I thought that I would look back and see what you guys liked reading from 2010.  Here are the top 5 posts ranked in order by page views.

1. Hold On by Rapture Ruckus
2. NY2LA Video by Press Play
3. Apple Says No To Cash
4. Global Leadership Summit Notes on Bill Hybels
5. Something Beautiful by Need to Breathe

It looks like music gets a lot of attention on my blog.  Maybe I will try to do more with music in 2011.

Did you have a favorite post that you remembered reading this past year?  If so, please share.  If I can learn what you liked reading, I can try to write more of the same kind of topics.

I had the pleasure of visiting Ephriam’s school yesterday to watch his class do a little Christmas performance.  It was so funny.  The video is below.  Each student got to have a dance solo for each song and they are dressed according to their song.  Ephriam is on the far left and is dressed in a Mexican outfit.  It is a longer video of 8.5 minutes, but very funny.  Enjoy!

Do you still send Christmas cards?  It seems like I see fewer and fewer every year, but we send them out every year and out list keeps growing.  I mailed 49 this year.  I was lucky enough to find a way to get free cards through Shutterfly this year for a blog post about their cards.  I paid for shipping for the cards and I had to pay postage to mail them out.

Anyways, there are many of you out there who I only have electronic addresses for so I am not able to mail you a real card.  I thought I would post our card here for you to see and wish you a Merry Christmas.  I wish that I could hang out with all of you in person, but I wouldn’t know most of you if it weren’t for blogging.  So here is our Christmas card for you to enjoy.

I posted a message last week on Twitter and Facebook about how my wife’s stinky gas forced me to leave the bedroom while she was napping.  I admit this may have been pushing the TMI department, but I felt it was noteworthy because usually it is me stinking her out of our room.

I realized through some friends comments on Facebook that if I was married to other people, then this would probably get me in really big trouble.  This reinforces the best decision that I ever made, to ask Faith to be my wife forever and ever.  Because she doesn’t really care that I share weird real stuff about us.  Now I do have some limitations.  I do not share intimate things that are intended only for the two of us.  I do not spout love sonnets across the Internet because those things are for her and her alone.  I don’t share things that I think are boring.

I do promise to do my best to be as real and authentic with you as I can.  My life is far from perfect.  I am not trying to portray something online that I am not.  I try not to complain too much.  I don’t use the Internet to masquerade anything.  I just use it as a tool to share whatever it is that my life is with anyone out there who cares.

So how far is too far for you on the Internet?  How real and authentic are you willing to get with people online?

I will note that there are dangers to sharing certain information, but I don’t see anything wrong with telling your story so that the world can see it.

This is the first time I have ever been unemployed at Christmas time.  So we have been looking for ways to cut back our spending to try to save a few bucks here and there.  So this year, we are trying to save on our heating cost by setting our thermostat lower.

Right now the house is set at 66 degrees.  It feels colder in our house than I can ever remember.  We really like it hot.  We don’t turn our AC on in the summer until the house gets up to 85.  Usually our heat is set at 72, so this is a big change for us.  I want to find some fingerless gloves that will let me type on a keyboard without my hands freezing off.

Are you one of those people who try to hold back the heat in the winter to save money?  How low do you set your thermostat and how long does it last?

Confession:  As if you didn’t notice.  I haven’t been blogging much lately.

My only excuse is that things have just been really busy lately.  We are 9 days from Christmas and there are still so many things to be done.  I have been working about 20 hours a week at church, but today I am staying home with the kids on their snow day.

So I thought that maybe I should check in on the blog.  So here is a little update on life.

Job Hunt:  There is not a whole lot going on there.  I am applying for jobs that I think I would like to do, but I am not just going to apply for any job just yet.  AKA, I haven’t applied at Walmart yet.

Work:  I am working part-time as an unpaid intern at Vineyard Community Church with their Student Ministries.  Currently I am redesigning the high school side of their web site.  I am also running the weekend services on the tech side.  I make sure everything is working and fix problems on the fly during services.  I am also working on small group curriculum that will supplement the upcoming series in January.  I am still leading my small group and loving every minute of that as well.  If I could continue to do this job for free, I would.  But at some point, I will have to move onto something that can help me to pay the bills.

The Kids:  When I am not helping at church, I am busy chasing and entertaining the little ones at home.  They are both enjoying school and super excited about Christmas.  I guess that being my kids comes with a healthy dose of the Christmas spirit.

Faith will be starting her clinicals in February.  This is a half a year earlier than projected.  This is great news as she will get done with school sooner, but the chaos of life when she is working full-time and going to school almost full-time will also come sooner.

God has been so very faithful to us in the past few months.  With a tight budget and the desire to spend crazy amounts of money on people at Christmas, it has been challenging.  But God has provided for us in miraculous ways.  You know those stories where people pray to God and ask for help with a financial crisis and then money shows up from somewhere.  It really happens.  God is faithful and stays true to his promises.

I still don’t have any answers about how things are going to turn out.  My hope is that my time with The Vineyard will help me to find a similar job where I can serve God with the gifts and passions that I have.  Ideally we need to stay in Cincinnati so that Faith can finish school.  I trust that God has it all worked out and that understanding isn’t my place.  I am just doing my best to live it out and follow where God is leading me.

I am typing this on my IPod Touch. Thinking that I may be able to work on the blog while I am on the go now. I am at a Christmas party right now for church volunteers. The best part is I get to have a little date with my wife while somebody watches our kids for a bit. I love date night.

Everywhere that you go there is a system.  Some of them work and some of them not so much.  Systems that don’t work bug me a lot.  But what bugs me more is when people know the system is broken, but they don’t actually fix the problem.  We will spend time and resources to get it functional, maintaining, band aiding, and duct taping the problem.  But it won’t be long before it is broken again.

Why don’t we just bite the bullet and fix the system?  Sure it might mean some down time.  It might mean some inconvenience.  But in the end it will be better and it will actually work.  Its like road construction.  It sucks!  But when it is all completed and the additional lanes are available, it is so nice.

I am willing to withstand some inconvenience if you would just fix the system the right way the first time.

Dear businesses, churches, and governments,
Please identify the problem and do what it takes to fix it.  Ultimately this is the best thing to do for yourself and the people that you serve.  Quit bickering about time and money and figure out exactly what it will take to solve.  It might take longer than you like.  It might cost more than you want.  I don’t care.  Please just figure it out.  I am tired of systems that are held together with duct tape.  And just so you know, I really love duct tape.