New Hobbies and Friends

As I reflect on the past few years, another way I now sense that changes are afoot is how/where I spend my time.  For a number of months, I have taken great joy in learning about wine, wine varietals, the countries where wine is produced, best value wines, etc.  My learning curve was steep but I sure enjoyed the ride.  Now that I have a basic understanding of wine, I am spending far less time on this hobby having settled on what we like and the locations where we can find the best wine for the best value.  

While I am spending less time on hobbies such as wine and book collecting, I am spending more time on a relatively new awareness that, with the end to our chapter on "raising kids" fast approaching, I now realize that I/we have relatively few peer friends to show for the past 20 years.  I know that our story is not unique and that "friends" often take a back seat to "family" in the child-raising years.  But as our kids are now older and leaving the home, I have a yearning for a community of friends that I did not feelin the hectic and whirlwind days of raising our kids.   As I truly believe that God puts "desires" in our heart, I will be most interested to see how he intends to meet our community and friendship desire in the days ahead.

Comments

[Wes Roberts]

Hey...Jim!

...at the Whole Foods wind shop on Hampden, east of I-25, found a great Shiraz for well under $10...called Tracker's Crossing...also with the WF 365 label

...we went to an event on Friday evening of fairly discerning, artsy-types, took a bottle of Trackers, and it was the first one emptied

...that is a good wine shop, in case you have not cased it yet

...enjoy!

[Kyle]

An interesting idea Jim. Something I am far away from but can already tell may come some day. Thanks for depressing me.

On a related note, I look forward to our friendship continuing, deepening and morphing over the years. We should get together soon.

[Kurt Vandeursen]

Hi Jim- Mara and My story roughly parallels yours...Molly is in grad school in St Louis,Michael is a junior at Eastern Illinois University, and Tim is a junior in high school(but between school, work, and band gigs is never home) One of our favorite pastimes is sitting on the porch in the evening and sharing a bottle of wine with friends...or just with each other. we too have lamented that the hectic whirlwind of childrearing is nearly done, and the changes in lifestyle can be pretty exciting....Does Adam still attend Wheaton? If so, on your next visit this way, you and Linda really need to spend an evening on our porch...in the woods...with some wine...Hope to reunite with you soon- Kurt