Website

I have said it before, and before that, and probably even before that.  I really do intend to be better about posting — to be more deliberate and consistent — each time I say it.  It's not that I don't have things that I want to say or share on this site, but I guess I have a hard time getting up the motivation to actually sit down and write, not to mention that we have a 2-year-old running all over the place.

Well, my department leader at my job has inspired both me and Lissa to take up what will hopefully be some more regular posting.  That, combined with the fact that Lissa and Brennan are out of town this week, has given me some motivation to technologically update the site (mostly under the hood) and write this.  Needless to say, much has happened in the past 27+ months since my last post when Brennan was born.  I will try to recap in some semblance of chronological order:

1. We made it home from the hospital safe and sound (as you probably guessed), and got little sleep for awhile.  But, Brennan is amazing and good, so everything has gone smoothly overall.
2. We paid off Lissa's car. No more car payments!
3. We paid off Lissa's last student loan. No more student loans!
4. We are debt free except for the house!  (Sensing a theme?)
5. We led a Financial Peace University class at church.
6. We traveled to Nashville to be trained as Certified Financial Counselors.  Yes, both of us!  Note:  Financial Counselors, not Financial Planners.  There is a huge difference.
7. Brennan turned one.  We rented a pavilion and attempted to have a cookout to celebrate, but it was freezing, and we ended up back at our house. 
8. After much prayer, discussion, angst, and advice-seeking, I applied for a web development position with The Lampo Group, Inc. in Nashville.
9. I — and actually Lissa too — had several e-mail and phone interviews with Lampo over the next 3 months, and when they were seemingly about to hire me, I turned down the job.  It's OK.  That particular position just wasn't a good match for me.
10. We took a vacation to South Padre Island with my parents (my mom was newly-semi-kinda-retired), and we hated it.  The trip and the company were great; it was the area that we hated.
11. While in South Padre, Lampo got back in touch with me about another position that matched exactly what I had told them I was hoping to pursue!
12. <<Insert more e-mail conversations and phone interviews here.>>
13. Lissa and I traveled to Nashville without Brennan for final in-person interviews.
14. I accepted the job as Lampo's new System Administrator, I tendered my resignation to Idearc, I did a knowledge transfer at work, we worked endlessly and tirelessly on the house to prepare it to sell (with immeasurable help from friends), we moved to Nashville, we lived temporarily in a condo, I began my new job, we accepted an offer on the house after three days on the market, we found a rental house in Nashville, we traveled back to Dallas to pack the house and move, and we moved everything we own to Nashville (ourselves) and into the rental house...all in the span of two months!  <<Deep breath.>>
15. We are completely debt free and have a fully-funded emergency fund.
16. Brennan turned two.
17. We experienced the remainder of what have likely been nine of the craziest, most exhilarating, most difficult, most rewarding, most faith-challenging, most relationship-challenging, most emotion-draining, greatest months of our lives as we learned and fought and grew and prayed as a family.
     
     
     
     
18. ... Oh, yeah.  Then we got called by our former neighbors in Dallas to tell us that their had been a police standoff at our old house, and a man had been shot and killed on our front steps by a sniper.

All in all, it has been fairly quiet and calm in our lives since my last post. 

And the silence is finally broken.

Yes, I've been absent for quite some time. It's understandable, you see, for as many of you know, it will soon be Jim and Lissa plus one!! I know that is a scary thought, but there is no turning back now. Lissa will be 37 weeks pregnant -- full term -- tomorrow! So, this could all become a reality any day now.

We have debated it, disagreed about it, and discussed it, but we finally decided it was time: time to get a digital camera. Actually, we already had one — an old Apple QuickTake 200 that I got for free several years ago with a PowerBook purchase — but it was so simple and had such low resolution that we rarely used it.

After considering several alternatives and turning to my always-trusted Consumer Reports, we decided on the Kodak EasyShare DX6340.  It appears to provide a good balance of features, ease of use, and price, and it has consistently received good reviews. Last Friday night we went to our local Target and purchased the camera, a 128MB memory card, and a miniature umbrella (completely unrelated to the camera purchase).

Finally! After I have spent over a month playing with, learning, and writing modules for Drupal, we are up and running. The site is by no means complete, and we have plenty more to add; however, there's enough here to get things going.

The "Main Menu" at the top left will help you get around. Here is the quick tour:

• Our story is, well, just that. It describes our lives together. We will be adding more to the story as time goes on.
• Blogs shows the latest entries in our personal blogs, while the jim and lissa links take you directly to our respective blogs.
• Links will take you to a category-based list of links to other websites. These sites may belong to friends and family members, or they may simply be related to our lives and interests in some way.
• The archives and search links make it possible to view and find past stories, blog entries, etc. Note that the search field at the top of every page can also be used for searching.

Welcome! A gray, rainy, rather boring Labor Day yesterday finally gave me a little kick in the pants to get our website started (much to Lissa's delight). You see, we have owned this domain for two and a half years with the intention of publishing something...someday. Sure we have used it for e-mail and to publish the occasional photos, but it has much more potential.

Although I enjoy web development, at times it can be tiring and draining — especially for a perfectionist like me. I always want to hand-code all of the HTML and/or PHP to make it look and work just right. This is great in that the code is always readable and works as expected; however, it means that development is painfully slow at times. Once I get going, I work well, but building the motivation to start the project is sometimes tough.