Supafly.com

I’m propped up in my bed now to type this. This night could’ve become a disaster, but it worked out to be a good thing. I got home from work at 7:30 PM and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. I was so tired from traveling and being “on” at the training conference, I had no energy to do anything but lay on the couch and watch re-runs of “Seinfeld” for an hour and a half.

By 9:00 PM, I felt like crap. My girlfriend is out of town, my friends are somewhere else, and it just made me sad. So I pulled myself out of the couch and decided to fight the funk. I cleaned the kitchen: dishes, the counter, sweep, and mop. I did two loads of laundry and ironed three shirts and two pairs of pants. I cleaned my room, my bathroom, and the closet.

Since I was the only one in the house, I didn’t mind praying out loud while I worked. I pretty much just explained to God that I felt like crap, and I needed him to help me overcome my emotional junk. I rattled off prayers for a whole hour it was cool. I feel better now. Time for bed.

Candyce and I got home on Sunday night. Her family was in Phoenix for a friend’s wedding, so it was fun to have my family drop us off at the airport in Atlanta, and have her family pick us up in Phoenix.

I woke up Monday morning and went to the Life Teen Training Conference that we are hosting here in Phoenix. Over 500 Youth Ministers and priests came in from around the country to be trained over the past four days. This year’s conference was different b/c he now hold it at a five star resort that has an eight-acre water park. The conference rooms were quite beautiful with lots of attention to detail. I could go on forever, but it’s basically a really nice place that made the conference better.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do any speaking at the conference. I am all speaked-out after six days at camp. So much job was to hang out and meet people in between sessions. Conference season is an exciting time because I get to see old friends and make new friends. Some of these people saw me on the “Real World” five years ago, and others just know me as the guy who runs lifeteen.com. Either way is fine with me.

It was real affirming to have so many people say nice things about lifeteen.com. I can tell that since we launched the new site in February, the site is gaining popularity. People who visited before keep visiting. Several people explained that they check it several times a day. One Youth Minister said that teens come over her house after youth group just so they can watch videos on the site. These things mean a lot to me, because getting that site up was a long and painful fight. It was worth it.

Candyce and her family are leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll be traveling for most of the month of July, and we are going to Cabo together in August. I will miss her over the next month, but I’d rather have her spending time with her family at the beach than sitting at home in Phoenix all alone while I’m off traveling.

Tomorrow will be the first day that I get to work with our full-time intern named Adam. With him taking care of the site, my days on the road this summer won’t be filled with frustration anxiety. If anyone needs something done on the site, they can just call him. Plus, he’s a talented guy, and we’ll be able to do some amazing things this year. This is the beginning of a new chapter for our website. Praise God!

Okay gotta go…Matt Maher and I are going out for dinner and we’re going to see “War of the Worlds.”

Yesterday Candyce and I left camp and made a quick trip back to Hiawassee to say goodbye to Mom and Grammy. It was hard saying goodbye, but we had to drive down to spend the next couple days with my sister. We loaded the truck, hugged, and Candyce, Dad, and me left for Athens.

It was fun driving down to Athens with Dad and Candyce because that is a trip I’ve done so many times by myself. When I was in high school, my two sisters lived in Athens and went to the University of Georgia. Spending a weekend in Athens was exciting for a sixteen-year-old boy. I could stay up till three in the morning drawing in my sketchbook at a coffee shop.

We pulled up to Kristie’s house and everyone was on the front porch waiting for us. Her two kids, Tyler and Lauren, were so happy to see us. I didn’t know a three-year-old kid would be so happy to see me. Dad unloaded the wood from his truck into their garage so he could build a deck for them next week. Tyler and I played baseball in the backyard and talked about dinosaurs. Dinner was simple but so meaningful. Family is just so cool. You can do the littlest things together and that experience means so much.

Candyce and I went over to my brother Peter’s pimp apartment. He is a real handyman, so he’s made the place quite nice. Few guys his age (23) have such a finely furnished and decorated apartment. Some of he inherited when my Grampy passed away, every other piece he made himself. This would make Grampy proud to know that his grandson was a craftsman like him. Candyce and I walked through his apartment in absolute awe. How can his place look so much better than mine?

Peter has always been obsessive about this stuff. His cars are always pimped out and very well maintained. Now he’s transferred that obsession to his apartment. Unfortunately, all the money he is spending is on decoration and furniture. When he gets a house every dollar can go towards making the house itself better. He’s gonna have a nice place and it’ll be worth a lot.

The three of us drove downtown so I could show Candyce my old stomping grounds. There was a big music festival in town, so most the streets were closed off. It was raining hard and the concerts were all finished, but the sidewalks were packed with people. It was tough to walk by and see that my favorite coffee shop, Blue Sky, had become a bar. I knew that it happened, but it was a different experience to actually stand there at the door as drunk frat boys were getting carded at the door.

I’m not a coffee-shop groupy, but I know that I’ve had a lot of fun at the coffee shops in Athens when I was in high school. It’s fun to get older and keep going back. You can sit there and think about how much has happened in life since your last cup of coffee.

We walked around only to find out that my other favorite coffee shop is closed, but a cool one had opened up next door. So Candyce, Peter, and I sat down and chatted while people scurried around outside in the rain.

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This morning Candyce and I went to Mass with Kristie’s family and then went to Picadilly for lunch. Picadilly is a cafeteria that is the unofficial post-church lunch spot. It was funny to see the variety of church goers circling the tables.

Then we went back to Kristie’s house and watched Napoleon Dynamite while I played with the kids. I never knew that tossing a baby in the air could be so much fun. I must’ve thrown Lauren up in the air fifty times. My favorite part was when she came crashing down on my chest and she wrapped her little arms around my neck. That’s got to be one of the greatest feelings in the world. I just love her so much!

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Now I am on an airplane back to Phoenix. I gave Candyce my seat up in first class because she’s never ridden in first class. Deep down, I really wanted to sit up there, but I know that I would’ve looked like a selfish jerk to make my girlfriend sit in the back packed in with a bunch of strangers. This week at camp we did a session with just the guys, and all the single message we tried to drive home that to be a man of God means to truly die to yourself. So I have to practice what I preach.

Oh this is funny. The flight attendant came up to me and handed me a cup of red wine. “Mr. Smith, this is from your fiance in first class.” Although she’s not my fiance, it was a cute gift that meant a lot to me. It really sucks back here.

I don’t want to spill this on my computer, so I’m going to end this journal right here.

Tonight was the last night of summer camp. I feel so blessed to have “going to camp” be a part of job as a grown up. How much fun is that? But truthfully, I am so worn out. We get up at the crack of of dawn, and we are active around camp until midnight. Everyday is a new adventure of faith and summer camp stuff: games, rafting, climbing wall, etc.

It’s been cool to spend time with strangers who come to lifeteen.com. Although I’ve met teenagers who come to the site over the past few years when I traveled on the weekends, I never really have to to get to know them. But when you have six days together, you really get a chance to share a part of your life with them.

Candyce has enjoyed being at camp. I’m always up front with the microphone and in the middle of the drama. She stays in the back and spends her time around camp in prayer. She understands prayer a lot better than I do. I pray because I know I am supposed to, not because it moves my heart.; I guess I am too heady.

It’s been exciting to see all the campers swooning over the shirts that the counselors are wearing. I really enjoyed designing all the shirts, but the counselor shirts were the most fun. We’ve sold quite a bit of stuff in the little store here at the camp. Today I saw dozens of teenagers wearing shirts that I designed. One girl was wearing three things I designed: a trucker hat, a hoody, and a T-shirt. It’s just an amazing feeling to see what was in my head solidify on a computer screen. But to see the stuff printed, and then to see people wearing it–it’s pretty darn cool.

I know I talk a lot about my T-shirt designs, and that’s because I understand them. I know when a teenager is happy to wear a shirt…when it makes her feel cool and she feels good about herself. I know that she can wear it at school this fall and be happy to talk about her experience at summer camp. All of this makes sense to me.

I don’t know how praying with someone for a half-hour makes a difference. Much of the life of a Christian is a mystery, and I’m okay with that. But I do hold onto what does make sense.

Today is Fathers’ day, and it’s so cool that I got to spend it with Dad. I’m usually on the other side of the country, and I can only give him a phone call. But it’s been a cool day.

This morning we played 18 holes of golf. I didn’t play too well, but it was fun spending that time with dad, my brothers, and my brother-in-law. This afternoon Candyce and I went hiking in the mountains behind the house. I didn’t appreciate the trees I grew up with until I moved out west. In Arizona, the trees are small and low to the ground. In Georgia, the trees are tall and make a thick canopy of shady. It was like we were in our own little world.

Tonight was a fun cookout with my grandparents. My other brother Peter came up, and so did my sister Kristie and her family. It was awesome. Now I’m gearing up to go to Life Teen Summer Camp for the next week. It’s going to be cool.