Jan. 31, 2010

Thoughts of Spring

For everything we left when we sold our house and left for the road we have missed nothing more, and it is even close, than the garden. A dishwasher, a king sized bed, a downstairs playroom, a basket ball court in the back yard really haven't been items that have pulled on the heart strings the way our oversized weed filled garden has. We weren't crazy about the weeds of course, we were just too __________________ to keep them out. I left a blank there because I'm not really sure what goes in it. Not lazy, I don't think the word should be inexperienced, the word is probably undisciplined, but it is less painful to put in the word busy. Yeah, let's go with that, we were to busy to keep the weeds out of the garden. So even though we were to BUSY to keep the weeds out of the garden, we loved it and miss it.

We are very excited that it looks like this spring we will have an opportunity plant a garden on my parent's land. Like the plans go every winter, next year will be the best garden we have ever had. I have been getting carried away thinking about all of the possibilities with the almost 5 acres available here. It seems that it would indeed be possible to grow enough food for the family for the entire year right on the property. I don't believe we will be able to get every little thing, but I think we could possibly hit all of the major things and that possibility excites me. Potatoes are my latest bit of excitement. We have been reading the Swiss Family Robinson together as a family and I know some of the book (quite different than the movie) is rubbing off on me. It occurred to me in a way that it never had before, what a significant portion of our families food needs we could meet with potatoes. When ever I get the chance as Lexie and I are talking about potatoes in the garden I like to joke "Oh, do those grow well here?". For the information of anyone reading this blog not from the planet earth, potatoes grow well in Idaho! The science of economics is not lost on me to the point that I do not understand that it would be more efficient to get a job at Mc Donald’s pushing fry and drink buttons and then using the proceeds to buy potatoes, than it would be to undertake the time and effort required to manually plant, raise, and harvest potatoes. The difference however is much like the difference of climbing a mountain to the top and riding in a helicopter to the top. Many times the most important things in life have a lot more to do with process than they do with results. I am very enamored with the challenge of being able to bring up my own food off my own land (borrowed from the parents :-)). I have been spending the afternoon day dreaming about how good a loaf of bread that was baked with wheat I planted and harvested would taste (The loaf of bread I was eating during this day dream was quite tasty too, Lexie makes great bread).

Unaswered Prayers

I am really confused about the track my life is currently on, however I am traveling it with the calm assurance my path is the correct one. I had a finalist interview for a position in the IT department at BYU-Idaho in the middle of the January. At the time it seemed like everything was lining up so well for me to get the position that up until the time I was shocked with the news that I had not been selected for the position, I had it in my mind I would be working at the university this spring. I know some of my shock was just a good healthy dose of arrogance. I know I still haven't settled it in my mind that they selected a candidate that would be more capable of their desired job function, my mind has only accepted that they chose someone that more closely matched the candidate they had in mind hiring. It was very disappointing not to get hired, but not in the way I thought it might be. In as much as BYU-I is a church school I had been afraid that I might feel the rejection in terms of the job offer was rejection from God. I was pleased that in the end I did not feel that way. Indeed with 27 applicants for the selected position, I felt honored to be given the chance to be interviewed as one of the final three candidates and I am very happy for the person they selected. I don't fully know the will of God (I have my hopes), but I do feel confident that if I live correctly I will be able to fulfill my part of it for him. If it was his desire that I started work at the university right away, I believe it would have happened. Since it didn't happen and I know that I put every bit of possible effort I could have into interview preparation, the lack of a job offer was not a failure on my part, but rather a manifestation that the will of God was not for me to get that position at that time.

That is part of what has me confused. Working for the church seemed like such a great idea. I would be around my family, I would have a steady income that would provide for needs while allowing for a few fun family trips, and it would give me an opportunity to apply my God given talents toward building and bettering a university that I truly love. With that said now that events have passed it is obvious that me getting that position was not the will of God (or the hiring manager, but I really believe things happened over his head). So knowing that it isn't, I feel good about going on and looking forward. I will keep my eye open for positions in the department, because I was very impressed with the people and the environment and I do believe that if it is supposed to work out that I am working at the university, I eventually will be, whether it be 10 months from now, 10 years from now or 50 years from now.

Before the interview when people would ask me "What are you going to do if you don't get the job?", I really didn't have a good answer. All I could come up with was “cry”. For what ever reason I am not a very good crier, so I didn't actually ever get that good cry, even though I was feeling absolutely crushed and lost. Lexie was great and took a walk with me around "the block" (a square loop of roads near the house that is about 4 miles long) as we were on the walk and talking about what we were going to do, the conversation kept coming back to the Spelling Castle. By this time I had given up on the games short term financial viability, but the more we talked the more I realized what a shame it would be to leave it "on the table". Even though my focus has always been on my family, as far as my vocational efforts go I truly have given everything for this game. Since not getting the position at the university I have put in two more grueling weeks of work (a pace I can't keep for long) to get the game to what is very close to what I would consider a market ready state. Being the game's designer and developer I am extra sensitive in that I am aware of several flaws in it, and even though I am very proud of what it has become, like the difference between a dream and reality there really are some gaps between what I wanted to get and what I have been able to accomplish to date. With that said there are some places where I have gone beyond what I believed I was capable of doing.