2012

Hey! Happy New Year readers! Hopefully you are holed up somewhere eating fattening snacks, watching football and enjoying this New-Years-Day-On-A-Sunday-Means-Monday-Is-Also-A-Holiday phenomenon. I, for one, definitely plan to watch my Alma mater in the Rose Bowl later today, despite the fact that one of my Christmas gifts this year was a cold that has made me feel as though I am being run over by a Mack truck each morning about 7.

I just cringed when I logged in and realized that it's been an entire month since I posted here. But in my own defense I have been a little busy. Doing what, you ask? Well, I've been busy turning my entire life upside down and shaking it like a snow globe. Oh and celebrating the birth of Jesus and all that jazz.  Here is a not-so-brief summary of my activities this last month:

-Said goodbye to everyone I know in Boston which involved intermittent weeping and gnashing of teeth.
-Ate at all my favorite Boston restaurants "one last time" or maybe five "last times" in the case of the Indian restaurant across the street which I now worry with go bankrupt without our bi-weekly take-out order.
-Finished teaching my classes just four days before departing, including administering and grading 48 final exams, reading 45 final essays and responding to a multitude of fairly pathetic last-minute excuse making by students who didn't do anything the entire term but are surprised to know they aren't doing well.
-Wrapped up the loose ends from my work at the church including trying to do planning for next year, finishing all the administrative projects that have been "on my list" for the last two years, continuing to lead the celebration of Advent with a modicum of intention and presence and oh, saying good bye to all the people I have completely fallen in love with there and will miss tremendously. More weeping and gnashing of teeth.
-Packed everything we own into a P.O.D. while deflecting waves of angst about whether 1) all of our things would be tossled around said P.O.D. and broken and crushed or 2) this was actually a huge scam and they were actually going to auction off said P.O.D. on storage wars and we would never see our stuff again.
-Slept on an Aerobed in our empty and cold apartment for three days with our increasingly anxious dog. (WOOF=Where'sallOfOurFreakin'stuff?)
-Preached in worship on my last Sunday in MA. Received many gracious and touching gifts (and then selfishly worried where we would put them given that our P.O.D. had already left.) Immediately went out for cocktails with my co-worker and his partner.
-Loaded up way more stuff than we had planned for into our car including anxious dog and departed at 6 a.m. the next morning with only one false start (to return and search for my travel mug lid which I thought fell out of the car) and minimal weeping (okay not so minimal).
-Drove to Oregon. (Damn, those great plains states are so great....as in, why is Nebraska so damn big? And Wyoming? Whose ever even heard of Wyoming?)
-Moved in with the in-laws on December 22.
-Led Christmas Eve service at the new church on December 24 with all the usual first-day awkwardness of not knowing how anything works (where is the microphone? who gives the announcements?) with an added sprinkle of new-visitor awkwardness,which just basically means it was really awkward.
-In a twist of calendrial irony, led worship again on December 25, Christmas this year having landed on a Sunday. It was slightly less awkward this time.
-Opened some cool presents which Mr. L and I bought for each other on December 23.
-Got Mack truck cold. And a new bank account, new license plates, new drivers' licenses, a realtor and a mortgage broker.
-Planned a funeral.
-Conducted both worship and funeral on New Years Day while continuing to suffer from Mack Truck cold and waves of awkwardness.

So, you can see why I am laying low today, hoping Mr. L will make his delicious football watching cheesy-bread-bowl-of-diabetes-and-heart-failure. And why I am hoping to have a more balanced 2012, in which I can have a bit of breathing room for blogging!