Time Flies!

Wow, I can't believe it! My son is already 9 months old today. Where has the time gone?

Halfway to my degree!

Well, only 14 years after embarking on my first college credit, I will officially be half-way to my Bachelor's degree (60 out of 120 credits) at the end of this summer term. I know that may seem like a long time to get that far; but, let me give an overview of why it's taken that long.

My future plans at the time I graduated from high school involved being a professional musician of some sort. I had also determined that I was going to be single my entire life due to the combination of the lack of interest in me by the opposite sex and the role models I had had up to that point in others that had made music their careers. I entered college straight out of high school and declared bassoon performance as my major with a secondary concentration on piano. Now, for someone that had been playing piano since he was 5 years old and had only been playing bassoon since the end of eleventh grade, this would seem to be a somewhat backwards order; but, I was able to hold my own on the bassoon during my senior year of high school against a fellow senior that had been playing for at least the past 4 years and a freshman that also had a year's head start on me. After that first year of college, I got my first ever job at Busch Gardens. Yes, I did say "first ever." I never had a job during high school like so many of my peers did.

The next school year was uneventful as I continued down the path I had begun the previous year and went back to the same job that summer. About a month before I was to go back to college for my third year, I started going out with the girl that would eventually become my wife. Though we had actually met the summer before, we worked in separate areas of the park so we didn't actually hit it off with each other until this summer.

Over the next few months, I began to realize that this was the person with whom I was destined to spend my life. I would propose marriage to her a mere 9 months after we began dating and we would get married 18 months following that. I also came to the realization that my original plans were insufficient for 2 reasons. First, music was something from which I derived great pleasure and being required to study and analyze every minute aspect of it to the extent required in order to receive a degree was draining a great deal of that enjoyment out of it. Second, I came to the conclusion that in order to provide for a wife and potentially a child or two, I would have to either be one of the top musicians in the country, which was quite unlikely, or change to an education major. So, after two and a half years of working toward a music degree, I withdrew from that degree to begin considering just what it was that I wanted to do for a career that I would actually enjoy doing that would also allow me to still have my music on the side for enjoyment.

Finding a position as a church musician gave me the outlet for using my musical talents to God's glory and my enjoyment. After a short stint working in retail, I was offered a temporary position with the accounts payable department of a national home builder and eventually decided upon accounting as my chosen career and applied to the local community college to begin an Associates degree. As I did not want to take on any more student loans, I had decided to pay for it all myself which meant one class each term due to time and money restraints and had fortunately taken both Principles of Accounting semester as well as a couple other general education credits before having to withdraw out again. It would be several years before I would be able to get back to working toward a degree.

The next few years would see me relocated from Virginia to South Carolina to avoid losing my job (and along with it the health insurance and 401(k) matching I had accrued), promoted into a supervisory position in charge of several accounts payable offices, and laid off due to the downturn in the housing market - all the while threatening to return to school to continue my degree. I had even applied and been accepted to the college I am now attending but never followed through to register for any classes. Being forced onto the job search showed me just how limiting not having some kind of degree really was when it came to finding new employment even with almost a decade of accounting experience under my belt. I felt intimidated to send in my resume for several jobs that listed they were looking for a degree and I'm also relatively sure I was overlooked by some of the job listings to which I did respond due to my lack of a degree.

Knowing that I needed some kind of credential to qualify my knowledge, I became a Certified Bookkeeper over the next few months and reapplied to the college to truly continue my degree. My student loans from my first degree attempt were just about paid off so I now felt comfortable taking on that kind of financial aid to finance this attempt to be able to work along on it at a decent pace. In a prime example of it being who you know more than what you know that matters when it comes to getting your foot in the door at a company, I was interviewed for and offered a job with the accounting department of another real estate company at about the same time as I started my first class toward completing my degree.

Now, if I can just keep up the momentum I have established over the last 4 terms, it should only take me an additional 7 terms to get that degree that was started a decade and a half ago. Wish me luck!

Reading the Signs?

As I was reading the Letters to the Editor in The Post and Courier today, I saw a letter that made me sad. The writer of the letter was a gay man that talked about being inspired by a billboard he saw on I-26 that reads "Gay Rights are Civil Right." Now, while I certainly believe that being gay is an abomination to God's creation and clearly spoken against in His word, that's not the part that made me sad as they are still people and should be treated as such regardless of the lifestyle they have chosen.

However, the writer goes on to state that down the road from the first billboard is one that he states "confirms ... that I am all right with the Lord my God." Quoting Isaiah 44:2, the second billboard states, "I am your Creator. You were in My care even before you were born." From this (by the way, the second billboard is actually dealing with abortion, not homosexuality) the writer states that God "knew that I would be gay, and he was OK with it before I even knew and was born. God does not make mistakes ..." Indeed God doesn't, but man most certainly does.

Just because God knows it's going to happen, doesn't mean he's okay with it. For example, God knew that Adam and Eve would sin in the Garden of Eden but would you say he was OK with it? Of course not! When God designed man, he gave us this little trait that is unique among the animal kingdom called free-will where we are free to accept or reject Him.

I'll be praying for the writer of this letter in hopes that his eyes will one day be opened to see that the one true God is not okay with his chosen lifestyle and that he may join us all in heaven one day.

100 Pounds in 50 Weeks

I know it's a bit late for "New Year's Resolutions," but maybe by making it a bit later I'll have a better chance of sticking to it. I have resolved to lose 100 lbs. over the next 50 weeks using a healthy living community called SparkPeople. I'm on day 2 and I have to say I'm feeling good about it so far. Just the simple fact of keeping a food journal to document everything I eat is helping to keep my portions under control. Please pray for me and cheer me on as I work toward this goal!

For updates on my progress and other items relating to this goal, please come visit me at my SparkPage.

Why is family so difficult?

Why is it that we find it more difficult to talk to family about religious matters than we do a complete stranger or other friend? Now, don't get me wrong, my family are all born-again believers that are assured of their salvation and final destination; but, some of their attitudes toward people that they call friends that belong to another Christian faith that doesn't have enough right to be as assured of salvation alarms me, yet I can't find it within myself (even with God's conviction and help) to say anything. Do they care so little about where these people whom they refer to as "friends" will be going that they are unwilling to share with them the correct beliefs that will point them in the right direction so they can be together in heaven? Doesn't sound like much of a friend to me.

Lord, please give me the strength to say something before it's too late. Amen!

Where does the time go?

Well, already a month of 2009 has come and gone and I still can't seem to find the time to regularly write an update here. In two more days, my son will be three months old and I'm finding that the trick to getting family to drive the 7.5 hours to come visit us was just to have a baby. In the last three months, we have had more visits from our family in Virginia than in the whole rest of the 7 years we've lived in Charleston, SC.

Well, today LJ is exactly one month old. It's hard to believe I've really been a father for an entire month already.

LJ is Here!

Well, the day has finally come. Our little gift from God has arrived. His name is James Madison Prevatt, III but we'll be calling him LJ (Little James) for short.

Stats:

• November 5, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
  
• 6 lbs., 10 oz.
• 20 inches long
  

Baby Shower for LJ

Our friends at church threw a baby shower for us and LJ. We were extremely overwhelmed at the generosity of everyone that attended and gave gifts.

LJ (Little James) at 28 weeks

Here is today's 3-D ultrasound of baby James taken at 28 week. You can see almost his whole face (he's nestled up against Mommy) and both of his hands.

One Semester Down

Well, I finally completed my first semester toward my Bachelor's degree at Liberty University. I passed the history survey course with an "A" and the English course with a "B." Have I ever said how much I hate poetry and writing about literature? Well, it's overwith and on to the second semester where I'll be taking courses on worldviews / apologetics, biblical literature, and microcomputer applications. I'll be sure to breeze through the computer course and I'm looking forward very much to the other two. One thing I love about attending a Baptist college is the emphasis and intermingling of aspects of Christianity into each class.

Pregnancy Progressing

We just had a visit to the doctor and it appears that everything is going just fine in our pregnancy. We are currently at 24 weeks with mom and baby doing just fine. Hopefully, this will be the norm for the remaining 16 weeks and I'll be holding my boy at the beginning of November.

Is My Life So Boring?

Is my life so boring that I can't find something to write about at least once a week or am I just lazy? The dates on my blog entries go back to May 2007. This is only my 26th entry in over a year and most of the entries are short blurbs about what is going on.

So, here's my goal: at least one post (of any length) per week with at least one each month being of a substantial length. Let's see if I can follow through this time!

Family-Friendly Entertainment?

Here is another excerpt from a paper I wrote for my English class:

Entertainment media are becoming less and less "family-friendly" and, as parents, we have to be more careful about what our children watch than our parents had to be with us or their parents with them. Even the so-called children's channels and programs can sometimes cross the line to subjects and words that children simply should not be hearing. It is for this fact that my wife and I have decided that our child will not have a television or computer in their bedroom so that we can keep a close eye on what they are watching and doing.

One mistake some parents make is thinking that just because a television program or movie is animated that it is suitable for children. But, this is simply not always the case. Even the MPAA ratings for movies cannot be completely relied upon as a foolproof indicator of whether a movie will be suitable for children. Yes, it will take lots of prayer and trust in God for parents to actually spend the time making sure that what their children are watching is wholesome and appropriate for them. While it is certainly okay to allow ourselves and our children to be simply entertained, we do need to make sure that the content of that entertainment does not contradict the good morals and values we are instilling in them in other aspects of life so that they will continue to make good entertainment decisions even when we are not around to make sure they are watching the right things.

A Return to Holistic Education

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote for an English class I am taking:

One of the saddest failings in the modern educational environment is the focus on fact-based knowledge. In most schools ranging from elementary all the way through to some post-secondary levels, students are being taught according to whatever test will be administered in each subject. If it is not going to be on the test, students are unwilling to learn and teachers are unwilling to teach due to the emphasis placed on the test scores and quantity, instead of quality, of knowledge. This situation is also compounded by the fact that each subject is usually taught in isolation of all other subjects. The mass of facts that students must learn in each subject is so extensive that it has also been said that no single person could effectively teach all of the subjects that students are required to learn.

We need to return to a more holistic approach to education as was the norm in ancient and Renaissance times. A scholar or student during these periods would have been taught not only facts but would have been more accustomed to critical thinking to be able to solve problems that did not come out of a book as well as seeing the interconnectedness that exists between and within all disciplines of knowledge. A return to that type of education would find more students getting excited about learning rather than seeing school as simply a drudgery of facts and isolated knowledge to be regurgitated on demand then forgotten because they have not been shown how this knowledge could help them in life outside of that particular subject.

It's a Boy!

We just found out right this very second that we're having a boy. How exciting! Now we can start deciding how we're going to decorate the nursery. We're going to have him carry on my name and be the "III."

New Child and Job Search Continues

Well, it's finally happened! After 5+ years of trying, my wife and I are finally expecting our first child. This is most definitely a gift from God as my wife had just about all but given up hope of us having a child naturally, though I always had faith that He would make it happen when he thought it best for us.

That was the positive and this is the not-so-positive: my most recent assignment ended on Friday. I am sure God will provide me with a way to continue to support my (growing!) family so I am not afraid of what the future may hold. I did have an interview this morning for a position open at a restaurant downtown and I though it went well. I should hear something either this evening or tomorrow about whether I have been chosen for it. In the meantime, I will continue to apply for jobs and pray that God will provide as he always does.

Procrastination is Key

Well, I finally got around to update my business's website to reflect the fact that I am now a Certified Bookkeeper. At times I think my procrastination gets out of hand. I started writing this entry on Friday but didn't finish and publish it until now.

I've Been Certified

No, I haven't been certified crazy. I am now a Certified Bookkeeper! What is a "Certified Bookkeeper" you might ask? Well, according to the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers, through whom I received the certification, I have now proven I have "the level of knowledge and skill needed to carry out all key functions through the adjusted trial balance, including basic payroll, for firms of up to 100 employees." This is an important step for me since I have been unable to complete my degree in accounting as of yet. This now gives me verifiable proof that I have the knowledge that I say I do. Now the fun begins!

I've Gone Mainstream

Well, I've finally decided to go mainstream with my blog rather than continue to use my own website and software package because I'd like to be able to interface with other sites as well as use the mobile blogging feature here. I will be transferring all of the entries from my old blog to here as time permits. This move will also mean that updates should be almost daily but will not be any farther apart than a week.