FINALLY

We haven't posted all week because we've been settling in. For the first several days we didn't have internet. We finally have all of our furniture in place-have a few things to square away yet but with several closets and some empty drawers in every room, that shouldn't be a huge project.

I don't have any fantastic stories or recent thoughts to post...so I'll just put up some pictures I just took. I didnt' take any of the upstairs, just not quite exciting yet. While most things are "in place" we don't have pictures up on the walls up there yet and the baby's room is still being decorated as well. Soon enough...

The first two (red walls) are the dining room and the rest are the living room. more to come.

Numb3rs

24x7=168

It's true. It's math. It's also the amount of episodes of the tv show 24 we have watched since January. Wow. To give a relation to that, so far there have been 167 days this year (not including today). That is sad. Although it has been great sharing in those goofy nights of 8 episodes of 24 with Jocelyn and talking about the various issues that come up in the show. If nothing else we have watched EVERY episode together. That is something special in and of itself.

2 Years 1 Month 13 Days

When putting away laundry I forget which stuff is mine and what stuff is hers. Some days it feels as though I don't actually exist and she is me and I am her. Sometimes she is an alien too, but overall, more than just overall, marriage is amazing.
There is a song I have heard in my recent country music kick, called--well I am not sure what it is actually is called, but with the lyrics, "I thought I loved you then." This is very true. Love grows, reshapes, remolds, and simply gets better. I really thought I loved Jocelyn when we got engaged or married, but with all the days that have passed, I realize that that is only the tip of the iceberg. In 10 years, I am pretty sure this will feel like just the tip, but that is the joy in marriage.


2 Years and 5 Months-ish

The amount of time we have spent in our house in Philadelphia. It's odd to leave a place you call home. There is an obvious comfort there. Although it was only a short time, you get used to all the crazy noises and sounds and it what you call "normal". That being said, it was a place that I always knew we would leave. A place that would serve a purpose. Where Jocelyn and I would grow together. Learn the meaning of marriage--well, at least part of it. Where I learned to teach and Jocelyn learned she is a business woman. Seasons come and go.

5

The number of cats coming to our new house. In case there was any confusion since we have had easily over 20 stay out our house in some capacity over the past 2 and half years. They are the following: (some pictured in the previous post)

Marvelea (long hair short tail), Otto (orange), Landa (mut laying on the ground sprawled out in pictures below), Jaya (tortoiseshell, which basically is black with some odd spots, she looks like a "secret agent" or a thief), and finally Pequena (gray, scared of life)

It is exciting to bring them to the new house as they are part of who we are and we are super excited to bring them along.

25

When Jocelyn and I go out to the city or anywhere people of our age (post college) gather or something like that. We are always thankful even more so that we are married. We would not in anyway want to be part of that seen. That weird, awkward seeking of who you are or some ridiculous quest like that. Part of it, probably all of it has to do with the fact that we believe in Jesus and who he is and living life with purpose as opposed to getting drunk for "fun" and partying for "kicks" or sleeping around "to find someone" or buying fancy cars to look "cool" or to use "quotes just for fun because you are bored" oops i am doing that. Anyway, we have tried to live with purpose. Not for gain. We are not staunch republicans who believe in making money because God "blesses" us with stuff. Rather we have tried to live with purpose in where we live and follow his "calling" or "nudges" or "some words that don't make Jocelyn make fun of me".
And he we are at 25 on house number 2 and car number...oh geez I dont even know.

102

Potentially the number of days left until a baby is added to our life. It is a beautiful thing to have nine months to work through the range of emotions. We are so pleased to be moving where we are because there is so much to be said about living in community with family. There will also be so much to be said about how crazy it is, but we will adjust and all be better from it.

10

This is the number of cars we have had, I decided to add it after thinking through it a while.

DAD I AM COMPLETELY BLAMING THIS ON YOU. (not because you are a car dealer either)

When my dad and mom were engaged my dad had two cars (before he was a car dealer) and he gave my mom one to use, heck I don't even think they were engaged.

So Pops you are the reason i did it, I wanted to be like you. Let the record show.

I sold the Audi (#0) and when Jocelyn got back from Fiji and it was clear we were going to get married (at least to me) I gave her a Jeep(#1) to drive while I had a Mazda truck (#2) and then a Mazda Millenia (#3) for about a week. After the Milenia was a Mazda 626 (#4) and we also got a Hyundai Accent (#5) instead of the Jeep. We drove both of those for a while into marriage and eventually went to a Forester (#6) instead of the Mazda and a Saab (#7) instead of the Accent. Someone ran into the Saab, sad, soooooo sad, and we got a Subaru Legacy to replace it (#8). We sold the Legacy and bought the Passat (#9) and finally we are going to get a Vue (#10) instead of the Passat. Whew. Just wanted to document it somewhere.

28

The numbers of hours until we will be on the road to a new place of residence. It has been an insane journey. Better than we could have imagined.

quick pics...

Since I'm always told that pictures are exciting and people don't like to read long blogs...I thought maybe these would help to balance out my long entry below. Obviously, our cats have enjoyed the moving process.


Yes, they chose these spots on their own. An empty box is just waiting to be made into a bed.


Clearly, Landa has no concerns whatsoever about the move.

The final countdown

We are in our last few days here in Philadelphia. It doesn't quite feel real yet, perhaps because we've been anticipating it for quite some time now. I do have a bit of that last minute hesitation tugging at me, of course. I guess that always happens right before a big change is coming. We've been expecting this, but it's still "unknown" and slightly bizarre, and the Philadelphia house surely brings a flood of memories across the emotional spectrum to mind. It's hard to leave behind in some ways.

I can't even begin to describe the changes that have taken place in us as individuals and as a married couple since we rooted ourselves in Hunting Park 2.5 years ago. We were only engaged when we bought the house, excited to own something together, to being a new life after Eastern/college life and move forward.

Jonathan will likely post about his own reflections-from teaching at Fels and what not, so I guess I'll just share some of what's gone on in my brain during our time here. When we moved in, I was a fresh graduate from a sociology program where I had been challenged to look at the systems in place in our society-both the good and the bad. I tend to take up rebellious causes, goodness knows why, I have a feeling its my blood...so I was coming from a perspective of feeling like the government sentenced these inner city folks to death essentially, and we "middle class" white americans had much to do to make things right. It was wrong to amass wealth, and quite a righteous pursuit to spend life toiling in the inner city hoping to bring about change. It was rather self-righteous to say the least. Over the past few years of living here, I've been on a humbling trip of learning about the full color of life-especially of that specific inner city environment and where we find "our place" in the midst of it. It's been liberating to discover the truth, or just the "rest of the story" and really learn of the fullness of redemption and change. It'd been amazing to rediscover the truth about God's people responding to poverty and injustice, and the broad spectrum of humanity which those things infect. "Rich" people who are emotionally and spirtually barren, doing all sorts of stuff I used to say was "Evil" and yea...still think is pretty messed up but I can now see their own unfortunate circumstances as well. They need specific ministry and redemption in their own ways. I've lived on the block with the "poor" people who I used to think couldn't help themselves. I still think there are unequal starting points in life for everyone, and certain populations face ridiculous challenges that the rest of us just don't...but I've also seen evil at work in holding these people back from making the many changes they ARE able to make. I've seen them repeatedly make choices that impede their progress and they willingly accept the level of life they are at. It's impressed upon me the truly radical task of not being a "rescue mission" but living life with people-whomever the neighbors are-and sharing a challenging example.

I don't know how else to put everything into words. In many ways, a black-and-white world has become not "Gray" but colorful in the sense that opportunities to minister and bring change are simply everywhere. I found myself in a business environment, working with both the white collor office folks who are generally "doing alright" in the sense of material success, and the below-blue-collar immigrant workers who are fighting to survive in the sense of material success. I've failed miserably in setting an example in so many ways-falling to the dysfunctional environment that exists here and lacking love for many people who need it...but the reality I've seen is that both "Sides" of this building are in need of some sort of love and redemption and no side more than the other. I've become intrigued by the possibility of impacting the "bigwigs" (as my mom calls corporate folks) and watching them consequentially impact the many people under their influence. Who knows WHY on earth this "DUH" idea hadn't made sense to me in college-probably because it's harder to love people who you feel are doing something wrong.?. Either way, it's ironic that my time in the city was not spent doing lots of "inner city ministry" as I had once thought it would be. It's been spent working through the realities of marriage, and renewing my mind through experiences in south jersey and elsewhere. I guess the ultimate irony is that we now find ourselves moving back to the suburbs, an environment I once swore to never revisit because of this, that and the other thing...and my experience in the city has prepared me to make that move and enter that community with a completely different heart and perspective. It's like my stay in a foreign world has prepared me to return home much more whole than I left it. I'm pretty harsh and judging sometimes, I can't say I'm suddenly "innocent" of those things of course, but I do feel like I have a much better understanding of "the way things work" and will not enter the suburbs with this self-righteous hammer banging people around until they "get" whatever it is I think is important at the moment. Well, I'm sure that will happen sometimes but I know better than to think I'll get away with it!

I know I have much to learn still, and hopefully always will, geez I'm not even a parent yet...that opens up an entire universe I haven't ventured into! But Philadelphia, you've taught me a lot that I never even knew I needed to learn. Most likely, no other environment would have taught me these things because I would not have been a willing student. The city teaches by force and I guess that's just my sad learning style sometimes, ha. Go through denial for a time and then finally realize ok, I have to figure this out...it's not what I thought it was and clearly, i'm not getting it. Ha, come to think of it I guess marriage has worked similarly...thankfully, we responded to the "forceful" instruction and figured it out!

So this house in Philly, I will miss it greatly. It has become a monument for so many "victories" we've experienced in life in the past few years. From intense fights where we thought the world as we knew it was ending, to watching a neighbor's house burn and poor little kids not knowing where on earth they would end up living now, to fun "Office Nights" with a variety of friends sharing food and laughter, to who knows HOW MANY cats being nursed back to health and sent to loving homes (or kept...and moving to Allentown!), to humbling conversations where we've peeled off layers of selfishness and callousness and opened ourselves up to the beauty of grace in marriage. And now...to the blank walls and a few peices of furniture we're leaving, hopefully carrying on the "legacy" of that house to serve the Lord (it's belonged to someone from the church for 10 years now). In many ways, I think this time in Philadelphia will feel like a dream, unreal. Lots of what we've seen and heard and experienced here are things you see on the news or in movies, but never in "reality"...I wonder how it will feel for those things to fade away as we leave them and for that line of reality to be blurred.

Well, this is FAR too long. But I wanted to write something or other that at least I can look back on in a year. And really it's the heaviest thing on my mind right now....the future is a step away, few days, but I'm stuck sort of staring at the past few years here and wanting to soak it all in and never forget what we've learned. It's been an amazing experience.

our empty house

well....we are currently sitting on a twin size mattress (that we're leaving here when we move) in our living room. we have a tv (no dvd player, so relatively useless), our queen size mattress and some rugs. boxes with clothing we need until next weekend...food...laptops...a dining room table we are leaving here (but only 1 chair) and that's really about all we have left. there are little things laying around here and there, but as far as furniture goes, we're down to the bare bones.

its kind of funny...we have a very similar set up to when we first moved in. i was here alone for the most part from late january of 2007 through the end of april. at first, well, for a long time, we had the same furniture laying around. the former owner had left a dresser, the twin size bed, and a wardrobe, so i had those things to work with, but otherwise...we sat around on folding chairs or our camping chairs and had blank walls. ha, what a naive point in life...engaged, buying the first house...about to be smacked by a reality i had no idea could exist.

i'll write more on that later when i'm bored at work or something. for now... just wanted to note that we have a nearly empty house. this is actually happening, really strange.

here's the thing

We are moving and antsy. We are upon the last two weekends on living in Philadelphia. It is a crazy time as well as an anxious one. As Jocelyn grows, we both wish she could be able to do more, but unfortunately riding along hunting park isnt really one of the options, at least comfortably. So we are excited to officially move and be able to be outside etc.

Anyway, that is not new news, Jocelyn likes to be outside and hates being cooped up, not new. Let's see, I think we are set on Onyn for the boy and Amaris for a girl. So that's that.

..........

Told you we have writer's block.

We just have moving going on and organizing while we are up there. So lots of fun.

I am getting ready to be a father. It is an exciting time in life. Actually I am ready to be a father. The waiting is somewhat annoying especially for my wife who continues to grow against her wishes and is simply waiting to start pushing, or something like that. Anyway, I got nothing today, so I will stop writing just to write. More to come soon.

The baby's room is almost complete!! Pictures to come soon.