an advent of anticipation

just an aisle over from the turkey decorations you can find the stockings and christmas wreaths. it seems that stores continue to start the “holiday” season earlier and earlier each year. and it’s not just the stores:  last tuesday night my kids watched a christmas special on tv!  as much as i don’t like the commercialization, there is one thing i actually enjoy about the early start to the christmas season: it gives us more time to anticipate.
we don’t normally think of anticipation as a good thing, but as advent begins on sunday, i need to remind myself that anticipation is a great thing during this season. advent is a time to eagerly wait for the coming of Jesus into my heart once again. but i don’t particularly like waiting and anticipating. it doesn’t fit well with my “everything now” lifestyle.

i remember when shannon and i were engaged for 14 months, but living 6 hours apart from one another while she finished college and i worked in new jersey.  during january of that year she planned a visit to spend a few days in the great garden state during her break from school.  well, being a bachelor, the house was not automatically ready for such a visit!  i had to prepare!  i vacuumed and dusted and vacuumed and dusted again.  i put all the dishes away and scrubbed parts of my kitchen i didn’t even know existed.  on the day she was to arrive, i lit candles and spent a great deal of time in front of the mirror making sure every hair was in place.  i was waiting for my love’s arrival, with eager expectation.  i wasn’t just waiting, like in a line or in traffic.  i was waiting, making sure everything was ready, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the one i was expecting with great joy.

what about us?  do we approach christmas with the same kind of anticipation?  are we eagerly awaiting the One who is Love to come into our homes and our hearts again this year?  are we getting every part of our lives lined up so that we will be ready for Christ’s arrival?  my prayer as i navigate the aisles of holiday trinkets and the hours of commercialized programming, is that i will seize the moments of advent and use them to ready my life for the coming of Jesus.  i don’t want to just let christmas happen this year.  i want to anticipate it, with eager expectation!  joy is coming!  Love is coming!  Jesus is coming!

thankful for the man-to-man defense

well, monday morning has arrived, and so has my lovely wife from her weekend in atlanta.  beyond the happy reunion of seeing someone you miss, this is significant for another reason as well:  both of my children and (perhaps more significantly) myself survived the weekend.  and by that i mean that we were all alive right now.  maybe a little worse for the wear.  but still living.  i call it success.  it was close as we almost had at least one case of general tso's overload, but we survived that one.  i even got them dressed and to church early yesterday, which was quite the accomplishment!  i thought they looked pretty cute, too!  evidence:

but seriously, this weekend i gave great thanks for shannon and for the man-to-man defense that we normally employ in parenting.  this zone defense was exhausting.  i have all the respect in the world for single parents.  i'm not sure i could do it fulltime.  have a great monday.

ps.  yes, i am ignoring the steelers game yesterday.  don't have the tools to deal with it emotionally right now.  : |

me, my boys, and general tso

its currently naptime here in the milinovich house.  which means i finally have a chance to look at my blog.  its been a crazy day.  my wife left early this morning for hotlanta (i will spare you the "real housewife in atlanta" jokes), and so it is just us guys here this weekend.  which is awesome.  we've been building puzzles and playing with legos and doing all the cool guy stuff.  but it also presents a problem:  what do you cook for such a testerone-fueled crowd, especially when the "chef" has difficulty cooking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?  answer: exhibit a...

i just need to give a huge shout out to general tso right now, whoever you are, if you even are a general.  i don't know what you ever conquered, but i can tell you something right now, you will soon be conquered in my house, because we will all be consuming you in all your mystery meat goodness, with a side of fried rice and egg rolls.  that's right.  it's boys weekend, general tso.  welcome to the party.  make yourself at home. 

a plasma thanksgving

even though the ABC network broadcast a christmas special last night, we still have another major holiday to get to first: thanksgiving.  i love thanksgiving, not so much for the decor (turkeys sort of scare me), but for the actual meaning of the season, i.e., giving thanks for the tremendous array of blessings i enjoy in my life, from the huge ones like my family, to the mundane ones like large-handled coffee mugs.  and everything in between.  so, to get things started off...

a regular reader of the blog, dlm, recently asked us if we would like a plasma tv.  we have been watching tv on the same sanyo television for our entire marriage and, while it worked just fine, it was a heavy, large beast that no longer showed us the whole picture.  while we were content with it, this gift of a new television was wonderful.  but not only that, in order to receive this gift, our whole entertainment center had to be reconfigured in order to house the plasma tv.  so dlm graciously provided time and talent every step of the way, building a bracket and new shelves into our old entertainment center, and even coming to my house to help me install it.  basically, this effectively eliminated the need for me to touch any tools, which is a really good thing for everyone involved. 

so last night the kids watched the madagascar christmas special on our new plasma tv.  and we are all thankful to dlm for his generosity, his time, and his friendship.  what/who are you thankful for today?

my awesome, not awesome day

so its tuesday, and i think i'm ready to talk about it.  but i might not be.  so bear with me.

yes, i went to pittsburgh (awesome) on sunday, and got to see my sister Mary(awesome).   we went to heinz field (awesome) and enjoyed an incredibly warm and beautiful day (awesome).  we got to the stadium early enough to see the team warming up (awesome): 

i'm thinking that they should have stopped right there.  because that was the best they looked all day.  however, the game began and i was screaming my face off.  at one point i looked at Mary and whispered to her that my voice was shot.  this was only 5 minutes into the first quarter.  i'm not joking.  i was worried about not having anything left in the tank for supporting my steelers, but it turned out not to matter because they didn't give me many more opportunities to yell (not awesome). 

it was an ugly football game with both teams just trying to grind it out and with the steelers making more mistakes than the bengals.  even though it was the second most attended game in heinz field history (awesome), the steelers never really gave us something to go crazy about (not awesome).  we mostly just watched the bengals dink and dunk their way to endless field goals while the steelers offense tried every 40-yard pass play in their playbook, to no avail (not awesome).  with about 2 minutes to go the steelers got the ball, trailing by 6 points, and with a chance to put a dramatic bow on the thing and escape with a big divisional win.  but it didn't work out that way (totally not awesome).  everytime i close my eyes since sunday afternoon, i see a different ending, one in which big ben hits hines and santonio on a couple of 10-12 yard slants, mewelde moore scampers for a 16-yard screen, wallace catches a 29-yard pass across the middle and the steelers have 4 chances at the end zone from inside the red zone. 

alas, it ended up not being that awesome.  but everything else about the day was awesome.  just not the outcome.

as Mary and i walked along the river with a huge throng of black-and-gold clad fans, i noticed that it was almost silent.  here you have thousands of fans in a busy city, and you could literally hear nothing but the whispers of people talking to one another.  i whispered to Mary that it felt like a funeral procession.  we all had our heads hung and whispered in hushed tones.  i love steeler nation. 

game time

see that yellow temple of steeler-y goodness? 

that's where i'll be tomorrow.  screaming my throat into oblivion as hines and the steelers hopefully rock the faces off the bengals.  like this...

fall fun

hello readers.  happy friday the 13th, whatever that means.  it is supposed to be dark and rainy all day here in the dirty jerz, so that will at least be appropriate.  although its not the nicest weather, we can't complain really because last weekend we had some of the best november weather ever.  and we enjoyed it by spending a bunch of time outside.  here are a few pics of the kids enjoying the leaves. 

here's hoping you enjoy the rest of the fall as much as these guys.