Surprise!
The Jenn Stories are back, and I hope you are, too!
I almost always miss notable astronomical events for one or more of three reasons: I like sleep too much, there’s too much cloud cover, or we live in a sort of dell surrounded by trees—which is beautiful but not optimal for watching the sky. All that to say, I was pleasantly surprised that last night’s supermoon (no, not superman, autocorrect) was still fully visible when I took the dog out early this morning. It glowed brighter than I remember ever seeing, its facial features beautiful and distinct.
And now I know why it’s a good idea to read directions, because I have an excellent multi-setting’d digital camera which should have been able to capture the moon excellently. Alas, a camera is only as good as its user, I guess, and this user does not read directions or have a clue how to use all the features, and so this is the best photo I could manage.
Then I came inside and sat down in my daily coffee-and-Jesus chair. (With my coffee, and Jesus.) Because the weather is positively lovely right now, the window was open, and so I got to hear the cardinal who lives in the tree on that side of the house wake up before he initiated the bird chorus for the morning. It’s been a lovely day already.
I hope it’s a lovely day for you, too—and that this note brings an added smile to it.
If you are, nevertheless, surprised to see it grinning at you from your inbox, it probably means that you didn’t receive my welcome email when you got here, which probably means you didn’t know you got here, which probably means you are one of the dear subscribers to my long-dormant That’s a Jenn Story blog, who I took the liberty of importing here last night…because I’m writing again! (Note: if you are the person who designed the banner on this email, please jot me a note because I am embarrassed to say I forgot your name and I would still love to credit you. Plus I’d love to see what you’re up to at this point.) (Additional note: if you knew full well you were subscribed to my newsletters in Substack, extra thanks for your on-purpose subscription! And please bear with me for what follows, which you probably already know most of.)
If we haven't stayed in touch over the intervening years, I hope this new space will rectify that and that you’ll stick around because (even though I haven’t done a great job of demonstrating this) I’ve missed you and our interactions. We can have them much more easily over here. Also, a lot of stuff has happened since we last spoke. Here are some of the things:
My Paul and I are still happily married and are approaching our 12th anniversary in 2024. We now live in the house I resided in before we got married, which my parents sold to us about five years back. It fits us better but we sure miss the pond.
Oscar, Shemp, and Rosie are all waiting for us in another dimension, and we miss them deeply, but Chunk the dachshund/lab mix does a great job of holding down the fort now and is a delightful travel buddy. His second-favorite thing is Sunday drives with us when we get home from church. His favorite thing is his blue and orange ball.
The Pilgrimage is 8 years old and I would be over-the-supermoon if you wanted to participate in any of it ever.
I’m now the part-time, but sole, pastor of a tiny historic church in Central Massachusetts. I am terrible about updating our website, but our Facebook page is pretty active—probably because other people usually update it. Our tech is glitchy but my sermons post in various places around the internet and possibly here, too, one of these days.
I ended up publishing Favored One myself, and am now trying to discern the best way to get a new, narrative non-fiction/spiritual formation book into the world. It’s about Simon Peter, Jesus, and—you. Working title: Follower: How Getting Close to Jesus Brings You to Yourself…but I not married to it, and will happily change it if some agent or publisher wants me to.
As before, I think about and write about a lot of different things, but Substack has the advantage of allowing you to manage which content of any subscription you receive, so if you’re choosy, manage away!
Meanwhile, I’m grateful you’re here and can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to!
Travel well,
Jenn 🐪
Your approach to photography sounds similar to mine.
I didn't even go try to look at the moon, let alone take a photo. HA! and whoops.