New in 2010

Happy New Year! I suppose that eleven days in still qualifies for a new year. It does seem like a long time since we were opening our gifts, celebrating with family, and visiting with friends on New Year's Eve, but even at that, I'm still trying to find my footing again and figuring out what to do with myself since the holiday busyness has wound down. Transitions can be a little unsettling at times

So since all of the possible "best of 2009" lists have been created and forgotten and we're a little bored with them by now, perhaps a better idea for my first post of 2010 is to  recount all of the new things that have come with a new year--at least for me.

• The biggest new thing is pictured above to the right. I wrote in my last post that Katie had an accident while she was driving my car to work. The Monday after Christmas, we learned that our insurance company had determined the car was totalled, and so the Tuesday after Christmas Henry and I--after some diligent research--went car shopping. I ended up with a 2007 Toyota Corolla, a car that we agree suits me much better than my Subaru Forester (which was an excellent car and served me well for eight years). My Toyota looks much like the one above, only it is black, my favorite car color. Also new is now getting used to driving a car that doesn't have all-wheel drive or an ABS, a challenging adjustment in a Michigan winter. It's all working out well.
• I have a new responsibility at our church. I have been asked to serve on our church's library committee, and since book buying is definitely one of my spiritual gifts, it's all going to work out well. Unfortunately, our committee chair broke her ankle right before Christmas, and with only a few days left in the year and lots of book money left in the budget, I asked if she minded if I purchased the books that my pastor (a great list that was about a page and a half long) and another Bible study leader had requested. It's been kind of exciting coming home from work to yet another box of new books. Now we need to process them and get them on the shelves.
• Another new thing is a responsibility I've completed. For a little over a year now, I've been editing grade 5 and 6 catechism curriculum for a new curriculum that has been developed by Pastor Scheuers and others in Chino, California. It's been an exercise in perseverance because often the last thing I'd want to do during the evening was yet more editing. But it's a worthy project, and it will be gratifying to see children in my own church, especially in fifth and sixth grade, carrying around the books that I edited next fall. It's new to come home from work, fix supper, and realize that I don't have to work on the catechism. And this leaves me open for some more new editing opportunities for Reformed Fellowship, the organization that my own Henry is president of.
• I have new book review published in the January/February issue of  Modern Reformation magazine. Last year I submitted my review of Why We're Not Emergent, and it finally made it in.
• I'm starting a new reading list. I actually exceeded my reading goal for 2009: reading one fiction and one nonfiction title a month. I'm going to keep the goal the same this year. I failed to meet my goal of reading Calvin's Institutes during the Calvin 500 year celebration, but I got about halfway through, and I'm still plugging away.

So these are the things that are new for me in 2010. I'm sure there will be more, because if there's one thing that isn't new, it's that everything changes, often faster than we can keep up.