Bitten by the Apple
I never thought that the day would come that I would own an Apple product and then came the iPhone. I was reluctant at first to jump to the iPhone because I was in such a comfort zone w/ my Palm Treo and I had concerns as to how it was going to sync up w/ Microsoft Outlook (which I have been married to for as long as I can remember). Well, once I got the iPhone, needless to say, it revolutionized my life.
Fast forward about 6 months and I am hacking away during a client meeting on my “less than 2 year old” HP Tablet PC making notes and it just dies. Fortunately I was able to plug it in when I got back to the office to backup everything one more time before it died again, just sitting there, no one touching it. I called HP and got the run around about how they couldn’t just replace the motherboard for me, which I knew was the case, instead they were just going to send me out a new one, for $400 of course. Well, I almost did it, but then I got to thinking… All of my friends are moving toward the Mac, and for the most part I only see excitement in their eyes when they talk about their systems, and for me, well honestly it’s been the opposite. Nothing but heartache and despair on my end. So I decided to head to Best Buy to talk w/ an Apple professional who answered my questions (for almost an hour).
So, with the Rackspace conference coming up in a few days I decided to make the plunge and get a MacBook. Plus, I have another side venture that I have been working on that I needed a tax write off for so I dove in w/ both feet. I opted for the exact same model that my business partner Stephen had gotten about a year earlier since he had been very happy w/ his machine so far.
Well, I brought the machine home that night and didn’t even bother unpacking it, thinking to myself I would wake up in the morning and it would have all been a mistake and I could take the thing back and never tell anyone I almost went Mac. Well, long story short, I plugged it up the next day and downloaded a few programs that I had heard some friends talking about, one of these programs was Coda. I spent a little bit of time playing around w/ it and I have to tell you, I was determined to keep the machine after seeing it. It’s everything in a web development suite that a guy could want. And, honestly it’s not only Coda, there are several other applications that I have downloaded that I see a lot of potential in down the road. These are programs that I hadn’t ever seen before, it was like being at an all you can eat buffet with delicious foods from another country I had never heard of before. (had to use a food analogy, sorry.)
It’s not only the applications and programs that are available, it’s also about the hardware. With my tablet PC, and any PC I had ever owned for that matter, it’s always been about shutting down and waiting on the freaking thing to reboot itself. Well, w/ this MacBook, I just shut the lid when I am finished and open it when I am ready to use it. The reboot on it is very lightweight should I decide to do a shutdown too. No more embarrassing 5 minute waits while sitting in a client meeting to open OneNote.
In addition to the smooth operational aspects of the MacBook Pro, I also noted that the machine itself doesn’t get hot in my lap. With my old Tablet PC I literally could not hold it in my lap, it got hot enough I could iron my pants with them on. Ouch, yeah.
I am looking forward to familiarizing myself on this machine and learning a new OS, something I didn’t think would ever happen for me. I am normally very resistant to change, but in the case of the MacBook Pro, I am making an exception.
Just an Update, and Thanks.
This past week turned out to be one of the toughest weeks of our life. Not only did we go in for a routine ultrasound and find that our baby’s heart had stopped beating but we also had to endure a D&C procedure two days later so that Donna’s body could start the healing and recovery process. For the past week we have just shut our doors and fell off the radar, that’s pretty much how we handled things the first time too. We just spend a lot of time w/ one another watching movies, talking, and being lazy.
For the most part Donna and I are both doing well, we still think about it, I caught myself glancing at baby strollers the other day in Target while I was waiting on a prescription to be filled and yesterday while we were in Wal-Mart I caught Donna looking at children’s clothing, Yesterday afternoon we both decided it was time to get out of the house and enjoy some fresh air. She and I both are huge fans of Hibachi style food so we decided to drive to Little Rock for some KOBE. We had an awesome dinner, even managed to laugh a little bit. I think it was somewhere on the drive home that I realized we were going to be just fine (and believed it this time).
Donna and I appreciate your thoughts and comments on Facebook and Tweets more than you can imagine, sorry if we didn’t respond in person but there was simply too many of you, please accept my apologies. See, the entire week we were hermits by choice, just wanting to be left alone to sort things out. Occasionally we would pull up those tweets, comments, and emails and read them, sometimes aloud to one another. Your words of comfort have helped us get through this whole thing. In addition to that some of you sent flowers and food, completely out of the blue, one particular floral arrangement almost brought me to tears, it was from my #RefreshCA friends. Needless to say, our living room looks like a florist and I have gained 20 pounds by now. You have no idea how much this all has meant to us and I could literally sit here all day and try to express our gratitude and how much you guys mean to us in words but still come up short so I will just say this, we love you guys and will never forget your thoughtfulness.
If you are a client, I apologize if I am running a few days behind on your projects right now, I promise I will get caught up this weekend. If you need me for anything, just holler, my phone is no longer going straight to voicemail. I even shaved off that Grizzly Adams looking beard thing that I had going on last night before we went to dinner, I know that Donna had to appreciate that. I’m not saying I am back to 100% just yet, but it won’t be long…
Ms. Woman w/ an Attitude & Wordpress 101
Okay, so the other day I got a phone call from a lady inquiring about a website. My partners and I have a long-standing policy that if in the first five minutes of a phone conversation if we don’t get a good vibe from the client, meaning that we think we can have a good working relationship w/ the client, we simply don’t follow up. At the end of the day it saves both us and the prospective client a lot of time. One thing that I have learned over the years is that if I can’t have a good working relationship w/ a client, I can’t do them any good.
Ms. Woman w/ an Attitude…
Well, this phone call was one of those situations. Honestly I don’t even remember this ladies name, not that I would point her out or anything, that’s not what this post is about. Here’s how our conversation went. For the first 2 minutes of the conversation she told me that she was shopping around for a development and hosting company to work on her companies website. She then went on for the next 3 minutes and told me how she was “appointed” the overseer for the project, and then she went on to tell me that she was over 15+ people in her department. So far, 5 minutes into the conversation and we hadn’t even discussed the project. I sat there patiently and finally was able to get a word in edgewise to ask her what the project consisted of. She then gave me about a 3 minute overview of the project, finally parking on the fact that she needed to have the ability to update content internally. This got us on the topic of content management.
Usually content management discussions w/ Pleth either go one of two directions once we get a good idea as to what the clients needs are. We predominately build upon MODx and WordPress for our client projects. Occasionally we will bring in other CMS solutions if it’s a good fit, but 90% of the time our client builds go into one of those two solutions. Well, while I was asking some discovery questions about what her content management needs were going to be and what kind of data she was going to be posting, she completely did a 360 and started telling me about her qualifications. She had a bachelors degree in something like business management, a minor in computer science, or vise versa. She then went on to say that she had her doctorate in something else and had been certified as a project manager in the last 12 months. She even went as far as to say that “my skillset is well above average”. It was like she was giving me her information for a job interview, or she might have simply wanted to hear me say “wow”, but honestly that sort of thing just doesn’t impress me.
I asked her if she had ever managed a website before and her response was that she managed a department with 15+ people and headed up two committees or departments in her organization. So, I asked again. If you are a web developer you are going to get a kick out of this one… She finally got around to answering my question with a resounding, “not really”, I mean I used to do our sorority newsletter in FrontPage. LOL.
I then asked her if she had heard of Wordpress, she said that she had but didn’t have any experience working with it. Before she could remind me of her extensive educational pedigree I stopped her and asked her if she would like to look around in the backend of a site running wordpress to get an idea as to how it all worked. She agreed so I pointed her in the direction of my sandbox machine and got her logged into it. You would have thought I showed her the schematics to an atomic bomb. It was one of those moments where the other person on the line is completely discombobulated. I could tell by some of her extremely elementary questions like, what are pages?, that it simply wasn’t going to work out. She just didn’t get the idea that she was able to add pages and posts from inside a control panel. I could tell that she was deflated at this point but she spoke up one more time and mentioned her background in Computer Science or something along those lines and quipped about her “above average skillset” one more time before I had enough and told her that there was no way I could get her up and running over the phone.
The Skillset of My Chihuahua…
Then, at this point I was a little frustrated that I had been robbed of 30 minutes of my busy day w/ a lady who was so hung up on herself that she couldn’t listen and learn, that I just informed her that she basically, with all of her degrees and certifications, had the website management skillset of my Chihuahua and that if we did decide to take on her project that there was going to have to be some time allocated in our proposal for training before we could turn her loose on the site.
Upon detecting that I was getting frustrated and was genuinely unimpressed by her, her demeanor changed completely. She said that she didn’t think that based on her qualifications that her board of directors were going to want to spend any money toward training her to do anything. I wished her the best of luck and told her that I had to head to a meeting. I gave her our corporate office phone number and told her if she had anymore questions just to give us a call. Knowing that my partners might have a better shot of working w/ her than me.
Right after that phone call, I felt the need to vent on Twitter about what had just happened. Here’s my post if you are interested, it actually got retweeted a few times too…
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem in the world training clients who have zero experience to run content management systems but in order for me to be a good trainer, the client has to be receptive to suggestions, and willing to learn. When this chick started on and on about herself, it quickly became a situation that I wanted to get out of as quickly as possible.
Okay, I told you that story to pose a question…
Why Don’t Colleges Require Business Majors to, at the very least, learn Wordpress?
When a student graduates from college w/ a 4 or 6 year degree and enters the workforce, just like this lady did some years ago, what good is their diploma if they can’t even manage their corporate or small business website? I am sure that someone majoring in Business will pick up a lot of valuable knowledge and tools that will assist them in running their own business or in a management position for some corporation that hires them, but at the end of the day, they can’t even operate Wordpress, the most simple, widely used, content management solution on the planet?
It just seems to me that educational institutions across the country should at least offer CMS 101, or Wordpress 101, to get their students up to speed with managing web content. I am not saying that this needs to be some highly involved technical curriculum or anything like that, but it would be nice if they at least knew the difference between a page and a post??? Mind-boggling.
There you have it, I have spoken my mind. Thanks for enduring my rant. Again, please don’t get the impression that I am opposed to working w/ clients that have no computer skills whatsoever, that’s simply not the case. In a way, I welcome those opportunities because at the end of the day it gives me a sense of accomplishment to see my clients become comfortable w/ their abilities.
As an aside…
Just a few days after this conversation took place I was contacted by the University of Central Arkansas here in Conway to provide them w/ a basic wordpress installation as well as managed hosting for one of their departments. The project that I am referring to has launched a website that will be entirely managed by students who while they are learning to become journalists, they are also learning some valuable skills in terms of content management by working with Wordpress.
Attention: Conway, Arkansas Twitter Community
The other night my wife and I attended the Little Rock Tweetup, also known as #LRTweetup. We had a blast connecting with people that we talk to on a daily basis inside the social network Twitter. The #LRTweetup was organized several months ago and have had several meetups at various establishments around Little Rock. They have even helped raise awareness to some very good causes such as Reach out and Read Arkansas and most recently Meet me Halfway, which brought into town Country Music Performer Jimmy Wayne.
The Little Rock Tweetup group meets on a pretty frequent basis if for no other reason than to have a drink and unwind with friends after a busy day. The calendar can be found online for #LRTweetup if you are interested in attending, it’s a great networking opportunity. The venues for each Tweetup change from meeting to meeting and from what I can tell the business owners that host these events see an obvious economical impact from having an influx of people converge on their establishments. To learn some more about the Little Rock Tweetup, click here…
Now, here is my question. Keith Crawford, one of the organizers of the event and one of my good friends asked me if I thought such a group would go over well in Conway. I told him that I wasn’t quite for sure if there was enough interest so I thought that I would put out this feeler post to see…
Would you be interested in being a part of the Conway, Arkansas Area Tweetup?
If so, please leave a comment below and let me know…
#LRTweetup, Meeting Jimmy Wayne & More…
My wife and I went to the Little Rock Tweetup tonight at Prost in the River Market. This was my first #LRTweetup and it was an awesome social experience. It was nice to put a face w/ the name avatar for a lot of the people I talk w/ on a daily basis. I even got to meet the lovely @KerriJack tonight who my wife and I really enjoyed speaking with.
As we were meandering (a word I learned this past week) and talking w/ some of our friends I noticed a guy across the room that looked familiar. I kept thinking to myself that I had seen this guy before and it wasn’t in the local circles. Finally as he was walking across the room it popped in my head, this dude is a singer, Jimmy Wayne… I knew that he was walking across the country to bring awareness to homeless teens in the nation, the project, http://meetmehalfway.jimmywayne.com/, is something that I was somewhat familiar with already. As we got to talking my wife and I both realized at the same time that okay, here is this dude, extremely talented, career shooting to the moon, just released a new album, and he has walked all the way to Little Rock from Nashville to raise awareness to homeless teens. Incredible. What a guy, I am still a bit overwhelmed by it all…
For those of you not familiar w/ Jimmy Wayne’s music, here you go… (you can see some more of his tunes on YouTube.)
I even snapped a few pics on my iPhone for posterity of Jimmy and I and my good friend Keith Crawford because I am a total goober! The lighting was a little dark inside so the pics turned out pretty dark. I am happy to have met this guy, incredible dude… You can follow his journey on Twitter at @jimmywayne.
Also, you can follow Jimmy’s travels by clicking here. Here’s a little information about his project that I snagged from his website:
On January 1, 2010, Jimmy Wayne launched his “Meet Me Halfway” campaign when he begins his solo walk halfway across America in Nashville, TN. Wayne’s intention is not only to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless, especially at risk children, teens and young adults, but also raise funds for organizations that benefit homeless youth, including HomeBase Youth Services, a Phoenix, AZ based organization that provides essentials for homeless young adults. Wayne will begin the walk at 10:00 a.m. CT on January 1st at Monroe Harding in Nashville, another organization that services at risk children and young adults. He plans to walk to Phoenix, AZ. [read more]
Last, but certainly not least, if you want to make a donation to support what he is doing, you can do so at one of these links:
- Update 10pm: I just saw on Twitter where Jimmy is camped out tonight in the parking lot at The Capital Hotel in Little Rock. I offered up a room tonight, but judging by tour bus in the background, I probably sounded like a goober. LOL
Mile Wide Smile from Haiti
There hasn’t been a lot of video out of Haiti since the earthquake last week that could put a smile on your face, but this one might do just that. This little boy was trapped under rubble for 7 days, I know that’s hard to imagine. Watch his expression as they pull him up from the rubble. Priceless… If you want to make a donation to help the people of Haiti, you can do so at www.redcross.org.
Zebra + Donkey = Zonkey!
I was talking w/ my mom the other day and she was telling me that she had seen a Zonkey. This didn’t register at first w/ me so I had to ask her to clarify what exactly a donkey was. Apparently a Zonkey is a cross between a Zebra and a Donkey. Okay…
The first thing that popped in my head was the mythical creature from Napoleon Dynamite called a Liger, which was a cross between a Lion and a Tiger. I have actually heard rumors where that cross-breed had actually been done, haven’t actually seen one in person though.
Still not quite sure what this “Zonkey” creature would look like I had asked for some photo verification. Fortunately today my cousin emailed those over to me. I am not going to give out the exact geographical location as to where this animal is but will say that it is in Arkansas. Here are the photos if you are interested…
A Healthier Diet of Content Consumption
While I have been multi-tasking on several projects this weekend I have also forced myself to do something pretty uncharacteristic of me, I have completely changed my daily information gathering routine. This plan will go into effect this next week. This is a plan that I have had for a few months now but have only recently taken the time to follow through.
My morning ritual when I start the work day consists of about 7 newspapers / media outlets that I subscribe to or read for free online. I won’t go into which newspapers or media outlets these are, but I will just say that combined they pretty much cover the spectrum and I can start the day pretty confident that I know what’s going on in the world. As far as this part of my morning routine goes, it’s not going to change that much, but once I finish the news, I usually go out and check my Google Reader to see what’s new from the blogosphere.
I don’t think that before this weekend I had any idea as to how many blogs I was following. Some of these blogs are friends, family, etc., that are not frequently updated, so I moved those and tagged those accordingly in my reader, this grouping of content sources rarely takes up any of my time.
The next area that I focused my attention on was the collection of industry related news sources, like TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. Granted, those two are keepers, but there was probably a dozen or more sources that i must have added on a whim at some point and never got around to purging them. A few of these sources more or less quoted everything TechCrunch had on their site and just added a few lines to the top and pushed it out. I asked myself which of these content providers in this category did I want to hang onto and which ones could I trash. I started pondering this and finally out of frustration, I trashed them all. Then I carefully went out to each of these sites, skimmed their last 20 or so posts and asked myself what I could live without. Once I had gone through this process I added the 8 sources that I felt like I get the most value from and moved onto my next category. One thing I kept thinking to myself as I deleted these content providers was how much faster I was going to be able to get through what I wanted to see and then get started on my day. I also took a lot of comfort in knowing that in the worst case scenario that I deleted a provider that broke a major story that impacted the industry, I would find out about it just as quickly on Twitter as I would if I had it popped up on my desktop anyway.
In the past I have followed a lot of bloggers from around the country, I classify and tags these bloggers a little differently than I do people I know from around the state that also blog, this doesn’t mean that they are by any means more relevant or smarter, it just means that I don’t interact w/ them on a daily basis like I do some of the bloggers that I follow from around the state. One of the things that I noticed while I was looking over some of these bloggers that have accumulated such a huge following is that the content they are putting out is pretty much common sense at this point (social media this, social media that, etc.). I didn’t realize it but I was even subscribed to Guy Kawasaki, lol, that’s a stretch for me. In fact, in contrast, a lot of the posts that I saw from the other group of in-state bloggers was a lot more interesting and compelling than some of the stuff that was being put out to millions of followers with a national following.
This got me to thinking, I follow a lot of interesting people on Twitter and occasionally find myself on their blogs reading posts that they tweet about and quickly I thought of about 10 or so of these folks and added them to my other group of bloggers. Many of the true “experts” as people call them are now absent from my daily reading.
Well, this morning I didn’t get to go to church w/ my wife, instead I had a few things that needed to be wrapped up here at the house today so I came in and started my morning as I normally would a business day. I guess you could say that today was the first official run since I streamlined things, and I have to tell you that i wish that I would have done this a long, long, time ago. (kicking myself in the butt right now).
Something else that I am going to make myself get into the habit of doing in the very near future is to share more of the content that I read w/ friends, co-workers, etc. Google Reader has tools built in I think to do that very thing I am pretty sure but I have honestly not used it for much more than an aggregator in the past, so if you use Google Reader, be sure to add me as a friend or whatever so we can share cool things that we run across with one another.
Some Personal, Business, & Development Goals for 2010
The other day I was looking over my personal goals that I had set going into 2009. I feel really good about what I was able to accomplish in 2009 but unfortunately there are still a few things that I am going to carry over into 2010.
This is not to say that 2009 was a bad year, in fact I would say that 2009 was probably one of the best years I have had in a long time, especially in terms of business and personal development.
Personal Goals for 2010
I have set some pretty high goals for myself personally going into 2010 as compared to what I set for 2009. I have learned that I respond well when I put pressure on myself. Hopefully by setting the bar high I will be able to motivate myself to another level personally.
- Private Pilots License: One of the goals that I had for myself coming into 2009 was to get my pilots license. While I did manage to get a few lessons in I didn’t really devote a lot of time to accomplishing this goal. I am going to try to put forth a little more effort this year to get my license. I have checked into some classes offered by UCA for private pilot certification.
- Business Networking: One of the things I am most proud of in 2009 was helping to organize the Central Arkansas Refresh user group. I reflected on the #Refresh group a few weeks ago and gave some insight into how it all came together. Basically social media powered the group, but the group itself and our monthly meetings allowed me to make some awesome business contacts in the Central Arkansas area. I hope to continue growing my personal network in 2010 through outlets like the #RefreshCA group as well as attending various conferences.
- Speaking: I was fortunate enough to have been asked to speak at couple of events this past year on a variety of topics, primarily interactive marketing and social media. I really enjoyed being a part of these events and I hope to continue to take advantage of these opportunities when they present themselves.
- Diversify: While my passion is, and always will be, the internet, I plan on becoming involved in a few areas outside the web in 2010 as well. I have a lot of irons in the fire right now and I am not ready to make any announcements regarding any projects or anything just yet but I can assure you this, whatever business deals I get involved in 2010, they will strictly be sideline projects. I plan on staying actively involved doing what I am doing until I retire, these side projects will just hopefully help me retire a little bit sooner.
- Run in a 5k: Another one of my goals coming into 2009 was to become more healthy but I obviously didn’t do as well in that department as I would have liked. Hopefully I can do a lot better job in 2010. In order to push myself toward this goal I am going to try to run in at least one 5k this year. I haven’t decided on where or when yet, but after the first of the year I am going to start running and try to make this happen by at least the end of the summer.
- Build my Personal Brand: In a lot of ways I have already been building my personal brand by blogging here at The Cotton Club and by staying pretty active on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but I am going to try to take things to another level in 2010 by adding some exciting new things. One of the things that I will be adding is a podcast. I haven’t worked on the specifics just yet as to how often it’s going to be released or even when the first episode will air but I can assure you that it will happen in the first quarter of 2010.
Business Goals for 2010
My partners and I had a great year in 2009 despite the economic downturn that plagued the nation. We managed to pick up some great new accounts as well as further refine the focus of our business. I would like to build upon some of the products and services that we had a lot of success with this past year. Here’s the list of business goals I have put together so far…
- Email Outsourcing / Archiving: I have blogged a lot the past few months about our premium email products and archival solutions because a lot of attention has been placed on regulatory compliance in a lot of industries. I think that we have a very competitive solution that will continue to do well for us in 2010.
- Shared & VPS Solutions: Over the years my partners and I have made a tremendous investment in our hosting infrastructure. Today, thanks to virtualization, we are able to provide VPS, or virtual private server, solutions to development firms for a very competitive rate, even on a national scale. I am going to try to make an effort to promote our hosting solutions a lot more in 2010 than I did in 2009.
- Ministry Web Solutions: This past year we launched Powersite ministry solutions to showcase our web design and development packages geared toward churches or non-profit organizations. We have had a great response so far from the Powersite launch and I hope to continue that momentum going into 2010.
- Social Media / Interactive Marketing: My partners and I had a lot of success this year steering a lot of our clients into the realm of social media. We also saw some tremendous results from our efforts. I hope to make social media an even-more integral part of what we provide for our clients in 2010.
Development Goals for 2010
I didn’t do a lot of custom application development this past year so I have come up with some goals for the upcoming year to get me back into the development mindset. Here’s what I have come up with so far…
- Develop 2 iPhone Apps: I have two ideas that I think could be profitable, I just have to finalize my project parameters and complete the markup models for each project, which I should be able to do by the first quarter of next year, then I have the rest of the year to familiarize myself with Objective C programming and knock these projects out.
- Develop 2 Wordpress Plugins: I also have two ideas for Wordpress plugins that I want to release in 2010. I already have started coding on both of these projects but haven’t had the spare time to devote to wrapping them up. I typically code on these types of projects after hours in between client projects. Hopefully I will find the time in 2010, stay tuned to this blog for info on both of these plugins.
- Develop 2 Web Applications: I also have two web applications, both geared toward the agriculture industry, that I should be able to launch in 2010. Both applications are 75% complete, I am just waiting on some regulatory guidelines to be handed down by a few more states and then I can wrap everything up. I won’t go into a lot of detail about these apps right now but will when we finally roll them out.
- Develop a MODx Project: My business partner Greg primarily works in MODx while I develop most of my projects in Wordpress. While both solutions are great for content management, they are both very different in terms of their core foundation. I would like to develop a project this next year in MODx so I can become more familiar with it’s operation and functionality.
Instead of a Christmas Letter, Some Random Thoughts…
In lieu of our usual long-winded Christmas letter detailing all of the exciting things we did this year, I have decided to share some things that have been on my mind lately. This may come as a surprise, but occasionally I do have my serious moments where I am not blowing things up in the backyard.
The Things We Take for Granted…
A few days ago I was talking with some friends in Texas who informed me of a little girl who had put on her Christmas wish list that all she wanted for Christmas was a bed. Not a Dora the Explorer doll, or a purple 3 Musketeers Barbie Doll (don’t ask me how I know about these) but just a bed to sleep in, something we all take for granted. This has marinated in my head the past 2 days and it has just about driven me crazy. The things we take for granted can sometimes be viewed as luxuries by others. Also, why is it that the only time of year we even go out in search of situations like this is during Christmas? I think that a lot of times it’s our own selfish desire to end the year on a good note by giving to those less fortunate than ourselves than it is anything else. I am not pointing fingers at anyone but myself, and certainly not knocking any of the charities doing great work this time of year for those in need, I applaud what you are doing. The point that I think we should all ponder is this; what if we all were on the lookout for situations like this little girl all year long, and when possible help them out, regardless of the season?
Cherish Every Moment w/ the Ones You Love…
For the past few weeks I have been praying diligently for a friend that has spent every day for as long as I can remember at his wife’s side in a hospital while she battles for her life. Meanwhile, I complain when my wife asks me to hang my clothes up in the closet. What in the world would I do if I was in a situation like my friend is in? I know exactly what I would do, I would hang on to every second we have together and cherish it like it was our last. I love my wife dearly and love the fact that she and I are together just about every hour of the day. Even though I would never admit it to her, I can’t even stand for her to be gone to the grocery store without me, we have that much fun together just hanging out. I once had an anxiety attack in the parking lot of UAMS while she was just having a medical procedure, I can’t imagine what my friend is going through, but I do know that he has tremendous faith and it’s that faith that will see him through.
I have also been praying for 4 friends that lost their jobs this past year and haven’t been able to find jobs. Sometimes I take for granted that I am doing what I love to do for a living, and that I am one of the co-founders of a successful web company that despite a strong economic downturn this past year, we were able to prosper. I also have two of the best business partners a guy could ask for, as well as some of the best clients imaginable. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be unemployed, especially this time of year. I am extremely thankful for all of the blessings God has bestowed upon our business.
This past year our families have been brought even closer together by a series of traumatic events. One of my aunts had a stroke, another one had a terrible fall. This past year we also dealt with the passing of Donna’s grandfather and have watched Alzheimer’s take its toll on her grandmother. While all of these events were each devasting in their own way, we have all become very mindful that things could always be worse, and if it wasn’t for God’s ultimate mercy, they would have certainly been worse.
Looking to God During the Hard Times…
The most traumatic event for my wife and I this year happened back in October. As I am sure a lot of you already know, Donna and I have been trying for 4 years now to have children. We have spent thousands on fertility treatments, inseminations, etc., and finally after some adverse side affects from one of our last fertility treatments I told Donna that I didn’t want to proceed any further down that road because I loved her too much and didn’t want to see her go through the side affects any longer. About a month or two after we stopped the treatments and told God that we knew He wanted us to have children so we were going to leave all doors open for Him to give us our baby, and that included adoption, we started filling out paperwork, requesting information, etc. I bet I hauled in 200lbs of adoption literature from the mailbox that month. Well, wouldn’t you know it, we got pregnant on our own.
We were approximately 5 weeks pregnant and were in Oklahoma City attending church with our Brother and Sister in Law when Donna started having terrible abdominal pains. I immediately rushed her to the hospital and was even considering a med-flight to UAMS when we got the news that we had miscarried. We spent the next 2 weeks clinging to each other trying to make sense of the emotional roller coaster we had just been on. It would have been very easy for us to become discouraged, and I have to admit there were moments I questioned God as to why this happened, but in the end, God showed my wife and I both what we needed to see. It’s not that He was telling us we couldn’t have children, He was just telling us that we didn’t need anything other than Him to get pregnant. No fertility or doctors, just Him. He also showed us that this miscarriage happened for a reason, we don’t know the reason, it could be any number of things, but it did happen for a reason and that we will get pregnant again in His timing. The lesson I learned from all of this was to just turn things over to Him and let Him take care of it, something that I will never forget. Now, I can’t say for sure when my wife and I will be pregnant again, but stay tuned to my Twitter and Facebook and you will be the first to know (well, outside of the immediate family I guess).
I certainly hope that this blog post wasn’t too big of a downer, certainly not the happy Christmas letter that a lot of you have come to expect from us in past years, these were just a few things that we wanted to share…
If we don’t see you over the Holidays,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!
Cotton & Donna
