What’s Been Going On

Just imagine Amos Lee singing that like I always do. A lot’s been going on. Here’s some of the things I’m doing now.

Of course the largest portion of my time is spent raising these two and awaiting our third to come in May.

Sawyer [4] & Lincoln [3]

I just got finished reading this.

And now I’m reading this.

Here’s what I’m listening to at work,

Sean Wes

And here’s what I’m listening to in my workshop (garage).

The rest of my spare time is spent working here.

And here’s something I found really cool.

Zen Pencils “All the World’s a Stage” William Shakespeare

ENJOY.

Ten Free Designs from Scrap Mills

Everyone loves free stuff. Free Wi-Fi. Free parking. Free breakfast. Free childcare.

Okay  so that last one hardly ever happens, but here’s something that is free.

If you out any of the links on the menu above you can see one for Scrap Mills. Scrap Mills Signs and More is a business my wife and I operate for hand-painted, reclaimed wood signs. We create each design our self and do custom orders by requests. I make the proofs, make the signs, then transfer the digital image, and paint it by hand. It’s a long process but we love each step as much as we love the final product.

Here are ten free design proofs for you to use any way you’d like. Use them as a background for your devices. Use them to make a printable. Use them to make a sweet wooden sign for your self. Anyway is fine with me. Just keep following the blog and visit ScrapMills.com and browse through the categories.

Thanks and enjoy!!!

How to be an Introvert

 

Yeah, those are my fingers

I’m not shy. I don’t have problems meeting new people. I don’t have problems leaving my house. Well that’s not actually true as I am kind of a homebody. But that’s what being an introvert is all about.

For people who are unfamiliar it simply means that you gain your own social energy by spending time alone. It doesn’t mean you don’t like to talk to people or spend time with friends and family. It means you just can’t do it all the time and would prefer to spend some time alone.

But introverts get a bad wrap. Just because  you crave some down time doesn’t make you a hermit. Hermit crabs are introverts and everyone loves them. They put them in their children’s rooms or set them on the back of the toilet. That’s not the case with introverts. And what’s worse is that even the internet hates you.

Run through a quick Google search and all you’ll find for introverts is ways to fix it. You’ll be hit with articles like Tips on Making Friends for Introverts, How to Speak in Public if You’re an Introvert, or How You Can Stop Being a Loser and Just Go Places With People and Not Feel Bothered About It.

(I made that last one up but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.)

After seeing all this I decided I’d make a post for introverts. Not on how they can fix it, but how they can actually BE introverts and still live normal lives. Here’s a few tips:

• Learn to Lie Convincingly – You’re going to have to come up with something at some point when you’re invited somewhere and have no legitimate reason to not go, other than the fact that you don’t want to go. Learning to lie convincingly is key. Here’s an example:

“Hey we are going to the game tonight! You wanna come? We’re probably all going to eat afterwards. We thought we’d try that place about two hours away. That way we’ll get back probably around 2:00 Tuesday morning. You should come.”

“Wow that sounds really fun. I would but I think my appendix just ruptured. Maybe next time though. Thanks for the invite though!”

See what I did there. You can do it too.

• Get a Dog – Apparently everyone only has one appendix so your next step is to get a dog. No one will make you feel bad when you say you have to go home and let your dog out. Just work on a quick exit because soon they’ll start asking you all kinds of questions about a dog you got just to avoid people.
• Get a Baby – Babies are perfect for introverts. Not only do they provide the perfect excuse for avoiding occasions but they also act as an attention lightning-rod. As soon as you walk into a room people will suddenly greet your baby and carry on full conversations with them without even acknowledging your presence.

“Hey there baby! How are you? Oh my goodness. I love your hair. What’s that on your shirt? Is that a truck? Do you like trucks? How old are you? Oh that’s so cute….”

You won’t have to say a thing for at least half an hour. Soon they’ll start to ask you questions. That’s when you’ll have to say something about a dog needing to be let out or that your appendix just ruptured.

• Develop Halitosis – Simply the quickest way to ensure no one will ever bother you.
• Marry an extrovert – So all these tips are great, but eventually you will need to go out into the world and do something new. You’ll have to meet people and you’ll have to have a few awkward moments. Being with your best friend is the easiest way to overcome these situations. My wife is the world’s most annoying greatest extrovert. She makes friends everywhere and actually remembers their names. She encourages me to go different places and experience things I probably never would. And it turns out I actually have fun…most of the time.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy:

• Well That Was Awkward
• Keys to Anti-Social Networking
• The Art of Conversation – w/ Dumb People

What I Found When I Cut the Grass

Lawn care, Entropy, Robin Thicke, and Faith

I like cutting my grass. Most people do. I’m too cheap for a riding lawn mower so I push mow my yard. It usually takes an hour or two to cut the whole yard. It would probably take a little less time if I bought a bigger push mower, but as I said before, I’m pretty cheap. I live in the South where the summers are brutal so when I cut the grass I usually end up sweating so much you can see it through my jeans . . . seriously, through denim. I’m not talking something like tight skinny jeans, but a baggy pair of Wranglers that were hand-me-downs from my brother-in-law. Sometimes when I cut my backyard I’ll take my shirt off. My backyard is fenced in so I think it’s not a big deal. And I ask my wife if it’s okay so she won’t be ashamed of the redneck she’s married.

When all the work is finished you get a total sense of accomplishment. Where once sat the patchwork of the endless competition of weeds and grass chutes now has been replaced by rows of green carpet. And in admiring my job well done it makes me think why I even like my grass to be cut?

I mean obviously the yard looks nicer when it’s mowed, but why? Why do I have this desire to make nature conform to what I think it should look like. No where else in my world do I see that grass naturally grows in unison at the same length and yet here I am spending hours each month to make my little patch of earth do just that. Why?

It suddenly made me think of a quote I’ve read several times,

“A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

Then there’s this thing called entropy. It’s the measurement of the disorder in a system of energy. It’s a scientific term used in anything from communication theory to thermodynamics. They best way I’ve heard it described is that it’s the rate at which anything has a propensity to return to a nature state of disorder. Our world is in a state now that it wants to return to a state of disorder, so much so, that we actually have to calculate how quickly it wants to get there.

And yet here we are, despite living in a world where were rarely, if ever, come into contact with naturally occurring uniform conformity, we have a desire to make the things all around us neat and tidy. Sure you can argue there are other, more practical reasons to perform upkeep and maintenance but I know I get actual pleasure of seeing my grass cut that I don’t have when I get my oil changed. It’s not the same.

I believe we were created with the concept of straight lines. Even if we don’t see them popping up everywhere around us, we like to make them ourselves. Grass grows in every way it wants. Tigers and zebras have stripes instead of bars. And we still want things in straight lines, because we like them. (This may also be the reason hate Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines video and I think we can all agree that that guy is pretty much a tool.)

So after I cut my grass and am able to watch my kids play around on my lawn I found that I like the way it looks, not just because it’s crisp and clean, but the fact that I like things looking crisp and clean is an indication that I was created with the idea already in mind. That this innate idea of perfection I have is proof I was created with the intent of living in a place of perfection and even though I don’t see it around me now, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there.

• What I Saw With a Broken Camera
• Five Things I Learned From Five Years of Marriage
• Guest Post: Five Tips For Every Mom

Day #11 – The Long & Short of It

Today’s assignment – Tell us about the home where you lived when you were twelve. Use short, medium, and long sentences as you compose your response.

When I was twelve, I grew up on the steep hillside of a county road that cut right through a rural Alabama valley. Our house was surrounded by woods. In the summer, it’d make a little green pocket that hid the house from the road. Out of sight from the world but open to all the noise it had. Birds sung in the trees. Bugs buzzed in the grass. They’d make noise all summer long. Cars would go flying by taking the winding road to and from the lake. From our house on the hillside we could see the firework show on the fourth of July. We’d see the explosion miles away but could still feel the blast in our chests.

In the winter, the trees would fade. The green would give way to brown and gray. The wind would blow hard and rattle the last remaining leaves that clung to their branches. The noise outside would soften as the woods around us seemed to go to sleep. The traffic on the road below would return to its normal pace.

It was a pretty quiet place to grow up.

When I was old enough I moved away.

Then I moved back. I moved back as close as I could. To raise my own kids in way as close to the one I had. Now I’ll wait to see, when they are old enough, where they’ll go and if they’ll return.

Post #3 – Three Songs

Today’s assignment – Try free writing. To begin, empty your mind onto the page. Let the emotions or memories connected to your three songs carry you. Commit to this practice for at least 15 mins each day.

Okay . . . so free writing.

To me it basically begins with this . . . a total blank.

But maybe that’s the point. Start with a blank slate and see what you put on it. So let’s start.

Three songs that come to mind are ones that I usually find myself listening to constantly because they are on every playlist I’ve created.

• Time by The Greencards – I don’t know how you can describe this one. I’d say it’s closest to bluegrass. But cool, slow bluegrass. No spoons being pounded on someone’s knee while someone else blows over a whisky jug. Slow and sad, it makes me stop and think. It makes me think of home. Not the place, but the feeling. Whatever feeling you get when you are out in the world doing things; commute, job, traffic, grocery shopping, standing in line, sitting behind a computer at work, talking to coworkers. This song is the exact opposite of all that. It’s sitting on a front porch, drinking a cup of coffee, and feeling the wind blow.

• 3 Rounds and a Sound by Blind Pilot – I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument. If I could do one or the other or both, I’d play this song. I’d sing it to my wife. It’s speaking a slow dance.

• Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail) by Hillsong UNITED -There’s worship songs that speak to your faith because they make you want to clap your hands or stand up and acknowledge your creator. Then there are others slowly make their way deep inside you because their words shake you to your core. They let you know what you are feeling before you have a chance to realize it yourself.

These three songs. Their words in my ears make me want to put words to paper.

Five Tips I’d Tell a First Grader

 

Sometimes ideas just come to you. Sometimes you have to look for them.

In searching I came across a few hypothetical questions you can ask yourself and one really caught my eye.

What would you tell a class of first graders?

So of course, I immediately scanned through the mass of collective knowledge and I knew exactly what I would say…

“Kids . . . listen up . . . potty jokes never get old”

#MindsBlown. This type of advice is too good not to share so why stop there? Here’s more knowledge I’d drop:

• Cursive is a waste of time – So there’s a lot of things you’ll have to suffer through in school that will do nothing for you. I’ve never met someone who wishes they knew how to find the cosine and tangent. Nope. Same with cursive. Some folks will tell you it’s important but they are liars. Learn enough to pass the test and enough to sign a paycheck.
• Privacy – Speaking of paychecks, let’s talk about the workplace. If you can hear your co-works at their desks, then they can hear you. They can also hear everything you say, whether you know it or not. So when you get a private phone call, take it somewhere private! No one wants to hear you argue with your spouse or your kids or the bank while they are sitting three feet away. It might be hard to remember, but the carpet-covered cubical walls around you are not sound proof.
• Eavesdropping – It may be a double standard, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Keep your own conversations private, but listening to other people is everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure. Whether in the workplace or in a crowded restaurant, we all love to overhear that discussion going on behind us. It’s sad, but it’s true. Start honing in on those skills now. It might come natural, but work on it as much as you can and really perfect it. I’d like to think it’s one of my many hidden talents.
• Drugs Are Bad –  Everywhere you look you’ll find information about drug awareness. But the one thing you’ll need to know about drugs may be missing – drugs are actually bad for you, they don’t just make you look ugly. I know, you think that’s obvious, but think about the last advertisement you saw for an anti-drug campaign. Chances are it showed a picture of someone who most people would consider attractive. Then it showed what they looked like now and explained how they never thought drugs would make them look so ugly. By the way, they’re in a hospital bed. Because drugs can do that too . . .

And on a more serious note:

• When You’re Growing Up – Everyone will ask you “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While that’s a valid question, it may not be the most important one to ask. No one ever asked me “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” I don’t know what I would have said then, but it’s good to ask. Did I want to be a father? Did I want to be a husband? Did I want to be a Christian? Did I want to be a leader? Knowing who you want to be instead of what you want to be can make life’s tough decisions a little easier.

So there’s some life-changing advice for your kids. Go ahead and press print or save this to your favorites. You’ll probably want to refer to it again in the future.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy:

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Parenting Tips from Television

Recently my wife made a post here sharing a few tips she’s learned about making life as a mom a little easier. It’s a great article so be sure to check it out. I’m hoping she’ll do another post soon.

Lauren has a ton of great advice about parenting and she’s not the only one. Friends can provide parenting tips, especially those who don’t have kids themselves. Family members are never short to let you know how you should be doing things. And of course there are aisles and aisles of advice at your local bookstore.

But the place few people think to look is TV. You get legal advice from the personal injury attorney commercials and medical advice from Dr. Oz, so why not raise your kids by it? Here’s a few tips I’ve picked up:

• Finding that Special Someone – By now we all should have learned the proper way to start a family. You leave the real world for 9-10 weeks, join a harem, and hope you can snatch a few roses to make it to the end. After six meetings with someone you decide you’re in love because you laughed a lot when you walked through the streets of some South American country or because you had a good time together on that date in Italy. You make the final episode, get a fake proposal, and head home. Then three months later you realize this guy was single because he doesn’t help with the dishes and always leaves the toilet seat up.
• It’s All in the Name – Once you’ve landed that catch, babies are soon to follow and picking out names will be harder than you thought. Before long you’ll realize every child you see is named some variation of Aiden, Auden, Jayden, Hayden, Caden, Brayden, or Bunion. Look to television to find your future baby names. For our sons, we picked the names of Sawyer from LOST (Josh Holloway’s character) and Lincoln from Prison Break (Dominic Purcell’s character). Sure we like the historical aspect of the names, but I prefer dead presidents to hang out in my wallet and I don’t like Mark Twain enough to let him name my kids.
• Teaching Toddlers & Walkers – If you’re familiar with The Walking Dead you know the term walkers (or biters if you come from Woodbury). Walkers are attracted by sound and whatever they find goes right in their mouth. It’s pretty much the same thing with toddlers. To herd them around use a set of shiny keys or bang a few pots and pans together. For more tips, check out a few quotes from the father-figure of the show, Hershel Greene.
• Intense Focus – Watch a few episodes of 24 and you’ll see Jack Bauer focus his intensity like a laser. Whether it’s disarming a bomb in the middle of a war zone or interrogating a witness to thwart a terrorist attack, this guy is all business. If you’ve ever changed a dirty diaper while wearing dress clothes you know the feeling. Intense focus is needed to keep the flailing limbs of a baby out of that mess and off your tie.
• Dress for Success – Finally the key to it all lies in your wardrobe.
  

  via A Graph-ic Post

  Watch television today and you’ll find moms and dads trying to wear the latest fashions while spouting off advice. When you really want to make an impact go with a tried and true classic from the Dr. Huxtable collection. While donning his famous sweaters he was able to diagnose his kid’s problems, crack a few jokes about it, and have it wrapped up in 30 minutes. Dads from today’s sitcoms would still be trying to squeeze into their skinny jeans.

There’s a few tips to help current parents and the one’s who’ll be there soon.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy:

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Man’s Best Friend

This is Jack. Jack is my dog. I got Jack from an animal shelter when he was just a few weeks old. Before I was married I had just bought my first house and knew I wanted some company. I’ve grown up with a family dog all my life so it wasn’t much of a debate, just as matter of where to get one. I’ve long believed shelter animals make the best pets. Something about them just seems like they are eternally grateful.

So I picked up this little black and brown mutt out of a pile of floppy ears and drool from all the puppies that had gathered at my feet. Out of all of them, he was the only one licking while the rest were biting. I played with him a bit and knew we hit it off. I decided to name him Jack after two of my favorite shows, LOST and 24. This theme continued with my boys, Sawyer (LOST) and Lincoln (Prison Break).

For the next year it was just me and Jack. I was alone in a new town and didn’t know a soul. I’d take him on runs and give him baths or we’d just hang around and watch TV. Our relationship became more like the ones I share with other guys. I could always tell he was excited to see me, but he didn’t always show it. It was just a wag of a tail or nod of his head. Nothing to demonstrative, that is unless I sat on the floor with him. That’s when he’d go nuts. He’d crawl in my lap and plop down like he was the size of a Pomeranian. But he wasn’t. He’s not huge, but he’s no lap dog. He’d roll around and jump up and down and slobber all over me. He still does this today.

I started thinking about this after a recent article I heard regarding the origin of domestic dogs. Until recently scientists believed dogs were direct descendants of the wolves we see today. Based on new evidence it appears our modern dogs are more closely related to extinct bands of wolves in Europe that date back further than people previously believed. The other question raised is why dogs? Why out of all the animals in the world, then and now, are dogs the only large predators humans were able to domesticate? Why not big cats, snakes, birds, or bears? Those guys were around and still are today, but we wouldn’t let any of those large animals freely hang around our kids or stroll through the house. Why dogs? Dr Robert Wayne of the study said this:

“They’re very special, I think. They’re clearly the oldest domesticated species. How could we actually take something that could kill us and it becomes our best friend and lives close with us, sleeping on our beds, but in the wild these are aggressive animals that routinely take down prey larger than themselves. So that, I think it is a wonderful puzzle.”

The study goes on to say that all the findings provide half-answers and more questions. The debate of how we all came to be paired up with these animals will continue.

In the meantime, Jack has grown older. He and our other dog, Lady, have had to somewhat take a backseat as our children are still very young and require us constantly. I still love playing around with the dogs in the yard, I just don’t get to do it as much as I’d like. But they are still there. Sitting out the window. Still keeping watch. Still waiting anxiously for the time when they can remind us how they were man’s best friend from the beginning. Whether we remember it or not.

If you are a cat person, sorry. Let’s just be honest though – cats are a distant third to horses in the best pet list.

If you liked this article you may also enjoy:

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Numbers of 2012

The WordPress stats team have put together the annual report for gtylermills.com. I thought it would be just a bunch of boring numbers and categories, but kudos to them for making it all interesting.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 1,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.

It’s no surprise that my top posts were Life After the Comma  and LGM, 10/15. These two posts are about my family.  Throughout the year, those have been the type of posts that are best received. I’m happy to see that because these are by far the posts I enjoy making the most. I think it’s because it’s something everyone can relate to. Whether you have one of your own or have yet to start, we all have an opinion on family and where it sits in our list of priorities.   Thanks to everyone who has checked this blog out throughout the year.

Click here to see the complete report.