Tag Archives: New Year’s Day

Ahhhh, vacation

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Finally I am on vacation for the rest of the year. Just writing that makes me feel more relaxed ;-)

I haven’t written much here for a long time because I haven’t felt like it. I go through phases. Right now I am sitting on my couch in my usual spot, sipping eggnogg-laced coffee (sounds gross but it really isn’t, actually), and looking out our living room window at the snow falling. I’m also watching a pesky black squirrel calmly raiding the bird feeders and thinking of ways in which I could put an electrical wire and a remote control together to give him a little shock that would help him avoid the feeders in future…

All of the little kids are already awake and terribly excited because tonight we will open Christmas presents. And I am already trying to be patient and easygoing, which is hard for me to do at times when they get so wired. Michele is at the kitchen table, putting names on stockings. Earlier this week she bought things to fill Christmas stockings for everyone but herself. She doesn’t yet realize that I bought things for her stocking on the sly. Because we traditionally open presents on Christmas Eve, some years when we can afford it, we make Christmas morning special by having the stockings available then.

I had thought about mailing Christmas letters this year but decided against it. We enjoy getting letters and cards from friends but have decided to forego the practice ourselves. Any of our friends and family who want to can follow news about us, photos, etc. on this blog year round. Michele and I are also both active on Facebook.

Now that I’ve mentioned Facebook, I must say that I’ve been really happy to reconnect with many former neighbors, classmates, and family of late through this site. It’s been a great medium for making acquaintances again, sometimes after twenty or more years without contact.

In my previous post I mentioned that I didn’t have a burning desire for any particular Christmas gift. I was wrong. I recently noticed that I can get a refurbished iPhone for $149 and so now I’m thinking about when I could possibly afford to buy one! Honestly, though, that’s not a big deal and certainly not something I really need.

To all readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

What’s been happening

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I haven’t posted anything in a great while and that’s a good thing.  I just haven’t felt like writing anything.  Now that it’s January 1, 2008, I felt I should write the first post of the new year.

So, what’s been happening in my life?  Well, I’ve been enjoying the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  I had to work last week, which was dull.  But I’m thankful to have had some time off anyway.  We hosted Christmas Eve (which is when my family gives presents and does the usual Christmas-y things).  It required a tremendous amount of work to make our house somewhat presentable given that it usually looks like a bomb has exploded.  But we managed to pull it all together and we had a good time.  Michele made a lovely meal, there was plenty of yummy things to munch on, and even some Bailey’s Irish Cream was on hand to enjoy.  Christmas day was quiet and relaxed.  We had a nice meal then, too, and sat around watching movies at my brother-in-law’s house.

This past few days were spent with my side of the family in east central Illinois.  We hadn’t been there in several months — quite a long time.  It was great to see everyone, including little Russel, my niece’s baby boy.  My nephew Ben was with his cousins in Canada so we didn’t see him, and my brother, Dan, wasn’t feeling well so we missed seeing him, too.  But everyone else was there.  One of the fun things we did was to go on our first geocaching adventure using the GPS unit my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I looked up three geocaches in the area and we were able to find two out of the three.  The children enjoyed it and in the process we were able to spend some healthy time tramping around in the outdoors finding lots of interesting things like a cecropia moth’s cocoon, and seeing a flock of pheasants (something the little kids had never seen before).

Of course we enjoyed giving and receiving lots of presents.  The little kids each got some special things such as kiddie digital cameras, MP3 players, cute big fluffy animal slippers, and much more.  Michele got an iPod nano — cool!

We are thankful for many blessings, including the opportunity to spend time with both sides of our families.

Revamped site

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This past weekend I messed up my entire site (my fault) while trying to upgrade WordPress to the latest release. So in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, I decided to revamp the whole thing and bring in the New Year with a different look and feel. The biggest change is a new theme that is much easier to manage and, more importantly, much easier to read. Some other things that I added or changed: there is now a photo of me on the site; I switched to a better method of email delivery for blog postings for those who prefer to get updates that way instead of via RSS; I moved the Meebo Me widget to a more prominent place; I added a Funny Videos section that pulls selected videos from Google Video or YouTube; and I implemented an improved way to browse previous posts.

So far, people seem to like it (thanks to those who’ve written to let me know)!

Back to work

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Readers of this blog may have noticed how little I have had to say lately about things relating to libraries. I’ve needed a break. Today is my first day back since December 16 and I am grateful for the amount of time I have off as a faculty member at my institution. However, I must admit to some reluctance to go back to work just yet. I worry about my wife being home with the kids most of the day, without my help. Keegan went back to school today, too. I’m feeling unmotivated to pursue librarian tasks yet. Hopefully that mood will change.

One of the tasks before me in this new year is to finally come to a decision, one way or another, about pursuing a PhD in library and information science. (I’ve considered some alternative areas of study but none really seems to catch my interest and passions the way librarianship does.) My boss strongly encourages me to pursue this and in fact, in order to achieve tenure I will have to pursue a second master’s degree, at least. Other factors that are in favor of doing this are that my institution will provide significant financial support, and they also will provide me with time off.

But am I really capable of doing this? I’m filled with doubt. Am I smart enough, motivated enough, good enough? We’re talking about the world’s worst procrastinator, and one of the worst students around. Plus, how can I devote the necessary focus and energy when I have a young family? I have no desire to sacrifice their needs for this career move. What if I fail? (I’ve failed in so many other areas, professionally.) Ok, ok, I know, I’m supposed to stay POSITIVE this year…

It’s 2005 and I resolve to be more positive

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OK, so it is now 2005. Ho hum. One of my unspoken resolutions of the new year is to be more positive ;-) In that spirit, here are some nice, happy, positive things to write about:

One of the positive things that’s happened lately comes out of a big negative. We were told a few weeks ago that our van, a Honda Odyssey, needed a new catalytic converter. The price to fix it? A cool $1,200! (Why so expensive? We were told that it is because Honda’s catalytic converter contains precious metals like platinum.) We don’t have $120 extra to spend on anything, let alone $1,200, so this was a very big setback for us. The dealer told us that although the catalytic converter wasn’t clogged, it was very close to being clogged and we shouldn’t travel anywhere. We had to cancel our plans to visit family during the holidays because of this. At the dealer’s suggestion, we contacted American Honda to ask if they could help us out at all with the cost. I was very skeptical about this possibility, frankly. I called Honda last week and they promised to investigate the situation and give us a call back with their decision early this week. Lo and behold, we got a call on Tuesday from them, saying that they had decided to waive the entire cost of the catalytic converter!!! All we would have to pay would be the labor cost of installing it. I couldn’t believe it. Would an American car manufacturer do a thing like that? I wish I could say, YES, but I greatly doubt it. I have been a huge Honda fan for years since buying my first Honda in the mid 90s, an Accord, and I am more “sold” on Honda than ever before because of this. Anyway, I took the van in to the dealer yesterday and they installed the new part and all I had to pay was $76 for the labor. Good deal!

What other positive things can I start the new year with? Well, let’s see…I finally managed to clean out our garage. If you had ever seen how messy it was, you would be amazed at this incredible feat ;-) We can now park our van in the garage, which makes things much easier for everyone, especially in inclement weather.

Another positive thing is that after cleaning out the garage, we finally got around to unpacking a lot of our decorative items like family photos, knickknacks, paintings, and such. This, almost three years after we moved to Indiana. It was like having Christmas all over again as we rediscovered so many of the things that we hadn’t seen in years, many of the things that hold special meaning like framed photos from our wedding, as well as many of the wedding gifts that we received. The downside is that we have to figure out where on earth we are going to find space for some of the knickknacks in this house. Maybe Michele and I will finally feel at home here when we find places for all of these personal belongings and see them displayed around us.

One of the many nice presents I received for Christmas was something I had wanted for a long time: an AirPort Express base station with AirTunes. Talk about cool! I’m using it to extend the range of our AirPort Extreme base station, and I also set it up to play music on our stereo system in the living room via iTunes. I copied all of our CDs onto the PowerBook — about 1,200 songs in total — and we can now listen to all of our music or whatever combination of songs that we want, from the equivalent of a gigantic jukebox. How cool is that?

Another Christmas gift was the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I have already watched it and am generally pleased with the extra stuff in there. Now I have to figure out what I am going to say about it for my invited presentation at the upcoming C.S. Lewis Society meeting!

Finally, the most positive thing I can write about is that I am blessed in so many ways, with a wonderful wife, and four great children. Yes, there are some sacrifices and some trials here and there, but I still find it amazing that God has given me so many good things. Over and over again, He does what I think is impossible. In the midst of this world’s troubles — especially thinking about and grieving over the terrible devastation in Southeast Asia right now — I am so thankful that Jesus Christ took my sins upon Him and bore them on the cross, paying my debt for sin. I struggle all the time with accepting and enjoying what I do not deserve, and God knows I surely don’t deserve such an incredible gift. But this is exactly what He loves to do: to rescue and bless and be in relationship with those who don’t deserve it. Amazing grace!