www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWLMdGqu8g

This time last year, Steph and I were in Stone Ridge, NY. We went for a wedding, but as a birthday gift for Steph, we stayed a couple extra days at a bed and breakfast called the 1712 House.

Steph took this photo while we drove around exploring. We saw the most beautiful fall colors that I have ever seen!

This photo somewhat captures where I’ve been lately…

I recently received some strange encouragement. Strange because of how it was packaged… and delivered. But in the end, God used it to help me realize that just as I need to take steps to avoid being too busy physically, I also need to take steps to avoid being too busy mentally.

In an information age with tools and resources like the internet, twitter, facebook, google news, cnn, npr, podcasts, blogs, youtube… there is so much information available that it can make for somewhat of an information addiction. And not only that, but it’s really distracting from the still, small voice of God.

It has its place, to be sure. Steph and I don’t have any kind of TV (besides the thing we use to watch movies), so these things can help me stay connected to the world. And to be honest, they usually help my work day go by a little faster. Things like Twitter and facebook are just fun!

But if I don’t realize what’s happening, these tools also leave me diminished. I see that this person bought a new one of these, and that person now has a problem with this leader, and I listened to that sermon which got me to thinking about that relationship, and that story about the economy really left me with a nervous feeling…

And it can all add up and leave you exhausted… and too tired to even think about what God might be saying.

So… I made some small adjustments:

• less coffee: OK. I’m not ready to totally give it up right now, but all things in moderation. Staying totally wired on caffeine feeds this whole unhealthy cycle.
• stop following a lot of folks: I cleaned out my twitter account. I now only follow the folks who are either encouraging to me, or just plain fun. Those folks who tweet every new thing that happens or every cool thing they buy or whatever… I’ll pass.
• change my homepage: Google news is gone. Just plain old search engine now. And the crazy thing is, I no longer spend 15 minutes getting freaked out about the world every time I open firefox!
• don’t be part of someone else’s addiction: I am now more careful about what I contribute to the social networking world. If it isn’t edifying, personal, or just plain really funny, I don’t want to distract you with it.

Can anybody relate?

Am I the only one who gets this like 3 out of 4 times I try to do something on twitter?

I’ve been doing this blog thing for a couple of years now, and I think I learned a little bit about how traffic works. I know that all I have to do is mention specific political figures or religious leaders, and my blog traffic will go through the roof, but it’s not from people who care about what I’m writing, they just either want to tell me I’m right or wrong for liking a guy, or not liking a guy.

I also found that I can mention things that are hot in the news, and all the little news spiders will find my blog and make it look like my traffic is doing really good.

But when I write about real things, or just everyday life, I don’t see much traffic.

I do, however, know this: On an average day, about 100 folks will make it to this domain, and a handful of others will read via some sort of RSS feed (read about RSS here).

Out of those, about 40% always go to this post, because apparently there isn’t much known about Bell’s Palsey, so people google it and find our posts about Steph’s experience with it.

So here’s the experiment:

I want to know about the remaining 60-or-so people who look at this page on a regular basis. And I want to get those people, specifically, on the blogroll, so that it serves the purpose of a fun social network, instead of a list of awesome ministries and resources, which is about all it is now.

So if that’s you, please leave a comment and let me know, and if you have a blog or a website, I want to link to it, so let me know and I’ll add you to the blogroll.

Also, if you use Twitter, let me know so I can ‘follow’ you. (If you don’t know what Twitter is, read this post — and don’t think it’s only for technology geeks!) When we get a little bit of a community built up, I’ll put an RSS feed with everybody’s updates on the side of this page! And if you don’t use Twitter, then you need to because it’s fun and seriously addictive.

Sound cool?

Check this out. Even though he’s working his tail off and sleeping like 4 hours a night, Barack Obama is following me on twitter! Me! And I’m not even sure whether I’m going to vote for him!

I wonder how often he checks my status…

And I wonder how he makes time, since, according to his page, he’s following about 80,000 other people.

Man, talk about a multi-tasker!

So, anybody want to be my friend?

(insert pouty lips/eyes :0) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

So, anybody want to be my friend?

(insert pouty lips/eyes :0) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

So, anybody want to be my friend?

(insert pouty lips/eyes :0) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

So, anybody want to be my friend?

(insert pouty lips/eyes :0) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o