this will be brief, because i spent my blogging time doing a little research sparked by a chance conversation with a neighbor. he recommended (and loaned to me) a rather controversial book on the early church and its teachings. so i skimmed it and did some looking around online. the internet is truly addictive. in minutes i found and read several intelligent and contradictory commentaries on the book he gave me. i'm sure i could spend hours looking at all of the reviews and responses. but it gave me a good start to thinking things through for myself. (and realizing that there are lots of people with way too much time on their hands, and that i'm not one of them!!)
the good part about all of this is the neighbor is a genuinely nice guy i hadn't met before (he lives a street down from us) who spent part of his afternoon moving his old playscape into our close little park under the two trees in the back. we (s and s and i) saw it as we were walking to the mailboxes, and sunny was absolutely enthralled. never mind that a block and a half further down is our big park, complete with large playscape and swings and multiple slides. he loved this little used plastic set with two small slides, a rope ladder, and a tunnel. i had to pry him away. :) so now we have an even closer destination for our walks. and it was truly lovely outside today - a high of 80 after a couple of weeks of rain, very cold wind, and generally nasty weather. i wanted to put on shorts and tanks and flip flops and go sit outside in the sun. jon was inside watching the massive media production that was the superbowl, :) and we were outside playing (and having random theological conversations with relative strangers). sailor loves to sit in the grass (of course it's all dead and brown right now) and run it through her fingers, and pick up leaves and twigs (and only occasionally try to put them in her mouth).
we also found out that she loves french fries. :)