Busy Week

It has been a busy week in the Benson household.  Our big news is that our grandson, Lucas Joseph Browning, was born yesterday at 11:15 am in Kansas City.  Because of COVID restrictions, we have not gotten to see him in person yet, but will tomorrow.  I can’t wait.  I shared his pictures on Facebook, emails and texts with over 100 people.  I am very excited about being a grandpa.

Our oldest son, Theron, finished graduate school last week with a master’s degree in Public Health.  He is applying for jobs.  Please pray that he is able to find a great job.

David started his sophomore year of high school last week.  In addition to his core classes, he is taking computer programming this year.  He is thinking about going into Computer Science, so this gives him the opportunity to see if he likes it.  He is also taking his first college class this year, which is an introductory IT course.  The class is technically online, but the teacher of the class will be in the classroom if David has any questions or needs help.

In other big news, we are having new siding, windows and gutters put on our house.  They are starting the work today.  All of the materials were delivered yesterday plus a huge dumpster that is sitting in our driveway.

Other than that, our lives are pretty boring right now.

Caravan

Next year in June, I will be going with a group of high school students on a trip across the upper midwest, northeast and Canada.  This trip is one that our church does every 4 years.  We call it the "Caravan".  The term caravan comes from a group of people traveling together.  When they started the caravan, it was a group of vehicles traveling together.  Now, the "caravan" uses a tour bus.  

We are expecting about 30-40 kids on the trip.  We will be starting out in Kansas City and making stops in the following places:

• Nauvoo, Illinois
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Portsmouth, Ohio
• Kirtland, Ohio
• Niagara Falls, New York
• Palmyra, New York
• Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Eerie Falls, Ontario, Canada
• Detroit, Michigan
• Chicago, Illinois

The trip will be focusing on mission, church history, issues facing our church and society today, worship, and team building.  Plus we are planning some fun activities for the kids.  I have been working with Craig Hidy as co-coordinators.  

Over the next 9 months, we will be raising money for the kids to go on the trip.  We will be having fundraising activities, but if anyone would like to donate, message me and I will give you more information about how to help.

Habits

I have heard that it takes 21 days to develop a good habit.  Various studies have suggested that depending on the person or the habit, it may take as long as a year.  I have been trying to develop better habits:

• Walk every day
• Drink a gallon of water each day
• Eat more fruits and vegetables 
• Sleep at least 7 hours a day 
• Read every day
• Blog/journal each day
• Lastly, Pray each day

I have gone through periods of times where have have been able to do each of these consistently, but then something happens, and I break that habit.

This spring, I went 47 out of 50 days where I walked at least 7000 steps (which is about 3.5 miles).  Many days, I was over 10,000 steps.  But I got out of that habit and have had a hard time getting back to walking.  My goal is to get up at 6:00 and go walking each morning.  

However, I also want to make sure, I get enough sleep.  During the time when I was walking every day, I was also able to sleep well.  But I am having a harder time falling asleep lately.  I am going to try some techniques to help me fall asleep by 11 pm so I can get at least 7 hours sleep each night.

I have been able to drink a gallon of water each day.  I bought a gallon jug over a month ago.  I fill it up each day  in the morning and keep it with me.  I have only gone 2 days where I didn’t finish it.  So I hope I can keep up that habit.

I am now on Day 2 of starting to journal in my blog again.  So I have a long way to go in that endeavor.

I also don’t take the time to pray enough.  But I find that when I am anxious or am not focusing on my goals, prayer helps me refocus. 

What habits are you trying to develop?

It’s Been a Long Time

 Back in 2007, I started a blog and was writing each day.  However, it didn’t last very long.  I went back through my blog tonight and read all of the entries.  One of the themes that I noticed at that time was that I had been struggling with worry and a negative attitude.  I had talked about asking God to help me with both of these. 

While I can’t say that I never worry or don’t have negative thoughts creep in, i have put my trust in God and know that He will help me through any situation.

Emily is going into the hospital next Tuesday to be induced.  Our grandson should be born either next Tuesday or Wednesday.  We just had a baby shower at our house on Sunday and they got a lot of gifts to help them out with a new baby.

David starts his sophomore year of school tomorrow.  He had a very good freshman year.  I am excited as he is going to be taking computer programming this year.  This will help him decide whether computer science is an area that he might want to pursue in college.

The start of the school year also means the return of high school sports.  I am running two websites related to high school sports: grandriverconference.com and mo8mancoaches.com.  I am looking forward to going to games and following area teams.

My goal is to start writing again and be more consistent. Wish me luck as I share my thoughts each day. 

25 Untruths about me

I posted this on facebook several years ago.  So here is an oldie, but, well you decide.

25 Untruths about me

1. My children’s names are Gummy Sue, Tiffany, Andie, Gordon, Lizzie, Jackson, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumer, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Rubella, Scabies, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Q*bert, Condoleezza, Marie, Phil, Birthday, Crystal Meth, Dubya, Incest, International Harvester, Jitney, Witney, and Mary
2. Before I was married to my wife Penny, I had a brief relationship with Padme Amidala before she was Queen of Naboo, but it didn’t work out because I could not use the force.
3. Hannah Montana is my alter ego.
4. Today is the twenty-third day of the rest of my life. By the time you read this, it might be way later than that.
5. I don’t suffer from insanity, I rather enjoy it.
6. I have traveled around the world in an underwater turkey sub. We had a night club on the sub called the Turkey Bacon Club.
7. When I was in college, I dropped out for a semester to write songs for Garth Brooks under the pen name Dan Roberts. One of my songs “The Beaches of Cheyenne” reached #1 in 1996.
8. I have been planning to join Procrastinator’s Anonymous, but haven’t gotten around to it.
9. I have been addicted to placebos since I was 16.
10. Every year on the 100th day of the year, I drive 100 miles an hour down the highway to see if I can get away without getting caught. I then go to the store, buy 100 tootsie rolls, give the cashier a $100 bill and tell her to keep the change.
11. I secretly like to watch High School Musical. I have recorded all three of them and will watch them after my wife and kids have all gone to bed.
12. I gained 150 pounds in college, but lost it all on the cookie diet.
13. Billie Jean is not my lover, she’s just a girl who claims I am the one, but the kid is not my son.
14. I have 1 brother, 1 sister, 2 half-brothers, 1 half-sister, 1 quarter-sister, 3 eighth-sisters, 1 half-mother and a half-dog.
15. I majored in Music Therapy at Appalachian State University. For those who don’t know what music therapy is, music therapy is the scientific application of the art of music within a therapeutic relationship to meet the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals.
16. I parlayed my music therapy degree into a lucrative career in as a professional hobo.
17. I have ADHDD – Analog to Digital High Definition Disorder.
18. I am physic, but I can only predict the present, not the future.
19. I am modest. In fact, I am the most modest person I know. This is often the first thing that I tell people when we meet, just to make sure they know how modest I am.
20. I have two pet penguins that I keep in the freezer in the basement.
21. I used to have hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia – the fear of long words. I was cured when I bought a book called “Phobia Self-Diagnosis”. I am glad that Self-Diagnosis was hyphenated because I almost didn’t buy it. That book saved my life.
22. Iway amway uentflay inway Igpay Atinlay.
23. I still have one phobia that haunts me to this day – the fear of getting stuck on an escalator.
24. I led the state in free throw shooting my senior year in high school under the pen name Jason Benson.
25. I can actually think of 25 funny things to say.

Genealogy

Since my last journal entry, I have been spending pretty much all of my free time working on genealogy.  I have been able to find many ancestors that have alluded me for so long.  The biggest obstacle has been Henry Clay Benson who is my great-great grandfather.  I was never able to find any connection to his father for the longest time.  Last week, I was looking at one of the websites and finally found a source that had Samuel Styles Benson as his father.  This has opened up a world of names.  I have since found well over 100 new ancestors including Kings of England.  I already knew my mom was descended from King Edward I and others, but now I found out that my dad is also descended from King Edward I.  I have been adding all the known ancestors to a software called Legacy.  I am planning to go through wikipedia and work on the royal genealogy from there.

We went to Worlds of Fun yesterday and had lots of fun.  We decided to have David wear underwear.  This would be the first time that we had him wear underwear outside of the house.  He did not have any accidents, so it was a very good day.  Of course, success is not without its setbacks.  Today, he decided that he didn't want to use the potty most of the day and we had several accidents.  I do however think that we are making progress.

I decided to add one to-do to my daily tasks each day.  The sermon today was about giving ourselves to God.  I plan to say a prayer each day to give the day to God and let his will be done.  I can't worry about what will happen and I just need to trust that God will provide for me no matter what.

Table Tennis Again? - 6/18/08

I went back through my previous journal entries and I noticed that in 3 of the last 4, I have mentioned table tennis.  Well, now make it 4 out of 5.  Today, I met with Bill Guilfoil, who is a well known player among the table tennis community in Kansas City and runs the Overland Park club.  He is going to be coaching me.

Today I pretty much worked on forehand and spacing.  I was already feeling like my game is improving from just a few new things that he taught me.  I still have very much to learn.  I am going to let him know when I am going to be in Overland Park and he said he could probably work around my schedule.  I hope to work enough to be able to have some success at the show-me state games in July.

I feel like I am a good player, but there are times where I don't have the confidence that I should to win.  I am hopeful that this will give me more confidence.  I am optimistic about it.  Speaking of optimism, I get a newsletter from Alan Zimmerman each Tuesday.  I had mentioned his book "Pivot: How One Turn in Attitude Can Lead to Success" in some of my previous journal entries.  In today's newsletter, his topic is "Optimism, Pessimism or Cynic".  He basically said that positive attitudes will lead to positive results and that we need to feed the positive thoughts and work on blocking negative thoughts.  I have a hard time doing that when I hit the ball off of the table or into the net, but today I realized that each time I do that, there is something that I did wrong that I can fix, so I my attitude about it is good.

My daughter went to a birthday party tonight.  The party was basically a carnival theme set up in the backyard of one of her best friends.  They had a ticket booth and gave the girls tickets at the beginning to be able to play games and get prizes.  After that, they were able to swim in their pool.  She had lots of fun and I had a hard time getting her to come home when I went to pick her up.

My finger is still hurting from yesterday and it is still hard to grip things with my right hand.  I am feeling a litte bit of numbness in my right ring finger.  I am not sure if I cut a nerve or something, but I am hoping it will start feeling better in the next couple of days.