Ignite Portland is an evening of unusual public speaking. Over the course of two hours we heard 20 individuals speak for five minutes each on a topic of their choosing, in front of a backdrop of 15 slides. The topics/speakers ranged from a woman sharing about traveling with her cats to a guy who is a volunteer editor for Wikipedia to a young man highlighting how to effectively be unemployed. Some of the talks were more serious than others, but they all were comical in their own way. This event takes place about every six months at the Baghdad Theater in SE Portland. An interesting and fun evening (and FREE) worth checking out!

The following evening we headed out of town again for the Half the Sky movie. A bit more solemn than Ignite Portland, this presentation purposed to continue building awareness and activism in the area of international women’s rights and it lined up with the celebration of International Women’s Day. If you haven’t seen or heard of or read the book Half the Sky I hope you seek it out. The title of the book is based on a Chinese proverb stating “Women hold up half the sky” and the book makes an argument that the world’s most under-used resource is women. Cultures accepting and sometimes even promoting and condoning oppression and violence against women around the world stifle the advancement of the world as a whole socially, politically, and economically.

The book quickly became one of my favorites when I was hardly halfway through the text. I came back from our travels overwhelmed with thankfulness that I am a woman of a Western country. As a result, my heart developed a new compassion for women who has no basic rights or opportunity for self advancement. And I love that the statistics of this effort show an impact not only how women feel about themselves and the opportunity they have for economic growth, but even more serious things like the conviction of sex traffickers, the lowered rates of extremism and acts of war, the healthy delivery of new babies and the subsequent care of those children, the decreased spread of HIV/AIDS, and so much more.

Our weekend continues with George Fox University women’s basketball games, a birthday party, cheese-making, and who knows what else. Thanks to the “F”s who make the “FT” fun!

John also has an additional interest in the Olympics as his group at Nike does most of the outfitting for the athletes and teams who wear Nike gear. Most times you see a Swoosh on a speed skating suit or warm-up pants or hat or down jacket, that has come from someone he works with in GPS. Some of the garments are custom fit for the individual and some are your run-of-the-mill S/M/L type of pieces. Needless to say, the GPS group has reason to celebrate all the work they have done when their work for an event like the Olympics is accomplished. This time around, John helped organize a 2010 Winter Olympics party complete with indoor biathlon and Nintendo Wii skiing. John also took on the task of rallying the “athletes” in an opening ceremony of sorts. (See photos below for explanation.)

We have been itching to share the news with everyone, but it takes longer to get a business off the ground than one might think. We have received fabulous advice from a group of extremely talented area photographers who have been gracious with their knowledge and we continue to take notes from them.

Our interest in photography developed separate from one another in high school–John was one of the staff photographers for the school newspaper’s sport section and Erin got hooked while taking a darkroom photography class. Fast-forward to today… this venture has been an incredible creative outlet for both of us. It has also given us the opportunity to work together–something we were hoping for when we returned from traveling this summer. It’s been a blast so far and we are excited to share the official news with you!

Check out photomacy.com/blog for the kick-off post and follow that up by taking a look at our portfolio at photomacy.com. We have eight months of blogging to catch up on and will be putting those up a few times a week so be sure to check the blog! Share the news with others too!

PS – We still plan to keep this blog for our non-Photo Macy posting =)

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I (Erin) have had a distinct desire, ever since childhood, to be different and to stand outfrom others. It is a theme that has run through my life. In middle school I proudly wore a pair of socks with the Fido Dido character on them and the statement, “Normal is Boring” and I think that mantra stuck. My fate was pretty much sealed and that life goal was punctuated with an exclamation point when I married John Macy–a man who keeps me running from normal at a brisk pace.

I have been contemplating what normal looks like for us and it has occurred to me that this is the first week since the week of Christmas that is “normal.” Christmas week brought us, well, Christmas, and a few days off of work. The post-Christmas week brought us stomach bugs and then more days off for the New Year celebration. The first full week of January I started a Mandarin class at PCC and my parents drove into town. Mom & Dad were here the next week making it a little out of the norm and we all headed out for a weekend in Texas which spilled into the following week. John and I spent that week recovering from a 13 hour flight delay and a subsequent head cold for John. Over the next weekend I left for a week of work in Seattle and returned this past Thursday night with a head cold putting me into a few days of resting.

February 1 marked the beginning of a normal week–we’re both healthy, we have the regular weekly stuff on the calendar and most likely it’ll last a week. As much as we try to avoid normal, it’s a relief to have a quiet and fairly un-scheduled week. As normal as we are, the instinct to fight against the flow still runs strong in us both and it’s fun to see the ways it manifests itself in our lives in big ways and small ways.

The weekend has been full of fun–a Hatch family gathering, reuniting us at the temporary home of Erin’s sister and her family, in Del Rio, a border-town in southwest Texas. It’s been good to be together. We have enjoyed catching up; playing games (freeze tag, golf, boom-chicka-boom, Chutes-n-Ladders); playing with Katie & CJ’s Chespeake Retriever, Boone; competing in Wii tourmaments; cruising and wakeboarding in the Amistad Reservoir; meeting and bbq-ing with Katie & CJ’s friends; and laughing a lot.

1. Graduated from George Fox University 2000
2. Erin finished Master’s Degree from Ithaca College 2001
3. Erin worked at Indiana State University in 1 year internship 2001-2002
4. John started working at Nike 2001
5. Erin took job at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX 2002
6. Started dating  2002
7. Erin moved to Oregon and took job at Portland Community College 2003
8. John gets new job with Nike GPS 2003
9. Started the weekly tradition of “Family Night” 2004
10. Got engaged and then married 2004
11. Bought a house 2004
12. Erin took a job at George Fox University 2005
13. Grandpa Roy passed away 2005
14. Erin started working on a book with colleagues from grad school 2005
15. John ran the Honolulu Marathon 2005
16. Grandpa Williams passed away 2006
17. Traveled to Costa Rica 2007
18. Decided to travel around the world 2007
19. Erin continued writing the book 2008
20. Quit our jobs and left the country 2008
21. Erin published “Golfing With Your Eyes Closed” 2009
22. Returned home from travel 2009
23. Blessed with jobs at George Fox University (Erin) and Nike (John) 2009
24. Started a business (more on this soon!)

Of course there’s tons of other things that fall in the gaps of each of these big items and should make the list, namely our families who have given us uber cool spouses, awesome nieces and nephews, and so many memories (Lins, John W., CJ, Dusty, Bailey, Marissa, Cassidy, Kylan, Addison, Paul) AND the amazing friends who have journeyed with us in that time–both those we still see regularly and those who we were with only for a season.

There are really so many more important and significant life events that have happened over the past 10 years. These have been years that have formed who will be forevermore–these are years that have truly shaped our beliefs, our friendships, our worldview, our traditions, our family habits, our relationship with each other, our passions, our careers, our lifestyle, and our goals and vision for our future. Pretty cool, hey?

The celebrating continued with New Year’s Eve–another tradition that was seen through fresh eyes. We hosted friends for a fun evening which included ping-pong, BINGO, a white elephant exchange, clanging and banging pots and pans, a midnight run, and a table full of delicious food and drinks. Again, it was good to be together.

It’s been great to have a new perspective on the usual things of the holidays and we hope to find ways to see this season with fresh eyes each year.

It ain't a party until someone's wearing a lampshade, right?

The guys gather around to find out where the child stars are today from Pete's People magazine

Midnight run... short shorts, gold leggings, and rain... great combo

]]> http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2010/01/fresh-eyes/feed/ 1 http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2009/12/playing-out/ http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2009/12/playing-out/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:32:22 +0000 erin http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/?p=2402 After more than five years of dormancy, John “played out” last weekend at the Coffee Cottage in Newberg, Oregon. Invited by friend, skating buddy, and fellow photographer and musician, Joel Bock, John joined in with Joel and Adam Sweeney on a Sunday evening show that packed the shop out. It was great fun for me (Erin) to be an audience member for the first time as the wife and not just a friend. John is always writing new music and refining previous things he’s created and he was ready for the chance to let others hear what he’s been up to. His set list included a few songs from his Blame It On John days as well as his recent stuff. Some of the really new stuff I particularly love because they remind me of specific places in our year of travel where he wrote the song. I love the connection that music can have with memories…like a soundtrack for parts of life.

It was a fun line-up and the audience seemed to really enjoy each musician and their different styles. Thanks to friends and family who came out and showed your love and support! I am looking forward to the next show!

...Joel on guitar with a great trumpeter accompanying...

...supportive friends and family...

...fun with lights and Adam...

]]> http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2009/12/playing-out/feed/ 2 http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2009/12/kickin-off-christmas/ http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/2009/12/kickin-off-christmas/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:43:19 +0000 erin http://www.johnanderinmacy.com/?p=2382 Although the tree has been up for a couple of weeks and the house has been decorated and we have already watched Christmas Vacation–all sure signs of Christmas–we took the Christmas celebration to the next level the past few days. Beginning Friday night with a sing-a-long to White Christmas; carrying into Saturday with a family holiday breakfast at The Allison, seeing 300 tuba-ists play carols in Pioneer Courthouse Square, checking out the chocolate/marzipan/gingerbread building at The Benson and the memorabilia of the old Meier & Frank Santaland; and wrapping up with a beautiful service at Newberg Friends Church Sunday night.