7 Quick Takes Friday

Your weekly update from the Kennedy household...
**1**
I finally finished up our 2009 photo album, uploading all our year's worth of digital pictures to shutterfly.com in order to create a photo album to have printed for us. I did it last year as well and for our wedding album and they turn out beautifully, so I'm excited for this to arrive! 100 pages chronicling our first year of marriage...

**2**
If you have seen the news this week you know that southern california has been hit hard by some impressive storms. I haven't seen anything like this since 95 when our whole town seemed to flood! The rain and wind have been so strong we even lost the life of our neighborhood squirrel. He didn't make it through the storm. Our part of town hasn't been dealing with flooding although there are a few trees down in the neighborhood, but other parts of the city are a mess. I still think it's a nice change from the monotonous 70 degree weather though :)

**3**
I think the weather is making me really tired and unmotivated though. That would be the one downside. I've been wanting to do nothing but curl up under a blanket with a book this week (which makes sense since it's down-pouring outside). So it hasn't been the most productive week ever.

**4**
Plane tickets have been purchased! I get to hold Lily again on February 11th! She's being baptized on Valentines Day so I'm heading back to Providence for a long weekend with the family. Charles will be attending Dave and Tera's wedding here in town that weekend--we're both sad we can't be at both events but this was one of those weekends where we had to decide to divide and conquer!

**5**
We watched an unbelievable movie last night at the recommendation of my cousin Jeff. He mentioned it this summer when we were in Seattle and we finally got around to seeing it. The Power of One came out in 1992 and is a story about apartheid in South Africa, and the power of one white college student who was determined to take steps to see it end. It was an incredibly powerful story that both of us loved. When I see movies such as this, about racism, the Civil Rights movement etc, I'm always struck by a strong sense of the injustice that was at work (which is probably appropriate, the way blacks were treated by whites for centuries has been nothing but unjust). However last night I was struck powerfully with a new response. The whole time I was watching I felt a deep sense of shame at the color of my skin. I wished I wasn't white in that moment. I felt so ashamed of the history of oppression that has been brought upon countless countries and societies by white Europeans throughout the centuries and I wanted nothing to do with it. It was an interesting experience that I'm still processing, but one I think we need to have ever now and then in order to keep the cycles of oppression from returning (not that they have ever gone away, but that's another blog post for another time....)

**6**
Tonight we're going to dinner and to see The Blind Side (finally!) to celebrate our 10th monthiversary (which was yesterday). It's been a couple weeks since we've gone on a date and I'm ready! (And I'll be able to cross off two movies off my 28 movies to watch this year list after this weekend!)

**7**
For those who were wondering if I was still a fan of my new Kindle now that I've done some reading on it, the answer is YES! I love it! I have read all of Dan Brown's new book and am almost done with the third Twilight book and I really am enjoying the convenience of it. I think I read faster on it too, I'm not sure how that's possible but I seem to be getting through books faster these days. My Kindle also has a new name. Her name is Rory thanks to Jenn :) Rory is my favorite Gilmore Girls character who loves reading, so it seemed like an appropriate name :)

Happy weekend everyone!