DGH

I promise this blog will not become fawn-over-nephew-central, but he is only a few days old so can you blame me? He likes taking a nap with Auntie Christine.

A brief hiatus

That is how I am choosing to describe our blog-silence. What have we been doing you ask? Well, here's a quick overview. On May 14th I graduated from New Saint Andrews with a B.A. in liberal arts. Yay! Here I am with several classmates, giddy with glee before the ceremony.



And then on May 16th, Joel graduated from the University of Idaho with a Masters in Accountancy. Woohoo!



Since he didn't walk, we don't have a picture of him in cap and gown. But at least you can see the happiness on his face now that we're all done.

And then of course, springtime finally came to the Palouse and our apple tree blossomed. And if you're busy gawking at the ugly dirt/tarp that the tree is planted in, never fear! Joel dumped 3 1/3 cubic yards of bark down in the raised part of our front yard. It looks much better.



In May Kate had a baby shower:



And, following the natural course of things, shortly thereafter had a baby:



World, meet David Gregory Henreckson. Please keep in mind that these are only two of a myriad of cute pictures of this little guy. I would put up more, but I don't know where I'd stop. I should point out that David is very fond of his auntie.

On a more sad note, in May we also flew to Phoenix to be with Joel's grandmother before she passed away. While we were grateful to get to see all of our family again, it was a difficult time and we will miss Grandma Flo a lot. She was a firm believer in the circle of life, and the idea that when one person leaves the world another takes their place. On the day of Flo's funeral, I got the call from kate saying she was going into labor. After the funeral i was able to catch an early flight back to Moscow and make it to the hospital before Kate had David. I was so glad to get to be there, and I think Grandma Flo would have been very pleased with the little person who entered this world when she left it.

That's it for now. I plan on being a more regular blogger once again now that the chaos of school is over. Thanks for your patience!

T. S. Eliot

We had to memorize a poem from the modern period for our final (tomorrow!! AHH!) so I, naturally, chose T.S. Eliot. This is Part IV of “Little Gidding” in his Four Quartets.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

The mysteriously elusive Cohens

Where, you wonder, have the Cohens gone? I will tell you. They are hunkering down for the next week and a half until school's out: completing end of the year projects, cramming for finals (and comprehensive exams), buying graduation dresses (ok only one of us did that), etc. etc. They promise to be faithful bloggers once their lives slow down a bit. But right now things are a bit hectic around here.

And so it begins...

Perhaps some of you faithful followers of our blog remember back when I (Christine) was reading Anna Karenina and I kept having Russian aristocracy etiquette dreams. Well, recently I've been reading the Brothers Karamazov, and enjoying it immensely. Last night those long dormant Russian dreams emerged once again. This dream was not as vivid as the Karenina ones were, but I distinctly remember Joel and I watching an entire Russian musical in Slavic. And the best part of the dream? Joel loved the musical so much that he made Davey watch it with him again.

Birthday!

I know I promised that the next post would be called "Springtime!" but since it's dumping snow outside right now, I decided to hold that one until a more appropriate weather climate. Instead I thought I'd post the pictures from my birthday that I promised to several people (several weeks ago). I had a wonderfully relaxing birthday, the funny part of Joel's gift to me was the Oregon Trail computer game which both of us played as children. It frequently comes up in conversation as one of those great nostalgic memories (you died from snakebite!). So we played the Oregon Trail and made it safely to Oregon City all in one day, although Kate did die of thirst and Whiskey from a snakebite. So sad. The other part of his gift was perfume, which we picked out together. Joel was a real sport and went with me to smell countless scents until I found the one I wanted, one hour and two headaches later. That night Joel made me dinner (home-made pizza) and we went out for drinks and dessert with friends afterwards. It was great.





Davey and Joel were there also, but they both sneakily managed to avoid the camera. I also took pictures of the parent's gifts. Mom and Dad Ditton gave me this beautiful Monet painting for our bedroom. Obviously it doesn't have that glowing spot of light in the center, I was having a hard time taking a good picture of it. In fact, if you're really interested you can find a better picture here.



And Mom and Dad Cohen gave me a full set of these beautiful pottery barn towels. Really the picture doesn't do their bright, springy colors justice. But yes, they are reversible. And they were meant to go in our downstairs bathroom (I was going for the whole lemon/lime theme) but after seeing them (and feeling them) I put them in our upstairs bathroom and am simply ignoring the fact that they clash with the picture on the wall.



So there you have it! The promised post on my birthday bash. Maybe next time I post the weather will actually reflect the season we're in.

Book Plug

Well, it's more like a chapter plug since that's all I read for school, but I plan on reading the rest of it at some point in my life. The book is called Rainbows for a Fallen World by Calvin Seerveld, and the chapter I read was called "Obedient Aesthetic Life." In this chapter Seerveld is arguing that Christians need to be interested in cultivating a rich aesthetic life, one that delights in the world God has given us (i.e. digging up dirt in the garden, going on bike rides just for the fun of it, reading fairy-tales, drinking fine wine, etc.). He warns against falling prey to a worldly aesthetic, which he calls kitsch. I particularly enjoyed his definition of kitsch:

"Kitsch accepts the technocratic denaturing of ordinary life, but pretends to lift you above it, nostalgically. Kitsch is willing to be slick, it always glitters somehow, bewitching the simple with illusions of grandeur. Kitsch is emotionally cheap, whether it be expensive tinsel and Christmas tree baubels or a technically flawless, effulgent painting by Bouguereau, whether it be an ornate beer stein from the corner variety store, a dirty joke graffito lacquered to it sides, or a sunset with palm trees painted by a native on a piece of black velvet brought back from the Barbados. Kitsch never enlarges experience; it blandly affects a show to stimulate feelings of exquisiteness or a mood of supernal tenderness, but it flops into bathos because it is ersatz, like a seven-inch-high, silver-plated Statue of Liberty trying to be the real thing. Kitsch is like a deodorant next to good perfume (63)."