Radvent Day 1: Remembering

In an effort to bring some discipline and creativity to bear on this holiday season, I'm going to attempt this sweet blog project by Princess Lasertron. (Which, by the way, what a terrific online alias-slash-business persona, am I right? How have I not heard of her before now?)

Here's how it works. Every day, Princess Meg posts a prompt like the one below. I will respond to that prompt here (and also at a private Tumblr I'm working on with some local friends). My plan is to sit down with a cup of coffee during Adelle's first nap of the day and bang it out. It probably ain't gonna be too deep though, y'all. A few bullet points, a few photos. There's a baby to wrangle. Household chores to studiously ignore. Facebook statuses to update. Ahem.

Anyway. Here's to a new beginning.

According to Livejournal, this is what I was up to five years ago. (Remember Livejournal? No, just me, the sole cyber-nerd among you?)

• In 2005, I still lived in Michigan. I worked at Calvin College, thinking and talking and obsessing about pop culture. I was getting restless.
• In 2005, I was writing a blog called Evangelical Expatriate. I was still wrestling deeply with questions about what kind of Christian I was and wanted to be. I guess in some ways, I still am. Looking back, I'm proud of what I wrote there.
• In 2005, I got married to Nathan and we created our compound-named family. We celebrated our first Christmas in a tiny apartment with a single space-heater. We didn't have enough vacation time left to go home to our families on the East Coast, so we spent Christmas day driving around Michigan's Upper Peninsula, crossing over into Canada. We had dinner at the only place open, a Chinese restaurant.
• In 2005, we were pretty sure we were going to move to Philadelphia. I was seriously contemplating a new career as a librarian. I was volunteering at a library and it felt immediately right - one of the few "eureka moments" in my life.
• In 2005, I didn't know any of you [the friends with whom I'm doing this project on Tumblr] except for Josh & Kathryn. I didn't know what I had to look forward to.