100 Highlight moments from my life.

i have lived [and continue to live] a full life…

The other day i posted about how my wife organised Black Widow and Hulk costumes so that we could watch the new Avengers: Age of Ultron movie dressed up.

i also returned home from my trip to Durban to find that she had discovered an old stack of photos from my life with some really crazy hairstyles and some crazier life moments documented right there before her eyes.

Sometimes love…

Every now and then i will post a status on Facebook or the Twitterer that starts with the words ‘Sometimes love looks like…’

Which will then go on to mention something [large or small] that my wife, tbV [the beautiful Val, yes folks the ‘b’ does not stand for ‘lovely’!] has done for me as a way of celebrating her more publicly.

The latest one looked a little something like this:

Sometimes love is walking into your bedroom two hours before you go watch the new Avengers movie with your wife and friend and finding a Hulk and Black Widow suit layed out on the bed ready to go…

Because largely of this:

Black Widow and the Hulk

The best part of it for me was that she thought it up spontaneously on the day at work and then went to find a place she could hire marvel suits from. And when i walked into our bedroom two hours before the film, both costumes were laid out on the bed without a word being said.

We don’t typically dress up as Marvel superheroes and go out in public. But this ended up being a hugely fun night with our buddy Regan and we made a whole lot of peoples’ days at Blue Route Mall [and in the car on the way there] including the two [grown-up] people who asked to have their photo taken with me [possibly not so much the Kauai lady who refused to come out of the back initially].

A couple of points from this:

# We need stories – fun, crazy, inspirational, risky, weird, touching – every now and then just step out of the ordinary and create a story that you can hold on to for the rest of your lives – one that you do with someone you really love or even a group of people as it becomes your story…

# Take time to celebrate the people in your life. No-one wants to hear gushy ‘my wife is the best wife in the world’ statements all over your social media every day, but just every now and then highlight a person you care about – your person, a good friend, family member – with a public one liner every now and then you can really make someone’s day. Or moment. Or hour.

# People are always watching [especially if your face is pastelled green and you are wearing a Hulk suit] – that argument you are having on someone else’s wall on Facebook, that blog comment you are pouring your heart into, that piece of paper you are casually tossing out of your car window, the way you look at and speak to the beggar lying in the street… there is almost always an audience and you will often not know who they are – which is why we are called to live well because we are constantly mentoring or discipling people by our attitudes, our words, and our actions, even though we didn’t particularly choose to.

Often i will be engaging with someone on Facebook or in the comments section of my blog and it seems obvious to everyone that this person’s mind is not going to change and people are urging me to stop engaging because it’s a waste of time. And largely i agree. But my response is always that my engagement is not primarily about them – there are always more people watching and not commenting who will hopefully [on a good day] see my attitude and way of dealing with the person or else be taking in the words of the argument and be chewing on those – it is seldom about the actual person in a situation where you can see they are not likely to change – so i still give them the opportunity to change, but more often than not it’s because i know people are watching. This might be something helpful to them.

# And lastly there is that well-known saying – ‘Always be yourself, unless you can be the Hulk, and then be the Hulk.’ 

What story are you going to be a part of this week? And who are you going to celebrate out loud?

Weekly Photo Challenge: (a day in my life)

the theme was a day in the life of me, and to a large extent this is what a regular day looks like: hanging out with my beautiful wife, looking deep and contemplative in many different ways and poses, messing around with technomology, being different in some way, playing some kind of sport, game or improv to the full [sometimes resulting in africa shaped injuries], appreciating bobblehead [or 3D] Hulk, taking time to worship God in nature or other ways, and more posing and deepful contemplation… only thing missing from this day is some food appreciation…

[For the previous Photo Challenge with the theme of ‘Future Tense’ click here]

Weekly Photo Challenge: (delicate)

nope, i just couldn’t do it.

narrowed my selection down to two and was trying to pick the photo that best represents ‘Delicate’ to me, but really could not choose between these two, so decided i had to share them both. what strikes me about the selection is the two completely different interpretations of the challenge that are presented:

the first one is a picture of our Christmas tree star:

“not a star?” i hear you thinking [as you roll your eyes exasperatively] – i beg to differ. did you not watch the Avengers? He was THE star! Well his alter ego and Ironman at least. So anyways a cardboard cutout where the precision scissor-work and folding are what shine out the theme. Why do i love it so much and why has ‘the Hulk’ earned the coveted spot at the top of our tree? Well, we live in a poor and broken-down community and one day, one of the kids on the block [but not one of the ‘New Kids on the Block’ cos that would have been doubly celebrationary] knocked on the door and when i opened it he handed me cardboard Hulk which he had made for me [to go alongside the 3D Hulk card and bobble-head Hulk that live in our kitchen] earning him immediate star ranking.

the second picture experience was a little more personally and pain-inflictedly delicate for me:

i had wanted dreads for many years and at this point had had two mostly failed attempts to get them done and so i decided to call in the professionals [or so i thought] – went to this African hairdressers and they twisted my hair up really tight and as painfully as they could possible imagine, pinned it that way and told me i had to keep it in for two days [which involved delicate sleeping attempts on my dad’s lazyboy chair as any pressure put on them was excruciating] and then the whole shop pretty much laughing at me two days later when i told them i had [some kind of subtle and weird in-house punked experience i imagine] and when they were taken out they looked more Michael Jackson than dread and only lasted a week or two… so lesson learned… [and the real working dreads i know have, courtesy two really good mates of mine, are growing strong and steady]

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Reflections’ click here]