My computer is fixed.  I’m here.

I thought about entitling this post “I Have A Brain Tumor” or something catchy like that to draw people’s attention to the fact that I’m writing again.  But, while that might draw more people’s attention, I realized that announcing I had a brain tumor would, in fact, be untrue– at least to my knowledge.  So, in any case, here I am, still writing and tumor free.

A recap of recent Chicago months…summer in Chicago is wonderful.  The weather is nearly always perfect.  I had no idea there was a beach here. A REAL beach.  Like, with sand and waves and bikini clad people and stuff.  That’s pretty cool.  Jack and I have taken advantage of the city’s many offerings, which means I went shopping one too many times.  The upside to shopping one too many times–great thrift finds and cool city views.

The church I prematurely announced I was dating got dumped, and I dated about 10 million other churches behind that one.  I’ve finally settled on one out, of all places, in Wheaton, which is about 30 minutes away.  It’s the least likely place I would’ve thought God would call me to go to church in.  It’s kind of like Christian Disneyland where there are more churches per capita than probably anywhere in the U.S., everybody dresses conservatively and has McCain bumper stickers next to their “Jesus loves you” bumper sticker, and all the streets are named after missionaries and church founders.  It’s also the home of Wheaton College, a prestigious Christian university that I once upon a time considered going to as a 17 year old.  But the church is great, and I’m especially excited that about 10% of the congregation are missionaries,50% of all church giving is toward missions, and they have so many people interested in missions that they run a small missionary preparation program.  So yay.  That’s some missionary fun.

I had my fourth wedding anniversary on the 21st.  That was not as much of an emotional shocker now that I’ve been through a full year of dates and anniversaries where Nate wasn’t there when he was supposed to be, but somehow it surprised me when I was more sad that I thought I would be.  I got through it all right, though.  Tomorrow, Jackabee turns 2.  I was telling a friend this earlier, and just wrote, “Insert bawl here” after the good-and-evil-at-the-same-time sentence “Jack turns 2 tomorrow”.  It’s especially good-and-evil that he can now tell me he’s 2 out of his own little 2-year-old mouth.  Oh…little ones grow so fast.  I love him so much it gives me wrinkles.  We already had a party 3 weeks ago when my family came to visit, prompting 3-year-old cousin, Levi, to think that Jack’s birthday must last at least 3 weeks, which is oh so disappointing because after Jack’s birthday comes Levi’s birthday.  Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to give him his present from me, and we might go to Chuck E. Cheese or something fun like that.

Last but not least, my sister-in-law and I have started a speed walking club, which makes my coolness factor go off the charts of cool.  Not only are we speed walking, but we are speed walking while driving our huge baby joggers, complete with sunscreen clad babies in floppy hats bouncing around in them, down the street. And, you know, though we might have somehow crossed the barrier from young hip women to borderline matronly/dork with the whole speedwalking club thing– we don’t care because we like it.  And hopefully, we won’t be matronly when we don’t get fat because we speed walk.   That’s the jist we’re going for, anyway.

So I just thought I’d tell about what I’ve been up to. My first Chicago summer in a nutshell.  It’s good to be back…