Crawfish to Bridge One, a story about running

Ever since the trip to Missouri where my brother and I ran 5Ks and worked out almost every day, he and I have gotten back into running, me in Nashville and him in Orlando. I can’t really speak for him in regards to how much he’s running but I lace up maybe 3 or 4 times a week now. I have a goal and a secret goal (which means you can’t say a word about it!). The very public goal that you can talk to your co-workers and friends about is defeating my personal 5K record of 19 minutes and 42 seconds, set 11 years ago. The more I run now, it feels like that was way back when dreams were possible. OK, here’s the secret goal that you can only mumble to yourself when you’re alone in the closet… my secret goal is that I want to beat my brother. He’s been more athletic than me forever (again, never ever admit to anyone under any circumstance that I said any of this), so when I can beat him at something, I take the time to relish it like you’d do if you were taking a bath in strawberry jelly. Really enjoy every second of it, and maybe make a sandwich if you have some peanut butter lying around.

Here’s a clip of my bro and I running in Missouri back in July…

I’ve got to train for the day when he runs a 5K under 22, then under 21, then under 20. The only way I know how is to get out there and run!

So I have a few landmarks I’d like to hit. The first, and it’s proving to be difficult, is to break the 22-minute mark on a 3.1-mile run. Just yesterday I had my best time at 22:11. I’m not afraid to admit my disappointment. I was disappointed, there I said it. It felt like biting into a fresh homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like, you used the good peanut butter and everything, only to realize there’s no peanut butter on it at all. Total downer.

But something good came out of the run yesterday. I did well with a silly strategy I’ve used in the past: pick two points along the path and between the two, run faster. After the second point, slow back down to a cruise pace. The plan is to widen the gaps in those points the more I train. Yesterday the two points were a sign about crawfish (I was running alongside a creek) and a bridge, so that’s where the title of this blog came from. I conversed with myself, maybe I can’t keep a 6-minute mile pace the whole time, but I can do it from crawfish to bridge one, right?

Right.

I haven’t broken the 22-minute 5K yet but I’ll be sure to post more as I get closer to that landmark moment, and hopefully eventually accomplishing my goal and my secret goal (shhhhhh!)… so here’s to training and running and reaching goals and brothers and pb&J sandwiches!

-Out of the Wilderness

Taylor Swift “…Ready For It?” lyric video

I had fun making this one… enjoy!

Why dogs curl up when they sleep

e Asia

What do you get when you’ve been dog-sitting through Rover.com for almost 2 years? A lot of stories! I’ve had a wide range of big dogs, small dogs, wide dogs, long dogs, young dogs, old dogs, fun dogs, hot dogs… wait, what?


I’ve had all kinds of dogs of all ages but one thing I’ve seen so much of is also a stereotypical trait of dogs. When they decide to lay down, they walk around in a neat, tight circle about a hundred times before plopping down. Why do they do this?

What I’ve found is that it’s an instinctual behavior (like rubbing on dead insects or one dog peeing on another dog’s pee) meant to keep themselves warm and protected.

I have 2 dogs, Piper and Asia, and they do this all the time. I’ve also observed that after they circle around and lay down, maybe 20 or 30 minutes later they sprawl out. I haven’t asked them about it, but my guess is that it’s not very comfortable to sleep in such a tight position and once they feel safe and warm, they loosen up.

Piper

Dogs were domesticated thousands of years ago, but I love when a bit of that wild wolf comes out in them. Even if they’re curling up on a king-sized mattress under a light breeze from a ceiling fan. You go wild dogs, go on with your bad selves!

-Out of the Wilderness

That time I won the lottery

I grabbed the slip of paper from the store clerk. After she read out what was printed on it, the customer behind me declared, “You won the lottery!

The rest of that week I was on cloud 9, but I wasn’t any richer. Because I didn’t actually win the lottery, it was even better. The receipt the CVS store clerk handed me had a coupon for 40% off any one item in the entire store.

THAT’S ALMOST HALF OFF!!!!!!!

For a few days, it felt like Christmas. But then it was Friday night, the special coupon expiring the very next day.

Excitedly, I parked my car, practically skipping through the sliding entrance doors around 8pm. I carefully shopped through the tech section. The pet section. Heck, I even browsed through the senior citizen section. I had no idea there were so many different styles of adult diapers. I could by some FOR 40% OFF!!!

The store was closing in 15 minutes. Where had the time gone? My forehead beads with sweat. Anxiety ramps up. I’m so indecisive. So with thousands of products to choose from, I narrowed it down to….

…this.
image

And that was my Friday night.

-Out of the Wilderness

Trusting God to sustain

…at times the path way has been steep and rocky, sometimes treacherous even, but by going to Him in prayer, in medication, in reading His word, He has sustained me EVERY TIME.
Grand-daddy Davis

My grandfather wrote those words to me in 1991, not knowing that 26 years later his grandson would be self-employed and learning what “sustain” really means. And I love that he capitalized “EVERY TIME.” It’s like having a best friend that never can’t hang out,  that won’t ever decline to show up. I also love to think about God using this definition from dictionary.com…

Screen Shot 2017-09-02 at 11.39.44 AM

That’s what God promises to do for us. Amazing! It’s so much farther beyond just the physical (money, food, etc), too. It’s also emotional, spiritual, sanity, temper, fear, anxiety, worry. This whole interest in God as sustainer and provider really gained traction this year, 2017. But I guess the story dates back to when I was laid off a couple years ago (early 2015). That year flew by as I rode out my severance package. 2016 was an adventurous year as I pursued less traditional forms of income (I wrote a book!). When 2017 rolled around it was a lot like the previous year, until tax season.

You dropped a bomb on me!

I didn’t realize how much I’d owe till I totaled up everything from 2016. And I also tithe around tax season, so my checking account was about to take a hefty hit. Thankfully, I survived… though there’s a water line on the wall of my checking account, much like when a flood recedes. This line here is how much you used to have… now, you’re waaaaaaaaay down here.

So as I was monitoring my accounts more closely, I began praying more earnestly. What does the Bible say about who to trust, who will provide, and all that? Well, the answer is easy: God. But I guess when I was on a salary, I never really thought about that sort of stuff. The checks go in automatically, the health coverage is taken care of, there’s not a scramble to make ends meet.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Matthew 6:26

This is the year of trusting God to sustain me, like Grand-daddy did. The first real example was tax season, like I mentioned. But then not too long after that, my computer froze up. One Apple computer later, I was actually excited to get to trust God for a way to keep working (I edit videos as part of my income) and at the same time, not losing my mind out of frustration!

Don’t get me wrong, I have a long way to go. It’s a daily thing, and often I’m like:

But I love Proverbs 23 and 30 that have two great advices…

“Don’t wear yourself out to get rich; stop giving your attention to it.” Then in chapter 30, “Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need. Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the LORD?’; or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.”

I think we all have an opportunity each day to trust God to sustain us. And it’s amazing, SO AMAZING, when we recognize Him doing it.

-Out of the Wilderness