Howdy,

Okay, wow. 

(A wow first written WOW, but I decided it was most likely WOW to me and only wow to you, thus the compromise of wow.)

I feel like my head is spinning. Like honest loops. Unsettled, as if off a constantly rocking boat or left with the tone-deafening throb found in rock concert residue.

Mine’s not from motion or sound but time.

I just blasted through a decade and a half of dusty memories organized and hidden in file boxes. In stacks. With my younger brother Chris pushing us hard to unburden my parents of the tubs, filing cabinet drawers, and white cardboard-lidded boxes from their space and property, we blitzed it: in quick attack — years later. (Thanks, Chris.)

With his own lingering stuff, younger brother Casey led fearlessly to the 55 gallon discard can, inspiring with words of “everything’s digitalized nowadays anyway” and “Google, baby!”

For me, I say a decade and a half because I’m the oldest Hawes brother and a majority of the papers was college stuff: college and university, undergrad and graduate. Notes and papers pre-dating my first laptop — some even typed on a … typewriter.

Continue reading

Howdy,

The season of Christmas brings a lot of great greeting cards (and some not so strong — Believe! In what exactly? Yourself? Santa Claus? Christmas magic?)

Yesterday I saw one of my favorites. It was simple and stated. Something to believe in.

An on-point Christmas card. SIMPLY JESUS.

—Billy

Reading. Writing. Living.

Please subscribe to mailing list for the Reading Writing Living journey we’re on and get my newsletter goods. Thank you.

Howdy,

I am going to have some fun Christmas stuff to share, but today I feel too stuffed. Fuller than a sagging Santa stocking.

Seriously, I think I gained five pounds on Christmas Day and we’ve now got a few days of hanging out with the other side of the family with a whole new fabulous menu and sneaky set of side sweets.

Continue reading

Howdy,

Three days I don’t write: Christmas, the date Sarah and I celebrate our November 3^rd wedding anniversary, and my birthday.

When this is in place, I’ll get my words.

Merry Christmas!

—Billy

Reading. Writing. Living.

Please subscribe to mailing list for the Reading Writing Living journey we’re on and get my newsletter goods. Thank you.

“Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9).

Howdy,

We’re so close now. I pray tomorrow’s a very merry Christmas for you.

A Hawes family Christmas letter:

“Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9).

Just this month, Jasper, Titus, and I (Billy) enjoyed greeting Turlock with calls of “Merry Christmas” from our parade float, and now from our whole family to you and yours, Merry Christmas! May Christ’s light exalt this wonderful season.

Sarah and I are speeding into our tenth year of marriage, with three children buckled in along. (Like carseats and boosters and 5-point harnesses and click-ins, seriously, just getting in the car is an adventure.)

Jasper William, 6, completed his first semester of kindergarten. Wonderfully, he’s braving foreign language learning, doing well in a Spanish-English Dual Immersion program. Jasper loves to run fast, swim deep, write notes, read books, hide-seek, and ask his friends if they believe in God.

Titus Shalom, 2, and turning 3 in January, got his first seconds of stage time singing Christmas-special songs at Community Bible Study. He also enjoys going to AWANA Puggles. Ti loves to jump high, splash big, giggle loud, and drive fast on Epa’s motorcycle.

And, Riah Surf, 6 months, is looking forward to his first Christmas and his next snack. Riah, meaning the LORD remembers, was born on a summer Sunday afternoon with the midwife and nurse singing along to “I’m no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God,” something we continue to pray over him.

A remarkable blessing for our family, Sarah’s fall teaching schedule consisted of a reduced load. I’ve enjoyed watching her cherish Riah’s early days, now months.

For me, I’ve been on attempt to up my writing production and committed on my blog to writing 200,000 words this year about Reading Writing Living (billyhawes.com). Also working on book number two … when I’m not strapping kids into the family car.

Thank you for your love and friendship.

God has been good, and we’ve enjoyed 2016.

We Hawes 5 wish you and your family a Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! ¡Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo!

—Billy

Reading. Writing. Living.

Please subscribe to mailing list for the Reading Writing Living journey we’re on and get my newsletter goods. Thank you.

Howdy,

Over breakfast yesterday morning my wife Sarah held an Advent devotional with the boys, which they really take to, because Jasper and Titus both soak in stories of any kind and always take to the attention they get while being recipients of a read aloud.

For a youngster Jasper is quite spiritually aware, a neat thing to see, to say the least. “Neat”? — THE BEST! An ultimate blessing. His insights are worth catching.

Jasper’s also full of active questions, and Ti is full of active. And questions, too! (We’ll talk more about Jasper here in the following, but you can be sure Ti’s tap dancing in the background.)

They also snap up that attention in a twist that’s something less pleasant for parents or good for themselves.

Such lively engagement from the boys is, then, a double-edged sword. Of course it’s so good to see their interested engagement — their mother is a college professor of reading, after all, and such wrestling and excitement with text is a special thing she works for in the classroom with students — but with our boys it can crumble into over-the-top interruption, too many storytellers in the kitchen (not a mixed metaphor! It’s over breakfast, remember), halting a story or lesson like bay area bumper-to-bumper.

Taking a crack at helping bring back the romanticized, nostalgized, calm of children’s devotions, I asked Jasper to be “curious but not impatient.” Asking him to not be ahead of the story or the sharing or to guess what’s next if not trying to tell what’s next. Not to beat a two-year-old brother to the punch.

To Listen. Look. Learn.

To Wait. See.

Continue reading

Howdy,

Oh, man, Christmas is getting close. I can feel it.

I’m actually getting excited just typing this. Sheepishly so, but still. And I’m going to let it fly. (I’ve posted before about a gift Sarah and I are itching to give to the boys, and now, since it’s stored at their Mariposa home, I think my parents seem about as excited as we are to see the boys open and use it.)

I’m also just kind of pumped because we’ve got lots of fun to come and it kicks of today and into a nonstop stream of holiday: a birthday celebration this evening, fudge making & cinder drinking, our Hawes Fam5 gifts and sleeping under the living room Christmas tree tomorrow (before things really rev up on the Eve, the Day, and the week following for more time visiting family), the privilege to host local refugee families on a tour of the lights and seasonal creativity charming Christmas Tree Lane, holiday feasts, church services, and good ol’ diving into the wrapped presents under the tree, ahem, to Santa Claus to the kids of course. Ho Ho Ho!

Ho Ho— oh, is that for me?

Continue reading

Howdy,

You know, it’s hard to do things you haven’t done before. Certainly harder than after you’ve struggled through it on your own a time or two.

Today I sent out my first MailChimp email “campaign.”

It didn’t go out to thousands, but it went out to people I appreciate thousands. And there’s others I’d like to send future communications via fancy-pants MailChimp. (At least it feels fancy-pants at first.)

Never having done it — whatever “it” is for us — before, I’m finding, tends to make me drag my feet. I want first tries to be polished, perfect, professional. I want to mirror the projection of the pros. It’s more that I have to work the process of the pros: but you don’t always get to see far enough back into their struggles. (Again, welcome along the journey!)

Continue reading

Howdy,

From time to time Sarah or I will say to each other, “We should write a book called ‘ … (fill in the blank)’”

Today Sarah texted me this one: “Oh & here’s our next book title/idea: ‘Parent, & if necessary use words’.”

I said sure.

Of course writing a good parenting book while you’re parenting seems about as doable as writing a grounded dating guide while you’re dating, though.

So then I said, “Not using words while parenting sounds like writing without words.”

Certainly it won’t help my word count for the year, but I thought I’d give it a trial here, so

Continue reading