Transparency Not Always a Good Thing

We have all been there. At a public restroom and life's demand to relieve thyself must be met. 99.9% of us would rather be in the comforts of our own home, but we have no choice. Now there are some public restrooms we can tolerate. Your local forth floor public library or maybe a nice Baptist church. But on the flip side there are public restrooms we wish to never encounter. Gus Town and Pump just outside the North Dakota border or the outhouse 12.3 hiking miles in at a State Park. Regardless of the destination, we cringe knowing what we are about to put our tooshes through.

I can tolerate the butt to plastic commitment, but there are two components of public restroom use I cannot stand. First, what is up with transparent toilet paper? If I can see through the toilet paper...that's not good!! This only means I use more and A LOT more. One day I would like to grab a roll and go to the managers desk and ask if they would put this in their own home. Second, how come the toilet paper dispenser has to be down by my ankles? Does your business serve a lot of hobbits? I can see the logic. If the dispenser is that low then the "consumer" can only pull down so much toilet paper. What really happens is that I pull 28 single sheets and eventually there is a large mess on the floor and a soon to be plugged up toilet.

Often times we get caught up in saving a penny here or a penny there and we forget about the customer. There are goods and services in life it doesn't pay to go cheap and toilet paper is high on the list. Let's throw in bread, underwear, diapers, shoes and steak for good measure.

All I ask is serve your customers well and take care of their tooshes!!

My wife requested I go back to some "funny" blog posts...here is my attempt. 

God Bless and thanks for reading.

A Crazy Meant To Be

The past few weeks have been crazy for the Tracy household. With the recent interest rates to borrow money so low and a persuasive realtor, Amanda and I decided to sell our home of 5 years. It's been a great starter home and will be for another young couple, but we were finding we had a few wants/needs on the list and found a home we hope will fill those gaps. In order to speed up the selling process, our realtor suggested upgrading the hardwood floors and adding an egress window downstairs (addition of a 4th bedroom). In return, the home value would go up and should appeal to more buyers.

Starting on a Wednesday, I started the hardwood floors and painting of living room walls. By Sunday, I was done and the photographer came on Monday. Tuesday morning the house went live and we had 12 showings over the next 36 hours. Wednesday evening the first offer came through and it was too good to pass. Oh yeah, we signed papers to buy our other home on Monday as well. It was a crazy week, but blessed in so many ways. Lots of family and friends helping along the way to make the process easy. The biggest blessing though didn't occur during the past week.

Two years ago, I was hired by the North Dakota Highway Patrol. As a family, we were moving to Grafton, ND. Our home was on the market for 3 months and didn't sell. You can probably argue the market had little demand, and this is true. The bigger blessing was from God. We believe God wanted us to stay in Fargo and continue our purpose within this community. We believe there are bigger things coming up for Amanda, the kids and myself and we are going to help others in many ways. Trying to sell our house during those 3 months was a very stressful time, but this time around God showed his awesome glory and we are so happy to move, yet stay in Fargo.

God's amazing power is so easy to see when the good times are good, but I think we grow as Christians immensely when we can recognize his glory during stressful times. We all know who those people are in our life. Aspire to be like them, because they are so fun to be around!!!

God bless and thanks reading.

Intentional Gesture

A lot times we donate our time or help some in need because we have been asked to react. When is the last time you purposely set out to help? Looking back, in my life, I can't think of a recent example. Most times I receive a phone call, say yes and chip in my time. Too often we don't make it an objective to go out and help someone in need. I hope to show my family in the near future the importance to set aside our personal time and intentionally help someone in need.

God Bless. Thanks for reading.

Tip of the Day

I had a teacher in high school that gave the perfect words of advice. Considering this was all I can remember learning from him, even though he taught Economics, World History, Accounting and etc, his advice still rings today: "Don't study something you already know the answer to."

I try to apply that to many other functions in my daily life. It could be decluttering the house, reading a blog or jobs around the house. Regardless of the situation, if you know the answer or haven't used the item in the last year, save yourself the time and study or keep something you will use.

On a side note:  Thunderstruck by AC/DC sometimes is just the perfect song to start a day.

God bless and thanks reading. 

Points of No Return - Blog reference

Please check out my brother-in-law's latest blog entry: Points of No Return. This is a great blog post in regards to Christians current stance within our culture. As Christians we tend to become defensive and even aggressive. We like to express what we are against rather than share the awesome news of Jesus Christ. Little Johnny gets teased in school and we put him in home school, when Little Johnny could be an excellent messenger of God to other children his age.Great points View of the Hill.

God bless....thanks for reading.

Morning Priorities

My mornings have a nice routine. If I am lucky, the kids sleep into 7am. If I am really lucky, Amanda wakes up with the kids, closes our bedroom door, feeds Brody and goes for an early morning walk with the kids. It's unfair to consider this an option and probably more naive. Life with young kids and a dog is active and personal priorities have to go out the window. But there are personal priorities that cannot be ignored. Besides exercise and good eating habits, we should prioritize time with God. Now don't assume I am the example to follow. The point of this blog is to not follow my example.

Each of my mornings consist of letting the dog out, feeding the dog, breakfast for the kiddos, read the paper and grab the phone for the latest social media updates. This morning I noticed a bad habit. I enjoy my smartphone. The conveniences are endless. First thing each morning I use it to check the weather, fantasy football/baseball, Facebook, blogs and lastly my devotion. Strongly recommend Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional. As I got to the devotional this morning, I thought it myself, "why are you checking this last?"

Often times we get stuck putting worldly pursuits in front of God's. I am guilty and many of us are. Something to think about next time we have some free time with our smartphone.

God Bless...thanks for reading.

Sherlock Holmes

If there are any Sherlock Holmes fans out there, then I highly recommend BBC's Sherlock. Click the link for the wikipedia breakdown. I enjoy how they take modern day technology and apply it to the life of Sherlock and Dr. Watson. I am a huge fan and love the books. I have only been able to see the show via Netflix. Once you start one episode, you won't be able to stop.

God Bless and thanks for reading.