Best Books of '07

One of my goals at the start of 2007 was to read a book every week. I kept up a good pace for a while, although my chance at reading 52 books fell apart around September when I started grad school. However, I did manage to finish about 40 new books this year, and I wanted to give my "best of" awards for those of you who might be looking for something worth your time.

Best Novel - A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. The best, most memorable book that I read all year.

Best Theological Book - Holy Scripture by John Webster. Not a light read, but it will change the way you approach the Bible.

Best Book of Poetry - Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. 'We must be still and still moving/Into another intensity/For a further union/A deeper communion.'

Best Non-Fiction - A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Really an amazing story - Beah is a surviving child soldier from the Sierra Leone Civil War. Eloquent, important, and bluntly horrific.

Best Baseball Book - Good Enough To Dream by Roger Kahn. My favorite baseball writer, this is the story of the year Kahn spent as owner of the Utica Blue Sox, a now defunct Single A team that played five minutes down the street from our old apartment.

Best Classic - Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. Discovered this book for the first time this summer. Honorable mention to On The Road and Pride & Prejudice, a book that revealed to me the secret of a woman's heart.

Best Short Story - Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison. The plot is generally the same as a movie, but written in absolutely spare prose.

Most Confusing Book - The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. With thirteen years of homeschooling, four years at a Christian college, and a semester of seminary under my belt, it seems like I should be able to understand G.K. Chesterton a little bit. But it hasn't happened yet.

Other Recommendations: Godric, by Frederick Buechnera fictional biography of an 11th century saint, is tough to read (vernacular from the Middle Ages), but it is absolutely worth it. Stuart: A Life Lived Backward by Alexander Masters, is a British biography of a homeless man, and unlike anything you have likely read.

I found something beautiful, intriguing, or redemptive in all these books. If you're looking for something to read in 2008, I'd recommend each one of these books.
-matt

Are you feeling festive?

Christmas is one week from today!
Massachusetts had a couple of big snow storms this week. Above are some pictures after snow storm number 1.

We got our tree this week- our first Christmas tree since being married! Due to our lack of tools and the necessity of it fitting in the tree stand, we ended up trimming some of its branches with a chefmate kitchen shears. Sadly, the kitchen shears will never be the same.

And because of our childhood ornaments and the generosity of Uncle Andy and Aunt Allison, we had a nice collection of ornaments to put on the tree. Here are some pictures of our beautiful (little) tree and quaint apartment.


In other news, Matt finished his first semester of seminary today (!!) and plans to post soon.

We are looking forward to spending Christmas with the Moran family on Tuesday!

Go Bills!

On Saturday night, Matt and I attended our church's Christmas dinner which combined members of our church, another local church and members of the local Muslim community. We heard the Christmas story read in 4 different languages- English, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic. Awesome...

At the Christmas party I befriended a cute 5 year old girl named Lauren. Now we are the best of friends. She likes to give me gifts of napkins, paper plates and plastic silverware. Because of the multitude of plates received, we might not have to do many dishes this week.

Matt is done with classes for the semester- only finals and papers to go!

The Bills are 7-6! The one Hargrove tackle was amazing- it looked like a WWF move. Still hoping for a Patriot's loss- the ecstatic Pats fans frequent the bank often and like to gloat.

Favorite bank customer of the week: An elderly lady who chats with me about the Red Sox. Apparently her husband is not a sports fan at all, but she watches all of the games during the season and even stays up to date on the current off-season trading/signing discussions. We both agree that Ellsbury should stay with the Sox. Very cool lady.

This week I misread a check (REALLY bad handwriting) and gave someone $650 instead of $65. Yikes. I quickly realized my mistake and bolted outside to catch him before he left. He almost had a VERY merry Christmas.

On Saturday Matt and I are going to get our first real Christmas tree! yay!

Happy belated birthday, Noelle!

Over Thanksgiving vacation, my family went to Hershey's Chocolate World to experience the delights of the free ride and free chocolate. Here are some of the pictures from the sweet time:


It's a VERY fun ride. :)

Pictures of Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Matt wrote a new post (see below), but here are some pictures from all of the festivities.

With the Morans...
Highlights:
a. delicious food
b. shopping on Black Friday
c. playing a wild game of spoons
d. FAMILY!

With the Hoffmans...
Highlights:
a. meeting our niece Emma Grace for the first time (I'm a proud aunt- thus the many pictures of Emma and Ashton!)
b. seeing Grandma Hoffman delight in Emma (I miss Grandma's joy, but it came back over Thanksgiving!)
c. delicious food
d. FAMILY!

The Hidden Glory of Thanksgiving

matt: I know this is late ... Laurel and I both got sick over Thanksgiving break and are a little behind in the blog. But while everyone shifts into Christmas mood, here are a few thoughts about Thanksgiving (by the way, I enabled the comment section so that anyone who wants can comment, you don't have to belong to blogspot).

Pictures of our time at the Moran & Hoffman household are forthcoming.

But, in no particular order, here are my favorite things about Thanksgiving - in my opinion, easily the most underrated holiday on the calendar.

1. Stellar food.
2. Football the entire day.
3. Nothing is actually required, other than showing up. I know, I can say this because I am not cooking, but I like the simplicity. Thanksgiving doesn't cost money. No gifts, no church, no local parades, no formal clothing. You just come.
4. Even though Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday I think that saying 'thank you' is probably one of the most genuinely spiritual things that we do. If you could only choose two words to pray, those would be the ones to pick.
5.I like that we choose to give thanks in November, a visually ugly month, that is a precursor to 4 1/2 months of snow and cold If you say that you are grateful in November, you probably mean it.

'Let us not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.' - Henri Nouwen

I can't remember the last time...

We had an adventuresome week. Here are the highlights (or lowlights) of last week:

A. being unable to get the car registered because one form said Matt and another form said Matthew- ah the joys of the DMV!

B. a cop telling us that he was going to tow our car because we lacked registration... (see point A for explanation!)

C. getting a ride to work in a police car...(sadly this has led to an ongoing joke at the bank about employing a criminal)

D. having the car towed, but having the tow people tear off the bumper of our car.

Thankfully the tow people have agreed to pay for the repair of the bumper. We have hopes that they will also pay for the cost of the rental car which we've been using since this whole episode. :)

Since then, things have not really calmed down. Matt and I just returned from a full Veteran's Day weekend. On Saturday we traveled to Utica to visit Calvary Gospel (our old church). On our arrival we were promptly bombarded with massive bear hugs from the youth group. I can't remember the last time I was picked up and swung around while being hugged. I wanted to kidnap all of the youth group kids and bring them to MA...but that probably wouldn't be appropriate or legal.

Next we traveled to Buffalo where we were able to take part in the Community of Grace building dedication and celebration. The church was packed and the building was beautiful- thanks to the efforts of the faithful church-goers there. I wish we could have seen both the before and the after- to fully appreciate the extent of their work.

On Sunday afternoon we watched the Bills play an ugly yet victorious game against Miami. I can't remember the last time the Bills won so many games in a row! Matt is hoping for a snowy blustery win over the Patriots this coming Sunday. My husband is eternally optimistic- which is one of the many things I like about him. :) I feel somewhat more pessimistic, but I will hold onto at least a bit of hope that next Monday I'll be the one bragging to all of my Patriots-fan bank customers.

The rest of the weekend we hung out at the Moran house. Am I shrinking or are all of the Moran boys (men!) still getting taller and bigger each time we see them?!

I can't remember the last time I jumped into a leaf pile...or raked leaves...or did trick jumps and flips into the leaves...or had huge leaf fights...or buried anyone in the leaves...


Matt was able to visit with Jonathan, Rob and Joel and play catch with his brothers.
Plus...the whole family enjoyed the delicious Mom Moran meals and the escapades of Gomer Pyle and Remy the famous rat chef.


On our way back to MA last night, Matt and I stopped in Syracuse to watch the Orange beat the St. Joseph Hawks 72-69 at the Carrier Dome. I can't remember the last time I watched a hawk mascot wave his arms so often or so aimlessly. It was awesome to see Donte Greene and Jonny Flynn contribute so much already in the first 2 games of the season. We are excited to be Syracuse fans once again this year.

Maybe it's because of the warm weather, but it is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week. To our dismay, Matt and I heard Christmas music on the radio last night- is it my imagination or is Christmas music playing earlier and earlier each year? I'm not even ready for Thanksgiving- how can I be ready to deck the halls?!

Weekend pictures

Thanks for a great visit, Mom and Dad!!!