Jesus, Christa, and Caleb

I used to often wonder about my future.  I used to try to picture my wife.  I would try to think of what our child/children would look like.  I now have both of those people in my life,  and the picture looks a lot different than the one I had in mind.  In fact, it looks better.  I never thought I deserved a woman that is as amazing as my wife.  She is loving, compassionate, outgoing, fun, beautiful, honest, and most of all loves Jesus.  She is an incredible mom to our little son, Caleb.  She has begun laying the foundation of raising Caleb to be a well rounded person.  She prays with him, reads to him, talks to him, sings to him, and shows him so much love.

This is Caleb's first Christmas on Earth.  He probably won't remember it, other than the pictures that I am sure we will be taking.  He is the light of my life.  I have a picture of him on my phone that I look at every time I pick it up and it melts my heart.  He is sitting in his bumbo smiling.  I love Caleb so much.  There was a time in my life that I thought I would never get be anything more than Uncle Jariod.  But now, I'm a Dad, and nothing has made me happier.  

I hope to give Christa and Caleb happy Christmases for the rest of our lives.  There aren't  better gifts that I have been given, with the exception of salvation, and a relationship with Jesus.  This Christmas is my second one as a married man, and my first as a Dad.  There haven't been two better Christmases in my life.

Wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, there is always hope.  Don't give up.  Don't stop believing, don't stop asking God for what it is you are looking for in life.  I never thought I would have a wife and a son, now I have both.  There were some hopeless times, believe me, I'm not lying.  I always knew that
God was my provider, and He had good things in mind for me.  He does for you as well.  Let me know if there is anything I can pray about, and I promise I will.  If I don't post again before next, have a Merry Christmas and healthy and Happy New Year.

Why does wells fargo hate our money?

So Christa and I have an offer on a house.  I don't remember when exactly we put the offer in, but I know it's been over 3 weeks.  We like this house.  It's the right size, it has a pool, and all of the things we are looking for in a house.  Caleb will have plenty of room to run and play, and learn how to be a Longhorns quarterback.  We will have tons of room to be able to entertain, so people can actually come to our house without having to sit on each other's laps, unless they want to.  It's going to be great.  One problem, Wells Fargo has decided to take their sweet time to say yes to our offer.  It's  a short sell, I get it, the process should be streamlined at some point though.  Houses that are short sold are the only ones you can buy right now(in our price range) from what I can tell, there are very few traditional sale homes available to us that meet our criteria.  If wells fargo knows this, then why can't the process of people actually buying a short sell home be quickened?  We are ready to buy.  We have a loan in place.  All we need is the bank to say ok.  I hate the red tape.  I wish that we weren't beholden to a large financial institution to tell us if we can buy the house we want.  By the way, the house has been sitting there for  a while with no payments being made.  We want to make payments.  We're ready for it.  It's stupid.  This problem isn't actually a problem.  We have a roof over our head.  We just need a little more room.  I just want people who are financially capable, to be able to buy homes.  There are plenty out there.  Just sitting.  No money being exchanged.  We're ready to pay you.  Will you take our money?   We shouldn't have to ask them to do this.

I am a capitalist.  I am wanting to change things by contributing to our economy, not camping out pooping in parks.  Let me give you my money wells fargo.

Thankfulness

I believe thankfulness is the key to a successful life in Christ.  A lot of times in our lives, we are looking at circumstances and become overwhelmed.  We are trying to pay bills, buy groceries, make a house payment, provide for our families, and we forget that we have been given the ability to do those things because God has provided opportunities for success.  I don't always appreciate my job.  I look at some other people that are barely making it, and then I look at my situation, and the two don't compare.  I have been given so much, and sometimes I am unappreciative of the opportunities that I have been afforded.  I have an amazing wife, an incredible son, and a life that I really don't deserve.  I am attempting to not take things for granted.

I am thankful this year for everything God has done for both my family and I.  I pray for you that you have some things to be thankful for.  If you don't, I pray that you will have so many things to be thankful for this next year, that you will not be able to remember all of them.  I know we live in tough times, but I also know that in tough times, God shows up and provides in ways that we don't expect.

If you are reading this, I am thankful for you.  I am glad that, at some point or the other, we have crossed paths.  I believe that every relationship in our lives is a divine appointment.  I'm glad that you are related to me, or my friend.  I love you, and hope for great things to happen for you.

It's the little things that are important.

I have what I think is an amazing idea for a business.  The name of the business is called "Customer Service".  The premise is this, if you choose to do business with us, we treat you like a human being.  We also appreciate you using us because we appreciate your money, especially in these times when our president is trying to destroy small business.

The reason for this business being created is this, on July 28, I took my ipod into doug's laptop repair and service, I still haven't gotten my ipod back.  This wouldn't be a big deal, except for 6 months ago, I had the ipod repaired and received it within two weeks.  Every time I have called, it is like I'm the idiot for wanting to know what is going on.  I went down there last week, and the guy told me they have ordered the part needed to repair it, but it keeps on being the wrong part.  I am totally fine with this explanation.  YOU NEED TO FRICKIN CALL ME AND LET ME KNOW THAT!!!! IT'S CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE.

In the meantime, I have also taken an hdtv into a place in scottsdale called audio wizard.  The repairman has called me several times with the status of what is going on with the tv.  I have no problem with the amount of time it has taken to fix the TV because the guy has let me know where they are at in the repair.

This business that I am wanting to start helps business owners, and employees know how to handle a customer.  It's a fairly simple idea that no one seems to understand anymore.  There are too many places to do business for you to be able to take customers for granted.  I work  hard for my money, and I am going to start being a little more discretionary in whom I choose to do business with anymore.  I could have sent the ipod to a company in california, had it repaired and shipped back already, but I wanted to do business locally.  That's my mistake, and next time will be a different story.

I have decided to write a blog.  I have realized that there are things that I would like to talk about that I just can't find the space to fit in to my daily life.  Christa can only listen to so many of my rantings before they get really old.

Today's thought is about the Texas Longhorns and the rest of the Big 12.  I don't want to see the Big 12 go away.  Last year nebraska and colorado decided that they needed to go to other conferences  to be successful.  I would like to give both of those schools the news that their football teams really never accomplished much in the big 12 anyway.  Especially colorado.

So now, texas a$m decided that they can't live in UT's shadow, and they leave for greener pastures in the sec.  Good luck with that, arkansas is just now starting to win sec games after going there 15 years ago.  The only people that care about a$m are aggies.  None of the rest of the conference or the world care.  Go. Leave.  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.  I don't understand how anyone expects UT to say no to a $300 mil deal.  No other school in the big 12 could handle a single network.  Espn didn't approach anyone else because no other school matters that much on a national scale.  I understand that the other schools in the big 12 are mad, but they don't have the following nationally that UT does.  I was in Pasadena last weekend to watch UT play ucla.  There was a large portion of the stadium that was wearing burnt orange to play an also ran in the pac 12.  UT shows up.  Other fans don't.  I'm sick of hearing how all of this is UT's fault.  It's espn's fault.  It's Dan Bebee's fault for not being able to come up with a big 12 network with two teams in it that are consistently in bcs bowl games.  Several of the other teams have been in the national conversation as well in the past few years.  Why isn't there a big 12 network?  I don't know.  UT can't be expected to say no to the espn deal.

My hope is that the big 12 can get TCU to join.  If that happens, then things stabilize for a little while.  I think that neither ou or UT want to play a championship game every year anyway, so I feel like this is exactly what they both really want.  They face off every october, and that is good enough.  I know that this can work.  Make it happen.  I also think it would be a good idea to invite byu and boise state to join, so that it actually is the big 12.