end of writer's strike! :)

ha! just kidding...it was more like a hiatus. does it count that i've been writing this blog in my head for several wks now?? well, most of you know we moved at the end of march so things got a bit busy. now, as most of you know, we are in the midst of our home study for adopting. so those are my excuses. and i think i've discovered (not surprisingly) that i enjoy reading blogs more than writing on mine!

anyway, our transition has been great - it's so fun living near the lake and much closer to our friends. it took us considerably longer to get settled in b/c we were spending so much more time just chilling w/ everyone. on the flip side.....parking around here is terrible and these first two months of cub's season there are a ton of home games, so we are walking and biking as much as possible. (which is fine b/c in case you haven't heard gas is over $4 a gal. here!!)

the adoption process is going a bit quicker than we anticipated, but that's fine w/ us. our home study should be completed by mid-june....as long as our background checks clear and everyone sends in their references...you know who you are!! :) we are excited but it's still kinda weird b/c we don't really know how long it will take to have a child placed w/ us....ahhh, just another lesson in patience.

so, that's about all for general "life" stuff...ya know, nothing major. :) so, since i've last written, i finished reading "anna karenina"....it was good, BUT there were some parts that dragged and you could basically skip over them....hunting, elections, farming, blah, blah, blah. that's ok though, i can add it to my growing list of monstrous, 900+ pg books that i feel quite proud to have gotten thru. our next book group selection is "three cups of tea" which i am excited to read b/c i've heard great things....and clearly it is very popular in chicago right now b/c i can't get my hands on a single copy from the public library - there are a million holds on it!

right now for my Bible study group i am re-reading "mudhouse sabbath" by lauren winner. i know i've mentioned this before, but i LOVE her. partly b/c she's just a great writer and she's my age so i think i connect w/ her. also b/c she converted from judaism and has some amazing views on christianity in light of her background. that's mostly what this book is about - she explores jewish practices and disciplines and how we could better celebrate or practice them as christians. it's a small book, so very readable for anyone, but has a lot of depth to it. she takes a look at things you would expect like sabbath, prayer, and fasting as well as subjects such as mourning, hospitality, the body, and aging.

so, i have one other recommendation...but not for reading. a few wks. ago we went to a concert - the first one in quite awhile. funny thing is, it's a band i have loved since they first came out 15 years ago and i'd never seen them in concert before! (writing that makes me feel old!) anyway, it was caedmon's call, on tour w/ derek webb (who used to be their lead singer). they were nothing short of absolutely AMAZING. they are extremely talented musicians, worshippers and songwriters. i thought i had died and gone to heaven. :) i did not want the evening to end. it was cool too b/c we were in a pretty small chapel at a college nearby and were in the 4th row. so, i would suggest you check out their tour schedule here: www.caedmonscall.com and make it a priority...i promise you won't be disappointed.

well that's all i got for now.....hopefully i will update again sooner rather than later!

tired of winter and of being sick!

so, it's been awhile. a lot has happened in the past couple weeks....we've gotten more snow, found a new apt. and signed the lease (yahoo!), went out of town for two days, been sick for the past week, and yesterday we moved our church from the school back to it's old home - very exciting!

so, i'll start w/ the new apt. - we were so excited to find it so quickly. it is literally a block from the lake - yippee! it's still w/in walking distance of church for phil but not too close to our beloved cubbies....however, parking our car will be more difficult, so that is something fun to look forward to. :) and one of the best parts is that we wil be a lot closer to many of our friends! it's a "garden" apt., meaning half below and half above ground. but it has really high ceilings and full size windows, so it doesn't feel like you are in a cave. it's a bit bigger than our current place, but not huge by any means - which is fine, we just wanted to be able to open up our dining table again and have more than 4 people sit around it! we are planning to move the last sat. of march...gotta get packing!

last sun. after church we headed out on a little adventure that phil planned for us - he didn't tell me where we were going until we were almost there. my surprise destination was starved rock state park, where we spent two nights at their lodge. it was really good to get away and just relax and we did some hiking - phil got some neat shots of the wooded winter scenes and we saw an eagle and several deer. it was a nice time, except that near the end i started getting this annoying cough which developed into a cold/flu thing which has continued and now phil has it - fun times. (apparently it's really going around though - i talked to lots of people at church yesterday who have it or had it)

then yesterday was our last day having church in the elementary school that we have called home for the past 2 years. it was neat to see so many people stay after and help us move all our stuff over to the church building - it went really fast. we're so excited to be back in our old home and the way God brought us back is such a cool story of redemption. for those who don't know, we moved out b/c of issues w/the previous owner. but the building was sold around a year ago and the new owner had actually been attending our church. he has done a lot of renovation and restoration of the building and it looks amazing, and now we are back as the primary renters. he is calling it a "community center" and wants it to be used for other organizations and events, so we don't have exclusive use of the building any time we want it. but our offices are there and it will be worlds better than meeting at the school, so we are extremely grateful!

so i guess that's the "big stuff" from here. please pray we feel better soon - we have no energy for the packing which needs to get started! not to mention we will be working on getting unpacked and settled in at the church this week too! have a great week!

even more snow!

so, it's been a week and a half but it still looks the same outside - white! we are so ready for this craziness to end....although we wouldn't mind being able to get out of the city once to go cross-country skiing or downhill skiing and snowboarding. we'll see if that happens!

anyway, if there's anyone out there who hasn't seen it yet, "juno" was really good. it was sweet, quirky and all the actors were great. the style kind of reminded me of the tv show "gilmore girls" which was a favorite of mine. so i really hope it wins some oscars.

i don't really have any new books to write about. i am about to embark on a journey of several months to read through tolstoy's "anna karenina" for my book group. i am excited - i like tackling the big books - i had such a sense of accomplishment after completing "atlas shrugged" (which i struggled through and would not necessarily recommend to everyone, but am glad i stuck w/ it) as well as "the count of monte cristo" (which was great but a bit difficult to keep up w/ all the characters).

let's see, what else to write about.....well, for those who haven't heard we are planning to move when our lease is up april 1st. i know, i know - when will we stay put??? i don't know! :) but if anyone in the city hears of a reasonable 2 bedroom apt. a bit closer to wrigley field than we already are, let us know. it's such a difficult thing - we want to be closer to church but the closer we get to church, the closer we get to wrigleyville....which is crazy during baseball season and a more expensive area. so we'll see - i know God will provide. we were hoping our current landlord would have something for us, but it sounds like he won't. so now begins the fun of checking craig's list mutiple times a day and making lots of phone calls - yay!

well, i guess that's all for now. i'm contemplating baking some cookies tonight...it just sounds really yummy. maybe i'll make bars so that it won't take as long. :) then i'll have to deliver them to some college students for valentine's day so that we don't eat them all! anyway, happy valentine's day a couple days early. hope you get to do something fun - phil and i are gonna go to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch (stir fry)- we have gift certificates from christmas so it's a free date anyway! later!

"snowed in"

ha! yeah right...not in this city! we got around 10 inches of snow on thursday and overnight into friday - i know a few people who didn't have to go to work, but mostly life just keeps going. so sad, that's one thing i miss about living in the boonies: staying hunkered down at home b/c there's too much snow to get out. i guess you could say i got a "4 hr. delay" b/c i didn't go to my usual nannying gig until noon, so that was kinda nice.

so, i know this is supposed to be a book blog, but i'm going w/ some friends this afternoon to see the movie "juno" and i'm very excited about it. i guess that's really all i can say about it for now...i'll have to give my critique next time i blog. :) i've seen so many reviews and clips of it on tv that i just hope i don't feel like i've already seen the entire movie....but from what i've heard i doubt i'll be disappointed.

now on to the books.....a little devotional book that my mom gave me over the summer that i've really enjoyed is "come away my beloved" by frances j. roberts. i don't usually get into the daily devotionals b/c they just always seem so fluffy, and too "easy", if you know what i mean. i guess the fact that life doesn't come at us in such specific, topical, easy to swallow little packages is part of what turns me off. anyway, to me this one is different. it's kind of written almost like little love letters directly from God to me. and although they are usually just a page or two long i feel like there is depth to them -truths to really cling to. there have been a lot of days when i read a selection and feel like it was written just for me, for what i am going thru. i sometimes use the verses and thoughts in them to launch into my prayer time. so, even if it's not your thing i highly recommend it - it also makes a great gift....just ask my mom, she's given away several of them!

the novel i just finished reading for my book group is "the memory keeper's daughter" by kim edwards. good book...quick read....and a different sort of plot. w/o giving too much away, the story revolves around a lie that one of the main characters tells his family and how it affects their life. it's an interesting look into how we think we know what's best, but when we take matters into our own hands things can turn out quite differently than we expected. another interesting aspect of the book is that one of the characters has down's syndrome, but was born in the 60's....so it sheds some light into how, in general, our society has changed it's view of those w/ disabilities.

so, i guess that's about all for now. hope you're enjoying your weekend!

the irresistible revolution

so i'm a little slow getting back to this blog....but i have been thinking about it. :) and now i've discovered even more of my friends who blog, so it takes me longer to catch up on reading them all!

anyway, if i had to pick one book from last year that really impacted me, i would have to refer you to the title of this blog, "the irresistible revolution: living as an ordinary radical" by shane claiborne. honestly this book convicted me and challenged me in a lot of areas - don't read it unless you want a kick in the pants to make some changes in your life.

it could a bit (or a lot) overwhelming and guilt-inducing. the author, shane, does indeed live a radical life compared to most of us. simplicity and communal living are main tenants - and just trying to figure out how to follow Christ in this crazy world and truly make a difference in other's lives. honestly though, i think it's the kind of challenge that most of us need - i know for myself, the goals and challenges i give myself really aren't all that difficult. the ideas that shane puts out there are gonna take some real sacrifice.

i really connected w/him....at first i thought maybe it was b/c he lives in philly. but then as i kept reading i realized that he had to be about my age - he talked about going to work w/ mother teresa one summer while he was in college. it turns out, he was born the same year as i was! anyway, it was really interesting reading about his experiences in india and then making the huge change to come out here to the burbs of chicago to do an internship at the mega-church willow creek.

he talks about how so many churches use most of their tithe money for their own comfort, programs, buildings, etc. instead of the real original purpose of the tithe being to help the poor. he talks about how so few of us really share our lives w/ each other...as in, our belongings, our food, anything that someone else might need. the idea of communal living intrigues me, and phil and i have even talked about getting a bigger apt. w/ the intent of having a college student live w/ us for low rent. a friend of our's from church needed a place to stay for a month over the summer while he was in between leases and he ended up crashing w/ us. it seemed like such a big deal to some people (and to him - he must have thanked us a million times) but we knew it was the least we could do and it was a lot of fun (hopefully he thought so too!). i wish the concept of communal living wasn't so "weird" - it honestly makes so much more sense to share living expenses, household needs (and chores!), etc. similarly, how often do we think to ask our friends if they have something we could borrow before we just run out and buy it b/c we "need" it? we have happily lent out some of our camping gear b/c not that many people in the city own the basic stuff. :)

well, i will have to post some quotes from the book later b/c a friend of mine has it right now. but i have barely scratched the surface and i'm sure i'll be posting about this book again. please read it and let me know your thoughts! good night and happy reading!

here we go!

so this is my first attempt at blogging.  over the past year or so i have had an increasing number of friends start blogs - i have over a dozen on my google reader now.  anyway, i decided that since i read a lot and i process and remember what i've read better if i discuss it, that books would be a good overall theme for my blog.  

i think for this first post i will just give an overview of some of my all time favorite books and authors.  i'll work my way up to what i'm currently reading.  who knows how long it will take me to get "caught up" but this wknd is bitterly cold here in chi-town  (wind chills from -10 to -20!) so if  i'm smart i'll stay inside as much as possible and just blog away....or read!  :)  

so, in the genre of historical fiction, one of favorite author teams is bodie & brock theone.  they have written several series involving israel (ancient and more recent), WWII, ireland, and more.  watch out though - each series usually has at least 6 books and you can get hooked!  i like them b/c you learn a lot of history but it's not boring - and the subject of israel is a personal passion of mine (in case you don't know, i spent an amazing semester of college there).  

for some light reading, i love jan karon.  the mitford series, to be precise.  it's a bit "fluffy" but i love her writing - endearing, funny, and yet still deep at times.  you'll laugh, you'll cry.......but once again, if you get hooked, it's a long series.  :)  basically the series follows the life of a goofy pastor (for lack of a better description) and his church in the small town where he lives.  the characters are great - i read this series a few years ago and just writing about it makes me want to go back and read it again soon!  it made me laugh out loud more than a few times - i love it when that happens.  

let's see....a recent read i have to mention is the kite runner by khaled husseini.  i mention it b/c they just made a movie of it - i don't think it's really in the theatres much anymore, but in case you saw it, you should still read the book.  it follows the life of 2 boyhood friends in afghanistan when the taliban take over.   so, be warned, there is some violence and your heart will be ripped out more than once.  but it is so good - i could not put it down.  

i guess to close i'll just mention a few other favorite authors who i'm sure i will talk about more later.  lauren winner, brian mclaren, brennan manning, c.s. lewis, donald miller, and bruce feiler, to name a few.  i'm sure i'll remember others that i should have added and they'll make it on here eventually.  

well, i guess it's time for me to head out.  unfortunately, i do have to go out in the nasty cold but thankfully it's to go visit someone and run a quick errand.  oh, on a similar note:  please keep the homeless in your prayers this wknd./winter.  although there are lots of shelters, some people will never go to them.  we actually went out last night w/ a group from church to pass out blankets and coffee (one of our awesome college students coordinated it!) - it was humbling and has renewed our passion to help those who are marginalized by our society.  take care!