Seven

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
- from Psalm 22 "Deer of the Dawn"

Seven years of blogging.  Seven years of cancer.  Seven years of waiting.  Of feeling like life has been put on hold.  Of deciding if we should make plans or cancel them.  Of wondering whether or not I should press the "Publish" button.

A friend was telling us the other day how grateful he was to have friends that put such a "human face" on cancer.  He expressed that it made a very difficult subject easier to understand, especially for the person who hasn't experienced it themselves.

Hearing comments like that is very helpful for a guy who's grown rather tired of his own story.  Talking about cancer and the difficulties it brings was easy the first year, but now that it's encroached on nearly 25% of our current lifespan, it's become exasperating, played out and even a bit trite.

In fact, this is the third version of this post that I've written.  One version was too cynical; the other too sentimental.  This post will likely take on another negatively-charged adjective as soon as I post it.  (Ask my wife who gets weekly requests to "proofread this underwhelming and incredibly disappointing blog post.")

In all of this I believe we still have a story that needs to be told.  In fact, if that's all the good that comes out of this whole journey, I('m trying to) believe that God will make it our redemption.

The reason why I can hope for this is because of the book of Psalms.  Have you ever read it?  The majority of it is a songwriter lamenting over their current circumstances and begging God to hear their prayer.

There's been a lot of lamenting here as well and--hesitant as we may be to share--we're still telling the story just as the story of our lives is still being written.

I'm glad that the psalmists didn't hold back or refuse to tell the story.  We both need that to give us the courage to tell ours.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.  Psalm 22:24

He didn't fix it.  He didn't remove the problem.  He didn't promise that seven years wouldn't turn into eight.  He heard.  But now I'm preachin'.

Publish.

Writing Home #1: The Big Change

Almost since the beginning I was planning this.  It was getting old explaining it to everyone.  Now it's been 6 1/2 years and the blog is changing its name.

In the middle of things going crazy in 2006 I reserved the name darksayings.blogspot.com because at the time I couldn't come up with anything better.  After finding out a few of the names I wanted were already taken, I surreptitiously lifted the name from the writings of Solomon (Proverbs 1:6) and that was that.  Since then I've been added to gothic web rings and mistaken for a Star Wars geek among other things.  Of course this was not my intention at all, but all of the stuff didn't change the fact that I kinda liked the name.

A lot of time has passed since 2006, and as we move forward to 2013 and the start of the 8th year of the blog, it's time for a change.  And it's likely to be permanent.

Starting yesterday, the blog is now called "Writing Home".  Why writing home?  I think it's because I had a boss for several years that would always refer to those underwhelming experiences in life as something "not worth writing home about".  I'm hoping that some of what's written here will be the opposite of underwhelming.  Maybe not overwhelming, but at least--for consistency's sake--whelming.

As before, this blog is not a political blog or a Christian blog or a sports blog or an anything-else-but-a-personal blog.  It's about my life.  What's going on where I am and where I want to be.  My home or at least the place I want to call home.  I hope it can be either as personal or more personal than the old version of the blog.

If it be struggle, then let it be towards triumph.  If it be joy, then I hope you share it with me.  If it be faith, then let it shine through the words written.

What about darksayings? 

Darksayings as an overall theme is gone, but you'll notice that the actual web address hasn't changed (yet...we'll see on that).  No more crazy minimalistic headers.  No more black and gray.  No more cold, sleek lines.  I took pride in how meticulously crafted my blog *usually* was, especially considering the limitations of Blogger, but Writing Home will look a lot different. 

I know the change will make it all less unique and more like a million GASP! "mom" blogs out there, but whatever.  People thought I was the Sith before; now they'll think I'm the SAHM.  I'm already feeling some anxiety over the serif font.  Hope I don't chicken out and go back to the dark side.

Once again: the blog is still located at http://darksayings.net or http://darksayings.blogspot.com for now.

darksayings is 5 years old!

Yes, the blog has been redesigned again. (Can you tell I love design work?) For those of you who are reading this right now on RSS or a reader, you might take the time to visit the actual blog page and take a look to see what I'm talking about.

The blog is now five years old and I think it has served its purpose more than I could ever imagine. The purpose, of course, was to tell the story of Anne-Marie's battle with cancer and the adoption process that followed. In the last year and a half since that all wound down, I haven't been blogging as much. That's due to many reasons:

1. The kids keep me pretty busy
2. A mild but three-year-long case of writer's block
3. The explosion of Facebook and Twitter and the smartphones that support them
4. Not sitting at a computer all day long for my job anymore

Reason #3 is bigger than we all realize. I subscribe to a lot of blogs. Some of those people post multiple things on Facebook every day and haven't blogged in six months. (And I haven't been much better at times.) I would say the number of blog posts that pop up on my reader as compared to two years ago is about half. But maybe I just need to subscribe to a fresh set of bloggers.

I know this is starting to sound like a farewell post. It's not. Just a statement of the reality of my world. I hope the more occasional version of this blog will be worthwhile and enjoyable.

Find me on Facebook if you want to see more of the daily stuff.

Promise of a new day

Only three posts in August?  OK, I guess it's four.  This may be the slowest blog month ever (except considering the fact that the three previous posts were pretty long), but I guarantee September will have a lot more excitement.

Here's a pic of Elisha performing a concerto on the vacuum cleaner attachment while Mariah looks on:

4 YEARS!

Some said I wouldn't make it. Some said it wouldn't last. "He'll run out of things to say in three months!" That's what they said...

OKOKo-KAY! Actually no one said those things about the blog. People have only had good things to say 'bout it if they had anything to say at all. It's been the craziest 4 years of our lives and the total insanity of all that's happened has just about been the only thing that's made reading my posts interesting. Some days I feel like nothing more than an innocent bystander.

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In honor of all kinds of crazy changes in our lives, I've made all kinds of crazy changes to the website. Now you'll find and "About Eli" page at the top, along with an "About Anne-Marie" page. These pages are works in progress. We've had a lot of fun working on them together and hope you enjoy them just as much.

Another change I'm really loving at the moment is the addition of "Reaction Boxes" at the bottom of each post. This is similar to Facebook's "Like" button. If you have no desire or time to comment on a blog post, just check one of the boxes. Right now the choices are "I love this, Boring & Nice Picture". I won't be offended if you click on "Boring", especially since I can't tell who clicked it. It'll only help me write a better blog. So hit me with your best shot. Fire away-ay-ay.

'Sides that there are a lot of aesthetic changes on the page. We have a nifty new argyle background, a three-column layout so you can have two sidebars for the price of one and yes a "going medieval" blog header. Haven't decided if I'm going to keep that last one, but it's at least good for the birthday-versary edition.

Here's to however many more years...

Yayyyy!

PLEASE PARDON OUR DUST!

The new version of DARKSAYINGS will be here soon!

Who runs the most popular website at our house?

Not me.

OK. I get 20-30 page views a day on the blog, including my own. But Anne-Marie has taken it upon herself to maintain our Flickr page (which I know I've mentioned here a lot) and it's now getting more than 100 views a day, every day. On good days she gets several hundred.

What was at one time a semi-frequently-updated stack of family photos is now a silent movie of the kids home life and an interior decorating block party. (Sure glad Mike bought me that Pro account.)

More page views, more facebook friends--hey, more friends period. I think I'm being way outcharmed here. Maybe I'll try what I should have started doing long ago: facilitating her appeal.

Stay tuned for some pictures.

Blahg

I've been reading a few blogs today and getting more and more depressed. Some blogs have prolific writing. Others have amazing pictures. Some have all kinds of comments and conversations and others have hit counts through the roof.

I just realized I have none of those.

Not that this is a popularity contest, but it's time for a little sprucing up!

D A R K S A Y I N G S @ 3

Does a blog have a birthday or an anniversary? Whatever you'd like to call it, it's been three years since it all started. Thanks to everyone who's shown up in the last 1,096 days.

Hey! We hit 20,000!

Sometime while I wasn't looking (Friday), one of our friends from West Linn, Oregon, pushed the blog over the 20k mark. Not a bad 3 years for a little personal blog. Thanks to everyone for stopping by!

You probably noticed the blog has been rebadged "thirty" recently. "Why?" you may ask. It's for Anne-Marie. She turns 30 on May 25.

We're also commemorating the occasion with something even more exciting...

New (Old) Pics!

You might have noticed a LOT of additions to my Flickr photos. That's because I'm in the middle of adding all our pics from 2002-2007. They'll end up squished between '08 and '09. So take a look over the next few days (look on the left sidebar for the link)!

5 excuses for not posting (for Mary P.)

Top 5 reasons I haven't posted in a week:

5. After December, everything that happens in January seems boring.
4. I've been on a demanding project at work.
3. I have a lot of posts that I want to do, but can't quite find the words and/or inspiration.
2. Due to the economic crisis. (??? Guess it works for everyone else.)
1. Last week our phone and internet were killed by what Qwest calls a "major cable failure."

So, there ya go.

Best Pics of 2008

These are my 34 most-favorite pictures of 2008: fire extinguisher training (phone pic); totaled Tercel (phone pic); A-M @ Mad Greek Deli; broken cat; Autzen Stadium; Annie Rose; Cascade Highlands Bridge; Sunriver BBQ; Kayonna; Ryan looking "normal"; Oregon Garden foxgloves; rose; iris; us @ Crown Point; Crown Point; A-M and Carrie @ Wahkeena; A-M @ Bridal Veil; Mike and Ripley; Chris Tomlin @ CityFest; Stan throwing water balloon; B&B window; A-M @ Fort Stevens; Rose River Inn; A-M and Marina; Michael W. Smith blur; Sydney under footrest; Nick and Kay @ beach; Me and A-M @ beach; victorious Nick; Lincoln City sign; lost; our tree; Gerding theater; Alyssa on Christmas Day

D A R K S A Y I N G S @ 2

Little Known Facts About the Blog

- The first post was published in Sunriver, Oregon, while we were on "emergency vacation" trying to figure out how to react to Anne-Marie's cancer diagnosis two days earlier.

- The blog's name was picked after some time searching for an available domain that would be easy to remember/spell. All the ones I wanted were taken and I gave up in frustration. A few days later I was reading Proverbs, Chapter 1 and verse 6's reference to "dark sayings of old" jumped out to me.

- The blog name was reserved and in place for nearly a month and was supposed to be my personal blog on faith and ethics. That all changed a few weeks later.

- As of right now the blog has had more than 14,500 visitors and nearly 23,000 page views.
There have been nearly 400 posts.

- Over 200 comments have been made.

- I would estimate that there have been visitors from at least 80 countries.

- The most I posted in one day was on September 8, 2006, our 5th anniversary: 4 posts.

- I've been shocked at least a hundred times by people that have come up to me and started talking about various facts of my life. I guess I forget sometimes. The explanation is always the same. They read it on the blog.

Just about ready...

To start video blogging. I'm hoping my HP webcam will do the job.

So hold on. We're spending just about every night doing paperwork and adoption education webinars. I hope to talk with you about it "face to face" tomorrow night or Thursday morning.

Mobile blogging with Mail-To-Blogger

OK. I'm lovin' this. I knew it was possible, but I didn't know it was possible with my phone!

I have set up a special e-mail function that allows posting with text messages sent from my phone. The bonus is that I can send photos taken with my phone and include a subject line as a blog title and add text for the caption.

A little late, but I'm almost with the Blackberry crowd at this point!

Test 1

This is a test of mail-to-blogger sent as a text message from my at&t wireless phone.

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This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Life in REALTIME

I kicked off a new blog slogan today. Hope you like it.

My life really is more than just in realtime lately. It's short on time. I've been busy helping friends, at church, and, most recently, in a writing class that I take at night. I think this class will make the blog more enjoyable.

Finally finished...

All those stories from Astoria. Whew! That took a long time!

Test video

This is a video I took with my digital camera two years ago in Pella, Iowa, of the town's glockenspiel*. There is no audio.

*a glockenspiel is a clock that performs a type of mechanical drama when it strikes the hour...in this case the drama hits its climax with a man using a butcher knife to cut meat