thing. It’s easy to display your tweets in Facebook, but the reverse? Not so much. I don’t know why Facebook feels the need to prevent or hide this functionality. Anyways, here’s how I replaced the Twitter feed with Facebook’s status update, for anyone who may be interested.

Find the Facebook status feed – this is the difficult part since FB has since buried it with recent updates.

• Log on to Facebook and open the notifications window (bottom right)
• Click the ‘See All’ link
• Click the ‘Your Notifications’ RSS link (bottom right)
• You should be presented with your notifications RSS link

This will give you a feed link, but not the correct one, you’ll need hack it up quite a bit for it to work.

• Copy the link into a text editor and replace ‘notifications.php?id\’ with ‘status.php?id=’
• Replace all references to ‘\x3d” & “\x26’ in the link with a simple ‘=’ sign.
• This should give you a nice clean rss link to your Facebook status updates
• For example, this was my wife’s original and edited feed link.
• Original: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id\x3d522510056\x26viewer\x3d522510056\x26key\x3d6a3c02d8a5\x26format\x3drss20
• Altered: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=516456579&viewer=516456579&key=eb395bd3ab&format=rss20

If you only need the Facebook status feed, you can stop there and simply add your feed to FeedBurner or one of many different services out there, or just use the WordPress plugin to import your feed to your blog. I had to get a little more creative though to import the Facebook status to Twitter, and then to the Twitter feature on the blog.

Sign up for an RSS2twitter account here: http://rss2twitter.com

• You’ll need to authorize RSS2twitter for Twitter use, but once that’s complete, simply copy your edited Facebook feed link as a new feed in RSS2twitter.
• Edit the feed to display just the description, otherwise you may get some replicated text. Choose your update time, etc and save the feed, making sure to select your Twitter from the account drop down list.
• Once complete, you should see your Facebook status automatically imported to Twitter on the update schedule you selected in the previous step.

This solved my issue, now my wife’s blog displays her Facebook status as a Twitter update. Like I said, maybe not the best solution, but it worked for me so thought I’d share it with you.

You can see the final product on my wife’s blog, mommyhoodadventures.com. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

I decided on a whim to re-do Carrie’s website, just for fun. WooThemes (my favorite WordPress template designers) released a new theme this week which got the wheels churning, so this is what I ended up with. It was fun little project and I’m finding the more I dabble in PHP (code speak for my non-techie friends), the more I learn. I’m still horrifically slow and I’m probably doing things the hard way, but the cool part is that I’m starting to figure it out and find what code controls what and so on.

This design features several different plugins, like the header rotator at the top to keep the site looking fresh. It also has a Flickr plugin to automatically load images from our account. I wish I could claim all the artwork, but alas, I don’t gotz da skillz. So all the imagery is ‘tweaked’ or put together from multiple sources to create the look of the site. I also had fun designing the little footer at the bottom to add a few personal elements for Carrie. She doesn’t really use Twitter, so I’ve been trying to find a way to replace that element with her Facebook status updates, but have been unsuccessful. You can do the opposite (post from Twitter to Facebook), so I may just have to convince Carrie to use Twitter, I don’t see that conversation going well, lol. The framework is all WooThemes, but this was probably the most I’ve hacked up a theme before, especially theirs, because they’re nearly perfect out of the box.

I don’t know why I mess around with our blogs so much, neither one of us are heavy bloggers and we don’t have a lot of readers, but I just thought it’d be fun to do and a great learning experience, and it was! Yeah, I know, I need to get a life. Ha. Anyways, head on over to MommyhoodAdventures.com and take a look and leave Carrie some comment love.

Ok, so this was probably one of the most unproductive weekends we’ve had in a very long time. Wanted to start on the deck Saturday, but it wound up raining all weekend, which was fine, because we desperately need the rain around here. Went to Lowe’s Saturday and purchased some more items for the backyard, including solar lighting, 3 Crape Myrtle trees and a back deck light. Can’t wait for things to come together with that whole project, but it’s going to be awhile. Spent the rest of the weekend playing a stupid game on Facebook called “Yoville” – what an incredible waste of time. I just gave up and gave Carrie the money and stuff I earned. There’s much better things I could be doing with my time… like trimming my nose hair or something.

It’ll be a semi-short work week this week – we’re headed to Pennsylvania for Memorial Day to see Carrie’s family. That’ll be fun, and hopefully chunk will enjoy the plane ride. If not, then I don’t feel too bad. I’ve put up with my fair share of screaming children on planes, so it’s payback time! Ha. We’re hoping to time his feeding right so he’ll eat on the plane… but there’s no telling, because really, it’s all a crapshoot when it comes to babies. They’re about as unpredictable as the weather around here.

I’ve been feeling a little “locked into a rythmic pattern” lately, so it’ll be nice for a change of pace and a chance to get out of town for a bit. We haven’t really gone anywhere or done anything since Landon was born, so I’m really looking forward to the time away, even if it’s just for a few days. I’m sure I’ll have some stories to write about when we get back. Nothing ever goes smoothly when we’re flying to Philly or vice versa.

On a different note, trying to think of some creative ideas for this blog. I don’t really know what to write about half the time that’ll be interesting to other people. Used to love to do movie reviews and stuff, but seeing as how I haven’t been to a movie since January, nothing to write about there. Any interesting ideas and suggestions from my loyal fan base? All .009 of you?