Normally, shrink wrap is one of my pet peeves.  I hate it.  You get a new CD or DVD, and there’s this annoying and wasteful plastic barrier preventing you from getting the disc out of the case!  On bigger items, it’s even sillier and seems even more wasteful.  Sure, it gives you that “new and sealed” feeling, but for all that waste and inconvenience, it’s not worth it.

Anyway, one *good* use for shrink wrap is preventing drafts.  Last winter, we tried sealing up our drafty AC unit with pillow cases and duct tape.  You can see it in the corner of this picture as well as my brother-in-law Steve putting in our new windows:

This method was still kind of drafty.  This evening we wrapped it up, and it has to be ten times less drafty than last year.  It’s a good thing too - the AC is right next to the heater, and it negates a lot of the expensive heat when it’s spewing cold into the room.

It’s 19 degrees Fahrenheit out right now, but we’re warm and cozy with the new windows and shrink-wrapped AC!

This is the 400th post since our Wordpress blog started!  I know we’re not prolific bloggers, but we’ve been doing it a long time I guess.  We have older blogs from previous versions of our site that you can see here.  It has posts since 2003.  I’ve been keeping a personal website since 1999 back when geocities was popular. You can see many previous versions of our site here.

Jill and I start karate again tonight after a long absence.  There’s a place down the road that is very cheap and very close to us.  The style is Kenpo, although with a different teaching style than our other school.

We’ve been looking for something physical to do for a while.  In the past year we’ve signed up for recreational volleyball and indoor soccer, and loved both.  But the sign-ups for the next season aren’t happening for a while, and we both feel like we need to get some exercise.

I have also been doing a nightly exercise regimen before bed for about a year now.  20 pushups, 20 situps, and 5-10 pullups.  It’s not a lot, and it’s not aerobic, but it’s regular - I’ve only missed about five days since I started last November.  I figure that’s 7,200 pushups/situps and 1,800 pullups that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.  Jill swears she can tell the difference in how I look (and likes it), but I’m not sure.  Sometimes I think I can, and sometimes it doesn’t seem very noticeable.

I’ve been very busy the past two days.  On Friday, I started my new job substitute teaching at the middle school in Acton.  I taught seventh grade math and it wasn’t that bad!  The kids all listened to me, and a few even thought I was geeky enough to deserve the epithet “cool” (because I knew Weird Al songs).

Then right after school I went to the Devens Community Center to help set up for the Young Life banquet.  I volunteered to run sound this year and play guitar.  It took a few hours to get everything there and set up the huge PA system and all the wires and such.

Then on Saturday after my lessons we had to go early to set up the rest of the stuff for the banquet.  Eric Wilder of Trinity church helped me a lot and let me use his MacBook, which was WAY better than the PC I would have had to use otherwise.  He helped me set up parts of the sound too.

The banquet was great - we saw people we hadn’t seen in years.  Jill gave a short speech and we both sang a song in front of 200 people with Katie Enlow.  Jill and I were there from about 3-10, and I have been sick the past couple days, so we were exhausted by the time we got home.  Fortunately today was the Sabbath - a day to just relax and enjoy.

PS I’m going through our pictures and restructuring how it looks.  We weren’t updating frequently enough to warrant so many albums, so hopefully the simplified structure will be easier to update and navigate.

I’ve been collaborating with Katie Enlow a bit musically!  Katie is famous in the “mash up” scene for her singing, and she recently moved back to Boston after living in Chicago for years.  Jill and I know her from high school and Young Life back in the day.  These days, she’s on the YL committee with Jill and I and was looking for an outlet for her great vocal abilities.

I’ve been able to create a couple of songs to her melodies.  I like being creative in this respect, since I come up with chord progressions all the time, but can’t seem to write lyrics or sing them very well. We’re a good fit musically!  Here’s our latest:

Crush by Katie Enlow and Ben Holt

Today at my Mom’s house my nephew Matthew was showing off his newly earned bag of M&M’s that he scored. Only moments later, though, I saw him in the dining room walking around the table placing 2 M&M’s at each place setting. He explained that he was giving 2 to everyone at lunch today. I complemented him and told him what a good role model he is. I told him that adults have trouble sharing things that they love, or things that God has given them, with others. He’s very inspiring! Just imagine what wisdom he will have in 2 weeks when he turns 7!

In relation, Ben and I have each been reading this book, Money, Posessions, and Eternity. It is a fantastic book that causes one to look at their possessions, generosity, and motives around money. It is really making me think.