family – Page 5 – Jediah Logiodice's Blog

What about the house alarm?

So tonight while reading Little House in the Big Woods, we were reading the chapter about Pa and the Bear – and Donovan was surprised to find that the book is based on a true story.

I followed up the conversation telling Donovan about my bear story.

Back when we were kids we lived in a trailer that my father had bought, and he had used a chainsaw to cut some doors out of the trailer. One such door went into a wood shed that dad had built onto the side of the trailer, and then out into the “tool shed”.

Because the trailer was up on cinderblocks, you had to step down into the woodshed before opening the door to go out into the toolshed. Once in the toolshed, you had to walk through the shed, out into the night, up the hill and around “the path” to get to the outhouse.

One summer evening my mother had went out to go to the bathroom and when she walked down into the woodshed, she heard scratching and growling in the toolshed. She immediately ran back into the “house” down the hall, and jumped into bed waking my father up telling him there was a bear stuck in the toolshed.

Dad grabbed his gun, went down the hall, down into the woodshed, and opened the door to the toolshed, at which time his pure white german Shepard named “Sam” came bounding into the house. Apparently Sam had been left outside, and really wanted to get back in.

As I was wrapping up this story, Donovan turned and looked at me in bewilderment, and said: “I don’t get it, didn’t your dad have to disable the house alarm first”. 🙂

Little house in the Big Woods

When we were children there wasn’t much for entertainment; we had dirt, rocks, sticks and water. Mix them together and you could make some mighty fine toys. The closest store was probably 10+ miles away – that doesn’t seem that far by today’s standards, but on bikes or by foot – it was.

The water came from a hand pump well; you’d have to pump and prime it over and over to get anything out – but the water was ice, ice cold, and had a very slight taste of iron… it was a good taste. Showering involved heating water over a hot stove, and pouring it out of “showering cans”. I always thought everyone in the world knew what a showering can is – but I’m not so sure now.

The bathroom was a hole in the ground, covered at least by four walls and a roof – but in the winter or at night it was a daunting, cold or scary undertaking. At the same time, in summer evenings, it was a great opportunity to sneak out into the night and catch fireflies or raid the garden, although the coyotes, bears, moose and other wild critters that frequently were heard stalking through the night requires great courage to venture forth.

There was very little that we ate that wasn’t grown or raised, that’s just how it was. The planting, the tilling the weeding the gathering, and the canning. The vegetables, the rabbits, the chickens, the turkeys, the wild berries, apples, elderberries, blueberries, strawberries. They were all handpicked, or raked. I had to help in the butchering, it was part of life.

When it was 20 below outside, it was 20 below inside. The layers and layers of blankets, cast off when needing to make a run outside to the outhouse; but there was always a warm stove burning in the center of the house built with slat boards and no insulation.

The single pane of glass, frosted over in the winter with cold air creeping through the cracks around the door, around the window, through the wall boards and up through the floor boards. But the sound of crickets in the summer, like they were sitting in the same room… they probably were.

The root cellar full of fresh vegetables, and lizards; damp, cold, dirt. Just a whole in the floor of the closet, and a whole dug into the earth.

Life is so much different now than it was then. Was it better? It’s hard to say. You worked hard every day of your life, you slept hard each night. Our world is a very different place now. My kids will never understand what life WAS like. Which brings me to the topic at hand.

I have started reading Little House on the Prairie to my children. It is amazing the number of emotions it stirs in me, not only as I recall it being read to me when I was a child – we had no other entertainment at night when the sticks and rocks and dirt and water were put away. But, I remember what it was like to live off the land – Jeremiah Johnson style, I remember what it was like to live in a house that was made of drafty slats, to live in the wild woods, I even, to some extent, remember how hard it was to live – none of the high tech, drive over to the store and run a piece of plastic through a machine and they bring out food prepared and ready to eat.

Not that life today is bad; I’m not sure I could go back to the “good ‘ole days” – but I wonder, sometimes I even yearn for those more simple days.

I am going to love reading this series to my children it makes me homesick for childhood, nostalgic – and perhaps, just perhaps, they will get a small amount of vision as to what life used to be like.

Recommendations for books on Leadership

The last couple University courses in the graduate program have been focused on various aspects of leadership. Over the years, I have read a lot of different books on leadership, all with their own perspective.

Some are written to help direct as a leader in the home (a father for me specifically), some for leadership in the Church, some as practical guides for leadership in general society, and others specifically geared towards leadership in professional organizations.

Each and every one one of these books has had a positive impact on me, and has helped me mature in my style of leadership and understanding. As a result, I thought I would share some of the books near the top of my list.

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These last three are on my to-read list, but I haven’t gotten to them yet.

Guess who’s back…

What? My Name is..

Who? My Name is..

Huh? My Name is..

Slicky, slicky Jed Shady!

It has been more than a year, and I had gone silent. Why? Because my server traveled the world. What? Well, actually – I traveled the world – more specifically we have traveled the world.

Ok, so not really across the whole world, just to the other side of the country – which coming from a boy who grew up in a tiny little town in back-water Maine without running water, or sewer – it has seemed like I am a whole new world away.

We are now in Texas.

In July of 2012 I decided it was time to move on from my company of almost 13 years; I put my resume up on the internet. Within a matter of days, I had been contacted by a couple different companies that were offering great salaries and benefits, but they were either in the North East (I wanted to get out of the cold) or were on the west coast (I didn’t want to go that far).

Then one day on vacation up in the mountains with my family I received a call from this company that I had not heard of (interestingly, I had heard a lot about them, but just didn’t realize it). The recruiter left a message. As a curtsy call, I left him a return message letting him know that I did not ever intend to move as far as Texas. The recruiter called me back and asked if I was at least interested in hearing what he had to offer.

Rewind 13 years and that is exactly what happened at my previous place of employment, they had 3 managers that reached out to me from the one company for three different positions. I called the first back to tell him I wasn’t interested in moving to the mid-west, he asked me if I was at least interested in hearing what he had to offer.

I met with the first manager, he offered me the job a few weeks later, the rest is history.

Fast forward back to 2012, the recruiter told me about the company and the position, and I thought he must be joking. I jumped online in my spotty internet connection the next night, in between homework assignments and I sent him a resume.

A few weeks later I was on a plane to Texas (shudder), a few weeks after that I gave my notice at my current place of employment, and just a few more weeks I was pulling away from our ‘dream house’ that we had built – hauling a camper, a wife and five children half-way across the country to the unknown.

And to think, I once read the book “Who Moved My Cheese” and thought – “Hey, this could be about me”.

We took almost a month to travel from Maine to Texas, and stopped to visit family along the way. Stopped to say hello to our favorite place on the east coast: Tybee Island. Even took a short detour to bring our kids to Disney – something my wife had always wanted to do – but I was always too busy working to ever find the time.

So here we are, only about a month after hearing about this new company, we left our home, our family and traveled to the other side of the country. Living out of our camper (7 people), wondering if we would be able to sell our house, wondering when we could buy a new house.

Fast forward 8 months later. We miss our friends and family back home; but we’ve made new friends too. My family couldn’t be happier (except if our friends and family came to live in Texas). The job is wonderful, the weather is amazing, Texas is super… where has it been all my life? I belong in this state – while I will miss the seasons and the trees and the land, Maine was really not my true home.

And now I come to the end, and I must sign off by saying that YHWH has really taken care of me and my family. I’ve never done anything to deserve it, that’s for sure. But He has watched over us, and listened to us, and directed us, and He has told us and showed us what and when.

The pages have turned, the next chapter has begun. May it always be, Soli Deo Gloria.

The sun was bright, it was a self-timed photo-snap; but I have learned that I can go searching for happiness further than my back yard – because no matter where we are, as long as we are together – we are always at home!

Amanda on the beach

I think my beautiful wife is my second favorite thing to photograph (nature is still my #1 right now); here she is standing over a precipice on Marginal Way in Wells, Maine.

Amanda Beach

Here is a picture of the ocean on Marginal Way, it is beautiful out there!

Ocean

I can only Imagine

Playing with exposure, aperture and shutter speed in natural light

Braeden reading book

He whispered my grace is sufficient for him

Today at lunch time I was thinking about the emotional pain my son has to live with due to the way God created him; and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed with emotion – like a typhoon. First upset, then questioning, then anger, then humility – all within the space of about a minute.

Talk about holding on for your life.

Yet, through the torrent of emotion and weeping, I heard a still small voice say to me:

“My grace is sufficient for [him], for my power is made perfect in [his] weakness.”

LORD please do what you have promised your child… my child… please show the richness of your grace, and show your mighty power and strength through the cross you have asked him to bear…

I beg you.

Happy Birthday Jesus

Sitting in church tonight, I was thinking that the advent means so much more than I’ve ever thought of before. Our King and Creator came in such a strange way, to be born as a servant, to die, not a hero’s death as most Kings of renown, but to die a death most often of slaves, only then to triumph and be triumphant in His death… But, His advent was for my children, and my children’s children… He opened the door of salvation for them – and as a parent, I could never have asked or expected for anything more amazing than that. To know that the light of the world came in to overcome the darkness, to infiltrate and win back the hearts of his rebellious creation and in so doing, He gave me hope in that whatever life brings, there is hope for my children that goes beyond the hardships of this life alone. Regardless of the time of year Christ was really born: Happy Birthday Jesus, and thank you for such a wonderful gift – the gift of life for my children.

A new adventure

Yesterday I set up a merchant account, today I started advertising on Facebook. A short while ago I applied for a provisional patent, and now I’m dusting off my merchant taxid for the state. Don’t forget trying to keep Amanda’s head on straight. As much artistic talent as she has, she has no business sense at all!

Updated web pages, Facebook pages, marketing, merchandising, and product and trending analysis. Wow! So much work to sell such a little product.