Hiatus

I miss blogging. It seems that life is too busy lately. I used to blog during my lunch break, but lately I've taken to eating while working instead :-/ I'll try to set aside some time to chronicle some of the notable things that have happened while I've been on hiatus.

Right now I'm on the couch. Kimberly dosed off beside me. We went to Best Fitness, our new gym three minutes down the street from our new place in Chelmsford, for the first time today after work. When we got home we worked together to cook an amazing meal of chicken with pepper jack/parmesan cheese sauce, fingerling potatoes, and romaine lettuce with homemade garlic peanut sauce!

After that we watched a very interesting independent film called "The Girl from Monday" about a near future US society ruled by a mega-corporation and capitalist ideals, covertly invaded by subversive extra-corporeal extraterrestrials.

Tomorrow I have to go into the office for a bit to do some time-sensitive work but then we have dinner plans with friends on both days this weekend. I'm really looking forward to a couple of days of rejuvenation.

On a MUCH lighter note...

I've been going crazy with Google gadgets lately. They're quite handy. Kimberly tipped me off to them when she created "Kimber Daily News." Now I've made three of my own, mostly for me and Kimberly or else just for myself. The right column of my blog page on iGoogle now looks like this:


The budget is to help us keep track of where we're at for the month on our spending (as you can see it was a bit derailed this month by things I still plan on blogging about) as well as our savings ($50 a week for vacation and $15 a week each as allowance).

The wish list came about after I decided we would have our $15 a week to save up.

The 4000 footer list is just so that I can taunt myself. There are 48 of them that will be on the list some day...

Accountability

Alright, it's been several weeks since I started my new job and even longer since I began my stressful job transition. Before that period started I was on a pretty healthy schedule as far as exercise and diet went. When things got rough at work some of that discipline went out the window. During my two weeks off I did develop a helpful habit of keeping up on the household chores when Kimberly wasn't around. Now this has faded. In the past couple of months I've been practicing my bass more than at any other point in my life, including when I was in college, but I've barely touched it this week. It's definitely time for me to hoist myself back up to par.

Here is the ambitious list of things that I want to develop or redevelop as regular disciplines in the next couple weeks:

1) Exercise/run 4-5 times a week.
2) Count and journal calories.
3) Keep a modest and accurate budget.
4) Spend at least a half an hour a day with God, in scripture, meditation, or prayer. (This would be a totally new discipline for me.)
5) Spend at least a half an hour a day playing my bass or another instrument.
6) Plan at least one night a week to be outside the house with the sole purpose of spending time with Kimberly (be it a 20 minute walk or a dinner date).

I mention these things here to have some semi-public accountability. I'll make sure to note my progress or failure here every week.

Wish me luck...

iGoogle Feeds

I just wanted to share that iGoogle is a great way to keep up on everyone's blogs. You can click on "Add stuff" and then just type the address of your friends' blogs in and as long as they have an RSS feed (most do automatically) your page will update itself when their blogs are updated. Very handy.

Flickring

We renewed our Flickr Pro account the other day, which allows us to store unlimited photos at their original quality on the web. We uploaded like crazy this weekend, and now our collection is up to date.

There is of course an endless amount of organizing and commentating that can be done. I think that the easiest and funnest way for us to share our photos with everyone is to make small photo sets with comments added and link directly to those from time to time. Here is a pilot example that I made last night. You can explore our entire collection, but this method will give a good overview of things that are important to us.

An attempt to resurrect the blog.

Okay, I haven't written in a long time, but tonight is as good of a time as any to start up again.

Both Laura and Ben had student concerts tonight and the Athanases are getting ready for their big day, so we cancelled small group and had a get-together at our place instead. We picked up some delicious Broadway pizza to share with the Kelihers, the Astolfis, and the Butzs.

After dinner the girls did some needlecraft while the guys played music together. I've never had such a long informal session with more than one other person. We did some jazz songs and a few jams on random progressions.

After everyone else left, Nathan had his way with the camera built into Kimberly's new computer:





And then there's a happy family picture:



The fun never stops in the Pye household.

Back to the blog.

So it's been a while since I've had an entry. I'm not sure if I ever deluded myself by thinking that I would have the discipline to update my blog regularly. I think that the past six or seven years of my life has been a steady battle against the unmotivated person I was by nature and nurture. That being said, I'm much more proactive than I was back in the dark woods of Maine...

Things are going well lately. I've been running just about every day since joining the school gym a couple of weeks ago. At work I'm gearing up for the first big trade show of the year. Still diligently learning what it means to be a leader in our small group. Kimberly and I are always a bit too busy, but we're doing well to capture those moments of togetherness that dot our weeks.

I just finished The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, which was one of my favorite Lewis books (though there are a dozen great pieces by him that could contend for that honor). Tony and I had a great discussion about Christian influence on the world and how C.S. Lewis set such a unique example for those of us who are in no way extroverted. Tony pointed out that Lewis reached more unbelievers with his message that almost any other Christian of the last century, but he used none of the methods that are commonly taught to evangelical congregations. Rather than engaging strangers and acquaintances with a verbal appeal to faith, Lewis spent much of his life alone, becoming a greater and greater scholar, never ceasing to study, to think, to learn, to write. Through the perfection of his skills, so many have been and continue to be touched and moved.

So as I make plans with Kimberly and the Havens to begin a study on influence with unbelievers with my small group, I find myself very sensitive to these new insights. I'm not sure how this will influence our curriculum, but be sure that there will be no all-too-familiar discouraging talks on how we should be as bold as Peter when God made some of us to be influential in a totally different way.

Entry One

Today started with worship band practice. The orignal plan for today's service was to have two worship sets, one led by Rhesa with the full band, and one with Damon and no drums or electric guitar. Unfortunately, Rhesa was out with a sick child, so it was an impromptu practice of repatching the stage and hurrying through a few of our songs (with new Damon-friendly keys.) Despite this hectic start, I felt like things came together exceptionally well. I played in a very worshipful state, which is a blessing for someone who too often ends up focusing on the parts and not the purpose.

I just got back from a run. We're about a week into our new (old) healthy lifestyle of counting our calories to prevent overeating and exercising whenever possible. It is truly amazing how quickly one begins to feel better after returning to this sort of lifestyle. I lost a couple of pounds in one week (thanks to the loss of that great initial easy-to-burn and water-heavy glycogen reserve), which allowed me to wear some clothes that have been in the closet for a few months and gave me a ton of much needed extra energy.

On the agenda for the evening:

-Pick up groceries, etc.
-Cook dinner and bring it to Kimberly at her work.
-Do the taxes (woo).
-Do the budget.
-Prepare for small group.

Funny