I am sitting in the living room of my in-laws in the southern suburbs of Richmond, Virginia wearing my new favorite t-shirt from some Tampa tattoo parlor and piercing studio (I have neither tattoos nor piercings)- it was free and I enjoy the irony. My wife is helping her mom spend gift cards at numerous stores and I am watching my children taunt Marley, along with the Yorkshire terrier and Maltese that live in this home regularly.
The kids just woke up from needed naps and I have done nothing besides fix a light bulb on the Element and get milk at the store. I have spent my quiet time today actually catching up on all the blog postings I have not read the past 2 months and ignoring the numerous emails from work. I actually have time to read a book this week and look forward to my work schedule slowing down when we arrive back in Tampa.
Yesterday I journeyed to Circuit City and the Christian bookstore with my brother-in-law. He wanted to look at big televisions and some Christian music (both of which I know little about). We took the kids and sat in front of a 50 inch HDTV watching the end of Toy Story 2 (those TVs are quite impressive and I am very sure I do not need one). I introduced my brother-in-law (John) to mewithoutyou and Underoath, 2 of the only Christian bands I am familiar with anymore and quite good albums for the heavy genre.
At the Christian bookstore I finally picked up Jesus of Suburbia (I totally had a book idea with this title and a great sermon series which I never used) and found myself feeling old because the sale section had a book by Tony Jones, another by Chris Seay and one by my friend Will Samson's wife (whom I know only through Will's praise). It is strange to see books by people I know in the clearance rack.
Tomorrow we will take the children to the National Zoo in D.C.* (we are zoo people) and see some dear friends in Richmond. Once more I remember how much I want to live around here in the near future and raise my kids in this area.
When we get back to Tampa, we start packing to move to another section of Seminole Heights on January 8.
I have had a few moments to reflect upon my life and future. As you may have gathered from my blog this has been a difficult year. I would designate this as the most difficult year of my adult life so far. Florida has not been kind to our family and we will probably always see this time as our wilderness experience, full of disappointment and a time where our dreams did not come true (Boston represented those) and all of the poorly built blocks we built tumbled down.
I look to 2007 as a time of hope. I believe the rebuilding we are starting will start taking shape and we will be part of huge changes (to our family, work, place of residence, etc.). The good thing is that we are all on board for these changes and believe they will be good for the future of our family. Let the new year begin!
*I have just been informed by my wife that the high will be 51 degrees and we are from Florida, so the zoo may be nixed.
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