It's Always Me

+ DAN'S HEAD = OUCH!

My Boss....Kaitlin

If you would ask me if I would consider myself the "head" of my household, I would say...yes(along with my wife of course). Most of the time I try to be the one that has the final say in family matters, that uses the authority that God has given me to help our family in the best way possible. That is all fine and dandy but there is one person who is moving in on my territory...Kaitlin. I have this daughter (who is only two years old) that has thrown the whole chain of command into disarray. The girl has this power over me that leaves me wondering exactly who's the boss. I have come to the conclusion that it is not me, it's her. I have two other children (both boys), that understand their place in our family. They know the rules and follow them... most ot the time. Kaitlin on the other hand, lives to a different set of rules... her rules. I don't know how this happened. I don't know how she does it. This tiny, cute, innocent little girl simply makes me do whatever she wants. If she wants to read a book fifty times in a row, I do it. If she wants me to hold ten of her dolls at once, I do it. If she wants me to get her five different snacks at once (only to eat a single bite of one of them), no problem. Why is she so different? What is this power that she has? I just don't understand it. Where have I gone wrong? A TWO YEAR OLD IS RUNNING MY LIFE! Maybe there is some kind of support group for this kind of problem. Maybe there is still hope that I can regain my position in our family...probably not... at least for about sixteen more years.

Sincerely,
Kaitlin's Personal Assistant

I've got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart?

As I read back through some of my previous post, I have noticed something. It seems that I tend to go on and on about my troubles. I go on about how crazy things happen in my life and how things sometimes seem to go wrong. I go on and on about going on and on. So today I am taking a day off of complaining and self pity. Today (and hopefully from here on out), I am going to take ten minutes each day to simply be joyful (and thankful) about my life and the things that God has done in my life. I did my first ten minutes this morning and it was awesome.

Here's the deal, too often I (maybe you, maybe not you), spend a ton of time telling everone who is in ear shot about what a mess my life is and about the latest cotastrophe at the Ponchot house. Truth is, bad things do happen but how it affects us is what's important. Does it throw us into some kind of depression, a week of feeling sorry for ourselves, an ice cream eating frenzy, or do we simply see it as part of living this life on earth and that our troubles really pale in comparison to the good things in our life. Where is our joy? Where is my joy?

This morning in my Bible study I looked at a passage in 1 Peter 1:3ish (message)-"What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven-and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The day is coming when you'll have it all, a life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine." Why is it that some christians are so negative about life when christians should in reality be the happiest people on the planet? We have this defeatest attitude like we are always under the gun and that we are these "poor little Christians". We forget who won the battle. Jesus took care of that a long time ago. I think that what it boils down to (at least for me) is that I sometimes misplace my joy . I simply lose it. I put too much thought into my every day, messy, life when I should be jumping for joy at what God has done for me. I am going to make every effort to keep the ten minute thing going. I think I'm going to like being happy more.
d.e.p.

Death of a "Flip Flop"

There are few things in my life that are very valuable to me; my relationship with Jesus Christ, my wife, my kids, my ministry, my guitar, and...my flip flops. My relationship with this particular pair of flip flops began over four years ago. I have had many other pairs of flip flops in my life but never have I felt so close to flip flop type footwear as I have this pair. There was nothing very special about this pair of flip flops; they only cost $3.00, I bought them at a bait shop in Tennessee, they are not a name brand, and they were not even close to a fasion statement but I think that all of those qualities in my dearly departed flip flops is what made them so special to me. I feel like a part of me has died, and in a way, I guess it has. What happened to my flip flops you ask? Well the police are still doing an investigation but based on the tear in the side, they think that it was an act of a...(sorry it's still hard to talk about) "flat tire". They still have some more interviews to do but they have told me that they have a "person of interest" in mind that may have commited this terrible flat tire. Here is the description of the person of interest: female, 15-16 yrs old, right footed, dark hair, possibly with the initials D.A., and probably wearing flip flops at the time of the crime. If anyone has any more information on who could have commited this act, please contact me as soon as possible. Well, I had better go. I am going to go out and bury my flip flops. I have a spot picked out right next to my 1986 Air Jordans.

Toilet Troubles

King Minos of Crete owned the world's first flushing water closet (that's a toilet) over 2800 years ago. The invention did not appear again until 1594, when Sir John Harrington built a "prive in perfection" for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth. Since then, many people have devoted their lives to the perfection of the modern toilet. In 1872, Thomas Crapper, a British plumber, developed a type of flushing toilet that held water for flushing and was much quieter than previous models. The American soldiers stationed in England during World War I who returned to the US used his name as a euphemism for the toilet.
I'm sure that this brief history of the toilet is fascinating to you but the fact remains that toilets are a fantastic inventions. I love toilets...until they break. Which brings me to the subject of this blog. Sunday afternoon, I returned home from church and went into our downstairs bathroom to...I think you get the idea. I look up at the ceiling to find that it is sagging down almost at eye level with water coming down through the middle. What a mess. It turns out that the toilet in the kids bathroom (directly above) had sprung a leak in the tank. I ended up spending all of sunday evening sitting in our kids bathroom repairing a toilet. That is just the beginning of the problems caused by the broken toilet. Now I have to replace the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom. Toilets are great...when they work.

d.e.p.

My Familia

I have a huge family. Not just my family but my extended family. I have two sisters (one older-one younger) and one brother (older). That may not seen like a lot to some of you until you look at how many nieces and nephews that I have. I currently have nine. They all are really nice and sweet in their own way. I have a very close relationship to some but I am less close to others. Most of them are in the age ranges of four to ten years old. Except for one. He is twenty-one. It cracks me up. At holidays, you should see the picture they always take of all of the grandchildren together. It's all of these cute little kids and then...him. I don't feel much like his uncle but more like his brother. Even though the age difference is still about fifteen years, we are much closer in our level of maturity (or lack there of). He is the one person in my extended family that I feel closest to. I don't know why I am writing about this today. I guess that I just took one of those walks down memory lane and certain people always come towards the front of my mind. He is one of them.

Coke Zero

I have started to realize that I have a big problem. You see, I suffer from an addiction. An addiction to...Coke Zero. It all started while I was yet a young lad. All of my life I have loved Coca Cola Classic. It is the best soda in the world. Even better than regular Coke is the Coca Cola that they bottle in Mexico. It's made with cane sugar instead of the corn syrup like here in the states. It is awesome. But I digress. The problem with regular coke is that it has a million (ok a lot) calories and that is the last thing that I need (if you have ever seen me in person, you know what I am talking about). So the switch to diet soda began all the while I still had a love for Classic Coke. For a while it was Diet Mountain Dew. Then Diet Dr. Pepper. All of these are okay but my yearning for Coca Cola Classic still remained. I tried Diet Coke but found it to be a very poor substitute for Coke. C2 was next and it tasted better but it still had a lot of calories. Then one day it happened. I stopped at the quickie mart to get a diet Dew or something and that's when I saw it...COKE ZERO. The sign above it said "Like Coke Classic, Zero Calories". You know what, they were right (pretty close anyway). Ever since, I have been a fan of Coke Zero. The problem is, it's getting out of control. I slowed down for a while because of the cost. But recently I found that I can get Coke Zero by fountain at the local Meijer's gas station. It's only $1.09 for a huge cup. People say that drinking too much soda can harm you but I don't seem to care. Is it wrong to drink so much soda (I drink a lot)? I guess I'll try to cut down, right after I finish the one I'm drinking at the moment.

d.e.p.

Pink Paint...The Final Chapter

It is finished. It was worse than I had ever imagined. My daughters room is now...PINK. I know what you all are saying, "It was painting a room with pink paint. What was the big deal?" As you all may recall, my fear was not the painting itself but going and asking for Strawberry Shortcake pink paint. Here's how it went. So I go to the paint store and start to check out the paint color choices. My plan of action was to kind of lay low so as not to draw too much attention to myself, buy paint, and go home. That didn't last too long. First problem: There are about sixty different shades of pink paint. I truly had no idea. I stared at them all and started to freak out. They all started to look the same. Time was ticking away. I just knew that sooner or later, someone I knew was going to come along and see me looking at pink paint. It was sooner and it was more than one person. No lie, I had four different people whome I hadn't seen in years choose this day and time to reunite. They could tell that I was uncomfortable. They saw the fear in my eyes. So being the great long lost friends of mine, they did what all my other friends do...ridicule me. These four "friends" gave me encouraging words such as; "Pink paint huh? Getting ready for a tea party" and "Oh pink paint, did you see that shade on the Martha Stewart show?", and the remarks went on and on. So I finally get rid of those "great" friends(former friends after all that) and it was down to the task at hand. The paint guy came over and asked me if I needed help. I couldn't tell you his name or even what he looked like. I couldn't look him in the eye. So he asks me "The" question. "What shade are you looking for"? I reply almost in a whisper..."strawberry shortcake pink". He says, "WHAT??". So I them reply, "pink...for my daughters room". Long story short, he gives a little chuckle and leads me to the Disney Paint Color section. He shows me paint colors called "Princess Pink" and "Fairest of them all" pink and "Pretty in Pink" pink and a whole slew of others. What did I decide on you ask? I wont tell. It's done and that's all that matters. All in all this experience has left a feeling inside of me. A feeling inside like I have made a big step towards maturity, true adulthood...or it could just be gas.

Pretty in pink,
d.e.p.

Lightning Strikes!

WOW!!! I almost had an accident in my pants. Last night we had a monster thunder storm at our house. It sounded as if lightning was striking right in our yard. Turns out, it did. Jacob came into the family room from the living room and said that there was a big orange flash in our front yard. When I went out to check it out, this is what I found. One of the pictures shows how far the inside of the tree blew down the street. Crazy!

Pink Paint...

It has finally happened. I am finally accepting that I am the father of a female. My first two children being male, I have never come across such a problem as the one I am about to face. I am going to paint something pink... on purpose. Please know that this is a big step for me. I have never painted with pink paint before. I guess that is not all together true. In college, I helped paint a friends car pink as a prank (I wish I still had the pictures), but never before with forethought and care. You see, I am painting my daughter's room pink. Strawberry Shortcake Pink to be exact. Julie is taking the kids to the lake for a couple of days so I have been told that it would be a good time to get some painting done. Now I'm all for home improvement, my favorite place to shop for back to school is Home Depot, but pink paint? What makes it worse is that I actually have to go to the paint store and purchase pink paint. I have been trying to figure out in my mind how to go about this in the most "manly" way possible. Even in my mind, it doesn't look pretty. I imagine me going up to the paint guy and saying "2 Gallons of your best pink paint" and then he says "what shade of pink?" Then I say, "Strawberry Shortcake pink", and then he says, "What is Strawberry Shortcake Pink?". Then I say, "Strawberry Shortcake is a cartoon about a girl who dresses in strawberry laiden attire, that smells like strawberries, that has friends who smell like other fruits, that....". And then, he will give me the look. "The" look. The look that says, "Wow, you're funny", but it won't be funny "ha ha" it will be funny "coo coo". So I'm trying to decide how to avoid that situation all together. Maybe I could get someone else to buy the paint or go to the paint store in disguise. Any suggestions would be helpful. Pink paint...I wonder what will be next...uh oh...Barbie!

d.e.p.

i'm messed up.

I feel weird today. Not that me feeling weird is anything new. Yesterday was pretty good. Brian's sermon was awesome. Then we had some friends over for lunch and to swim. Good times...good times.
Impact was ok. I just feel like I didn't get it done. I know that God said what He needed to say but I still feel like it wasn't my best effort. It makes me ashamed when I don't give people (especially God) my best effort. So today in my Bible study, I read 2 Timothy chapter two. Wow! Just what I needed to hear. You see in chapter two Paul talks about doing your best for God. Paul says around vs 15 (The Message), "Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won't be ashamed of, laying out truth plain and simple. Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they're not backed up by a Godly life, they accumlulate as poison in the soul". Man, I should have that engraved on my forehead. How many times to we talk just to talk, sing just to sing, and pray just to mark it off of the daily "to do" list? I guess my thoughts, words, life, and actions better be the same huh? Sermon to self (2nd time this week), over.


d.e.p.

Saturday

Well it's Saturday and VBS is over. I think that it was a good week. My kids really seemed to enjoy it. I STILL smell like vanilla pudding. I was "slimed" last night with vanilla pudding with green food coloring in it. It wasn't that bad except that I got it in my ears and it still feels like it's in there. It was cool to see our teen's from church working with the younger kids all week. They did a great job. One cool thing from last night was that I was able to talk to our missionary for VBS (Chris Irwin) for a while. What a cool guy. I told him that he was one of my hero's. He seemed to not really understand why he would be one of my hero's. Here's the deal. It amazes me when people make such a sacrifice to do what God calls them to do. Here is a guy packing up his whole family and moving to another country, leaving most of the comforts of the good ol' USA to tell others about Jesus. It makes me feel guilty in a way. I have trouble sharing Jesus with my next door neighbor. Now I know that God doesn't call all of us to go to a foreign country to be a missionary but he does call ALL OF US to tell someone what He did for us. Oh well, sermon (to myself) over.

d.e.p.

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FRIDAY

Well, it's Friday. I had to work one of my other jobs this morning before I came into the office. I hope that the big storms miss us for the VBS carnival tonight. Julie tells me that we have tickets for the Reds game tomorrow night. I must say I can think of a few things that I would rather do than go to the Reds game (not a big baseball fan) but I'll make the best of it. I think that Julie and the kids are going to the lake next week for a few days. I would have gone but too much to do. Julie loves to water ski. Jacob and Nathan like to tube. Jacob tried to ski a couple of times but would much rather get thrown off the tube. I'll miss them.

d.e.p.

Day off?

Today is my day off. I think all of the traveling over the past three weeks is finally catching up to me. I slept until 9:00am this morning. It is really rare that I sleep past 7:30am let alone nine. You would think that I would be a person that goes to bed early but I don't. Usually I go to bed at about 12:00 or so. I remember when I was is high school, I would sleep for about 15 hours straight on the weekends. Now I feel like sleep is a waste of valuable time. I'm so weird. I went into the office today to meet with the big boss man. It's funny, going into the office really doesn't feel like work at all. I have a lot of things to get ready for the fall and winter. I am really excited about things at LCC. I have a lot of ideas for the coming season. I just hope that I can make the time to get it all done. Anyway, it is great to be home. Last night after VBS; Julie, Jacob, Nathan, and I sat on the couch and just talked and made fun of each other. Again, it's the Ponchot type of bonding. Then we made a 10:30pm Taco Bell run. Needless to say I didn't sleep too well. Oh well, time to mow the grass and then back to VBS.
d.e.p.

Dan Ponchot Summer Tour 2006

Well the 2006 Dan Ponchot Summer Tour has been awesome. It started out with a week at Woodland lakes Christian Camp. All that I can say is that it was awesome. It was really great to see so many middle school students giving their life to Jesus Christ. The highlight of my week there probably was seeing an older brother baptize his younger brother into Christ. The tour continued with a trip to the North American Christian Convention in Louisville. I was very moved to see Christian Church's and Church's of Christ come together standing in worship as one body. The final leg to the summer tour was a trip to Milligan College, TN to attend a Christ in Youth Conference. I really had a great time and I was so proud of our youth from Loveland. I think that many of them are really starting to take their relationship with Jesus very serious. We laughed, we cried, we ate Pal's (best burger in the world), we healed, but most importantly I think that we all grew closer to Christ. It's good to be back home with Julie and the kids. God has truly blessed me with a great family and an awesome job. More later.

Tell your mother I said the word,
D.P.