I thought it would be over when I went to sleep Monday night– it was not.
My dreams have been filled with yellow flags being thrown for personal fouls against my Buckeyes
Loose balls being covered up by LSU linemen
Dropped balls in the end zone
Blocked field goals
Boeckman being swarmed by purple and yellow jerseys
Receivers in diamond formations putting four feet between themselves and their defenders
Jacob Hester submarining ahead five yards carry after carry
And finally, those perfect tight-end passes to the end-zone
So my friends, the colors on my of scarlet and gray flag have faded and now I just stand waving my white flag.

Monday night, I flew into Phoenix for work. I didn’t check luggage so I quickly got off the plane and took the bus to the car rental place. While waiting in line for a car, I realized that I forgotten to print directions to the hotel. I didn’t think it would be a problem because rental car places usually provide good directions.

Unfortunately, this car rental place didn’t have an automated terminal that allows you to print out directions. The woman at the counter gave me some directions and wrote them down on a piece a paper. However, when I left, I still wasn’t completely sure where I was going.

I jumped onto the highway and headed in what I thought was the right direction. After 15 or 20 minutes, I figured I had gone too far. I decided it was time to use one of my life lines, a call to Anna. Its always embarrassing to call Anna because I always tell her I never get lost—which is still true.

While chit chatting with the Anna, I saw one of those things that reinforced the fact that I am married to a Swede–IKEA. That’s right; the great, bright blue and yellow store was glowing off to the left. Here I was running around lost in Phoenix unable to find my hotel, but I could still find Ikea.

After making a really big circle, I eventually found the hotel. Though, the thought did come to my mind if I couldn’t find my hotel, it would probably cost the same amount of money to buy a new mattress and bed frame at Ikea as it would to pay for the hotel room. Then again, it would take me all night to assemble the Ikea bed frame. Go figure.

My family had a great Thanksgiving Day tradition in Cleveland. My parents would put the turkey in the oven by early afternoon and we’d head out to a Christmas tree farm on the west side of the city. We’d wandered around the farm for quite bit of time before picking the annual Christmas tree. Instead of cutting the tree down, we would dig it up. We’d put the tree into the van, roots and all, and took it home. We then moved the tree into the house and planted it into a box. It was a nice tradition on Thanksgiving day and it was nice to have a live Christmas tree.

The week before Thanksgiving, Anna and I bought a small potted-pine tree from the store. We’re planning on spending Christmas Day out of town with family, so we didn’t need a big tree. Maybe I’m just a Christmas tree-party pooper, but I thought the little tree would work well.

The day before Thanksgiving my parents brought us this really nice Christmas tree stand. I thought it was pretty cool, but the small pine tree wouldn’t fit into the base of stand. I thought “Well, we can just put the stand somewhere and put something else nice on it and that will be it.”

Saturday, my parents came back to Houston on their way home to Corpus. The first thing they brought into the door was this huge seven-foot box. My father had a big grin on his face and said he brought us a Christmas tree for our new stand. At first was I was pretty scared. Our apartment is already over flowing with stuff. Storing the box was going to be problematic let alone putting the tree up in our living room. Needless to say the Christmas tree stayed in the box until my parents left.

Anna slept most of the afternoon on Sunday so I decided to put the new Christmas tree up. After some finagling I got everything in place and was able to make enough space for it to look good in our apartment. The result can be seen below:

It’s nice to have the tree up. We put the small pine tree outside our front door and we now have the big Christmas tree up in our living room. The site definitely makes it feel more like the holidays.
- Bob

Bob and I have been watching time fly by these past few months. Tons of great excitement has come and the blessings have been pouring in.

I had the opportunity to go to the Guild of Bookworkers Standards Conference in Dallas in mid-October. It was the opportunity of a lifetime - it was truly amazing. I got to meet many of my bookbinding heros, learn some great skills and tips, and it was just amazing to be around people that care about the same thing that I do.

Bob did a good job in setting up a surprise party for me on my 28th birthday. Honestly, he really had me thinking that we were just going to do a whole lot of nothing except watch the Red Sox game at our friends Caitlin and Jared’s house. But with all of that none excitement from him, I managed to make us over a half hour late for the affair. Yeah - not even on time for my own surprise party.

On November 10th, I was apart of the Houston Book Fair at the Printing Museum, where I was able to sell my first book - actually first seven! It was a great opportunity for me to get out and see what the selling would be like, and find out the response to my work. I am really happy with all that happened there, and the future that I feel my work will be taking.

After the Book Fair, we boogied down to Corpus to send Bob’s sister Becky off on her mission. It was a joyous time, but a sad time too, as we said goodbye to Sestera Bolster for a year and a half, as she serves the people in Slovenia and Croatia.

Plans and preparations for Thanksgiving filled our time afterward as we had a shift in plans and moved Thanksgiving up to Dallas for this year. We had the Corpus crew at our house Wednesday night - which now consists of Bob’s parents, his sister Sylvia, their exchange student Daniel, and their new “children” - two lab puppies Chispa and Lucy. Then we enjoyed a turkey feast at Bryan and Kelly’s on Thursday – and they had all of us sleeping there Thursday night. Nine people and three dogs got a little crowded, but it was a fun time. Bob and I had some errands to run in Houston, and we took off Friday morning. We enjoyed some more time with Bob’s parents and their posse as they passed on through on their way back to Corpus on Saturday night. It was a great time to be together as family, and give thanks for the many blessings that we receive each and every day.

Now we are closing out November and looking forward to the Christmas season. The house is getting decked out, and our calendar is filling up with great Christmas events, and time with friends and family. We will keep you posted on all the fun!

Yesterday Bob was complaining of a headache after church. While massaging his temples, I was asking him if he had drank enough water, eaten recently enough, and other things that typically trigger the headaches. He said, “No… I think that I was doing too many things at once yesterday… like watching two games at once, playing a game on the XBox and doing work all at the same time. I guess my ADD has a limit.” Yeah - and I was reaching my limit just watching him do all that at the same time!