The thoughts, opinions and experiences of John Andrew Ledwith • jaledwith.com
A couple weeks ago my now-former roommate Joe got married. Like most couples Joe and his bride Mandi had wedding pictures taken on the big day, and like most twenty-first century couples those photos hit Facebook not long after. My friend Scott and I have been having a lot of fun with one of those pictures. Here’s the original shot, taken by Krista Stone, depicting Joe jumping for joy.
It’s hard to believe, but it was five years ago today that I first began blogging. As a way of celebrating my longevity in the blogosphere I’m going to highlight some of my better posts over the years. You may think this a rather self-indulgent post, but the fact is, unless prompted, most people will not take a look at a blog’s old posts. Regardless, it’s without question a very long post, so you may want to scan the subheadings for a topic you’re particularly interested in. I’ll start by giving you a history of why I began blogging in the first place and move on from there. At the end I’ll select my five favorite posts from the past five years.
On the first Sunday of May two of my good friends, Kyle Kozloski and Nicki Nedelisky, got married in Ocala, Florida. Now, I know that I’ve been to a lot of weddings in the past eighteen months, but this one was special. No, I wasn’t in it, but I felt as much apart of this wedding as any other, including the ones in which I’ve had a role.
You see, this past year Kyle was one of my two roommates and Nicki one of my three next-door neighbors. On top off all that, all of us were campus ministers with The Navigators. When we all moved in to the respective sides of our hole-in-the-wall duplex in August ‘07 Kyle and Nicki weren’t even dating, much less thinking of marriage. In short, I got to witness these chapters of their love story unfold from a very unique angle. Before I become too far removed from it, I’d like to try to tell some of that story.
Leading Off – It’s been a very busy two and a half weeks, filled with travel, family, a wedding, getting sick, a broken air conditioning unit, Rez Week and one wicked party. Where to begin?
Presenting Mr. & Mrs. Jeremy Howard – The Thursday before St Patrick’s Day I traveled from Florida to Nashville for my cousin Beka’s wedding. I had been eagerly looking forward to this trip for weeks. My wanderlust peaked when all the students left to go on spring break. I really needed a vacation.
Incidentally I was traveling on my sister’s birthday. It was the first time I got to see Alison on her birthday since she turned fourteen back in 2002. It’s weird to think about things like that, measuring time based on milestones missed. Since I arrived at around 9 PM central time I didn’t spend too much time with her on her actual birthday, but I did get to give her a gift in person. Strangely, she also gave me a gift. You’d think after nineteen birthdays she would have figured out how the process works.
