Mondays Are for Fresh Starts
- Tomorrow it is supposed to be 78 degrees. I know many people who moved here to get out of the cold of the northern midwest. We only have two seasons here—summer and non-summer.
- Ellie is now big enough-period.
- I read once that Disney used to re-release their movies to theatres every 7 years so that each new generation of kids sees it in theatres. I know they had business interests and not just good intentions for the kids, but I would love that if they did it again. Maybe all production companies could re-release their best movies every few years. I would love to take Ellie to see 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers, or Beauty and the Beast.
- Emma is an awesome mom.
- I made Ellie laugh last week. I’ve known where she’s ticklish for a while, but couldn’t get her to laugh until now.
- I’m hoping to go to an Asian food market this week to pick up a vietnamese drip filter to make Cafe Sua Da (or Vietnamese Iced Coffee).
- I finished two books last week. The Deliberate Church by Dever and Alexander was so good. It was theological, practical, interesting, etc. I can’t say enough good things about it.
- We finished North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson last night. We’ve been reading it aloud in the evenings. And it was amazing. It’s the second book in The Wingfeather Saga. Already, the characters, places, and events are part of our conversations the way cult movies usually are for most people. Our conversations might be unintelligable to people if they don’t know Harry Potter, The Wingfeather Saga, and Fred Claus.
When Books Could Change Your Life: Baltimore City Paper
I’m not ashamed to say that The Hardy Boys changed my life.
I thought I hated reading until picked up a Hardy Boys book. We lived in Kentucky. And I remember poring over the Hardy Boys collection at the library in town.
I read every one of them, some of them multiple times. I dreamed of being like them one day-They had a car, a motorcyle, a boat, a plane, a laboratory, etc. They could fight, think, investigate, endure. They were Jason Bourne before Bourne.
They changed my life because I never quit reading. I cried at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. I read Redwall. I read Les Miserables. I read The Lord of the Rings. I read about Reagan, Schwarzkopf, Powell, Napolean, Lewis, etc.
What books changed your life when you were 12?
*photo by penreyes
Advice for Fiction Writers
Jeffrey Tayler has a helpful essay on advice for those who want to write fiction. He notes that The Atlantic, where he serves as a correspondent, receives every year 60,000 unsolicited…
Legal pads, Mathematics, and Tigers
- I finished Life of Pi yesterday. And I loved it. The book starts slow, but it’s really engaging, the writing is vivid, and it’s a very philosophical novel. I especially enjoyed the fight between the tiger and the shark.
- When I people ask how parenting is going or what my pre-parenting advice is, I’m not complaining when I say that it’s tough or that Ellie is a handful. I don’t mind. I actually like it. But it’s not easy, and I try to tell the truth.
- We watched The Taking of Pelham 123 last night. I think they tried to count the number of times they used a certain word, but they lost count after the first 5 minutes, so they stuck with 123.
- I’ve been writing on notebook paper for several months so I can organize my papers into notebooks, but I think I’m going to switch back to legal pads. I used yellow in college and seminary because it helps me remember things.
You Don't Know Who You're Dealing with
It’s easy to write someone off. The guy in line at the store who should take better care of himself. The driver who doesn’t belong on the road. The woman working a mindless job who has no dreams or ambitions.
It’s hard to truly see. That man just finished his 2nd of 3 jobs and needed to pick up a few things for the baby. That driver is just trying to get his overheating car to a safe place. That woman works there for health reasons and takes acting classes on the side.
C.S. Lewis said that if we saw humans as they one day will be, then we would not treat our neighbors so lightly.
Around our house, when we see someone particularly frustrating, hurried, angry, etc., we say “He might be having transmission trouble.” We’re not always at our best either.
*photo by SubZeroConscienceness
The New News
I follow soccer closely. It’s the only sport I care much about. I check the newspaper or ESPN.com for updates on other sports so I’m in the loop, but that’s all I do for the other sports.
I don’t follow soccer through traditional media (newspapers, tv, websites). I subscribe to two blogs and a twitter feed to tell me everything I want to know. One blog and the twitter feed are written by journalists, but I rarely read their articles in magazines and on websites like FOX Sports and Sports Illustrated. I prefer their candid thoughts and summaries to normal game summaries and ratings. The other blog aggregates and annotates all of the soccer news and commentary in one post. So between the three of them, I get news and commentary in three bursts per day.
The way we consume information and media is changing. Is it changing to batches of news? Will we now listen to commentary from trusted friends and sources rather than editors at the city newspaper?
How do you get your news?
Taxes are Finished
I did our taxes Tuesday. And yes, I was grumpy for most of it. I also took care of insurance, hospital bills, budget, etc. Now I just want to read. And write.
For the second year in a row, I misread the payment/refund part of the taxes. I told Emma we needed to pay on our taxes before I realized that it said refund.
You’d think I’d care enough to read it right.
Shorts and Snow
- I’m finally getting around to reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. And this time, I’m not quitting. I’ll just keep plugging until I finish.
- I’ve got a bag of Starbuck’s Casi Cielo in my cabinet that I’m itching to open. Several years ago, it was amazing. For the last couple of seasons, it wasn’t so great. I’ve got high hopes for this year’s batch.
- Everyone says Ellie looks like Emma. But we’ve finally figured out what I contributed. Fingernails.
- I butcher Spanish around the house all the time. Emma puts up with it. But I picked up The Idiot’s Guide to Spanish this weekend so I can butcher it a little less.
- We’re finally settling into a routine. Life has been crazy lately. We’re looking forward to moving (Lord-willing) this year and having a day/night routine.
- It’s snowing right now. Big, wet flakes.
- I’ve been slowly reading through Romans for a month. I’ve read it twice now and finally feel like I understand it. And I love it.
