The New House

I have become a moving connoisseur. As of today I have moved 19 times. If you do the math it will equal out to packing and lifting and carrying my things once every 1.3 years. When Ashley and I found out that she was pregnant one of the first decisions we made was that we would need to move. Not that Hardin-Simmons married student housing isn’t nice, right down the street from crack dens, bullet hole filled apartments, and a halfway house, but we just felt it was time to explore our options.

After quite a bit of searching we found a house that is close to both of our jobs and not too far from Hardin Simmons. The video below offers a short tour of the house, how it is and explains some of the intended repairs.



Before Spring Break I wanted to have the house painted so that while I was on a mission trip to New Orleans Ashley and her parents could begin moving some of our things in. After what turned out to be a disastrous pink first coat, due to mistaken color, I was left needing to finish painting Wednesday night before the carpets were cleaned on Thursday. By finish painting I mean I had to paint two coats on everything in the house (with the exception of the Jack’s room and the kitchen) before sunrise. I taped, dropped, and painted until 4:00 am when I finally finished, sleep deprived and a little high from paint fumes. The house still has quite a way to go but as Ashley begin nesting and our family grows we will do so in a new home.

The Bad News First

Sunday February 20th was an odd day. I am not one who puts much stock in yin yang philosophy, but if there was ever a time that God used opposite situations to sustain me it was that day. After traveling back from a fun weekend celebrating Cohen’s 1st birthday I went over to Geoffrey’s house. We spent an hour or so watching basketball and decided to tap into our inner athletes and drive to HSU for some campus golf. While driving to campus Geoffrey took a phone call from his father…

The Bad News First

Not many people can say that they know all of the names of the people in their senior class, but I can because I graduated with just 40 other people. While I haven’t kept up with my classmates as well as I should have, through social media I am able to find most of them if I so desire.

One of the young men from the class of 2004 was Keith Hayes. I first met Keith in the 7th grade. We were a part of the same small group that included three others: David Huss, Nick Comey, and Paul Sagovia. The fluidity of our class in High School caused some to come while others left, but David, Keith, and I remained. With the addition of several others, we graduated close friends. In college I lost touch with Keith except the occasional Facebook message until 2010 when I found out Keith had been diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Geoffrey – “Hey Pop!...What!...Keith Hayes!?...When?...”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Shocked and speechless we decided to not play campus golf. I don’t know how to express what I was feeling: sad, nostalgic, lonely,…scared. Keith was 25, married to his high school sweetheart, smart, talented, and full of potential. As Geoffrey and I sat on my front porch looking at old yearbooks mourning the loss of our friend my phone rang.

The Good News Second

When Ashley and I first found out we were having a baby everyone we told would in return ask the same question, “Do you know what it is yet?” March 7th was circled on our calendar as "the day we find out." While I counted down the days, Ashley made lists of favorite beddings, colors, and outfits separated into two columns: boys and girls. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t hope for a boy. Not that I don’t want daughters, but being the only remaining Wood able to have children there has produced a bit of pressure to produce a male heir.

Me – (Audible Depression) “Hey Babe…My friend Keith died today…Yeah I’m okay. I don’t think it has sunk in yet…Yes I would like to hear some good news…What? We can find out the sex of the baby tonight!?...Yes I want to!”

There are a few perks when your wife works at the ER. One of which is that she has an “in” with the night Sono Tech. At 1:00 am, when her shifted ended, I drove to the ER and we watched with excitement as we found out we will be having a son, Jackson “Jack” Andrew Wood. I don’t know how to express how I felt: ecstatic, relieved, proud,…scared. I celebrated with my wife and we made ridiculously late phone calls to our family at 2:00 in the morning. But through the celebration Keith was still on my mind.

Most people aren’t faced with the worst and best news in the same day. I felt like I was on a teeter-totter of emotion, bouncing between tears of pain and tears of joy. While right now February 20th seems like a significant crossroad, life continues.

David drove into Abilene late Wednesday night and the two of us went to Keith’s celebration service on the 24th. We reconnected with old friends, told stories, and remembered our Keith. Ashley and I have begun buy more blue babyphernalia, and are getting use to calling our baby Jack. While I do not wish to accompany all of life’s celebrations with tragedies I do find some comfort in the symmetry that presented me joy in a time of pain.

Three Years

Written 3/11/2011:



I cannot express to you the feelings I had when I saw my bride begin to walk down the aisle. Her hair was beautiful, her dress gorgeous, and her eyes a piercing blue that (and have continued to) memorized me. Standing next to her, with my hands shaking I made one of the most important commitments of my life, second only to my commitment to Christ:

I Joel, take you, Ashley, to be my wife and my friend, my partner and my lover, for as long as we both shall live. I promise to love you with an undivided heart, to forgive you when I am hurt, to be faithful to you and to believe in us regardless of the circumstances. And as for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord.

Since I first spoke those words to my wife three years ago life has happened; some good, some bad but every moment just as real as the one before. We have lived in three different houses, and are getting ready to move into our fourth. Two cities, one that has been home and another that has felt far from it. We have laughed and we have cried. We have celebrated new life, and mourned great losses. And while I would like to write all of the sagely advice I have obtained in my first three years of marriage, I can easily sum it all up in one sentence:

“I’m sorry Babe; you are right.”

As we begin year four Ashley is twenty-one weeks pregnant with our son, Jackson “Jack” Andrew Wood. We are preparing for parenthood and anxiously anticipating the growth of our family. Jack will bring challenges to our marriage that I cannot even begin to understand yet. But I welcome the challenges because there is no one else I would rather face them with than Ashley, my bride, my wife, my best friend, and my partner.

It has been three years since I last sat in this building on a warm March day but I am still every bit in love my bride today as I was then.


Ashley,

I love you with all my heart, and I believe in us regardless the circumstances.

--Joel

I Love Being an Uncle

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. While I have had much to write about I have had little time to put my thoughts down. While I am going to attempt to catch up, life moves at a high speed pace and I can’t make any promises.

Ashley and I arrived in Lubbock on Friday evening; I had Uncle duties to take care of. I think that the best part about having siblings when you are an adult is when they have children. I love being and Uncle. My niece and nephew(s) (Shepherd is not quite born yet but by the time I post this it is a good possibility that he will be) are great practice for when I become a parent (July 21st ish). And I get to be fun Uncle Joel who gives cookies before bedtime and is always fun to be around. The reason for our trip was Cohen’s birthday, his first birthday.

Cohen is my sister Cassie’s son. On Saturday (Feb 18th) several friends and family members gathered for the party. Cohen is the happiest one year old I have ever seen. His smile and laugh are intoxicating and with a green balloon tied around his back belt loop he walked and crawled around his party amongst a sea of family and friends. My sister made an incredible train birthday cake, which Cohen smeared all over his and his Grammy’s face.

It was a week of firsts for Cohen. He celebrated his first birthday and he also got his first haircut. I decided to celebrate the occasion by making two different videos of Cohen’s birthday week. During his haircut he sat in his Papa’s lap. I videoed the even on my iPhone, which just so happen shoots HD video. Double the speed of the event and put a little music to it and here is the result:

I also decided to make a video out of the many pictures that were taken of Cohen throughout the week. After his party and fun afternoon photo shoot (where this time Papa was behind the camera), I compiled Cohen’s birthday week in 150 seconds:


Today while I have been at work I have been recieving a stream of text messages from my mother, my brother-in-law, and even my sisiter...who is in labor. Sheperd Andrew Wiley will soon be born, and while I do not know alot about babies (yet...I do have one on the way so I am learning) I am certain of one thing...Sheperd will have an Uncle who loves being an Uncle.

UPDATED 3-10-11

Shepherd was born 3:50pm on March 9th. He is 7.9 lbs. He and Carrie are both doing great!

Confession: I Am Grumpy.

I really needed a little extra humor today so I wrote the following...

It was suppose to snow last night. But instead of enjoying a nice day indoors, being lazy and watching TV, winter slapped Abilene with its frozen dandruff that was scratched off of its bitter cold scalp, lightly dusting our streets, sidewalks, and front yards (places that should have been the glorious containment receptacles of the reason why I should have been able to sleep in). After realizing that I had to go to work today, and ruining my plans of world couch domination, I made the decision to sleep late anyway. This decision came in spite of the incessant nagging of the female who was next to me…my clock radio Mrs. Clockington. Mrs. Clockington use to be Miss Clockington but one day I found her on the floor next to a my wristwatch…and …well…it was the respectable thing to do, even though she is much older. I got out of bed at 7:14 and had to be at work by 7:30. The only thing worse than a nagging female “clock” is a nagging female “clock” that is always right.

To make my mood so delightfully better (sarcasm…thickly laid) when I woke up, I had a headache; one of those recurring tards that has manifested behind my right eye. Though my wife has repeatedly assured me that I am a paranoid hypochondriac, I am almost positive that my headache is caused by a benign brain tumor that is also the reason I have been smelling so much blue as of late. I think it is pressing on my auditory nerve causing me to randomly hear people calling my name behind me. Surely it won’t be much longer before there is an MRI app for my iPhone. Then I could wave over my head and finally know…that I am right and my wife is wrong (times infinity). “Wwaoown waoown waoown KAK KAK KAK!” – This is the most accurate sound description of an MRI that has ever been articulated in a blog, and possibly the most accurate ever put into sound words (I could have written for the original Batman – BLAZAMOH!)…prove me wrong I dare you!

My wife says I can be grumpy and while I would like to argue and tell all of the reasons why I am a delightful and happy person who enjoys kettle corn, a friendly bumper pool competition, and soaking up sunshine, she is right…I am grumpy. But I am not the Grinch grumpy or Ebenezer Scrooge grumpy (It is a well known fact that Christmas grumpy is the absolute worse kind of grumpy. People who are Christmas grumpy are also the same people who hate puppies, like the taste of English food, and scream at infants). I just like things a certain way (FOR THE LITTLE SANITY REMAINING IN THE WORLD!, will someone please tell me why Jersey Shore is still on the air?!) and I am most certain that most people (there are a few exceptions) are not as intelligent as me (politicians, people who work for or are involved with the news media, Mrs. Clockington, the list goes on). I am more of a Carl Fredricksen kind of grumpy. All Carl needed was to befriend a chubby Asia kid that stowed away on the front porch of his house that had been converted into a flying contraption due to the attachment of thousands of balloons, fly to a magical land filled with mystical creatures and talking dogs that he and his late wife had always dreamed of visiting, and defeat his childhood hero who seemed to be the same age as Carl even though he was already an adult when Carl was a small child. Carl really warmed up by the end of the movie...I just wanted a little extra snow last night.

The Better Life: Roadside Assistance

I don't know much about cars. When something is going wrong with a car, that I happen to be in the same vicinity of, I will look under the hood, nod my head, agree with the closest male (who is also looking under the hood) and say something in agreement, "Yep, I agree. Definitely the alternator." The only time I am of any help to a stranded motorist is in the unfortunate situation that their battery is dead and they need a jump. In most situations I really don't feel like helping but feel obligated because, of course, no one else ever seems to have jumper cables in their car (I should really take those out). While I can change a tire, and once changed my own brakes (I made about 30 phone calls to my father-in-law that day), I use my expertise of having no expertise as an excuse to drive by people I see having car difficulty on the side of the road.

In all honesty, I don't want to be "that guy," the one that drives by a person in need. I don't want to have have my son or daughter sitting in the car with me while I blatantly ignore someone that I could help. I want to stop and offer to change a tire, give a ride, or jump a battery, with a smile on my face. I want to be better. Tuesday was a better day.

With the winter storm apocalypse covering most of the Eastern United States. Tuesday I found making a fifteen minutes to take my wife to work (half a mile away). After dropping her off at the entrance to the hospital I noticed two men standing outside of a Mazda CX-7 attempting to push it out of a parking space, while their friend manned the drivers seat. While it has already been established that I do not possess much knowledge about cars, I do posses a pair of Timberland boots, and the ability to push (an ability I have honed on many occasions after running out of gas, once while on a date) I quickly (but really it was slowly) found a place to park my car and offered my help. None of the men spoken English, they seemed to be of middle eastern descent, but I managed to give them enough guidance and muscle that they were quickly unstuck and on there way.

I got back in my car and started making my way back home when I came across another motorist in need of assistance. With stoic control, I edged my Mitsubishi Eclipse close to stranded Ford F-150 (no, the make and model irony was not lost on me). I put my car in park, turned on my hazard lights, got out, and told the man behind the driver's seat to ease on the gas and I would try to push him to a spot where he could get traction. Two other men soon showed up to help and after a few minutes the truck was free and I was on my way back to my house.

Over the past week, while taking up residence on Hoth, I have had the opportunity to push a few more cars (for those of you who do not get the Star Wars reference Hoth is a snow planet). It hasn't been a grand gesture of my abundant greatness, it has just been a nice thing to do, and I am better for it.