Update: Chris Martin

Hey everybody. Been talking to Goebel online a bit more lately while we're both at work, and the other day he asked me, "Chris, what are your goals? What do you see yourself doing in five or ten years?" And I said, "Chris, my boss just walked into the office so I should probably not be chatting on gmail, but I'll post on the blog."

Then, Dave sent me an email a few days ago asking how things were going with wedding planning and the rest of life. And I didn't respond because when I don't have time to give a good answer I usually just ignore the question and then the longer I go without answering the question the worse I feel about how long it's been since the question was asked and then it gets harder to write/call back and catch up.

But I'm nipping this one in the bud. So here's my update blog post. Hopefully some of yours will follow soon after.

Things are going pretty well in my life right now. Not necessarily fun and exciting but in the grand scheme of things, I have nothing to complain about. I think most of y'all know that starting in September I was working as a temp at the school district that I live in. I don't know how many of you know that I was hired as a full time employee there at the end of December. I am now the official administrative assistant/bookkeeper for the before and afterschool care program in the School District of Cheltenham Township. It's a great job. Not exactly what I want to be doing, but I get paid more than I deserve and my boss is a nice middle-aged Christian lady who's easy to get along with. My main duties are to take payments from parents, talk to them about our program, schedule staffing, and make sure that our program is meeting all of the requirements set by the three or four oversight agencies that give us money. If I thought I'd be doing the job for the rest of my life, I might dislike it a little bit more, but as it is, I enjoy having something to do and there are usually one or two moments each day that I feel like I'm doing something that matters to someone besides the bureaucrats in the school district. And that's a nice feeling.

The day before New Year's Eve Lexie's mother was diagnosed with aggressive stage two breast cancer. Her doctors have told her that they don't think it's spread beyond her right breast so that's a huge blessing in this situation. She's having a lumpectomy on Monday, Feb 1. Lexie has taken it pretty hard. I think the main thing that gets her is the knowledge that her mom is scared and depressed about the situation. Lexie already has a lot on her plate with wedding planning and classes and this has just adding one more thing that is on her mind when she has some rare down time. We could really use your prayers for 1) healing for Lexie's mom (Debbie) whether it's miraculous or otherwise 2) perspective and faith for all of us as she starts treatment and 3) peace for Lexie and some sort of God-given distraction from worrying about this all of the time.

Wedding planning has been going well lately. We've got just about everything set up for the wedding and the reception. The only things left are to nail down the photographer, pick out suits for me and the groomsmen to wear, and think of all the little things like favors to give out, where to get whatever it is people throw at you when you leave, etc. I'm getting excited about the wedding although I don't think about it all that much on a day-to-day basis. I'm just ready to not have to drive/walk home at night, to not have to think about find new roommates at the end of each year, to be able to feel like I've really got a home with someone, and of course, to have more time to spend with Lexie since we'll be going to sleep and waking up beside each other every day. I am feeling so fortunate and blessed to be able to marry her, and I realize the extent of God's blessing more every day. It's going to be awesome to be married to her.

On a quick marriage note: we've been reading through a book that I think is the best marriage book I've ever heard of and certainly the best one of I've read. It's called "As For Me and My House" by Walter Wangerin, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's more of a narrative type of book than a topical book. The author goes through his relationship with his wife from courtship to marriage and beyond while making observations and making important points about what makes marriage a unique relationship and what can make it or break it. I seriously have not read a more helpful non-fiction Christian book in my life (Chronicles of Narnia will probably always be my go to books for inspiration and faith boost). Lexie and I have been reading it together either out loud to each other and stopping to talk about things that are interesting or reading chapters separately and getting together to talk about it. It seems like the type of book that would be helpful and interesting even if you're already married so for those of you who are in the trenches already, give it a go. You will not regret the $12 you'll spend on this book.

So, on to Goebel's question. What are my goals and what do I see myself doing in the future? That's a tough one. In the immediate future my plan is to keep working my job at the school district until Lexie graduates next May with her degree in biblical counseling. After that, we haven't quite figure it out. Actually, the other night she and I talked about our goals and ideal futures (premarital counseling homework) and I guess I'll just stick with what I said to her. Before I start, though, a disclaimer. It's always been a little hard for me to think of what my goals and hopes are for the future in the abstract. More than anything else, I enjoy being around my friends and family. Really, if I have friends around me and working with me, it's easy to imagine doing just about anything. For most of my life I've been able to pick up just about anything I put my mind to, so lots of times when I think about my future, I think about it in terms of who I'd really like to be around and then I think that I could just find something to do wherever that might take me.

Having said that, here's my current future plan. Lexie graduates next May and then we'd take off and go up to Vermont to this school to learn some skills and get out of our normal schedules for a little while. I think I'd like to learn woodworking and furniture-making. I'm probably romanticizing it a bit, but I think that my anal-retentive attention to detail and appreciation of design would go well into working with wood and making furniture in the same way that it goes well into doing web design. So, we'd go up there for a month or so. I'd take woodworking classes and Lexie would probably take some classes on gardening/farming. After that we'd move somewhere down south. Maybe South Carolina. Maybe North Carolina. I think it'd be great to move back to Columbia and buy a house, but Lexie doesn't quite like the idea of going back to a place where I already have so much history. She's worried that she'd just become an add-on to my old life instead of us creating a new life together. So I'm not totally sure where we'll settle. Wherever it is, we want to be able to have at least a large yard and maybe even enough land for a small farm. We'll have to find a place where Lexie can be a counselor. Ideally that would be in a church (I'm looking at you, Dave; go ahead and start greasing the wheels), but if she needed to join a counseling firm/group she'd do that too; it would just take longer because of all of the certification processes. Once we found a place to settle down, I'd love to be able to make a good chunk of my income from doing web design or media design. I don't have much of a portfolio at all right now and I've still got a lot to learn, but we're talking in "ideally"s here so it's okay if I shoot for the stars a bit. On the side, I'd love to get some shop equipment and be able to maybe do some furniture-making to supplement our incomes.

I'd love to live in a college town where Lexie and I could work with college students in our church and act as a home-away-from-home for people who are new to the area and looking for community. I'd love to live near at least a couple of you guys so we could hang out more often.

So that's my ideal. Obviously some of that may never happen, and some of it may only happen after several years, but its the ideal.

It's taken me a long time to write this and now I've got to get ready to go over to Lexie's for lunch and then church this afternoon. I've been thinking about y'all a lot lately and how much I enjoyed those summers and breaks when we'd have man night. I'd love to hear how y'all are doing. What are your updates? Where are you now? Where do you want to be in the future?

Final note:

Reading: Inspiration and Incarnation, As for me and my house, Mouse Guard
Listening to: The Avett Brothers, Vampire Weekend, NPR investigative report on the bail industry and American prisons (Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3)