rather big news

I have a nephew! He wasn't even on our radar screen until March, so we were all surprised when my sister's water broke yesterday morning and out popped Colin Thomas Dettmer, all 6 pounds, 5 ounces of him. He's in the NICU right now, mostly as a precautionary measure to make sure his lungs are fully developed and everything's in working order, but everyone assures me he's going to be fine. His mom is doing fine too, although she was still in a significant amount of pain when I talked to her, and she was really sad that she couldn't hold and feed her son. I have to wait until Monday to see him, because I have conferences and board meetings all week. It's still kind of hard to believe it already happened - the shower wasn't even planned until next week! Anyway, I'm feeling rather giddy and I'm awfully proud of my baby sister. :-)

I'm kind of proud of me, too. The master's thesis I wrote going on 5 years ago somehow refuses to die. My thesis advisor has been using it in some of his Greek classes at seminary, including a PhD seminar that he's teaching right now, and he pulled me aside today and said "Let's publish this thing! They love it!" It turns out he has an actual publisher in mind, and he thinks my little book would be a good companion to a set of commentaries that he is publishing soon. And he's even asked his class to give me written feedback, chapter by chapter, so that I can revise the work before I publish it. (Publish - whoa.) And then he took me to his class, which was in session, and introduced me, and they clapped. It was surreal. This is fun.