Entrepreneurial Spirit

Kicking and Screaming

2008-12-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

The church nursery right before service started used to be a place of fear and delight for our kids when they were small. When we dropped them off they were apprehensive, but then turned around to see the fun that awaited them and all was right in the world again.

The picture was very different for many other children. As they screamed with their arms outstretched, and the nursery teacher's arms grasped around their tummies to pull them into the toy and child-filled room, you could see the pain on the parents' faces as they turned to leave for the church service awaiting them.

This strange dynamic still amazes me. The child reaching for his parents. The parents turning away, knowing the pain their child was in. Their comfort came in knowing that their child would soon be enjoying life with his friends.

From the child's perspective, he initially couldn't imagine life would ever be the same if his parents left him right then. He fought with every inch of his being - kicking and screaming. The teacher gently pulled him back to redirect his attention. However, until that child submitted to the life awaiting, he will continue to be in fear, ignighting that "fight or flight" reaction. His only hope was to trust that if he let go and resigned himself to the fact that his parents still loved him but would be gone. Once he engaged in the life that is right in front of him, it would be hard to stop.

This morning, I realized that I am that child right now, kicking and screaming, refusing to let go of yesterday. I haven't completely submit myself to the life in front of me today, right now. I am committing to and praying that God will give me the heart to bring my grasping arms down to my side, calm my heart, and embrace the life he has blessed me with that is right before me.

If the time comes that God comes to us with a new direction for our lives, I believe we will find this place to be as hard to leave as the nursery becomes to the child after the service is over and his parents tell him it's time to go home.

78704 - South Austin

2008-12-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

For all of my beloved family and friends beyond the boundaries of the state of Texas, if you haven't already heard, Austin has a saying.... "Keep Austin Weird." This is really not so much a saying as a way of life. South Austin is the epitome of this mantra.

We live in southwest Austin, which is on the fringe of True South Austin. True South Austin is as iconic to this city as 90210 is to Beverly Hills, except the "True South" zip code is 78704. Look it up - on the Yelp website, it is listed as an area of town "78704 - South Austin." It took some time for us to realize what no one seemed to be able to explain with words.

Visiting shops and restaurants on South Congress is an excellent introduction to 78704. A perfect "First Date" with SoCo might go like this:
1. Book a room at Hotel San Jose
2. Eat at South Congress Cafe
3. Walk the shops on "SoCo"
4. Catch the stunning view of the capital as you look up Congress - I still just love it
5. Grab some pizza at Home Slice for lunch
6. Go to the Continental Club and hit a show
7. Go to one of three of the top rated salons in the city, located on SoCo
8. Enjoy a evening dinner outside at Guero's

The list seems cool enough. What it doesn't capture is the vibe.

Hotel San Jose is a boutique hotel that we almost couldn't find - even when we were looking for it. We had been down South Congress maybe 50 times, heard that San Jose was a great place to visit with friends, drove down South Congress to find it, passed it TWICE, then finally just parked and walked down the block we knew it had to be on - and found it. It is cozy, chic, and charming. Not stark and new, or pretentious, but chic.

South Congress Cafe is pressed between funky shops with weird stuff. Again, you really have to look for this place, and the exterior fits in with the other old looking buildings with somewhat of a "hippie" feel. BUT, you step into this restaurant and, while you get a nod from the old building, it has uber cool, retro decor and AMAZING food.

The shops on SoCo are hard to put your finger on as well. One block you'll find the funky old shops with high end products, old dirty antiques, amazing imports, art galleries, or any number of other surprises inside. The next block may have a brand new development, camouflaged by a sleek, artistic facade. Our favorite block showcases stores like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Casa Mia, Farm to Market, and other cool, funky stores.

Stepping outside the door of many of the stores re-introduces you to fresh air after breathing musty, weird-smelling air. Then you HAVE to glance towards the city. As South Congress gently descends, then slightly ascends again, the grand view of the beautiful capital building is striking. It's such a stark contrast to the surroundings you are in, yet it represents Austin just as much as the funky SoCo shops.

I still do not understand the relationship this city has with food joints. Across the street from my favorite shop block sits an unassuming pizza parlor. There are always people sitting outside on the sidewalk, and inside is really .... well .... no disrespect (please, if you're from Austin, don't get mad at me) but it's a little bit of a dive. But - it's probably some of the best pizza in town (just eat it hot - we don't like it re-heated). People are willing to wait in line for over 30-45 minutes just to place an order! Now, I should tell you that there are probably 4-5 pizza places within a mile, so everyone is waiting for this pizza because it is good.

And the Continental Club. This was the first place we went to specifically check out the "night life" in Austin. We went before we knew it is a truly cool icon. It is like one of those seedy old bars that our grandparents went to, but it is full of people of all ages. It's not huge - but even for a terrible show (which we happened to be blessed with that night), it is a packed house. About 20 of the maybe 150 people have a place to sit - everyone else stands. We later found out that the paintings on the wall are originals that were salvaged by the new owner. The history behind this great little place is pretty interesting.

Guero's is what I think of as pretty typical Austin. It has a huge outdoor eating area under trees. Nothing is fancy, nor does it seem particularly clean. But - every time we go by, it is full and the music is phenomenal. We've heard mixed reviews on the food - but everyone has a great time. It's a restaurant, not just a bar, which is a plus.

So, SoCo, you may be funky, you may be (sometimes) dirty, you seem very "hippie" and I wonder about some of those smells. But SoCo - you rock. Well done.

After the first date, if you're like us, you'll love South Austin more every day.

Classic Texas

2008-11-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

A list of experiences we'll just call "Classic Texas"

Funny: Miranda often comes home from school with a puzzled look on her face. Normally, she has an issue with being made fun of for her "northern" pronunciation of words such as "tag," "bag," "caramel," "almond," "crayon," and "route." It's as if the poor girl has to relearn to prounounce new words every day. Then there are words such as "sliver" that classmates and teachers don't even recognize. The "classic" moment was when she came home from school on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. With that familiar, puzzled look on her face she said, "Mama, was the first Thanksgiving in Texas?" You guessed it - that's what her Social Studies teacher taught the kids and quoted a web site professing the same. Of course, the only site I could find to cooberate her story is www.texasalmanac.com, but I guess history's different here as well.

Love it: within one week of living in our new home, I was invited to the monthly neighborhood "Girls' Night In" where women in the neighborhood get together to drink wine and play Bunco together. It was a blast! A week later it was the monthly "Couple's Night Out" where we went to what is now one of our favorite dinner and wine spots in Austin.

Things I Love About Austin

2008-11-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

There is so much to love about this city. No town is perfect, and Austin certainly has its share of disappointments. But, below is a list of some things I like about Austin. I will continue to update as things come to me.

1. South Congress
2. Music Scene
3. High Tech
4. Funky is Cool
5. Doghnuts and Tacos
6. The city view from 2 miles from our house
7. Our house
8. The schools
9. The people in the neighborhood and the neighborhood events
10. Southwest Hills Church
11. The weather
12. The sunsets
13. The restaurants
14. Central Market
15. Texas Culinary Institute
16. UT
17. Bowie High School football games
18. Bowie High School baseball program
19. Coach Alvarez
20. The view of the city from MOPAC
21. Nightlife
22. So many new places to see
23. Generally pleasant people
24. Jay Leno is on at 10:30
25. The Today Show is only an hour old when we see it
26. When we get calls from people in Washington who want to call at 7:00 or 8:00 am, it's 9:00 or 10:00 here.
27. Our health club
28. It seems like we're close to everything (bad news: except Washington and Montana)
- - Disneyworld is 15 hours away (driving)
- - Colorado is 15 hours away (driving)
- - Nashville is 15 hours away (driving)
29. The airport is super close, and it is a very small and nice airport (so easy to get around)
30. There is a river through town, lakes very nearby, and the Gulf is only 4 hours away

Homesick List

2008-11-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

I should probably admit that about a year before we moved, I was "itching" to get away. I thought that maybe if we spent a year, or even three months in a far off land, I could feel homesick for Skagit Valley. I badly wanted to feel homesick, knowing we lived in an incredible community.

Now that we have lived in Austin, TX for over 3 months, I am realizing some things that I miss about Skagit Valley. This is a living list - I will update it as I realize new additions.

1. Family
2. CTK
3. Friends
4. The sight and smell of the Pacific Ocean
5. Good water
6. Good coffee
7. Cutting down a fresh Christmas tree
8. Fitz in the morning
9. Cooler weather for Miranda
10. Fresh produce and the Farmer's Market
11. Large selections of fresh seafood
12. Alex getting to see Kara
13. Devin's CTK Burlington Youth Group
14. Miranda sharing the same accent as her classmates

Human Transplant x 5

2008-11-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

I was blessed to have been born and raised in the Skagit Valley of Northwest Washington State. Skagit Valley is probably one of the most beautiful locations in the world. Hold on, let me rephrase that. Northwest Washington, on a sunny day, is probably one of the most beautiful areas on the planet. According to Sperling's "Best Places" web site, my home town of Mount Vernon, WA squeaks out an average of 154 sunny days per year, and 154 days of precipitation. That represents a lot of cloudy days. In contrast, our new town of Austin, TX boasts 229 days of sun per year, and only 82 days of precipitation, on average. Interestingly, Austin gets an average of 34 inches of rain - which is surprisingly close to the 39 inches Mount Vernon gets each year.

Talking about the weather, really? While it seems a fitting topic to break into discussing a family's move from Washington State to Texas, the weather is simply a perk (albeit, a wonderful perk we now enthusiastically soak in almost every day).

The words "New Start" or "Fresh Start" are commonly used for our life's recent change of course. These phrases are very abrasive to me. I have affection for our life before we moved to this new world. There are reasons we left, and reasons we came to where we are now, but life was good then, too.

Why we moved is almost as puzzling to me as it is to the dozens of people who ask us each week. Was it for work? Was it for the weather? Maybe. Somewhat. One thing we know for certain is that God sent us to Austin. It is miraculous that the idea of us selling the one of a kind 20 acre farm, on which we have raised our kids from toddlers to teenagers, surfaced and finalized within a month for the terms we needed. In Austin, we found one home in the area that best suited our family, and that one choice was within our budget and was available for immediate occupancy. Of the very few days we spent in Austin, the day we arrived to register our kids for school (the only day we were available to do so) was the day the school was open for registration of our kids' classes. Every detail fell into place as if there was divine intervention.

The real estate market in our community in Washington had seen approximately a year and a half of extreme hardship, and the lenders were responding with what seemed to be severe, fear-driven actions. Our financial livelihood had been supported by real estate investments, and that financial livelihood took a hit. A disaster was looming, and we knew we had to act.

Prior to seriously considering a move, we began working with EA Brevita with the idea of helping locate sites for drive-thru espresso units. Having started several businesses, we recognized the business model that EA Brevita offers was one we wanted to pursue. However, we did not want to open - yet another - drive-thru espresso shop in the Pacific Northwest. We later decided that if we sold our farm, we would open two drive-thru's.

In addition to business considerations, we were exasperated with the local schools. Having volunteered for the chamber of commerce for years, I have deep compassion and appreciation for the Superintendent of the public schools. There was no question that the leadership seems to be fighting for better schools. It is my opinion that for some unfortunate reasons, the community we were in could just not seem to make it over the wall and into a world of safe, quality education. I have many opinions as to why, but for now I'll just leave it at that. The private school was a resource we had been a part of, but we deeply wanted more for our kids.

If you could move anywhere, where would it be? Have you ever sat down at a restaurant, looked at a menu with six pages full of tantalizing dishes to choose from? So many options - but you can pick just one. That's how we felt much of 2008. With the real estate market continuing to tank, the drive-thru espresso businesses calling our name, and three kids in school to consider, we had a menu full of options. Armed with Sperling's Best Places and Great Schools web sites, as many "top ten" lists I could get my hands on, and our first hand experiences driving around the country through the years, we determined that Austin, TX would be a great option. I then pulled demographics reports and a list of competing coffee shops to confirm Austin could support our drive-thru's.

Findings: Southwest Austin has several phenomenal schools. We narrowed it down to the middle and high schools with the highest ratings, and whose high school mascot would not offend our oldest son who was entering as a Junior. Visits to local churches refined our search to one area, one high school, one house that would work for us.

We now live in Covered Bridge, where kids go to Clint Small Middle School and Bowie High School (home to the "Bulldogs"- just like in Mount Vernon, Washington, and a great baseball program). As the sun sets each night, casting a burst of color and light across the tree-covered hills that flow from below our home to above it, is a beautiful gift we receive almost every night, reminding us that we are truly blessed. Washington State is beautiful, but so is Austin.

There is no question that our family could be happy living anywhere. As God reveals what His plan is for us here in this new land, I pray our family continues to grow together in Him, and that we be sensitive and responsive to His will.