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It’s ironic that yesterday afternoon; I wrote a journal about how I was keeping my car despite it’s mechanical problems. I went to Sunday night Mass right after I closed my laptop. Then I came home, locked up my car in the driveway, and went to bed.

I knew my insurance expired on my car before I went to Cabo San Lucas last week. These kind of things happen when you have a bazillion things to do each day. So this morning while I was waiting on Robo to pick me up to go to work, I scrolled through my cell phone looking for my insurance agent. Before I could get to his name, my phone glowed and; started to ring–it was Robo. “Are you here at the house?” How strange. Why would he ask if I was home. I told him I’d be here.

I stepped outside and we walked towards his car parked at the curb. I glanced left and notice my car was gone from the driveway. I calmly assessed the situation, looking around the corner to see if maybe I’d parked it somewhere else. Nope. It’s gone. Gone gone.

Robo didn’t believe me. He thought I was just kidding. I told him we needed to hurry if we were going; to make it to the 8:30 AM Mass in; time. I hopped in the back seat of his car and called the police. While I was at Mass, I just asked God to have his way with the situation.

I feel irresponsible for letting my insurance expire. This is even worse when you consider that I had FULL insurance, and that if they didn’t find my car, they’d get me another one. I tried to put that out of my head and try to focus on praying. I just have to trust that God is going to look out for me in this situation. I mean, the reason that I let my insurance expire was because I was so swamped with ministry. All day every day is committed to serving Him and his people. Who knows? Maybe this is a sign that I need to do less. Only God knows.

It’s an unusually cool day in August for Phoenix, Arizona. To commemorate the 70s temperature and gray clouds, I came here to Starbucks to pretend that I am in Seattle. The weather in Phoenix is predictable, so a random day is deserving of a random celebration.

This is my third day home from my vacation with Candyce and her family to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Friday afternoon was a chill day unpacking and doing laundry. It was a thrill to walk into my clean house, just like I left it the day I left. Matt Maher is in Canada, and Carlos was in Tucson for most of the weekend. So I had the house pretty much to myself.

Today’s Sunday, and I spent several hours this morning cleaning up my landscaping. It’s hard for people who don’t own houses to understand, but the plants, trees, and grass outside need constant attention. It rained almost the entire time that I was in Mexico, so the backyard looked like a jungle. I packed to large trash barrels full of stuff that I clipped and raked. The place looks nice.

What excites me the most is a hedge of Oleanders that should grow above the fence the fence that seperates my backyard from my neighbor’s. I am tired of washing dishes and looking at each other. Another plant that looks cool is the tree that I planted earlier in the year. It’s grown from six feet to over eleven. I’ve snipped it every few weeks to give it that perfect bonsai look, and it’s really starting to show.

But I’m not happy about my Mesquite tree. I think I have the only breed of Mesquite that looks like crap. I have patiently trimmed and shaped this tree for three years now, and it still looks like shit. The branches never spring up with life and exuberance. They droop and drag until they eventually break off. I think when it gets cool this fall, I’ll cut it down and plant a tree that I can sculpt into something magnificent. I see guys do it all the time around here, and I am ready to join the club.

While I was working in the yard, I spent a lot of time thinking and praying for all the friends that are traveling. Some of them are in Germany for World Youth Day. It’s a big event in the lives of many young people. This year is memorable because we have a new pope–and he’s German. How cool is that? I had the option to go, but I prayed about it and decided that it was best for me to stay home.

Matt Maher is somewhere in Europe training people how to do better youth ministry. My heart really goes out to him because I know he’s already traveled so much this summer. That guy has absolutely exhausted himself for the sake of the Gospel.

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Candyce and her family will be driving over from San Diego later this week. It’s been a tough summer without her. I’m imagining this will be the last summer that we are apart. We love each other too much to spend two months away. In these last days before she gets back, I’ll be scrambling to get projects done so I can start relaxing with her in the fall.

Oh my gosh. I was about to write about how noisy Starbucks is when I turned around and saw that a table of chatty Chinese ladies had assembled inches from the back of my chair. My face was six inches from this ladies face. Weird!

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I finished this journal twenty minutes ago. I spilled my coffee, and turned around to jump up to find some napkins. Before I could slide my chair, one of the Chinese ladies handed me a fistful of napkins from her table. She was so close, she almost punched me in the face.

This morning I drove up to my property north of here. It’s pretty exciting to see the growth in the area. There is two large master-planned golf course communities going up to the east of me. On the west side are a series of six independently owned ranches. Golfers and ranches don’t have much in common, other than they have a lot of money.

These neighbors have made my dirt worth more, but I am weary of the “irrational exuberance”, the tell-tale sign of a bubble market. I don’t want to contribute to any panic, so I keep my weariness to myself. But I watch the market closely.

This afternoon I went inside and worked on some NoMoHo shirt designs. I already have seven designs complete, but only half of those will work for guys shirts too. So I fiddled around in Illustrator for a few hours. I came up with nothing, and I was okay with that. That’s how design goes.

I talked to my sister Kristie this afternoon and she described me as an “overachiever”. I’ve never spent much time thinking about that title because we don’t really use it where I come from. But since I graduated from high school, I’ve heard it more and more, but never to describe me. From what I understand, an “overachiever” is someone who is always out to achieve something else, to the point of it being obsessive. Some people are proud to be labeled an overachiever, and others resent them for that.

Normally I don’t care how people classify me, but over this vacation in Cabo, I was haunted by the fact that I will NEVER get everything done, mostly because I keep inventing new things for me to do. I’m a dreamer and I’m a doer. When I’m doing, I am quietly dreaming of what to do next. I can’t imagine living in any other way. This is a rewarding but miserable way to live. I’m constantly upgrading and updating every part of my life. Never content!

On my flight down to Cabo, I had to write down my accomplishments from the last twelve months. I had to do this because I had to remind myself that I have in fact made progress in the past year. At the bottom of my list of accomplishments, I wrote, “Matt, you’ve done enough! You should be proud of yourself! It’s okay to relax for the next ten days. God knows that you need it.”

I don’t want to obsess about this and ruin my Saturday night relaxing at my house, but I am going to look into the “overachiever” complex to see if there is light at the end of the tunnel. But not tonight. I’ve Tivo’d ten episodes of “Beverly Hills 90210″, and I’m going to make popcorn and watch them again and pretend I am still in seventh grade.

Last night was one of the most romantic moments of my life…something you would only see in a movie. It was one of those experiences that was so special that I just had to calm my mind and absorb the beauty that surrounded me and Candyce.
Candyce’s family had gone to bed early for the night, and she and I decided to take a walk together. It was a beautiful night with a crisp night sky. After sipping on some drinks by the pool, we walked down to the beach. There was no one else in sight…the whole place was ours.

Wood planks strung together with rope served as a foot path over the sand. I kind of felt like a pirate walking on it. At the end of the path were several canvas canopies with a two lounge chairs underneath. We each snuggled down into the chairs and kicked off our flip flops. The only sound was the crashing waves and canvas curtains lifting and and rustling in the wind.

Over the dark ocean was the most stunning starry sky. I’ve lived in cities for the past eight years, and I’ve forgotten how spectacular a starry night can be. We both knew we needed to just enjoy the peace of the moment, so we didn’t talk much. The minutes drifted by. Time didn’t matter.

Then out of nowhere, a HUGE shooting star traced a path across the sky. This was a Disney-style shooting star that glided across the dome for several seconds. We were both in awe of the whole scene. But that came and went, and it was back to the peace of the night. Candyce fell asleep in a few minutes.

Laying their in gentle light of the night, she looked like a supermodel. She is so beautiful. I am so blessed to have her as a friend.

I thanked God for that moment in heaven. It’s not often in life you experience a moment that has such magic. I’ll never forget last night.

I am reclining in a chase lounge on the front balcony of our condo here in Cabo San Lucas in Baja California. When I look above my monitor, I see a wide white beach speckled with early morning shadows from yesterday’s footprints. The only sounds are the crashing waves, chirping birds, the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard, and an occasional sip of my coffee. This could be paradise. The water is emerald green close to the shore.

Yesterday I had a very scary experience while snorkeling with a few friends. It was me, Danny, Johnny, and their dad John.

We had already snorkled in two different coves, and we were looking for a new adventure. On the tip of a local snorkler, we pulled off the road into a dirt parking lot. We found a quiet, remote cove where only the locals hang out.

We strapped on our snorkling gear and began our trek along a 1000 foot stretch of corral and rocks that extended perpendicular from the shore. As soon as you dip your head underwater, you see beautiful tropical fish swirling around you. It was quite an adventure exploring the choral. I saw every sort of fish I’d ever seen in exotic fish tanks…

I was floating along, peacefully exploring the beautiful underwater world I turned and saw a giant Devil Ray six feet in front of me. Everything else underwater was small and friendly, but this was a monster-sized creature, wing-to-wing over six feet wide. I was scared to death. Words can’t describe how startling it is to see a creature that large so close to you. All week we’d pulled sting rays out of the water while fishing, and everyone warned that their razor-sharp tale could whip you to shreds. This big black monster was 10 times bigger.

I screamed and shot up out of the water to look for Johnny. I yanked my head around shouted for him.  At that moment I saw two black fins, each eight inches tall, sweep past me five feet away. I didn’t know what they were–all I knew is that I had to swim to safety. It was a nightmare.Soon Johnny came to the surface. We were both scared to death.

I yanked my mask down below my chin and started to paddle towards the shore 150 feet away. I rolled over and began to backstroke and looked up to the clouds in the sky and I started to pray. I knew that at any moment I could die. Within seconds I I repented of my sins and I called on the archangels to come down and protect me. I felt so helpless and terrified. I didn’t know if these were the last seconds of my life. Terror.

I kept paddling. With every inch that I swam closer to the shore, I was more grateful to God. As I got closer, I heard Danny and John laughing at me. I wanted to yell at them to pray because I wasn’t clear yet. But I didn’t want to waste the energy. A few seconds later Johnny joined the group. Soon we were all floating together, looking back at the the nightmare we had just escaped. We didn’t know if those fins were sharks or what, but we knew it wasn’t worth staying in the water any longer to find out.

I’ve never been so thankful to climb out of the water. I was too startled to make sense of what had just happened over the past two minutes, but all I knew is that I was grateful. By the time we pulled off our fins, there were Mexican children standing on the rocks pointing towards the water. We climbed up on the rocks and scanned for the fins, each of us telling the story about what happened to them.