Birthday Weekend

I have been a rather lousy photographer lately, but I did take a few this weekend!

This is me and Tami when we went out to Van Raalte to go sledding. Unfortunately, I don't have any actual sledding pictures! It was a good, fun, icy time!

And here's me and Mike with our first birthday cake. We ate the other one on Saturday, but I don't have pictures of it. Both were delicious.

My dear roommate Jeannette and I. And Laura Peterson peeking up behind us.

Me and Laura Peterson at the beach for sunset. I saw the clear sky and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try to catch a beautiful Holland sunset over Lake Michigan, so we went!

And this was about as colorful as the sunset got. Still kind of cool though, right? :)

The Sunset Watchers Who Braved the Cold: Laura Peterson, Jon, Lindy, and me.

Hope you all enjoyed them! See, I'm not a totally hopeless blogger :)

To Tokyo Nik

In response to your comment about the socks and jeans, I'm afraid I know very little about the supposed tradition of intentionally posing feet for photographs. Instead, I offer you this quote one of my professors shared with us today in class: "When something is going on, something else is going on, too. Write about the latter." (William Stafford... not an exact quote) "Foregrounding the background" often makes for the best art. Not to infer that the comment about my dear friends' feet was exactly what I'd call "art," but giving attention and meaning to that which is usually ignored at least adds interest to life--or to a lame blog post!

Oh, and thanks for the birthday wishes, Nik. You, too, Uncle Dave, Kathryn, and Mom :)

candles

According to what seems like a long-standing Hope College tradition (candles are strictly prohibited in on-campus residences), I blew out colored toothpicks in the shape of a 22 for my birthday. Here's me, Mike, the birthday cake Val made for us, and the jeans & socks of some of our dearest friends:


And maybe I'll have more pictures for you later :) It's been a dry season of photo-taking for me... but I do have a few more.

Worthless Post #1

Do you ever find that the longer you neglect something, the higher your expectations get for your first return to it? You don’t clean your bathroom for a few weeks, for instance, you know it’s really not worth doing at all until you have time to get all the soap scum up. You ask for an extension on a paper, that paper better be more eloquent and well-worded—practically publishable, really—than it would have been had you turned it in on time. You don’t have time to read a novel for six months, so you know you must deliberate for weeks over which one to pick for your time off over Christmas break. And it’s even worse with habits you are still only trying to form. For instance, if you start a blog, post enthusiastically for a couple of days, and then find your inner store of words (or photos, as it were) totally dried up, you better have something really witty and original to post when you return, something so profound that you clearly had been pondering it for your full four-day absence, struggling over each word, sweating out draft after draft.

After all, who really wants to read what I’ve written about how little I have to write about? [You do. I know you do.]

If only to ward off the certain Rise of Expectations were I to post nothing, and in anticipation of many more Worthless Posts to come, I remain yours,

if-you-can’t-do-things-well-at-least-do-them-Halfway in Hudsonville

The Shaky Face

Quite the popular photo-taking technique at Hope this year, the Shaky Face is a fantastic way to release excess energy. Just shake, snap, and laugh!

I think Noah especially has the gift for it.

I can do it too: 2006!

Mom and EB made these cool "photo for every month" entries. I figured I'd give it a shot--it is harder than you might think!

1. January:
I returned to Hope College after a summer at home and a semester in Scotland. This was taken at sunset on Lake Michigan (definitely not Sheboygan).

2. February:
A pretty low-key, poorly-photographed month. These are some good friends I spent time with. Yes, those are purposeful fake smiles.

3. March:
This photo of my kitchen makes the list just because I like the picture.

4. April:
These are the girls I lived with, just before we took a Res-Life-sponsored trip to the Melting Pot for dessert :)

5. May:
I went to the beach with Brad & EB (and Carolyn, though we didn't know her name yet!) to take family pictures... this one's my favorite (and I think it made EB's list, too!)

6. June:
Carolyn Ann was born on June 30. She looks so tiny in this picture compared to how big she is now!

7. July:
I spent the summer in Holland, and had a wonderful time getting to know some friends better and actually having time to spend with them!

8. August:
Kristen and I worked together all summer cleaning the library. We filled that library with laughter :)

And this is August, too... I cheated. I had to include my trip to Colorado, where I got to see (and laugh with) my dear friend Ellen :)

9. September:
The semester began and many of my closest friends returned to Holland. Here we are celebrating Jeannette's birthday in our apartment.

10. October:
We took a family trip to Chicago to see Dad run the Marathon. Here's Carolyn, EB, and the train.

11. November:
These are the wonderful girls I lived with! I'm making kind of a funny face, but everyone else looks good. This was taken after Jeannette's senior voice recital.

12. December:
Our apartment hosted a Tacky Christmas Sweater Party. In this picture we're trying to do the "shaky face," but apparently none of us has quite mastered it...

First Post

An (almost) shameless admission: I love writing dates. There’s some doodle-drawing, routine-loving part of my mind that delights in being able to write a new set of numbers each day, particularly at the change of a month or a year. Farewell, 2-0-0-6. This is the year to perfect my artistry of the seven. You might point out that when typing in a Word document or posting to Blogger I don’t actually get to write the new date. And you would be right. But, after all, it is only a silly, mundane source of pleasure, kind of like getting to open a new box of Honey Nut Cheerios moments after putting the last box of Honey Nut Cheerios into the recycling bin. It’s only delightful if I’m willing to welcome (and admit that I welcome) meaning from the commonest, most-used things we know. And there are always more of those.

Anyway, this is my blog. After months of watching my mother, my sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc. etc. each in this way find his or her own personal little shelf of the Internet, I’ve decided to join them. (I’m tempted also to note how many times said family members have pestered me to do so, but of course I won’t! And even if I did, it would obviously be in all good, wholesome fun. :-P) I hope that you will all enjoy it, and that it will simply be some small public record of my more thoughtful observances of the world.

This, what you are reading right now, is the anticipated, telling, and intimidating First Post. My Entrance to the “blogosphere.” And so far I’m really quite enjoying myself! But to those two or three already-devoted readers, let me caution you to not expect too much. This is an Experiment. And, as with all experiments, we just really don't know what the different variables (like School, Friends, Work, Unforeseen Circumstances) will do to it.