Y2, Week Five: Summer Was So Yesterday Pie Spring in southern Wisconsin is maybe best described as bipolar. It isn't so much a period of pleasant, mild weather as it is a violent lurching between winter and summer until one of them (hopefully summer) sticks. Just a couple of weeks ago we had a 95° day immediately followed by a day with lows cold enough to bring on frost warnings. Only the foolish and uninitiated put away their winter clothes, and … Read More

via Summer of Pie

I’m sure I’ve talked about some of my favorite music to listen to during the summer (and if not, that oversight is about to be rectified), but one album I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before is the latest by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, called Chasing Someday. Why haven’t I mentioned it? Well, because it was released this past February.

Now I listened to this album repeatedly throughout the last part of winter and the first part of spring. When summer barreling in, I found myself returning to this album and listening with renewed fervor. It turns out that Chasing Someday is a perfect summer album. From the driving opening of “Fire and Dynamite” all the way through to the haunting strains of “Weight of the World”, there’s something here for everyone. There are open road songs like “Anywhere But Here,” fun and catchy songs like “Steal My History,” timeless classics like “Live Forever,” and much more.

There is a positive tone throughout the album (yes, even in “Weight of the World”) that invites the listener to sing along loudly (and maybe off-key)with the windows rolled down. And yet, the songs have substance to them that takes them far past the fluff or pop of most summer fare. All these things make Chasing Someday a bright, wholesome album to consume all summer long.

Over the course of this month, I’ll be rolling out not just one but two new blogs! That’s right, two additional blogs! By The Way will return to its previous form, with updates on books, music, food, and other activities going on in my life. My Thoughts and my Writings, however, will find new homes.

My first new blog will be a home for the things I’m thinking about. Starting next week, The Long and the Short of It will be a new place for what’s going on in my mind, my life lessons, and general rants and raves about anything and everything.

My next blog will be a new home for my more fiction-based writing. I’m going to start releasing some short stories and plot point ideas that haven’t had an outlet before now. This will be a fun experience in writing, and I look forward to hearing from you all on what you find interesting about these little jaunts outside of reality.

I’ll be posting to each of these blogs twice a week for the time being. I’m excited about this new little adventure, and I’m glad you all are going on venturing out with me. Feel free to let me know what you like and what you’d like more of — and Thais for coming along for the ride!

With that being said, I’ve got a couple of ideas brewing for you faithful followers (and all the new people who’ll be showing up too). So get ready, because come August 1, God will be doing a new thing on this blog. [Editor's note: for the purposes of this conversation, I am God.] It’ll be fantastic! It’ll be amazing! It’ll be steady! It’ll be right here – just you wait and see!

Jon Acuff (a.k.a. the “Stuff Christians Like” guy) has a new book about that very topic. In Quitter, he explains how he went from quitting jobs all the time to finding a way to be steady and driven, all the while not giving up him ultimate goal: his dream job.

I’m really looking forward to diving into this book, and I’ve found not one but two giveaways for you to join me! The first is from Michael Hyatt’s blog (writer, speaker, and former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing). Check out his blog here for the giveaway. The second is from the Faith and Fiction blog; check out their giveaway here.

I’m excited and I hope you’ll join me as we all get ready to QUIT! (But not yet. )

Except for chronic tardiness. Wouldn’t that be great? A little pill (or even a horse pill) that could jump start the body into moving at the necessary speed to get you where you need to go — on time? It could be marketed to those who suffer from tardiness and those who suffer with (or because of) those who suffer from it. “Help a friend in need. Get their life (and yours) back on track with XTARD-E.”

What’s that? Being chronically late isn’t a diagnosable condition caused by a chemical imbalance? Shouldn’t it be?

I’m just sayin….