Classically Manly - A New Shave

On New Year's Eve, I was standing outside with Robbie and Evan.  We were smoking our pipes (obviously the legal kind) and we were talking about things we'd like to see happen in the New Year.  Of course things like running more and being intentional came up, but Evan put words to something that I instantly found to be a verbal expression of something that had been stirring within myself.  He said, "This year, I want to do more classically, manly things."  At least it was something to that effect.  What he said was something that I had been thinking about but hadn't quite articulated in that way.  I was in.  I didn't make any specific plans or goals (probably a no-no for this sort of thing), but I was definitely committed to the idea of doing more classically, manly things.  Evan seemed cool with me jumping on what he said.

This past weekend Amy did some grocery shopping and bought me some new razor blades.  I've been using a 5 blade razor for a while now.  She made a comment about the cost and I decided that it was time to change my razor.  You should know that I've been periodically reading the website The Art of Manliness.  This site is pretty sweet - the gentlemen that post there have a lot of great things they're writing about. They wrote about razors here.

I decided to go oldschool with my razor.  This is something Evan mentioned while smoking our pipes but I had honestly also been thinking along the same lines for a while.  I considered the straight razor kind, but Amy wasn't too comfortable with the idea of that. I started checking out the double-edged safety razors of old.  I landed on the Merkur (also called DOVO) 180.  The razor was about $40 and the blades can be anywhere from 10 to 50 cents a pop (10 to 50 cents!!!).  This speaks to two things - my wanting to be more classically manly this year and my being frugal on occasion.

Here you are...

It works pretty well and will take some getting used to but I'm certainly pleased with it.  Not sure what all will be next down the line with doing more classically manly things, but I'll keep an eye and ear out for possibilities.

Here are some how-to's that I found helpful and amusing.

Looking (just a little) Ahead

I'm in the process of getting my feet back under me. It's been a slow process (slower than I thought it'd be) for getting back a small sense of normalcy - but what's that? My buddy Jim uses the phrase "new normal" to describe this sort of transition. That really is the best way to describe what is happening. I still work with the same amazing faith community, I still live in the same house, have the same amazingly beautiful wife - but all of this shifts a bit with Evie's arrival. Certainly not for the worse - things are so much more rich. It's an exciting and exhausting time.

As I'm looking forward to the next several months, there's a lot happening on a personal level. I'm looking to try and do really well in my OT seminary class with Leland, I'm running a marathon for the first time in April (ran the half twice - stepping it up this year), and I'm really close to signing up for my first ever trail race - a 25k in Roanoke called Conquer the Cove.  I'm looking forward to hitting the water and doing a little fly fishing this year (can't even remember if I did last year - this is sad).  Probably should hit the fly tying vise first!  

As far as things go with NLCF, there are certainly some exciting things happening.  We're currently in a project involving Lent and a photo-a-day sharing.   Though I've not had something to share every day personally, I've been encouraged by the images people have been sharing.  We're also in the middle of a series on the seven deadly sins.  This teaching series has been a good one.  It really causes you to consider how we go about our days.  I'm going to be speaking on Anger this Sunday.  I'm excited to dig deeper in this as well as share a bit of my own past with how I've dealt (or not dealt) with Anger. 

We have at least 3 Spring Break trips this year.  They're all going to be awesome and I can't wait to see/hear what happens.  We're sending teams to Miami, Mississippi, and Abingdon - as well as other folks going to other places. Unfortunately we didn't have enough interest from folks to be able to go down to Danli, Honduras this year, but we're certainly not done there.  We will go back, God willing.

That's certainly only a small portion of what's on deck but for now I'm gonna leave it at that.  I'm hopeful. It's looking to be a great next few months. Can't wait to see what happens along the way.

Quick note:  Why did I write all of this?  Not 100% sure, but I figured it'd be a guide for the things I'll write about in the coming weeks and months.  I'm hoping to put things up here a bit more often.  Peace.

Back at it? We'll see.

Many moons ago, when I first started this blog, I decided to call it "Newness of Life."  I picked that because I like the fact that Christ offers us a "new life" as we put our trust in him.  I also realize that the older I get, more and more new things happen.  The blog came in to play because I thought it'd be fun, kinda cool, and a way for me to share things that are happening in our (me and Amy's) lives.  I really don't feel pressure to write, ever.  That lack of pressure sometimes means that I'll go months between posts and I'm okay with that.  Look at this post for instance.  It's now February and it's been since August since I last wrote anything. 

Well, 2013 was brought in by something very new for both Amy and myself.  We're parents!  Meet Evelyn (Evie)...

Cute, huh?  We think so.

Everything is new with her!  Never been parents before.  I've never been around a baby girl nearly this much (a lot of boys in our family!).  Never had to wake up around 10:30 (yeah, already in bed by then these days!), 1, 4, then again at 7:30 every night.  A lot of new things happening around here.

2013 is gonna be a good one, I think.

I'm going to say that I'm going to try to, for my own sake, to post here more often.  No guarantees, but I'd like to try.  I'll (Steve here by the way) be running some races - including my first marathon in April - hopefully fishing some, and hopefully see God do some amazing things. 

We'll see.  Cheers!

Best. Commercial. Ever.

Meet Nathan...


This truly touches my heart.

That's what's up.

Haven't really posted on here much...

Gonna work on that this summer.  And yes, it's summer time, for me at least.  Being in college ministry, though I'm 30, I still live my life in terms of semesters and breaks.  I really don't mind it that much.  Though this is the time of 'summer break' things will slow down, but not really stop by any means.

I'll be taking an intensive class for seminary on Spiritual Formation.  Looking over the books it seems like it will be a pretty interesting class.  BTdubb - Intensive in the sense that the class will be two weekends, but have a lot of pre-, mid-, and post-work.  I've enjoyed taking seminary classes this year.  I took two each semester (only on Thursday nights) this past school year and I got all A's.  That certainly felt good!

There are a few weddings we'll be going to.  I do enjoy going to them.  They'll be all over VA.  It's exciting to see friends taking a next step in their relationships.

We'll visit our families some.  I'll be traveling to raise some support.  But we'll also be here in Blacksburg quite a bit - and I do love Blacksburg in the summer.  I'm going to be running the Richmond Marathon in November so I'll be doing quite a bit of running this summer too.  I'm hoping to get some trail running in while I'm at it.

I'll be co-leading our summer Engage Group with Jim and Jeanette this summer too.  I'm looking forward to it.  We'll be going over some sweet stuff and I suspect that it'll prove to be pretty awesome.

I'll (hopefully) be posting up on here more this summer than I have been lately.  In an effort to be more reflective, I'm thinking it'd be good to do.  Maybe I'll even drop some knowledge on ya from what I'm learning in class.

Running Styles

Aaaaaannnd we're back.

I'm in the midst of training for the Blue Ridge Half Marathon.  I ran this last year.  It was a tough course, but it was good to run.  Some time after the race, runners are able to look through pictures of themselves that were taken during the race.  Ouch.

A while back I ran the Blacksburg Classic too.  This one was just a 5k.  I saw pictures of me in their photostream too.  Dang.

I've come to realize something - I just don't run pretty. 

I'm okay with it though - I'm comfortable enough in my stride right now.

Walkjogrun is a website that I use to track my progress in training as well as find new routes.  There are several sites like this out there, but I'm a fan of these guys.  Recently, they posted a video on their Facebook page that really made me laugh and I just wanted to share it.  Enjoy.



I'll be honest, I think I kinda run like the Dandy in the arms and the face of the Flight-less Bird.
(BTW I found a definition of dandy that's a good description of this running style - A man unduly devoted to style, neatness, and fashion in dress and appearance.  The guy in the video is committed to that running style for sure.)

What about you?

Back Home

I crawled into bed at 7:40am on Sunday morning!

We had such a great trip to Honduras.  There were 16 of us total from the US.  We had 5 translators and numerous local church members with us all week.  Here's a group shot:

So you know when we got back.  We left for Honduras on Sunday the 4th.  We arrived around lunchtime in Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras.  When we got there we were greeted by our friends from the church, had a quick lunch (at a Wendy's of all places), and then headed to Danli.

Each day (Monday - Thursday) looked pretty similar.  Our group was split into 4 smaller groups.  Each morning we would have a devotional before breakfast, then we'd eat, and head over to the church building.  There, we prepared bags of food provisions that we would hand out to families we would meet.

Katie doing a morning devotional.

Food bags we prepped to give out.

After we prepped the food bags, one group would stay back and make a bed or 2 for families who would need one.  The rest would go out, visit families in various neighborhoods in and around Danli, get to know them, talk about any needs they had, ask them questions about faith and God, pray with them, and give them food, clothes and shoes.  We saw a number of people decide to put their faith in Christ.  It was exciting to see!  Praise God for that!

The afternoon would look the same except the group that made the beds in the morning would join the rest of the groups, give the beds to families in need, and then get to pray with them.  The beds may look pretty simple, but they were very much needed by the families who received them.  Here's a picture of the beds we were making:

Adam and Kenny staining their bed.

The week ended with there being a farewell church service on Friday night.  Many of the church members were there as well as our entire team.  We had the opportunity to share experiences from the week.  I got to share about why we continue to go back to Danli.  Katie got to share about how she came to the decision last year to move down there (probably in June/July of this year).  And Sabrina got to share about her trip and it being her first time there.

Katie sharing.

Sabrina sharing.

We had a few people get sick.  I'd say it was nothing really major, though they may disagree.  Overall, it was a great trip.  What gets me excited about it the most is that the effects of the trip aren't over.  In Danli, the church there doesn't skip a beat.  When we join them, that's just it, we're joining them.  They were already doing things like this before we got there, and they continue to do them after we leave.  It doesn't revolve around us.  When we go, it's more like an extra bit of energy and manpower we provide, by God's help.  Here in Blacksburg, people's perspectives have shifted.  Each person is inspired, challenged, and encouraged by what they saw God do in that one week.  I get very excited when I think about the lasting effects of a trip like this. 

Here are some more images from the week...

Alainna passing out silly bands.

A sweet view.

We got to tour the a cigar factory with the option of buying (ahem).

Left to right:  Christian, Brie, David, & Alainna.

I wasn't really excited to leave, but I was excited to be home.  It's always tough being away from Amy that long.  It's difficult to believe that it's mid-March already.  I have a feeling the rest of this semester is going to fly by.

See ya!
~Steve