Shotgun Versus Pistol

Dad needed some help working on the road to the first homesite on the property in Boone, NC. My little sister is getting married in November to Justin. My older sister and her husband, Chris, just had twins (add that to their 9 year old daughter and 3 year old son). My little brother, Jonathan, got married last November, just got a new job, and is trying to sell their house in Raleigh to move to Clayton to be closer to work. And, as you know, we had Loralai in February. So there was this call of the wild when Dad called us asking for some help clearing trees and brush. It made it even more wild when he suggested we bring our respective weapon of choice to do some skeet shooting and target practice up on the mountain. And even moreso (at least for me) when he asked that I bring the F250 up so we could haul the wood chipper!
What?
We need the F250 for a wood chipper? What kind of wood are we planning on chipping? Well, we chipped trees. And I mean chipped. That sucker weighed in at about 5000 pounds and chipped cedar and birch and pine and oak trunks about 12 inches in diameter! Dang near threw the remains 100 feet into the gulley, I tell you!!
Then it rained. And it rained hard. Twice.
I think we got more done in the 5 minutes prior and during the first downpour than we did in the 2 hours prior!! We were soaked! We piled into the truck (making sure we didn't get and red clay on the leather or carpet) and headed down the mountain for lunch and to wait out the rain.
After that we loaded up the guns and headed back up the mountain to do some shooting.
Justin brought an old .38 that his cowboy grandfather had in Colorado as a cop, and a 9mm he has for some reason. At least my sister will be well protected. Chris brought a target .22 pistol. I brought my dad's 20 gauge pump that I'd borrowed to do some skeet shooting in Wilmington (never got around to it). Dad brought a 12 gauge pump, 16 gauge side-by-side, and a couple other shotguns. I didn't get to shoot the 12, but from what I saw from Justin and Jonathan, I'm glad I didn't. Looked like it had more kick than an ornery mule.
Jonathan and Chris looked really at ease with the pistols. I can't say I'm much of a handgun guy. I like a good spread on my shot. More damage I guess. Jonathan actually told me that we was a little worried about how much he liked shooting that 9mm. I think everyone's got a little cowboy in them. I kept thinking about those old western movies where you have 2 brothers out on the range defending the land from rustlers and ner-do-wells. One brother's got his trusty pair of six-shooters by his side, the other prefers his shotgun. I think that's Jonathan and me. He likes the pistols (and shoots them well) and I like the shotguns. I really loved shooting my grandfather's 16 side-by-side (it's got 2 triggers). I wasn't a master, but I was hitting those pesky skeet pretty good.
Then we got rained out again.
So we called it a day and packed it in and headed for the fridge.
I'm hoping to have some more pics this week to load up.
(Notice the Dr. Pepper can?)

Baby Daddy

the night night song from ashley dengler on Vimeo.

So. Loralai and I were just hanging out, wrapping up a very crazy weekend or traveling and Daddy's truck breaking down and sleeping in strange beds and meeting tiny new people, when we decided that a song was in order. Neither one of us knew the words, so it made for a rough sing-a-long but we had fun and we wound down.

Mommy came in and got some of the memory on HD so we tried to perform a little. Maybe next time we'll have something tighter for the camera. This one was off the cuff and we both slept very well that night.

We hope you enjoy the song. I know we did.

Blessings!

Todd and Loralai

Ahh, The Flavor of Summer

So, I just steped out of the hot (100+ degrees) and into the coolness that is Dr. Pepper.

It's really crazy how taste takes you back. I remember sitting on our little floating dock in the middle of the bay in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, drinking an ice cold Dr Pepper and daring my friend to dive down to the bottom and touch the anchor. 

It was a gross, slimy pad of concrete attached to an even slimier steel chain. And it was dark. You'd see crappies and walleyes and the occasional muskie. Muskies are scary looking fish when they're swimming around, versus hanging from a hook at the business end of you fishing line.

Anyway, I one day hope to take Ashley and Loralai up the the North Country to see this stuff. 

And we'll crack open an ice cold Dr. Pepper to celebrate it.

A Thousand Words (really just 450) is Worth a Picture

My sister graduated from Grad school last weekend, so I went to Virginia to celebrate with her.

When I got home Sunday afternoon, Loralai was really happy to see me. So much so that she wouldn't take a nap.

Actually, she had been giving Ashley a hard time all weekend.

So, as a last ditch effort, I was asked to take her out on the porch so Ashley could get some sleep.

Loralai loves the hammock. She seems to really like the way the wind blows in the leaves on the trees, and the chirping of the birds. She gets this look in her eyes. It's an awesome thing watching a little one experience something for the first time and try to make out what it is. So you just watch. I didn't say a word. I just made sure the hammock kept swinging and the wind kept blowing and the birds kept chirping.

Loralai calmed down a bit. She laid down on on her back on my chest and just listened. She was so tired from not napping that she didn't know if she should sleep or wiggle or cry or laugh, so she just lied there, still, listening.

Now, just so you don't think I'm a loon, I don't know what Loralai was doing. She could have just been in a stupor. I like to think she was thinking, taking it all in, relaxing. But it's possible she was just tired.

At any rate, Ashley was inside sleeping, as were the dogs, so I didn't have a person to take a picture of what happened about 15 minutes into the hammock ride.

Loralai fell asleep.

She fought it, as most babies do. She kicked and whined and fussed and spit her pacifier out. And I let her. I just made sure she didn't wiggle off my chest. I gently held the pacifier in her mouth and didn't say a word.

This is what I think Ashley means by quiet confidence. Calm love.

And when she finally relaxed, she turned her little head to the right, still suckin' on that "pacie," and went to sleep.

Now, I don't know how many guys read this, but if you do, and if you've never had kids, let alone a daughter, there's nothing like it. No wave, no river, no cliff, that can give you the rush that you get when you look down and see your infant daughter fast asleep on your chest.

For that moment, I was her rock. She's never felt safer in all her life. She trusts ME.

This little one doesn't care about my past, she just knows that right now, this person is not going to let anything bad happen to her. And it's not conscious. It's instinct.

I surfed today. No comparison.

Take Myself

When I take myself
I take myself too serious
So when i leave myself
I leave myself delirious

Up all night planning the future
makes about as much sense
As setting up camp in the desert
without water or tents

Symmetry in life and patterns in the sky
bring my standards much too high
Random's really not all that bad
When you throw out the question "why?"

So when I take myself
I take myself too serious
So when i leave myself
I leave myself delirious

When I worry and my self esteem gets low
You're always there to inflate it
When my ego get's too big for my noggin
You're always there to deflate it

So when you're down again about the changes going on
And all the overwhelming emotion building up inside
Take comfort in me baby, I'm here for whatever you want
It's never about this silly thing called foolish pride

So when I take myself
I take myself too serious
So when you leave myself
You leave myself delirious

Daughter - Peter Blegvad

Everything she sees
she says she wants.
Everything she says she wants
I see she gets.

That's my daughter in the water
everything she owns I bought her
Everything she owns.
That's my daughter in the water,
everything she knows I taught her.
Everything she knows.

Everything I say
She takes the heart
Everything she takes
She takes apart

That's my daughter in the water
Everytime she fell I caught her
Everytime she fell
That's my daughter in the water
I lost everytime I fought her
Yeah, I lost everytime

[musical bridge]

Everytime she blinks
she strikes somebody blind
Everytime she thinks
blows your tiny mind

That's my daughter in the water
Whoo would ever though, ever though
That's my daughter in the water
I lost everytime I fought her
Yeah, I lost everytime

Making Faces

So, Loralai's making faces.

Ash called me this morning to tell me that Loralai will start with the lower lip out like she's gonna baul, and does a complete 180 in to the biggest smile.

Well, when my mom was in town, Loralai made some faces for her, and she caught them on "film".

To be honest, the only time I ever get some good faces from this little stinker is when I'm changing her diaper and the only thing she can do it look at her daddy. I think she's either threatening a blowout, playing, or flirting. I don't care which one, really. I'm just stoked to get a laugh out of her.

She's up to something, we just don't know what.

Humility

Let me tell you, I think I'm dramatic.

See, that's dramatic. Announcing youre dramatic is the pinnacle.

Okay, here's why:

I cannot seem to grasp the feelings Ashley is having right now. I think I can, and I even sit down and try to understand it all, and I think I get it for a little while. Then something else happens and I lose it. I lose perspective or compassion or both. (There's a lot of "I's" in that, which is pretty telling)


This weekend was a good example.

We're looking for a new house. And while the search is fun and it's fun to think about living in a nice new house with quiet floors and plenty of privacy and storage, it's hard to imagine not living here in "my" first home.

At least it is for me.

And it finally came to a head.





I got upset with Ash for being tired. That was my excuse. But the reality is, I don't want any more change. I want to stay here in this house and learn to live with it. There are people in worse situations than we have and they're completely content and happy where they are. Why can't we do the same?

I don't know the answer to that question.

So, here comes humility.

I need to stand before God and ask that question. It's all in His time.

The beauty of it all is that we can put our house up for sale. if it's not in God's will, it won't sell. And we praise God for it and realign our expectations to that change. If it does, we praise God for it and realign out expectations to THAT change.

Seems pretty cut and dry.

After a Long Wait...

So...

It's been a while, but after watching Ashley post stuff to her blog, I thought it was time to post something.

I'm not the writer she is, but there are very few people who are. All I can do is put down what I'm thinking -- what I'm thankful for, what I'm observing -- since Loralai was born.

I'm thankful for Ashley

Sure, that's easy for a guy to say. Gee, I'm thankful for my wife, the woman who bore and birthed this child I get to call mine. I didn't do anything. I just held a hand or two, sang a song here and there, and more often than not said something so entirely selfish and ridiculous I should be flogged with a frozen sand shark.

It's easy for a guy to be thankful that he didn't have to go through all the physical changes, all the hormonal peaks and valleys, all the comments from people who don't really know what they're saying (like, after Loralai was born, Ash and I were standing outside the nursery at the hospital, just looking at all the new babies, and some poor hapless dork looks over at Ash and says, "Looks like you're next, huh?" Poor fella).

It's easy to get up in the morning and go to work. The only thing going through my mind is getting enough work to support 3 people and 2 dogs. Am I billing out enough? Does anyone owe me money? Who needs a website? Will they pay on time? What to the waves look like today? What kind of houses are on the market? Can we afford to move? How many times does my name come up on Google?

Stuff like that.

I've got it easy.

Ashley thinks about -- Will the train wake the baby? When will she wake up? Will I be able to take a nap today? What does 8 hours of sleep feel like? Is the baby okay? Are the dogs getting too close to her? Have they eaten? This stupid laundry room is too close to the baby's room. (It is, it's not even a laundry room, it's a hall closet with a stackable loud-as-a-747-taking-off-in-a-bathroom washer and dryer shoved into it).

And all I think about is -- when will all this be normal?

When will all this make sense?

Right now, nothing really makes any sense, least of all me.

I'm really trying to want to be a god Christian. Read my Bible, journal, walk the talk, all that. But I'm not. I'm like a surfer who has a broken leash. I went into this knowing that God was right there. I never thought He wouldn't. It was expected.

So I stopped worrying about everything. Really?

The fact of the matter isn't that I stopped worrying.

I stopped caring.

Leash or not, I was going to surf.

What I needed to do was swim in, find my board, get a new leash, breathe, and paddle back out.

THe waves are different now. The consequences are different now. There's 2 people and 2 dogs that matter now. They're not helpless without me, but life would sure suck if I wasn't there.

It's a big deal.

God's a big deal.

Being happy with your decisions, your life, what you have, who you have it with -- that's all a big deal.

Don't let anyone tell you any different. Because as soon as you buy into the lie that you're missing out or you messed up -- as soon as you give into the world's view -- yo uwill start wondering "Is there something better out there for me?"

And that's a place you cannot go. Under no circumstances. You can't flirt with that harlot. Not a good thing.

God's got you figured out. He knows that as a dad, you're going to want ot fix everything. If something's bugging your wife, you want it to do away. You don't listen long enough to her to hear that she's really happy, just annoyed with a couple silly things.

It's fine to be annoyed with a couple little things. It makes you appreciate everything else.

But if you don't stop and evaluate the gravity of the situation, you'll jump to the painful conclusion that life sucks and it needs to be different.

The only thing that needs ot be different is your perspective.

Your wife is the most beautiful woman on the planet. God made her for you. She's someone's daughter, mother, friend. She's your wife. That's huge.

Your decisions might have been "bad" or hasty, but God works everything out for good. No where in the Bible, or in common sense, does it say that everything works out when you go back in time and make better decisions.

You make better decisions based on past decisions. Better is based on lessons learned, NOT regret.

So, that's that.

Life is good.

Blameless

Sometimes you read something and you want to expound on it, but there's really nothing to add.

Verse 2 really sticks out at me. Whenever I'm on the internet or watching the T.V., I think about this verse. I guy I know, Jamie, had this verse on top of his T.V. for a long time. I bet he still does. It makes sense.

If anyone has any questions about this, let me know. Shoot me an email or something.

Psalm 101
Of David. A psalm.
1 I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, O LORD, I will sing praise.

2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will walk in my house
with blameless heart.

3 I will set before my eyes
no vile thing.
The deeds of faithless men I hate;
they will not cling to me.

4 Men of perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with evil.

5 Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret,
him will I put to silence;
whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
him will I not endure.

6 My eyes will be on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he whose walk is blameless
will minister to me.

7 No one who practices deceit
will dwell in my house;
no one who speaks falsely
will stand in my presence.

8 Every morning I will put to silence
all the wicked in the land;
I will cut off every evildoer
from the city of the LORD.

In Response to Nature

A friend of mine recently emailed me a little rant about birds.
I'm sure some of you have seen it.
It's political.

It's about people seeking jobs here in the US illegally.

It's about people sitting around waiting to be fed by the government.

It's about entitlement.

People are entitled to the rights and liberties of the country that they are citizens of.

It's not universal grace we're talking about.

Universal grace says that everyone has the right to anything simply because God is good.

Universal grace says that even someone who has denounced the Son of God, Jesus Christ, will have a place in heaven with the very God they despise.

I've never understood the idea of Universal grace. I would love for someone to help me with that.

"For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life" John 3:16

So, let's take that political.

The union of Church and State.

If I live in France, or Luxembourg, or Peru, and find that I can make a better living working in construction in the US, I'm going to come here and try my hand at it. Why not?

But if I've not come by this employment legally, and I don't pay taxes, and I don't have citizenship here, how can I demand any constitutional rights that this country gives its citizens?

On the flip side, the email also talked about legal citizens on welfare, taking advantage of the system and demanding more for producing less.

On this, I'm not so well versed, so I'll steer clear of it. It gets really weird.

Blessed are the poor? No, blessed are the poor in Spirit. So I'm just as confused as the next guy.

I want to believe that the people collecting Welfare and Medicare really need it.

I want to believe that if I was to be in dire straights, that the very government that I've been loyal to all these years will help me out a little bit until I can get on my feet again.

So, bear with me if I have a non-racial axe to grind about people coming heree illegally, taking jobs that might otherwise be filled by the US citizen who really needs a job, but can't get one because the guy who doesn't speak english is working for half the fair pay is doing it.

I don't know. It's a little much to process right now.

I think I'll go drink some fair trade coffee and eat my organic peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

God's got it. I'll pursue Him, and one day, He'll reveal the truth to me.

I'll keep you posted.

Confirmation

So yesterday I wrote about music and how heavy music ain't owned by the devil. Music is in the heart of the worshipper. So scream out to God and bang your head in the Spirit. It's all good.

Confirmation.

I went to small group.

And met the new guy.

Josh.

Josh plays drums in a band. A heavy band. A really good heavy, Christian band.

Decypher Down.

Josh looks pretty normal. Nice fella.

And grounded.

That's the word my wife used to describe him.

Confirmation.

And here's the kicker: Our wives are in a small group together.

So bang your head and throw yourself into the pit. You won't go to Hell for loving Jesus in the pit.

Just make sure you're in the right one.

Disciple

So, I like Disciple. I like the message in their music and I like the urgency of it.

Some think different.

Here's my take on it.

Christian music has genres. It has them because not all people like Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant. Just like not everyone likes Tony Bennett and Bette Midler.

So you have Tree 63 and Newsboys and all that other KLOVE stuff. Nothing wrong with it, it's just music for people who like that kind of music.

Then you have Skillet and Switchfoot (on a good day) and Disciple. Sometimes you need to scream at the devil and tell him you know he's there and he's not getting his dirty hand on you. You point your finger right in his ugly face and tell him, "Not today! This soul belongs to Jesus!"

So gotta have that in your quiver or else you're just all heaven minded and no earthly good.

It's the armor of the Lord. You're kingdom minded because you're fighting for the Kingdom and for all the people who you really want to see there. Not just Carmen or Sandi Patti, but the tattooed, black-wearing (Hey, Cash wore black), head-banging, lip-pierced, crazy-haired goth kids who would otherwise be singing along with Manson.

So get mad at the devil. He's ruling this world and he's killing our kids. He's putting porn and hate and anger into the politically correct, sin-laden society we're living in. He's making it easy to walk away from Truth. He's making it easy because we're not pissed. We're not motivated to do something to fight it. We're all just singing the song in church and not screaming them in the check out aisle at CostCo. (I don't do this. I should, but I don't)

Everyone is entitled to their own ways of worship, as long as they're doing it in Spirit and in Truth. If you're praising the Lord Jesus Christ and thanking your Father for your Salvation through His Son, by GRACE alone, you're living right. You're singing right. You're screaming RIGHT!

Even the rocks will cry out!!

• 1 Sola gratia ("by grace alone")
• 2 Sola fide ("by faith alone")
• 3 Sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone")
• 4 Solus Christus ("In Christ alone")
• 5 Soli Deo gloria ("Glory to God alone")

That's my take on it.

Bendiciones para ti

So, It's Sunk In

First, if left to my own devices, I could eat my weight in M&M's. Just thought that should be common knowledge.

My bride is pregnant with our first child.

We found out last week that we're having a girl, and in true Dengler/Fagundus form, she made darn sure we knew she was a girl. It was an amazing thing, watching this human life inside my favorite human life. She moved around and showed us her feet and her face and her backside.

And it brought everything into perspective.

In the beginning I thought pregnancy had certain guidelines. In the first 3 months my beloved wife would experience morning sickness in the morning and a mood swing here and there and other than that, nothing really changes in our uncomplicated lives.

See, this is why books are written by women on this topic. So many books are written by guys who think that if enough women read their ideal and theoretical views on the subject, they will conform to it and think that anything else is wrong and abnormal and should be corrected at once before consulting the husband.

Women know what's up. It's not all the same. Some women start showing only in the 3rd month. Morning sickness can last all day. Mood swings are sudden and are about as subtle as a 50 pound bowling ball to the nards. Women swell. Feet hurt. Feelings are fragile. Some women can consume nothing but veggies and V8 and still gain 50 pounds (most of this weight is water weight). Some women, who are very active and athletic, find themselves too tired to think about cooking let alone going for a jog on the beach in the middle of the summer.

And it's not all physical. Women are bombarded by propaganda (mostly proliferated by ignorant men) that they should be all thin and sexy all the time. Even when they are 5 months pregnant. They are pounded with the idealistic notion that they should feel a certain way. That they should suck it up and take it like a woman.

I think the only reason God made men was to listen. To turn the game off and turn and face their partner who is bearing all this burden and listen. No judging, no nay-saying. Nothing is ideal in this life. We were all made differently, so comparing is completely INSANE. Woman do it enough to themselves, the last thing they need is for their rock, their calm, their HUSBAND to tell them they should be like so and so or that what's her face didn't go through this.

No way man. She just needs you to shut up and take it like a man.

My dad once told me that it's not about being right, it's about being quiet.

Wisdom.

Pure and simple.

It's about service, too. Listening and serving. Foot rubs are essential. Cook for her from time to time, if not all the time. Sometimes pizza and chinese food are just the ticket and all you need to do is make the call. I once ordered Chinese and the guy didn't understand a word I said until I faked the accent (not politically correct, but pretty effective). I'm still not sure what he might have done to my Moo Goo.

It's about serving. I'm still working on that one.

So every day I screw up. I say something or do something that doesn't quite align with the vision of this woman who I've vowed to cherish and love forever. So, I must ask for forgiveness and change the direction of my behavior.

And she doens't have to be told she's wrong.

If she's wrong, she knows it. Women are like that. I'm blessed because I'm married to a woman who will come around and admit when she was wrong, even if it's 3 hours or 3 days later. she comes around. So I don't need to be right right away.

But I'm hardly ever right anyway.

So, we're waiting for our daughter. We're getting her room ready for her. we're moving my music equipment out and replacing it with cribs and changing tables and gliders and hearts and flowers.

And I love it.

Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. A cord of 3 strands.

She's going to be the most beautiful creature on the earth. She'll have her mother's common sense and creative nature. She'll have her daddy's feet. She'll have her parents' shared athleticism and love for Jesus and good music.

She'll grow up seeing what a father's love means. She'll see 2 people who love each other very much and desire only that for herself and never settle for less. (She won't date till she's 30)

So, we wait. We learn to love. We're made to love.

We must learn to do what we were made to do.