Jared's Sabbatical Journal

Aaron asked me if I wanted to earn $100 playing some music. Turned out to be a pretty fun gig down at a place called Dockside in Osh Kosh. It was an acoustic set so it was the lead guy Chris, Aaron on guitar and cajon, and myself on guitar. I printed out all this music from the set list and literally used it for about 3 songs in a 3 hour set. Chris was all over the place song-wise so I didn't even have time to find the songs in my "book". I ended up just watching Chris's hands to see what chords he was playing and then getting the patterns for the song from there. I sang one tune and should've had more.. Maybe next time. Either way it was a cool gig. Free drinks for the band, and it was right on the water. Perfect night, super laid back. I don't know how often I'd like to do that kind of stuff though. It's quite a bit of driving (Aaron drove this time) and a lot of hours out of the house and so the $100 and a cut of the tip jar doesn't end up

Met Aaron Martell at Luna Coffee in De Pere. It was great to be able to sit and talk with him. Here are the notes that I took. I never take great notes but they mean something to me, so maybe that's enough. He also suggested a book called The Rest of God by Mark Buchannan What are the weights that I'm carrying? - Where can conversation happen that's life giving? John 10:10. What is seeking to destroy? Why? What am I doing that feeds the passion and makes me feel light? - activities - relationships VISION FOR LIFE We experienced THIS!! what is the this? One person blindfolded?

I liked the book for the most part. I sort of thought there'd be more speaking from a skeptic's point of view. But a critic of the Christian culture is an important endeavor as well. I thought there were a lot of different assumptions that were made concerning various points of view, and so there were some jumps that a reader such as myself had to make. Seeing as how the book was written in the early 2000's that does make sense. I like his bend toward social justice and he also seems well traveled into the realm of secular thinkers and communicators. It does us a disservice as communicators in this century to be in our faith bubble and think that that's how people should think. It was a little tough reading all his stuff about being single and wondering about marriage and girlfriends ugh.. I know it was his journey but I have a bias, I think, about guys that aren't married. I just think of them as kids. There's an emotional muscle that marriage works that

The last couple days have been mostly watching the kids play soccer, but tonight was memorable. After a pretty warm day the boys and I came home and we have a really nice dinner as a family. After quickly cleaning up, I brought my guitar out on the deck and lit up one of my tobacco pipes. A cool breeze kicked up while Briar played on the swings with her friend and the boys invented a new game on the trampoline that did NOT end up in a fight. It was a beautiful evening where everyone was laughing and playing. I got to take it all in while getting my fingertips back in shape a little bit and burning up some fine tobacco.

Well, that was a busy day. Woke up and played basketball. Got home, had breakfast, and started in on tearing out our old shower door and replacing it with a new one. I've never done that before and it was decently fun. Took me most of the day. In the afternoon I took the boys to their soccer camp. Read my book for a while and then ran 6 miles around the soccer field. Took a little less than 12 laps around the property. Got word that River's EEG came back normal, so supposedly his chance of another seizure goes to around 30%. So that was good news. I discovered through watching the boys they need a lot more Jesus in their lives. I'm not super diligent about sharing the characteristics of Jesus with them because I feel like my childhood was mostly religious in nature so I've been trying to avoid that but my kids are selfish, and can be mean and off-putting and its horrifying to me. So I'm going to try to have more talk and dialogue of the nature of Jesus and ho

Went to Home Depot with the boys to pick up a new shower door and some stuff.  Got home in time for lunch and got ready for soccer camp. Last year, I dropped them off and went and did my thing. This year, due to River's unstable condition, I'm staying on the soccer fields to make sure I'm there if anything goes down. It was pretty nice. It was a beautiful day and I sat and read in the shade while I could glance over to the soccer field. Also threw my long distance discs over in the field. The evening ended with Danielle coming over and I showed her a few chords on the guitar. She had dinner with us as we caught up with her life events. 

My first Sunday sleeping in! It was pretty nice. Hung out with the family as we drove around and shopped for some new bathroom items. Ended up at Clintonville Culvers. I had a salad because I wanted to ready for Ultimate.  I stopped by Lina Lui's grad party and sat next to Orren and Kay. It was fine.  Ultimate was fine as well. Only 3 on 3 and windy but we made the best of it anyway.  At night I went to a drive-in movie with Aaron. It was cool. We sat outside the car as there were only 3 cars there. The stars and lightening bugs (fireflies) were pretty great. The movies were decent.  

Took the kids to get haircuts at Helen Wickmans. She does a great job but it wasn't a very sabbatical like moment but that's OK. Went home and mowed the yard and all that. After dinner I took the boys to the Timber Rattler game. It was fun to sit with them. It was their first baseball game. It was a bit cool that night so Rainn sat with my arm around him as I explained the different positions on the field. We had a fun dialogue about the game in general. 

First day of no school for the kids. They seemed to enjoy it. I ran errands this morning and the weather was incredible. I finished out the rest of the flowers out front. Briar ran errands with me. At one point, driving by Walmart, she says "Why does Walmart have a Subway?" I was like "I have no idea." She ended the conversation with "I don't know why they'd do that when we have one right here." Great observation for a 5 yr old. Cleaned the bathrooms and then went on an hour and half workout. Chasing the frisbee is something I can only really do in the summer. It was fantastic. In the evening I picked up the guitar for a bit to keep the finger strength up. 

Got to do some stuff around the house. Bought and put out the flowers for the summer. Sat in the yard and read Blue Like Jazz. Took the boys to soccer.. ya know that usual. It was nice to run some errands with Alissa and just talk about whatever. I guess you could say we got to CONNECT! 

We woke up and had the hotel breakfast. It was fine. We had to be at the clinic at 7:15 am. River had an MRI first and he did so well. I was so proud of him. They said he could bring a movie and he decided to bring Food Inc. That's my boy. He then had bacon as part of his lunch. Oh well. Baby steps. I got to read quite a bit in my Blue Like Jazz book. Review to come later. After the EEG of which he also did very well, we went exploring. We went to a nearby park and made our way down next to the water (Lake Michigan). It was like 50 degrees and windy but I had a sweatshirt so I could teach him a lesson on how to always pack a sweatshirt and real shoes. Met with the doctor and it was a good meeting. River's gonna be OK :) Headed home and listened to a couple Science Mike Podcasts per River's request. We got to talk some science and God stuff along the way. 

I got to work out in the afternoon. Then right after school River and I headed out to Milwaukee to check into a hotel. On Tuesday we go to the Children's Hospital to get River Tested. Had a good drive down with River. We had Sushi at a local place in Maquon and he really liked that. He had a Japanese Soda and I had a Japanese beer with our food. We dominated the California Roll part of the menu. After that we went back to the hotel and played Ping Pong down by the pool. Before bed we watched a bit of the Bachelorette. We made fun of the idiots on that show and turned out the lights. I finished a netflix doc on Meditation.