A Little Rambling

It's a little weird to see January 1, 2012 above the posting, no? 2012 already??? I'll admit, last New Year's seems very long ago. I was still in the apartment with Ashley, I hadn't started back at ASU yet, and I don't even really remember what I did. This year, I spent my second New Year's Eve at the Festaburg setting off fireworks. Germans know how to do it, man. It's especially cool as we're all in these little hilltop towns, so you can look over and see the other villages setting off theirs. They don't have nearly as many restrictions here on what you can and cannot set off, and some of them are big. We had sparklers for the kids earlier in the evening, but we had a bunch of big-kid rockets to set off at midnight. The Americans down the street had an arsenal that sent clouds of smoke billowing up the street to envelope us in the sulfurous scent. The German family just above us on the hill had some very large fireworks, one of which accid...

Really, I don't like coming up with post names, but I DO like the word oodles. It's a new year! (in case you live under a rock and didn't know) 2011 is here. I was thinking about the new year in church yesterday as we talked about how it's a chance to start over fresh, a time to fix the things I've been doing wrong and begin anew. While pondering this, I found myself wondering, why just now? Why does the new year make such a big difference, when the beauty of grace is that God gives us a chance to start over any time we ask. His forgiveness blots out our sins and gives us a clean heart once again, over and over again, not just on January 1st. And that is one thing I am very thankful for. While looking around a friend 's blogs, I noticed this - "multitudes on mondays" or "one thousand gifts." It's a blogging idea devoted to counting one's blessings and happinesses, and I thought I'd join in, as a reminder of all the things G...