Waiting…

Nuff said.

Go have some fun…

I insist.

All of you.

Go have some fun today.

Life’s too short.

Foreshadowing…

If you read my “Lessons from high school English” below, you know how much I loved English. It was there that I learned about foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is a story element that hints at something later in the story. Many times, it’s such a subtle hint that you may not realize it until later. The movie Sixth Sense may contain some of the best examples of foreshadowing I’ve seen in a long time.

But here’s a pictorial representation of foreshadowing in the Noble home…

Don’t get it?
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American Inventor here I come…

See the results of my personality test here.

For those of you who know me, let me know how close it came to nailing me…

And thanks to RJ Martino for clueing me into personalDNA.

UPDATED… (3/28/06)
Here is another personality test I took a while back. It’s been posted on my “About” Page…

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

I think it was DB who I discovered this personality test from…

Darth sighting…

It had to happen sooner or later. I mean, you don’t just create a massive empire in space without being able to go where you want, when you want. Our little town just wasn’t prepared for his presence on a Saturday afternoon a week or so ago.

Shown here is Lord Darth Vader, strolling down the sidewalk in the North Park Shopping Mall with my mom. He was actually a pretty decent guy. Apart from sabering a rude motorist in half when they stole the spot he was planning on parking his Tie-Fighter, it was almost like having a friend from college over….

OK, so maybe that’s actually my daughter in costume… But weren’t you enjoying the other story better?

The point…

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Hairy Ears

Dangit. I just had to shave my ears again. For those of you first visiting, it’s not as if I talk about this often, but if you’d like to track with me how often I have to do this, my first comment about it is here. Maybe by tracking these posts, I can determine how long it takes for my ear hair to grow… It could be a real scientific study. Maybe I’ll get some grants? Then I could hire some aides… (get it? aids for my ears? hearing aids? heh-heh.)

Anyway, you’re also probably wondering why in the world I took the time to take pics and all. Well, I’ve got some down time right now waiting on a few things and I DID have to shave my ears. It’s such a unique and random thing, I thought someone would appreciate it. I mean, of all places for my hair to decide to START growing… why my ears? Why couldn’t it grow on the back of my head?

Anyway, here’s a pic of my new hair tools.. It’s so depressing. And in the middle of all the ear-shaving-picture-taking, I dropped the nose hair attachment in the crapper. Aaargh. Of course, this has all happened in the context of me avoiding some house cleaning. Caro and Kristy Hales are out cleaning the studio in preparation for Caro’s sis visiting with our twin 5-year-old nephews and 6 month-old niece.

So… the ear hair gods have smited me by making me drop by nose hair attachment in the commode.

My Daughter the Extortionist

Caro walked into Adelyn’s room the other day to discover this message she had left for us on her easel. I have no idea what prompted this. All I know is that she says she’s saving her money for Disneyworld. Extorting it out of mom and dad for doing chores is not our idea of how she should do this. For some reason, it reminds me of my sister…

My sis always seems to have some kind of money scheme up her sleeve. It’s been that way all our lives. Growing up, I had a paper route for the Arkansas Democrat (which won the Great Arkansas Paper Way vs. the Arkansas Gazette… why in the world they would want to pay homage to the Gazette by including it in their name is beyond me. They won. Fair and square. It’s kind of like being up by 3 points with 2 seconds left in the basketball game and then not guarding the opponent’s best 3-point shooter and allowing a tie at the end. But I digress.). I was the one with the job, but Amy was always the one with the money. I was 16; she was 12. I’d have $12 in my wallet; she would have $184 stashed away in her sock drawer. It was so frustrating.

Adelyn’s message just takes me back. I’m sure she got that from her mother…

By the way, don’t forget the tip trough over to the left…

Update… a day after I posted this, Amy called. She says, "Hey. I need to talk to Caro. I have a money-making idea…"

Nuff said.

Hazardous for your health

My thoughts flashed back to the previous night. Carolyn said, “Oh, it’s fine. The floor is clean.”

As I emptied the third shopvac full of minivan mulch, I had to remove the visor from my hazmat helmet to wipe the sweat off my brow. “I can never tell Mike & Kristy about this…” I thought to myself. Their 8 week-old daughter, Lillian, had dropped her pacifier on the floor of the minivan on our way back from the fish place in the Country Village. In the dark, I have no idea how Kristy blindly latched onto it rather than the colony of millipedes breeding under one of our seats.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but as I cleaned out our minivan for our trip to Jim Knox’s wedding in Little Rock on Saturday, I was, well, completely grossed out. I had just vacummed it out 3 weeks before, and already there was an entire ecosystem growing underneath the socks, Happy Meal toys, cups, straws, sand, and refuse. How do moms deal with the minivan mulch? It totally turned by stomach. Is it that they resolve only to look in the back via the rear view mirror? Can they not see the vines growing up the side of the back seat?

I felt like my entire body needed to be sandblasted to be free of the filth after finishing. Or to gargle with Lysol. Unfortunately, I know the pristine condition of the vehicle will last for… well, about 2 days. Remember Pigpen in the Charlie Brown strip? Minivans have Pigpen syndrome. If you’re a significant male figure in the life of a minivan-driving female, get used to the regular safari into the wilds of minivan mulch. I’m told by a few husbands that it’s not just minivans that acquire their own ecosystems, but any vehicle with a mom and someone under 18.

Dining for 16…
On the other hand, these minivans could be used to feed the homeless. Park a mom’s minivan on the street outside a shelter, crank the heat on high for about 5 minutes, and everything within could be warmed up nicely. Fling those side doors open, and the hungry could cobble together a decent meal between the fries, pieces of chicken nuggets, bread pieces, half-empty juice boxes, and bank suckers. It’s almost a well-balanced meal.

WMDs
I think Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld should just round up about 200 minivans driven by moms and park them outside insurgents’ known locations. Within a few days, with the doors left open, it would be total and complete devastation – biological warfare. These 4-wheel contagions are truly WMDs (weapons of minivan destruction).

I’m Your Father…

OK, my wife is mad at me. Well, kind of. It wasn’t enough that Sam and I are addicted to Madden and Star Wars games on the Xbox. Now that Sam got me Star Wars: Battlefront II for my birthday, Adelyn is in on the action too. She wants to be the “green girl with the pretty-colored swords.”

Carolyn sits in the back of the house and watches home improvement shows while we save the universe.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day today, we’re going to be thoughtful… and see if Caro wants to play as Yoda.

ipod anyone?

Since buying my first iPod back in October or so, I’ve gone overboard. Now I’m buying and selling used iPods! Right now, I have a few silver iPod mini’s I need to sell. They’re going for about $205-220. They’re mostly 4 gig models. I also have a few iPod photos I’m selling. Mainly 20 gig models. I need to get about $250 for those.

In addition, I’ve got an iBook G4 933mhz, 60 gig HD, 640MB Ram, Bluetooth, CD-RW/DVD, Airport Extreme laptop for sale at $735. It has some pressure marks on the screen, but is in great shape otherwise.

Finally, I have a SWEET iMac G5, 160 gig HD, 512MB ram, Bluetooth, CD-RW/DVD, Airport Extreme which includes mouse and keyboard for sale at $935. It’s direct-refurbed from Apple.

STRIKE THE IMAC G5 FROM THE LIST! SOLD TO THE PRETTY LITTLE LADY IN PINK OVER IN THE CORNER… (uh, I mean Matt Parker… but his blog color has got me distracted still.) 1/28/05

If you’re interested in any of these or know someone who might be, spread the word!

Small Pebble is here…

For those of you wanting to participate in the ongoing unveiling of some of my writing projects, you can go here! First project for review is Small Pebble…

Have a great day!

Ok… when your daughter shows up at your elbow and says, “Hey Daddy,” and you absent-mindedly look up from your book to find this… you can’t help but have a great day!

Juanita’s, hot tea, and thee… aaaaah

Waaaahoooo! Yip. Yip. Yip. Yip. Ever had one of those ethereal moments of sublime happiness? Nope? Sorry. But I’m there. Right now. Consider this…

• a hot cup of Lipton’s French Vanilla black tea
• an Apple Powerbook G4 867 purring on your dining room table
• a hefty bucket of Juanita’s mixed peanut brittle at your side….

And you get an evening of ecstasy. Wow. Step back and mourn for your average evening. Me? I can hear angels singing. Aaaah.

OK, got that out of the way. Sorry for the moment of gloating bliss. If you’ve been having a bad day, well, suck it up. I’ll probably have one tomorrow. Let me have my evening of sheer delight.

The Anti-Blogger
I hooked up with a great friend the other day. In Arkadelphia. A converted Reddie… That’s all the hint you’re gonna get. OK, so he looks like Woody Harrelson, but no more. Anyway, over latte’ from Thrio’s, he informed me that he had actually read my blog, but had just about decided that blogs, for the most part, were a bunch of hoo-ha.

I was a little disappointed that my blog had not caused heaven to descend around him and completely transform his little, meaningless life, but I didn’t let on.

“What do you mean,?” (you anit-blogging Nazi, I thought).

He proceeded to tell me that it just appears to him that in a place where people have actually very little human contact… in just such a place, people would be the most real, authentic, and willing to share their failures… since there wasn’t someone they had to look at when pounding a keyboard. He explained that most of the blogs that he’d seen were all a little, well, (in my own words here) – Brady-Bunchish. Just a little too happy. Perfect family pictures, inane dribble about one did with one’s day, about what one ate (or didn’t), etc.

He just didn’t see the point. His feelings echoed that of my sister, who upon looking over my blog, attempted to post a comment along the lines of “What the hell is this?!” I still laugh about that.

And with that being said, for my friend the anti-blogger, I thought I might post just a few thoughts to make his day better…

• My incredible wife of 13 years now had her third battle with Hodgkin’s Disease this year (the first was in 1991, and the second was in 1995)… For a period of 6 months, she had chemo, and at one 4-week period, drove to Little Rock (an hour and a half from here) 5 days a week for treatment. We have a ton of medical bills from all this that we have no idea how we’re going to pay… Caro is in remission (again!)
• My design business that was started in August of 2003 to help us financially while we started a new church is about as thriving as bacteria in a tub full of bleach.
• Our church that so many seem to think is “cutting edge” and “contemporary” and dynamic and all that jazz… well, it’s OK. We’re just ordinary folks trying to live out a fresh expression of discipleship in our area. But it hasn’t grown much (if at all) in the past 6 months, and we’ve had to tap our savings this month to pay what little staff support we do receive…
• My own personal foibles and weaknesses are so many that I wonder how in the world I can even influence a possum, much less a thinking person, toward the Lord Jesus.
• I’m losing more and more hair on the back of my head… dangit.
• I’m 37 years old… and what the heck am I doing?…

Get the drift?

I hope this made all you anti-bloggers out there delight in my dismay and doubt. I’m only a fellow struggler. So imperfect. Yet I am earnestly convinced in the existence of a perfect and loving God. I DON”T have all the answers. I’m NOT thrilled about our financial uncertainties. Things aren’t all good at the Noble’s. Yet, here I am…

Choosing to Blog Joyfully
The things I write about, well, he was right. I choose to blog about things that are uplifting, sometimes insightful, and perhaps challenging. I don’t like to focus on what’s not right. Heck, I worry about that enough in my head. Why make you miserable too?

But here’s the deal… just as Paul wrote to the disciples in Thessalonica… “in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with joy…” (1 Th 1.6), so too, I choose joy. IN SPITE OF what I don’t understand, IN SPITE OF cancer, IN SPITE OF sad checkbooks, IN SPITE OF… you name it.

[In fact, I preached a message somewhat similar to this last night at Monticello's community Thanksgiving service at First Baptist... You can hear it on Journey's website, if you'd like.]

But here I am… life is real, raw, and confusing sometimes. Things AREN’T perfect. Not situationally, at least. But deep down… I am truly, really, honestly, JOYFUL. I love life. I am able to endure all hardships – mystically, mysteriously, really – I believe, because of my confidence in my forgiveness. Being forgiven, freed, and given purpose enables a person to embrace life even when there are sharp edges.

So.

Right back atcha, you anti-bloggers, you! ;)

I’m going to keep sitting here tonight, popping my brittle (the cashew mix is the best!), drinking my tea… (it’s cold now because I’ve been typing to you the last several minutes… time for a refill), and enjoying my Mac.

Crunch, crunch, sip, sip, type, type. Life is good. in spite of.

Noble Family Photo

It’s officially a tradition… our once-a-year-family-photo! Caro is an incredible photographer here in town (check out her site!), but each year, we get our good friend David Atwell to take our fall family shots. Thanks, David! Check ‘em all out here.

The Two Front Teeth for Christmas Thing…

My daughter, Adelyn, has become obsessed with money in the last week or so. Somehow she’s managed to scrounge together $27. It’s burning a whole in her pocket. We almost had a meltdown the other night when I wouldn’t take her to Wal-Mart so she could “buy sumpin.”

In the past week, we’ve pulled three teeth… I’m starting to relate her insistent demands for pulling any tooth in her head that is not firmly in place with her greed. Tonight, I pulled another tooth – her top one. That’s two nights in a row. As the light began to dawn in this dad’s head, I asked her, “Adelyn, do you want me to pull your tooth so that the tooth fairy will bring you more money?”

“Yes!” she emphaticallly responded.

Granted, the tooth/teeth were all loose. Yet, she’s milking the system. She’s going to have to find another way to earn money soon. The law of supply and demand as it relates to tooth-profiteering cannot apply. Her supply is dwindling, and from insider information (or is it “incisor” info?), I am confident that our tooth fairy is not going to pay premium for her teeth.

With all that being said, it has been rather exciting around the Noble house the last few nights.

The Theisman Trophy…

Caro and Sam are in our bed watching Sunday night football. Sam is into NFL this year since I’ve set him up a team in our fantasy football league. Joe Theisman is one of the commentators, and upon hearing this, Carolyn says, “Joe Theisman is still alive?!” incredulously.
Surprised, I say, “Well, yes…”
“But what about the Theisman Trophy? Isn’t that really old?” she says.
“You mean the Heisman Trophy?” I say with my best I’m-a-man-and-am-so-glad-you-asked-that-question voice.
“Oh,” she says.
“I’ve got to go write a quick blog article,” I laugh, and gleefully dash to the living room where my trusty Powerbook is waiting….

Three-Way Tie for Second?

Aw shoot. Today was our last regular season game. I’ve been coaching my son’s 3rd-4th grade team. We played the Ryburn Mustangs today who were 5-0, and we lost 20-6. If we’d won we would have sealed up second place, but as it is, our 4-team league has a three-way tie for second, with each of us sitting at 2-4. To make it confusing, each team beat one another team twice. So there really is no way of settling this. I think the football board is going to resort to a coin toss to see which of us goes on to play in Star City next weekend.