Life at EcoHouse

Life at EcoHouse has taken some surprising turns. We like to think of ourselves as a little family, complete with references to a mom and a dad (I'm always dad, by the way, although mom isn't necessarily always a woman). And often it does feel like it, with Madalyn, usually 'mom,' and I generally being the ones to keep the house on course and in one piece. Unfortunately our small family's worse for the wear these days; two housemates just broke up after a year, one moved out at the semester, and one has all-but moved into his girlfriend's. We hardly know what to do with ourselves now, my attempts at shepherding the 5 of us in the house are getting considerably more challenging. Probably because Jack's analogy holds: the difference between shepherding sheep and shepherding people is that sheep have been through thousands of years of domestication. So much for Dr. Bob's leadership class and its methods...

Life outside the house is as well as usual. Classes are good (4 of them are philosophy ones), with just two that I don't ever want to go to. I'm on top of things with Philosopher's Corner, getting the next three meetings put together and trying some different things. EcoHouse just launched my project, a ridesharing initiative, to some initial success. I finally met my co-mentor, possibly the highlight of my night.

Even bigger news is that the sun comes up earlier now, something I can keep track of as I adjust the timer that runs my sun lamp every morning. It still sets much too soon, but at least I won't be waking up in the dark for too much longer. My life is typically busy, so I'm not sure what to share here, it works better when people ask me direct questions. Hopefully things are as good for everyone else too.

News from Edgemoore

It seems like Grandpa and I have spent most of last week at the Drs. office. But today he had his

first tests and they came out o.k. The Dr. said they found ulcers and are treating them with antibiotics but nothing bad.

Tomorrow will be the other test on the lungs. Hopefully it will go more quickly. Today we were there for 4 hours because the Dr got called for an emergency at the hospital.

As you can see on the picture we have some American finches (one of my favorite feathered friends). We had a big flock of them in the yard last week probably ( 20 or 30) just passing thru but about 8 of them decided to stay. Kat and I both spend a lot time watching them!!

Thanks to Andrew for coming over on Saturday to show his pictures from Africa. We really

enjoyed seeing them.

Love you all,

Grandma & Grandpa

MLK Weekend

Hi Family Far and Near!

One of the Kansas State University traditions around Martin Luther King Day is for there to be a day of service. I'm not sure I will be participating this year as I am needing to prepare for a busy semester.

But I thought it might be nice to be reminded of some quotes of Dr. King.

*A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

*A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

*He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

*It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

*Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

He spoke so very eloquently on so many different occasions. Sometimes in the rush of day, we forget about so many different things.

But I think the one we miss most often is the golden rule. Its what I live by. I'm not perfect by any means but it is worth being reminded of anyway.

The Madwoman of Chaillot by Giradoux is my current project. The show opens and plays the first two weekends of February. I am playing the One Man Band and the Sewer Man. Its not a big part but its been just the right amount of commitment for me.

Christmas was delightful. It was a pleasure getting to spend time with all of you.

Best in the New Year!

Love,

Charles

And the Winner is....

Thanks to everyone for listening to our Best of Givan CD (if someone didn't get one let me know we still have some left.  The winners this year were the Shooks.  Your prize will be delivered soon.

1.  Mister Santa-  Tim
2. Lamb of God-   Tim
3.  An Evening in December -Tim
4. Come Thou Fount- Chris
5. Love has Come - Tim-
6. Light of the Stable - Kate
7. Hope was Born - Auntie
8. This Baby - Kate
9. Mary's Boy Child - Kate
10. God Rest Ye- Auntie
11. Go, Tell it - Auntie
12. The Rebel Jesus -  Kate
13. Angels - Auntie
14. Sleigh Ride - Chris
15. Winter Song - Chris
16. Walking in the air - Tim
17. Last Christmas - Chris

A sneak peek into next year- it will be the Best of the Best.

Love Auntie

Us! ...Our Place

Hello to everyone! First and foremost - thank you for traveling to Austin over your Thanksgiving Day weekend to help us celebrate our marriage. We will never forget it!


So our blog post comes at a time of settling into our new apartment. We're not quite ready to share pictures of it as we're still working on finding everything a place. Instead we thought it would be fun to play a little game. We've taken photos of things in our apartment in macro mode. You get to guess what you think it is and we'll take pictures of the rooms these items are in once we get everything presentable :-).

Oh yeah,and we went on our honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean (Bahamas, Curacao, and Aruba). Hannah was thankful for the motion sick medicine they had on board when the captain came over the intercom and said that we would be under a gale force wind warning. In fact, the ship ran out of motion sick medicine during the cruise due to a rather windy ride. On the cruise, service was the name of the game. The ratio was 1 service person to every 3 passengers. Needless to say our meals were regularly four courses and full of silverware we'd never seen. The highlights were the excursions we took on the islands (kayaking in the Bahamas, touring the distillery and caves in Curacao, and snorkeling in Aruba), the 24/7 pizzeria and international cafe with warm yummy cookies before bed, and the Crown Grill where we had the best Fillet Mignon ever topped with salts from around the world! Here are a few pictures. First is a picture of the cruise ship as we rode the tender to Princess Cays in the Bahamas.


(Princess Cays, Bahamas)










(Curacao)










(Pic of the newlyweds in Curacao)








(Aruba, yes we snorkeled in the rain)










Here is the game. Let's put your guesses in the comments and that way we can see who gets the answers correct!

Picture #1












Picture #2












Picture #3
















Picture #4












Picture #5













Know that we think of you often and pray that you enjoy health in this new year!

Love,
Hannah and James

When last we left our intrepid NYC adventurers (Mary and Kurtis) they were headed for some troubling busy times…but now the continuation of our saga. 

Wow it’s hard to believe that almost six weeks have passed since we last posted on the blog.  In that time our household has seen some crazy stuff.  Mary has been working for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular as a Rockette dresser as well as working for Jersey Boy as both day crew and as a wardrobe swing(a person who fills in for a full time crew member when they are out sick or on vacation).  This time lead to a wealth of new experiences, friends and opportunities.  Several of the new “friends” are the camels at Radio City which she can name and provide an excerpt of their inner monologue at a glance.  

Kurtis is also keeping rather busy with his job as Technical Director at the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.  Since taking over the position in August he has been to Germany twice for tours built several new shows and had lots of new growing experiences.  However with this new job also comes with several weeks of assigned vacation time which he was able to take off both Thanksgiving week and Christmas week.  He was able to do this mainly because both of those holidays followed tours and or tech weeks.  However in typical Kurtis fashion he ended up working over hire gigs during those weeks to help out friends or supplement their income. 

Christmas found our heroic pair starting new traditions of their own.  With Mary working at Radio City and Kurtis working up until the 23^rd, going home was not a realistic option.  To top off the long hours, opposite schedules plagued the dynamic duo.  But still they found time to walk the paths of the Rockfellar Center with the large NYC Christmas Tree, share a hot coco and enjoy great food together. They were able to spread out the opening of presents and make Christmas last around work and the urge to open all of them on the 13^th of Dec when they arrived from Kansas. 

 

This year has also given rise to a new hobby, brewing beer.  At first this seemed like a daunting endeavor so in typical Kurtis and Mary fashion they dove head first into bubbling depth of malty goodness with zeal and gusto.  So far they have brew three successful batches of beer, a Robust Honey Porter, an India Pale Ale and an Irish stout.  The results are in the beer seems to be a wild success. 

This ends our installment on location in NYC.  Stay tuned next time for more updates from those two crazy kids.