paid off the computer

We have a goal to be debt free including all consumer debt, school loans, and 20% of our house within the 1001 day period. We knocked a lot out within our first couple years of marriage, but the last 8 months have been slow going with various other expenses eating away at the monthly paycheck.

Anyways, I had to get a new computer last summer and (somewhat) foolishly opened a credit account for that. I'm happy to say I paid off the last penny of it today, which makes us completely consumer debt free!

On to school and the house....

worship team

About the same time we joined the church, Steph and I met with our worship leader at Grace in order to join the worship team. One thing we love so much about our church is that the worship music is so laid back, and very honest and intimate - not anything like the big over-productions that so many churches are known for.

This made it very inviting for me to get involved on the team, and for the past three weeks I've been a part of the music on Sunday mornings, playing piano. It's been great and I've really enjoyed it. Surprisingly, given this is Nashville, our church is short on piano players, so it's nice to be needed to some extent! Steph sang on the team last Sunday as well and that was fun.

So, step 1 in getting involved with our new church is underway...

thanksgiving recipes

It's my personal tradition to cook a new sweet potato recipe every Thanksgiving... this year's was definitely a winner. It included mashed sweet potatoes and a healthy concoction of butter, sugar, and cream. I then topped it off with a brown sugar / crushed pecan crust and baked it in the oven.

I've also been searching for good cornbread recipe (one that wasn't so boringly dry). Thanksgiving was a good time for that as well, and I was quite pleased with my results. Made some cornbread muffins and found that a combination of 2/3 flour and 1/3 corn meal actually made them much less dry. That in addition to some whole kernels of corn made for some very traditional muffins that went over quite well.


2 Recipes of 10 Complete

kitchen painted

There are four rooms in our house that we absolutely want to paint (at the very least, prior to selling it). Of most importance to us is the living room and kitchen, and we're happy to report that the kitchen is painted. Grape Vine was the color we chose (after much deliberation) - it's a nice Tuscany green color that works well with our color scheme of dark woods and earthy tones. Now we need to find something that works for the living room, which has proven to be much more difficult.

grace community church

Within the last month Steph and I both became members of our church, Grace Community Church. That was a long time coming, and part of the hold-up was reconciling myself to the fact that I would need to get baptized (according to Baptist tradition)... so I eventually did, and wrote a post about the whole experience on my personal blog.

jack

This post is a good two months overdue, but we finished watching all of the 24 seasons (to date). Here's a recap...

Favorite Season
Day 3

Favorite Character
Tony Almeida

Least Favorite Character
Sherry Palmer (yeah, typical)

Best "I'm Gonna Jack Bauer All Up In Your Face" Moment
As bad as Day 6 was, what with a bad storyline, a poor President and way too much drama, I have to say that the episode where Jack apprehended Abu Fayed (9-10PM) was pretty memorable. Check out this video to relive this fine moment of acute strangulation.

lunch with tony p

I have tasked myself to "Eat lunch with 10 people I look up to". 1 down as of last week. Had lunch with my good buddy Tony Patoto, who I truly believe is one of the most brilliant, compassionate, caring, and encouraging individuals I know.

Tony is a Canadian, but lived most of his life in the UK, hence really cool accent. Got his start in the music industry starting a distribution company over in the UK, and then happened upon a young band called Delirious. Tony managed Delirious for about 10 years or so, crafting them into the worldwide success that they are today. About a year and a half ago Tony moved to Nashville to take part in a project EMI was working on, which has since gone south, but it's music - can't win all of them.

So I met up with Tony last Friday, had ourselves some good Italian food, and talked about life. He had some good encouragement regarding the business ventures I'm throwing myself into, and was particularly excited about what I'm doing with music:nuvo. We talked about Steph and the fact that she's applying to vet school, so a lot of long term stuff is up in the air considering we could be leaving town in 12 months if she gets accepted:

He said, "Most people look at a time constraint like that as a negative thing. You should look at it as a postive and an incredible motivator to really focus on getting music:nuvo and your management career to a place where it is sustainable... because you can do those things from anywhere in the country. You don't have to be in Nashville to do that. Use those time constraints as a motivation!"

Good thoughts Tony, and thanks for lunch!!


1 Lunch of 10 Complete

keeping up on the blog

One of my goals is to blog on my personal blog at least once a week, and I'm happy to report that so far I am doing that... in fact, I'm over achieving. I probably need to spend less time blogging and more time doing other things on my list. We are a third of the way done with the second season of 24 though. This is what success looks like.

24 hours down, 96 to go

It's such a superficial item on my "in progress" 101 list, but yet so much fun. As of last night we finished watching the first full season of 24 on DVD. I'm almost ashamed to say we accomplished this in a mere five days, with significant portions of Saturday and Sunday dedicated to this shallow goal.

Oh well. It was fun, and this is a list about things I want to do, right?

And Jack Bauer is just really awesome. And I think Steph has a crush on him. Crap... this can't end well.

thinking

Well, the list is beginning to take shape. It's hard to spread things across the categories... personally, if 101 things all fell within the category of travel, that would probably be ok with me.

So at this rate, there will be a lengthy brainstorming session before the list gets finalized. Once I get them all up there I'll number them off and I'll get started.

Oh, if you have any ideas of things for me to do, shoot 'em my way. I retain veto power though.

excited yet listless

Ah, a fresh blog. Clean slate. Feels good.

A while ago my friend Jon told me about his goal of writing a list of 101 things he wanted to do, in every different subject of life, in the next 1001 days. It sounded like a mountainous task, then I read his list and realized, "Wow, this isn't a list of work... these are things that he really wants to do".

So my opinion of the list of lists has changed - 101 things I want to accomplish - no strict deadlines, no getting fired if I don't accomplish it... just a way to tangibly go about life in a purposeful way. I think it will be very revealing, and I'll probably learn a fair amount along the way. 1001 days - that's 2 years, 38 weeks, and 5 days... so sometime at the beginning of 2010 I should be close to finished. Yeah, that's just crazy to think about.

Well, first things first. I'm listless and need to create a list. So I'll begin to do that over the next several days and add them to the right side of my blog, and I'll cross them off as I go and add comments and stories for reading pleasure.