Happy (early) Birthday, America!

Hey friends! I wanted to pop in briefly and give you an update:

No–I’m not falling off the “semi-frequent posting” wagon. Expect another #FridayFive post this week, and then more fun stuff next week.
I just finished a book by Jon Acuff called Finish! and will have a review coming soon, after I give it a bit more thought.
Currently Reading: the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan; American Assassin by Vince Flynn; and the book of Isaiah. And I have a stack of library books and e-books I’m about to tackle. Whew!
I’ve just been really busy lately. I’ll probably post a “This is Where I’m At Right Now” post of some kind in the next week or so. Maybe an update on the new eating plan and some other things going on.
One of the big things I’ve been working on is Presto! Fairy Tales, a Youtube webseries of funny and bizarre retellings of long-lost fairy tales (in which I act a bit and also wrote the majority of the lyrics for the original songs). We’re having a blast filming Season 2 right now, but Season 1 is slowly rolling out as well (Episode 4 should be coming out this week!). I’d love for you to take a look, share it with friends, family, kids, fans of musical theater, anyone you can think of. And if you enjoy it, please SUBSCRIBE!
And yes, tomorrow is the Fourth of July, a celebration of the United States’ independence. Which reminds me: Wasn’t I working on a side-blog of American history? Oh yeah! The 4thDave Papers! And guess what? A new post is coming to you…next week! (Putting myself on the clock: check!) It’s about time we get back on track with that one, too!

So, suffice it to say, lots of fun stuff coming soon on the blog. In the meantime, enjoy some Presto!, have fun with friends and family, and if you’re a fan of the United States, set something on fire tomorrow in honor of freedom.

“Guess who’s back…back again…”

“Good grief, Dave, the first post in 2 months, and you lead with a 20-year-old Eminem reference?”

Shaking the rust off, dude.

“What about all those promises to post reviews of books you read this year, remember that? Regular content, you said. I assume you *have* been reading books. So where are the reviews?”

Yeah, about that…

“You have talked frequently about spending less time on social media and more time ‘creating.’ You even wrote a Medium post about that. And that was it–just talk. Are you still on Twitter and Facebook?”

I deleted the apps off my phone.

“What about the browser? Are you logged in to them on your phone’s browser?”

…

“Look, man, I don’t mean to come at you so hard, right out of the gate. But you keep telling me that you want to write consistently. You have interesting ideas to explore. You wanted to do a whole series of posts about The Federalist Papers, remember? You wrote 4 or 5 posts before stopping. That was 16 months ago. And it was an interesting idea. You should follow up on that at some point.”

Yeah, I keep thinking about that.

“There are book reviews to write, sermon manuscripts to share, maybe even some short stories or poetry. Remember? You used to write poetry, too.”

That’s true. My wife really enjoys when I write poetry.

“See? All I’m saying is, it may be time to start delivering on the promises and good intentions you’ve been carrying around for all these years. How old are you now, 38?”

I’m 37. Birthday’s in October.

“Okay, then, 37. How about this? We start now with some regular content. Start flexing the ol’ creative muscles. And then we start working on the manuscript to your NaNoWriMo novel, Good Shepherd, and get that baby done before 40 comes around.”

That’s…not a bad idea. I still really like that story.

“You’re right, it’s not a bad idea–it’s a great idea. That story should be told. But we gotta baby-step this one. It starts with writing consistently.”

Okay, I’ll do it. Starting today, I’m gonna–

“STOP. Stop making promises. No more resolutions. Just do it. Don’t tell me about it. Just do it.”

Okay. Today, then.

“Today.”

Done.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

My last post, over a month ago, was talking about waiting. Since then, gentle readers, you have patiently waited for more content (or, more likely, forgot about the blog and moved on to other things).

I’m not “back” yet. But I’m coming back to this…sometime. Still trying to figure out what the new normal looks like. Nevertheless, I’ve got some stories, lemme tell ya.

Here’s the bare bones version: We had a baby! And she’s great. And I miss what a “full night’s sleep” feels like. And there was a hurricane, but we’re okay. And now it’s mid-September, and the year has flown by, and there are pumpkin-flavored things being sold, and I can’t quite keep up with life. So. Blogging was bumped down below the cut-off line for “things claiming time and attention” (sorry).

Back soon-ish.