I gotta have my orange juice.

I ran across Gideon Strauss’s list of things he loves this week. You can read an earlier post of mine and an editorial of his for some background. I’ve been reflecting on Ecclesiastes, too, and its fundamental perspective that God gives his people a deep and lasting joy in our toil. This is a big part of what Strauss is getting at — training our eyes to see with joy and gratitude.

Joy is a fruit of the spirit, but it is also a habit or discipline we can cultivate, grow in, fight for.

So, in a season where every sunrise comes too soon, and feels so much like the last one, here are some things that I love about right now:

• Morning coffee with Lisa
• A date at home with Lisa, ending with front-porch-sitting in the gloaming
• A smiling baby with rather chubby cheeks
• Three pairs of little hands that are always happy to hug me or to casually hold mine whenever we are walking somewhere
• Lisa’s cooking
• Reading out loud to the three older kids and suddenly realizing that an hour has gone by
• A daily commute filled with James Jordan and Peter Leithart
• The Lord’s supper

Charlotte wrote this little poem today, inspired by one of the many clever poems in A Pizza the Size of the Sun:

I’m pleased that she is tickled by this. Maybe she will one day share my delight in strange loops, quines, and such?

Ce n’est pas un billet de blog.

They’re called Brood XIX and their invasion began about a week ago. Fortunately, they only seem to be active during the daytime.

It sounds like emergency vehicles have our neighborhood surrounded. We expect at least a couple more weeks of this constant racket before the cicada mating season is over.

I built this for Asher over the Christmas holidays:

I used these plans, but because we planned to back it up against a wall I moved the dividers all the way to the back. That left me with a little less trim work, which was nice. I’m no skilled woodworker, so there are certainly lessons learned. But I’m pleased with how it turned out.

And now we can fit a crib in there too.

Ten years ago Lisa and I were married.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Lisa is fit for me. Ten years, and through both joys and sorrows it ever grows better. She is fit for me not least because:

• She is the fun to my serious, the extrovert to my introvert, the laugh to my ponder, the poetry to my prose.
• She exceeds me in being observant, especially of others’ cares and needs.
• She surpasses me in compassion and care for others. With our children she calls me to compassion when I am tempted to be disciplinarian.
• Altogether, she is an excellent hostess, mother and friend. She makes our home is a wonderful place to be.
• I like her cooking.
• I like her looks.
• She works hard.
• She reads.
• She is mother to our Ivy, Charlotte and Asher.

So, my love,

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

Lisa, I love you . . . I’m damn lucky that I made you my wife.

As far as we know, this is the first time Asher’s drawn a face on anything.

This is an alien; in fact, it is a bad alien. You can tell because he has mean eyes. Fortunately, Spiderman has wrapped up his arms in string. The alien tried to throw a ball, but he couldn’t because his arms are wrapped up. And then everyone heard him growl.

Apart from a few work-related subscriptions, these are the blogs in my reader. There are a few more folks I keep up with on Facebook or Twitter (mostly family, church family, and a few friends from college). I feel bad having such a long list, but trimming it down this far has been an accomplishment.

Top three

• Douglas Wilson
• Peter Leithart
• Mark Horne

Family

• My wife, Lisa
• Sister Abby
• Brother-in-law Chad and Judi

Church family

• Brian (also his more techie blog)
• Paul
• Luke and Elizabeth
• Steve and Tracy
• Jordan
• John and Emily

Theology and Christian living

• Our church (plus a few ancillary blogs)
• C. J. Mahaney
• Mark Lauterbach
• Biblical Horizons
• Jeff Meyers
• Gene Veith
• Credenda|Agenda
• Justin Taylor
• John Barach
• Ken Auer
• David Koyzis (also his Genevan Psalter blog)

Comics

• Crimson Dark
• xkcd

Other

• Gene Chase, one of my college professors
• Jon Barlow
• The Big Picture
• Woot! (also Kids.Woot)

Woot.com is selling a 2GB MP3 player today for $13.

At Crossway.org you can buy the ESV on MP3 for $30 (there is also a version by Mac McLean which is more expensive). Sometimes they have discounts, but I can’t find an active coupon code today. If your church has a bookstore you could check with them to see if they have a trade account with Crossway; I’m not sure if Crossway discounts the MP3s for trade customers but it’s worth asking.

Back in January Woot was selling this MP3 player, and I bought it plus the ESV on MP3. At the time there was an active coupon code so the Bible cost me only $20. Since then I’ve been listening to the ESV during my work commute. My drive is a little more than 30 minutes each way, and right now I’m working from home only one day per week. The entire Bible is about 70 hours, so I’ve just now finished and am starting up again. I’m enjoying this greatly. It certainly helps with devotional consistency! And the pace is interesting — there are things to see at every level of detail, and this pace has its own sort of breathtaking.

If you read this after today then Woot will be selling something completely different. But they sell inexpensive MP3 players from time to time so check them daily; alternatively you can find some MP3 players under $30 at Overstock.com. One hint about the Sansa Clip and the Crossway ESV: even if you copy the MP3 files to the Music folder, they will not show up under the Music menu on the device. Instead, the Clip realizes they are books and places them under the Audiobook menu.

Our six-year-old takes after my wife in being more artistically or creatively inclined. She’s been writing little poems and stories lately, and tonight brought us the following riddle:

My guess was “goat” before I saw her answer.

A history of the places I have lived.

I was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Three weeks after I was born my family moved to Dover, Delaware, where the first of my four younger siblings was born.

From Delaware we moved to Connecticut, where my Dad had a lengthy train ride to work; West Virginia; and Richmond, Virginia.

We spent three years in Edmond, Oklahoma. Dad worked in Oklahoma City, where we also went to church (in a building that used to be an airplane hangar). While we lived there, Edmond was the site of one of the first post office shootings, and also suffered from a direct tornado hit. We were unaffected by both, though some people in our church were affected by each. In Edmond, I went to public school through second grade, and then began home school. I remember the space shuttle Challenger disaster, and I remember an early morning trip to the park with Dad to watch Halley’s comet.

From Edmond we moved to Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. Dad commuted to work in New Brunswick, and we went to church in Edison. We lived there only nine months; I was the only member of our family to have a birthday in New Jersey. I remember watching the unveiling of the restored Statue of Liberty while we lived in New Jersey.

We spent three years in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Life in Goldsboro was very laid back and fun, at least for a boy of age 10-12 living in a large, old house.

Growing up, the place we lived the longest was Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, which was close enough to the Hershey’s chocolate factories that we could occasionally smell chocolate in the air, if the wind was just right. Our church moved from a fire hall in Hummelstown to a rented space above a 7-Eleven store, then to the Harrisburg Youth for Christ building (a large warehouse), and finally to a hotel (they now meet in a school).

I lived in Hummelstown for about six years before going to school at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, where I met my wife. My family continued to live in Hummelstown for another eight years after I left for college. Despite living so close, I never actually visited Hersheypark until just after I graduated from college.

My wife and I were married soon after graduation, and moved to an apartment in Durham, North Carolina (we lived in Durham although we were served by the Chapel Hill post office; in the preceding link our apartment complex is a little bit farther down Farrington Rd. than the marker indicates).

After a year in North Carolina, we bought a house in Apex, where we lived from 2001 to early 2006. We chose Apex because it is close to our church. We were able to walk to church when the weather was nice!

In early 2006 we sold our home in Apex and moved to Holly Springs.