So....what the heck!
I'm neck deep in financial reports - looking at a couple of companies.
First off - I love a challenge, so learning something new is great fun.
That said, it seems that financial reporting makes complicated something that is very simple at its core....
How much did you sell....how much did it cost you to sell it...how much did you buy....how much do you have left?

It appears that a lot of reporting is so that the value of the company can be extrapolated for years to come thereby making it either valuable or not.

I have to keep reminding myself that at its core....it is still that simple. You just need to uncover all of the ways that accountants have made to hide that simplicity. Not easy.

Ever feel just off?

Sometimes jobs go like that. In production housing sometimes sites just seem to get off on the wrong foot and it takes way more energy then normal to bring them back. Sometimes sites just go well from the beginning and stay great throughout. I think the same is often true of my life. Sometimes you just get off kilter, and it takes a lot of energy and self discipline to pull things back in line.

I feel off kilter.

Just finished reading the book that inspired the movie 'invictus'
I am hooked. Mandela is portrayed in an incredible light.
I need to head to the library and pick up a biography because I am absolutely intrigued.

I am also reminded today that saying yes to something means saying no to something else. Count the cost.
Mandela went to bed every night at 9PM and was up every morning at 4:30AM.

Off to bed....

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5

Here are some of my favourite pictures of the few days we got away - and today...is no. 16 for the wife of my youth and I.
I love you Catie - forever my sweetheart.

So Catherine and I went away to one of my favourite spots on earth.
Everyone in our family call it 'the ladies' since for all of my growing up it was a little cottage owned by two ladies. My brother and I used to snoop around and I used to imagine living there - it was perfect. My Uncle bought it a few years ago and we've had the privilege of staying there several times and working on it too - in fact the deck CJJONES did there was my favourite deck build.
So Cate and I got away for 3 days to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary.
It was incredible.

I love my wife.
Happens that some of my best friends are loving their wives too and Dave posted this incredible video - couldn't help re-posting!



Pics to come in a bit of the cottage!

So...neck is fairly sore and stiff, knee is actually pretty good, elbow fine, shoulder fine....wow not a bad outing.
14 years ago I stopped playing my favourite sport in the world - rugby.
I've been coaching almost all that time, not playing though!

Today - in Stratford, I played a full 80min of rugby.
I am out of shape, but I think i still contributed on the field, and I had a ton of fun.

No. 6 for the first half and scrum half for the second. Loved it.
Looking forward to August 7th when I get to do it again!

I am in need of the ability to live like Brennan Manning suggests -

"it is impossible for Abba's child to be offended."

I'm also second guessing myself, my motives and my life today. I guess introspection is good to a certain extent, but I don't want to be like the double minded man.

Some pics of Jiah playing and sunset on Georgian Bay

OK - so the point has been proven. It has been what, 7 days since the last post....
I've been away for a few days - so that didn't help - however, as in life, no point making excuses, or self flagellating - just get on with it.

Few things I've been mulling over. Do you find that there are events, or moments, words, movies, bits to your life that you wake up to, think about as you're falling asleep or steal a few minutes to yourself - they kind of ebb and flow, changing with your season, your circumstance and surroundings.

For me - I have been in Parry Sound with Josiah just on a weekend camping with him. It was great, and I realised yet again, that the wilderness does several things to me -
1. it makes me miss my wife. I really fell in love during the summer of Grade 10 and a lot of that summer I spent up North missing my eventual wife. We both love the near north and have great family memories - so being there without her puts an ache in my heart.
2. It does my soul good. It makes me relax and trust. I could live with nothing - it wouldn't be easy mind you...but I really could.
3. It makes me frustrated that I either can't or don't do no. 2.
4. It makes me love Jesus. A load of people gathered on a specific rock outcropping and watched God's finale on the day - beautiful sunset over the water of Georgian Bay. Incredible. God is good.

The other thing I've been thinking on is Invictus.
Watched the movie. Man - what a story. The movie was OK, not great I thought. It was spotty I guess. Moments of incredible brilliance and great writing, mixed with some odd decisions - Clint...why show all rugby in slow motion?
There were some great lines -
"are you thinking of the game?"
"no the game is taken care of, I'm thinking how you spend 30 years in prison and come out ready to forgive the people who put you there."

And the poem itself it great.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Interesting isn't it - that as Christians - we are constantly giving mastery of our fate over to one we can trust, and constantly asking Him to captain our soul. Yet, the greatest gift we have been given, I believe, is that we retain that ability to decide.

Until tomorrow.....