9 Months Later.

No, I'm not talking about a pregnancy. And no, I'm not talking about 9 months since our wedding, although that was 9 months ago, which is hard to believe. I'm talking about our kittens. I was scrolling through some old blog posts recently, and came upon these two pictures:

I found the post particularly funny because in the comments, my mom pointed out how big they had gotten. I agreed, noting they were twice as big as they had been after their first vet appointment. Talk about perspective, though, as the kittens look much more like cats now. R was home recently and has a better sense of their size relative to full grown cats (his parents have two), but I keep looking at our little ones and realizing they've gotten so big! Case in point:

This is our "little" kitten Leela. I only call her little because she's so much smaller than her brother, Gizmo. Sometimes I wonder if she was the runt of the litter or if it's just that she's female and is therefore smaller. Personality-wise, she's much the same as she was as a small kitten, with a few surprises. She still doesn't like to be picked up and held, usually only standing such treatment for mere seconds before she vaults out of your arms and runs off. She's also much more of a hunter than Gizmo, who still attacks his toys right away while Leela waits and watches before going in. She's the acrobat of the two-we got a new weight machine recently and Leela climbs to the top "with the greatest of ease," seeming to pay no mind to the fact that she's eight feet in the air and balancing on a wire. I'm telling you, this kitten has a pair! She's fearless-turn on the vacuum and she still doesn't run off. I was cleaning house a couple of weeks ago and was cleaning the floor after having vacuumed. Gizmo was hiding under my desk for the entire morning, while Leela came to see what was going on in the cleaning department.

The big surprise with Leela, at least for me, is how much of a cuddlebug she is. This wasn't the case when she was smaller-she would often be off doing her own thing and maybe come sit with us, but Giz was the one doing all of the purring and snuggling. I'm not sure when this happened, but now Leela is the cat more likely to come snuggle-she's particularly fond of sitting on my lap (or R's) when we're watching TV and falling asleep. It's the sweetest thing (well, that and her yawns and stretches). She's also the shedder of the two. I expected Gizmo to be the one shedding hair everywhere, but it turns out I was wrong. No matter how many times I brush my girl, she always has several brushes full of hair to offer.

The biggest surprise, however, has been her recent decision to start rolling over on her back. I didn't know this, but R tells me that when cats do this it's a sign of trust. Leela has often been the "kneader" of the two-coming up to me when I'm lying on the couch reading and kneading my stomach while she purrs. I read online this is something kittens do with their mothers, so I guess that's good. But turning on their backs is supposed to be a big sign of trust, because it puts the cat in a completely vulnerable position. Gizmo has always been ok with this-I have pictures of the day we brought him home when I've got him lying on his back on my lap while I scratched his belly. He's recently started doing this funny flip-turn-upside-down thing and lying on his back while curling into an apostrophe for me to scratch his belly. But Leela has never let us do anything like this-when I hold her, it's never on her back. She hates that. But in the past couple of weeks she's started coming over to me on the couch, lying on her back, and waiting for tummy scratches. It makes my heart melt, for serious. The picture above is from one such tummy session (you can also kind of see the white patch on her stomach that she and her brother share). I would never have expected Leela to come and lay down for some tummy rubs, but she's full of surprises. She's the sweetie of the two.

Then there's our handsome boy Gizmo, who has started sitting like this lately. I guess it's a boy cat thing, but I think it's absolutely hilarious. I think he's actually much more similar to his little kitten self than his sister. He's very want-y, as R likes to put it (that's a reference to The Tick, for those who don't know). He's often found sitting by my side, jumping up and nipping at my elbow because he wants attention. This would be a whole lot cuter if his teeth weren't so sharp! He's also the loudest cat I've ever known-he still purrs often and loudly (again, Diesel would have been a good name). You just have to say his name and he's off. I guess this is a good thing, because it means he's happy. He's also a meow-er. Leela just chirps-I think I've only heard her meow once. But Gizmo will meow all of the time-and not at birds or things he sees outside of the window, but at his people. If I get home from work and go in the bedroom (where the kittens are not allowed), he'll sit outside of the door and meow until I come out to keep him company. He's also taken to meowing around 5:30 in the evenings, which is a full hour before they get their dinner. R thinks he picked this up from his parents' male cat, and Gizmo seems to think that being annoying for an hour is going to get him fed sooner. I don't know if he'll ever figure out that this method is not going to work. Probably not, but hope springs eternal, as the saying goes (in this case for Giz, that he'll get fed earlier, for me that he'll stop nipping at my elbows and crying for food for an hour). What's especially funny about his food begging is that he still has dry food in his bowl. We give them wet food in the evening, and so it's not that he's hungry really, just that he wants the good stuff.

The big change with Gizmo is that lately he's taken to snuggling with us less when we're watching TV or just sitting in the living room. He's content to be in the same room and sitting close by, he just doesn't necessarily want to be a lap cat. He'll literally follow R around when he gets home, and when R goes into his office to do some work, Gizmo will curl up on the floor and just sit near him. He's also extremely fond of a shoebox that sits in front of the window in the office, and I'll pull up the shade for the kittens to look out. Gizmo will curl up and sleep on the box. It's friggin' adorable (he's doing it right now, actually!).

They're both window cats. Leela has torn off bits of one of the blinds where they've gotten in her way. We'll replace those eventually, but she'll probably just tear them up again. They don't snuggle together as much anymore, but R thinks this is teenage angst and they'll go back to it (right now when they're in the bed together they start wrestling).

They're great pets, and we're both smitten with them. I've found myself at times really looking forward to getting home so that I can sit on the couch, read, and hang out with the kittens. They love it when I play the Wii, although Leela always tries to sit on my lap at those moments, which is particularly awkward when trying to wield a light saber. But such is life.

Anyway I just thought I'd post an update on our babies. They're awesome and hilarious and cute. Now it's time to do car/yard/house work before the rain sets in for several days.

Movie Review: The Young Victoria

I'm a sucker for a few things in life, one of which is romance and the other is history as its presented in popular culture. For example, I once wrote a paper examining the historicity of "The Archbishop" episode of Blackadder. Needless to say, it was a fun paper to write (and it got an A). I'm tickled when I watch The Tudors. So when I found myself walking past Redbox today at the grocery store and seeing that The Young Victoria was out on DVD, I jumped at the chance to see it (I had wanted to see it in theaters in the fall, but never got the chance). Knowing that R would most likely not want to watch this movie, Friday afternoon seemed like the perfect time to delve into the past.

I should be up front and say, however, that I haven't studied too much of Victorian Britain. My study of British history goes until about 1689--I can go to 1700 if you push it, but after that I'm lost. Between Henry VIII and James II I can rattle off monarchs and their reigns, etc., but before and after that things get a little hairy for me. Such is specialization. I was interested in seeing this movie, though, because I don't know much about Victoria and what little I do know involves her deep love for Prince Albert. Indeed, my popular culture knowledge of Victoria and Albert has been limited to their portrayal by Jim Broadbent (who, incidentally, portrays William IV in The Young Victoria) and Miriam Margolyes as Queen Victoria (another interesting tidbit-Miranda Richardson who plays Queenie in Blackadder Season 2 is the Duchess of Kent in The Young Victoria). So what did I think?

I loved this movie. I found it engaging and visually stunning (and I don't usually get excited about walking around old Victorian houses to look at couches). I think most folks think of Victoria as an older woman dressed in black, and of a society steeped in the Victorian "morality code," so to speak. This movie shows Victoria as a young woman as she steps into her role as Queen of England. The "bad guy" of the movie, John Clayborn, is made out to be positively evil. I mean, I really loathed this guy as I watched the movie, and he never does anything to redeem himself. The mother (Miranda Richardson) shows a more complex figure, one who seems to be in the pocket of Clayborn but at other times looks for reconciliation with her daughter. The Baroness and Victoria's relationship with her could, I think, have been brought out more, particularly as her eventual dismissal is a pivotal point in the early marriage of Victoria and Albert. What's very intriguing about Victoria in this movie, now that I think about it, is her isolation. We see her growing relationship with Albert, but she has no friends to speak of.
The story of the love between Albert and Victoria serves as the focal point of the film and is so beautiful. I had a smile on my face every time they were together. Rupert Friend and Emily Blunt did an amazing job portraying the young couple, and I was entranced as I watched the independent, headstrong young queen fall for the soft spoken prince.

The only real downside I found to the movie was a slight emptiness after the wedding. We do see the couple start to figure out how this marriage thing is going to work, but at that point there's only about 20 minutes left in the movie and I was left wondering where they were going to go. I think this movie could have done with another 30 minutes or more of post-wedding development. Then we could see how Albert figured out what his role would be, and how they emerged as the power couple they would be. Apparently the assassination attempt at the end is historically inaccurate, but as I didn't really know about it beforehand that didn't bother me too much. I guess now that I know, I would prefer that it had been more truthful but I'm not going to raise a stink about it.

One hint: read the Wikipedia entry for Victoria (or some other easy access short overview of her) before watching the movie. I paused a couple of times to read through the entry so that I would know who was who. Maybe that's just because I'm an American so I don't have all of this royalty business figured out (for example, Victoria was heiress to the crown after her uncle William IV, as opposed to her father). It helped me just get a general overview of things so that I could focus on the story.

Overall? Watch it if you love history, or if you love love stories (or both). It's a great film and definitely worth your time. The score is also wonderful-any excuse to listen to Handel's Zadok the Priest several times is a good one in my opinion!

Resurrectional Realities

I was finally able to figure out how to cut and paste from Word into the blog (I used to be able to do it, and then something changed to prevent me from doing so. Tip: if you're a Mac user and want to cut and paste from Word, paste into the "Edit HTML" option on your dashboard and that should solve the problem). So here's my sermon from this past Sunday. Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Easter 3.


“God of Glory, by the raising of your Son you have broken the chains of death and hell; fill your Church with faith and hope; for a new day has dawned and the way of life stands open in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.” Common Worship collect for Easter Day

Things were definitely different. This is the feeling I get when reading today’s Gospel lesson from John. Things were different—but how different was still to be figured out. In the resurrection appearances from Jesus that John describes, we get curious details about time that I hadn’t really noticed before these past few weeks. Jesus’s first appearance is to Mary Magdalene “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark” (20:1). He then appears to the disciples “when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week” (20:19). As we heard last week, Thomas isn’t around and when he comes back to the group and they tell him Jesus has shown up, he won’t believe them. Then we are told “A week later the disciples were again in the house” (20:26). And finally, today we begin the Gospel reading with “After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias” (also known as the Sea of Galilee) (21:1).

So we have a full day between when Mary sees Jesus and when the disciples see him, a full week after that before Thomas sees Jesus (a week in which we assume the disciples were still in Jerusalem), and then “after these things,” an unknown amount of time when the disciples returned to Galilee. If you look at a map of the area, you would see that Bethsaida (where Peter, Andrew, and Philip were from) is not close to Jerusalem—in the geography of John’s Gospel, Jerusalem is about as far south as Jesus goes, while Bethsaida is about as far north. We’re encompassing the whole area Jesus travels in this Gospel by going from Jerusalem to Galilee. If we go back to the beginning of John’s Gospel, we find that the disciples were from areas around the Sea of Galilee (1:44). This means that at some point they decided it was time to return home.

I’m fascinated by these gaps in time—the gospel writer felt it was important to record them, yet we have no idea what goes on during these breaks. When Jesus was around, I imagine they were spending time with their teacher, learning and praying and talking and doing a lot of walking. But after Jesus’s horrific death and wondrous resurrection, the conversation must have changed. However, Jesus wasn’t around for these gaps in time—the details in the story come when Jesus is interacting with his disciples, and then he disappears again and we get the time gaps.

Here’s the question I’ve been pondering: what made the disciples decide it was time to go back to Galilee? They knew Jesus was resurrected—Thomas even believed by this point in time. We don’t have a record of Jesus telling the disciples to go home. At the end of last week’s reading, we get a short message from Jesus: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” and then the gospel writer tells us “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (20:29-30). So maybe he did tell them to go home, but my guess is that this was a decision the disciples came to on their own.

Most likely they weren’t really sure what else to do so they went home—but they continued to stay together as a group. Peter decides to go fishing—a fairly normal activity, it seems, even though John’s gospel never actually calls the disciples fishermen. They know enough, though, to go fishing at night, which I found out was actually the best time to fish on that part of the Sea of Galilee. They don’t have much luck, until Jesus shows up. New Testament scholar Raymond Brown points out that the disciples never catch a fish in the Gospels without Jesus’s help. Apparently some things have stayed the same.

So here are these disciples who know that Jesus is resurrected, yet they don’t know what to do with that information so they go back home and take up a normal activity. I’m not sure if they knew Jesus was even going to show up again, as Peter is extremely excited when they figure out it’s Jesus on the shore, and he swims 100 yards in to see him. And, as our collect for today says, Jesus makes himself known in the breaking of bread—in sharing a meal, which is something the disciples did quite often with their teacher.

All of this seems to be building up to something, but what? I’d never thought about it before, but there’s a real sense of being lost on the part of the disciples. They have no idea how life as we know it has changed now that Jesus is resurrected. Everything looks the same, tastes the same, sounds the same, and maybe even feels the same. But the fundamental underpinning of life—namely, death—had been completely overturned. Jesus defeated death. Death does not have the ultimate hold on our lives anymore. But what does this even mean?

We begin to get a glimpse of what it might mean for us in Jesus’s conversation with Peter. This is the only one-on-one conversation we get between these two in John after Peter’s denial of Christ. Jesus approaches Peter and calls him “Simon, son of John,” the exact same title he used when meeting Peter for the first time. Raymond Brown says this return to a formal address signals a possible challenge to the friendship between Jesus and Peter. And then Jesus goes a step further—he says Peter, do you love me? I can only imagine the incredible pain, sadness, and longing that took over this apostle as the one he denied looks him in the face and says, “do you love me?” This is the point of Peter’s deepest shame. His past actions would make the answer seem that it was no. He claimed he would lay down his life for Jesus and would follow him, and when the moment to do so came, he turned away and denied him (13:36-38). And now Jesus has to bring it back up again—there’s no “forgive and forget” here. To make things even worse Jesus asks the question three times, not only mirroring the three denials of Peter but also frustrating Peter as he tries to make Jesus know that he does indeed love him.

This conversation can show us how the resurrection changes everything in our lives. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes in his book, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel, about how our normal interactions are based on the relationship of oppressor and oppressed. For all of us, we are a complex mix of people who oppress others and people who are oppressed by others and ourselves. This model of persecutor/victim or oppressor/oppressed is with us from the very beginning—before we even have a chance to understand it fully. There has only been one pure victim in history, one person who could make the choice to oppress and did not, one victim who fully understood the system—one who was not an oppressor but was only oppressed. That person is Jesus. In the conversation with Peter, we see the pure victim facing one of his closest friends, and one who oppressed him through denial. Peter is ashamed, and understandably so. I’m ashamed of myself when I hurt my friends and family—the thought of having to face that shame with Christ is almost agonizing. The reason for this is that I’m stuck in that idea of oppressor/oppressed. I’m functioning in an out-dated model, because the resurrection allows us to transcend the victim/persecutor relationship! It has been completely transformed. This does not mean that we “forgive and forget.” Rather, Williams writes that the transformation of our relationships is built upon our histories—even those that involve oppression, shame, and guilt (12). The real beauty of this is that our pasts and presents are not final. They are not the last word. The resurrection-JESUS-is the last Word!

Let’s think about this for a moment. Peter is the oppressor, and in today’s Gospel we see him speaking with Jesus one-on-one after his Resurrection. He faces his victim head on as Jesus ask,s “do you love me?” Peter is upset; Jesus has brought up the lowest thing he’s ever done, the most violent oppression he’s likely ever committed, and Peter has to answer. He doesn’t know how the resurrection has changed everything yet, and is stuck in the model of victim/persecutor, and all that comes with those relationships. Will Jesus be angry? Get even? Judge him? Berate him? But the resurrection transcends all of that—Jesus builds from Peter’s past and opens a place for the Gospel to take hold. What I find even more marvelous about this is that it’s not a one and done thing—it’s a process. “Feed.” “Tend.” “Follow.” These are verbs requiring continuous action.

The resurrection is for us a transformative process as it was for Peter, and as we heard today it would be for Paul as well. Jesus’s defeat of death in the resurrection changed everything about human existence—we are no longer tied to relationships based on oppression and a desperate struggle for life. Rather, we can transcend that and recognize the face of the risen Christ in one another and treat each other as such. We don’t have to fight against death anymore-Jesus already did that and won. We are called, instead, to live out a resurrectional reality in which we uphold Christ in one another, and overcome the bonds of this world that seek to drag us down, instead recognizing our bonds as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is part of the reason we renew our baptismal vows at the Great Vigil of Easter—to remind us that in the resurrection of Jesus “we are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever,” and what that commitment means. That mark that is put on our foreheads in baptism is something that no one can take away—even those with whom we disagree deeply. The mark of baptism overcomes our human fickleness, anxieties, and jealousies, and instead is a mark of the resurrection. We are sealed as people of the resurrection. The challenge for us now is to live that way. For Peter and Paul, their resurrectional realities would take them throughout the Mediterranean world, proclaiming the Good News. Where will it take us?

Fail is a Four Letter Word.

Part of the (almost) daily adventure of my life is my commute. It's not something I particularly enjoy-56 miles in the car, or 1 hour 15 minutes depending on traffic, each way can get pretty old pretty fast. Some days the commute seems shorter than others, but it's part of my life and I try not to complain too much about it. The negatives to it are pretty huge: leaving a big carbon footprint, using tons of fuel, time spent driving when it could be spent doing more useful or exciting things... But the positives are pretty huge to: most importantly, a job (it's the closest I could find) at a place I love with people who are really great, having a house, and enforced time to sit and think or pray, which I would otherwise fill with reading, memorizing vocab, or any number of other things I "have" to get done. My daily drive is often a time when I can just think through things or notice the changing seasons or just talk to God. That's a plus.


But part of what comes with driving is the safety issue. R is a great car guy-he takes cars that just don't work anymore and makes them run beautifully. He got my car, Jack Sparrow, last summer for under 200 dollars. It had been sitting in some guy's garage for five years, but it's relatively rust free (which is huge in New England) and it runs well and I like it. So win-win. When he got the car driving again, he noticed a road noise that wasn't going on in his Subaru, or in the one I owned at the time. This was unique to this car. But it wasn't messing with the driving ability of the vehicle at all, so we both assumed it was the tires being slightly out of round from sitting for so long (although I think R did think it could be a suspension issue as well).

The tire-noise relationship was pretty much confirmed when I switched out the all-weathers for snow tires in December and the noise went away. Then in March I put the all-weathers back on, with the former rear tires going in the front, as you're supposed to do on Subaru's (some other cars involve changing sides too, but not on these cars). Well, the road noise was back and accompanied by a steering wheel jerking that I hadn't noticed in the fall. It had been getting progressively worse, in my mind, but I thought I was just being paranoid.

Until Sunday.

I was driving down the Mass Pike with R in the passenger seat on my way to work. It was about 7:30 in the morning (I like to get there before I have to teach Sunday School so I can collect myself) and traffic was thus pretty light, as it usually is on Sunday mornings. Driving in the right lane at about 65 mph all of a sudden we hear a loud pop, the front passenger side of the car lowers, R says "stop stop stop!" as I quickly pull into the emergency lane and come to a stop (this is the second time I've had to make an insane yet wonderfully executed emergency stop like this, the first time having been with R again in the passenger seat on the way home from work in the dark and rain when a huge truck ran me off the highway because he doesn't know how to check his mirrors...that was scary).

Here comes my favorite part of the whole event: R gets out of the car looks down and says "yep, looks like we lost the front wheel." I'm thinking to myself "holy sh$%! the whole front wheel? Wouldn't there have been sparks and flames or something?" Obviously he just meant the tire. The picture at the top is the epic fail blowout I had. There was a hunk of tire that fell off on the side of the highway and the steel band was broken and sticking out. I mean, this wasn't just a little blowout. It was huge. The tire was mangled like I've never seen a mangled tire before. Crazy.

Now, to be fair I could have handled all of this on my own just fine. I've known how to change a tire since I was a teenager and have done it often enough (for example, I change out my own all weathers to snow tires and vice-versa every year), so this wouldn't have been a big deal. But it would have been messy, and as I was in a skirt and clerical shirt (no collar though, as it was at the office) and still had to go do services at 10:30, R was very dashing and did all of the tire changing for me so I wouldn't have to get dirty. A state trooper pulled over and after making sure we were alright parked behind us so folks would get out of the right lane, as there's a slow done-change lane law in MA when there's an emergency vehicle (although after this experience I think it should be for all breakdowns, as there were some folks cutting it a little close, I felt, and we were obviously changing a tire).

Then we drove to the next plaza, which was only a mile away, R washed his hands, and we were off to work. He then went and got me four new tires, as we didn't know how old the rear two were, and it made sense to replace all four. R tells me that the steel band had broken sometime when the former owner had it, and that was the road noise. It got worse when the tires were put on the front, and finally gave out on Sunday-hence the huge bits of steel hanging out of the dead tire.

Needless to say, it wasn't a suspension issue. Thank God for light Sunday morning traffic. Thank God for driving in the right lane. Thank God for brakes that work. But most of all, Thank God for our safety. For serious, yo.

The other "epic fail" of the last week is my poison ivy. I wasn't allergic to this stuff as a kid, but somehow developed a sensitivity in the past few years. October 2008 I had a short bout with the stuff, and ended up having to get a steroid cream when it spread from my right wrist to my stomach. This time it went left ankle-left heel-right wrist-stomach-left ankle. Insane. And I can't figure out where it is-I know it's in the backyard, but as I've only gotten it in the fall and spring I think it's when it's either coming up (and therefore I'm not likely to see it immediately when doing yard work) or wilted (in which case I also wouldn't notice it), but either way the oils are still active and pesky. This time, after hoping for a week it would just go away but watching it spread, I had to get the oral prednisone to help out. I read online that poison ivy takes it out of you, but I didn't believe it. Now I do-at the doctor's office my blood pressure was a little high, and every time I've tried to work out this week it's been kind of tough. I seriously think it's the combo of the poison ivy all over me and the meds. Lame-o-la. But hopefully it will all be gone by the weekend (it seems to be clearing up already. Knock on wood).

In summary: tire blowout=fail. Poison ivy=fail.

Woot.

Oops

So much for that "blogging several times a week thing," eh? Oh well. C'est la vie. And la vie has been quite busy for the past month. Where to begin? At some random point I guess. So I'll just categorize things as I go along:

Work: This is the main reason I've been out of the blogsphere for a while. No one warned me that while Lent is supposed to be a reflective, slower time for folks, it's insanity for those working in the church. There were several weeks when I saw R but a couple of times, and then it was to eat a late dinner and then call it a night. It was hectic, to say the least. But good-our "family" Lenten discipline was to stop going out to eat, aside from Sundays (which are feast days anyway so Lent doesn't really hold those days) when we eat lunch near church as otherwise we wouldn't eat until 3 PM, and I'm usually starving by the time we leave church. R looked as the finances and said we actually saved a bundle o' money through this discipline. Our plan is to keep it up, to a certain extent-we plan on going out for a date night once a month, but other than that chilling at home. This has been helped by the fact that we're now making our own pizza. We use the store-brand fresh or frozen wheat dough and go from there. It's actually way better than take out, and we've enjoyed the experience. I think we've also been more intentional about what we're cooking and planning our meals for the entire week. It's been great, all around. And now that it's about time for the grill to be in use almost every night, meal planning should be even easier!

Yesterday was Easter, the culmination of Holy Week which was busy on the one hand and not on the other. At 7:30 yesterday morning, after having slept in my office on Saturday night, the rector told me that I should perform the two baptisms, as I'd been working with the family and he didn't really know them. He then said I should just go ahead and celebrate too. This was at the 10:30 AM Easter service-the most highly attended service of the year, I'd venture to guess (more than at Christmas, but we have 3 services that night so folks are spread out). So I did my first baptisms yesterday! A 4 year old and his little sister, who was 11 days old (and ADORABLE). It was great : ) and definitely made my Easter!

Non-work wise things have been fine. I made my PhD decision and am super excited about it. I think it's the right place for me to be, and the visit I made was absolutely fantastic. I'll make a more official announcement once things are more official (the paperwork is getting started on their end this week) but hurray for that decision being made! I feel that I can move on and start getting excited about it. And start reviewing my Greek and French and making some headway in Latin this summer. Woot! I also want to get a paper I wrote last fall (2008) worked up for publication/conference paper presentation. Hopefully I'll be able to make that work.

As I said above, I haven't seen R too much in the past month. My Team in Training stuff is rolling along-I'm hoping donations will pick up a little soon (I'm sending out a reminder letter this week) as I have to reach my goal by May 4 or else I have to cough up the money on my own, which could pose a problem as I don't have that kind of money. Yikes. It freaks me out to think about, but my brother is going to have a concert in Iowa (at least, he's supposed to!) that will hopefully bring in some donations, and some folks at work are interested as well.

I've been doing some hiking on my own, as all of the team hikes in March were on days when I had work stuff I had to do. I hiked Mt. Wachusett two weeks ago, and today did a little on the Holyoke Range. My legs are going to feel today's hike tomorrow! I would normally have been able to go a little farther than I did today, but I was sick for a few days at the end of the week before last, and it took me a little while to recover fully from the allergy/cold/sinus thing. I'm just glad it's over, and hopefully that will be it for sinus crap this year!

Ummmm...yeah. That's all I've got on this end for the moment. The weather has been AWESOME lately-Easter was glorious! Mid-70s and sunny, which is a rarity for New England. Often it's gray and cold, but not this year! I think it might get into the 80s this week, which is bizarre but there you go. El Nino.

That's it for the moment. Hopefully I'll be more on top of this thing...

Arg.

I was just going to post one of my sermons, but some tag in the html is preventing this from happening and I'm too tired/lazy at the moment to sort it out. Boo. Hopefully I'll get that worked out some time soon. Oh well.

In other news, I'm still super excited about the PhD news. I've heard from a few more places since then-I was accepted to another program (although news on funding is forthcoming-it's not a great fit, but it was nice to know they want me!), wait-listed at a place I expected to be totally rejected from, and rejected from another which really wasn't a great fit but was in the area. That puts me at 2 acceptances, 1 wait-list, and 2 rejections. Not too shabby, considering last year I didn't get in anywhere (including the place that wait-listed me!). I don't know where I'm at on the one wait-list, but I decided to stay on it for now and see if anyone kicks back their offer thereby opening me a spot. Of the places I'm still waiting to hear from, only 2 would be good fits-and one of those places doesn't necessarily guarantee funding and the other is a super long shot that I'm not expecting to get into anyway, so there you go. One of the four I seriously have no idea about, and the other is the worst fit of them all so I'm not too concerned about that application at this point.

So...yeah. Once I've made it official, I'll write some post about it. I did get an email from a professor I'd be working closely with at the good fit acceptance school, asking me if I had any questions and congratulating me on admission. That made me happy : ) She was great in person and we hit it off really well, so it was nice to see that continuing. I wrote her back with a couple of questions, and will likely go for a visit just to get a sense of things from the other side of the admissions process. And I've started looking at courses for the fall, which is fun. I'm still trying to figure out the major/minor set up of this particular school's program (you have a general major, a specific major, and a minor) so I have some idea about what sorts of classes I'm looking for. I'll probably start working on the reading list pretty early too, but then again I feel like I have a pretty decent idea of the stuff I'd want on that list for the early modern English church history list-at least part of it, anyway.

Exciting! That's the best word for this. I'm so blessed that I will get to pursue this vocation-it's creative, it's dynamic, and I feel that it's really really important for the church.

Oh and after a wonderful 5 or so days of 40 something degree weather, which allowed for a great hike and a run outside yesterday (and by the way I shaved 1 min. 20 seconds off my time from last year's average!!!), the snow is back. Boo.

:D

AHHHHH!!!!!! I just had to do that. This afternoon I got a phone call from a graduate program director telling me that I had been accepted into their program, with 5 years of full funding and a yearly stipend! Furthermore, he said that they really liked my application (although I'm guessing he said that to everyone he called as they wouldn't accept you if they didn't like the application).

I am...beside myself with excitement. Just last night I was talking to R about my doubts, and he in his calm way just reminded me that this could indeed happen. That's the great thing about my husband-he believes in me when my confidence falters. So when I called him today and told him, he said "what did I tell you yesterday?" Needless to say, I was more than happy to reply "you told me so." :D

So. I jumped up and down in the house and squealed after I got off the phone (I wish I had a video of it for you, Mom, as you're always complaining that my reactions are excited enough). I had a tough time keeping my cool on the phone with the graduate director as he was telling me the news-this program is on of my top choices-in fact, it might be my very top choice (given the other programs I applied to, how I fit into this program and their faculty, how my conversations with their faculty went, and the schools I've yet to hear from-I got rejected from Yale by the way). I'll post specifics once I've made it official-but for now, I'm just so happy. This is something I've felt called to very strongly, and I'm so blessed that I will be able to pursue this vocation.

ROCK ON!!!!!!!

Remembering Alan

Yesterday I got some heartbreaking news. A close friend of mine from college, Alan, committed suicide last Friday. We hadn't spoken in some years-he was always kind of bohemian and hard to get a hold of-but the news hit me really, really hard. I thought I would take a moment here to remember this wonderful person.

Alan was...different. Different than anyone I've ever known. I think the best way to describe him is as a living poem-beautiful, deep, yet only truly understood by the author. There always seemed to be some part of him that I just couldn't tap in to, no matter how much time we spent together (which was a fair amount). I'm not one who talks about "figuring people out," as I find that ridiculous, but there was an air of the enigmatic about Alan. He lived in a small apartment on College St. near the top of the hill. His bedroom was also his kitchen, and his computer room had one recliner, a desk, a computer, and a desk chair. He was the picture of simple living.

I have nothing but great memories of Alan. We met in a seminar in college, Buddhism in America I believe. I remember being fascinated by him (he sat on the other side of the seminar table from me), and slowly we got to know one another. We were TA's in the intro to Asian Religions class together. What was great is that our conversations and friendship went way beyond class (in fact I don't think we spent tons of time talking about class topics). We went to see My Morning Jacket together in Nashville. He gave me an aloe plant that survived for years even when I didn't water it. I still have the fan he brought me from Myanmar (I think that's where he went...maybe Cambodia) that hung on my walls in graduate school. I remember eating purple rice with coconut milk with him in his apartment. Or ordering pizza and drinking hard cider, and then both of us having horrible stomach aches afterwards. He's the reason I drink hot tea-it was a jasmine tea that he got me to try that helped me realize hot tea could actually be good. I remember him telling me about how he went hiking at Mammoth Cave and night came on sooner than he expected, so he slept on the side of the trail with the map as his blanket. We went to Barnes and Noble one night, came out to the parking lot, and his truck had popped out of gear and rolled into the door of the person parked next to him. Before that he had this great Jeep Cherokee that I was jealous of. He is the only person I've known who I thought would be a good monk. He gave me a copy of an Appalachian music cd that he called "Hilary's Reel" and continues to be one of my all time favorite albums. I listen to it constantly, and now it will have more meaning.

As I said before, Alan and I hadn't spoken for many years. Once I graduated from WKU and headed to graduate school, we fell out of touch-which I'll admit is partially my fault. Though as I said in my defense he's always been really hard to get a hold of (I remember just having to walk to his apartment sometimes because he wouldn't answer his phone-or he'd lost it). I learned yesterday that he'd been working with the homeless in Virginia and was suffering from depression and had some questions he wanted to ask God directly. Even though we hadn't spoken in a while, I thought (and still think) of Alan often. There was some part of me that felt...safe? warm? I don't know the word....knowing he was somewhere in the world doing good work. He was one of the most compassionate people I have ever had the honor of knowing, and the world has lost a truly good and beautiful person.

Alan-I hope you've found some peace. You were a wonderful human being, very much loved, and we'll miss you. May light perpetual shine upon you, my friend.

Team in Training

Anyone who has been following this blog may have noticed something new along the right hand side of this blog...any guesses? That's right-there's a new Team in Training widget as well as a link to my personal Team in Training fundraising website.

What's this all about? Well, Team in Training is a group/event/fundraising thingy put together by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). People train for endurance events-be they marathons, half marathons, century bike rides, triathlons, or hiking adventures-and raise money to support the research and other projects of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's a really really great organization.

If you remember, my brother was diagnosed with Berkitt's lymphoma in November 2008. Thankfully, he has now been cancer-free for about 9 months now! LLS not only supported us through the treatments developed by their researchers, but in real, on the ground ways that probably aren't apparent to those who have not been treated for a blood cancer (or who haven't been with a family member being treated for one).

Anyway I decided while Nathan was being treated that I would do a Team in Training event-I mean, he endured chemo, the least I could do was endure some physical training to raise money that will help find a cure for blood cancers. So in May, I will be traveling with a group of people from MA to join other from around the country to hike part of the Grand Canyon. I'll be keeping a blog of my training experiences, etc. on my fundraising webpage.

Now here's where you come in. I need to raise $4,350 to participate in this program. EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS!!!!! Anything you can give will be helpful. Just think-if 440 people gave 10 bucks, then this goal could be easily met. So PLEASE, help in any way you can. The fundraising widget will take you to a donation page, while the link above it will take you to my personal fundraising page, where you can see my updates on how the training is going as well as donate. And the widget also shows how close I'm getting to my goal.

Can you help?

3 cubed

I would have put a superscript in that title, but I'm not sure what the html for it is, and I'm not really feeling in the mood to look it up. So there we go.

Anyway I'm 3 cubed now! 9 is my favorite number, so one could also say I'm 9+9+9 which is nice and trinitarian in a way. Which I like for obvious reasons. I had a good birthday-R and I had lunch together, then met some friends for dinner and bowling. We were supposed to go bowling for my birthday two years ago and it snowed so that never happened. I've been telling him he owes me bowling for the past two years and now he's made good on that one. Woohoo! I didn't win, but I did come in second (losing only by 1 point on the 2nd game). It was great.

This morning I headed to the kick off for Team in Training. I'll post more on that this week, but it's a big thing I'm doing this spring and I'll be putting up a link for you all to follow for my TNT website (it is in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, but like I said more on that later).

The next few weeks look like they're going to be pretty crazy-lots of evening stuff at work coming up, which can be hard because when a meeting at work ends at 8:30, I don't get home until 10. And then I have to be up and ready to be back at work by 9 the next day, which involves leaving home between 7-7:30 am. The lack of sleep won't be the hardest part, I think. The challenge will be getting my workouts in and actually getting to see my husband. We don't get enough hang out time during the week as it is, since we both get home around 7 and then go to the gym and don't sit down for dinner until 9:30. But Ash Wednesday is almost upon us, which brings with it Shrove Tuesday. And this week is a meeting week. And then the week after all of that I'm going to KY for diocesan convention and hang out time with the fam.

The bright side of this is that hopefully it will keep me busy enough to focus less on waiting for PhD admissions decisions. There are days when I feel like I put in a great application, and other days when I feel that despite of that application there were lots of others who probably put in better applications. And then I start freaking out about what I'm going to do if I don't get in, in terms of finding another part time job. Bleh. It's really really stressful, but I should start hearing something in the next few weeks.

In the meantime I've been reading some good stuff-right now I'm working on Eamon Duffy's The Fires of Faith, and will post a review of that soon as well as two books by Helen Fielding I've been reading. So keep your eyes open for those.

We brewed a couple of weeks ago (A sweet stout, or chocolate stout depending on who you talk to) which means bottling day is fast approaching. We got some tips from a friend that should make it less messy AND I found a piece of the kit that I thought we didn't get that should make the siphon work waaaaaaaaaay better. Bottling last time was very wet and sticky (there's lots of sugar involved) but hopefully this time it won't be. I like beer but sitting covered in it for an hour and a half was kind of not that great. And then the beer should be ready to go in a month! I think our next brew is going to be a wheat beer we've got-just in time for spring! One (or both) of the yeasts we have left are starting to age a bit so we may have to buy more. Luckily they're not stupid expensive.

That's about all I've got. Hopefully my blog posts this week will be a little more planned. This was more of a stream of consciousness thing-albeit more organized as my real stream of consciousness is never this cohesive-at least it wouldn't be to anyone who's not me.

Hope you're staying warm and dry!

Milestone and Resolution FAIL

Two things. Well, three really.

1. I didn't post last week-so much for that "resolution." But the great thing is that I can just write it off as a bad job and try to do better this week. Hopefully.

2. You may have noticed a blog layout change. I do this every now and then, mostly because I just get bored with the way the blog looks. This time it was largely due to the fact that I wanted to include a picture in the header, and my old format wasn't the best for such a thing. This picture is bigger than I want it, but my edited picture keeps coming up as corrupt for some reason so whatever. For those who are interested, this picture was taken in Istria in May, 2008 on the way to this tiny church with really great murals on the inside. The countryside was beautiful, and this is one of my favorite pictures from that day.

3. Now, for the real meat of the post. I reached a running milestone this weekend! I posted a while back about how I'm a pretty slow runner, but then I realized I run about the speed a butterfly flies so that was a nice discovery. I've still been trying to get my speed up, though, and this weekend I reached a new level. Usually on the treadmill I run between 5.4 and 5.6 mph, with elevation varying depending on the run setting I'm using (when I do a 5K a couple of times a week there are some hills, and then on "easy" days I just run on 0 elevation). R and I have been upping our cardio times to 45-60 minutes/day. This weekend I got on the treadmill expecting to do my usual 5.4-5.6 speed, but after about 15 minutes I decided to see what would happen if I bumped it up to 6.0 mph. I did so, planning to do 10 minutes on that if I could (I'd only ever run about 2 minutes at 6.0 before). At the ten minute mark I decided to see if I could make 15. Then if I could make 20. Then...25. Then I felt like my legs were going to fall off, so I walked for 5 minutes and THEN finished is up with another 5 bringing it to 30 whole minutes at 6.0! I then ran another 15 at 5.4. I think I ended up running about 5.3 miles on Saturday, which is the most I've ever run and the fastest I've ever run. Wahoo!

Yesterday my legs were definitely sore, but it was so cool to know that I could go that speed for that amount of time. Hopefully I'll be able to build up the endurance so it doesn't feel quite so out of control at the end of the 30 minutes, and then 6.0 can be my normal pace and I can stay there for a while. Sweet.

As R said, it's crazy to think about how far we've come in terms of running since we started in the winter of 2007 by running 1 minute and walking 1 minute for 30 minutes. But the method from the book R got for Christmas from his brother worked, and here we are running for more extended periods of time. Awesome.

In other big news, I'm doing Team in Training with the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. I'll have another post forthcoming on that and how YOU can help out. : )

Musical Literacy

I recently started playing in a local community band. I found out about this group through the local newspaper, emailed the director, and went to my first rehearsal a couple of weeks ago. As a clarinetist, it's usually not too hard to get into wind ensembles and concert bands, as they're always short. It's been fun-the hard part has been adjusting to the fact that it's a community band and not the type of ensemble I'm used to playing in, but it's a place for my to indulge my musical side, which always makes my soul feel better.

Anyway, the theme for the spring concert is outer space, or something like that. All of the music we're playing has some space-y thing in the title. Two of the pieces we're playing are from Gustav Holst's The Planets ("Jupiter" and "Uranus," to be specific). I've played "Mars" in both wind ensembles and orchestras before, and I've played the "Jupiter" in orchestra. Plus, this work of Holst's is wonderful and I know it decently well and imagined that everyone in the band would have recognized the pieces (especially "Jupiter"-it and "Mars" are probably the two most well known movements of the work) as The Planets is well known and almost movie-esque, in an early twentieth century kind of way. Imagine my surprise then, when one of the clarinets piped up after we finished "Jupiter" and said "Where did you find this piece?" After rehearsal, several players asked me the same sorts of questions. My response (mentally) is below:

WHAT?!?!?!?! Are you serious? You're a musician and you've never heard Holst's The Planets?!

I spent the entire drive home thinking about this. I'm still in disbelief. It got me to thinking about musical literacy in our society. You hear about the "cultural canon" or "great books" so much, but it's all about literature. Not that I have anything against literature-I study it, for crying out loud! But I find that music is rarely-if ever-included in discussions of cultural literacy. You could probably mention Beethoven or Mozart to people, and maybe even Tchaikovsky (if it's close to Christmas) and folks would know who you were talking about. But when you run into musicians who have never heard of Holst, the problem of musical literacy becomes apparent.

I don't even know how we approach this problem. I'm just...flabbergasted. Music transcends boundaries in ways that reading can't (language barriers don't exist here, although cultural tastes in music do, but I'd argue not to the same extent as language). I just want to go into rehearsal and hand out copies of The Planets, and even the soundtrack to Fantasia 2000 (which I find to be the best intro to the range of classical music, played by the oh so wonderful Chicago Symphony Orchestra) just so people would know these pieces. I mean, listening to modern music is enriched when you know the standards, just as knowing the standards in jazz helps you pick up on tags and quotes during improv sessions. Case in point-John Williams. I am convinced that "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana was a direct influence on the piece "Duel of the Fates" from the score to Star Wars: Episode One. Aside from the obvious similarity in title ("O fortune!" vs. "Duel of the Fates"), the pieces have a similar sound. The first time I heard it in the movie theater, I was immediately struck by this and my experience of that musical moment was deepened because I knew (and had played, for that matter) then Orff setting.

I apologize if this post seems scattered or doesn't make sense. I'm just still kind of astonished by people not knowing the Holst piece. Crazy.

Ordination

Whew. It was a big weekend for me, to put it mildly. For those who don't know, I was ordained to the priesthood on Saturday (officially in Christ's one holy catholic and apostolic Church, but specifically I'm Episcopalian). It was a big moment-I won't say that I felt ontologically transformed or anything-which is fodder for a whole discussion about women's ordination-but it really was a great service. Because travel is so expensive (for me, specifically), we had the ordination at my parish up here in MA. My bishop and family traveled from Kentucky for the service. The bishop even cried at one point-I wasn't sure he was going to make it through what he had to say when he was presenting the Bible. A few priests from the area came to support me, and my good friend came to preach. Several of my close friends from Yale came up, which really meant a lot to me. I think joy is probably the best way to describe that service. Everything was great-the musicians were wonderful, the preaching was top notch, and it was really nice to be surrounded by my parish at that moment. They did a great job with the resounding "IT IS" and "WE WILL" when asked if I should be ordained and would they support me. And it was wonderful having the rector's presence by my side-I think that was a calming influence, as I was (strangely perhaps) nervous before the service, but once it got going I was OK.

Sunday I celebrated the Eucharist for the first time. Honestly, I was more nervous about that than about the ordination. I had visions of that scene in the movie Luther where Luther spills wine at his first celebration. If I had it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but I wanted to do a good job. AND I was chanting the service, as is the custom at the church, and had practiced to make sure I knew the part well enough. I thought it went alright, and many people came up and told me that they thought the chanting was great and it looked as though I had been celebrating for years. I should note here, though, that I was never one of those kids who "play Mass" at home. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it honestly never occurred to me to do so. If someone had asked me to play that with them, I probably would have looked at them like they were crazy and gone outside to ride my bike. But I did spend many a Sunday acolyting, so the service itself is ingrained within me. Wednesday I've got a Rite One healing service, which will be interesting as well. Luckily I'm not completely unfamiliar with Rite One, so it should be OK. I need to memorize the healing prayer.

Other than that, it was great hanging out with my family. Unfortunately my brother wasn't able to make it up due to a quartet competition, but my mom, dad, sister, and nephew were able to make it. I swear my nephew gets more and more fun every time I see him. And it was a blast to see how he and R interacted! Sunday afternoon my sister and I played Mario Party on the Wii and my nephew wanted nothing more than to play with R. It was great! I'm looking forward to going home in February/March to spend more time with them.

They're still driving as I write-it's about 1000 miles so it's a long haul. We had a snow stormette last night, too, which made their morning travel a little messy. R and I had to shovel tons of heavy snow too, which was lame. After we were done I came in and looked at cruises. I've never been on one and would love to go; maybe for now I'll just cut up the pineapple someone at church gave me (as a gag gift when I told her I wanted pineapples for the flowers at the ordination) and make a pina colada or something. Or just eat it plain. I don't have the ingredients for a pina colada, although I guess they're not that hard to find. Whatever. Pineapple makes me think of warm places and summer. And I am so ready for summer.

Haiti

I'm sure everyone's heard of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti yesterday. Already the poorest country in the western hemisphere, it's hard to imagine what this is going to do to their population. The news pouring out of there is pretty awful-for me, at least, it's bringing back memories of the tsunami that hit southeast Asia a few years ago. Unfortunately there's so little infrastructure in Haiti to begin with that I imagine relief work is going to be that much more challenging.

My parish sponsors a school in Haiti (some folks were going to go down in February to help rebuild the walls of the school). Furthermore, the Episcopal Church has been a pretty strong presence throughout the country, helping run over 200 schools, not to mention other facilities like clinics and hospitals. Episcopal relief and development has set up a Haiti fund to help aid in the response and relief of the folks down there.

And if you're the praying type, feel free to do that too.

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 215).

Album Review: Nickel Creek, Nickel Creek

Somehow I went years without hearing anything by Nickel Creek. I'm not sure how this happened--but it did and fortunately I've finally solved this problem. The band, probably best defined as bluegrass or folk, is made up of Chris Thile and siblings Sara and Sean Watkins (interesting factoid-Christ Thile's dad worked at Murray State for a while, and Chris attended for a few semesters. This fact makes it even more crazy that I'd never heard anything by this group before-although to be fair I had heard of them). The group is currently not performing together (they're all doing solo stuff). I bought two of their albums with Christmas giftcards. Their last album, Why Should the Fire Die?, I got because I wasn't paying attention when I bought it. I'd actually meant to purchase the self titled debut album. Lucky me. Seriously. I'll stick to the self-titled album for now, though, as the last cd deserves its own post.

Anyway. Nickel Creek was released in 2000, produced by Alison Krauss. From what I can tell, it's been their most successful album so far (went gold in 2002 I think, and platinum after that). Listening to it once will tell you why--it's a great mix of instrumental pieces, and a blend of more traditional (or at least traditional sounding) and contemporary stuff. The instrumental standouts for me would be the opening track "Ode to a Butterfly" and "In the House of Tom Bombadil," the first because it's a great opening number and I'm a sucker for folk-bluegrass instrumental jams, and the second because not only is it a great song but it references one of the more intriguing characters from the Lord of the Rings (that's stuff for another post, however, but just let it be noted that I am incredibly interested in Bombadil and his place in the Story of Middle Earth).

The "lyric" songs, for lack of a better term (it's 10 PM on a Sunday night, which means I'm not at my intellectual best but BLOG I WILL), are great as well. Standouts include "The Lighthouse's Tale", "The Fox", and "When You Come Back Down." This last track is likely a fan favorite-a really great love song, but not exactly a story so to speak. The lighthouse and fox tracks, however, follow that great tradition of folk music and story. "The Fox" will appeal to listeners of all ages, but I imagine my 3 year old nephew would get a kick out of it. "The Lighthouse's Tale" is rather surprising-it's a story told from the perspective of the lighthouse, as opposed to a song about a lighthouse. Strange as it sounds, it works. The point is, though, that not only are these good songs to listen to, but they're great stories.

In this album, Nickel Creek displays an undeniable musical talent-these folks can really play. But not only that, they can write songs and sing you to sleep with them. The harmonies are great and the group members seem to melt together in some ways. It's really lovely. The influence from Alison Krauss is apparent, but not overwhelming. Perhaps her presence is even more noted when one listens to this album in relation to the last one (Why Should the Fire Die?), which Krauss did not produce.

If you like folksy-bluegrass music, you'll love this band. In fact, I've already gotten another person tuned into Nickel Creek. Neither of us could believe we hadn't heard them before. Nickel Creek is a great starting place for their musical talent, and is definitely worth the money. So go buy it, but don't blame me when your toes are done wore out from tapping so much.

2010

So. That was 2009. What about 2010? What kinds of hopes and goals to I have for myself? I have a few, and like I said they're not really resolutions but whatever.

2010 Hopes:

-That I actually get into a PhD program that funds me and I can start studying church history at the doctoral level. This is probably my biggest hope for 2010, but it's a hard hope because my applications are in and now all I'm doing is waiting and praying. And that's tough!

-That, if I don't get into a PhD program, I can faithfully trust God to help me discern where to go next. I'll have to find some kind of supplemental employment at the very least (living on a salary and a half in New England is really hard), and I pray that if I go that road it will be an employment that doesn't feel like it's sucking out my soul.

2010 Goals:

-That I can get my weight to 175-180. I checked, and last year at the beginning of January I was at 215. I started working out more and then joined Weight Watchers and lost a good amount of weight. I quit WW in November, though, as it's an expense I can't have right now. I've leveled off between 185-187 it seems, which is still almost 30 lbs down from last year, which is awesome! I'm really proud of that, because I worked really hard at it. But I've been stuck at this weight for 3 months now, and while I know everyone has a weight their body tends to stop at, I feel that I can get mine down lower. It's just doing to take some more work. R and I have been great about the gym in the last couple of weeks, so we just have to keep it up. Hopefully I can up the cardio to an hour a day, with weights three times a week (right now cardio is around 35-40 minutes a day).

-That I can run some sort of race this year. I was going to do something with Team in Training at the Grand Canyon, but I have a work-related event that weekend. Oh well. There's something at Disney in January, so maybe I can convince R that we will form a team and do it! Maybe my brother and sister would too. That would be cool. We'll see-they don't post winter events until later. I find with running and fitness that I need a tangible goal, and I feel that a 10 miler or half marathon would be a good one (I do a 5K pretty regularly-as in once or twice a week-as it is so that doesn't seem like much of a goal to me at this point).

-That I can be a more faithful blogger. I'd like to try to blog 3 times a week at least (which I've obviously not done so far, but 2 in one day is doing pretty well! One more this week and I'm set!) I'm planning to include sermons on here, and to be more faithful about my book, movie, and music reviews (as well as the occasional cool thing to do in New England post).

-To bike more. I got a 2006 Rockhopper in the fall for cheap. R is going to help me overhaul it, and I'm hoping to get some shoes so I can learn to use clipless peddles and be awesome at it. And I just love biking, so I'd like to do that intensely. It's good cross-training for a race anyway.

-To camp more. I love camping, hiking, and backpacking. And now I live in a perfect place to do it and I don't. I already have most of the equipment, and it's good equipment. One of my goals for the summer is to do some good camping trips and to share them with R.


So there you have it. My personal hopes and goals for 2010. Here's to a good year!

2009

Happy New Year!!!

I realize, given what I'm about to post in this blog, that I'm egregiously behind on my postings. But such is life and I have my own excuses (namely Christmas as a minister-it's a slightly busy time of year) but regardless. I've been absent from the blog for a while but...here I am.

During my "blog break" I thought about why it is I blog in the first place. I mean, I really don't think there are untold numbers of people who read this thing. Maybe 10. However, I feel that I have things to share and that maybe-eventually-someone else will read something I've written and get to thinking about it. So it's really just a public forum for me to jot down my thoughts and beliefs about certain things. I toyed with just letting the blog go, but decided that the discipline of writing on it every few days would be good for me.

Now, I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions-saying I resolve to do something has never really gotten me into gear about anything. I do realize, however, that the new year is a time for us to stop and reflect on what has happened in the past year and what we would like to accomplish in the year to come. It's a spring cleaning in a way, but one that happens in January. To be perfectly honest, though, I find Lent to be a much more helpful time for any kind of personal evaluation and cleaning up. That may just be me, though. So in the spirit of the New Year, I figured I would give a short summary of my 2009, and then go on to what I would like to accomplish for 2010 (part of which involves this blog). So, without further ado:

2009 in Review

January 1 2009 didn't feel like much of a new year, to be honest. As a person who is still set to a school calendar (even though I'm not in school at the moment-I hope to be soon and I also work with high school kids who are obviously set to a school calendar) January 1 has always felt like it was in the middle. But it was a new year nevertheless. R and I spent it with two good friends at their apartment drinking Bourbon Barrel beer and watching The Office. It was wonderful. My brother was home for the first time since his November cancer diagnosis, and it was good to be home with him, as opposed to in a hospital room or in the house he was renting (although it was a nice house, it wasn't home). School started, and then my paternal grandmother passed away very unexpectedly. My sister couldn't attend the funeral because of her job, my brother was in the hospital for chemo so my mom went out there, and I traveled to PA--through a crazy snowstorm no less-to be with my Dad. I preached at her funeral, which was especially poignant as my Gorgeous Ma was looking forward to my June ordination. While this might sound bad, though it's not meant to, I'm glad hers was the first funeral homily I gave. Barack Obama was inaugurated while I was out there for the funeral-never had I felt so much hope in a new president.

February I went to Canterbury, which was awesome as it's my favorite city in England. I also started getting rejections from the PhD programs to which I applied, and thus the job search began. That took up most of my spring, and to be honest I found it to be a pretty stressful and maybe even horrible process. I felt alone in the search, but that could just be because it was a crappy time for my whole family, I got rejected from every program, and I wasn't finding any job that would have me because I was going to be unable to move to their town. Commuting wasn't an option for many of these churches. And, on top of everything, the economy was busted and no one wanted to hire an assistant. Ugh. That was the word for February through April really. And even into May. The bright spot was that N's scans at the end of his chemo showed NO signs of cancer. Thankfulness is not the word to express how we all felt at that moment. We continue to pray over the next year that it will stay gone.

But praise God I did find a job (I think it was finalized in June, or late May-one of the two) and I graduated from YDS. Then I headed home for the summer. It was really great to be home. My nephew turned 3 and gets more and more fun every time I see him. My family was closer, I would argue, after my brother's illness and so it was good just to spend some time healing with everyone (although I don't think it was a conscious healing-it was a healing-by-presence). The hard part was that R was up here, and I was down there, and we didn't see each other for something like 8 or 10 weeks. Thank God for Skype!!!

And then...THE WEDDING!!!! It was an absolutely perfect day. I think maybe I blogged about it, so you can see what I said there. Perfect is the best word to describe it. And the honeymoon was AWESOME. We went to Disney World (I hadn't been since I was 7) and I think I may be addicted. It was so wonderful-I want to go back this year! And every year, really.

The fall brought changes. I moved into R's house and we've been working on making it our house. I started my first September without being in school. My job is great, but I admit I feel such a pull toward the academic world that it was really hard not starting classes this fall. I started PhD applications (again), however. By December I'd finished 9 applications, and am now praying that I'll be able to follow my academic vocation next fall. Otherwise it's time for more discernment, which will be hard as all discernment inevitably is. Good, but hard. R and I are adjusting the married life just great, I think. It's funny though, people would ask me pretty early on how it felt to be married. I said it felt the same, only we see each other every day and have rings on our fingers. I don't know if everyone feels that way, but because we'd spent a couple of summers living together we knew how one another operated, and didn't have that adjustment to make when I moved in permanently.

That's my 2009 in a nutshell. Inevitably I've left things out, or glossed over things. Some are because it's another person's story to tell. Some because it didn't pop up on my radar right now. And some because I didn't feel like writing about it. But there's a basic overview of 2009.

Thankfulness

I realize it's a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, but this morning I had a real moment of thankfulness. In lieu of anything else to blog about at the moment (that you don't already know-applications, applications, ummm...is there anything else right now?) I figured I would write about this.

I work about 56 miles away from where I live. The commute is about 1:25 each way, which could be worse. Luckily it's a pretty drive and it gives me time to pray in the mornings (although I would still love to have a 15 minute commute and just pray NOT in a car). As this is my first year in this job, we're still figuring out how winter is going to work-especially now that winter has really just gotten here. Today was the first test case of how this might roll.

Yesterday the weather was calling for a winter weather advisory-not so bad and something I could reasonably get to work in. The plan was to get up around 5, check the weather, shovel whatever snow there was, and get on the road by 6:30ish in time for the 9 AM staff meeting. My "boss" is overly cautious about me going in on bad weather days, but I really do want to be there unless it's really bad, especially for staff meetings. So this morning I got up at 5:10, rolled over, checked my handy dandy iPhone, and it had changed to a winter storm warning. I looked at the weather report, emailed the office administrator, and tried to go back to sleep (although I was kind of awake by then but eventually got back to sleep). R, however, was not so lucky. He doesn't have the choice, really, to stay home when the weather's bad. I mean, he could stay home but that would involve using vacation, sick, or personal time-and he doesn't have much of that, especially in December. For him it's a matter of "do I take the train-which costs time and money-or do I drive-which costs concentration and more time." He tends to drive (I would take the train, but that's just me).

I realized just how thankful I am to be in a compassionate working environment. This isn't to say that R's place of work isn't full of nice people-it is-he just has a more traditional work setting that requires you to be there and if you're not, it costs you. I keep thinking of ways this could be better. I mean, seriously, in urban environments where people have long commutes (R's is about 1:30 each way), when the weather is bad they spend a good deal of their concentration on the morning commute and would likely go into work mentally worn out-and it's only 9 AM! There has to be a better way around this. Ideally it would be not living so far away from one's place of employment, but that's not a possibility in this case.

So anyway, I'm thankful for having a place to work, particularly one that doesn't make me drive in when the weather is crazy.

In other news, I'm planning a beer post sometime soon. And I finished a couple of books. And my applications are almost halfway done. And Christmas is on the way! And Advent is definitely here. : )

The kittens are going insane so I'd better go. Cheers, everyone!

Best. Thing. Ever.

OK I know I've posted lots of videos lately and not anything of substance, but I plan to change that in the near future. However, tomorrow's Sunday and I have a long and full day so I'll put off my entry (that and my first PhD app is due on Tuesday).

So here's something for you. You've probably already seen it, but I've seen it at least 5 times in the last three days and it only gets better. AND R just showed me the original Queen video and it's even better having seen that now!

Enjoy. :)