Tag: relaxation

  • Daddy Days

    This weekend, Kristen is off to Chicago with Erin for a girls getaway. Since I’m traveling a little over 1/5th of 2010, she certainly earned some time to herself.

    Kristen’s definition of a girls weekend is Thursday afternoon to midnight on Monday. I like her style.

    As we compared notes leading up to this trip we determined that this is the first time Kristen has ever done anything like this. It’s been fun to hear her talk about the trip for the last month or so, all the places she wants to visit, and of course– all of our favorite food places she wants to enjoy. (We lived there for 8 years. She is busy satisfying cravings for Johnnie’s Italian beef and Oatmeal shakes from Irazu. I’m totally jealous.)

    The flipside is that I’ve earned some solo time with Megan and Paul!

    So far, so good.

    I’m not going to lie. I love that I get this time to be with them like this.

    Last night, over a healthy dinner of tacos, rice and beans, and chips… we talked about all sorts of drama at school. Apparently, Foursquare provides endless playground theater that I was previously unaware of. There are some kids who like to steal the ball and throw it over the fence. Yeah, straight thugging.

    We don’t have overly adventurous plans for the rest of the weekend. Which leaves plenty of time to do what they love to do most. Relax and be kids.

    • Thursday night I was impressed that I could make a healthy, well-balanced meal that they actually ate. Roasted fish, roasted apples, and whole grain rice.
    • Friday was a marathon of driving as we went from school to the San Diego State ticket office back to the YS offices to the house then to dinner at Rubios. I felt like a soccer mom with all of that carting!
    • Today we plan on going to the nursery so we can start seedlings of our winter garden, doing some weeding and cutting of grass, relaxing in the afternoon, then going to the Aztec game a bit early to enjoy some of the tailgate festivities before SDSU plays Colorado State tonight.
    • Sunday, I hope to keep it simple. Church in the morning and then finish painting the dining room while the NFL games are on. At some point, Paul needs to do his homework.
    • Monday, I’m just happy to get them to school. We will spend some time in the early evening making sure the kids rooms are clean(ish) before mom gets home.

    Goals:

    1. Quantity time.
    2. No trips to the ER.
    3. Keep the house clean.
    4. Convince the animals to sleep in tomorrow for daylight savings time.
    5. Create some memories.

  • Coronado Beach Day

    It was fun to just relax at the beach yesterday. We all got a bit too much sun. The water was frigid. (57 degrees!) But we found a good parking spot and set up… and just did nothing. You’ll see in the pictures that the kids had a blast jumping off and playing on a very large mound of kelp and sand.

    I guess this means summer is officially here.

  • Ministers Need Friends

    Photo by LabyrinthX via Flickr
    Photo by LabyrinthX via Flickr

    This may come as a shock to people who go to church– but being a church leader is a very lonely job. Sure, if you work in a church with a large staff it probably isn’t that lonely since you have co-workers who can become friends. But by-and-large, friends are hard to come by for ministers.

    Loneliness is a major issue for church staff.

    Reasons

    1. It’s hard to be friends with parishioners. Kristen and I have been fortunate in this regard, but by-and-large it is really hard to truly be friends with people in your church. You can be acquaintances, but you’ll never get to the point where you can go out for a laugh (or a beer) and lament about work sucking. (or just share “real life.” You have to be guarded.)
    2. It’s hard to find people wired like you. Even in large cities, there aren’t many people wired quite like a pastor.
    3. It’s hard to be friends since work hours are weird. I’ve not met a person who worked in a church who kept 9-5 type hours. It’s always that plus a bunch of nights out… randomly scattered. Makes it tough to be friends.
    4. It’s hard to have a life outside of the four walls of a church. The reason so much is said and written about balance and rest for church workers is that they suck at balance and resting! The job is just too demanding.

    Solutions

    1. Understand that this isn’t optional. For your long-term health as a minister in the community, you require friendships. (Not church acquaintances) You require true friendship outside of the church, in your local community.
    2. Seek permission from your supervisors. This sounds like a silly step, but you may need to hear “get a life” from your boss or board to make this a reality. If they’ve been a leader in the church for a while they will know that if you have good friendships locally you are more likely to stay in the community a lot longer. But if you are lonely, you will be a poor leader and in your boredom you’ll start looking for a job elsewhere.
    3. You aren’t in ____, so get over it. I know you are probably from somewhere you liked better. And you have friends who are in those places. That’s not helping you. Get over it and get to know some people in your community. God planted you where you are, He is smarter than you are, you need to suck it up and make friends.
    4. Do something outside the church. How did I make friends when I was in full-time church ministry? I volunteered to coach the golf team, I joined a golf league, a started participating in local politics. I wasn’t looking for 1,000 friends, just a few people who didn’t go to my church that I could be “just Adam” with and not “Pastor Adam.”
    5. Meet up with your long-time best friends once per year. Meet up at a conference, go away hunting, go on vacation together, go visit them for the Holidays… just do something where for a few days you can be with your long-time friends.

  • Holiday Break redux

    After a refreshingly long break I head back to the office today. The grind. The gig. Workski. The ole j-o-b. OK, none of those really apply since I enjoy my job quite a bit. It’s also a day when I crank it all back up. I’ve got blog posts to publish, the podcast to push out, Facebook messages to send, emails to reply to, and a lot more.

    So what did I do with my two weeks off?

    – Lots of rest. I think I went to bed early and tried my best to sleep in every day.

    – Plenty of reading. I’m about halfway done with my third novel, The Hour I First Believed. About 175 pages into it I finally got hooked. I’m hoping to get that one done soon.

    – Took a serious look at our money situation. I think it’s always good to start off the New Year with a clear look at what we need to do in that department.

    – Kristen and I worked together a lot. I got a taste of her life as she headed off to work and I stayed home with the kiddos. That was awesome. We built and launched Beyond The Zoo, and yesterday I get a good jump on her blog redesign.

    – We hosted Dave for a week. It was a good visit. We did a lot, we didn’t do a lot.

    – Watched a lot of football and TV. The surprise came a few nights ago when we watched Michael Douglass in King of California.

    That’s really about it! It was nice to slow down. It was awesome to spend so much time with the kids.

    And now, it’s time to get ready for work. Gotta go.