the tindog coffeehouse

When Twitter launched Vine in January, everyone’s initial reaction to the social video app’s six-second limit was something along the lines of, “Huh?” What on earth could you do that was even remotely entertaining in six seconds? Even the stupidest commercials are at least 15 seconds long. And in fact most Vine videos are pretty lame. But there was a subtle brilliance in the limitation. Yes, the short length made it much more mobile-friendly, but like Twitter’s 140-character limit, it also forced creativity. As the Atlantic Wire predicted at the time, “The medium will evolve within the constraints. People will master the Vine. The clips will get less choppy; the rhythm will improve. People will create videos that make sense. And, just like the 140-character limit, soon enough, nobody will call Vine’s rules a limitation.”

When forced to work within severe constraints, there’s no room for fluff. Everything gets boiled down to what’s really important. Think about where you live. How many square feet do you really need to live? Sure, I could be really comfortable in a 10,000 square foot mansion, but I really only need a few hundred square feet. Maybe less.

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Today our baby turns 10. I still can’t believe it. It seems like yesterday when she was first born, all six pounds six ounces of her. From Day One, Erin’s been a spitfire, stubbornly independent and free-spirited with her own sense of style. As a toddler, she’d roam around the house in her jewelry and diaper and announce her presense with a funnel-turned-megaphone, and even today she can’t go anywhere unless she’s properly accessorized and treated like the queen that she is. Most of the time I think she’d prefer sleeping in a fancy dress and high heels rather than pajamas.

A few years ago, Christy and I started tweeting the hilarious “Erinisms” that she’d rattle off, brief glimpses into the mind of this curious little diva-rock star-comedian. What started as the #stuffmy7yroldsays hashtag has grown into #stuffmy9yroldsays and now #stuffmy10yroldsays. Below are all those tweets (so far).

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“We worry because we distrust God.”

– Jeff Wakefield, Hillside Community Church

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I know I need to lose weight, eat better, and exercise more. Nothing new about that. And if I’m being honest, there’s probably a million other personal defects I need to change about myself. But the whole idea of making a special resolution just because it’s Janurary 1st is flawed from the outset. The idea that “I need to do this” or “I need to change that.” The emphasis is on us, what we can fix on our own if we just set the right goals and have enough willpower to achieve them. But if we really had that power, don’t you think we would’ve used it by now?

As I look ahead to 2013, I have to admit I’m more than a little scared. There are the challenges that will come with Christy heading into her second semester of nursing school. And then there are the financial challenges that will be especially difficult for the first few months of the year. And then an enormous set of challenges at work, with my workload increasing by around 50% this year and several business trips scattered in, straining things at home even more.

I’d like to say I’ve got it all figured out, that I can handle everything ahead of us all on my own. But I don’t and I can’t. I’m gonna need a lot of help from God.

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I haven’t listened to a single Christmas song so far this year. At least not by choice. Not that I don’t like Christmas music, I do. Some of it. In limited doses. But I really have no desire to listen to any of it this year. The little drummer boy can go rum-pa-pum-pum somewhere else.

And it’s not just Christmas music. I could honestly do without the trees and the lights and ridiculous Rudolph cartoon from 1964 with the stupid elf who wants to be a dentist. Ugh.

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Today Christy takes her last final exam of her first semester of nursing school. It’s been a long three and a half months.

To her credit, she’s done a fantastic job. We knew it was gonna be tough — and it was — but she rocked it out, getting A’s and B’s in all her classes. Well, except for Pharmacology, which nearly sunk not just her but several in her class. To pass, she had to make a 75 on the final. Anything below that, and she would be forced to retake the class in the spring at a different campus before she could continue on in the program, setting her back at least a semester. But it would also mean she wouldn’t be able to return to the campus where she had started and where she had bonded with her teacher and fellow students. We were both emotionally wrecked all day yesterday as we waited for the outcome. And then about 8:00pm we got the answer: She had made an 80. She was moving on.

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I had already planned on taking Monday the 22nd off. I had a bunch of vacation days I needed to use by the end of the year, and Monday seemed as good a day as any to use one. I could take the girls to school and pick them up, get a few things done around the house, and maybe even have a couple of hours to crash and watch a movie. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

A few days before that, we started having issues with our U-verse TV service. The problems were intermittent, but they were annoying enough that they had to be fixed. Fine, I thought. I’ll call AT&T and get someone out that morning since I’m already at home. At least I would still have a little downtime in the afternoon. And then the air conditioner went out.

I had already lost my morning to AT&T. Now went the rest of my day.

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