A Timely Reward

I am employed again!!! And thus the McPherson household let out a collective sigh of relief, shout of joy, and prayer of thankfulness! As most of you probably know by now, the interview in New Hampshire went well. In contrast to the opinion of those who really know me, the people at Brookstone determined I was, in fact, sane. :) On my trip I went through 3 interviews (including the EVP of the company, the Director of HR, and the Director of Marketing) and was subjected to 2500 (yes, that many!) questions of assessment. The HR folks then called several of my references and spoke to each of them for over 1/2 hour. Then, thank the blessed heavens, they called to offer me the job. As of tomorrow I am officially a District Manager for Brookstone responsible for 14 stores in Michigan and Pittsburgh. While it is over 30% less money than my previous job which will make us very tight financially, the upside is huge. I like the company, I like my job, I like the person I report to, and I like the product. The company is profitable and growing and they prefer to promote from within. If all is a good as advertised, it should be a great opportunity. It will be very challenging, but I am extremely excited about it. Despite being a retail job other than November and December, it will be primarily 9-5 M-F. I get a company car which means Rissa is no longer stranded. She has only had access to a vehicle for a few months of our more than 11 years of marraige. Now we need to do a very delicate financial dance to make the transition and hopefully all will be well. It truly is amazing how close we seem to come to disaster--we apparently have a sick need to live at the brink starting into the abyss--before being able to see the path God has for us. I am deeply grateful for the experience and have learned some valuable lessons, but I would not care to repeat it anytime soon.

That Moment

It seems that, once again, I have arrived at 'that moment.' The moment that makes it clear why some of my best friends say they are jealous of me half of the time and thankful they are not me half of the time. The moment when everyone waits to see what God will do, because the situation has become so dire that He is the only one who can do anything to make it right. The moment where fear, excitement, worry, eagerness, and a myriad of other emotions all clamor for attention in the murkiness that seems to shroud my life. We are at that point, you see.

I am flying tonight to New Hampshire. Tomorrow I will meet with senior HR personnel at Brookstone headquarters and undergo a nearly 7 hour 'assessment' that promises to be grueling and not a ton of fun. The next day I will be told the results, which are admittedly subjective. Assuming the results are good I will be offered a job. This job is one I would enjoy and would allow us to both pay the bills and stay in Ann Arbor. It is a substantially lower paying job than the one I left, but still very good and I would enjoy it much more.

The flip side is that if I don't get the job offer, we face financial catastrophe the likes of which I have not experienced since I was a child. For those who have known me for a while, that is saying something. I am committed to doing whatever is necessary to take care of my family, but without this position there is nothing in my current view that will make that in any way easy. That, of course creates challenges, both emotionally and spiritually of its own.

I must say that, maybe for the first time in my life I have felt a peace even in the midst of all this uncertainty. I can't explain the peace as it makes no earthly sense, but I am certainly thankful for it. My wife has commented on it more than once. Hopefully this peace is just an inner, unconscious confidence that God will place me where he wants me and a knowledge that I don't have to worry as long as I rest in Him.

So, I head off to the airport now to confront 'that moment'. Whee. :)

It's all about having fun...

I love spending time with Bryce, so when he came and asked me to play Chutes and Ladders and Candyland with him, I agreed. Oh, the minefield I naively stepped into. :) You see, Bryce not only likes to play games, he likes to win. By saying he likes to win, I mean he apparently feels a deep seated need to win--every time. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, as I'm a bit competitive myself. Rissa says this is my payback for my own overly competitive ways, in fact. At the end of every game where I'm winning I'm forced to make the moral choice v. the sanity choice. In the end I believe winning leading to grief and an opportunity to teach a lesson is better than cheating to lose and effectively lying to my kid while demonstrating that he should always win. That doesn't make it less difficult to do. Today, for example, I had a choice that I could either win or let him win (within the rules) at Candyland. He looks up at me and says "Daddy, you should choose the purple card so I can win." I chose the other card and we had a good conversation, but it was tough. It probably shouldn't be, but it was.

As a corollary to this observation, I have become aware of something about myself today. I actually mellow and mature, at least a little, with age given the right circumstances. I was a crazy aggressive driver, until I moved to MD for a few years. In the face of far more insane drivers, I became a very good driver. I still get where I need to go very well, but not with the bad attitude previously displayed and felt. It appears my son has created the same response in my as it relates to competition. Until Bryce was about 2 or 3, I was one of the more competitive people you would ever meet. I would race my wife to the sofa--even if she wasn't racing. Now, in the face of his over the top competitiveness, I find myself much calmer and willing to back off. It is not that I don't prefer winning, but that I seem to deal with losing in a much better manner.

Learning for Little People

Kindergarten, as it turns out, is not the same today as it was 'back in the day' when I attended. Not so much for the naps and easy going, let's get used to school fun times. Now it is aggressive learning with specified 'outcomes' expected at every turn. Since the school Bryce attends does not have full day kindergarten they have to cram everything in and are scheduled literally down to the minute. All of that is fine and good for those parents whose children experienced the structured environments of daycare and preschool, but ours did not. Now, I know many of you would say that those environments are not structured. Trust me, they are more structured than what we provided. We are very proud that Bryce has a good understanding of morals and ethics, grasps the importance of acting in a virtuous manner, and is willing to apologize and ask for forgiveness when he fails to do so. That said, lacking the structure others have been exposed to makes for a very difficult time paying attention. He has a wonderful teacher and we are very thankful. It is disappointing to nearly every day have a report from her asking for our help because he struggles so much to pay attention or do his work. We are working on it, but it is certainly a challenge.

More recently the problem has been highlighted because Bryce cannot yet write--not even his name. They are supposed to be able to write stories by the end of the year, but forming a simple B is a true challenge for him. Rissa and I just spent literally hours getting to an almost acceptable letter with him. I realize now we needed to have spent time on this over the past year, but alas we cannot go back in time. We can only move forward. The good news is that he demonstrates amazing aptitude for math, memorization, and reading. When fine motor skills are called upon, however, the joy of the journey turns into the sorrow of the struggle. We are praying for patience, encouragement, and discpline. Every kid eventually learns to write, right? :)

Gadget Goodness

It's a phone. It's a computer. It's a camera. It's...a toy. :) Due to my recent job change I found that I needed a new phone (I had to give mine back to them). For those that aren't aware, I use my phone. A lot. No, even more than you were thinking. I tend to average 6000-7000 minutes per month. That's roughly 4 hours per day, 7 days per week and is by many considered sick and wrong. My wife would be included in that 'many.' So, I had to decide which phone to get. After looking at all of them, I decided that, however much my budget currently demanded it, I could not get the free or cheap phone. I realized that 6 weeks from know when I am (God willing) working, I will need a 'good' phone. Then my gadget loving nature took over and I ended up getting an amazing phone. The good news is that I did bargain enough to get a great deal on it. I impatiently waited for it to arrive and when it did I sat like a kid on Christmas and learned how to use it. I am still in shock that learning how to use my phone properly took over 5 hours. Sheesh! For those techno-geeks out there, it is the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint. It came out last week (the US model--it had been out overseas for months). It has 256 megs of RAM and runs windows 6.1 and office professional. It has a 3.2 Megapixel camera. It is in many ways similar to the I-Phone. I am pleased. It is a bit of joy in the middle of general murkiness.

The Long Vacation

Well, I try to imagine its a vacation. Unfortunately it isn't. For only the second time in my adult life, I am unemployed. A mix of feelings accompany this state for me. I feel oddly relieved because I had grown so frustrated and stressed where I was. I feel the beginnings of panic as I wonder how and whether I will be able to take care of my family. Money may not be everything, but it does pay the bills--if you have it. I feel bitter and angry because of how my state of unemployment came about. I feel inadequate and like a failure and find myself wondering if I'm really any good at all. I feel stressed because I know how difficult this must be for my family. I feel hope that I might find something more suitable. I feel honored as so many friends have already rallied in support around us. I feel a bit lost as I'm not used to having *any* free time, much less most of every day. I feel frustrated because I'm not in control. These thoughts and so many more repeatedly rumbling and dancing through my mind make it very difficult to concentrate. The result is I'm like a pathethic little goldfish wandering from one shiny object to another. I'm praying for peace, looking for a job, and hoping for provision.

Battling the debt monster

One of my favorite financial lesson-givers is Dave Ramsey. He is the author of The Total Money Makeover and Financial Peace among others. He hosts a radio and TV show and does live appearances. He has may popular sayings including, "debt is dumb and cash is king." He even has some very good ideas for teaching kids the value of and responsibility with money. He balances real world financial knowledge with spiritual understanding and is one of the most popular people from the financial world today.

Why do I explain all of that? Because a big focus of Larissa and my lives has been getting out of debt. I have made many very bad financial decisions throughout my life and this has been the source of much contention in our marraige. I was raised with a terrible understanding of money and didn't learn anything the easy way. One of the lessons I've learned the hard way is how to communicate about money with my wife. We have grown in this area over time and have made a lot of progress together, but it seems that we rarely have understood the same thing the same way at the same time. Until now. One of the suggestions Dave gives is to have monthly (or more often if necessary) budget meetings. We have worked on things together, but never that consistently. Last night we began a 'meeting'. As usual, I began in the wrong way and frustrated her. She felt I ambushed her while I thought I was being considerate. Finally it got through to me that spoken numbers never connect with her and that she was feeling attacked. We dealt with some of the more sensitive and difficult spending topics, and we are working with the right budget again. It also resulting in me completing a colorful bar graph of all of our remaining debt for her around 4am. :) It feels good to be on the same page again, with a plan. With over $120K of debt (not including a home) 6 years ago it has only felt depressing and like we will never get there. I've been very committed, but a sense of hopelessness in any arena causes you to make poor decisions. Working together with Larissa I sincerely look forward to consistent progress with an attitude of hope.

I'm told that being debt free is an amazing feeling. For one of the few times I am beginning to believe we may have the opportunity to find out. It would be nice to make our money work for us instead of the other way around. We really want to do more giving, saving, and having fun. We must make the money behave instead of the other way around so that is where we will start.

A hardened heart or a workmanlike attitude?

As several of you are already aware, this week began with a jolt of tragedy. Monday morning at around 5:30am I received a phone call informing me that one of my employees had been killed the night before in a motorcycle accident. My reactions and responses to this news have caused me to face some difficult questions. First of all, I once again had to face the odd internal contradiction I have been dealing with for years: I am confident beyond all measure that I am saved from my sins (of which there are too many to count) and redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ and therefore will spend eternity in heaven but yet death is still my greatest fear. I suppose since my life has been a mass of contradictions, this shouldn't bother me, but it does.

To complete the stage setting you should know that I had spoken with this woman, Devin, just two days prior. I was planning to complete her review this week, and it wasn't going to be a positive one. For various reasons we were considering seeking a replacement for her.

Monday arrived and I received the call. Certainly shock and sadness at the tragedy were my first reactions, but I am ashamed to admit they did not last very long. Oh, I suppose the shock did, but the sadness turned to curiosity--what caused the accident, were the riders wearing a helmet, etc. Even as I was formulating a plan to inform our employees and help them deal with the loss, both emotionally and physically, selfishness crept in. I'm ashamed to say I began to wonder how this would affect my plans. Would I need to change my travel plans. While I knew I would do what is necessary, I'm sorry to say I was wondering about me. It breaks my heart even to write those words and it has not been true for previous passings I have dealt with, but it was true here. I suppose everyone deals with shock and death in their own way, but I couldn't help wondering what this said about me.

Later, on my drive home that evening, an emotional brick finally hit me. You see, Devin left behind a 6 year old boy. I get emotional even now imagining being forced to have the conversation with my 5 year old son Bryce explaining his mommy was never coming home. He has had to deal with the death of people he loved very much already, but nothing takes the place of a parent for a child. I know that more deeply than I would like. I did shed a few tears and that thought has stayed with me, especially in light of the ridiculous family drama that has surrounded Devin's estate (including her body) that has yet to be resolved.

This weekend, in a seemingly unconnected event, we visited my father. I specifically asked him for a ride on his new motorcycle. He took me on about a 10 minute ride and it was nice. That may seem like a small event to many of you, but it was, and is, very powerful to me. Between the fact that Devin had died in a motorcycle accident only days earlier and that the last time I rode on a motorcycle with my father was the day I fell off when I was 2 years old and he kept driving and I didn't see him again for 6 years it was meaningful.

Cheerful thoughts, eh?

A welcome and a gentle warning

What made me finally start blogging? I'm not really sure. Because everyone else is doing it? Probably not since that's not my style. Because I find a few of my friend's blogs a fascinating view into their lives, especially when we don't touch in person very often? Quite likely. I'll admit I'm a bit nervous as many people are when they remove the safety laden shell that surrounds them. I tend to be, ummm--how shall we say it, overly honest. Unfortunately for those that know me that doesn't just include my opinions of others, but my willingness to share of myself as well. I guess this should be a warning then that some of those choosing to read this may learn things about me that surprise or disappoint them. Some of these things likely disappoint me as well, but as with all things I have done, I own them. I am who I am and, while I attempt to seek a better future, I have given up the empty hope of changing the past. So there it is then. On into the darkness with me if you choose to follow. As they (and just who are they in this case?) say, enter at your own risk.