Sorry for the silence. I haven't been able to do much blogging this week.

It's just been one of those weeks. A preaching week (whenever I preach on Sunday, my work week is inevitably more stressful). The week before an out-of-town trip (which is also an automatic stressor). And, on top of it all, this is the week that we're celebrating the fifth anniversary of our church community here in Amsterdam.

The fifth anniversary thing would normally be prime fodder for blogging -- all kinds of opportunities for sappy sentimentalism and introspective nostalgia -- but instead, I'm being kept busy with practicalities, more than anything. In just about every free moment throughout the last week, I've been exercising some old, atrophied video-production muscle: putting together a slideshow representing the photographic history of Zolder50 (which, by the way, I hope to be able to post here on-line before the end of the weekend). I've also been helping to plan and organize some of the activities for the weekend, as well as taking special time to hang out with some of the out-of-town "alumni" who have come to celebrate with us. It's all good stuff, of course, but it is extra stuff. And added with all of the other stuff from a preaching week and a preparation-for-an-out-of-town-trip week... well, it's just made it one of those weeks.

As icing on the cake, we found out late this afternoon that our application for Elliot's leave-of-absence from school at the end of the year has been denied. Rejected. We jumped through all the hoops they asked us to jump through (flaming hoops, suspended 3.5 meters up in the air). But in the end, we were still rejected. It stings. But we're going to enter the appeal process and maybe seek some legal consultation on how to deal with the fact that the six weeks of the appeal process (following the six weeks of the application process) will push us right into our travel dates.

< sigh >

It's just been one of those weeks.