Now that our youngest is able to walk around the house and collect little treasures, Christmas decorating has become a daily routine.  The Advent calendar that my wife bought for the kids is a bare Nativity scene with the little Velcro figures (Olivia calls them “cookies”) spread throughout the house and our Christmas tree, which was once beautifully decorated, is now bare to a height of about 3 feet as the ornaments have slowly migrated up the tree and out of the reach of curious hands.

Of course the actual day of decorating had its usual stresses and blunders.  It literally took about ten trips to the basement to bring up all the decorations – it looked like we were getting ready to move again once everything was upstairs.  Then we got to work on the ginormous 10 foot artificial tree that takes about three weeks to put together with the help of a construction crane.

After completing the tree, I took the empty boxes back downstairs while Sara got to work on the outdoor lights.  We’re not the Grizwalds, but we have a decent amount of exterior illumination and Sara actually enjoys putting the lights up.  I have no problem letting her run with that…

After getting the empty boxes (and a few  boxes of decorations that we never use, but I always carry upstairs, unpack, repack, and take back downstairs) back in the basement, I went out to check on Sara’s progress.  She proudly showed me the routing of her lighting around trees, shrubs, porch rails, columns, and flag poles leading all the way up to the electrical socket on the porch where she held up the wrong end of the plug and asked me if we had an adapter so she could plug it in.  Yep, she started way out in the yard with the end that it supposed to go into the wall and ran the whole thing backwards.

I gave her that look that every husband has given and every wife recognizes.  She still didn’t get it…

I don’t mean to belittle Sara – I’m sure many of you have made this same error and at least she was out there putting up the lights, but there is a good lesson here.  No matter how creatively Sara put up the lights, no matter how good they looked, how hard she worked, or how good her intentions, her plan would fail because she started with the wrong end.  Sometimes we realize that we started in the wrong place and try to correct it by working harder, rationalizing, or simply ignoring our error when what we really need to do is go back to the beginning and look at how our endeavor began.  With Christmas lights, the fix is pretty simple.  With careers, relationships, and life priorities, the required correction can be intimidating, but it is necessary if we want our lives to light up.

I’m giving finals, turning in final grades, and wrapping up the end of the semester, so it has been pretty crazy lately.  Because of this, there will not be a posting this week.  Give me a break – it’s my birthday!

This Thanksgiving was yet another gluttony-fest for my family.  When my oldest daughter became old enough to really get into Christmas a few years ago, we decided to stay home for Christmas.  This means that when we travel to see my family for Thanksgiving, we do Christmas in the same weekend.  That’s right, Thanksgiving on Thursday and Christmas on Friday.  Take that, marketing geniuses.

On Thanksgiving Day, we get up early embark on a 400 mile journey from Atlanta to West Tennessee.  We have dinner at my grandmother’s that consists of the typical Thanksgiving fare: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, various casseroles, and enough desserts make the entire field of the Tour de France diabetic.

On the next night (our early Christmas) we have a tradition of having breakfast for dinner.  I’m not talking about bacon and eggs here.  We have a breakfast casserole that is filled with sausage, eggs, cheese, bread, and deliciousness, hash brown casserole, some sort of blueberry, buttery, sugary, bready thing, bacon, ham, and biscuits.  This is my favorite meal of the year.

The next night, we overeat for no particular reason: barbecue, beans, and potato salad – good Tennessee food.  It’s interesting that during the holiday season we hear a lot of people talking about how not to overdo it and how to counteract all of those additional calories consumed.  I say, who cares?  It’s a special time that only happens once a year.  So what if I gain a pound or two?  As long as overeating does not become a habit, there is no real harm done.

I generally eat well and have healthy habits.  I run 15 miles a week and lift weights 4 days a week.  Why should I get all bent out of shape over a weekend of eating like a Roman emperor?  I think this is a fallacy that we experience not only with regard to our physical well being, but in all aspects of life.  We focus too much on the rare occurrences (a weekend of overeating, a big presentation, an upcoming exam) while neglecting the daily habits that truly shape our lives.  If you want to make a change in your lifestyle, don’t go out and do something big once or twice a year, do something small every day.

My wife had a conference in Phoenix last week, so I was in charge of both of our girls for three days (and nights).  While having two kids is more demanding than two, at least you’re not outnumbered when both parents are present.

I was outnumbered last week.

I’ve learned that when there are more children than adults in a household, you have to switch from man-on-man coverage to a zone defense.  I was essentially trying to cover the middle third of the field and not give up any big plays.  Fortunately, we are blessed to have two very good girls and there were no major catastrophes, but any time you have sole responsibility over a 1 year old and 4 year old, there will be some stress.

Take dinner time for example.  I like to eat.  I enjoy dinner with my family.  I even like to cook!  But when all the extraneous demands of parenting hit at once, dinner can easily become a race to see how fast I can get my kids to down cheese toast covered in ketchup (hey, that’s what they wanted) before anything too bad happens.

As a special treat, I cooked my homemade pizza Friday night.  Here’s a rundown on how this went:

I’m about to take the pizza out of the oven.  Olivia is watching iCarly.  “Olivia, go wash your hands.  We’re about to eat.”

“Ok, daddy.”

I begin slicing the pizza.  What’s that smell?  Amelia walks by – gotta change a diaper.

I change the diaper and bring the baby back downstairs where I finish slicing the pizza.

“Olivia, wash your hands, please.”

“Ok, daddy.”

I get the plates fixed up for the girls and put Amelia in her high chair.

“OLIVIA, WASH YOUR HANDS NOW!”

“Can I pause the TV?”  My 4 year old daughter knows how to operate a DVR – if only she could teach my wife.

The girls are at the table, blessings have been said, and I’m about to take a bite out of my delicious pizza.  Olivia takes her bite first and the 4000 degree molten cheese under a pepperoni scalds her mouth.  I get her to drink her milk and after much consoling convince her to continue eating.  Now I can enjoy my dinner.

Not yet!  Amelia thinks the tomato sauce from her pizza would make a wonderful shampoo.  Not only that, but she thinks it feels wonderful in her ears. 

I get her cleaned up.  Olivia needs more milk.

I get Olivia more milk.  Amelia needs more food.

With everyone temporarily satisfied, I get ready to take my first bite.  Before I can even get my slice of pizza off my plate, Olivia says, “I need to go poop.”  While she’s old enough to go on her own, I still have to clean up.  So I put down my pizza and wait for her to take care of business so I can clean her up before eating my dinner.

Back at the table, I finally get to enjoy my room temperature pizza.  It is at this point that my dog, who is under the table, decides to release some of the nastiest gas that has ever emanated from any creature.  I finally get to eat my cold pizza while smelling dog gas after recently wiping a child’s rear end.  How appetizing!

I like muffins.  Who doesn’t?  When you think about it, the word “muffin” is really little more than a euphemism that makes us feel slightly less guilty about having cake for breakfast.  I made some muffins the other day, but rather than using our regular brand, I tried a Fiber One muffin mix.  I wanted to try the Fiber One mix because I am pretty health conscious and try to take care of myself (okay, I had a coupon).

After having my muffin breakfast, I soon realized that my stomach was making noises that sounded like a spirited debate between humpback whales. 

The debate escalated.

I checked the nutritional information on the muffin mix to learn that each muffing had 5 grams of fiber.  I ate three of them.  In case you’re wondering, this means that I had about 60% of the recommended daily fiber intake over a span of about 5 minutes.  Oh yeah, and that was followed by three cups of black coffee.

Normally this wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but I would soon be teaching a two-hour long class.  I made it through the class, but I had to time my voice inflections just right to drown out the cries of rage from inside my stomach.

We all know that fiber is a good thing, but get too much at once and… well you know how that sentence ends.  In fact, too much of anything (even if it is supposed to be good for you) is bad for you.  A little sunshine lifts your mood and provides a dose of vitamin D – too much and you get cancer.  If you hear Hanson’s Mmm Bop once (yeah, you remember that song) it can put a little pep in your step – hear it more than once and you become a threat to national security.  We’re supposed to drink a lot of water for numerous health reasons, but guess what – you can even die from drinking too much water!

The point is, just about anything taken too far is going to have some negative effects on you… and it doesn’t end with what we eat and drink.  Too much work, too much play, too many responsibilities, too many commitments – sometimes it’s best to just simplify.  I’m all for setting the bar high and striving for great achievements, but sometimes the act of pursuing an achievement can get in the way of that which we wish to achieve.

There was a time in my life when rewinding of the clocks by one hour in the fall represented an extra hour of sleep.  Unfortunately my two little girls can’t tell time.  I was up a little before 6 am this Sunday to put milk in a cup, a S’mores Pop Tart on a plate, and to turn on Little Einsteins. 

It was still dark.

That’s fine with me.  I’m usually an early riser and the whole getting an extra hour to get stuff done is fascinating to me.  I spent my hour making spreadsheets for one of my MBA classes… exciting, I know.

I don’t like the sun going down earlier, but I love the one 25 hour day of the year.  As I go through the house turning those clocks back, I feel like I have somehow cheated the space-time continuum.  I feel so much more efficient and wonder why every day can’t be 25 hours long.

Aside from the fact that this would require the rotation of the earth to slow substantially, I’m not sure if it would be such a good thing.  Although I got a lot done and felt great all day long, I woke myself with a loud snore in my chair at 9:15 that night.

Maybe more time isn’t the answer.  It seems that my mind and body can only take a 24 hour day.

This is an excerpt from a book I am reading by Seth Godin (Tribes).

Think about the charismatic leaders you’ve encountered.  They might be young or old, rich or poor, black or white, male or female, extroverted or shy.  In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common is that they are leaders.

I think most people have it upside down.  Being charismatic doesn’t make you a leader.  Being a leader makes you charismatic.

There are leaders with speech impediments and a fear of public speaking.  Leaders way down the corporate ladder and leaders with no money or obvious trappings of power.  There are ugly leaders too, so charisma certainly isn’t about being attractive.

It’s easy to give in to your fear and tell yourself that you don’t have what it takes to lead.  Mostly, people give up when they get to the charisma part of the checklist.  “I wasn’t born charismatic, not like those other guys, so I guess I’ll just settle for following.”

The flaw in this reasoning is that those other guys weren’t born charismatic either.  It’s a choice, not a gene.  Many of you have a vision for how things should be, but fail to act on that vision because you are afraid that you don’t have the mo-jo to get it done.  You are afraid you will come up lacking.  This is the birthplace of procrastination and the cradle for a lack of significance.

I have a coffee mug on the window sill in my closet where I throw loose change at the end of the day.  It was just about full, so my wife emptied it into a larger jar.  No big deal, right?

Well once my four year-old daughter discovered my coffee mug was empty, she started acting faster than Congress with a bailout check.  Olivia ran into the living room, where I was watching football and muttered something about change and a coffee cup.  I had no idea what was going on.  She ran up to her room where I heard some banging around, her incessant rambling, and the sound of loose change pouring in to the floor.  Then she ran past me and into my closet.

This process repeated itself about 4 or 5 times until she finally came downstairs with her whole piggy bank.  That’s when I realized what was going on.  I walked to my closet to find her sitting in the floor, shaking out her piggy bank, and filling up my coffee cup.  Moved by her generosity, I told her that she didn’t have to give me her money.

Her reply was, “No daddy.  I have enough money and you don’t have any.  You can have some of mine.”

I almost told her to stop emptying her piggy bank and keep her money for herself, but didn’t.  Here was a simple, honest act of generosity.  Who am I to stifle that?  I thanked her for giving me her money and let her know how nice it was for her to give me something without me even asking for it.

Usually parenting involves taking the time to teach valuable lessons to our children.  Sometimes they are the teachers.

Our culture is inundated with choices. Want a new TV? Look at how many models are available. Plasma, LCD, or LED… 19”, 60”, or anything in-between… 120 Hz, 240 Hz, 760i, 1080p, 1080i…LG, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio, Sony, Panasonic…and where should we buy it?

Growing up, I had 5 television channels and two of them showed the same thing. Now, I don’t even know how many channels I have. I have to set up my “favorites” on my remote… more choices. If you still need evidence that the number of options available to us has gotten excessive, just take a look at the cereal aisle the next time you go to the supermarket. To make it even more interesting, take a four year-old who has just been watching Nickelodeon.

Not only are there a seemingly infinite number of choices available, but we are daily bombarded with marketing that tells us that there is an option out there somewhere that is just right for us – one that will make us happy. So you better make the right choice, or you’ll end up regretting your decision when you find a better option down the road.

The problem with having so many options and making so many choices is that it can easily lead to analysis paralysis. We want to make the right choice, but there are so many options and we don’t want regret our decision… so we make no choice. We procrastinate.

The same dynamic exists in our careers. I read an article a while back that said the anticipated top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t even exist 5 years ago. Think about that. As we have more choices in what to do with our lives, people are increasingly deciding to do nothing – at least nothing significant.

Here’s what I think. Instead of beating yourself up on where you will work, focus on what it is that you were created, gifted, and prepared to do. Guess what – that thing that you were created to do may have nothing to do with your current job, but that doesn’t mean you have to quit your job tomorrow. It just means you have to figure out how to incorporate your mission into your job. Or maybe, just maybe, you were meant to find significance outside of your professional career. What??? A life outside of work? Yep, the most important things you will do, the greatest significance you will find, and the most lasting legacy you leave will probably not be career-related.