Monday night we had the exciting game between Miami and Florida St. What a GREAT game! J12 (Jacory Harris) blew up and put the college football world on notice that he might got next. With new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple on his side, the sky is the limit for J12!
Georgia Tech is up next, should be a great game.
Also, got my first newsletter for FFT out the door. That was huge. I think this season is shaping up as a great one!
If any of you are facebook users, click on the following link and become a "fan" of Fantasy Football Trader!
God does not guarantee the passage will always be smooth, he just promises the landing.
Last night, as I took the girls home after an AMAZING two weeks, about 15 minutes from getting there, my car broke down as the rear axle assembly fell out. Yikes. The car jumped around violently before I was able to pull it over.
Normally in the past, I would have gotten super flustered and let others know it. But last night I kinda laughed about it all and remained calm about the whole thing. Doing an initial price check, I noticed the part I will need to replace could cost nearly 1000 and at least a couple weeks to fix.
But that's okay. I have faith that God will "walk" with me through this and get me to where I may need to go in the meantime. For example, I was initally concerned with how I might be able to get back to Des Moines, but that was answered within minutes of the accident. I knew IMMEDIATELY that God was at work.
God has put some pretty incredible people in my life (and I will go more into that in a couple days), and it's times like these that I see that it was "no accident" that they were put into my life, regardless of the role they played in this situation. It's also times like this that strengthen my resolve to become a better Christian man each and every day.
And I'm thankful that God allowed me to spend the two weeks with the girls before this happened. I can't possibly put into words how amazing the last two weeks have been.
So yeah, while this is definitely a setback, I'm also looking at this as an opportunity to grow my faith.
Lately, it seems that a large majority of my day is in "conversation" with God. Most of the time it's light hearted stuff, but sometimes I will question things why certain things are the way they are. I know that in the end all things are revealed, but sometimes I get a little impatient and I ask God to work with me.
I know he answers my questions, and while most of it are in ways that I do not understand, I think there are times that he does so in a way that I can understand that something is happening that will eventually reveal His plan for me. Like today. I was having a particularly rough day today as I thought about some things, and after lunch I remember my talk with Him and questioning whether or not I was really doing the "right" things according to His will, and what the purpose of these things were in the grand scheme of my life. Doubt creeped in and made me upset. I remember asking God to just work with me...
And I kid you not... Almost suddenly, I became somewhat groggy. I laid down for a moment, and I woke up about 90 minutes later and just like that, all the doubt, and my feelings of being upset were gone. And when I tried to remind myself of the reason why I was upset, I remained calm and upbeat. Its weird, but it's as if deep down, I had something revealed to me during my nap, although I still have no idea what it was. But there was a quietness in my soul that was not there just a couple hours before.
I have no doubts that it was no accident that I suddenly got "tired" and "needed" a nap. As I mentioned earlier, I regularly have "conversations" with Him, and while there are many things that we do not understand about His plan for us, I think sometimes, if we are paying close enough attention, He'll answer us in ways that we can feel and let us know that yes, He is paying attention to everything.
Afterwards, I met up with some friends and had a real good time reminiscing about the past. It was a great way to end today. So with that, I'm going to call it a night and we'll see what tomorrow brings.
I think I have finally mastered the art of eating a sweet potato without a "chaser". For the past few weeks, I have been eating a sweet potato with every dinner. And the same thing would happen. I would take bite and immediately take a drink of water and take a bite of my other vegetable to mask the taste. Ugh!
But one little change has totally changed the way I eat them. I simply shower it with black pepper and voila, I can eat it by itself. Thank you pepper! Lol.
That's good news too, because I need all the calories I can get. Right now I'm eating anywhere 2700 calories and 4000 calories a day. And the crazy thing??? I'm still losing a pound a week!
This new training program is leaning me out in a big way. Almost too much. I'm trying to build a chest, but I'm having a hard time keeping in enough calories to add mass.
Over the next few days, I will outline my diet and my workout routine so you know what I'm working with. I've got a monster working with me tweaking this and I hope in 70 days the results will be worth the pain. We'll see.
Starting later today, I will be representing Fantasy Football Trader in the Fantasy Football Indepth's Expert League Draft.
Just think, less than a year ago, I was just getting my feet wet blogging for dmjuice.com, and now I'm about to compete in a league with others from such sites as CBS, USA Today and KFFL.
So before I start the draft, again I would like to give thanks and all glory to God, because without Him, nothing is possible, and yet with Him, all things are just that! Faith and Desire... and you too can do whatever you set your mind to!
As for the draft itself, this is a league, and not just a draft, so I will get to add and drop throughout the season. We will see how this all unfolds.
I have drawn the 5th pick in the draft, and unless something bizarre happens, I can almost guarantee that I will end up with Frank Gore in the 1st round and Andre Johnson in the 2nd. Hey, just because I'm in an expert league, doesn't mean I still can't rep The U, right? And with those two guys, I would be able to offer a solid 1-2 punch that would match up with any others.
You can follow the draft by clicking here to go to the league website.
I'll also be posting short blogs over on my FantasyFootballTrader.com blog page (J-Rax Report) detailing my picks and my thoughts behind each one. With 12 hours between picks, I should have plenty of time to keep you all updated.
Now I'm off for a pre-draft swimming excursion with the girls!
Friday, we went to my volleyball game, where Smokey and the Bumpers came back from losing the game to split the set, 1-1-1. After winning the 2nd game, the Bumpers got off to a slow start, but didn't give up as the battled back. However, the third game ended in a tie, because of the time limit. The Bumpers are looking to make a late season push into the playoffs. Will they get there? Who knows, but it will be fun as we find out!
Saturday, we just bummed around the house and went on the first of our daily walks.
Today, we went to the I-Cubs game, where Lydia got a ball! And we almost got more than that. We had 2nd row seats, and the I-cubs pitcher was batting and he swung and missed. However, when he missed, he also let the bat slip out of his hands and it came flying towards us. However, it didn't quite go far enough, and it hit the guy in the first row. If he had any reflexes, he would have tried to get out of the way, and I was ready to pounce! Oh well...
Tomorrow, we hit the pool and maybe the beach... we'll keep you updated!
Talk to you in later!
Song stuck in my head: Switchfoot's "This is Home". Says a lot about how I feel right now. Love it.
