Blue 2.0: wiki work

Part of Blue 2.0 this week is to create a wiki. We were asked to use PBWiki as our platform.

So tonight I started playing with it. I had a hard time coming up with something to use a wiki for. Some of my thoughts were to use a wiki as a place to store and easily revise cataloging procedures. I could also make a page of Music Subject Headings, but I don't know enough about subject headings to do it justice. Finally, I decided that a wiki would be a great way to keep track of a family tree. So that's what I did.

It's kind of small right now, only a few pages, but I hope to add more soon and let other family members add pages as well. You can check it out here: Kerri's Family Tree. I made this wiki private, I don't know if that restricts access or not even if you have the link. I may have to actually "invite" you to the page.

Setting up an account on pbwiki was pretty easy. Trying to figure out what to put on the pages was a little trickier. Also, I decided to delete a page that I created and it took me a while to figure out how to do that. But I think I got it now.

I can see that using a wiki would be beneficial for collaborative work. I know that the music librarians in the Chicago area set up a wiki for themselves for planning the national Music Library Association meeting to be held there in 2009. I don't know how that is working for them, but it seems like a good way to facilitate communication between a group of people. Probably better than a blog. However, I do kind of wonder if a forum would be a better way to conduct discussions than on a wiki. I'm much less familiar with wikis than I am with blogs and forums. So I will investigate some of the others and play with mine and see how I like them.

Next session: Tagging and online applications.

Blue 2.0: RSS Feeds

This is another post on the Blue 2.0 program I am participating in at work.

One of our topics for this two-week session is RSS feeds. I have been using Bloglines for RSS feeds for a while now. I forget when I first set it up, but I believe I've had it for at least a year if not longer.

The best part about using Bloglines is that I can keep up with news and weather plus my favorite blogs all in one place. And I can organize the various fields in folders by topic. I have four folders: Catholic blogs, Friends blogs, Library blogs, and News.

One of my favorite feeds is my CNN.com feed to the top headlines. Although the entertainment headlines are annoying, so I've been toying with the idea of deleting that feed and subscribing to the international headlines and national headlines feeds only. With this feed I did change the order they show up in. Rather than the newest one on top I reversed it so that I can scroll down the headlines in the order in which they appear. I also like the feed I have set up for the Weather Channel, I check it regularly to see the temps at any time.

My Library feeds include: Inquiring Librarian, The FRBR blog (a great place to go to get regular updates in the world of FRBR), Catalogablog (a great cataloging blog), and, of course, the Blue 2.0 Blog!!

I have several other blogs that I subscribe to through Bloglines, mostly Catholic ones. Of all of those, I have one that a seminarian from the Diocese of Lexington keeps as well as many others from around the nation. It's a fun way to meet other people from around the country (and abroad) who have similar values as you.

That's about all I have on this topic. I'll get to the wiki topic later!

The March for Life, other Links, and a New Project

Today in Washington, D.C. was the March for Life. The reason for the March is because of the anniversary of Roe v Wade, 35 years ago today. This March has taken place every year on the anniversary of the decision that has allowed an entire generation of children to be killed. The first March for Life was on the first anniversary in 1974. I was born in 1974 and the more I learn about the pro-life movement the more I realize that there is a huge number of unborn children who would be about my age now if it were not for abortion being made legal in this country.

I was not always pro-life. It took me a long time to come to understand how wrong abortion is. This was one issue that, as I came back more fully into the Catholic church about 7 years ago, I really had to work hard to understand. Now I can't imagine that difficulty, it is just so obvious. To think that somewhere around 50 million children who would all be around 35 years old and younger now never got a chance to experience life is just sad. Being pro-life is speaking up for those who are unable to speak for themselves.

That hundreds of thousands of people, many of them young people, would gather yearly to peacefully protest this decision is remarkable. It speaks very highly of the fact that many more Americans are pro-life than our politicians realize. And do you know what happened to "Roe," the woman who was the main part of the Supreme Court case in 1973. She has since regretted what she did, converted to the Catholic faith, and become a leader in the pro-life movement. What an amazing story!

Life begins at the moment of conception. There is no disputing that. Abortion kills a life already formed, regardless of how old the child is. This is also why my husband and I have chosen to follow the church teaching regarding contraception. This seems very radical to some, but when you look into all the whys, it makes perfect sense and we can't imagine doing anything different.

I wanted to also use this post to provide some links to some other resources. There are tons of websites on pro-life issues on the Internet. Here are some worth checking out:

First, this is a commentary on today's March for Life at Catholic.org: http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26523. It's kind of long, but go read the whole thing!!

Also, Priests for Life is an organization that promotes life for all people. There website has a ton of other links on it. Scroll down to the list of links on the left side of the main page and find the link "Links to other Sites" for a huge list!!

Another site worth pointing to is the 40 Days for Life site. This is an awesome campaign of forty days of prayer nationwide in support of life. A very cool thing to check out.

And most importantly, in 1968 Pope Paul VI wrote a papal encyclical that now looks prophetic. His Humanae Vitae is so very important for understanding the Church's pro-life stance on all life issues form conception to natural death. Read it!!

Finally, in my post yesterday, I alluded to a project I have been thinking about taking on. It has been on my mind for some time that I want to do something to help people who choose not to have an abortion when faced with a crisis pregnancy. For these brave people who choose to give life to another human created by God and either keep the baby or give the baby up for adoption, there are crisis pregnancy centers out there who help these girls/women/couples. One of them is Birthrite and we have an office here in Lexington. At the beginning of December, Chris and I were out at a church dinner. The dinner always has a "split the pot" lottery (you put in a dollar and get a ticket and if your ticket wins you get half the money and the other half goes to help continue funding the dinner). Well, at the last one of these I actually won!! I got $98 and I haven't used any of it for anything yet. Do you see where this is going?

Birthrite of Lexington (as well as other chapters around the country) is in need of donations. I went looking on their website to see what donations they needed specifically. So, specifically, they need donations of maternity and baby clothes as well as monetary donations. I plan on calling them and finding out if they have other particular needs, such as other baby items (bottles, diapers, etc.). I plan on using the $98 I won in December to buy some things they need. I also want to collect donations of items or money from anyone else interested in helping with this. I need to call them first, but I wanted to let everyone know what I am planning on. If you're in the area (or even if you're not) and want to help, let me know. Email me or leave a note in the "comments" link below.

Thanks for reading!!

Preparing the townhouse

Wow! What a busy weekend. For me, it is still the weekend, for a few more hours anyway. We spent a lot of time at the townhouse Saturday preparing it to put on the market. I cleaned and Chris painted. The walls look sooooo much better than before!!!

Sunday we took a break: went to Mass, had a nice breakfast, read the paper, did the grocery shopping, and relaxed.

I was off from work today for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, but Chris had to go to work. I had my adoration hour this morning at 6am and then came home to have breakfast with my husband before he went off to work. Then, I started my very busy day.

I actually cooked dinner for us tonight!! I ran to the store and grabbed a pork loin which I then prepared for the crock pot. So while that was cooking I headed over to the townhouse to begin the major cleaning. I was there for 5 hours and did not get everything done I needed to get done. But, what I did do looks great!! I spent most of my time on the kitchen and the rest of the main floor. I dusted light fixtures and fans, cleaned the tops of cabinets and other high areas, and washed down the entire kitchen. I also managed to clean the kitchen window and the sliding glass doors and vacuum the living room. Oh, and I cleaned, dusted and washed, alll the baseboards!!! Not a whole lot left now: bathrooms and bedrooms mostly. We should be able to get those done in a few hours.

I got home tonight after doing all of that and I was exhuasted. Dinner was great and we're going to use the leftover pork for another recipe later in the week. I love this cookbook!! It's all slow coker recipes, except for the leftover recipes. Some of the really large recipes tell you how to store the leftovers and then use them in other (quicker) recipes. Very cool!! I think this is going to be my new favorite cookbook.

Regarding the townhouse: it's going to look great once we finish the cleaning, get the carpets cleaned, and I add a few little touches to make it look pretty. Know anyone looking for a house? It's a perfect first house! Especially if you don't like doing yard work!! Let me know!!

Tuesday is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. There is a huge pro-life march in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, but you probably won't see it on the news or anything. It happens every year and it is always really big, but it doesn't get much press. I'll try to post something here tomorrow about the march as well as some links to pro-life sites. Tomorrow might also be a goood time for me to start a little project I have been thinking about lately. I'll save more info on that until tomorrow.

Yes! I am Catholic!: Session 2

Tuesday night we went out to the second session of Theology on Tap. I've mentioned before that this is a young adult ministry based on a book of that title by Beth Dotson Brown. I looked up the book tonight on Amazon and it is a series of interviews geared toward teens. She interviews several famous and not so famous people. One person on the list I recognized was Catherine Hicks from the TV show "7th Heaven." I read an interview once with her in a magazine I get and she's a very devout Catholic. Anyway, the book looks like it'd be good for anyone interested in the Catholic Church, anyone trying to rediscover their Catholic roots, and for teens who need good Catholic role models.

Tuesday's guest speaker at ToT was Bob "Righteous B" Lesnefsky. He is a Christian rapper and he performed some of his songs throughout the night. I'm not a fan of rap, but I was surprised at how some of these songs had some melodical parts to them and even the more "rap" like parts were interesting music. He did his songs with guitar and he obviously has had some good training or at least has a great ear. His lyrics were good and very honest.

He was also very honest about everything he talked about. He talked about his wife and his four kids, how when he met her she had plans to be a nun, and, most importantly, how he found his Catholic roots again after falling far away from the Church. Now he not only performs as a rapper, mostly doing teen retreats and talks like ours around the country, but he also runs an inner city youth ministry. Because most inner city churches are very poor and can't afford to hire a youth ministry this group provides that kind of ministry, working as a non-profit. They currently have one Catholic Youth ministry set up in Steubenville, OH and are planning on opening two others in the next year (in Queens, NYC, NY and Rochester, NY). You can find out more at their blog called Dirty Vagabond Ministries.

Next week's session will have two speakers: the youth minister from my parish and the director of the youth and young adult ministries for our diocese. Hope you can come out if you're in the area!

Theology on Tap: Tonight!!

Come out to Theology on Tap tonight for a very interesting talk. We'll be at O'Neill's Irish Pub on Richmond Road in the Idle Hour shops from 7-9pm. Get their early to get a seat.

Tonight's speaker is Christian rapper Bob "Righteous B" Lesnefsky, who was also interviewed for the book "Yes! I am Catholic." Theology on Tap is sponsored by the Diocese's Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministries and by Real Life Radio 1380 AM.

For more info about this ministry, click here: Theology on Tap.

An End, A Beginning, and a New Patron Saint

This past Saturday we finally took down our Christmas decorations. I know some are amazed that this late into January we still had our Christmas decorations up. But we had a very good reason.

Chris likes putting the Christmas decorations up as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I was totally against this, but I also knew that I couldn't make him wait until 2 weeks into December. So I told him he could start putting things up once Advent started. So everything went up the first weekend of Advent.

The only thing that was not complete was the nativity scene. We have a very large nativity set and we put it on the top of the entertainment center in the family room. When we first set it up we left the manger empty and the wise men were placed in a cabinet. The baby Jesus was placed in the manger on Christmas Day (although in our case, about 3 days after Christmas since we were in Atlanta). But the wise men weren't placed with everything else until Epiphany, January 6. Well, who wants to take everything down the same day that the wise men finally make an appearance?

So we left everything there another week. This past weekend was the Baptism of the Lord. The Gospel reading was from Matthew 3:13-17--in a nutshell: Jesus comes to the River Jordan and is baptized by John and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him. This past Sunday was considered part of the Christmas season. The Church still had all the wreaths and trees and lights up and they had the full nativity scene on the altar. So we were in good company.

Now that Christmas is over a new season starts, but only for a short time. We are now in Ordinary Time for a few short weeks. Ash Wednesday is on February 6 this year, so Lent starts very early. With the start of a new season is a good time to start reflecting on what we can do to improve our own lives.

This morning during my Adoration hour I spent time reading about prayer and I spent time praying about being a less judgemental and more accepting person. That's when I remembered the Patron Saint of the Year. I had recently seen someone refer to this on their blog and remembered seeing it last year. If this was something I needed to work on, maybe a saint would choose me this year who can help me work on this attribute! So when I had a free moment today I went looking for the recent post I saw to find the link I needed. Guess what! The Patron Saint of the Year Ministry has grown so much they created a blog devoted to it. I added the link to my sidebar so if you are interested in a patron saint go visit the blog and check it out.

By late this afternoon I found out which saint selected me and I was totally surprised. Not by who the saint was, but because I had never heard of him and it took me a while to find any info. St. Aelred is my patron saint for 2008. The Catholic Church has not named him a patron saint of anything in particular, but apparently he us "unofficially" the patron saint of friendship.

Over the course of the year I hope to learn a lot more about this saint nad I'll share what I learn here. I do hope and pray that this is the perfect saint to help me with those areas that I most want to work on in myself. From what I've read so far this seems to be the case.

Blue 2.0: IMing

Another Blue 2.0 post:

I reacquainted myself with my AIM screen name. I can't remember the last time I used it. I don't like using the AIM Express, thus I never do. AIM Express is very clunky. I prefer using AIM with the software I have downloaded on my laptop at home. It is much more friendly.

I do prefer the MSN Windows Messaging. I set up an account there a long time ago and use it at work often. I have used it to communicate with coworkers in our offices here are the Fine Arts Library. Even though we have an open office space here, it can get very noisy in here very quick with people on the phone, students and faculty coming in, and conversations between you and your neighbor. So using the chat MSN chat for quick questions helps keep the noise level from getting out of hand. And it is sometimes faster than email!

Blue 2.0

This post will be dedicated to some "Web 2.0" stuff I'm doing at work. To my family and friends who read this blog, you can safely ignore this post.

I set up my blog in August of 2006, so I've had it a while. It was easy to set up then and when Blogger updated their programs it was easy to convert over. I think at that time I also changed my background and when I did I lost all my little customizations (added links and so forth). Not sure why that happened, but it was easy enough to re-create them.

Hope everyone else enjoys creating their blogs. For all other Blue 2.0 stuff I will add a link to this post on the left side. From there the tag/label for "Blue 2.0" can be used to get to this and other future postings. (I don't currently use tags much, so haven't had a need to display a list of all my tags which may be up to 2 now!)

"Yes! I am Catholic" session 1

Tuesday evening we went to O'Neill's Pub for the first session of this winter's Theology on Tap series. This series is based on a book called Yes! I am Catholic by a local author. Tuesday night a seminarian for our diocese spoke about his journey toward entering the seminary and why he is a Catholic.

It was very interesting to hear from a young man who was open and honest about his life that led to Seminary. He surprised me and probably everyone else there by beginning with the subject of death. Sounds like kind of a strange way to begin a story about finding your faith and entering the seminary. But he explained how thinking about death gave him the focus he needed to change his life.

He talked about how he lost his faith in high school and then during his senior year he had an experience that made him realize how much God loved him. I believe that this is a common experience for young people. We grow up in the Catholic faith, believing what we are told to believe. But somewhere around high school we start thinking for ourselves more and start questioning these beliefs. We need something to make us "own" our religion ourselves. "Own" may not be the best word to describe it, but it's the only one I can think of right now.

After having this revelation, he said he got more involved in the Church and he became a youth minister. But he said he didn't really change his life. He realized after a while that he was a hypocrite. He taught one thing, but in his personal life he still wasn't following the kind of life that he should have been. Again I felt that I could relate to this. As he said, it's easy to say one thing but it's hard to change what you do.

As you can probably guess, he did finally change his ways. He then kind of explained what brought him to consider the priesthood and his first couple years of seminary. Most importantly it was contemplating death that brought him the most focus, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

The only sure thing in life is death. We all know that no matter what we do throughout our lives, we're all going to die. That's non-negotiable. So do we live our lives thinking about how we'll be remembered when we're gone? Or do we live our lives in such a way that we can get to heaven when our time comes? That's a good question. It reminds me that I need to go to confession more often, that I need to keep this kind of focus when I get frustrated or stressed, and that I need to keep the saints in mind as role models in my life because they are already in heaven.

A lot of food for thought. I'm sure the remaining 5 sessions of ToT will be just as interesting. Next week: Christian rapper Righteous B. If you're in Lexington, try to come out next Tuesday night for what should be a great session.

The Week Ahead

As the weekend comes to a close and the next week begins to loom I start to think about all the things I have to get done. Last week was a short work week, only three days. It was very nice and very quiet. Classes haven't started yet so campus is pretty deserted. Also Wednesday was a snow day for the public schools (we got less than an inch) so traffic was almost non-existant going to work that day.

This week things will pick up. The students will all start trickling back to campus in time for the first day of classes on Wednesday. They'll have the short week this week. I spent a good deal of my time last week just scheduling meetings. But that should mean that I'm ready for the next two weeks or so.

Work will be busy, but other things will also start picking up. Tuesday night will be the first of a six week series called Theology on Tap. This sessions looks very interesting, it is getting its inspiration froma book titled Yes! I am Catholic by Beth Dotson Brown. I haven't read the book, but it sounds intersting; I'll have to post about it more once I start attending. Wednesday evening we're hosting our Young Adult group at our house. We're having a movie night; we'll be watching The Third Miracle. Otherwise things are pretty normal around here.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Happy New Year!!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!! I hope 2008 has many blessings and nice surprises for everyone!! We're looking forward to a year full of many new beginnings.

We celebrated New Years last night in Bardstown. We went to the 5pm vigil Mass at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. After Mass we headed to Chris' brother's house where we visited with family, had lots of snacks, and enjoyed a few drinks: Chris had several, so I drove home. He was very happy!

Tomorrow we both head back to work after a very long vacation. I'm sure there will be lots waiting for both of us when we get in.

Happy New Year!!!

The Immaculate Conception: More Information

On Dec. 8 I posted on this blog about that day's special feast day in the Catholic Church: The Feast of the Immaculate Conception (see post below). A wonderful friend of mine posted some comments and based on what she said, I thought a new post was warranted to give this topic the attention it deserves.

Mary is an important figure in Christianity. Catholics especially give her a place of honor that is often misunderstood by other Christians. For example, one misunderstanding is that Catholics pray to Mary. This isn't true, but we do ask for her intersession. After all, if you are seeking help from someone (God) why not ask his mother? Remember the wedding feast at Cana? Jesus wasn't ready to start His public ministry, but at his mother's insistence, He did. This is just one of many things that we could discuss, but moving back to the topic at hand ...

The Bible verses referred to in the comments from the post below are actually addressed in a tract (or article) I found (well, okay, Chris found it) on the Catholic Answers website. So for a much better overview of the Immaculate Conception than I could ever give, I point you to this wonderful page. This article goes into some detail on why we believe what we do about the Immaculate Conception and it also talks about the Assumption, which is another topic.

One thing I really like about this article is the analogy of the two people falling into the pit and being saved. One falls in and is pulled out, thus he is saved from further mudding up himself; the second is, at the very last moment, pulled away from the pit and is saved from even falling in and thus avoids all the mud completely. This is to illustrate Mary's need for a Savior (Luke 1:47). Yes, she needed a Savior, we all do. She was just blessed with his saving grace at the moment of conception. What a wonderful thing to do for your mother!! Also in the article, note the discussion of Luke 1:28 when the angel Gabriel addresses Mary. Very cool!

There is a lot more on the entire Catholic Answers website that may be of interest to anyone wanting to know why Catholics believe certain things. One thing that was also implied, though not explicitly stated, in the comments on the previous post was about Scripture being the only source we have. The Catholic Church teaches Scripture in everything we do and it informs all of our practices and doctrines. But we also rely on tradition and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus sent out his disciples to teach the world under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26 and 16:13). There are articles on this same website under the topic of Scripture and Tradition that may also be of interest to anyone wanting to know why Catholics not only use the Bible, but also have the Catechism and all these doctrines from the Popes, etc.

I'm sure this doesn't answer everything in regard to the topic of the Immaculate Conception, but I hope it's a good start. Another person to check our for more information on all sorts of topics is Scott Hahn. He was a minister of some kind and admits to once being anti-Catholic. He and his entire family converted to Catholicism years ago and now both he and his wife (who also trained in the Protestant seminary with her husband) write and speak about matters of Catholic faith and he teaches theology classes at a Catholic college in Ohio. In his conversion story he talks about how Mary was the last huge stumbling block before he could really accept the Catholic faith. Scott Hahn does such a great job explaining Catholic teachings! I suggest checking out his books for more information on Mary or any other Catholic teaching that seems strange to other Christians.

With that I will conclude this post. This reminds me that I need to start trying to do more of those "Catholic Topics of the Week" that I tried to start some time ago. I'll meditate on that a bit for the New Year. I hope everyone has a wonderful and joyful Christmas! Merry Christmas to all!!

The Immaculate Conception of Mary

Today in the church calendar we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This is the time when we remember Mary as one who was conceived without sin and who would become the Mother of God. Mary has a very important role in our faith and this is one of the many ways in which we remember her.

Chris and I attended the vigil Mass for this feast day. So we met at Church Friday night after work and then went out to eat after Mass. We also managed to do a little Christmas shopping last night too.

Today I had rehearsal for a concert I'm playing in tomorrow. Actually, this is the reason we went to a vigil mass rather than the 8am mass Saturday morning.

This evening after dinner we read part of a book we picked up at Church at the beginning of Advent. The book has readings and commentaries for each day from the First Sunday of Advent through Epiphany. So each night after dinner we read that days page. Today's, of course, talked about the Immaculate Conception. It made us both think a bit and it sparked a little bit of discussion. I suppose that is probably the intent of the book! :)

So the book asked if we thought Mary knew she was sinless. I said no, how could she know that. But Chris said that she probably knew something even if maybe she didn't know exactly what it was. And we were specifically thinking of Mary as a young girl, before the angel came to visit her. So we discussed this more and I think I do have to agree that she probably knew that she was different somehow. Chris pointed out that although she was conceived without sin she still had free will as we all do. Thus she always had to make the decision to not sin whenever she was faced with any kind of decision like that. But he also agrees that she probably wouldn't have been able to vocalize that she was sinless because she also had humility. Humility kind of goes hand in hand with the sinlessness. So, she might never have admitted she was sinless, she had free will, and she had to make decisions to always do right.

It was a really great discussion and I'm glad it made us think. I also feel that my respect for the person of Mary is so much greater now just thinking about what we talked about tonight. She is definitely a role model to always have in front of you.

Some thoughts on Advent

First, as I mentioned in my previous post, I added an Advent wreath to the blog in honor of the season. I failed, however, to mention where I got the wreath. Through another Catholic blog I was pointed to The Curt Jester who provided the Advent wreath for any blog. So thanks to the Curt Jester for the wonderful Advent wreath!!

Second, I have noticed a lot of talk this year about the importance of Advent. Along with this there is a lot of talk about how tired people are of the commercialization of Christmas and everyone's amazement of how early it starts. I saw Christmas stuff out along with the Halloween stuff during "Back to School" shopping. It is crazy!! I am hearing on the radio and reading on blogs about how people want to take back Christmas, away from the retailers, and bring it back to what it is really about--the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our King.

Our Christmas stuff went up this past weekend. It still seems too early to me and I am considering some different things for next year. But convincing my husband will be interesting. This was a topic on many blogs who participated in this week's Catholic Carnival. Check it out here: Catholic Carnival 148: For Life.

Two of my favorite postings in this week's Carnival have to do exactly with the idea of recognizing the season of Advent, things to do during Advent, and placing Christmas properly where it belongs. These posts are great!! Go read them. The first is at the blog Catholic Fire called: Ten Tips to a Better Advent Season. The second is from A Catholic Mom Climbing the Pillars and she presents a beautiful view of the holidays from the end of Thanksgiving all the way to Epiphany in January. Check out her post What Would Celebrating Christmas correctly look like?. Her view is exactly what I have been looking for. So I'm getting ideas for next year and I love it!

Those are just two of my favorites from the Carnival. If you like those, go check out the others as well. I highly recommend them!

Happy 1st Sunday of Advent

Advent has begun. I have added an advent wreath to my blog. Isn't it cool!!

We also took out all the Christmas decorations this weekend and Chris finished putting all that stuff up. There isn't room for my tree, but we did get al my ornaments on his tree. His tree no longer looks so "designed"! I counted 9 wreathes around the house, inside and out! Quite amazing, I think.

Enjoy the countdown to Christmas!! Happy Advent season!

Finally: An Update

There has been so much going on since the wedding and time is just flying by. I will try to make things as brief as possible here.

The Honeymoon: We had so much fun. We went to the Pocono Mountains and stayed at an all-inclusive resort. That was definitely the way to go, no need to pay for your breakfast or dinner every day, it's all included. It rained a lot, but we did manage to go horseback riding one day and while at the resort we had lots of good food, a beautiful view of the lake, very tame deer always around, and we played indoor mini-golf, air hockey, indoor archery, and went ice skating!

The House: We've been very busy with the house. We decided to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house, so we've been busy trying to find a home for all my stuff and hanging up pictures and so forth. We're slowly making progress. As for the townhouse, it still has some things in it, but we hope to get rid of those things soon. We hope to fix it up some and rent it out by the new year. At this point that seems like an optimistic goal.

Changing my Name: Not a fun activity. Got my new Social Security card, got my new driver's license (but they didn't change the renewal so I need to still go again next year), and we ran a credit report so I can close some credit lines and change my name on the others. We also changed both our bank accounts to make them both joint and put my name on his and change my name on mine. I still have to deal with my credit cards, all the paperwork for the townhouse, my work stuff (benefits, etc.), another bank account, AAA, my Delta Skymiles card (have to do that soon so I can buy a plane ticket for February), and my stocks. There are probably other things as well, but I'll take it all one step at a time. It may be our first anniversary before I get everything squared away.

My Birthday!! My birthday was Sunday (yesterday). Chris took me to dinner Saturday night and while we were at dinner he suprised me with tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra for that night! It was a great show. Lots of lights, strobes, and lasers; very loud music; and lots of fun!! As a classical musician I did find parts of the show amusing, but I eventually got into it and just enjoyed it. I've always wanted to see this show, so I'm glad I finally got to.

Go See this movie: Sunday we went to see Bella. It was an excellent movie with a great message. If you can find it playing in a theater near you, please go see it. Hollywood needs to know that we want more movies like this to watch, not the sex and violence most movies rely on to draw in an audience. Also, if you're anything like me, bring a box of kleenex!!

Work: Slowly getting back into the swing of things here. The good news is that my open position was approved and posted and closes today!! I can't believe how fast this was done; last time my position was open it was 9 months before I was able to fill the position, at this point it's only been two! It must be a record for a position in technical services; public services positions usually go this quickly, but not the tech services ones! I'm considering myself very lucky right now!! I hope to start interviewing next week. In the meantime, I continue to do my job and a good part of the other position's job as well. I can't keep up with my student assistants on my own, but I'm doing the best I can.

Thanksgiving: I mentioned above that we're hosting Thanksgiving. Our first holiday as a married couple and we're doing most of the cooking and having everyone to our house. The best part is that we couldn't procrastinate on getting the house in order, so that's almost done! Yeah!! I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing holiday and a chance to visit with family without much stress.

I think that is about all I have for the moment. I hope to get back to normal postings very soon. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Take the time to think about all you are thankful for and to enjoy this wonderful American holiday. Don't let the way-too-early Christmas rush get to you, just enjoy this holiday. I'll rant more on starting Christmas too early in a later post. :)

The Wedding

Chris and I got married on October 20!! Most of you already knew that and many of you were probably there!! Thanks for coming if you came!!

If you weren't there, it was a wonderful day. We had been having rainy weather in Lexington during the week before the wedding, but the day of it cleared out and was clear and nice, not too hot, not too cold.

The ceremony was beautiful and Fr. Frank's homily was wonderful. It definitely makes a difference when you know the priest and he knows you. I think it is funny that the afternoon of the night Chris proposed he and I had had lunch with Fr. Frank. Then a year later he married us! Anyway, everything was lovely and it was such a joy to stand in front of everyone we love and profess our committment and love to each other for the rest of our lives.

Following the ceremony the guests enjoyed a cocktail hour at the reception site where we had a bluegrass band playing. We were taking pictures during that time, so we missed it, but I've seen some pictures and it looks like everyone was enjoying themselves. The reception itself started after that. The food was great, the company was great, and the music was great. Everything was so much fun. If you're a baseball fan you may know that that night was also game 6 of the Red Sox/Indians series for a trip to the World Series. Two of my aunts showed up late during the partying with Red Sox t-shirts on over their dresses and we had some fun on the dance floor with some favorite Boston songs (not the group, but songs Boston-related). One of the best parts was going around and visiting with everyone. My first chance to really see who was at the wedding was when we went visiting all the tables to say hello to our guests. That was great fun!!

That's all for now. I'll post more about the events of that weekend very soon. Eventually I'll also put up a link or two to some pictures. Check back here again soon!!

We're back!!

We're back from the honeymoon!! We had a great time; it was fun and relaxing.

The wedding was wonderful; everything went well and it was so much fun to see so many family and friends together!!

I still have lots of emails to respond to and thank you notes to write. Plus we're still moving things from my old house to Chris' house and trying to find a place for it all. This is all to say that I may be on a bit more of a break from the blog while I accomplish all of that.

I go back to work tomorrow and will start trying to catch up there as well. Now I have to remember to drive to the right part of town when I leave work tomorrow evening!!

I'll be in touch with everyone soon!!

Four Days!!

Only four days left until the wedding. Things are starting to get wrapped up and plans finalized. I'm happy to report that I have turned most everything over to my wedding coordinator and the contact person at the hotel and I can now just sit back and wait for things to happen.

Today is my last full day in the office. Tomorrow I'm coming in for a half day, but will be spending it in the main library's administration office reading contract renewal files. After that I'm gone for a while!! Yay!!

At the moment, Saturday is shaping up to be a beautiful day. High of 72, low of 53, mostly sunny, and only a 20% chance of rain. A little warm for this time of year, but it'll be beautiful!!

So far I've also thought of four games that guests at this wedding will be interested in scores for during the day. At least one of those might not happen, but if it does, I know a lot of people who are going to want to know the score. So far I have: Vandy vs. USC at 12:30, Florida vs. UK at 3:30, and UT vs. Alabama at 4:30. Then there is the Red Sox and the Indians. If that game happens, it'll be game 6 of the series and could be a very important one. I don't keep up with baseball so I actually have no idea how that series is currently going.

I think that covers everything for now! Wow, four days!! I can't believe it!!