new look.

Ok, so the whole look is not new, but I hope that you like the new top banner for our blog. I figured it was time to spice things up a bit.

And as for updates, well, our Christmas Tour 2008 is not yet complete, so hopefully we will fill in some blanks after that.

snow!

After two weeks of bad predictions, we finally got a significant snow! Hooray!

Here's a lucky shot I got of Amelie watching Eric shovel the snow. (I put it on here in enormous size so that you could see what's going on more easily.)


If you're interested in seeing a few more pictures of our snow, you can go here and click on "Neighborhood Scenes."

fun times

This past weekend, Liz and Matthew came down to visit us, which was great fun, as usual!

We had shared with them a website that we get a kick out of, where people hold record covers up to their faces (or other parts of their body) to make themselves a continuation of the picture.

We thought we'd try a few of our own:

Liz, Matthew, and Eric as the Bee Gees

Liz as Eric Clapton

Matthew as John Cougar

If you'd like to see the website that inspired us, visit Sleeveface. It's amazing.

Christmas cards

When I was in high school, I vowed that I would never give/send out Christmas cards until I had a place of my own. Eric and I started sending them out after we got married, but a couple of years in there, they became Valentine's Day or St Patrick's Day cards because of our inability to budget time to write a letter and prepare the cards during the appropriate timeframe.

I have often wondered what the point is of sending Christmas cards to people that you see often or on Christmas or around Christmas, but this year, for some reason, Christmas cards seem very important to me. I'm not sure whether it's the fact that I'm home much of the day by myself or whether it might be that I don't feel settled yet in Binghamton and want reminders of all of the people that I care about.

Or maybe it has something to do with the sweet set-up we have for displaying Christmas cards:

(I took this picture several days ago, so if you don't see the card that you sent, don't worry--it's probably up there by now.)

This is not intended to guilt you into sending us a card! It's just to express my excitement for Christmas and for hearing from loved ones.

pictures

Some of you may be thinking, "Sarah hasn't started a job yet--why the heck isn't she posting on the blog more often?" This is a very valid question. The problem is that I don't have a good answer for it.

So to satisfy your curiosity for now, I will probably be posting a few entries this morning.

Also, I have updated our picture website, so you can mosey on over there and see what we look like these days!

cool thing

This past Monday, Eric and I, along with several other members of our Binghamton-area young adult fellowship group, went to the Oakdale Mall for a Community Gathering of Peace. Members of the Whittemore Hill UMC had folded almost 1,400 paper cranes, and they were hung on Christmas trees and on the nativity scene in the mall.

There was quite a sizeable gathering of people, much to my surprise, and there was a brief service with thoughts shared by the pastor of the Whittemore Hill church and songs shared by two different UM church choirs. Then the entire crowd sang a few songs together. As we sang "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan, Eric leaned over to me and said, "Grampsy is smiling." This was one of my grandfather's favorite songs, and social justice was incredibly important to him.

I think Eric was right--Grampsy was smiling. It warmed my heart, too, to be able to gather with people of faith in a shopping mall, of all places, to remind one another that Jesus' birth is about love and peace and saving grace and not about Barbie dolls and Jonas Brothers CDs and iPods--Christmas is about remembering to love each and every one of our neighbors, no matter what they think or say or do, because Jesus loves each of us, no matter how foolish and arrogant and sinful we are.

It's easier to buy gifts than to love, isn't it?

Thank you, Whittemore Hill UMC, for reminding me what I should be thinking about during this season.

If you'd like to read more about the Community Gathering for Peace, click here.

on being a housewife

I don't have a job.

It's a strange sensation not to have a job. The last time I didn't have a job was when I finished grad school five years ago. Since then I've been pretty busy, working part time or volunteering or doing something to get out of the house. Now, I'm just waiting....hovering.

It's weird to go from the person who made almost all of the income in the household (while Eric was a full-time student) to being the person who is dependent on the other for financial support. I used to be pretty proud of the fact that I could take care of my husband, put him through school. Now I go back and forth between feeling free and feeling almost useless.

Today I had an interview of sorts for a job at a bookstore for college textbooks. The problem is that I committed to doing a church thing during four of their busiest days of the entire semester. I'm not terribly optimistic about getting the job. That's not the end of the world, really, because it's not my dream job, but it leaves me hanging....still.

So. Right now I'm a housewife. I'm not terribly great at it. I mean, the dishes are done more frequently now than when I had a job, but staying home doesn't make me a good cook.

I will begin volunteering at the library downtown once my background check goes through, and hopefully that'll put me in a better position to be hired by them if a job does come open. Binghamton seems to be kind of a black hole when it comes to library jobs, though.

Today, I ate a fortune cookie, and my fortune was "Good thinks are coming to you in due course of time." I'm not typically one to put a lot of stock in what fortune cookies tell me, but this one was a reminder to be patient, and I appreciated it.