The Trammell Journey

Wonder Dave; the Beginning

2012-10-15T13:54:00.002-05:00

I just finished writing my favorite children's book to date. The book is called Wonder Dave; the Beginning. I did all the writing and illustrations myself, well I had help from the kids since they posed for modeling pictures. This story explains the meaning of friendship and teaches children right from wrong. Wonder Dave is a role model for young children to show them how to be a leader. This journey has been a lot of fun so far. I get to homeschool my kids, get them involved in computer technology, and make books they have lots of fun reading. The book can be viewed and purchased at Amazon.com through my collection from this site or you can click the link directly from this post.

Routine

2012-10-05T00:24:00.002-05:00

I have been at home with both of my kids for about a year and a half now. This is counting when I would be home during the day and work part time and night and of course this spring when I student taught for those twelve weeks. The biggest thing I have come to notice that they went over just a little bit in schooling is that children like routine. The routine makes them comfortable because they know what to expect. The day can go awry in a hurry if there is some errand or appointment that throws off the schedule. My children love to try and predict what happens next and get thrown off if something is amiss. There is one routine that hardly ever changes. The bedtime routine, it makes my life so much easier that they know what to do and I do not have to bug and pester them to do it. They know when dinner is done(We eat dinner a little late since Mom works twelve hour shifts) that they go potty, wash their hands, brush their teeth, we sing twinkle twinkle little star, pray, and do a little saying. This is a little harder to replicate for entire days. I try so hard to make sure they have a routine during the day that it makes it harder to get out and do things during the day. For example, my kids love the new computer education game I got for them and so today when I could not get it to work, it took me a good twenty minutes to calm them down enough to move on to the plan b project. Granted my children are two and four so routine is more important at this age and they will adjust better when they get older. What I am really trying to say is, if you are having trouble with your young kid's behavior or attitude, maybe it is time to look and all the environmental factors and one example is a routine. I know this has made my life easier by trying to keep the routine intact in almost all days and situations.

Free book

2012-10-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

Today, is the giveaway of my first book. The Case of Gin-Gin and the Missing Ties. Go to amazon.com and get your free copy today!

Amazon Direct Publishing

2012-09-29T12:22:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I began to write children's books. I began writing them so I could have more books that would be of interest to Sara and would incorporate dolch sight words. I also began to create a set of books on the alphabet since that is what I am working on with David at the moment. It will be interesting to see if any of them sell or not, but I figured since I was making them anyway, then why not put them up for sale since it does not cost anything. Well anyways, my favorite so far is Gin-Gin and the Case of the Missing Hair Ties. If you have any interest just type my name into amazon and they will pop up.

Google is my friend

2011-07-26T18:11:00.000-05:00

So, over the past few years of having young kids and going to school there has been one constant theme. That them is that I must be able to do repairs on a lot of things myself. This would have not been possible without Google. In the past year alone I have learned how to replace hard drives in Macs and Gateway laptops, refill a motorcycle battery, repair an exhaust leak, find an alternative to large tv's, override the theft system in a malibu, and today how to fix the regulator in a power window. I would say that this has saved me over 3000 dollars in repairs and replacements. Thank you Google for keeping my things running!

Sustainable Living

2011-07-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, so today was an awesome day. Started out kinda crappy but has come around nicely since 8:30. So, today was my first day doing my Worker's Share at Peasant's Plot a sustainable farm csa in Manteno. i was supposed to start at 7 and its about an hour away so I drop the kids off at daycare at 6 this morning thinking I would be there right on time or a little after. Since mapquest is not very trustworthy when it comes to time estimates. Now, I am going on 52 on my motorcycle and see a road that I saw on the mapquest directions and so I take it. I then end up in peotone instead of manteno and now the mapquest directions are pretty much useless. I pull over at the only gas station I have seen in a while and ask them for directions to the road the farm is on which is 10000 n . Ok cool so now Ive got directions she says its only 6 miles away and it is 10 after 7 so I wont be too late. This changes when I turn onto 10000n rd and there is a road closed sign when I get to the 2300 block of 10000n rd. I am confused and frustrated because the address for the farm is 2047 w 10000n rd. I turn around and follow the detour, a ridiculously long detour to get to the other side. I turn on to 10000 n road going back towards the 2000's and then there is another road closed sign at the 1600 block. I am extremely irritated now. My phone says 7:45 and I hate to be late anyways. I can not figure it out and so I keep driving around for the next fifteen minutes to try and find a road that will lead me to the farm. I pull over and go through the e-mails and try to find a phone number to call them since I was so smart and did not write their number down. I could not find it and then I looked at the address again and for some reason this time it hit me. I was in the 2300 east block of 10000n road and the farm was on 2047 west 10000n ave. I felt so stupid, but smart for taking the motorcycle and not the truck since I get 50 mpg with the motorcycle and 13 with the truck and almost did not want to go to the farm now since it was 8:00 and I now had to follow the ridiculously long detour again. But, I decided that I could not give up and went on the detour. Along the way I found the way back to Joliet that would have gotten me there 5 minutes early. I pull in and guess what, it was no big deal, they said it happens all the time.
So, I got to work and harvested garlic for 4 hours and cleaned part of it for another hour. I then got my worker's share of the veggies and headed home. I got a fresh head of lettuce, two heads of garlic, some red russian kale, and some chard. So, grilled garlic chicken salad tonight!
Then I went to the mexican market and found my favorite fruit ever for 99c a piece, pineapple. Then when I got home I felt so good that I called the lady from Everything Jesus ranch down in Texas that I have been e-mailing back and forth a couple times to have the phone conversation she wanted. She was really nice. She wants us to come down there for a week or two to try it out before we would move down there for a year. This is so exciting to me because it mixes what I grew up with at Living Water Ranch with the stuff that I want to do with my life for my family. They have a raw milk dairy, a school for their children and others, they also have camping, horses, and many other things that excite us. When I came upon the website I could not believe how perfect this seemed to be for our family and not only that their site said they were looking for people to come help. i am so excited about this opportunity and will keep you posted. Their website is moojesus.com if that doesn't get your attention I do not know what will.

300

2011-07-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to do a quick post saying thank you to all that have been reading my blog and I can't believe it but the blog has been viewed over 300 times now! This is a significant number since one of the martial arts I am studying is pankration and that is the art the spartans trained in. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen to my rambling thoughts and views on the world. I also wanted to say I would also like to make this more of a community by having more readers comment. It only takes a second and you can even comment anonymously. I would enjoy having discussions about the posts. You don't even have to agree with me, if you don't post your thoughts, if you do, post your thoughts. I appreciate your effort in this endeavor.

Sustainable Living

2011-07-08T10:05:00.000-05:00

I grew up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farmland. I could not get out of there and to "civilization" fast enough. It has been six years, a wife, and two kids later and my perspective on life has changed. I want my kids to be able to play outside without me worrying about traffic. I want to learn how to provide food for my family without having to go to the store. When I look back in history and look at how society has changed I see a major shift from when most families were farming and the kids learned responsibility from a very young age to nowadays where if you have your kids do chores you are a rare parent. I do not see us necessarily making a living on the farm or by any means our only mean of income. I just want to have the opportunity to live off of the land and know exactly where my family's food comes from. I know I may sound crazy so feel welcome to comment.

The next thing in this process is that I have an interview coming up to intern at a sustainable farm close to here for the next few months. This is exciting for me and I will keep you posted.

Homeschooling and living off the grid

2011-07-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

I would like to have something like this!
Well, I have been thinking about this for awhile now, but have not fully come to a conclusion on my thoughts here. My wife and I have entertained the idea of working at home and homeschooling our children. We feel the attention they would receive would allow them to advance through the proper skills at a faster pace. I also want my children to learn the classics and understand the ancient teachings. I do not feel the schools today would do better than we could at home. I will be certified in less than a year and I am going to be looking into ways to work from home. My wife has not yet started school so they might have to go to public school for a year or two depending on how it all lines up before we both have our degrees.

Now, this next part might be where I lose some of you. I want to live off the land. I want to have a dairy cow, chickens and a large vegetable garden where we could raise all of our produce. This would allow us to only have to buy grain based products from the store. I want this to be somewhere in central texas where we can do it year round. I grew up for a lot of my life out in the middle of nowhere but never really learned how to live off the land. I want my children to have that life information.

If you have any suggestions or comments please, please share them!

P.S. even if you thinkI'm crazy

A few Updates

2011-07-03T08:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I thought I would update you on a few things that have been going on in my life and that go in line with some of the previous tip blogs I have written. I was going to write this one yesterday, but I got extremely sick with some 24 hour thing that made me appreciate being able to be more than 20 feet away from a toilet if you know what I mean.
Ok, well in my schooling there are a few updates. I am officially a member of the education honor society kappa delta pi now. I had a call with my placement specialist for student teaching. This call marked the introduction to the january 2012 cohort. These two things have been two key moments in my education and they both happened this week.
As far as the making extra money goes, I have tried a few of the tips that I gave and will continue to try more. I have been tutoring one student for the past few weeks. This has been very enjoyable, but proves to be a difficult experience to build up more clientele. This would be a great addition to my income if I could get just 3 to 4 more clients a week. Me and my wife went to give plasma on Tuesday of this week and I will tell you she definitely had a better experience than me. We waited for four hours since the first two hours is a medical screening. 2 hours is the total time it takes once you have done the medical screening and each time you come in after that. So, I was grooving along through my donation and then the machine starts to beep, signaling that I am finished. The attendant comes over and pulls out the needle and wraps my arm telling me I am finished. She then points me over to the sink where I can wash my arm off, So, I stand up and go over to the sink thinking this wasn't so bad. Then as I am looking down at my arm I can fell my eyes start to become blurry and I know I need to sit down. I rush over to the recovery room, which is more like a waiting area with juice and crackers. There was no attendant there, so I do not know what I would have done if the lady that didn't work there had not gotten me a juice or told them I needed help. By the time I got to the room I could barely make out the outlines of the chairs and by the time I had the juice in my hand I could feel I was about three seconds away from blacking out. As soon as I drank the juice it felt like life was rushing back through my veins. It was kind of exhilarating to think how the body works and how just a little thing of juice could bring me back that fast. My wife did not have this issue. I am going to keep going until the promotion is finished and I will stop. The payout is 25, 30, 35, 40, and then goes down to 15 and then 20 for the second of the week. I will probably stop after the fourth time. I was going to go back yesterday, but with me being sick I thought it might not be the best choice. We have begun to save our pop cans so we can take them to the recycling center when we get a few bags saved up to update on how much we get for them.

8 ways to prepare your toddler for preschool at home

2011-06-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

My daughter just turned three and will be entering pre-school this fall. I wanted to know ways that we could prepare her for pre-school at home with simple things that we already had at home. I have compiled this list to save you the trouble since I already found them I thought I would be nice and share it with everyone.

8. Drawing and coloring- Expose your toddler to colors and drawing as soon as you can. Talk with them while you do this. you can say things like you are drawing with the purple crayon, would you like to try the redone.

7. Alphabet- work on the children recognizing the big and little versions of each letter. We have her sing the ABC song when she washes her hands to know she is doing it long enough. The other resource we use is the ABC book by Dr. Seuss it is by far their favorite book this past month.

6. Concept of Big and little- Show them things that are big and little throughout the day. You can say that is a big tree and that is a little tree while pointing to them.

5. Concept of Many and one- The one is especially important since a common phrase is, just take one or only use one at a time. The dinner table and drawing time have been our easiest places to introduce it. We say just take one bite at a time or just use one crayon at a time.

4. Scissors- just introduce them to using them. Draw a straight line on paper and have them try to cut along the line. If they get that down use the shapes that are in the section below.

3. Shapes- Common shapes are important also. We have a shape sorter which made it easy. It had square, rectangle, triangle, pentagon, star, heart, hexagon, circle, and a crescent. If they get those down they are well on their way.

2. Being able to socialize- This may be harder for kids who are staying at home with their moms and do not go to daycare or playgroups. Daycare is a great place to instill this with so many other kids around. If your toddler is not around other toddlers and does not have to share, then get them around other toddlers through some mean. Put them in a summer reading program at the library for free. Network, use Meetup.com to find other moms or dads that are in playgroups.

1. Vocabulary- Introduce them to all these sections and their vocabulary should be well suited for the preschool classroom. always talk, use as many adjective as you can. Explain everything to your child. They want to know what things are and how the world works around them. Talk throughout each activity and ask them questions too. Try and get them to respond using their new vocabulary in order to cement it in there.

All of these things can be completed with simple items around the house and just need to be included in the activities you do with your toddler.

20 Million half orphans

2011-06-29T23:58:00.001-05:00

Did you know that there are 20 million kids in the US alone that do not have their father in their lives in any way?

This is horrifying to me. Not only is this terrible for the children, but it is terrible for the entire nation. That is 20 million grown adults at some point in the future. With the statistics showing single parents being 6 times more likely to be in poverty it is then no surprise that these same children are much more likely to go to prison or to live in poverty than to go to college and make themselves a contributing member of society.

I want to challenge you males out there. Get involved in your community. Become a Big Brother, volunteer at an orphanage or community center. Get out there and make a difference. I have volunteered with Royal Family Kid's Camp and it is a truly rewarding experience. Fathers can be sometimes undervalued in our society and I think that is a tragedy. Moms you are important, but so is the father. You can not be both and you shouldn't have to.

I grew up without a father, yet the majority of the time I was fortunate enough to have male figures in my life to look up to. I have now lost contact with most of them and one even passed away recently. This and the combination of having children has made me think about what my life might have been like if my father was more involved in my life. If I knew that side of the family, would I be a different person than I am today? Would I act differently? Would I be having holiday traditions to perform every year. Those are the types of things I see in movies and TV, yet they are not seen in my life. We live far away from the one person on my side of the family I have regular contact with, my sister, and that makes it difficult for us to get together. I haven't really talked to anyone else on my side of the family besides my sister in two years, except through cards or short and very spread out e-mails. My wife's family is small and spread out as well. Her father is a ..well I can't say what I want to say he is. Let's just say he is not going to be involved in our life. Her brother lives in Carbondale, but hasn't married or have kids. One of her aunts passed away last year. Her other aunt lives in California now, but doesn't have kids so the network or framework of our family is very small and spread out.

I pray to God every day that our children will grow up with a strong network of family somehow. I want this for my children, but sometimes am so baffled at where to begin. I have been somewhat looking to find my father and to just meet that side of my family before it is too late. Sometimes I wonder if the rest of his family even knows that I exist.

Are you looking for a long lost relative? Are you trying to build a network of individuals you can trust and truly call your friends or family? I would love to hear what you guys have to say in regards to this.

5 ways to save money and keep up with the Jones'

2011-06-28T23:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight I felt compelled to share some tips on how to save money without losing face. I would consider myself a pennypincher with the best of them. The key to most of these ideas is the willingness to think outside the box.

5. Take advantage of your local library- There are many things that the local library can do for you. They have free books, movies, cd's( which you can download to your ipod), classes, workshops and seminars. The staff also know many other free services that are in the community that most people do not know about. My local library offers free tutoring for k-4 students in the area. That alone can save parents 25-60 dollars a session.

4. Cut the cord- In this day and age there is no need for a home phone or even cable for that matter. We use MagicJack and cel-phones. the people that contend you can't use 911 with MagicJack have not had one because that is part of the registration process to set up the home address for the phone. Magicjack is 19.99 a year vs. 40 dollars plus for other packages. Now to digital cable, this is completely unnecessary. ditch the cable, boost your bandwidth package and get Netflix and take advantage of Hulu. Netflix you can instantly watch tons of content and they will send you dvds in the mail that you choose. This cuts cost in renting movies and cable because now you can have those movies for movie night sent to your door and you can watch the same shows on network tv the next day or so on Hulu. We have Hulu Plus and Netflix along with the highest internet package. The only thing I sometimes miss is being able to watch sports events, so I will be looking into NBA pass and MLB.tv to see if those will be worth it over the year. I hope the NFL not only plays this year but comes to the realization more people are cutting the cord and come up with a streaming online package for NFL fans in the US. With the cutting of the cord it has also ended the mindless surfing of hundreds of channels with nothing on. It saves us time and money, which I may haver heard somewhere before that "Time is money" so maybe just money.

3. Network- This means that you should talk to people. I mean if you are a teacher ,as I am working on becoming, or a plumber then let people know that information. This may lead to you in your kitchen with a leaky dishwasher and being able to call that plumber you know and barter some free tutoring of his kids for him to fix the dishwasher. You can even try to strategize this portion. see if you can't become at least associates with a mechanic, plumber, teacher, lawyer, financial advisor or any other person you might think you could need their service in the future. Bartering has been done for thousands of years, so take advantage of the skills or things you already have and save some money. Craigslist.org is a a great site to trade services.

2. Buy Used- Most things can be purchased used at a humongous price reduction versus new. You can buy clothes used at places like Plato's closet, Goodwill, Once Upon a Child, and Garage sales. You would be surprised at how many clothes still have the tag from the store on them that end up at second hand shops or consignment stores. I buy the majority of my kid's clothes at Once Upon a Child and can buy them ten outfits of the same brand for the amount that places like Carter's or Buy Buy Baby sell one for. Upscale neighborhoods are usually the best for quality of secondhand items since they are usually the original owner of the items. Cars should be a given, they lose on average 6-20 percent when they are driven off the lot. My head tells me I do not want to be underwater on a vehicle the day I buy it. Craigslist and Ebay are great resources to buy secondhand anything.

1. Think outside the box- Do not follow the herd of people doing anything. Demand and Supply rules of Economics apply to everything in life. Let's say I have ten pencils but 100 people want one, then I can raise the price and most likely at least ten people will still want one. If I have ten pencils but only one wants to buy one at the current price then I need to drop the price in order to entice more people to want my pencil. This is true with any product. Let me show you an example: TV's , the technology is constantly getting better making tv's somewhat cheaper for the quality, but overall those prices have been rising for each new innovation of the year. This includes plasma, lcd, led, and 3D. TV's are still a major investment and most likely you will have an outdated one in 6-12 months. So, with a big purchase like this on my mind I researched and researched and found on my budget of 350 dollars all I could afford was mid range smaller tv's. Then I thought outside the box and now I have an 85 inch screen to watch movies, write things like this blog, and any other thing you can do with the computer and an internet connection. How is this possible on a 350 dollar budget, but through an awesome device I stumbled upon call the aaxa m2 mini led projector. I have it connected to my mac mini, wii, and antenna. It has an hdmi connection along with most other inputs and I can just turn it on, point it at my wall and go.

I know there are many more things we can be doing.I would love to hear some other tips or things people have done to save money for them and their family!

Children are expensive

2011-06-28T08:53:00.000-05:00

I just read some where that just 1 child will cost 226000+ dollars to raise for 18 years. That is exhausting to think about. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that is probably not accurate anyways since most kids are now staying home or being supported entirely throughout college. This means an extra 4 or 5 years in most cases. So that probably brings the total closer to 300,000 dollars per kid if you do not count college tuition. Wow, so this got me thinking that I need to make more money. So, I have scoured the internet for ideas on how to make extra money and the side and I came across one blog that seemed to put most of them together. I am going to put a list here which will have some of the same ideas and some that are not on there but you can look at the link I have for more details on most of the ideas I will be putting here. I will be trying most of these ideas out over the next few weeks and be reporting back how succesful I am at it.

1. Part-time job: pick up an extra low hour commitment job in order to supplement the income
2. Tutor: If you have a knowledge or skill that people want then why not charge them to learn it.(I have begun this one already)
3. Donate Plasma: It comes with the distinction of only being for desperate people, but I think it's a legitimate way to try and earn some extra bread. If you go twice a week it's about 60 dollars a week so it can pay for that date night you and your spouse want every week. ( beginning this one today)
4.Pick up odd-jobs: I would have to say craigslist will probably be the best service for me in this matter
5. E-bay: everybody has things lying around they are not using anymore. If you haven't used it in a year, sell it.
6. Scrap metal and recycling: If you drink pop, buy the cans instead and recycle them to get some money back. If you have a large truck take a drive around town to pick up scrap metal curbside for trash day or do free appliance removal and scrap those. People will be glad to get the old appliance out of there and might even tip you. This can be some decent money if you know how to seperate ferrous and non-ferrous materials. Take a magnet and if it sticks to it put it in the pile different from the metals that do not. This will save you headaches when you get to the recycling center. If your scrap is organized they are more will ing to give you higher prices. I do not know everything about this so I have included a link to a blog that is dedicated to scrapping metal.

Is God trying to guide me...am I really that stubborn

2011-06-27T20:04:00.001-05:00

Well I am giving the update for what we found out through our interviews today. The first meeting we had was with an in home daycare provider that Sara and David would be the youngest kids there. This was a small daycare with the majority of her kids being of school age with a set of twin 3 year olds that come a few times a week. We talked with this provider for about an hour, she told us basically that she would implement whatever curriculum we wanted the children to have. This was a nice feature and will allow us to feel more involved in the learning process and know exactly what they should be working on at home and at daycare. We have Baby Can Read , so I feel very comfortable leaving this with her and the kids can work on it. So, there we are talking in the driveway about how she used to live in Orlando like us and only lived there for a short time when I realize that we are going to be late for our next appointment. I rush my wife and the provider to a quick close of the conversation and we rush to the car, and then guess what happened..Well, I bet you won't know unless you drive a 1999 malibu as well. The stupid Anti Theft system came on and disables the motor from being started. So, here we are sitting in our car after we rushed away from a conversation waiting on the system to override itself so we can leave. The only problem is it took five ten minute sessions of the override to happen. I then begin to think if this was God's way of taking free will away from me by disabling the car, because as our discussion became leaning more towards going with the provider's driveway we were blocking I got an idea to try the little trick that got the car started. That or the relief of stress in my brain thinking of the money we can save cleared my thoughts to process new information. Now, it is 4:30 and we are late to two appointments. So, we call the two of them and ask them if they can just tell us their rates over the phone to see if it is even worth it for us to drive over there and see it.They both agreed to and we found that with the reduced rates dcfs pays out for in home care providers that we would only save around 100 to 150 dollars. This did not sound worth it since we had just come from a provider where all we would be paying is the copay which will save us 560 a month.(Woohoo was the emotion I felt when doing the calculations. So now we have found someone that is licensed, trustworthy, and affordable. The checklist I linked earlier was only used in one place since the fact that we couldn't afford the other ones nullified their entry into our daycare competition. I am super excited since this 560 a month means we can fix the car, have the kids do more activities, and gives us money to save and put away for a rainy day. The thing we should remember is that it is not the quality of the equipment that is important, but the quality of instruction and human interaction that is. My advice to any parents out there in the same or similar situation is to not think twice about seeking out cheaper childcare alternatives. Find a qualified individual that does not have the huge overhead of a large building or the other expenses that come with it. The human being that is taking care of your children is more important than some fancy playground they might or might not have. Do not ever forget the human component whn choosing places for your children to attend, whether it be karate, dance, or schools.

Childcare change

2011-06-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

Well today me and Nora are both off of work and have come to the realization that we can not afford the daycare our kids our currently at. I think 2000 a month for daycare is ridiculous. I mean even after assistance we are still paying 800 a month, come on now that should be the total. So now we are going to interview 4 different places starting in an hour. This is the point when I struggle with trying to balance providing the very best for our children overall. If they stay in the daycare they are at we can not afford for them to do things like teeball and dance. I pray we can find trustworthy care that will still teach our children the things they need to know. Just by switching we can save over 400 dollars a month. I thought since a lot of people have kids and people are always looking for daycare that I would include the link to the childcare provider checklist we recieved from Childcare Resource and Referral. I will update later about what we found out through our interviews.

2011-06-27T01:23:00.000-05:00

Here are I am thinking about my two precious children being as cute as they can possibly be before going to bed tonight. You have no idea the emotions this stirs up when me when I think about how much I love these two children and how my father only tried to contact me once in my 24 years on this earth. I thank God every day just for allowing me to be a part of their lives. I pray every father or man that sees this post is a true man and sticks around for their children. You don't have to stay with the woman if you do not love her, but for God's sake be there for the human being or beings that you created. I want to include some helpful tips in the blog in order to not just rant about my own life, but to bring some insight into the things that I have been able to learn through my experiences. The first thing I am going to do is to include a list of things to do with your child or children in order to create a deeper bond with them:

READ- stands for "Read Everything Again Daddy" as my daughter likes to say.This is my favorite thing to do with my children. I sit them on my lap and pull out a dr. Seuss book or any other book with pictures and they will cuddle in close and listen to every word. This is a double bonus, not only are we bonding but they are learning as well. My three year old knew the entire alphabet and could sight read 100 words 4 months ago. It's not because I sit her in front of a boob tube I will tell you that much. (TV can be educational with appropriate programs...we can get into that one later) The interaction between you and your children during this time will give you motivation to get through all the diaper changes and tantrums.

Play- You have children, they like to play, so play with them. It can be as simple as getting on their level on the ground and pushing cars back and forth with them or playwrestling with them. My favorite moment of the past few weeks may sound wierd, but it was when I took the kids outside to play some teeball...wait that's not my favorite part, it was when I said we had to go back inside to eat dinner and my daughter, the food vaccuum, cried because we could not play "baseball games" as she calls it anymore. If there was one thing that got me through my rough life, besides people, would have to be baseball. Sharing an interest with your child could be it's on section, but hey it's my blog and not yours so here it is. The physical activity probably wouldn't do anybody any harm either.

Teach- Life presents many opportunties to teach our children everything we know and those things that we do not know. If your children are anything like mine, then their two favorite words are "What's That." Or "Dat," in David's case. Children want to learn, why not let them and even help them in that journey. If you are taking a walk outside, take the time to point out objects and colors. As tempting as it is to say "Shh", don't, do not extinguish that inner desire to learn in your child before they can speak a full sentence. Your children are human beings, so talk to them, lend them your knowledge and you will be surprised at how much they can pick up. I then use their new knowledge as a game after the being told something a few times. If we see a new animal they just learned or know already I point and say, "What's that?" Two words and I can assess my children's knowledge and comprehension. This I know will change as they grow older, but so will I and the way that I will lend my knowledge to them. The thing I want to teach them most is that learning is never finished, you do not just get some diploma and say, "Ok, I know everything now." I want them to be so intelligent that they know how little they know.

So, take the time to do one or all of these things today and see if you don't feel closer to your children.

I would like to get this blog going, so if any ideas please leave a comment or message me.

Back to writing

2011-06-27T01:01:00.000-05:00

I have recently felt the need to begin writing again. It has now been over two years since my last blog post and it saddens me. It has been a very busy two years though. We moved to Illinois...again to have our second child, David Gabriel Trammell. He is now 18 months old. Our daughter Sara is 3 years old as of 6/20/2011. I started going back to school after we moved up here. I am currently working at a hospital in the food and nutrition department part time. Man, it seems like I can never get fully away from food service. I have been working with food in some capacity for 7 of my working years since I was 14. I really think I want to take this blog in a little bit different direction. I am different than I was two years ago. My life plan two years ago was to help my aunt and uncle with their camp and conference center for the rest of my days on this place called Earth. Things did not work out that way and here I am sitting 10 hours away from them and having barely spoken to them in two years. That is sad isn't it? With all the modern technology we have that somehow I have been able to not have communication with somebody, let alone family. I want to write about family in this blog and how it should be. I have grown up the majority of my life without it and recognize the importance of it. I do not see family being simply defined as blood or legal relationships, but a network of people that you can rely on and have trust in to know they will be there for you through the thick and the thin. By the way I have not found that complete network, but am searching ever for it. I will continue to post as I work my way through this ever tangling world of people and relationships with those people. I will write about my family and the things we are doing. If not interested then don't waste my time by leaving me a message or comment. I have also begun to research my family history and seek out my father whom I have only met once and have no for sure idea where to begin. I am on a journey called life, and I will be bringing whomever wants to come along with me through this blog.

God is Love

2009-02-28T00:27:00.001-06:00

God is Love: teaching by Matt Trammell on January 1st, 2009

John 3:16-18 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in Him is not Condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son.

Most people have heard John 3:16, but not everyone has heard the next two verses. The second part there is to affirm the fact that God loved us and that was why he sent Jesus to be our savior. The third part is to make sure we understand the only way we can know God is to know his Son. It says we are condemned if we do not believe in the name of His Son. Why does it say name and not just him. It says name because it is to be spoken and Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua which means the Lord saves. God made it abundantly clear what he sent His Son here for. He wa sent to be our Savior. So why is it that most people do not understand or are not blessed with the feeling of our God's Love? I believe it is because of all the preaching in the churches today have been sin focused and not love focused. Lets get deeper into love and you will understand how love can make the difference.

1st Corinthians 13:1,4-7 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always, protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we truly knew that we were loved, truly loved by just one person. Well, you can rest in the knowledge of John 3:16 the same God that said He loved the world, was the one who inspired the definition of the word. So if God loves us that means he keeps no record of wrongs and is not easily angered. So if you are wanting to come to Christ, but think you have to clean up your life or whatever is holding you back, understand that God Loves you and has forgiven you already for anything you have done in your past and anything you will ever do. So pray the sinner's prayer and come to him, come join us in the warmth of God's Love.

Romans 3:22-24 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all those who believe. There is no difference for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus.

So it does not matter what sins have been committed, God says it makes no difference because everyone has failed. But we have redemption through Jesus Christ. I want to talk to the people now who are Christians but have never enjoyed the fullness of God's love. God is Love. We have a New Testament for a reason, testament stands for covenant. So we have a new covenant with God that cannot be broken. To be righteous now we come through Christ, he is in us and he is full of love. Open your heart to the Love, this can change your entire life. What we think, feel and say all starts in our heart, if we feel love, love will consume our lives. When you feel God's love you will see yourself as God sees you, righteous. Thinking thoughts and speaking words of righteousness will bring out righteousness, just like any other thoughts and confessions. Words are powerful, they can bring harm and do evil, or can do wonderous and miraculous things. Guard your heart with God's love!

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Mark 8;36-38 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul. If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.

God wants to give us his love and eternal life but if we do not accept the gift of Jesus first, then we cannot partake in any other gifts. There is only one road to Heaven and you need Jesus as your intercessor and noone else. Do not get stuck in the trap of "All roads lead to Heaven". There is only one way in. All other roads lead to Hell. I want to leave you on a better note. God loves you! The bigger Question is whether or not you love God? I want you to truly ask yourself this question. Do you "love" the same way God loves. Do you see yourself the way God sees you. I want to leave you with one last verse.

1st John 4:8 For those who do not love, do not know God, because God is Love.

So, if you have felt judged by another christian or have been cast down by someone, know that is not of God. God did not approve of that, God loves you and sees you as perfect and righteous.

If you want to feel God's love pray this prayer with me. Father God, I know I am a sinner but I am righteous in your eyes and ask for the forgiveness you have already given me. I want your love to fill my heart so Jesus come into my heart and take control. I want to see myself as you see me. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin and salvation.Thank you Father for accepting me the way i am.

Cost of being a disciple

2009-02-28T00:26:00.000-06:00

Teaching by Matt Trammell 1-4-09

25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters?yes, even his own life?he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

If those verses do not grab your attention, then you need to read them again. It says we must hate our parents, families, and ourselves. Now, why would the Lord tell us we must hate, this will make more sense if you bear with me as we take it back to the greek translation, the original language the new testament was written. It originally uses the greek word miseo, which means to love less. So we must love everything less than the Lord. Then we can stay in greek and explain verse 33 it says to give up everything, but in the greek word apotessetai it means "to properly arrange" which we know as prioritizing. Now, as we look at this we must prioritize our lives and love in order to put Jesus first in our lives. We will now disect verse 27, it states we must carry our own cross, but the greek word stauros is used, which means a pole or cross a type of capital punishment and then can be implied as self-denial . So, we must be willing to carry self denial around. Why would God ask this of us? We must be willing to continually deny our fleshly impulses and do what is right for the will of God, which will be right for you. The Lord is omniscient, he knows what is best, so i will choose to take some advice from someone who already knows. Why should we continue struggling trying to figure out this life ourselves. This is another passage of scripture I want us to look at today.

Mark 8:34-36 34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

In these verses it is pretty clear what it means. The only thing that needs to be understood is that jesus did not meant we need to actually carry a physical cross around, but he did mean the shame and persecution that took him to the cross. Jesus needs us to understand the seriousness of cost behind being his disciple. We may not realize it in this country, but we have it easy here in America. We do not have to worry about being tortured or killed just because we are worshiping Christ. This is what he meant through carrying our cross, we must be able to do that, give the ultimate sacrifice if that is what is necessary in order to glorify God and bring people to Christ.If you are not willing to carry around that cross then you can not be a disciple. I have had my times of wondering whether I would be willing to sacrifice my life for Christ and for a long time I did not know. It was when my daughter was born that I realized that if God can sacrifice his only son for uss then what is it to sacrifice ourselves in order to bring others to Christ. I realized this because I would easily sacrifice myself for my daughter, so for God to be willing to watch His Son die on the cross for us is a huge deal. This is not meant to be a morbid message, the intent of this lesson was to get you to understand the call on your life and how serious it is when you do decide to make this commitment to Christ. Not everyone or even a majority of christians are ever called to fulfill the ultimate sacrifice, but we must all be willing if the call does come. We are in the Army of God, and I want to be a good soldier and conquer and overcome this world. Our weapon is the.Word of God! It has the power to do all things. If you want to become a soldier in God's army and if you want to feel God's love pray this prayer with me. Father God, I know I am a sinner but I am righteous in your eyes and ask for the forgiveness you have already given me. I want your love to fill my heart so Jesus come into my heart and take control. I want to see myself as you see me. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin and salvation.Thank you Father for accepting me the way i am.

Faith

2009-02-28T00:25:00.000-06:00

Faith, what is faith? Faith is a trust or belief in something not based in the natural. To have faith in something means that there is a feeling that something is true but it can not be proven through our natural senses. In order to do the works of God, we must have faith that God will do what he says.

We are going to do something new this time. I will tell you where I pulled the scriptures, but you need to look them up in your bible or you can do it online, but I feel there is something lost if you do not get in the Word yourself and find your own meaning from God in His words. Okay, so In Acts chapter three; Peter and John healed a lame man. It describes the people marveling at the healing and standing in awe, but read what peter says, he asks them why do they marvel at this? He goes on to tell them to not look at them like it was by their own power this man was healed, but by the power of the one named Jesus that they denied and had crucified. They healed this man through FAITH in His name. Peter was just giving the glory to God and to show that He was still with us in the world through the children of God, the believers. So Faith is how we do God's work in this world. We must believe in the power of God and the ability he gave us as the medium for it to be implemented.

Healing of the Centurion's servant Matt 8:5-13

A Centurion, which was a Roman army commander of 100 men, came to Jesus asking him to heal his servant which was paralyzed. Jesus said he would go to his home and heal him, but the centurion replied that he was not worthy to have Jesus in his home. He continued to say that if people listened to him when he gave a command, then surely Jesus could just speak and his servant would be healed. Jesus marveled at this man's faith. He told all that were with him that he had not seen this type of faith in all of Israel. Jesus told him since he believed then it would be done. If we believe, or have faith it will be done, does that mean anything we believe will be done, no. This means that if we have faith in the things of God then it will. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says that If we have faith the size of a mustard seed then we can tell mountains to move, how cool is that. It goes on to say that nothing will be impossible to us. When faith is used in the Bible it originally comes from the Greek word pistis, which means the truthfulness of God. So, what I get from this is that if we have the truthfulness of God then nothing is impossible, so belief has to be with faith in order for it to be done. We can not just believe for a million dollars, it must come from the truthfulness of God in order for it being worthy of coming to pass. We must be faithful in this life to do what we are called to do, we are to be a light in the darkness in this world. Faithful can be translated from the Greek, pistos which can mean giving credit to another, or God. God is the power source for any works or miracles we do in this life, so we must give credit where credit is due. We must speak with the authority that God gives us. He gave us the power to move mountains. Surely, we can get through the ups and downs of emotional rollercoasters given to us through the works of the Devil. God is the Ultimate. Our power comes from Him and his power is above all that of the Devil. Faith is what gets us through and empowers us in this life.

If you do not have that faith or power then say this prayer with me:

Father God, I know I am a sinner but I am righteous in your eyes and ask for the forgiveness you have already given me. I want your love to fill my heart so Jesus come into my heart and take control. I want to see myself as you see me. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin and salvation.Thank you Father for accepting me the way i am.

Family First

2009-02-27T23:59:00.000-06:00

Before anything on this earth but after God we are to take care of our family. Family is the Most important thing in this world and will be a large part of future discussions in this world. There are kids growing up in this world without fathers at an astronomical rate. I want to include in that number the fathers that send their kids to boarding schools, work so much their children do not recognize them, and the ones who abuse them (physically, mentally, or verbally). That leaves us with a minority of children and a generation raised by their biological parents in a good situation. I do not know where or how I got started on this topic, but it has been burning on my heart for quite some time now. I was raised in a variety of situations. My father divorced my mother when I was two months old and have seen him one time since. I lived with my mother who was going in and out of relationships with the passing of each season until third grade. I was then in the custody of my nineteen year old sister. We lived together until 7th grade. My mother was now out of prison and supposedly getting her life on track with a guy I had grown to know as a father figure. That was a decent situation until midway through eigth grade and then we moved to a wonderful place called Living Water Ranch. It is a Christian Camp and Conference Center run by my Aunt and Uncle. I lived there all through High School and most of College. So, for the most part I understand what it was like to not be raised by the people that God had originally set in place to raise me. I know that God uses everything for good, and I am glad he got ahold of me before I could have seriously slipped off in the deep end with the types of situations my mother would get me into. I feel a burning to get fathers more involved in their children's lives. I want to know any organizations or just people helping to do this or have information about it to please post comments here or shoot me an e-mail.