Keepin' Up With The Joneses: Birthday Blog

It's official - I have lived to see another year begin in my life! Most of the time I'm glad about that, but I have to admit that the older I get, the more I long for the day when everything will be made right. There's so much sadness and pain in the world that sometimes it makes my heart hurt. That's when I realize that God's patience with us is greater than I'll ever be able to comprehend.

I know I haven't been updating my blog regularly and I really do hope to get better at it again. To catch you up, I'll hit some of the highlights of the last month.

~ I last left you with the Braves making the playoffs. Alas, we didn't make it out of the first round and we had to officially say goodbye to Bobby Cox as manager of our Atlanta Braves. Tiffany wrote a really good blog about the season ending, so I'm going to be lazy and just put a link to it here and then I won't say anymore about it. Well, except that it's only about four months until Spring Training and I live close enough now that I can drive there for a couple of games next year. :)

~ In September, our friend Annie came to visit from Baltimore. We had a lot of fun having her here and enjoyed showing her some of the nearby sights. Even though Maryland is pretty far north, it is still south (barely) of the Mason-Dixon line thus keeping them from officially being Yankees. But I never saw any magnolia trees while living there, so we had to show Annie what the true south was like.

Of course, one cannot visit Atlanta without being introduced to the Varsity.

If it's baseball season, then a Braves game is a must also. Brooke got to join us so we had a mini Baltimore reunion even though she's back in GA too.

We also went to Stone Mountain to show her the giant rock east of Atlanta. (Did you know that it was formed by a volcano that never quite erupted and that most of it is still underground? You learn something new every day.....)

Thanks for visiting, Annie! We'll see you at Passion 2011!

~ Moving back to Georgia reunited us with Matthew who still teaches and coaches at Harrison. Being the supportive parents that we are, we've been to several fast-pitch softball games and helped cheer the Lady Hoyas to victory as region champs this year. They're currently in the second round of the state playoffs and if they win that, then I'll get to visit my friend Liz in Columbus next weekend.

This was what was left of the water cooler contents after they were poured over Matthew. He's one of the assistants, but I guess the girls figured dumping ice water over their pregnant coach wasn't a good idea, so he was chosen.

~ Even though we're back "home" in GA, life is very different than it was before we moved. All of my friends are now grandparents and at different places in life than we are. Two of our kids are in different states and with the economic downturn, our income has decreased which makes traveling more infrequent. I'm still pondering what to do with my free time - do I look for a job? Do I take a class or two? If I'm not careful, I can get discouraged by what I see, forgetting that the unseen is where life is really being lived. But the extra time is allowing me a lot of solitude which I just learned from Tiffany is a spiritual discipline. (Side note - I've been learning a lot of interesting things from her as she shares some of what she's studying!) Being comfortable with yourself and with God in the quiet is something we miss in our age of information and instant everything. So I'm trying to receive this time and quiet as the gift that it is knowing that seasons pass and there is growth in all of them. I took some time last week to just walk around the apartment complex on a perfect fall day and take some pictures. These were some of my favorites.

This is the evil goldenrod, better known as ragweed, that tries to kill us every fall.