Well, when I bought a trashcan with a snug lid to keep the raccoons from feasting on our back deck I apparently forgot to consider bears, who obviously could care less about snap-tight lids. Anyway, look past my daughter’s random marker art on the glass doors and enjoy my wife’s video and narration of our Thursday morning visitor. According to my wife (the family’s new resident black bear expert who gave me the play-by-play over the phone), this was most likely a “teenage bear.”
Posted by: Jason Swiney | August 13, 2010
Backporch Breakfast
Posted in Family | Tags: bear, bear video, black bear
Posted by: Jason Swiney | August 3, 2010
430 Miles for Coconut Shrimp?
After 8 days of Florida sand beneath my feet it was nice to hear the sound of my own gravel driveway crunch under my tires. And after 8 hours of cramped driving in my wife’s Honda Civic I felt relief as I stood, unfurled my spine, and let the blood circulate once again through my numb rear end. But at that very moment, when I yearned to sprawl out on my soft living room carpet and be an ESPN zombie, if my wife had said, “Hon, let’s drive back to Apalachicola and eat at the Seafood Grill”, I’d have responded with a decisive…”Get in.”
I may have even slid across the hood like Bo and Luke Duke.
Few meals are worth a 430 mile drive, but the Coconut Shrimp dinner at Apalachicola’s Seafood Grill may just be one of them. I waited a full year to get back for those shrimp, and it didn’t take much to persuade my fellow vacationers that we needed two trips to the Grill during this year’s stay on nearby St. George Island. My in-laws and I made it easy on the waitress…”Coconut Shrimp dinner please” (My wife did branch out and try a burger on the 2nd trip…I negotiated a shrimp for a couple bites…of course it was delicious too.).
But anyway…this post has a question to it, WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT MEAL? Maybe it’s right down the road, or maybe you’d have to fill up the gas tank, but WHAT MEAL GETS YOU EXCITED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT? Share if you dare (And just for the record, the second best restaurant meal on Earth is the Pesto Pizza at Mama G’s Italian Restaurant in Clayton, GA,…which thankfully for me is a much saner drive of only 27 miles!)
The Seafood Grill (Apalachicola, Florida)...well worth the drive.
Posted in Family | Tags: Apalachicola, Best Meal, Coconut Shrimp, Mama G's, Seafood, Seafood Grill
Posted by: Jason Swiney | July 20, 2010
Mud, Fire, Fun? Just Being A Boy
My wife calls it “being a boy.” Sometimes she says it in a bad way, such as when I tickle too hard, throw snowballs in the house, or try to give her a sweaty hug after going for a run. “Quit,” she’ll snarl, as if I’m the the boy from elementary school pulling her ponytail, “quit being a boy.” But sometimes she simply uses it, well…to remind me that I’m not as young as I use to be. So sometimes I hear “Have fun being a boy” or “Be careful being a boy” as I head out the door to go mountian biking, to play basketball, or to go…
…WARRIOR DASHing!
The official Warrior Dash shirt (which I am currently wearing to inspire me while writing this blog) displays the image of a black viking-style hat and simply asks “Are You A Warrior?” I don’t know about my official Warrior status, but I can now say I have finished the 3-mile adventure race and lived to write about it. After conquering completing the course featuring mud hills, mud pits, mud trails, pond crossings, cargo nets, fire jumps, and other obstacles (did I mention mud), I must admit I felt more like a boy than a warrior. And I mean that in the best possible way. For lack of a more poetic description, the Warrior Dash was simply…FUN.
Where else can you compete on a giant playground for grown-ups? Where else can you run/wade/trudge through a pond just because the course goes that way? Where else can you purposefully ruin your clothes sliding down a thirty-foot mud hill into a knee deep mud pit? Where else can you jump fire? And where else can you encounter runners dressed as He-Man, French Maids, Trojans, Fred Flintstone, etc?
Only at the Warrior Dash.
That’s right…and I just found out I can do it again. The small town of Clayton, GA has decided to host the race a second time and is inviting back all of its 10,000 muddy friends who participated in May (That’s right…10,000 runners). I guess it’s never too early to sign up and start training for next year’s race. So if you’re looking for a challenge, if you’re looking to have some fun, if you’re looking for a chance just to be a boy, then I encourage you to check out the Warrior site and mark the 2011 dates on your calendar. That’s 10 months to work on your costume, join the local Y, and then come home and give your wife some nice, sweaty hugs.
Posted in Friends | Tags: Adventure Race, Warrior Dash
Posted by: Jason Swiney | July 13, 2010
Basking in Miracles
God is good and the life He creates is simply miraculous – That’s pretty much all I could think this morning while sitting with my wife for her 16-week ultrasound. Watching our son squirm and wiggle, raise his hand, suck his thumb, show us his foot and tiny toes…was simply five minutes of miracle basking for the both of us. God is good, He is good indeed.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Psalm 139: 13-14
Posted in Faith, Family | Tags: 16 weeks, Baby boy, God is good, ultrasound
Posted by: Jason Swiney | May 18, 2010
Some Early Christmas News
Posted in Family
Posted by: Jason Swiney | April 10, 2010
A Dawg-day Afternoon (UGA Spring Game 2010)
We enjoyed the sound of the casually dressed UGA Redcoats beneath the shade of big oaks…
…and met a new (and very wrinkled) friend before entering Sanford Stadium to watch GEORGIA BULLDOG football! Read More…
Posted in Family | Tags: G-Day game, Georgia Bulldogs, Georgia football, Sanford Stadium, UGA
Posted by: Jason Swiney | April 3, 2010
Warrior Training and Shameless Self-Promotion
49 Days until the Warrior Dash. I’ve got seven weeks to be able to run 3.2 miles and get over, around, and under eleven obstacles. It stills seems like a good idea, but 48 days from now I’ll probably be thinking otherwise. So I’m training for this event which bills itself as “America’s Most Insane Race“. I’ve followed my wife’s lead and joined the local YMCA, but I’m not convinced the treadmill and dumbbells effectively simulate mud crawling under barbed wire, climbing cargo nets, and trudging through waist-deep water. And what really doesn’t make sense…is that we’re paying to humiliate ourselves participate in this madness. Read More…
Posted in Faith, Friends, writing | Tags: Among the Big Boys, Fit Christian Magazine, peer pressure, short story, Warrior Dash
Posted by: Jason Swiney | March 23, 2010
Dunkin’ and Grinnin’
She did it. She got dunked. That little girl of mine with the big grin and the never ending supply of questions went and got herself dunked. I knew it was coming. She’s been asking for sometime, at least for over a year now. I mentioned her desire for a dunking in a poem I wrote in April of last year, but I know she’d asked for months before that. And now that she’s officially dunked, I’m not sure the grin will ever come off.
Posted by: Jason Swiney | March 14, 2010
“Hand raisin’, Jesus praising” Sing-a-Long…Amen
Enjoy my brother-in-law Matt Baker leading “I’ve Been With Jesus” (AKA -The Fast Song) at Belmont Baptist Church in Calhoun, GA. For those who need to sing along, here’s the fast part:
I was a flesh pleasing, pleasure lovin’,
Double minded, mouth runnin’,
Back biting, Spirit fighting,
Thought my life was real exciting,
Church skippin’, hell seeking,
Lost and dying in my sin
Yeeeeeeehaw*
But now I’m born again,
Saved from sin,
Trusting Him until the end,
Hand raisin’, Jesus praising,
Spirit filled and screaming AMEN,
Crushing Satan, much is waiting,
Jesus is coming again!
*Yeeeeeehaws are optional (unless you live in Georgia or any state that touches Georgia).
Posted in Faith, Family | Tags: Belmont Baptist Church, Christian Music, I've Been With Jesus, Leading Worship, Matt Baker, The Fast Song, Worship Songs, Youth Ministry
Posted by: Jason Swiney | February 8, 2010
Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey-ey, Goodbye
So what should they play when you pass away? Haven’t thought much about it? Me neither. It’s my wife who throws out a “When I die” question ever so often. I usually try to change the subject, but this morbid blog idea came from her latest Facebook update. I’m not a Facebooker, but I’ve often been accused of being a Facebook moocher (and will be until my wife changes her password), and this is what I found on her current FB status:
In case Jason forgets, when I die, I would like “Jesus Paid It All” sung at my funeral by the Ebenezer House Band…..in fact, go ahead and sing it twice:)
Well, hopefully we won’t have to worry about funeral planning until we’re both old, shriveled, and wrinkled, but I do agree, if the Lord calls soon there’s no better worship band to play a Spirit-filled farewell song than our’s at Ebenezer Baptist in Toccoa, GA. Matter of fact, they can perform mine too, and I’ll go ahead and put my request in writing:
Posted in Faith | Tags: Chris Tomlin, Ebenezer, funeral, I Stand Amazed, Jesus Paid It All, Toccoa, Worship band
