Thankfulness is a battle

Return, O my soul, to your rest;

for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

Psalm 116:7

Recently I have really been struggling with self pity which, as all sin, is the worship of self instead of worshiping God. I am not perfect, and the victory seems far away; yet God in his kindness planned it into the heart of the writers of his word, and the people who made the reading plan I am going through to have me read through Psalm 116, and John 16:16-33, along with others. These two sections were particularly helpful in the struggle. Psalm 116:7 really stood out to me as a defense against listening to such lies. Thankfulness is the anti-self pity. Haven't I received everything to be thankful for?

Well, I couldn't end a Thanksgiving post without talking mentioning my annual football ritual. So, it happened again this year. There I mentioned it. Happy Thanksgiving everynutty!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Hey, today is my mom's actual birthday! I only say that for those of you who looked at my mom's facebook and saw that she put her birthday down on a different day than her actual birthday. So, just to clarify, Happy Actual Birthday Mom.

What's not to love about Halloween?

Halloween has got to be the best holiday this country has ever chosen to celebrate that doesn't involve getting school off for. Think about it, there are hardly any downsides! If you don't believe me, I'll list off a few of the reasons why I believe this. If you do believe me, then the rest of this post won't show up on your computer screen. Enjoy the Holiday!

Ok, here are just a few of the reasons why Halloween is so great:

• You get to come up with really bad, or interesting costume ideas throughout the year. So, it saves from boredom.
• You get to try to find the ingredients to the interesting costume pie you've created, which (if you're like me) is usually way too complicated, and over priced to make anyway.
• So, you get to come up with a new, realistic idea whenever you figure out that your old idea is too hard to make. Again, more creativity.

If you are like me, you have probably followed all these steps in years past, so:

• You get to make your terrible costume five minutes before you leave your house to the Harvest Party or Trick-Or-Treat fest. This teaches working under pressure, and not to be perfectionists (cuz either way the costume is gonna suck, sorry kids).

Halloween also teaches kids in other ways, like...

• which houses not to go to... so long as they have a good memory.

Once you get to your Harvest/Trick fest you get to:

• Laugh at all the other kids' terrible costumes.

And not to mention all the other obvious ones like free candy from absolute strangers, staying up late eating candy (dressed in your terrible pie costume), and did I mention laughing at your friend's costumes? The only real downsides to Halloween are getting terrible candy, and being laughed at for your terrible costume.

But the goods of Halloween out way the minor bads to Halloween. And besides, bad candy should be expected, you got it from a stranger. *Is this thing on?* You willingly took candy from a stranger, people! Another great thing about Halloween is

• That it is the one day that little line about candy and strangers in those cheesy safety VHS tapes totally gets blown out the window by you and your parents!

Speaking of parents, this is a great holiday for them too! Not only can they send the kinds away for a few hours to walk around with a bunch of creepy people in creepy costumes so that the parents get some peace and quiet, but if the kids say a word before Thanksgiving, the adults can shove the candy in their little mouths to make 'em shut-up. Are you starting to see the benefits of Halloween yet?

Also on the practical side of Halloween is the opportunity to try out a new hair style and not get ridiculed for it (unless it's as bad as the pie costume you made).1 No really, say you want to try a new dew, so you get your hair cut before the Treat-Fest. If it is bad people will say, "Nice Costume," if the dew is a gew, I mean go, they'll say "Nice Haircut." Bingo. You're in. But you have got to know who to show yourself off to in advance, and who's opinion you can actually trust. In other words, don't go up to your grandma and point your new styled head in her direction. Grandmas typically love everything their grandchildren do, and often have less than 20/20 vision. "Hey grandma! It's me; like my haircut?" "Me who? ...Oh, what a nice horse mackerel you've got sitting on your head dear." Again, just don't go to your grandma.

Halloween is great; new treats, new tricks, new cruddy costumes, and horrible hair styles! So can you see now why this ween night is the most "Hallo" out of the holidays? Hey, if nothing else, it got me to work on another drawing on Photoshop.2 Which I know brings delight to all your faces.

Well, I'm gonna' say "bye-bye" to all of you non-believers, and say "Hallo" to the best holiday celebrated in this country that you do not get to have school off for! That's right, Presidents' Day! No; Halloween! Oh yeah, and did I mention that you can laugh at all your friends' costumes?

1 Note: You may actually be ridiculed whether your hair looks good or not.

2 The pumpkin was originally in the shape of a heart. It still kind of looks like one if you look at the outline and minus the green, stemmy party.

Haven't been doing much else...

Yeah, sad to say this is all I got to post. Hope you enjoy it though, 'cuz I did makin' it...bro.

Hark!

Hey! My bro and I are back to making videos. Since photoshop takes me a long time, this is all I have to post for awhile.

COLOR!!!

This is a momentous occasion. If you have been around reading my blog since I started it, or are some crazy person who went back and read all of my heroically bad grammared posts, then this is the first time that you have seen one of my drawings done in Photoshop color. Hallelujah. I have actually had Photoshop for awhile, but I hadn't the slightest idea of how to use it until recently. There you have it fellow losers, I mean, bloggers: color. Now, I probably should have followed some sort of color scheme so that the colors kind of fit together, but I need to leave room for improvement, right? The drawing looks a little better than it did last time at least.

I would probably have more to say about this drawing if I was able to post it back when the Vancouver Olympics was actually happening. I can barely remember what happened that year. But one thing is for certain, it is obvious that Shawn White with snowboarding was the only interesting thing about it anyway.

Oh yeah, and if you are some crazy person who actually wanted to look at the journal I took while on the road trip-tacular, you can check out my other blog, which I have devoted solely to travel time-type stuff.

Well, I hope to get all the drawings I have posted in color at some point. Until then, that's all I got.

Back in the st'eh'ts.

Entry 12 of my travel journal. No need for you all to read every single one of these, but I figure when the zombie uprising occurs, the sane people will have something to laugh about while their flesh is devoured.

August 11, 2010, Day 12:

Watch out, the Davis family is on the road again, and we are armed and dangerous with Burger King and Costco under our belts. Don’t ask me how we fit the two buildings in our pants; I’m still not quite sure myself.

As it was for most our nights up north, we got rained on. Last night was no exception. It looked a little strange to have our tent set up in the back of the Burger King parking lot to dry while we ate lunch, but even stranger were the looks we got because of our drying method. One man got out of his camper and asked us if that was the only place we found to camp. We came up with a witty remark much later, as most witty remarks come, and said, “Looks pretty good to us, we’re from LA.”

We left our campsite in Jasper around eight this morning and finally got out of Canada at about four. It would have taken half as long had we gone the fast way, and there hadn’t been a line the exact length of Rhode Island to get across the border.

While still in Canada we saw mountain goats running up and a steep hill, fields of purple flowers, and yet more stinkin’ waterfalls.

We entered into Idaho and made our way to Washington State. I have never been in Washington before and Joey made the comment that northern Idaho and eastern Washington look exactly the same as south western Alberta; he was right of course.

On the drive, the temperature has changed as often as the time. Apparently we are driving on the thin line between Mountain Time and Pacific Time. Right as I wish I had the last hour of my life back -poof- it’s there! If I want time to pass by a little quicker –poof- it happens! -Even though we aren’t an hour more down the road.

I am now getting a little tired, it has been about 12 hours in the car so far and there are many more to come, (especially if we cross back into Mountain Time). I think the best way for me to knock out and sleep right now is to get a whiff from my wide selection of footwear; Righty and Lefty. I just can’t hold my shoes to nose level or everyone else will droop off too, including the driver.

With power at my toe-tips, Ben.