Studio Time

Merchant Band is in the studio this weekend working on our next
project. I love being in the studio with these guys. It's always a
blast coming in with our initial plan for the song and then recording
it a few times, listening to it, recording it again, working out a
new part, talking about it, someone going in to redo their part, etc...

I just love hanging out back and forth between the isolation room on
my drums and the console room on the couch listening to what we've
done so far and listening to the other guys add parts. And what
makes it all that much better is a hot cup of coffee (when will
Starbucks start delivering?).

A Weekend to Remember

Anna and I had our one year anniversary this past weekend. We
technically started the celebration on Friday with Anna's 23rd
birthday. I cooked chicken stir-fry and then took her to a factory
for cheesecakes.

What makes me so great as a husband is that for her birthday present
I gave her the A&E 6 hour presentation of Pride and Prejudice (Anna's
favorite book). Then we spent all day Saturday watching it (girls
say "oohhh", guys say "ouch").

Things get better though... on Sunday we had reservations at the
Sheraton Suites Hotel downtown and dinner at our favorite fondue
restaurant. We had a 3 course meal of cheese fondue, salads and raw
meat we got to cook ourselves followed by another meal of chocolate
dipped delicacies (i.e. brownies and fruit).

We came home Monday morning feeling great about life and our
marriage. Some good advice from a friend told us that money invested
into our marriage and relationship is always a wise investment.

Here nor There

Merchant Band and the Onething team is on their way to Dallas this
weekend without me. They're doing a conference at Christ For Nations
college. (A school that I almost went to instead of coming to IHOP 5
years ago). They're expecting at least 1,000 to show up and that's
not even including one student. It should be a great time! Some
amazing person even fronted the money for the whole conference so
it's free!

So why am I staying behind? you might ask. Well in less than 24
hours it will be Anna's 23rd birthday and in less than 72 hours it
will be our very first anniversary! We have an action packed
weekend. Tomorrow Anna has plans to go out with her friends for tea
and then I have a special date planned with her for tomorrow night.
Saturday I have something special planned as a roll-over event from
the birthday. The home-run comes this Sunday the 26th because I
have secret plans for celebrating our anniversary...Anna doesn't even
know I have a secret yet.

Who's on Drums?

Yesterday I had the morning off from playing drums with Merchant Band
for the FCF church service because another drummer (we'll call him
Frank) is subbing for me this weekend while my team plays in Dallas
since Anna and I will be celebrating our One Year Anniversary.

After sleeping in and getting ready for my day I check my voice
mail. I have two messages from Marcus. The first says "Hey man, I
forgot to let you know for sure that you don't have to come in this
morning so if you get this then go ahead and keep sleeping." The
next message said "Um, hey Shawn. We're not sure where Frank is. If
you get this call me."

At this point it's already 9:35 and the service starts at 10. So I
call Josh to find out that another drummer, Joel, was called up and
is on his way. He was at IHOP playing drums, so he got someone else
to take over for him but they were using my stuff. So I had to go to
IHOP to get my drums stuff back from the guy using it at the time,
then race over to FCF, set up and sound-check with the band all in
under 10 minutes.

My wife was kind enough to bring me a hot cup of java I got to enjoy
after worship. Thanks honey.

Spring Cleaning

We have some family coming to visit us this weekend. I love having
company because then the house gets cleaned.

This evening I found myself emptying full trash-cans that I didn't
even know we had and dusting corners of the room because I had to
stay there until the floor was dry after being mopped.

Why is it true of everyone that when someone's coming to visit the
whole house has to be clean and then we pretend like it's always that
tidy? We all know that it's not that tidy but we all pretend like it
is. You do it to me and I do it to you. And if you don't mention
that 'wow, you're house is kept so well" then we get mad that you
didn't notice. Except when you do notice we act like we're surprised
you noticed as if it's always like this.

So do people that always have super clean houses kind-of mess things
up when they have company come over? "Honey, quick, make the couch
cushions messy. We don't want them to think we're crazy neat freaks."

Podstar Runner

Two of my favorite things have come together: iTunes and Homestar Runner.

Now I don't have to wait countless seconds for the flashing L O A D I N G . . . to finish but can download Strong Bad directly to my Mac and watch whenever I want. It's sooooo good.

If you know who Brett Bretterson is then Click Here.

If you have iTunes click here.

There stands One among us...

John the Baptist said "There stands One among you whom you do not know." It is so easy for me to point this sentence at others and say "yeah, those people don't even know Jesus is in their midst." But what about my life? Just because I'm in a positive spiritual atmosphere and I know some relative Bible verses that does not mean I am in the place of knowing Christ.

Mary of Bethany knew. She knew who Jesus was. She knew what He was doing. She knew where He was from and where He was going. And most importantly she knew what He wanted from her and how to respond to Him...she wasted everything! She gave it all!

How did she know who He was? What was the difference between Mary and Martha? What compelled Mary to sit at Jesus' feet? Why was she so needy to be with Him? Why didn't she want to serve or learn or ask Him to bless her? She just wanted to sit and be with Him.

Jesus said that she chose the good part. She chose what He wanted her to choose. He wanted her to sit and be with Him. My prayer is for the Lord to give me the grace and wisdom to chose this for my life. That I would be able to just sit and know Him. It's such a shock to my paradigm that the Uncreated Son of God doesn't need us to do anything for Him. He really just wants us to be His friends. That's why He made a way for us by His blood. He wants us to 'sit' with Him for all eternity, but it won't always be at His feet, it will also be at His right hand.