Madd Money: Old School Shave the Best Value In Town :)

What you see above is my morning rig, and with one exception, it's as old school as you can get without owning a straight razor (and someday, I may actually get brave enough to try one again :) ). Last year at this time, I decided that I was going broke keeping myself in Edge Gel and Mach 3 blades, and after having read a few other bloggers comments about ditching the new and disposable stuff for the "classic" approach, I likewise decided to ditch my canned foam and Mach 3 razor, and went on a quest to find what all the fuss was regarding the "classic shave".

With a little encouragement and some research, I decided to go the DE (Dual Edge) route and invested in a Merkur Combed 1904 Safety Razor from Germany. I liked this one because it has heft to it and a nice, long horn handle. Just placing it on the skin and letting gravity do the work is all that is needed. I will have to confess that this was a splurge purchase, but it's made a lot more comforting in the fact that these types of razors will literally last generations. I've tried numerous different blades, and have had success with German Merkur Solingen blades (nice and clean feeling) and Feather blades from Japan (ridiculously sharp and require a delicate touch) but my favorite are Personna blades from Israel. What's more, it's possible to get packs of 100 of these blades for less than $25.00. That's a two years supply of blades, and literally pennies a day for a shave :).

I use a preshave oil from the Art of Shaving, and I find this to be a very helpful component to a morning shave. It's not essential, and it does add a bit to the cost of a shave, but it does make for a nice touch and a smooth glide. About $15-$20 per container, depending on which one you choose to use.

The big pot in the back is a neat device called a "Moss Scuttle". They are made in Canada by a potter that makes each one by hand (I heard a few rave reviews about these and decided to try one out. The classic scuttle is made for hard soaps, where the soap sits on a platform and water drains down into an inner chamber that holds hot water. What's cool about this is that this is designed to work with tube and tub creams, which are my preferred types (instead of holes, it's a solid cup, and the fill point for the inner chamber is small enough to fill with water, allowing the inner water to stay hotter longer). Fill the inner chamber with hot water as well as the upper cup, soak your brush in the upper cup, drain off the top level of water while keeping the inner water inside, Spoon off a half teaspoon of soap into the top cup, swirl up the cream, and you have a warm lather that stays warm for the duartion of your shave and just plain feels fabulous going on :). Cost of the item, $65.00 American.

My brush is Badger Hair, made by Vulfix, and it is large enough to be comfortable and efficient, but not so big as to be a mess to clean up. Plus, it fits the scuttle perfectly. The brush I have cost about $45.00, and like the Merkur razor, with proper care can also last generations.

This past year has been a quest to find a hard cream that works well with the Moss Scuttle, and I have found two that I love. The first is from Italy and it's called Proraso. It has a lanolin base and eucalyptus oil, and the second is made in San Francisco from a company called Nancy Boy. Their cream has a great consistency and feels terrific in the skin, but its real staying power comes from its fragrance, a mix of Lavender, Peppermint and Rosemary essential oils. It may sound like it would be overpowering, but it's not. A tub of each costs about $15.00, and for face shavers, a tub will literally last you a year of daily use.

The little stick is barber's alum, and is used for the ever essential "nick" treatment that you have to deal with every once in awhile (no matter how good you are at shaving, nicks are inevitable, but alum block takes care of it quickly). I got this stick as a Christmas present, but an average 100 gram block costs about $6.00.

The area that you can go absolutely nuts on is after-shave; there are so many choices out there and different varieties. I tried several and found one in an unlikely place. A friend recommended that I try Thayer's Witch Hazel and Rose Water tonic as an after shave, and I gotta say, I think it works great. What I really like about it is that there is no alcohol, so it cools down the skin, and emolliates without burning, while using the witch hazel to act as a final antiseptic to protect the skin. A 12 oz. bottle goes for about $9.00.

Finally, the last little touch that I have used for years and years (and is my favorite "fragrance" of all time) is called "No. 4711" from Germany. as you might guess, this is made in Cologne, Germany, and it's where the phrase "cologne" comes from :). Nice citrus based scent, never overpowering, and the bottle I have has lasted close to a decade and will probably last me into next decade. I have no idea how much I paid for the bottle I have now, but I consider it a bargain for how often I use it and how long I've used it.

So I'm sure that some are scratching their heads wondering why this is a Madd Money entry. Doesn't seem to be very "frugal" on the surface, until you take a closer look. The costs of setting up this rig will take me a year to recoup the setup costs (mostly in the cost of the razor, scuttle and brush) but those items will last indefinitely. With the cost of the Personna blades, and the price for the cream and other items, it actually costs *less* that buying the current blades and foams that are disposable. Even with the lower cost, the real reason I love this rig is the fact that shaving, which used to be a total chore, is now something I truly look forward to doing. That change alone made the investment worth it :).

Madd Money: Using NetworthIQ to Track Your “Game Score”

There are a lot of tools out on the net that allow people to track how they are doing and do something to see where they stand. While many of these tools vary based on their complexity and what they track, personally, I like something that gives someone a high level view to see if they are gaining or losing ground. I liken it to a quote an old colleague of mine said some years back… “my favorite game is Quicken, and I try to beat my high score each month” (LOL!)). To that end, I have found the NetworthIQ tool to be rather cool (I was introduced to this tool via Meg over at “The World of Weath”). If you like something that lets you look at your finances with a feeling of “getting the high score in a game”, then this might be right up your alley :).

NetworthIQ is designed to keep track of your assets and your liabilities in a way that’s fairly straightforward. There are a lot of different ideas as to what constitutes an asset and what constitutes a liability (some people include their house as an asset, others do not consider their primary residence an asset, since it requires money to maintain and does not create actual revenue beyond potential appreciation value or when it gets sold). Regardless of philosophy, NetworthIQ lets you keep track of key areas and determine what your bottom line financial health may be.

NetworthIQ lists the following areas as assets:

Cash
Stocks (those not held in retirement accounts)
Bonds (also those not held in retirement accounts)
Annuities
Retirement (all 401(K), ROTH IRA and whatever other retirement options you have are listed here)
Home (I use the general consensus price from Zillow.com ).
Other Real Estate
Cars (values derived from “Fair Market Value” at KBB.com)
Personal Property
Other (I put my kids 529 plans in this category)

On the liability side, NetworthIQ lists the following:

Home Mortgage
Other Mortgages
Student Loans
Credit Cards
Car Loans
Other

The NetworthIQ page then calculates your total net worth appreciation (or depreciation) and compares it with your monthly liabilities (increaded or decreased) over the previous month, and provides a handy little graph to show how you are doing. What’s more, for those who are a little more willing to “let it all hang out”, you can get a “badge” to display on your site or your blog that gets continuously updated and shows your ups and downs.

My own net worth statement looks *really* skewed by comparison to many others, but that’s because I have no liabilities and own my home free and clear. If I were to exclude my house as an asset in the net worth calculation, we would be about at the median of people in our age group, with perhaps a little less in retirement (unfortunately, that also includes the recent market downturn). The good news is that, since the market has been so battered, this could be a *great* time to bag some investments at a fire sale price (provided of course that my logic of investing in the entire US and International market via index funds is a long term good plan. I’m long term optimistic, but we shall see :) ).

I think this is one of the neater tools out there in that it tracks at a very macro level and just says where you have gone up and where you have gone down. For some, that can be extremely motivating. What’s also interesting is that you can see how you rate compared to other NetworthIQ accounts (though, to be frank, some of these numbers look screwy and I have a strong feeling that some of the entries are totally bogus on the top end). Still when using the median values, you can see some interesting trends as relates to others on the site and their tracking.

I like that NetworthIQ is easy to update, the criteria is easy to understand, and the program is objective. What’s also cool is that you can share this information with others if they want to know where you stand, or if you feel so compelled to share it with others.

Shedding of Innocent Stuff: The Garage Deep Clean

New Year's Day was spent in a flurry of activity, and it was perhaps a little more intense than I truly intended it to be. I woke up at 6:00 AM and went into the garage. With the exception of having dinner at my wife's parents place, the garage is where I pretty much stayed, all day. That, and going in and out of the living room and kitchen area to pack up all of the Christmas items we had out.

My goal was simple. There had been a creeping and growing amount of boxes and items making a second perimeter around the garage. I wanted to see how much of this stuff I could get rid of. Here's what I determined:

* We purchased a bunch of really fragile glass ornaments about ten years ago. We've been way too paranoid to put them up on the tree in the past, but this year we decided to give it a try. Since they are just plain gold, silver and burgundy balls, and since we liked the more eclectic mix of ornaments we've gathered over the years better, we decided it was time to let these ones go. In the process, we reclaimed a whole storage box worth of space.

* We have various totes and boxes that have made their way into the garage, most without lids, and most just end up on the floor as "dumping areas" to be dealt with later. This is an example where too much organizational media can actually lead to disorganization. I realize it sounds weird to say "we're getting rid of a bunch of organization stuff to get better organized", but in this case, it's true. Plus, with the added factor of not always having the fall back of putting things in a random container, one must go through the effort of actually putting things where they genuinely belong (shocking, I know (LOL!) ).

* I have an external frame backpack that I haven't used in close to four years. The internal frame pack is what I now use for outings, and my son has one that's best sized for him. This isn't needed by me anymore, so I'm giving it to the troop.

* I have a bunch of vinyl albums that I have not played in close to 10 years. It's a pretty good bet they will never get played. Gone.

* Somehow, a lot of scouting paraphernalia has made its way to my garage. It needs to go back to the troop closet at church and not be in my house.

* I have a table router that I bought when we first bought the house for all of the projects I would do. I've used it three times in ten years. time for it to find a new home.

* I have a number of items that I purchased from back in the days when my garage was Pinewood Derby central. Some of the tools are useful and definitely needed. Others I will likely never use again.

* I have a lot of stuff that is used by the Native American Dance tram that I help advise and support. Much of this stuff is in great shape, but having it packed all the time makes it bulky and hard to maneuver. By taking the items out, hanging them in see through bags from the hanging rack in the garage, I can stow the big trunk they usually go in up on the high shelf over the workbench, and use it when it is appropriate. Large scale floor reclaim :).

* There's paint that is the old color of rooms that are no longer that color. Why am I keeping this?

* I have three folding tables that were a big part of my Cub Scout teaching curriculum when the house was Cub Scout central. Now that my son has moved on and we use the church for most of our activities, I'm a little torn on what to do with these. Do I need all three? Not likely, but I can definitely see keeping two of them. The question is, which one to get rid of?

* There's a lot of sporting goods gear that has been worn by my kids through their growing years, and the smallest of the gear now needs to be given a new home. I have some serious emotions about the "Lion" snowboard that is now too small to be ridden by anyone... that board has now been part of the family for almost ten years, and every one of my kids learned to ride on it. Still, its time to let another family take advantage of it now.

Fourteen hours, four trash bags, three donation bags, and a lot of equipment that needs a loving home. My goal for this new year (remember, no resolutions :) ) is to commit to taking a really hard look at the items that come into the garage. It took a really long time to clean up this dumping ground, and I really don't want to do it again (LOL!).

New Year’s Winter Cleaning

First, to anyone who reads this, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and a happy and productive 2009.

As many of you know, I do not believe in New Year’s Resolution. Instead, I believe in making concrete goals and a way to have an action plan to achieve them. Resolutions are just wishes unless they have a concrete game plan, and that game plan is actually followed. At that point, it’s not a resolution, it’s a goal. It’s with this mind set that I offer the following.

Every New Year’s Day, literally starting with the official start of the New Year, I make it a point to stay home and do a deep cleaning of our house. This is also in conjunction with our putting away all of the Christmas decorations (always done on January 1st in our house) and in that process, we always go through and move everything, vacuum every thing, scrub everything, dust everything, you name it. In the process, we also take out a notebook and we make notes on all areas that need work, or are of concern, or otherwise just become pet peeves. From these notes, we set action plans for the areas we can do something about, make projections for the areas we can’t immediately, but would like to, and then set a long term plan for items that will be further down the road.

For 2009, we have determined that the following areas are critical and need to be addressed somewhat immediately:

The garage is overloaded. We have cabinets, shelves, and shelving units that surround the garage. In addition, we have a number of trunks and other items of a random nature that perimeter the cabinets, making it virtually impossible to get into the cabinets without moving the items. When we first moved into this house, we had, arguably, the best organized and cleanest garage in the neighborhood. We most certainly cannot say that now. This is a key area where a concerted dejunking, reallocating of needed items, and deciding exactly why we are holding onto certain things must be done. It always amazes me that every time I do this, no matter how many times I do it, I always seem to determine that there’s still something else that can be downsized. Perhaps it comes from the fact that each time I go through the process, I learn a little bit more about what I actually use and what I don’t. Plus, when you start to let go of things, it becomes easier to let go of other things, too.

My office is the catch-all room. It’s the dirty secret in our house that the house is immaculate except for two places, the garage and my office. Both suffer from the same issue, and that’s overload. We did a massive downsizing of old books and other items, but somehow keeping this room uncluttered is just a royal pain. I also have a longer term goal going forward… I’m looking at the possibility of either converting this room to a genuine guest room, or potentially a bedroom for one of the girls (they currently share a room). To make that conversion, I have to reach the point where the contents of that room are either considerably downsized, or otherwise reallocated. Three key areas make up the bulk of the clutter in this room, and that is media (meaning CD's, DVD, VCR tapes and computer media), craft supplies (mostly associated with my work regarding the White Otter Dancers) and Scouting. My plan is to utilize used media places and sites like mediabuyback.com. In addition, papers that are not essential to be kept in their paper form will either be scanned and stored electronically, or gotten rid of entirely.

We have three fruit trees that produce a good quantity of Peaches, Nectarines and Apples. During 2009, I plan to use some techniques I’ve picked up on the web to set up a square foot garden in our back yard to expand the capacity of that garden space. I’m not gutsy enough to tear up the lawn and make that a garden patch (at least not yet), but the terrace boxes are totally fair game. This will require some observation and determining which areas get the best sunlight, as well as revamping the sprinkler system and adding some heads.

That should keep us busy for the next few months. Expect to see updates on all of these projects right here :).

Scoutmaster Mike: Nick’s Eagle Project Gets Underway

Last night was actually something of a rarity; we decided to not hold scouts due to the number of boys that were not there. However, last week we officially got underway with Nick’s Eagle Project.

His project is to hold a toy and animal needs drive, and one of the items on the animal needs list was rope toys. These are used by dogs to exercise their jaws and play with, and the cotton threads that make up the ends of the rope also act as dental floss for them.

Making the toys was fairly easy process, and one that we discovered was significantly less expensive compared to buying the same toys in a pet store. We started out with 30 feet of clean and untreated cotton rope (polyester and nylon rope cannot be used for these, as the chemicals used to make them could be poisonous). The rope was then cut into 3 foot long sections. Two overhand knots were tied towards the end, leaving about 4 inches of rope dangling from the ends. Another overhand knot was placed in the center. From there, the boys basically played tug of war with the ropes until they became good and tight. Finally, each toy was shaken out so that the ends of the rope hung free and loose.

The final products of the efforts were ten rope toys, and they will be a small part of the toys and items that he will collect for the Peninsula Humane Society, but for now, it was fun to give the boys an activity that they could directly apply to the project and have some fun doing it.

Oh, and an added bonus, we now know for real that Jamboree preparation is a reality in our household. The first payment for $300 was made yesterday. One down, eleven more to go (total bill for just Nick will work out to about $3,500, not counting what I will spent to get to Jamboree to work it). It seems funny to already be paying for an event that will be taking place in 2010, but I'm glad we are preparing and planning for it right now. This way, it will be much easier to manage, and it will all be paid for well in advance.

Ego Over Matter: Fitness Goals and Challenges for 2009

For the record, I am not a fan of New Year's Resolutions. In fact, my only resolution I make every year is that I make no resolutions. However, that does not mean that I don’t believe in looking at goals I’d like to set and make an effort to achieve them. In this manner, I decided it was time to make Ego Over Matter a regular column again, and to that effect, I have decided to do something I have not done for many years… reinvigorate my quest for 300/400/500.

Now, for those not familiar with these numbers, they are as follows. The idea is that a genetically typical individual, after many years of effort and work, could reasonably be expected to master a personal best power lifting style Bench Press of 300 pounds, a personal best power lifting style squat of 400 pounds, and a personal best power lifting style deadlift of 500 pounds. This was a goal of mine many years ago, and I can honestly say I got about 75% of the way to the goal, but ultimately had to stop due to injuries and other life priorities. Since I made the commitment back in September to join a gym and become a frequent participant, I have now decided that I want to get back into the groove of someday achieving those magical digits.

Every goal has to start somewhere, and every goal, no matter how lofty, has to be broken up into smaller goals. What’s more, those smaller goals have their own daily goals that need to be set as well. Thus, I’m starting out with setting a macro goal, that of being able to do the classic 3/4/5. My more immediate goals are to get back into the groove of lifting towards that purpose, and to condition my body to allow me to start reaching those lifts. Those will require conditioning of ligaments and tendons, and that conditioning will have to take place along with raising the maximum lifts. It also means I’ll have to start lifting heavier weight for fewer reps, something I have not done in quite some time. Thus my first goal is to work through a rigorous strength and conditioning routine, one that will last approximately 12 weeks. The first 4 weeks will be focused on hypertrophy (raw muscle building, emphasis on higher reps and relatively light weights). The second 4 weeks will be focusing on Strength and power, with an increase in total weight lifted and a decrease in repetitions. The third period, for three weeks, I will work towards peaking, with an emphasis on low reps and heavy weight. Finally, one to two weeks where I will not lift at all, but spend the time doing “Active rest” (cycling, swimming, running, etc.). From there, I will start the cycle again.

Every time I embark on a new fitness approach, I have to remind myself that there are of course limitations I have to deal with, and those limitations may slow or even ultimately stop my progress. The things that must be worked into this equation are:

I have an ankle that was broken when I was a teenager (sometime in 1986).
I had a deep laceration to my wrist in 1995 that cut into my bone.
I had a compression fracture to my L5 vertebrae at the junction point between L4 and L5 happen in 1996.
I suffered a tuberosity fracture to my left arm in 2002

While I am hoping that none of these will sideline my progress too much, they are structural irregularities that I have to account for as I train. What’s more, I’ve also been feeling odd twinges in my elbows the past several weeks (and the right elbow has been somewhat dodgy since well before August).

So my goal is to make each Monday my “Accountability day” and to report the good, bad and just plain icky of all that went the week before. Notes will be kept, calories will be counted (and in some cases go well beyond needed maintenance) and I hope real progress will be made. Still, I have no illusions that this process will get me where I want to be in just 12 weeks. It won’t get me there in 12 months. It’s possible it may not get me there in 5 years. Still, I know if I put the effort in and keep track of what I do, I’ll get closer than I am now :).

Madd Money: Charting a More Refined Course in 2009

2008 was a pretty darned good year all told for my family and me. Financial total wise, it was not a banner year, but that is because the entire market retreated heavily in 2008. The housing market is down significantly, and some might say rightly so, but it’s still not pleasant to think that an asset you hold is down in value. No, the reason why 2008 was a banner year in our household was that, for the first time in many years, our total savings rate increased, and it increased significantly.

At this time last year, we paid off our mortgage for our house, with the goal to take that house payment money and save it, not inflate our lifestyle and buy more stuff. Looking back at what the market has done this year, it turned out to be one of the luckiest moves we ever made. We've never for a second assumed this was some skillful financial decision; I just felt anxious about not being able to save money for the future, and thus made the decision to sell off my shares of Cisco and Synaptics (the only single stocks I still owned) to completely and totally get us debt free, everything including the house. From there, I made the decision to invest going forward in broadly diversified mutual funds through my company’s 401K plan, through mine and my wife’s ROTH IRA’s and through our children’s 529 plans.

The biggest win for 2008 was the fact that we fully funded a six month emergency fund and determined an absolute threshold value (more than the threshold means we can take that money and invest; fall below the threshold and all investing outside of funding an employer match for 401K stops until the threshold is reached again). In addition, we also maxed out one ROTH IRA, are close to maxing out a second ROTH IRA (we still have until April 15, 2009 to do so), and contributed an additional 9% of gross income to our 401K plan. Looking back, we managed to average a savings rate of 25% of gross income every pay period. Again, that was boosted significantly by the fact that we were no longer making a house payment.

So in the closing days of 2008, things we determined we did well were:

• making an evolving budget and fine tuning it each month

• living primarily on the “envelope system”, where we used cash to make most payments for expenses during the month

• developing a grocery plan that allowed us to significantly trim our grocery bill (truth be told, we could probably do even better if we got truly aggressive on this front, but we're doing way better than we used to :) )

• keeping and monthly funding an escrow account of our own to allow us to pay for recurring expenses (car repairs, insurance, taxes, etc.)

• utilizing a “blow money” system for each of us to allow for some spending freedom (each of us got about $120 per month that we could use as “no questions asked” money to spend)

• budgeting for Christmas this year and making a hard determination that we were not going to go beyond a certain amount of money

• taking advantage of a Health Savings Account with high deductibles to lower our health insurance premiums considerably (even though we spent more cash of our own each visit, our total costs for the year were less than we spent last year with the premium structure the way it originally was)

• we only had to dip into our emergency fund once the entire year (to fix our oven which had a burner go bad)

• we downsized a lot of things that took up a lot of space and gave us more control over the areas where decided to keep things (hnothing worse than going out to buy something you need, knowing full well you have it somewhere, but no clue where it might be because of too much stuff in the way!)

• refinishing our deck and painting the exterior of the house ourselves, while a lot of work to do, was a huge net savings over hiring a professional to do it. This has also given us some confidence in tackling some additional projects in our house on our own.

All of which led to our being able to bank 25% of our gross pay on average in 2008.

By contrast, there were a few areas where we decided we could do better:

• there were a number of “surprises” that seemed to pop up on a recurring basis (things that, try as we might, we just didn’t see coming, or they suddenly got thrust on us and required that we spend to cover them). Last year, we made a point to write down any “gotcha” that we had to deal with, and this coming year, we plan to continue to do the same, and compare it to last years “gotcha” list. If we see it’s about to happen again, we know it’s something we need to plan for and apply to the regular spending escrow account. We realize we can’t plan for every eventuality, but many months of data help to determine true anomalies and which areas really should be worked into the ongoing budget.

• there is still a lot of “stuff” that we have that is really of questionable utility value, but I’m still leaning on the side of “oh no , I can’t get rid of that”... but each time I approach these areas, I get a little better and a little more realistic. Not to mention, I’d also like to see some monetary return for some of these items should I sell them. My “Shedding of Innocent Stuff” section of this blog was developed to help me do exactly this :).

• in 2009, I want to make our household finances 100% transparent, where all of us (including the kids) have a true understanding where the money goes and why. This way, it’s my hope that the whole family can pitch in and help make the decisions about what we can do and how to manage our home. Now that tools like NetworthIQ and Quicken Online are readily available (and free to use), this should be relatively easy to accomplish (of course, the devil is always in the details, ain’t it :)?).

• In 2009, I want to encourage my children to make some concrete plans regarding their own money that they earn, and how they would like to donate, save and spent it, with a goal of all the kids at the minimum making a commitment to tithe 10% regularly, save 40% and feel free to spend the remaining 50% if they so choose.

So those are my concrete financial goals for next year, which can always be associated with the more amorphous goals of “earn more money” and “save more money” that everyone always makes. It’s my hope that following through on the areas we did well in 2008, as well as using the action plan we have for 2009, we will be able to do both :).

The Shedding of Innocent Stuff: After Christmas Edition

One of the rules that we put into place last year to hopefully overcome the intense crowding of our garage, closets and other things was that this year we would make a very concerted effort to send a lot of different items to other people to do with what they will. After a day of going through closets, gathering up old clothes, books, and other items that could either be donated or junked, we came down to the requisite after Christmas Goodyear run and special pickup for the garbage company.

This year, we have a larger than normal sweep because we really made an emphasis on out with old, in with new wherever possible. We got the kids on the program with this early and they were down with it originally, but amazingly, come the day after Christmas, that resolve gave way in a hurry (LOL!). Still, after making a strong push, we managed to get to the point where there was a full car for donations:



Things that didn't quite make it (along with a fairly large amount of yard cast-offs after the deck repair and repainting of the house):



While it makes a rather large dent in the garage and elsewhere, it amazes me that there's *still* so much stuff that I know I could legitimately downsize and probably not be any worse for wear for doing so. Still, I know we have a long way to gountil we are completely clutter free, but dang it, we're sure trying (LOL!).

The Day After Christmas :)

Well, we had a great time celebrating with our families. Christmas is always a two day event in our family. My wife's parents are from Germany and Austria, so their tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve. My son got something he has wanted for a long time, an Apple iTouch (think of an iPhone, just without the actual phone component). We had fun seeing the kids reactions to their various presents (Nick smiled broadly when he saw Season 2 of the anime series BLEACH, and Karina about flipped when she realized what I'd gotten her... a book on cosplay costumes from Japan).

I asked the family to not worry about getting me presents this year (I reasoned that it was my own money they were spending, and while I loved the sentiment, a handmade card or a hug from my kids and wife and a Merry Christmas wish was good enough for me). Well, my son was *not* going to stand for that (LOL!). He decided that he was going to get me a Christmas present,and since he had the money to do it, he figured it was perfectly alright to do so. So what does my son get his dad? An awesome art book called "All Color but the Black" (drawings and illustrations by Tite Kubo, the artist for the original "BLEACH" manga).



Another neat gift that the family received this year was totally unexpected. It came in the mail from a "distant relative" :). On a forum that I participate in, I discovered a family that shares my great-great-great grandfather, John Pack. I've had the opportunity over the past few years to get to know this family, celebrate their up times, feel concern about their down times, and feel really happy for them when the father of the family came back from serving overseas in Iraq. For fun, I sent them a gift of a DVD they were interested in a few months ago as an "early Christmas present". Well, what should my wondering eyes see... a few days ago, in the mail, appeared a gorgeous hand knitted afghan from my distant cousins. It was a really neat gift, one that my children commandeered immediately (LOL!). More to the point, it was just a fun feeling to have a connection at Christmas with a part of my family that I have never met, yet in some ways I've had more interaction with them than I have with people who are much more closely related to me. The takeaway from this one is that family is who you make it to be and who you nurture an effort to make a part of yourself :).



Christmas Day is always the day of my family getting together, so we pack up the family and drive out to Danville to spend the day with my parents, my siblings and their families. One of the coolest revelations of this Christmas? Both of my sisters are getting married! We knew about Adrienne's engagement for a couple of months now, but Renee sprung the news on us yesterday. We are very excited for both of them, as the guys they will be marrying are terrific and will be very welcome additions to our family.

So today, I will be kicking it at home, helping to put away a number of new items the kids got, shedding some things that could probably find a better home elsewhere, maybe perusing a couple of episodes of "Samurai 7" (a Christmas present I gave myself :) ), and just feeling good about the fact that this Christmas was a very enjoyable and ultimately relatively stress free day, spent with the people we most waned to spend it, and in celebration of whose life it was meant to commemorate.

MERRY CHRISTMAS...and God Bless Us, Everyone!!!

Here's to everyone I've met, known, loved and lost this year. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and some time to reflect on the birth of the most pivotal man in the history of mankind. I am grateful for his life, for his ministry, for his atoning sacrifice and for his Resurrection, and the hope that I can be part of that atoning sacrifice. The greatest gift of all is that atoning sacrifice, and for me, the best gift I feel that I can give and the best words I can say is that "I Know That My Redeemer Lives".