Dear Future Jake,
Is your wife still a couponer? Let me remind you of the funny story that started all this. You'll enjoy it—it's about dad.
A couple of months ago this new show started airing on TV called Extreme Couponing. This show documents people around the country who spend hours and hours collecting coupons and analyzing prices at different grocery stores. It's ridiculous. I watched a woman today who rang up almost $2,000 in groceries, and then handed over her coupons. She paid $44. Pretty cool, right? Well, the downside to these "extremists" is that to be that kind of couponer, you have to stock up on food. BIGtime. They all have guest bedrooms and garages overflowing with 75 bottles of ketchup and 150 years' worth of deodorant. It's quite silly, really.
Well, after seeing this show, dad kicked it into gear. As you well know, he's always been a "coupon-clipper,"* but after seeing this show, he got much more serious about it. According to mom and Jaron, he went online and signed up for numerous offers to receive coupons by e-mail (poor mom—she has to wade through all the spam now). He also called up every store within a 30-mile radius to find out if they double their coupons. Fortunately, after his knee-jerk reaction, mom got him hooked up with a couple valuable websites about couponing and saving for normal people.
Dad's response to the Extreme Coupining show had a kind of trickle-down effect. Your lovely wife thought it would be fun to buy a Sunday paper and see what this was all about. You both discovered that there really is a lot of money to be saved with a little bit of work and a paper full of coupons. So a week ago, you subscribed to the Sunday paper. Now, skype calls with mom and dad regularly include a few minutes of coupon-collecting conversation with dad. It's really pretty funny.
So, I was just wondering if you two have continued to "coupon" over the years, and if it's still saving you money. We're pretty early in the process right now, and I'm curious as to whether this'll last. I just hope you haven't turned into someone who might be on that TV show. They're a little bit cuckoo.
Jake (2011 version)
*Here's a story that illustrates dad's life-long couponing habits. You remember, don't you? Once when dad was at the store he went to buy a food item for which he had a coupon. When he found the item, he discovered that it was on sale for the amount of the coupon, and it said, "No Coupon Needed." Dad wouldn't buy the item because, in his own words, "I didn't feel like I was getting a deal." Goof ball.
May 30, 2011
May 27, 2011
Ready for the Weekend
A bit lengthy for a youtube video, but worth your time. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!
May 20, 2011
May 18, 2011
How Swift Am I?
This morning Elizabeth made a jokingly insulting comment to me and I jokingly responded, "Why you gotta be so mean?" Then I said, "I'm just like Taylor Swift" (whose latest song includes the refrain "why you gotta be so mean?"). Then she laughed. I said, "What's so funny?" and she said, "Dear, you couldn't be less like Taylor Swift." I'm not sure what she meant by that. I'll let you decide whether or not I'm like Taylor Swift:
May 17, 2011
Not How I Pictured It
One of those examples about how life isn't always what your 10-year old self thought it would be...
So that's what we did.
Elizabeth and I are efficient with our food. We plan the week's meals, and we strategically plan meals that will provide leftovers that can easily be taken to work the next day. A few weeks back, we made a potato & vegetable stew. We made a lot of it, and it was more than what the two of us could finish off in a couple of days. So, we took half of the stew and froze it. The smart way to freeze something like stew is to line your storage container with aluminum foil before adding the stew. Then, after it's been in your freezer for a day, pop out the foil-wrapped stew and wash your storage container. Now you can use that container for other things in the intervening time.
So that's what we did.
Now this week, stew is one of the meals on the agenda. It's great, because all we have to do is pull the frozen block of stew out of the foil, put it back into a storage container, and let it thaw in the fridge overnight. Tomorrow's meal takes no work at all except to re-heat the stew in the microwave.
But there was a problem.
Somehow a good chunk of the foil fused itself to the stew while in the freezer. I think it had to do with some stew leaking between the container and the foil when it was originally frozen, and now there are places with a thin layer of frozen stew on the outside of the foil.
Anyway, we just spent the last 20 minutes using a butter knife to chisel away at the frozen block of stew trying to make sure we got every last piece of foil removed (it's not fun to eat foil). Obviously, what we should have done was let the stew thaw in a storage container in the fridge with the foil still on. Then, when it was liquid again, we could just pull the foil out in one piece.
Chiseling aluminum foil off of tomorrow's lunch. Now how I pictured it.
Nearing the End
In case you've been hiding under a rock for a few weeks, I will likely never see any of you again because the end of the world is Saturday.
I don't know how you plan to spend your last few days before the apocalypse, but I plan to spend mine reading stuff on the internet. Therefore, I thought you might appreciate checking out a 5-part series from W. Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary in California on some of the history and development of Harold Camping, the man behind the "May 21st is Judgment Day" campaign. It's really 1 decent-sized blog post split up into five entries. It won't take you long.
Are any of you going to stock up on bottled water and a CB radio in preparation?
May 16, 2011
Future Me: About school work
Dear Future Jake,
I pray that you're not still doing school work. If you are, it must mean you decided to pursue a Ph. D. (or another master's, or another bachelor's?) over my strong objections. C'mon, man. I begged you. Seriously, take a moment to punch yourself in the face (just once, please—and not too hard). You're supposed to be done with that stuff by now. You promised.
In any case, if you still regularly have homework and deadlines, take this advice: Plead with Elizabeth to help you set up a schedule for when you will work on your projects. Be specific and STICK TO YOUR SCHEDULE. Believe me, I know how wonderful you are at procrastinating (perhaps that's what you're getting your Ph. D. in?), but it is not worth the nightmare you will experience in the days leading up to your deadline. If you make a schedule and stick to it, you'll roll your eyes a few times when you're forced to do homework weeks before it's due, but when you complete your final draft a week ahead of time, you will realize that your work is better, and your heart is healthier because you are not completely stressing yourself out. Celebrating a job well done before the job needs to be done is one of those truly liberating feelings, and it's great.
Now, make sure you thank your wife. You know that even with a non-procrastinating schedule, you never would have stuck to it if she hadn't made you. She's the reason you've finished all your homework with days (weeks?) to spare. Take her out to dinner and buy her something nice (or try to convince her to conveniently forget about her milk allergy for an evening and indulge in carry-out pizza and boxed macaroni... okay okay, that's more for you than for her. Sorry).
Jake (2011 version)
I pray that you're not still doing school work. If you are, it must mean you decided to pursue a Ph. D. (or another master's, or another bachelor's?) over my strong objections. C'mon, man. I begged you. Seriously, take a moment to punch yourself in the face (just once, please—and not too hard). You're supposed to be done with that stuff by now. You promised.
In any case, if you still regularly have homework and deadlines, take this advice: Plead with Elizabeth to help you set up a schedule for when you will work on your projects. Be specific and STICK TO YOUR SCHEDULE. Believe me, I know how wonderful you are at procrastinating (perhaps that's what you're getting your Ph. D. in?), but it is not worth the nightmare you will experience in the days leading up to your deadline. If you make a schedule and stick to it, you'll roll your eyes a few times when you're forced to do homework weeks before it's due, but when you complete your final draft a week ahead of time, you will realize that your work is better, and your heart is healthier because you are not completely stressing yourself out. Celebrating a job well done before the job needs to be done is one of those truly liberating feelings, and it's great.
Now, make sure you thank your wife. You know that even with a non-procrastinating schedule, you never would have stuck to it if she hadn't made you. She's the reason you've finished all your homework with days (weeks?) to spare. Take her out to dinner and buy her something nice (or try to convince her to conveniently forget about her milk allergy for an evening and indulge in carry-out pizza and boxed macaroni... okay okay, that's more for you than for her. Sorry).
Jake (2011 version)
May 13, 2011
May 8, 2011
The Best
I posted this a year ago on Mother's Day, and today I wanted to remind everyone how much I love my mom!
The first day of school I ever missed in my whole life was in the spring of my 6th grade year when Mom came and pulled me out of class so that she could take my older brother and I to the Quad Cities for the day to have some fun. It was the best "skip day" I ever had.
If you check out THIS blog post and its 17 accompanying comments, you will see that Mom taught us countless crazy songs and sayings. They mostly happened on road trips, and our family took road trips a LOT.
Mom was a "room mother" at just about every single Halloween/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Easter party of my entire elementary school career, bringing cookies and other snacks to all of them. I'm pretty sure she chaperoned every field trip I ever took as well. On an ordinary school day, I was probably in the 50th percentile of popularity in my grade, but on field trips, when Mom was around, I jumped to "coolest kid at school." All because I had the coolest mom. Other kids avoided their moms who came as chaperones on our trips. I clung to mine for every minute.
She came with the high school band when we took a week-long trip to Toronto and New York City. The trip included tickets to see the Broadway show "The Lion King" at the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto. The band had a chunk of seats reserved right in the middle of the theater for the show, but when the director told us that two of the seats were "worse" ones, off to the side of the theater and away from everyone else, Mom was the first to volunteer to take one of them. She had paid just as much for her ticket, but thought it was more important for the kids to be able to enjoy the show.
Most moms relax a little when their youngest child finally "leaves the nest." They travel, or they work more. My mom got more kids. What are we at now, Mom, a couple dozen kids who have considered you "mom"? She tells people that the reason she's adopting four more kids is because she messed up so badly with her first four and she wanted another chance. But we all know that's not true (I mean, look how awesome her first four have turned out!). She's really doing it because she believes, as I do, that being a mom is the most important job God can give to someone.
And she's the best one I've ever seen.
I love you, Mom.
The first day of school I ever missed in my whole life was in the spring of my 6th grade year when Mom came and pulled me out of class so that she could take my older brother and I to the Quad Cities for the day to have some fun. It was the best "skip day" I ever had.
If you check out THIS blog post and its 17 accompanying comments, you will see that Mom taught us countless crazy songs and sayings. They mostly happened on road trips, and our family took road trips a LOT.
Mom was a "room mother" at just about every single Halloween/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Easter party of my entire elementary school career, bringing cookies and other snacks to all of them. I'm pretty sure she chaperoned every field trip I ever took as well. On an ordinary school day, I was probably in the 50th percentile of popularity in my grade, but on field trips, when Mom was around, I jumped to "coolest kid at school." All because I had the coolest mom. Other kids avoided their moms who came as chaperones on our trips. I clung to mine for every minute.
She came with the high school band when we took a week-long trip to Toronto and New York City. The trip included tickets to see the Broadway show "The Lion King" at the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto. The band had a chunk of seats reserved right in the middle of the theater for the show, but when the director told us that two of the seats were "worse" ones, off to the side of the theater and away from everyone else, Mom was the first to volunteer to take one of them. She had paid just as much for her ticket, but thought it was more important for the kids to be able to enjoy the show.
Most moms relax a little when their youngest child finally "leaves the nest." They travel, or they work more. My mom got more kids. What are we at now, Mom, a couple dozen kids who have considered you "mom"? She tells people that the reason she's adopting four more kids is because she messed up so badly with her first four and she wanted another chance. But we all know that's not true (I mean, look how awesome her first four have turned out!). She's really doing it because she believes, as I do, that being a mom is the most important job God can give to someone.
And she's the best one I've ever seen.
I love you, Mom.
May 5, 2011
Sin is DOOMED
"Look at [Romans] chapter eight, verses one through four. Paul says, 'Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemns sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.' What the law couldn't do God did. Through Christ, sin is doomed. God sent Christ to this earth not just as a revolutionary, he did not send Christ to this earth just as some sort of a religious leader, God did not send Christ to this earth as a great man or as an example for us or to answer the question WWJD - What Would Jesus Do - no, that's not why Christ came to this earth. Christ came to this earth as a sacrifice for sin and when my savior died - when my savior died - when he was crushed, when he was cursed, when he was beaten, when he was bleeding, in that darkest hour at Calvary, sin was doomed, sin was condemned, and at that very moment when it seemed like Satan had his foot on Christ's neck and was in control, it was at that very moment that the back of sin was broken."
Pastor Dan Schoepf
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