Happy New Year

In case I’m not awake at midnight (and I won’t be), Happy New Year.
More in 2007…

Booklist 2006

Just in time to put those gift cards to work, here’s my 2006 booklist (with reasons and rankings – 10 is highest) for your consideration. I didn’t take the time to link the books, but you should be able to find them easily enough.
In general, I didn’t get as much fiction in as I would [...]

Merry Christmas to All

We’re at the grandparents’ in Illinois through Christmas Day, when we’ll then head to Megan’s sister’s near Kansas City until Wednesday, (finally) finishing moving in at the new place Thursday. We’re 90% there, but that last 10% is always the hardest.
In the meantime, we’re catching up on some sleep and some reading (sans highlighter), and [...]

Gift Cards: Yea or Nay?

Finished finals, turned in my last paper of the semester, and spent the rest of yesterday (as well as today) schlepping stuff from our apartment to the new house we’re renting. I’ll post more on the move soon, but suffice it to say, it’s going to be a great place for our family.
While making my [...]

A Night with Chihuly

So last night I took Megan to the Missouri Botanical Gardens for the special Chihuly Nights Glass in the Garden exhibit.
If you’re not familiar with Dale Chihuly and his glass-blowing artistry, it’s pretty visually amazing, especially when well-lit and seen up-close (which some pieces were more so than others). The colors are amazing and the [...]

December and You

Here are the lyrics to the song I wrote for Megan to walk down the aisle to ten years ago today:
Beauty unlike any snowfall I’ll ever see
Lovely as winter could ever aspire to be
For you are the essence of holiday
No Christmas cards or carols say
Remember December like you do
And here now, tomorrow, and all my [...]

Whirlwind Weekend

As of tonight’s General and Pastoral Epistles class, it’s officially Finals Week. Thank the Maker.
Whether in college or in seminary, I’ve always loved Finals Week, not because I’m a particularly good test-taker (I’d say I’m average), but because there’s freedom to really read and study with the majority of assignments done (or almost so). I’ve [...]

History in the Making: Our Last Financial Appeal

December has always been a month of multiple celebrations for Megan and me. For instance:

we’ll celebrate 10 years of marriage on the 14th
we’ll celebrate Christ’s birthday on the 25th
we’ll celebrate our oldest’s eighth birthday on the 29th
we’ll celebrate the end of another year on the 31st
and every December, we send out our annual year-end appeal, [...]

Vespers

Following up on my semi-whiny previous post (sorry – my narcissism got the best of me), one of the things that’s important to keep in mind this time of year is our need for meaning in the midst of the madness. I doubt the 6th-century Church dealt with the same type of distractions we in [...]

Looking Forward to Christmas

It’s been quite a week already and it’s only Tuesday. All semester long, my weeks have been severely front-loaded (i.e. Monday and Tuesday solid with classes, meetings, and teaching responsibilities, evening out over Wednesday and bottoming out by Thursday noon) and I’ve not minded too badly; however, with my headache tonight, I’m not quite as [...]

Marriage and Family Paper (part 3)

In my genogram, I charted six generations – approximately 150 years – of my family, from my great-great-grandparents (mid-1800s) to my children (early 2000s). For my purposes here, the first and last generations have been included for little more than historic reasons, as space restrictions in representing the former and age limitations in understanding the [...]

Marriage and Family Paper (part 2)

In beginning this undertaking, I start with me, as I am a physical amassing of many of the emotional, relational, and spiritual accumulations of my family. Who am I, and what questions do the answers raise as to how I have become (for lack of a better word) “me”?
In general, I am a strange combination [...]

Marriage and Family Paper (part 1)

I just finished my family genogram (and a ten-page paper explaining it) for my Marriage and Family class. For this assignment, I was to analyze my family not simply in a recollection of historical facts, but by a thorough analysis of dynamics and functioning that have been influenced by history. This weekend, I thought I’d [...]