I am uber excited for the upcoming months (mainly marrying the love of my life) but I will miss the friends I have made over the past couple of years as we part ways and begin our careers in a difficult market.  I am truly honored and blessed to have known you all, including Kara, Nikki, Rebekah, Heather and Sarah.  I wish you all the best of luck and may you stay strong in the future and pursue your dreams.

Thanks guys for all the memories.

- “Steve”

The Cultivate Project will be a series of blogs that deal with relationships and how to nurse and grow them into something unimaginable through the implementation of Scriptural ideas and concepts.  Several pastors that I consider to be great friends will be guest bloggers to give encouragement and guidance.  Although everything isn’t set in stone yet, we are all very excited about this new project and we hope to make an impact on people and how they treat and develop their relationships with others.  The Cultivate Project will tentatively launch in July.

More information will be posted soon but until then, enjoy the poster above.

I was struck by this word yesterday.

It has so many possible meanings behind it but nearly all of them have some sort of positive meaning.  2009 was a rough year for many people in the world.  Many lost jobs, loved ones and ultimately hope.  They simply gave up.  They allowed the darkness in this world over take the joy in their life and because of that, they were left stranded, alone and hurt.  2010 is the year to change that.

The definition of “cultivate” that strikes me the most is this one:

to acquire or develop (a quality, sentiment, or skill):
- to win the friendship or favor of (someone)
- apply oneself to improving or developing (one’s mind or manners)

This year I have  a goal, not a resolution (since resolutions are rarely fulfilled).  My goal is to be selfless and compassionate.  A goal to give when I don’t think I have the time or energy.  A goal to build relationships with people in an attempt to show them hope, to make them feel loved.

I was very blessed last year and to keep that all to myself would be selfish and egotistic.  I will apply myself to improve someone’s disposition.

I will cultivate.

Landis Woffordl captured this beautiful image from Grandfather Mountain this morning.  On the horizon, you can see the Charlotte skyline. Charlotte is over 100 miles away so, for this shot to be taken, there has to be near perfect weather conditions.  Great shot Landis.

For more information on Grandfather Mountain, visit there website.

www.grandfather.com

Once the sun went down, and the snow froze over, some friends and I went out to build some igloos and that we did.  Not only did we make 2 igloos big enough for a bear, we also built 20 feet of tunneling to connect the two ice homes.  It was most impressive.

If you played in the snow, tell us about it.  What snow activities did you participate in this past couple of weeks?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

Check out Matt Powell’s work right HERE.

We played basketball here.

This actually means I watched people play basketball.  I retrieved the ball when someone overshot the goal and the ball would go into the woods.  Now, when I say “woods”, I mean the huge briar thicket that was directly behind the goal.

I was the retriever every time.

This rocker-swing-chair-thing always gave me the creeps.

The paint was always peeling off of it in a few places so therefore I was always afraid that if I sat on it, my skin would begin to peel off.

I don’t know where I would have ever gotten that idea from…

This shed by the woods always smelled like moth balls.

I asked my brother once why the shed always smelled weird and he then replied with the obvious answer, “A giant man eating moth lives in there.  Don’t go in because he gets really mad, really easily.”

Forget that.  There was no way I was about to go into a confined space with a flesh eating, killer mutant moth.  I haven’t been in that building for years.  I’m sure it’s safe now.

I had my first snake experience next to the trees beside Nanny’s house.  That snake peered into my soul with it’s demon eyes and told me that he would make sure that his family would terrorize me for the rest of my years.

Now, I don’t have documentation to prove it but believe me, it happened.

I hate snakes.

When you spend so much of your time in one place, you have to be able to mold, to adapt.  This home became my fortress, teepee, castle and bunker.  I owe my life to this place and for my grandmother. She helped mold me into the person I am today and I am forever grateful.  This home indirectly helped me decide what I want to do with my life.

Some may know that I stay pretty busy.  A 70+ hour work week isn’t anything new to my life and I honestly welcome it with arms wide open. Between the wedding post processing, product shoots, meetings, scheduling and promotion, I don’t really have a lot of time for other things, let alone myself. Most of the time, I have these amazing ideas that I would like to do, write a book, do this shoot, redesign this, start doing that, but I always cop out and say “If I only had more time.”  After thinking about all this tonight, I came to this conclusion; I have always had more time.

I have been choosing to put other things in place of the things that I would rather do and feel that I need to do.  I have been choosing something lesser over something better.  For the past few years, I have been doing what is expected instead of what is needed and right.  This culture that we live in is so demanding and twisted.  Our actions communicate what we value.  If we work and slave over things for hours, we place that work above all other things because that is what we focus our time on.  I’m not saying that you should stop working.  I’m not saying you should be lazy.  What I am saying is that we all have a passion inside of us that fuels us and we should keep that passion alive by creatively pursuing it.

What do you value?