Wishes

A couple of weeks ago I managed to catch one last leaf on a tree for this year.  Winter is officially here and snow, cold weather, and bare trees seem to be out in full force.  
As this wonderful time of year begins as we wait for Christ's birth, we want to wish our friends and family many blessings and peace!

 Luke 2:9-12
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

Marketing standards at an all-time low!

I'm going to take a detour from the standard "updates on married life" course to geek out about college football. If you haven't already heard, Jim Delaney, Commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, recently unveiled the names of the two athletic divisions beginning in 2011, as well as the new conference logo. Yesterday, they were broadcast for all the world to see...and ridicule.
If you haven't seen it before, here's the new logo and the division names:

I'll start with the logo...bear with me.
 Aside from the powder blue and white scheme (since when did North Carolina join) one of my biggest gripes is its simplicity. Don't get me wrong, simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing, but the logo lacks any hint of creativity, inspiration, and just plain doesn't represent anything the Big Ten has come to signify over the decades of its existence. Give a two year old a box of crayons and five minutes and he would come up with something better than this. Many hoped the new logo would include a cleverly hidden number like the "11" in the old one, but they decided to go with a hidden "10" in the I and G. This was apparently an attempt to pay homage to the ten members before the addition of Penn State and Nebraska. The logo already acknowledges them because the name of the conference is the "Big TEN", what's the point of the hidden 10 then? Nothing! It makes no sense! Marketing companies get paid millions of dollars to come up with this!? Give me a break.
  Secondly, the division names also lack any logical reasoning. Sure, they tried to be creative with "Legends" and "Leaders" trying to portray the conference as a trailblazing pioneer both on the field and off. But much like the ACC's Coastal and Atlantic divisions, trying to place the schools in their respective divisions is like trying to draw the outline of Azerbaijan on a map with no key or reference points. I was a fan of the "Plains" and "Lakes" division names myself, heck even a straight up "East" and "West" scheme would have been fine. At least these ideas make sense and tie the conference together geographically. Instead, Delaney claimed geography was not important, and nit-picked at the little details in drawing division lines. Sure, Wisconsin and Michigan would have been kind of sore thumbs in an East/West split, but I thought we had given up on nit-picky details the day we continued calling it the Big Ten with 11 (soon to be 12) members.

Stupid names, stupid logo, and it will all help contribute to the current perception of the Big Ten: slow, stupid, stuck in the past, and just lacking ingenuity and inspiration. Jim, sorry but you dropped the ball big time on this one, and I truly hope somebody in Chicago slaps you back to your senses, and quick!

Hey, there's Jesus!

For the past twelve days, Braedan and I have opened a different window on our advent calendar.  Even though this calendar doesn't have chocolates or a little prize behind the windows, it's still a surprise to open the window and read the inspirational word or phrase for the day.  Sometimes it asks us to read a Bible verse and think about it, other times it asks us to think about how we've seen or lived Christian qualities during the day. Still other times it just gives us a bit of advice to live a better life.

Today, it asked how we saw examples of Christ's love within the past 24 hours. We had just happened to spend the weekend with our family in Washington. It was so much fun to be with everyone and celebrate Christmas, a birthday, and an anniversary all in one weekend! We saw examples of unconditional love that families have for each other, and that Christ has for us.

So now we're going to turn the tables on you!  Have you have seen Christ's love in your life lately?

Happy December 6th

Happy December 6th everyone. In case you didn't know, December 6 is a monumental holiday and one that should be celebrated and remembered the world over. Today we celebrate Miriam and I getting a big chunk of our Christmas shopping done. I'm not going to tell you where we went because you may just find yourself on our Nice list. But let's just say, by the end of the whole ordeal, I was one tired, grumpy shopper. Miriam and I definitely have different shopping styles. For example, we finished our day with some grocery shopping. When I was shopping for myself, I knew exactly what I wanted, exactly where to go, and how much I was going to get. Miriam, on the other hand, is a very calculating shopper, with plenty of lists and coupons to go around to get the best deals. Both sides have their pros and cons, but for a guy used to getting in and out as quick as possible, the slow and steady method can really wear on you, especially at 5:30 in the evening.
Nevertheless, we got all our groceries and gifts in the same day, and all in all it was a successful trip. So if you find yourself lucky enough to be on our list we've checked twice, you're in for a treat. Celebrate this monumental day, and celebrate the fact that I survived Christmas shopping for another year!

Who's in Charge Here?

Sometimes I forget who is in charge.  Maybe it's me being an older sister, maybe it's me being a teacher, maybe it's just me being stubborn...sometimes I just like to think that I have it all planned out and it has to go my way or else.  But then when I see an answer to a prayer or when I see a beautiful picture of our world, I realize that no, it's not me in charge here. 

All We Have Are Stories

Due to my current substitute teaching employment situation, I am constantly meeting many new people each day.  By the end of a day in which I've subbed in music, sometimes I've had about 90-100 students come in and out of my classroom in one day.  When I sub in a general classroom, I have the students names down by the time lunch comes around, but it is on my drive back home that I begin to think about what each of their stories are.  For I only get to be with them for 8 hours of one day--out of their life. 

Think about how much and how little has happened in your life up to this point and has shaped who you are as a person.  If we pass someone in the street, we probably could never even begin to guess their story...but the thing is is that their story isn't stopping the moment they leave our classroom or the moment they are past you are on the sidewalk. 
Along those lines is a story about one of my friends.  She was heading home on the interstate for the weekend when due to a semi crash, all lanes of traffic were completely stopped.  Not only stopped for a few minutes, but at least 2 hours!  She was supposed to meet her husband at 5:00 and when she was still stuck on the interstate at 6:00, she knew he would be getting worried.  The problem was that her cell phone had died an hour into the trip and she had no way of connecting with him.  She saw another single woman sitting in the other lane in her car.  So being pretty gutsy, Mel decided to actually get out of her car and ask to borrow the woman's cell phone in order to call her husband.  Believe it or not, the other woman was supposed to meet her husband as well and was stuck in the crash traffic obviously.  I just found that story so interesting because as we drive on the busy streets with tons of people, we never stop to think about their story and how it might be very similar to our own.

I read a really good article recently called All We Have Are Stories by Hal Green.  I'm trying to find the link to post on here, but for now I just wanted to share a few paragraphs from the article.  Hopefully it gets your mind going as well, because it did mine!

To live a life is to play a role, hopefully the protagonist, in our very own most personal story, drama, comedy, play - call it what you will.

There are doubtless as many stories out there as there are variations of musical melodies, of which there shall never be an end. 

So, which melody should or could be determined as not essential to the wondrous whole of music?  None; they are all essential, and there forever, whether someone has yet heard them or not.  

Even in the final book of the Bible, the book of "Revelation," it is said that the heavenly residents sang new songs with new melodies which had never been heard or sung before.

How might it affect your life, if you understand that yourself as well as those around you are in the midst of your respective stories?  Surely you would quickly see that no life is truly boring; unexamined perhaps, but never boring.  

Who knows but that meaning of our life is hidden in our stories.

The Follow Up

Christmas tree mostly up and getting decorations around our apartment---check
Substitute jobs lined up for this week (thank goodness for getting them in advance)---check
A great Thanksgiving week and spending special time with families---check
Christmas lists finally made and shopping in progress---check

To follow up on our previous post, we lost our battle with the heater sadly.  After a rather cold Thanksgiving, Braedan came back to our apartment to find it rather chilly in here...when we talked on the phone that night (I came back on a different night) he said he had a sweatshirt on, blanket on top of that, two pairs of socks and my slippers on his feet.  Why my slippers you ask?  First of all, they are appropriately Hawkeye slippers, but slippers are on his Christmas list, so he had to make due with what we had.   So all in all, we made it to November 25 until turning on our heat.  Not too shabby...

We hope you are all staying nice and toasty these days :)