Studio711.com – Ben Martens

As I sit here staring at this blinking cursor trying to remember what happened in 2024, I’m thankful that I keep this website going. I don’t post every day like I used to, but it is nice to have a record of our trips, my projects, and other family events (with some nonsense posts in the mix of course too.) So let’s flip back through the posts and see what happened this year:

We usually try for one big (I guess that’s a relative term that varies by family) vacation per year, but this year had two because Tyla got to go on her AGE-REDATCED’th birthday adventure to Leaping Lamb Farm. We had been there in 2022 for the first time and Tyla immediately wanted to schedule a return visit so we booked spring break week this year. We had to wait a year and a half for the trip but it was worth it. There were baby lambs and baby goats hopping and falling all over the place.

I took a solo trip in May to the 2024 PacNW Men’s Retreat and promptly returned home with food poisoning. Not only was that a horrible experience but I was really bummed to miss Pastor Dave Scharf’s talks. Little did I know I’d run into him later in the year… (Also, I’m happy to say that the restaurant that got me sick is now permanently closed. There appeared to be some serious health code violations, and I should have just walked away.)

We took a quick day trip down to Portland to see a professional disc golf tournament. It was such a fun day for all of us that we already have a tournament on our calendar for 2025. It’s a small sport but big enough that the pros are mind-bogglingly good. It was amazing to see in person what they’re capable of instead of just watching it on TV. Elijah also got to watch his disc golf teacher play and then got to take a picture with her on the first tee!

Pretty much every summer we try to make it back to my parents’ house in Indiana for some pool fun. They surprised us this year by installing a diving board and it got a lot of use! Given how far away we live, I’m thankful that Elijah gets to spend so much time there and get a little taste of what it was like where I grew up.

Our “official” big vacation was a cruise to Alaska. This was the third cruise for Tyla and me, and we knew Elijah was excited to see Alaska, but when we told him it was a cruise, it was a hard sell. He really didn’t want to go. Ask him what he thinks about cruises now! I’m thankful he kept an open mind, and he has now done a complete 180. It wasn’t nearly as relaxing as our previous cruises, but it was fun to experience it through his eyes.

We squeezed in one more quick family trip to Moses Lake in central Washington so we could drive up to the Grand Coulee Dam. We wanted to show it to Elijah and we were also able to snag a couple more counties as we try to color in the entire map of Washington counties. I think we’d all agree that the highlight of that trip was our ride on the tiny Keller Ferry. Our cars have been on a lot of boats, but never one that small!

As you may have noticed, pretty much all our trips involve all three of us, but in October, Tyla and I took our own trip out to New Ulm, MN for a weekend at Martin Luther College. We’re getting more involved with supporting the school and were involved in some meetings. A huge thank you goes to Megan for staying at the house and watching Elijah!

Then finally, this year we spent Christmas in Indiana. Two trips to Indiana in one year! I know it’s a lot of work for my parents to host us all, but we really appreciate being able to spend Christmas with everyone.

At home, I felt like I had a lot less free time to do projects. I’m not sure if that’s because I was a lot busier with my volunteer work at church or because I was lazier in the evenings. It’s probably a combination of both. My woodworking Instagram account does remind me that there were quite a few projects even though none of them were huge. I made a walnut trash can with some interesting angles, a keepsake box made with wood from an old cross with Elijah’s school logo on the lid, a walnut tissue box holder, a coat rack, a kids bakery sign, a cat bed, and an updated silverware tray. There are some big projects underway now but those will probably land in 2025. And while it’s not woodworking, I replaced the rotten wood backsplash in our kitchen with tile. It was my first time doing tile and it makes me smile every time I do the dishes because I’m not staring at something I need to fix.

I think the biggest change for me personally this year was mostly dropping off of social media. I still post my finished woodworking projects to Instagram and I post for our church Facebook and Instagram accounts, but I have broken the habit of doomscrolling and it feels amazing! I removed the Instagram icon from my phone’s home screen and left that spot blank. It was shocking and scary how many times I would pull out my phone and click that spot. That just reinforced my desire to stop. I set a rule for myself that I would only go through what the people I follow had posted once per week on Friday nights, but now I find myself going multiple weeks before I remember to check in. This feels much healthier and certainly removed a lot of pointless screen time from my day.

To combat the relentless acceleration of the calendar and ever-dwindling free time, I’m trying to be even more intentional with my time. Making task lists for each day, removing wastes like social media, and trying to schedule family activities on a regular basis are all helping. There’s also the problem of having too much stuff to cram into a week, but I haven’t figured that one out yet. There’s always next year!

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

Lots of websites are doing these “Wrapped” style emails where they show statistics about your usage of their service. Here’s a sampling of mine:

Spotify

I listen to a lot of Spotify while I’m working and I found myself listening to a playlist of Christian radio songs that I listened to in the ~90’s. You can listen to it here (no subscription needed if you’re ok with ads.) That combined with our reading of the Wingfeather Saga got me into listening to a lot of Andrew Peterson music.

• Listened for 51,049 minutes
• Play 4,898 songs
• Listened to 1,249 artists
• Top songs (mostly because these are two of my favorite albums)
  • FFH – One of These Days
  • FFH – Big Fish
  • Caedmon’s Call – Thankful
  • FFH – Power In His blood
  • Caedmon’s Call – Table for Two
• Top artists
  • Andrew Peterson
  • Third Day
  • George Strait
  • The Arcadian Wild
  • Josh Turner

Pocket Casts

This one was less interesting to me because I already know which podcasts I listen to regularly, but here it is anyway:

• 23 different shows and 403 total episodes
• 12 days, 17 hours, 5 minutes of listening
• Top podcasts
  • Stuff You Should Know
  • Making It
  • Cordkills
  • No Dumb Questions
  • Wood Talk

Duolingo

I started doing Duolingo in 2020 as a way to make good use of the time I previously spent commuting and I’m still doing it every day.

• Completed 2217 lessons earning 96,226 XP over 3201 minutes
• Current streak is at 1529 days

Goodreads

There are so many books that I’d like to read that I really enjoy using Goodreads to keep track of them all. My Kindle syncs with my Goodreads account but given how old my Kindle is, it crashes every couple weeks and prematurely marks books as completed so I don’t put much confidence in the things like the number of days that it takes me to read a book.

• 31 books read, 9827 pages read
• Most common book read: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• Least common book read: Taboo (Read this!)
• Highest rated book read: The Wingfeather Saga: The Warden and the Wolf King

UDisc

I played less disc golf than last year, but here are my stats.

• Steps: 42,300
• Holes played: 141
• Total throws: 465
• Distance thrown: 7 miles
• Courses played: 6

Trakt

I use Trakt to keep track of all the movies and TV shows that I watch. It’s great for hopping around between shows and remembering our show progress as we add and remove various streaming services.

• Elijah and I watched 121 episodes of Mythbusters
• The show Tyla and I watched the most episodes of was The Chosen.
• The show we all watched the most episodes of together was The Wingfeather Saga.

Untappd

I track all my beers and have fun seeing how many different ones I can experience.

• I tried 112 new beers from 64 breweries covering 31 different styles.

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Are we going to make it through the next few months? Even a quick peek at the news for the last four years reveals an angry torrent of people screaming at each other or worse.

Watching from the sidelines, there are so many similarities between politics and sports. In politics and sports, both sides cheer for their own team and some people take it way too far. The difference is that at the end of the day, the sports fans usually know it’s just an ephemeral game. The people glued to their team’s news source haven’t figured that out.

Have you ever thought about how there are always about 50% on one side and 50% on the other side? The political teams don’t take permanent, principled positions. Rather, they are two riverbanks following a meandering course of public opinion and fighting to control their half of the river. They would have you believe there are only two opinions, and if you question anything about their side, you must be part of the other team. Can we please get more people who freely admit that not everything from the other team is wrong and that there might even be a third or fourth answer to a particular question?

A country where people are quicker to argue than to listen doesn’t bode well for our future. How would things be different if we only talked about politics when people asked our opinion? Hateful, predatory internet culture has now somehow become what we expect from our political candidates instead of rational, respectful discussions between people who happen to disagree on the best way to solve a problem. Political debates and speeches frequently sound like people trying to fit in the name-calling and zingers that will make their team yell “OOOOO! They got you!”

So if you do tell me about your political viewpoints, expect me to change the topic or just make my way out of the conversation even if I’m voting for your candidate. I’ll do my own reading and research before I vote. If we do have a chance to talk, I’d rather have a conversation about Jesus than about a political candidate. Imagine what our country would look like if all the Christians focused as much time on the Bible as they do on their news source.

I have a nephew graduating high school and heading off to college. With that comes a lot of thinking about how much to invest in college, how much debt to take on, and what your earning power will be when you graduate. It also gets me thinking about the importance of investing. It’s something many people realize too late in the game.

I’ve been thinking for weeks about how to put this into a blog post but then I listened to a recent “How To Money” podcast episode and it covered it perfectly. So whether you read this post or not, consider checking out episode 842 – Millionaire Mission.

When I was young, investing seemed really complicated, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. That podcast is an interview with the guy behind MoneyGuy.com, but there are plenty of other popular financial sites that will help you avoid debt, make smart decisions, and get in the habit of saving 20% or more of your income.

I don’t want to try to summarize every little thing because they do it much better than I can, but here are a few key points:

1. Save money in the market. Literally anything helps. There’s a great page on the “Wealth Multiplier” at MoneyGuy.com which shows the impact of compound interest. If at age 20, you put $95 per month into the market, you’ll have a million dollars by the time you’re 65! Or putting it another way, if you spend $1 when you’re 20, that takes away $88 when you’re 65. Early investing has unfathomably large impacts on your future.
2. Be conscientious about every dollar that you spend. Look at a report at the end of every month and year to see where your money went. For example, let’s say that starting at 20, you spend $10/week on coffee. If you invested that instead, you’d have $145k when you’re 65. AARP has a great calculator for showing the value of regular investing.
3. If investing is complicated, you’re doing it wrong. Start by maxing out your 401k and/or your Roth IRA. These give you tax advantages later so there is a limit on how much you can do per year. Once you hit that limit, open an account with Fidelity or Vanguard and buy an index fund like VTI. Do not invest in individual stocks because that’s a guaranteed losing game over the long run. (For more info on that topic, read this book.)

There’s so much more to learn, ways to pay minimal taxes, getting completely out of debt, etc, but the main message here is start investing TODAY. You literally cannot afford to wait.

Last year was my first time attending a retreat held by our area churches. I had a great time and instantly signed up for this year’s retreat as soon as they created the sign up form. Unfortunately, this year’s experience was dramatically different!

I decided to make the most of my trip to the Olympic Peninsula so I left earlier in the day so I could play a round of golf at Rainshadow Disc Golf Park. It’s one of the most highly rated courses in Washington and it didn’t disappoint. The holes are very well thought out and there is a lot of elevation change. Many holes have extreme penalties for throwing off the fairway because the fairway ends up being on the ridge of the hill with a steep drop-off on each side. Since I didn’t know the course (and I’m not that good), I mostly just played short throws that would stay in view, and I didn’t concern myself too much with my score. I shot a painful eight over par on the front nine and only one over on the back nine.

After finishing the round, I still had plenty of time, so I checked out the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. I didn’t feel like paying the entry fee just for 30 minutes of walking around, so I checked out the surrounding county park instead. I’d love to go back with more time to explore though.

Dinner isn’t provided on the first night of the retreat, and I stopped for a quick bite to eat at Jack in the Box. It was so gross when I went in that I should have just turned around, but I felt obligated to buy something since I had already used their restroom. And since it was just me without the family in tow, I didn’t think too much about it. But then the fries tasted really weird. That’s odd. They were so weird that I ended up not eating them all. Strange. But whatever.

When I showed up at the Men’s Retreat, I felt off. I figured it was probably just getting old and not being used to eating a lot of fast food. But as I met up with some of the other guys from our church and walked around, it got worse. By the time the event started, I knew something was wrong.

I’ll save you the biological details but suffice it to say that it became obvious that I had food poisoning. I skipped the evening session, went straight to bed, and laid awake all night with trips to the bathroom (trying very hard not to make any mess in my room!) At 3am, I called it quits, made a beeline for the ferry in my little window of time when I felt ok after a vomit, and got back home. I proceeded to feel worse and worse throughout the day, but I was very thankful to be home and have Tyla to help me out! By Sunday and Monday, I was able to keep some fluids down and slowly build my strength back.

After looking forward to the Men’s Retreat for a full year, it was a complete bust. But hey, there’s always next year right?

I believe it’s important to watch where all our money goes so I’ve been through many different apps over the years including Microsoft Money, Quicken, and Mint. Mint lasted me for a long time but it recently closed shop after being bought by Intuit. They claim that they moved the “important” features to Credit Karma but nothing about that was useful to me. So it was time to find a new money tool.

After examining a few, I landed on Monarch Money. I went through the free trial and ended up signing up for a year. (It helped that there’s a half price deal for people coming over from Mint for the first year.) So far so good. I don’t need a lot from a tool like this. I just need it to connect to all my various accounts, update smoothly, and then let me categorize the line items.

Connecting to all the accounts was pretty straightforward. The only hiccup continues to be one investment account through a small company, but they were always a challenge even with Mint.

There was a lot of work initially to map Mint’s categories to Monarch’s categories, but they had a UI for that. Once it was set up, it wasn’t an issue. Categorization seems smoother than Mint. Mint had auto categorization rules but Monarch’s rules just seem to work better.

I could stop there and just share my experience, but if you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re looking for a money app as well. I do have a referral code you can use that gets you a free month and then I think I get a month for free as well.

About a month ago, I pulled the trigger and removed a bunch of “habit” apps from my phone. Instagram, Reddit, and my news app all got uninstalled. I decided I’d go for at least a week and see what happened. The result scared me enough that I’m still on a break from them.

I found that I would unconsciously pull out my phone and tap the screen where Instagram used to be. I purposely left that spot blank just to make the point to myself and I wish I had a way to track how many times I clicked that empty space!

It’s been a month now. Reddit is still uninstalled and so is my news app of choice. I can still access both of those on the web if I choose to, but that one extra step is enough that I rarely go there. (This isn’t going to be a fun 6 months of US news reading anyway so I’m fine skipping that mess.) Instagram did get reinstalled, but I limit myself to viewing it about once per week and I use the obscure UI menus to only look at posts from people I follow and skip all the suggested posts. Doing that in bulk helps me realize which accounts I’m interested in and which ones were just there to keep my feed populated with new stuff so I’ve been able to cut down on what I subscribe to.

This pause also helped me realize that I do like using Instagram stories to throw random content out into the ether to be consumed by anyone who chooses to use it. It feels more friendly than spamming text threads with too much content (which I probably do anyway.) That’s one of the same reasons that I like keeping this blog up too.

For now, I feel better reining things in a bit so that the phone is mostly just a utility that helps me in my life instead of a dopamine producer that I open out of habit. This isn’t the first time I’ve done stuff like this so I know it will creep back in, but at least there are periods of sanity.