Saying good-bye to Sierra,
before I ever met her.

I know what you're thinking. "That's a bit cryptic. Isn't it?"

Well, at the church I attend we have these home groups. They used to call them Life Net, but the name was changed, and I don't remember what the new name is.

The family that leads the one I am a part of, Lenard & Charity Samanie, had a little girl Monday evening. Her name was Sierra. There were complications with her heart during the pregnancy. When she was born, she went directly to ICU.

The last update I received on Tuesday was that she was doing really well. In fact, she got to spend a couple hours in her mom's arms.

This morning I had two emails from one of Charity's relatives. One was from Thursday and the other this morning. The one from Thursday said, "They believe these are her final moments. Please pray for grace and strength, this family has been through so much in the last few months." The one from today said this, "Thank you gain for all the prayer and support of the Samanie family. I will have more details about service arrangements this afternoon."

Needless to say I'm a little torn. I've known this family almost as long as I've lived here. I am very close to them.

Keep the Samanie's in your prayers as they deal with this.

God bless,
Mr. Keith

Short Attention Span Theater!
The story of my life.

(Thursday 01/17/08)

I think this is my fourth or fifth attempt at writing something new for this blog, hence the title. I kind of want to do a "year in review" sort of thing, but I'm really not sure where this will end up going. So...

I started last year kind of the same way I have many, in debt. I'm sure most of us do that on a regular basis, but a few months in I decided that I was done with being a "slave to the lender". Not to long after that I started listening to this guy out of TN, Dave Ramsey, and everything started to change.

I've made the decision to get out of debt many times before, but until this last year I never did a whole lot about it. Well, last month I paid off the last of my credit cards. In a nine month period I paid off $5,500.00, or there abouts.

Now on to my car. I owe a little more on that then I did on my cards, but I'm already paying a pretty good size chunk of money towards that. The plan is to pay it off by the end of this year, at the latest. I should be pretty close to having it done by July or August. If not, completely paid off.

Then it's on to the house, and yes I have the beginnings of a plan for that as well. Although, I'm probably going to be in a different house in three to four years.

Paying off the cards hasn't really sunk in yet. I'll start noticing it more as each month passes, and my bank accounts increase.

(Monday 01/21/08)

I spent the last two full weeks of the year playing Superintendent. In that time I had two days off, Sunday the 23rd and Christmas day. The only reason I didn't work Christmas was because the owner of Metro Walls, where I work, went out there. Some advise, if you have a job that would usually take 34 days to complete, don't schedule a 14 day build time. Needless to say, I'm cured of wanting to be a Project Manager or Superintendent.

I'm not complaining. It's one of those life experiences that I wouldn't trade for the world. I just want it to be a one time experience.

The biggest disappointment of the year was when I realized that my mom didn't get to see any of us kids during the holidays. That was the first time since any of us were born.

We did get to see her this year. I went out there back in July, and she was out here when Johnathan was born.

It was very hard for me when I realized it. So, I decided that this year I'm going to make sure she will be with at least one of us this year. I told my sister and brother that I would fly her where ever she needed to be to see one or all of us at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'll be able to do that because of the whole getting out of debt thing.

Well, that's it for now.

God bless,
Mr. Keith