Still here.....

Believe it or not, I'm still alive.

Things have been really insanely busy for a while, so I haven't had much time to sit and reflect. Well, that's not entirely true. I've had time to reflect, I've just been too darn tired to sit at a computer and organize those thoughts into a cohesive narrative. So some updates:

Me: Busy as can be. Union negotiations have gone longer than expected. The auditors have popped by for interim work. And I'm in the middle of budget season. Yeah, life sucks sometimes. I had to give some stuff a backseat. Like this blog. And the Romans bible study I had joined for the Fall/Winter. Just not enough brainpower to go around. But I'm surviving. Just keep plowing ahead one step at a time. On the positive side, I have the floor down and the walls painted in the new baby room. Over Christmas holiday I plan on getting the closet organizers and installing those. But first......must survive to Christmas.

Julie/baby: Julie is doing well. She's busy and tired as well, but we're coping. We're somewhere around 18 weeks now and she's finally gotten past the nautious stage. Yay!!! No more opening the refrigerator door in fear of retching!!! She's just now starting the job search. This weekend I'll be helping her get her cover letter together. On the positive side, we know there are programs that are interested in family practice docs with OB experience. She'll be quite the catch. Baby Phillips is doing well too. Over Christmas holiday we're going to have the ultrasound. Boy??? Girl???? Bets anyone?

My Dad: He's definately improving. In a little over a week or so he'll be coming home for good. He's really frustrated with being in the Assisted Living right now, which is good, but it just makes more stress for the rest of us. Ah well, soon he'll be home and all will be well. He'll have some home health care for a while, which will annoy him no end, but I seems like the best alternative.

Bill and my Mom are doing fine. Life goes on. Bill is still getting married next summer. My Mom is still going through her routine.

So no promises on updating this regularly. But as I find energy I'll try to find a way to get back out here (like taking a mental health break here at work today) ;)

God bless, all

And on the eighth day, God said, "Let there be Baseball!"

I'm still here. Tired...brain dead....but still here. With all that's happened this year (work/stroke/pregnancy), I'm barely hanging on by a thread. But I have a mighty good grip on that thread. My biggest emotional crutch this year has been watching the Tigers play ball. I purchased an eight game package this year to go with my Dad, Bill and my father in law. I figured it was a last ditch attempt to do something with the family relatively close together. Next summer Bill gets married and moves downriver while Julie and I were suppose to move north. Now the wedding is still on, but my Dad had a stroke, Julie's pregnant and plans to move are on hold for the forseeable future as we see how this all shakes out.

So here we stand. The world is chaotic, the Tigers are in the World Series and, it's hard to describe, but they hold all of my emotional hopes right now. Watching Rogers pitch with the intensity he's shown has been nothing short of inspirational. I watch these games yelling and screaming like a madman (vocabulary 80% clean right now, seven months or so to keep working on it). Here's my favorite quote from Mitch Albom's column this morning. Click on the link and get lost in the excitement.

Remember, this isn't one of those "Who are the Beatles?" kids on the mound. This is 41-year-old Texan, a guy who Saturday was answering questions about whether he'd considering retiring in spring training: not this spring training, three years ago!

"At that point my mind-set was that I probably wasn't going to play anymore," he said.

Thank goodness somebody called him and offered him a job. That was several jobs ago, of course. He has bounced around a lot in his long career, but, man, has he found a home in Detroit. I don't want to say Comerica Park has been very, very good to Rogers, but if he does this one more time, they might not only rename the stadium, they might rename the bank.

An Exclusive.....

Here's an exclusive for my loyal readers.

Your first look at....."Baby" Phillips. Personally I think the little thing is taking after Julie, but it's kind of hard to say. ;)

Playoff heartbreak

Oh we're still in it. But Leyland had to break the news as to who's on the roster and who isn't...

Maroth, Clevlen and Tata aren't going.

Shelton is probably in. Ironic since he's been running with the Mud Hens for the end of the season. Here's hoping my boy get's his hitting groove back.

Playoff baseball in Detroit. Whod've thunk it?

Whew...

So I don't really have time to rest lately. I'm a little crazy, I'm really tired. But life goes on....I'm slowly adjusting to the whole Dad with stroke thing and the whole Julie being pregnant thing. I just need to sit down awhile.

I know I haven't mentioned it lately, but just so you don't think I'm slacking on the important news:

THE TIGERS MADE THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!

Woo-Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're in the playoffs, we're in the playoffs, we're in the playoffs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my. This has certainly been a welcome reward to a hard-played season. And maybe I'm one of the few who remember it but, "Bless You Boys!" It's great to have baseball back in Detroit again...

Update on Dad

Well, we've finally gotten him out of the hospital and over to a rehab facility. There's alot of work ahead, but he's already made so much improvement that I have no doubt he'll get through this just fine. It just goes slowly.

I have to admit that I have no great reflections on what has gone on recently. Between the stroke and the pregnancy I'm just, for lack of a better term, numb. If anything I've learned to just slow down and concentrate on what's important.

If have havn't called some of you to talk about this, please don't take it personally. I've talked this whole topic to death. I've called most all of the relatives, spoken with most friends and left messages for others. My brain is fried as far as this subject is concerned. But we shall survive.

Life Lessons...

These last few weeks have truly been messages from God. What those messages are, I'm not quite sure. I'm pretty sure that it's something along the lines of, "Jim, get your shit in order, you've got work to do" or something like that. Being God there's probably a few more thee's and thous's in there somewhere.

It started a couple of weeks ago when one of my accountants, out of the blue, turned in her 2 week notice. I was instantly going into coping mode...planning and planning. I made plans, arranged a transition, reorganized a department, created a new job posting and got it posted. It was alot of something I really had not started out thinking I would have to deal with around the holiday. But I dealt with it.

This week, my Father suffered a stroke. He's making progress each day, but it's forced me to assess my priorities. To rearrange, shuffle and make plans to take care of my mom and my dad. As the oldest son I feel it's my duty to take care of this and I'm happy do what needs to be done. With Bill and Julie we'll get this all taken care of. Sure does cause you to look at life differently, though. I'm not even close to done processing all of this yet. There's going to be a lot of work ahead of us, but we'll do what we need to do.

God throws it in there. I deal, I grow. Happens to everyone.


Oh yeah.....Julie's pregnant, found out this morning....

Enough lessons God, I'm getting the point. Really. :'D

Prayer Request

For any of you so inclined, please add my father to you lists of prayer requests. This morning he suffered a small stroke and I've spent most of the afternoon and evening at the hospital. There have been some good signs...he's self-aware and he tries to answer questions, but his mouth and brain seem to rebel. He has full motor control elsewhere, but it's slow. I'm optimistic, but I'll think he'll be fine in the long run. Anyway, I've been making calls to relatives all day and I'm kind of out of steam for storytelling.

Just pray. This is too damn early for me to ever have imagined dealing with this.

The Crocodile Hunter is dead....

Steve Irwin dead at 44. Injured by a stingray.

No joke. Take a look here:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

Weird. I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of his. But at the same time how could you not be a fan? The guy had a lot of passion for working with animals. Just seems a little sad.

Update

Believe it or not I'm still around and kicking. It's been a busy couple of weeks (and weekends) around my house. The last few weekends I've spent catching up with friends, performing band concerts and generally trying to keep the house in some state of orderliness. It's a hard fought battle. So I'll get around to actually posting stuff of interest on here soon. I have a few things in the queue:

1. I'm working on the essay I've said I do for a while not detailing some of the reasons I gave up "being Baptist" and decided to "become Lutheran". This will probably be in essay form and I'll link to it from here and/or thorugh a new page on the main site. Speaking of which...

2. I'm working on a new section to the main site. It will center around religious themes and will contain most of the handouts I've used and created while teaching small group, sunday school and the youth group. Most of them are ok. I'm not really intending them as the final word on anything, they'll just be available for anyone who would like to download them to modify for their own use.

You'll notice on my blog that I now have a Library Thing account. Using this in conjunction with my Readerware software, my intention is that my friends will be able to browse my library in order to see if there is anything they'd like to borrow. Right now all I have in there is my downstairs bookshelf and a couple of boxes of books I have in the basement. I hope to have much more in there in the coming weeks.

Anyway. Much work to do. Talk to everyone later.

Ah-Ha!

If you know me, you knew I just couldn't let this pass when I saw it. I always knew it was something:

Redheads 'have more sex than blondes or brunettes'

Geek alert

Ok, so I said I was off. Quick alert to all geeks if you haven't seen it:

Doctor Who

Season 28

Sci-Fi Channel - September 29th

So What's New?

Another weekend here....whew. It's been a busy week. Not only did I have financial statement close, but we had issue exchange for union negotiations as well. I forgot how much "fun" that can be. This early in the process my main goal is to attempt to keep my mouth shut as some of the issues are brought forward. Some of the demands just get crazy. I personally think that the fact that I don't say "Are you guys out of your f'ing minds???" is a great step forward in personal growth....mainly because I don't say it.

I'm thinking it, just not saying it (we're still working on facial expressions).

Julie's been working quite a bit this week. We've just sort of passed in the night. She's had a lot going on with her research project and just long hours. This weekend she's working the night shifts. We just got in from breakfast....off to sleep she goes.

One thing that's been helping alot is that we've both been working out lately. Julie joined Curves and I joined a athletic club up by work. I just finally decided that I needed to make working out part of my regular work day. So every morning I wake up at 4:45, brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, grab my coffee and protein bar and hit the road. By 6:00 I'm working out and I'm usually at the office by 7:30/8:00. I've been doing it for a couple of weeks now, 5 days a week and I'm really liking the changes. I've had more energy during the day, it's really kept my stress levels down and I'm making friends with muscles that had gone away on vacation for a little while. I decided that I wasn't going to focus on weight anymore. It makes more sense to focus on health and fitness....weight will take care of itself. So I get with my personal trainer, watch my diet for reasonableness, hit the gym each weekday and I'm going to look damn good by the time we get to Bill's wedding next year. Ok, so it's a gym, not a house of miracles so I suppose we'll qualify that last statement by saying that I should be in significantly better shape by next year.

Alas, I have people to do and things to see this morning, so I must be off. A good weekend to all....

Go Tigers!!!

Ok, so here's my little bit of randomness for the weekend. Not only did the Tigers sweep Cleveland, two of those come from behind wins, but I also got to meet Joel Zumaya this evening. For those of you who's life doesn't revolve around baseball or the Tigers (until this year the two words have not been synonymous), this is one of our outstanding relief pitchers. Oh yeah, he also has a pretty wicked (and consistent) fastball that has been clocked around 102 mph and is, on average around 100 mph. The boy has an arm. So when I found out the sport card/comic book store by me had him coming by, I bought my ticket and made sure I was there. Poor Bill is in Tennessee with my folks, but I made sure to get his jersey signed as well. Ah well....random fun. Back to work tomorrow.

Daaaaaaaammmmmnnnn!!!!!

Here's the picture....

Bottom of the ninth. Tigers down 3-2 to Cleveland. Two outs. Polanco on first. Pudge at bat. Jim in recliner. Very tense.

Pudge hits first pitch foul.

Pitcher winds up again.....

throws beach ball down the center of the plate.

Pudge knocks the hell out of it. Two-run home run.

Tigers win!!!!

Much yelling and screaming in the Stadium.

Much yelling and screaming in the basement.

Cats come to investigate. Big cat dances around the basement with Boris in his arms. Boris gets annoyed. Big cat places Boris on ground. Continues happy winning dance!


God bless baseball!!!!!

Tomorrow night will be getting Joel Zumaya's autograph. This is a season!!!!

Blog-itis (and other things)

As I sit here taking a break from my busy and semi-(un)productive time alone, I got to thinking about how the internet has added a new level of stress to my life. Like most people, I created a website and a blog as a way of keeping in contact with my friends and family. Kind of a way of creating my own little slice of home in the grand wilderness of cyberspace. The funny thing is, though, that once you have something going you also gain an almost irresistable pull to maintain and update it. In alot of ways that feeling is good and productive. Imagine being a homeowner and not working at all to maintain any level of upkeep on your house. It doesn't take much when you're trying to keep the house neat to mess it up, how much worse when you let it go. But what about all of these other things? In my lifetime I've seen the invention of the mobile phone. It's gone from a briefcase sized gizmo that you carried in your car (literally a "car phone") to something that you can keep in a pocket or attached to your ear. Instant connection from anywhere. News, data, and infomation all at your immediate beck and call. And the internet. I remember in college when having a 32k modem connection at home was the big thing. Hell, a guy from the computer labs got me the software for the e-mail client (line editor, thank you very much) and the winsock connection on a few floppies. Nowadays I get my cable and my internet from the same line coming into my house. Times change and they move fast.

But is it progress?

Now I sit and ponder about things to write about on my blog. Can't get to half of them, real life keeps getting in my way. Lots of things I'd love to do with the website, just haven't had time to really sit and fiddle with the software to figure out what I need to do to get it done. I can't even leave the house now without feeling a bit of stress if I forget to grab my phone. Once upon a time you could go shopping and no one could get ahold of you. Now you can't even sit in a movie theatre without some idiot blathering on to someone who's not there, over the most trivial of subjects.

But I feel like it's not just an organizational problem. It's a stuff overload problem. Things, data, information. I'm allowing alot of it to dictate my life.

Ok, maybe I'm just cranky today. Julie's out of town for the weekend. My parents and Bill are out of town for the week. And despite the fact that I'm an introvert at heart and cherish my alone time, I'm just not feeling it this weekend. Maybe it's because Julie has been working nights for the past two weeks and we just haven't seen each other. But I was thinking about all the stuff I have around here and how I shouldn't be bored, or lonely....but I am. And at the same time I just feel like a million little things around here need to get done and I'm being pulled in by all of them. Then it got me thinking about an interaction someone once had with Jesus..

Luke 18:18-25
18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
21 "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." NIV

Woah. Could I give it all up?

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:

Lord, please help me to refocus my gaze on you. Don't allow me to be swayed and turned aside by what I have around me. Help me to reprioritize my life. Allow me to reconnect with what is important. Allow me to feel whole and completed in you and in your body. Let your grace pour over me and through me.
In Jesus name.
Amen.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to sleep

Just as I was planning on going to bed, Craig Monroe crushed a two run homer to put the Tigers up 7-6 over the Indians in the bottom of the 8th. My cheering caused Boris to jump off the recliner. Damn! I love baseball!!!!

p.s.- here comes Jones......hold on to your hats, boys and girls.

To be a Phillips

If you know me or Bill, you know that our typical family stance is to stand there with our arms folded and either an annoyed, or amused, look on our face. I would just like to point to this picture as a frame of reference as to where we got it from. Notice my Dad sitting next to my Uncle Harold at a ballgame in Johnson City. My first thought after Bill sent it to me was, "I am so my Father's son..."

Ooooooo...the rollercoaster is back

I just watched the Tigers give up six runs in the eighth inning to lose the last game in the series to the Twins. While I'm not squemish enough to panic about this, it does bring back bad memories of seasons past. Yuk. Fortunately, on a whole, we're playing much better than the one inning we gave up.

Who'dve ever thought I'd get emotionally invested in the Tigers again? I don't think my heart can take this kind of beating.

One Book Meme

Thanks, Josh. Dang. Got hit by one of these. That’s what you get for hanging out on the internet without protection. By protection, of course I mean two large guys named Guido pushing people away from you.

A nice, quick diversion from work here:

1. One book that changed your life:
Philip Yancy, What’s So Amazing About Grace.

[I think that everyone hits a point in their lives where a book challenges your thoughts (or lack thereof) of what Christianity is suppose to look like. I don’t know if it’s the best, but this was mine]

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.

[In my crazy high school/college days, I would read the whole trilogy each summer]

3. One book you’d want on a desert island (assuming that How to Escape from a Desert Island with Two Coconuts, Bamboo and a Couple of Fish is checked out of the desert island library):
Frank Herbert, Dune.

[The irony of the choice didn’t hit me until I finished typing it]

4. One book that made you laugh:
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens.

[It was all I could do not to crack up hysterically when I would read this book at lunch. It was a miracle I never got kicked out of resturants]

5. One book that made you cry:
John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog.

[Ok, so I have a thing for pets. Some days I think I like animals more than people]

6. One book that you wish had been written:
How to accomplish everything you want to do in life in 15 easy minutes a day.

[‘nuff said]

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

Anything with “Purpose-Driven” in the title (ok, a slight deviation from the question)

[Questionable theology + questionable social relevance = does anybody really need this? How did the Church ever survive before Rick Warren decided that it needed a purpose?]

8. One book you’re currently reading:

Aaron Allston, Betryal (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force).

[Woo-hoo! Love Star Wars!!!]

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Hans Kung, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection

[Not that I know much detail about Barth’s theology, nor Kung’s. I just thought it would be interesting to read a take on reconciling the Protestant/Catholic divide. Frankly it’s been sitting on the bookshelf mocking me. I need to get through a few more lighter fiction books before I decided to tackle this.]

10. Now tag five people:
I don’t even know 5 people with blogs that haven’t been hit with this. Sorry, folks. Not trying to be difficult.