Me & my teacher pals at the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian's photographer posted this pic on their Flickr account, so I grabbed it to use here. This is the group of teachers who participated in the Clarice Smith American Art Education Initiative this summer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. That's me standing (yes, I'm standing) on the back row, third from the right.

What an awesome and wonderful experience that was. I don't want it to be the last; I'm scouring the Smithsonian web sites frequently to see what they're offering in the way of continuing ed for teachers. I mean, why not? Might as well do cool stuff, since I have to do continuing ed anyway. Wasting time on stuff I personally don't need like Classroom Discipline -- not anymore, dude. I'm going for the big stuff. Life's too short.

It's official

This morning I stepped onto the scales and I have now officially lost one hundred pounds since last summer.

Yay!

Yes, I do feel completely different. Going from shopping in the large-size department to having to hunt for the smallest sizes on the rack is quite surreal, to be honest. I now comfortably wear a size 4 petite; last summer I was in a size 18. Some brands don't go that small. I've never in my adult life worn that size, and if you'd've told me last summer that I would, I'd have never believed you.

I'm not dieting, and I never will -- it doesn't work well for me. I like food that tastes good. My system has certainly settled down since I quit consuming all corn and potato products, so I will continue that regimen. This has resulted in fewer sweets, since so many processed sweets contain corn syrup or cornstarch -- but interestingly, I seem to have gradually lost the craving for sweets that I once had. I also *feel* better, which means I get more exercise just in general than I ever did. My knees, unfortunately, are as arthritic as they ever were, but maybe I was able to put off the total knee replacement surgery for a few more years now that I took a load off them.

I know that some people think that the way I took was the easy way. Well, it wasn't easy. But just for the sake of argument, let's just say it was easy -- if there is an "easy" way, why is it bad to take it? Twelve years ago I sought out the only answer I had left to myself to get healthy, and for a while it worked. It worked well enough even to allow me to conceive my son, who's now ten years old. Then it didn't work so well; it was an inferior procedure with inherent flaws, and it was only a matter of time before it caused me all kinds of internal scarring and swelling and problems. But at the time, it was what worked for me.

And then last summer, Dr. Stewart performed a biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch on me -- basically, I explain to people who ask, he rebuilt my innards. I didn't go to him with the desire to lose weight... that didn't matter so much to me anymore. I just wanted to stop throwing up all the time, and I did NOT want to gain even more weight. If I did lose a few pounds, so much the better.

I certainly didn't expect to lose a hundred pounds, nor did I expect to be smaller at age forty-two than I was in high school. But it's a very nice side effect, and I'll take it.

Saw this place over in Vienna, Virginia on the way to the Metro stop there. I pondered aloud whether it was next door to Our Lady of the Sacred Duvet.

The grounds were beautifully plush and, well, comforting-looking. As it should be, I suppose.

Can bacon ever be wrong, really?

My BFF recently made it possible for me to sample something amazing... something outstanding... something indescribable...

Bacon Chocolate.

I know, I know.

But if you get the chance to taste this, you'll agree with me.

Just wow.

I suppose if you're keeping kosher, this sort of thing would be out. But if you're unencumbered with such restrictions, I'd highly encourage you to try this.

Really?

InStyle chose this as their "Look of the Day."

I'll say.

What the HECK was Sandra Bullock THINKING when she went out in public looking like this? The outfit may be Lanvin, but it's one of the lamest looks I've seen in a while. And the ankle boots! WRONG.

Yeccch. Sandra Bullock is super-cute; she doesn't have to resort to this kind of what-the-heck-is-that outfit to get attention. I'm not against bucking the traditional and the expected, but at least make it look fun or funky or cute. I wish I could think of something snarky and funny to compare this to, but words fail me in this instance.

The shape is like she's wearing a shower wrap from the health club. The weird Valentine thingy on the torso defies description. The ankle boots just scream CHUNKY ANKLES.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. NO.

UPDATE: Jessica over at Go Fug Yourself agrees with me.

A beautiful beatdown

This is sheer golden video of Milton Friedman giving Phil Donahue a well-earned beatdown:

We Got Spirit, How 'Bout YOU?

Peace out, y'all! Today was the first Spirit Day of the Fall 2009 Ballyhoo football season: Tie Up The Indians (wear tie-dye and/or a tie to school).

Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

I was down at the football stadium today, loading up the concession stand refrigerators with pop so they'll be nicely chilled by game time. For a while I had some students helping me, but it was time to get them back to class, so I came back down to finish during my planning period.

I was pretty much done, just poking a few more cans of Dr. Pepper in, when two of the cans exploded all over me. Yah!! I called the high school office and explained to Carrie that I had to go home and shower and change clothes -- those things literally covered me head to toe in sticky syrupy stuff. Luckily I had a little bit of time left before my next class arrived, so I dashed home and took care of the cleanup. I even wore my shoes into the shower to rinse them off. I know, I'm weird. But it's what had to happen.

The Booster Club is paying the Art Department to stock the fridges each week so that we don't have to set up the face-painting table anymore this year. It'll definitely free me up to get some better football photos, since I won't be stuck behind the table now.

A very significant day

I've been rather distracted the past several days.

Well, DUH, you say. It's the first day of school, it's your son's tenth birthday, of course you're distracted.

But it isn't just that.

You see, my little Daddy's been sick with multiple myeloma, and today he had his whole body nuked to kill off his bone marrow, then he received a transplant of stem cells from his brother. My mind has definitely been elsewhere.

If you'd like to read about my dad's journey from my mom's perspective, you can read their blog. There you can see pictures of my Daddy with his brother, with my mom, with my sister, etc.

And if you're so inclined, lift him (and her) up in prayer.

Thanks.

The birthday boy!

So yesterday was Isaac's tenth birthday. I told him we could go eat out somewhere if he wanted, and he said he wanted a steak at Texas Roadhouse.

That's my little carnivore.





We invited one of my teacher friends, Craig Gourley, and his wife Terresa and their two daughters Makayla and Emma (Makayla is in Isaac's grade at school). At TRH, when it's your birthday, they roll out a saddle and make you sit in it while they do a hearty "Yee-HAW!" in your honor. If it'd been me, I would not have wanted that, but I could tell Isaac really DID want the fuss, so I told our waitress it was his birthday.

Yesterday during the first day of school, I realized that my conference period fell during the same time that Isaac was eating in the cafeteria, so I toted my chopsticks and my bowl of soba and seaweed over to the caf and sat by him on his birthday. Then I stood up and did the Beatles birthday song for him. The students at Ballyhoo are accustomed to my antics and so were mildly amused at my singing and dancing, but not surprised.

I still can't quite believe he's a whole decade old now.

Survival

Okay, so I lived through Day One. But I was too tired last night to blog. Sorry.

I'm hoping this afternoon will be slightly less frenetic. It's a meager hope, to be sure, but it's there.

The face of stress

Yeah, I'm smiling, but I am a total wreck inside today.





It is always thus on the day before school. It's one of the sources of the name of my blog, "Anywhere But Here," because I'd rather be just about anywhere else but right here, right now. I can think of a couple of places in particular, but generally I could get in my vehicle this morning and just keep driving.

I won't.

But I could.

I don't have the $$ right now to spend on a haircut, so I took my AuntyAda's advice and just let it be curly again. I'll put on makeup eventually... not now... it's too hot in this house and I'd just sweat it back off. But eventually I will.

After church, I'll be spending the day in my classroom getting the last things tidied up and getting my lesson plans done for the next month. I trimmed off my nails a couple of days ago, and I'm glad I did because otherwise I'd've chewed them off.

Happy Caturday, y'all

It's good to be king, sez DooDad.

Temptation

There's a get-together over at our principal's house this evening, so I just mixed up a batch of my Famous Potato Salad.

And for the first time ever, I didn't eat a single bite of it. Not even a little lick of the spoon.

I have paid that price, and I'm done with it. No more corn, no more potatoes.

That being said, I hope everyone who comes tonight tries a bite of it and loves it as much as I do. Did.

Going to restaurants now is not fun for me. Mexican restaurants are pretty much out, since even the flour tortillas are made with cornstarch in the recipe. I'm kind-of embarrassed to have to ask the waitress to check the food for corn, cornstarch or corn syrup. Forget it if the label contains "modified food starch." And some of them really aren't too bright -- the one the other day checked the tortillas and brought me CORN tortillas because they didn't contain CORNSTARCH in the ingredient list. WTF? Did I not just tell you I was allergic to corn? Oy. I scraped out the fajita meat. It's just not worth it to press the issue. And it feels way too high-maintenance when I'm with a group of my co-workers. I am so not that kind of person. But I also don't want to spend the rest of the day dashing to the bathroom in a cold sweat.

Salads... no dressing. Plain meat (not even ham or sausage -- you'd be surprised how much corn syrup is in that stuff sometimes). Plain cheese.

The dearth of Japanese restaurants in the rural north Texas area is lamentable -- but not surprising, I suppose (ha). I just ordered a couple more packets of dried seaweed from Amazon. And I'm looking forward to the arrival of some furikake.

The potato salad is chillin' in the fridge, Alice & Rick are home from the hospital, and I'm going to go take a nap.

Catch the Blues

Apparently they do exist -- blue lobsters -- but they're pretty rare.

NH man snares rare cobalt-blue lobster

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) - At first, New Hampshire lobsterman Bill Marconi thought he had caught a shiny blue beer can in his trap. It turns out it was a rare, cobalt-blue lobster. The 52-year-old lobsterman was out hauling 400 traps with his son Wednesday when he snared the 1 1/2-pound lobster in between his dock and the Isle of Shoals, about six miles off the coast.

New England Aquarium Research Director Mike Tlusty told Foster's Daily Democrat only one in 5 million lobsters are blue.

Tlusty said blue lobsters are different in that they are better at processing astaxanthin, an antioxidant with a red pigment derived from algae. The substance bonds with proteins in the lobster's shell, resulting in the blue pigment.

He didn't eat it, in case you were wondering. He donated it to the Seacoast Science Center. The photograph above isn't of the one he caught; there wasn't a photo included with the story. So instead I Googled "blue lobster" and that photo by Leslie Ricker was the first one to return. I thought it was a spectacular photo. I love the intensity of the blue.

Freaks are beautiful. I aspire to be one, myself.

Hair...

I am pretty seriously thinking of going Halle-Berry or Victoria-Beckham short with my hairstyle. I've always been afraid to go super-short because I (1)didn't want to look like a man and (2)felt that it would look unbalanced because of my weight issues.

Now that the weight issues aren't there, I'm giving it some consideration.

But the whole looking-like-a-man thing, I'm still a little worried about that. I've met some pretty seriously butchy women and absolutely do NOT want to go down THAT road. I'm a girl... I like being a girl... I like looking like a girl. But Halle and Posh don't look at all butchy.

Therein lies the problem: Halle and Posh have figures (bought and well-paid for, but figures nonetheless). I got no boobs and no acetol.

I guess I'll keep my hair a little longer for a little longer. Until I muster up the courage, that is. I really want to do it. And hair does grow; if I hate it, it will grow out eventually and I won't have to live with it.

Decisions. [sigh]

Chalkboards and other stuff

Okay, chalkboards aren't a worthless waste of space for EVERYONE... but for my high school art class, they are. If I were teaching algebra, I'd have something different to say about them.

Once again, it is hotter than a fur coat in Marfa. I did take a very brief nap when I got home from school this afternoon, and when I got up, the refrigerator and freezer door were standing open. Martha was lounging on the couch, watching television. She had gotten some leftover spaghetti out of the fridge and then just walked away from all of it, sitting out, wide open. For how long, I have no way of knowing. The stuff in the freezer hadn't thawed out yet, thank God.

I thought I was going to come unhinged. I didn't, but it was perilously close.

No, I made her come into the kitchen and close them, and then I made her leave the room because I knew that if I could still see her, I'd get even more upset. She huffed and slammed doors as if she had no earthly idea why I was ticked off.

Rick just texted me from the hospital; Alice has napped and dozed all day and so is wide awake now. I texted him back: "At least you get to sleep in air-conditioning." Yeah, we got a nice new window unit donated to us. Has he installed it? Pshyeah, right.

I'm a little grumpy tonight, in case you missed it.

Wednesday weariness

I'm getting closer to having my classroom in a workable state. Rick came up today and installed my pull-down screen and covered the chalkboards with sheets of foam insulation to make them into display boards. I've got a whiteboard now, which will be immensely more useful. Chalkboards are worthless wastes of valuable wall space.

I turned in a PO for a projector. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.

Tomorrow morning Alice checks in at the EMU at Children's Hospital in Dallas. That's the acronym for Epilepsy Monitoring Unit. We had to schedule it now because my health insurance is about to turn over to a new year and we'll suddenly be stuck with a humongous bill we can't pay if we wait until after then. Plus, this way she'll hopefully be out of the EMU by Sunday and won't miss the first day of school.

Normally, I go to the EMU with her when she goes, but because I'm already in school, and because Rick is unemployed, it seemed best that he go and stay with her. I'll go down there on Friday afternoon after I'm done with school and stay with her that night; we're hoping that Saturday she gets to go home.

Oh, hey... I took some Sudafed this morning and again this afternoon, and had my first headache-free day in a week. Yay!!

I am plumb wore-out tonight. I'm going to bed now.

Happy (almost) Birthday, Buddy-Boy!!

My son's going to be officially a whole decade old come next Monday. Because of Pop's cancer treatments schedule, though, we bumped up the birthday party a few days:



Handsome lil' guy, ain't he? I've always told him that he was the cutest little boy I ever saw in my whole life. Hey, I'm honest. And it's true. From the moment I laid eyes on that baby boy, I knew I was smitten beyond help.

And he managed to blow out every candle in one breath:



Poof!! Nothin' wrong with THOSE lungs.

Here's the obligatory YoHo photo. Please understand -- I have just spent all day engaged in my favorite pastime: inservice meetings. Then I spent several hours working in my classroom. All of this occurred from eight AM until I left school at 7:30PM. I look like I've been chewed up and spit out. But I can still smile, because my kid's TEN YEARS OLD (almost):



Like I said, it's been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad hair day for me.

But it ain't about me.

MY BABY IS TEN.

MY BABY BOY.

This kinda hits me hard.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my AuntyAda today! I picked out this lovely mod birthday graphic because it reminds me of when I was little and you were in high school, listening to the Carpenters and swishing your long, dark, straight hair around. :)

August Angus

If you had to wear a black, hairy leather coat all day long, you'd hop into the cool stockpond too. Particularly on a hot day in August in Texas.

Yeah, I might've guessed

I took the quiz over at The Political Compass, and this is where I landed. It says my views are pretty close to Milton Friedman's. I'm totally not unhappy with this result... not at all, really. I'm rather distant from the likes of Hitler and Stalin, and I'm not terribly close to Gandhi either. I'm as far right as Margaret Thatcher, but I'm much less authoritarian than she. Where do you come out?

More food that I love

This is Korean laver. It's roasted seaweed and it comes in thin sheets -- thinner than sushi nori. It can be used in lots of ways, but my favorite is to reconstitute it in hot water and sprinkle a little sesame seed & sesame oil in it and eat it just like you would cooked spinach.

You can also crumble it up and cook it in scrambled eggs. Or just add it to other recipes as a bright green accent with a lovely flavor. The Welsh actually use laver (a slightly different seaweed species) in bread and other dishes.

I got this at an Asian grocery store, but it's fairly common I think, and can be found online pretty easily. The flavor is subtle and wonderful, and I hear it has lots and lots of good vitamins in it.

A pleasant day-trip

Today we went to see my sister-in-law and her husband. They live over on the northeast part of the Dallas area, in a city called Garland. Margie was nineteen when Rick was born, so she has ended up being more like a really, really awesome mother-in-law than a sister-in-law. An absolute gem of a person.



Her husband Bob is a few years older and his health has declined in recent years, but we had a very nice visit with him. I played the piano for him and he seemed to enjoy this quite a bit.



He even let me take his picture!

We're trying to get them to move up in our direction so we can help her care for Bob (and help her care for herself, too). Garland's a nice place, but it's over an hour away and it would be nice if we could have her a little closer.

Happy Caturday!

Dude, chillin'.

Late-night partying

One fish...





Two fish...





Red fish...





Blue fish...

But no blenders tonight. We had to drive, you know.

The PurpleFishGuts family was on their way back to Iowa from visiting family in New Mexico, and we met them in Oklahoma City for a nice little meal and a swim in the hotel pool.

I miss them so much.

My new favorite condiment

This stuff is my newest favorite sprinkle-on seasoning. Furikake actually comes in lots of styles and formulations, this just happens to be the one I have right now. And it says "rice seasoning" but I've been using it on soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles) with soy sauce and sesame oil, and it has been just the best thing ever. Obviously it's great on rice, too. I'd like to try rolling some glutinous rice into little balls and rolling them in seaweed & sesame furikake; I think that would be awesome. Especially when I start packing a little bento box for lunch every day. Stuff in bento boxes is supposed to be all cutesy and stuff, right?

I've even used it as a coating/crust when I pan-fried some ahi tuna steaks in a mixture of coconut oil and ginger canola oil, and it was tremendously tasty. Like, fall over in a dead faint kind of tasty. It was just that good.

I have found that most Japanese foods seem to agree with my system better than other ethnic foods (Chinese included). They don't use as much cornstarch or corn syrup (or any sort of corn derivative that I can think of) except in tempura batter; they do occasionally use potato starch, though, so I have to watch the label for that. One of the things I've seen potato starch on is a dusty coating on the outside of mochi, but not all mochi uses it, so I just watch for it. I'm going to make my own mochi as soon as my special rice flour arrives (interestingly, they don't carry it at the WalMart grocery store... can't imagine why). But when the Japanese do sweets, it's just generally not as heavily sweet as stuff you find in the West. The Chinese restaurants around here use tons of cornstarch in soups and sauces.

本当にありがとうございます, Japan!! (That means "thank you very much") (I hope)

Preamble

Preamble

1987
Mike Wilkins
Born: Durham, North Carolina 1959
painted metal on vinyl and wood
96 x 96 in. (243.8 x 243.8 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A.
1988.39 Smithsonian American Art Museum
1st Floor, North Wing

Ah gotz mah eye on yew

The most dangerous link of all

Artisanal Cheese.

[drool]

This is the one I want to try. It's called Pecorino Tartufo. The description from the site:

Pecorino Tartufo is an old style of Umbrian pressed sheep milk cheese. The cheese's buttery nutty flavor is enhanced with the addition of aromatic black truffles giving it a unique signature. The smooth toothsome texture gives the Pecorino Tartufo a long shelf life. However the cheese is particularly addictive so it's usually consumed rather quickly.

Holy cow. Or sheep. I gotta find me some of that. If I don't see any at the cheese counter at Kroger, I may just have to order some of it from the site itself for my birthday (November 14, in case anyone's getting any ideas).

The Manchego is rapidly disappearing, as I seem not to be the only one in the house who's fond of it. I also bought a wedge of lovely Gouda at the same time, and it is just superb.

I love cheese. Really I do:

I WANT THIS!!!

What every conservative parent needs

Seen over at NRO just now. I lol'd. A lot.

Gives a mother heart failure, it does

But it's wicked kewl anyway. Dunno if it's real, but I lol'd anyway.

The yearbooks are IN!!

I knew the books would arrive while I was gone, so I didn't worry too much about them. But then the day before I left on my DC trip, I got a call from the IT dude at school about something computer-wise in my old classroom. I told him that I had thought maybe he was calling to tell me the yearbooks were in.

"Oh, those have been here for a couple of weeks now."

I wanted to scream. SCREAM, I tell you.

But there was nothing to be done.

Yesterday was my first look at the books, and they really do look terrific. I am tickled as can be about them. Jostens does a great job and I love them with all my heart for all the things they do for us; they have an online book builder site that is state-of-the-art and gives me all kinds of freedom to do anything I want.

The colors on the pages are rich and vibrant, and the quality of the books is outstanding. Major applause, Jostens.

Now for the business of distributing them.

Foodie stuff

I went to Sam's Club a little earlier to pick up my very favorite pita chips:



These have become my favorite substitute for corn chips or potato chips. These have no hidden "food starch" or "corn syrup" or any of those super-secret additive things that turn my GI tract inside out. They're tasty and they're not so brittle that they fall apart when I dip them into my homemade hummus.



I lurve them.

So I'm walking by the cheese case at Sam's, on my way back to where my beloved pita chips live, when I spot something I also lurve very, very much.

Manchego cheese. Truly wonderful stuff.

So you know I had to have a nice wedge of that.

And that's what I'm having for supper tonight. Pita chips and slices of Manchego.

---------------------
And now for the bad news. Our refrigerator is going out. [sigh] And Rick still doesn't have a job. [double sigh]

Never ends, does it?

Babies and other cute stuff

After dealing with the aftermath of death (see previous post), we switched to taking a peek at some new life.

Melanie took me out to see their babies.



So cute!!! Shy, but hugely curious. If you squat down (which makes a great photo angle) and turn your back to do something else, they'll come up to check you out.





This little guy is going prematurely gray. Okay, it's not premature. It's just that he's really a grey. Grey horses aren't born grey, they are born black or brown or bay or sorrel and then they start turning grey. Cool, huh?





Red Dun Girl back there is tasting a stick. Even horse babies put stuff in their mouths to check it out. RDG is a pretty little thing with these cool zebra-stripey knees and hocks (it's hard to tell in these photos, but trust me -- it's a cool effect).





And this is Belle. We're not sure how old Belle is, but Jeff says he's pretty sure she was the one who toted Mary to Bethlehem.

She looks disdainfully at me. "Honey, at my age, I don't care what my ankles look like."

Diggin' up bones!!

Well, okay, I didn't actually dig them up. But bones? I haz dem.





While I was gone last Sunday, Rick happened to mention to some farm/ranch folks at church that I was looking for some cow bones to use as models in my art classes.

Ask and ye shall receive!!

Melanie told him that there was an old cow carcass on some land near their house and that she was sure it would be fine for me to go out and poke through it to pick up anything I'd like. It had been there for about a year, she thought, and should be pretty dried-up and dessicated.

So today after church, I drove out to their house and we hopped onto the four-wheeler to go check out said carcass. She brought along some tools to help dismantle it.





Melanie and her husband Jeff are some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Can you imagine somebody willingly handling a bunch of stinky old bones? But she was tickled that I was so thrilled to be getting them.

We bundled up most of the bones into trash bags and now they're sitting in my backyard. I'm probably going to soak them in some water to help loosen the hide that's totally dried and stuck to one side of the skull, and to help get the spiderwebs and other debris off. Otherwise, they're in spectacular shape and will be a huge asset to my art classes.

The Wonderful Cross

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

-----------------------------------
Isaac Watts wrote "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" in preparation for a communion service in 1707. Originally, the hymn was named "Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ," following the practice of the day to summarize a hymn's theme in the title. It was first published in 1707 in Watt's collection Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

Watts wrote five stanzas for the original version of "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." However, he put his fourth stanza in brackets, indicating it was the most likely one to be left out, if need be:

"His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o'er His body on the tree:
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me."

Other alterations have been made to this hymn through the years. For example, line 2 originally read "Young Prince of Glory," but in the second edition of the hymnal, Watts changed it to "When God, the Mighty Maker, died." It has also been "When Christ, the Lord of Glory, died," "When Christ, the Great Redeemer, died," and "When Christ, the Great Creator, died." In the nineteenth century there were numerous collections with extensive alterations to the hymn.

"When I Survey The Wondrous Cross" is considered one of the finest hymns ever written. It's the first known hymn to be written in the first person, introducing a personal religious experience rather than limiting itself to doctrine.

In Watts' day such hymns were termed "hymns of human composure" and they stirred up great controversy. At the time, congregational singing was predominately ponderous repetitions of the Psalms. But this hymn gave Christians of Watts' day a way to express a deeply personal gratitude to their Savior. The well-loved song continues to stir our hearts today.

(from the website of The Center For Church Music, Songs & Hymns)

The traveler returns

I arrived at Dee Eff Dubya this evening at about 8:30pm. The plane rides were only about half full and were not plagued with the usual turbulence and mayhem that seems to follow me. Very smooth, and both legs of the trip arrived about twenty minutes earlier than scheduled.

I'm plumb tard. I still have to print out the worship programs for tomorrow morning's church service, but that'll be okay.

I don't know if it's just a result of being on the airplane, or whether there's something blooming here now that wasn't blooming when I left... my sinuses are burning. With all my Metro rides and plane rides, it sure would suck to have come home with H1N1 or some other sort of rot. Yecch. That's precisely how I want to begin my school year.

Monday morning I'll be back at school, hopefully working on moving into the other classroom. Y'all just pray I get a computer projector this year. [fingers crossed expectantly]

The bend in the road

So... tired...

Dunno who this guy is, but he seems to be feeling pretty much the way I'm feeling today. I have had a tremendous time here, but I'm definitely ready to begin implementing some of the things I've learned this week. I came perilously close to missing one of my stops on the Metro yesterday because I had found an actual sit-down SEAT and I had dozed off without realizing it. Good thing I didn't wake up somewhere in Maryland, eh?

I confess

I'm a foodie.

Through and through.





I love extraordinary food. And the sushi I ate tonight was definitely in that category.



This, my friends, is yellowtail. Yellowtail sashimi up in the top left, yellowtail nigiri sushi on the lower left, spicy yellowtail hand roll in the center, yellowtail maki sushi on the upper right. Yellowtail is far and away my favorite. The meat is rich and buttery and flavorful without being overpowering.



And this is a side of seaweed salad. With sesame and avocado.

Un-be-freakin'-lievable.

Hey... maybe I *have* been everywhere...

Everywhere that matters, anyway...





I recognize pretty much every one of the places he sings about. What a great state I'm from. I'm having a whale of a good time in Washington DC right now, and honestly I don't want to leave because this place is green and lush and beautiful AND filled with more historical and cultural events than I could ever avail myself of, but the place I'm from is pretty darn awesome and not at all less valuable than where I'm at right now.

Sisters in the courtyard

Seen in the courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum while I was having lunch today.

Girls rule!

I am inspired by these girl musicians, Chinese pottery figures from the T'ang Dynasty (610AD - 907AD).













An early girl-band! It's very cool to be up-close to such exquisite (and OLD) beauty.