Winds of Change

Today begins my favorite week of the semester. Thanksgiving week brings a flood of family and festivities to the campus. My students often bring visiting family members to class. I love to meet the families of my students, to see the resemblance, to observe the similar mannerisms and generally get a better idea of where my students come from. It's also fun when their visit lands on a day in which their child is performing in my class.
This Tuesday evening is the campus Christmas Lights concert. Due to the lack of space after Thanksgiving, the concert is held before Thanksgiving, but no one really minds. The concert is held outdoors and is composed of mostly Christmas songs stringed together with an ongoing skit. (Nick was in the skit one year, and I, for one, thought he was hilarious.) At the conclusion of the program all of the Christmas lights around campus come on for the first time. From then on, they come on each evening until Christmas break and really adorn the campus beautifully. The concert serves to kick off the holiday activities and is so well attended, people have learned to set up and save spots hours in advance.
On Thanksgiving day we attend a praise service at the church in the morning. Nick is performing a short speech piece in the service this year, and I am helping the younger performers with their costumes. In the afternoon, the college holds the celebrated Turkey Bowl -- a playoff between the semester's reining collegiate soccer teams. It's a pretty big deal to the students and is generally enjoyed by visitors as well. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the college presents its second Fine Arts series of the semester, a college-produced play -- this year, "The Pirates of Penzance." Nick runs sound for the production and is off tonight working the rehearsal. He actually takes turns with a coworker, so we will attend the play Friday night.
So that is a small description of what goes on around here for Thanksgiving. You can already feel the electricity in the air of excited students. As workers set up for the various programs, they leave visible reminders all over campus of the fun to come.
As a busy teacher, I was almost caught off guard by the arrival of the holidays. Although I allowed myself this evening to put in the first Christmas cd of the season (Bing Crosby, anyone?), I have completed no decorating around the apartment. My house is devoid of all holiday signs, save a few small decorative pumpkins, and a little blue ball ornament I came across today and hung from our dining room light fixture. Not the most aesthetic placement of the ornament, I admit. It was an impulse, but the ball remains to this hour. The lack of garland, ribbons and nativity does not discourage me, however. I have yet to build up my store of Christmas decorations. One year at a time.... Until then, I am quite happy with my little group of candles burning on the coffee table. "Coffee"..... Hm. I have decided that this a perfect time for a cup of joe.
Happy Thanksgiving one and all!

~Teri

To Succeed Or Not to Succeed?

Just an update, for those who are curious, on the Shakespeare auditions previously mentioned. Nick and I both made it to call-backs, and Nick was even called back a second time to a smaller group of call-backs. We tried to encourage one another with statements such as, me: "wow, you've made the elite call back group, you must be in!" and Nick: "Guess they can't make up their mind about me and had to try me again. Must not be a sure thing." and so forth. Actually neither one of us really knows what a second call-back means, so we'll just have to wait for the cast list to come up in the next couple of weeks.

Praise ye the Lord!
Teri

The Outdoorsy Life

Well, Nick and I have, for the second Saturday in a row now, taken advantage of the lovely fall weather to increase our athletic abilities. A week and a half ago we decided that we would like start playing catch together. So, we purchased a couple of baseballs and mitts and last Saturday went out to the field by our apartment and played catch. We enjoyed it so much, we'd like to make it a regular thing, though it's probably too late in the season for a continuance of appropriate weather. Having practiced yesterday, we can already see improvement to our throwing/catching skills. Although, when you start from nowhere like me, it doesn't take much to get somewhere. I could flatter myself and say that I'm growing quite good at catching, but the truth of the matter is, Nick pitches so well, I don't have to work hard to get the ball. Not so vice versa. In fact, we've learned to stand so there is a fence somewhere behind Nick, so that when my wildly hurled ball goes astray, he doesn't have to run the length of the field to retrieve it. Nick is very patient and consoles me with the reminder that when I become a better pitcher, he won't get as much exercise. And it is indeed good exercise. Our sore muscles are testimony of that. Regardless of skill level, we enjoy the time together; so, with aching arms and shoulders, we eagerly await our next opportunity for some quality time of "catch."

May the Lord bless you,
Teri

A Reminder of the old Bachelor Life...

Greetings from the Ryan Family. Yes, it's been a while since we've updated the blog, but that's just how life goes. We've probably lost all of our readers and there's no one around to check and see the updates anymore, but oh well - I feel like posting so I'm going to.
Life is moving on! Sunday will be our three-month mark of married life! Unbelievable! The wedding seems so long ago, a distant memory of a foggy time; kind of like "Remember when we were two and used to play in the mud?" Only a little sharper than that I suppose. We've had quite a few little activities and occurrences this semester to add color to our lives (that's one of the things I truly love about life - it's colorful). I've gotten to do a tiny bit of performing this semester, which has been really nice. It started over the summer with the Speech and Drama camp they do down at the college here. They have a faculty repertoire night that they asked me to perform in for the campers, so I refreshed my memory on a Dave Barry essay (Homicidal Impulses that Never Quite get off the Ground), and performed it for a smiling group of highschoolers. Several months later our church was putting together an evangelistic meal for the community and was looking for entertainment... Someone told them I did a mean Dave Barry, so I did a repeat performance for the men of the community. It went ok, I managed to get most of my meal down before I performed (there's nothing like an after-dinner performance), and it seemed to be well-received. After that was the church men's retreat. I was told to get together a group and come up with whatever we wanted to. I really utilized my friends on this one, and me and three other guys did a few different skits for the fellas on the retreat - they seemed to enjoy that as well. I'm scheduled to perform a small piece for the Praise Service here on campus come Thanksgiving as well. They're not big performances, but I enjoy getting to perform a bit here and there. It's in my blood I suppose. The real climax to this whole story is that I'm actually able to try out for the Fine Arts production here at the college next semester (Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare). Every semester the college puts on a large-scale Fine Arts production (Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan, etc.), and they do it right. I am almost always involved with these productions from the technical side, due to my job in the video/audio department, and therefore am unable to audition for any roles, but this time I've been given the go ahead to audition. If I make it, my department will work around me not being available for technical work - how exciting is that! I really do enjoy acting (more than any other kind of performing even) and am ecstatic that I've been given this opportunity. The unfortunate side of this is that auditions are on Monday, and I haven't picked out or practiced my audition piece yet. Teri's given me a few gentle encouragements, but I haven't quite gotten around to it yet. Something I'll obviously be doing in the next few days. Teri will be auditioning as well, so we may both be spending our evenings cavorting through Shakespeare's world next semester.
Married life is going very well. We're both enjoying having each other around, and being able to come home to each other at the end of a day. I've been having to work in the evenings a little bit of late, so that's not necessarily crazy fun in a together sort of way, but the busy season will subside after a little while and we should see more of each other in the evening. As long as we're working here, in the departments that we're in, there will always be seasons of evening busyness. We went on a church date night a little while back. The church fed us a prime rib dinner and Pastor talked about aspects of marriage - it was nice. They had you sitting at round tables with two other couples, so we got to meet a few people as well. I had a moment of slight embarrassment during the meal - we were eating our salads, and I was lost in thought. When I came to, I found myself holding my salad bowl in my left hand up near my mouth; my right hand was rapidly scooping salad onto my fork and speedily delivering it into my mouth. I have no idea why I suddenly began eating like a Hoover vacuum, but I slowly put the bowl back on the table and glanced around a little bit to see if anyone had noticed my sudden voracious habits. Teri did, of course, and we had a good chuckle over it.
Teri is on the church's lady retreat this weekend, so I'm playing the bachelor for the night. It's our first night apart (I know, I know, you don't really care), and it's actually kind of lonely in this ol' apartment. I'm getting a little sense for how Teri must feel when I'm at work. She wasn't sure she was going to go on the lady's retreat, but decided that she would, and I think it's a good move. Now that we're settled down into our lives down here for a little while, our attitudes are maturing a little bit, and we're feeling more invested in our church family down here. I can't tell you if she had a good time or not because she's not back yet - you'll have to stay tuned.
We're excited about our Christmas vacation coming up. We're actually going to get to visit Omaha, NE (Teri's folks); Ottawa, KS (old friend's of mine); and Colorado Springs, CO (more old friends as well as my old home town). We haven't done any big trips like this in a while (excluding the honeymoon I guess), so it'll be fun. We're excited at the thought of getting away and changing pace a little bit. Routine is ok, but it lacks variety.
God bless you all as you seek to use your talents for Him.

--Nick

Hang on, time is passing you by.

Is this not the way life seems sometimes? No, this picture is not of either myself or Teri, but it seems slightly poetic when viewed as holding while time rushes past you, so I thought I'd use it as illustration.

My last several posts seem to mention much about the rapid movement of time, but that's only because IT'S MOVING SO FAST! There don't really seem to be enough hours in the day to let you really experience your life: you're either off to work, or going here or going there, or merely trying to enjoy an evening that *ZAP*, disappears with frightening quickness. And then, of course, time as a larger entity exhibits the same behavior that it's smaller personalities do: the Lifetime Express whizzes past, the boxcars of weeks and months trundling quickly by with unstoppable regularity. Ah well, such is the nature of things, and they will not change in this existence with all the strainings of Hercules, much less the feeble ponderings of a random blogger.

If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to be poetic and literary. I finished Hard Times recently, Dicken's least-read novel. Say what you will about his philosophy, the man had a knack for description, and it feels a bit bland to write in an "evening news" approach when you've just finished up his book. I must say I've rather enjoyed all the reading I've been able to do of late (which tells on me a little - when I talk about not being able to get things done). I was a voracious reader when I was young, but somehow the habit fell to the wayside during my high school and college years. Lately, however, I've been really enjoying sinking myself into books that I'm reading only because I want to - not for a class, or self-improvement, etc. I've been reading some James Herriot of late as well, an author that I thoroughly enjoy and recommend.

Well, life trundles on. There's plenty of little adventures and hardships encountered, and plenty of little valleys that must be walked through, but we have been enjoying married life tremendously, and are more in love now than we were when we got married (right, dear?). We may be doing a few video posts here on the blog once we figure things out. I supposedly have a camcorder on the way... we'll see how that goes.

God is good.

--Nick

The blog is still alive!

I'm a bit tired, I'll confess. A day of work, followed by an evening of work (rehearsal for an upcoming stage event), leaves me a bit ready for bed. But in spite of that fact, I wanted to take a brief moment to say that the blog is still alive, and I've not forgotten about it. Oh, I don't pretend that there are any of you out there that draw their life's levity and brevity out of reading the paltry news of our lives, but just in case there is one or two of you out there that like to know what's going on here and there - I don't want you to think I've given up, because I haven't. Life has a way of catapulting along and leaving you thinking "This is Thursday already?" "It's already September?" "Is this already 2007?" "How many grandkids do we have?" And so it has gotten away from me a bit and I realize that I haven't written any fascinating news in a while. (Stop it! I know what you're thinking!) Anyway, everything is still ticking, just so you know.

--Nick

Excuse me, are there any first-class seats open?

Yes, yes, I realize that I haven't updated the blog in a whole week, but all of you rabid fans out there had probably just better get used to it. Once or twice a week will probably be the norm; it's a bit difficult to update it every time you turn around.

Well it's the weekend again, and that brings to mind all the wonderful things about weekends that I've been dwelling on for the last couple of weeks. It's a beautiful, lazy Sunday afternoon, and the weather is so nice we have all the windows in the apartment open - an unusual occurrence I assure you. Speaking of beautiful weather, we breathed some lovely mid-western air in Colorado this weekend; and let me just announce to the world: the Rocky Mountains posses a beauty all their own.

I've been having some health struggles of late, and decided that it would be prudent to go back to Colorado and visit my naturopath (think nutritionist and vitamin person) in Denver. I am a firm believer in health and healing the natural way (having had personal success in the past), so after consideration and consultation with my lovely wife, I found reasonable air fare and booked the trip. Since the trip itself was so short (we left town at 6:55 pm on Friday and returned at 8:30 pm on Saturday), and since it was a task-oriented jaunt (no long and random socializing sessions with old friends and family), we didn't really think about it too much in advance, and it sneaked right up on us. We found ourselves regarding it with a bit of surprise, "Oh yeah, we're leaving town tomorrow." But it was a short trip and didn't really require lots of advance preparation, so everything was fine.

We packed everything in one carry-on bag between the two of us and Jackie drove us to the airport Friday evening. I was rushing about the house moments before we left attempting to get the appropriate maps printed off, making sure I had the necessary phone numbers, etc., but once we got in the car everything was smooth sailing from there. A flight to Dallas, Texas and then a flight to Denver, Colorado left us ready and happy to deplane and not be sitting around any more. And soon as we stepped off the plane, making our way up the jetway, we were given a little insight into the climate of a Colorado night. It was cool, very cool. As we stood outside in our short-sleeve shirts waiting for the rental car shuttle, we wondered at our lack of foresight in not realizing that the rest of the world does not share Florida's climate. I felt especially foolish, having spent a good portion of my life growing up in Colorado. It wasn't tortuously chilly to me, but Teri had a pretty rough time of it.

The rental car company had run out of economy cars, so they bumped us up to a Jeep Liberty for no charge. It was a small thing, but it really added to the pleasure of the trip - the next day as we drove about our business we rolled the windows down and breathed in the fresh Colorado air, reveling in the beauty of the Rocky Mountains which you can see from almost anywhere in Denver. It seemed more fitting in a Jeep, somehow.

We stayed with some old friends of mine, a young married couple with a baby girl. It was wonderful to visit with Ben and Marlene and introduce them to Teri. They put us up in a very comfortable little guest room, and we slept like a couple of slabs of Rocky Mountain granite. I felt bad the next day when I checked my voicemail on my cell phone and found a message from Ben from the night before. He said they were going to go ahead and go to bed (who could blame them?) and left instructions on where to find the housekey and let ourselves in. I didn't even check my phone after we got off the plane, however, so we pulled confidently up and knocked happily on the door in the middle of the night. Marlene graciously let us in and didn't say a word about our clod-like behavior. The next morning at breakfast we played a little bit with their baby girl, Cassie. It's such a different phase of life now, with many of our friends raising children. Cassie is the cutest and friendliest child, and I have to admit, while playing with her the idea of having children didn't seem quite as intimidating.

After a fond farewell we went to see Brenda, our Naturopath. It was an excellent and enlightening visit. We both have some health issues to work through, and we've chosen to do it naturally, through dietary and lifestyle changes; but I think it's very exciting. The next several months should produce some exciting results.

Then it was back to the airport. After puttering about we settled in for two more flights, and arrived back in Florida at 8:30. We've never traveled that much that quickly before, and it felt as though we'd been away a long time. We were both pretty weary, and slept pretty solidly that night.

This whole globe-trotting thing is kind of fun. I've never been in a position where I've needed to travel great distances for short amounts of time before. I've never been an important executive with need to travel hither and yon to check on the status of the company (like my father-in-law), and I've never been a wealthy gad-about, flitting here and there to try out the various golf courses of the world (also like my father-in-law - no, just kidding). This little trip felt something like that, a little exotic. "Oh, we thought we'd go to Colorado for the weekend." Of course, it wasn't really like that, but it was fun. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Rocky Mountains, breathing in the fresh Colorado air, getting away for a short bit, spending time with old friends, and spending time with each other.

Colorado, you haven't seen the last of us.

--Nick