- Still telling anyone who’d listen that I’d witnessed the birth of my year-old niece
- Working for a Democratic senator on Capitol Hill at the height of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial
- Celebrating two years of sobriety
- Reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for the first time
- Welcomed into the body of Christ
What were you doing seven years ago?
Unrelated Update (8/19): This is an update to Blogging: An Innocent Fraud?, but I decided to post it up top. I thought you might be interested in a 2003 article from the “early” days of blogging (about nine months before I joined the blogosphere), “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality.”
By the way, thanks for the shout-out, John.
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LaShawn,
Youth is great! I can’t remember what I did last month, Seven Years Ago? Who knows, I guess that would be 1999, maybe I was getting ready for the Y2K blow up that never happened.
7 years ago…I would have been starting my last year of college, and becoming all too aware that I was expected to get a “real” job upon graduation. Looking back it was one of the best years, as I knew responsibility was lurking around the corner!
On a scarier note, 7 years ago I still believed that “the system” usually worked, and that we would never see anything like Pearl Harbor again, and that welfare helped people until they could help themselves.
At some point I looked to the right, and started walking over.
We were married on July 31st, 1999, so I was just getting used to being a wife and I was preparing to start my first year of teaching 10th grade English. I was probably also eagerly waiting for our wedding pictures. Thanks for helping me remember all of that!
Seven years ago… I had very little money and was blissfully, head over heels, happier than I had ever been in my life. Totally feeling blessed and in love.
Is it strange to pray for poverty? Seems we were much happier when we qualified for food stamps…
I was just starting my senior year of high school. Seven years later I still haven’t finished college, nor do I plan to in the immediate future.
My beautiful daughter became part of my family through the miracle of adoption. She entered my home and my heart in 1999. I spent much of 1999 meeting with child development experts chasing a diagnosis that would explain her behaviors and delays. She has since been diagnosed with partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
After thirteen years in the Army, I was adjusting to life as a civilian and working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist at a growing hospital.
I was a single mom struggling to balance work and family commitments.
I was recovering from acute kidney failure that occurred after an infection with strep throat and trying to regain a pre-illness level of fitness.
Seven years ago, I was still living in Santa Barbara, but the company I worked for was preparing to have me move to Denver, where they were headquartered. (This was after an acquisition of the locally-based company I worked for…one of the many things that went down in the halcyon days of the Internet Bubble.) And Pamela and I were planning to have our wedding before the move happened. (Which we did, in October…and in November we departed for Colorado.)
In addition to being a newlywed (to the above-commenting Eva), I was coming off some nasty posion ivy…thank goodness I had a wonderful wife in whose purse I could store the anti-itch cream!
Seven years ago, I was a single mom. It was hard, but I was pretty much content. Seven years ago this month, I first found out that the man who is now my husband was interested in me. He said he’d been watching me for months. What did he notice? That I was in church and in choir every Sunday, that I didn’t date around, that I had brought my kids with me, dressed modestly, etc. etc.
We were acquaintances, but he really wasn’t on my “radar”, since I wasn’t “looking”. He managed to invade my space though, and I’m so glad. He’s devoted to Christ, and a wonderful husband and friend.
Behave girls, you never know who’s watching!
Seven years ago, I was bitching about taxes. Some things never change!
1999 – I was not bloggin’ outloud. But I was on staff at our church, getting ready for parenting middle-schoolers, and filling my bathtub with water. Well, 2 out of 3 anyway.
7 years ago, I got engaged to my wonderful, godly wife! 8/21/99, a day that will live in infamy (for my wife’s family that is… LOL)
I was sitting in my new office, with the door closed, and my head down on the desk, quietly crying because I was afraid I’d never be able to make it as a prof.
seeing as I got tenure 3 years ago, I must have been sorta okay, at least.
fall of ‘99 was a strange and scary time for me. I had moved to a new town where I didn’t know anyone, in a different part of the country with a very different culture.
Lousy married people (#3,4,9,10, 13)
.
Seven years ago I was getting ready to return to New Orleans for my Junior year of college (Loyola U, College of Music). I was working in an internship at the Kennedy Center for hte Performing Arts, in their Electronic Media (Website) department.
I was still very into feminist theology at the time, for very personal reasons (I’ve since gotten irritated with nearly all things “feminist”), as this was before I actually had met any members of the Women’s Studies Dept.–which would occur over the next two years. I was still sounding out my eternally frustrating “vocation”, but was finding help and support from unexpected (for me) places. This was the beginning of my turning from feminism, because the womyn were of no help at all, but the representatives of the “patriarchy” were. Funny that.
The was probably the farthest to the left I ever got, as the coming year would start me drifting back toward the right. I was eagerly anticipating an upcoming conference in Milwaukee, and still thought that I was right, and everyone who didn’t agree was wrong.
I was also, at that time, falling in love with Japanese Anime, thanks to a show called Gundam Wing. . .
Seven years ago, I was not concerned about whether Western Civilization would have the Churchillian backbone necessary to stem the tide of Radical Islam’s willingness to use terrorism as a tool of tyranny.
Kevin, amen brother.
Seven years ago, I’d just survived the Marxist propaganda brain-washing mill of a master’s of education program. It also permanently cured me of possessing any trace of leftist ideology, and I began treading on the lonely path that I’m still on.
I don’t remember.
I don’t remember what I was doing 7 days ago.
Yesterday, vaguely.
Seven Years ago I was working in IT at the corporate headquarters of a fast-food joint, while other people around me worked on Y2K changes.
On the home front, I was battling my ex-husband in the legal system yet again as he tried to change the child custody arrangement. I’m so glad the kids are grown now!
La Shawn – I now present the strangest “7 Years Ago” for your enjoyment: I was recovering from surgery that reduced my Double HH to a more manageable C-cup to the despair of every male I knew at the time! I mean they were furious with me!
Best thing I ever did!
Have a good weekend!
7 yrs ago. Hmm. I was 1 year into a new job. 7 years into a new marriage (now I’m 14 years into that new marriage). 4 years into being a dad. 1 year away from being a dad for the 4th time.
I was well into — and perhaps done with — my transition from pinko liberal to social conservative.
7 years ago, I could recite volumes of Dr. Seuss by rote. 7 years ago, I could still run 2 miles in less than 16 minutes and do 50 or more push ups in 2 minutes.
7 years ago, my dad didn’t have cancer. 7 years ago I flew without waiting in lines to get my shoes checked.
7 years ago, I didn’t know how to grow tomatoes or make wild plum jelly. 7 years ago, I didn’t know Bach from Handel, nor could I distinguish a symphony from a sonata.
7 years ago, I wondered how I was supposed to explain to my kids what the President did with “that woman” in the oval office. Hat tip to Pres. Clinton and his apologists for helping me complete my transition to a social conservative.
7 years ago, I was madly in love with the mother of my children. 7 years later, I remain astonished that I not only had the good sense to propose to her 15 years ago but also the good fortune that she said yes. I must have caught her in a moment of inattention or something.
7 years ago, I had a small house, small family and small kids. 7 years ago, I didn’t own a cell phone or a personal computer. 7 years ago, I was just as happy as I am today.
And God bless you for your sobriety. Without it, none of us would have you and that would be a huge loss for us.
Home with my five children, 10 and under, probably reading Dr. Seuss for the 500th time.
Anxiously wondering about, but doing nothing to prepare for Y2K.
Remodeling the basement. We forgot to soundproof though. Someone forgot to tell me that little boys who like to play drums, grow up to be big boys that like to play with drums.
Learning to love my own husband of thirteen years, while I watch in awe as my parents celebrate 40 years of marriage.
Throw in homeschooling the kids, cooking meals, changing diapers, and maybe a few hours sleep and I think that about covers it.
Thank you, Gayle.
Special thanks to all for playing the meme. Rest easy this weekend.
I bought my first house at the age of 25, ended a bad relationship, and was probably more liberal than I am now.
Fortunately, I’m still in my right mind and that mind told me that I am definitely NOT conservative. LOL!!!
Have a great weekend!!!!!!!!!
In 1999 I dropped all teaching contracts and became a stay at home husband. My wife and I traveled around Turkey for the first time trying to get a feel for its Biblical past and to try to understand its Muslim present.
The joy of Abyssinian cats was opened to me. We now have three.
I vowed to quit editing manuscripts and have mostly succeeded.
My 738th resolution to learn how to use a computer was broken and I still treat my mac like a typewriter.
My 37 year subscription to The Washington Post was canceled.
7 years ago I was in the middle of the dot com boom as the CTO of my own company. 7 years later I’m still in awe at the electricity and excitement of those times by everyone out there. It was like the 1920’s where you see those flapper dancers right before the great depression.
7 years later… well I’ve moved about 6 times (4 times in the same area as houses I was renting were sold out from under me in California). Finally I moved back to the same house I lived in before I moved out west here in New York.
1997-2002 or so seem like a dream where I was living a different life.
Seven years ago, I was getting ready to leave my job to go back to school after 11 years, I wanted Clinton impeached, and getting ready for my 5th wedding anniversary
Seven years ago I was living in Saudi Arabia and yearning to return to MY country where private property rights were sacrosanct and where one could express one’s religion freely and where individualism was prized……..Oh and well…
Seven years ago I…
1. Was just celebrating my 11th birthday. Now I’m 18 but am still a big kid at heart.
2. Wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up (or as I put it, “dinosaur scientist”). Now I’m on the road to being an English teacher, but I still have a soft spot for the big lizards.
3. Was preparing to go through Confirmation at my Methodist church. I may have physically gone through the ceremony then, but I’ve only recently begun the spiritual relationship with God that was supposed to go along with it. Better late than never.
4. Was just starting to develop some heavy personal problems that I still deal with. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t trade these past seven years for anything in the world.
Back then in 1999:
I was a lead teacher in a toddler room.
I took a C++ programming class – wish I could have got it. I do have 2 (very early chapters in the book) programs that I designed and both received an A. That was it. By the midterm I was in way over my head.
I was living in Philadelphia Pa.
I did not like Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter.
I voted for anything democrat(except Arlen Specter).
7 years ago I was:
Being thankful for 21 years of marriage to a wonderful lady, and celebrating 20 years since our Baptisms on Valentine’s Day of 79.
Watching our first daughter as a college freshman who had been a HS valedictorian.
Celebrating 17 years of sobriety.
Enjoying 17 years of on again/off again work with prison inmates.
Celebrating 15 years of working with youth. Mostly with Boy Scouts but also 4 or 5 years at girls camp.
Wealthy, just did not have much money.
When asked “How was I doing?”, replying that I was doing better than I deserve. If asked to explain would reply . . .
1) My biggest blessing is living in a day and age when I fully expected to see our children grow up alive.
2) Acknowledging that I was lucky enough to be in the wealthiest 1/10th of one percent of the human race ever to live on the face of this planet.
3) Lucky enough to be aware of my many blessings (and trials), and being thankful for them.
Fully aware that the best years of my (our) life were yet before us.
1. Enjoying the peak of my career.
2. Enjoying as ass-kicking economy for all wage-earners and a distinct lack of war and terror attacks.
3. Having my heart broken by the wasteful partisan attack on Bill Clinton.
4.Celebrating over a decade of equal rights for gay people in Minnesota.
5.Reading mindblowing conspiracy and fringe literature while listening to freaky experimental post-punk music.
6. Wearing black.
7. Collecting evidence that Jesus Freaks lack character, principle, and strenth.
Seven years ago, I had just turned 40, had been a Christian (by adult decision) for 14 years, married for 5years, father for 2 years. I had also been a conservative since before first could vote (which was for President Reagan). I was working a sales job that I knew would run out within a year, and I had finally started taking serious steps in the arts. It was also less than a year before my Dad’s coronary and diagnosis of cancer, which would end his life in another two years. My biggest worries were about our family budget, not about spineless politicians allowing sharia in the West.
7 years ago I…
Was just ending my first week at the job I would stay at for 6 (miserable) years.
Was a student at Georgia State University, still living off of my parents.
Was just getting back home from a 4-day visit to see my then fiance (now husband) at his college in Virginia.
Was in debt up to my eyeballs.
Was putting the finishing touches on the plans for my wedding which would be in 4 months (December 1999)
Was beginning to realize that I wasn’t the “together” person that I had always thought I was.
————-
This was a neat and fun start to the weekend, La Shawn. Have a great one!
7 years ago I was less than one year at a new IT job (that last November just laid me off). I was expecting the birth of my second child, trying to figure out my financial picture, learning why not to be a lib, and changing churches.
Those were the days!
Seven years ago I was working at a family ski resort, trying to save up enough money to buy a computer. I was watching “The Screensavers” on ZDTV;
the hosts Kate and Leo were sharing all of the great things computers could do. We couldn’t have imagined then the wired world of 2006.
Seven years ago I was living and teaching overseas and meeting my future wife for the very first time.
I was working at a low-paying job that I hated, with crazy people (a depressive and a sexual harasser were among them), whom I tried hard not to hate–along with being in the AF Reserve which I loved.
I was asked to leave the low-paying job for cause in 2000 (not my fault, but I wasn’t cunning enough to document the situation) and I retired from the AF in 2003.
God has blessed me to work in the area in which I asked (prayed) for–writing–and getting well-paid for it.
Pray and have faith; it works.
Wow, I have some strange things in common with some of you!
7 years ago I had just changed jobs. I had a crush on the man who is now my husband. We worked in the same library. Like ElCee (#10) my future husband was observing me by having a coworker talk to me and find out if I was already in a relationship. I was wondering why that coworker was so interested in me! LOL
7 years ago this month I was recovering from a horrible kidney infection (like Julie #6)
7 years ago I was a major liberal. I was pretty disgusted with Clinton, though.
7 years ago I was on Prozac.
7 years ago, I was homeschooling 5 kids, now just 1.
7 years ago, we were searching for colleges for the oldest two who have since graduated from the
Honors college at ASU and the AFROTC program at MI Tech University.
7 years ago, I was still grieving my mother who had gone to heaven after needing complete care for the last 1 1/2 yrs. of her life at our home.
7 years ago, I had no idea that the internet and the wonderful blogs would be such a great tool to
stay informed.
Seven years ago? Hmmm, let’s see, that would be in 1999.
I was teaching high school and college in the evenings and attending RICO so I could formally join the Catholic Church, at the ripe old age of 38.
I have since left teaching to go into real estate. (My father passed away in 2003 after a two-year struggle with cancer, and I had to resign to help my mother run the family company.)
But I have never regretted my decision to join the Catholic Church. The faith gave me the strength to make it through some of the most difficult and depressing years of my life.
Ad majoriem dei gloriam. (To the highest glory of God.)
Seven years ago, I was getting prepared to take my daughter to pre-school (she is now 9), celebrated my 5th wedding anniversary (now going on 12 yrs), started my 2nd full year at my new IT job (now going on 10 years). Funny how time flies.
I forgot, I started studying the bible and became a baptized Christian as well in 1998.
Wasn’t 7 years ago, 1999 ?
We were all worried about Y2K, and preparing for the end of the world.
Clinton was spending all that money on computers, which should have went to defense.
It seems like the world has ended several times. Dec 31, 1999, then 9/11, then 6/6/2006, and now it’s Aug 22, or so…..the latest end-of-the-world date.
I wish people would get their dates correct.
In 1999 I was bored, working for the post office in a non-benefits position doing data entry, and still short of an English degree I should have finished about 9 years before.
Since then, I am bored, working for the post office in same job, about to fired this week I think, with English degree, but single and adrift.
No wife, no kids yet. Though, I think something grand will happen at any moment, and believe all things work together for good.
But still, not too much has changed since 1999, and I have myself to blame.
Congrats on sobriety…
Alcoholism has had a huge impact on me (indirectly)… I have seen several family members eaten up by it… including my mother (eventually killing her).
I vowed many years ago… never to touch the stuff. And I don’t smoke either.
The Bible?
I was turned off to organized religion some time ago… but I have studied the book off & on…. beginning many years ago. Read it all the way through the first time about 15 years ago.
I do believe in a higher being of course…
I may eventually find a good non-denominational church… I like organizations with a reputation for their works….
Too many corporate mega churches and not enough churches actually doing serious work on the ground. (one of the reasons that I don’t bother with church…most are a waste of time).
I was working at the same computer operator job I have now, depending on mass transit while still paying off the college loans.
It’s up to you if you publish this, Miss Barber. It will not matter to me; this is more of a personal note to you. I read your blog from time to time, and as a result have become aware of your love and righteous stand for Christ. I always thought that was pretty gutsy & cool. And I have noticed that who you are in this and the things you write and the way you write, has built respect among the honorable bloggers.
But just now I read this post about 7 years ago. I go to the part about reading the Bible cover to cover and being welcomed into the Body of Christ.
It brought tears to my eyes. Even now, 5 minutes later, just writing this I tear up. These are tears of joy. Alleluia, my sister in Christ, alleluia. I don’t know why i get like this–being a guy, it kinda is dumb. But I cry when i see someone a) lay down their life for another in the name of Christ; b) show how much they love Him by their actions; and probably some other times too.
Just mentioning the Body of Christ here showed your love for Him, La Shawn. For some reason, just those two statements about the Word and the Body let me see how much you love Jesus. You stay on that narrow way, girl. He’s gonna honor you, you wait and see, more than you could ask or imagine.
Just wanted to tell you, semper fi!
Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m not sure what was the greater miracle, being delivered from the power of an abused substance, or being delivered from the power of a Democrat way of thinking…
: )
I just had a similar discussion last week: what is easier for the Lord (if there could be such a thing), changing someone’s heart, or healing them physically?
takes a lot of humility to let Him change your heart, ’specially the older we get…
I hope you become a regular reader, Jeff.
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