confessions of a suicidal squirrel

dear lady who hates me,

i did it. it was me. not the other guys. i just couldn't resist the juiciness of the pumpkins, and your flowers were the perfect place to bury my nuts. i will miss running on your window ledge early in the morning and making the choking noises outside your living room.

please don't forget me.
-the squirrelly one

not the best i've ever created, but it was still fun

death of a favorite

(just for the record, that's my pocket peeking out, not unmentionables)

spring in my yard (the result of hard work in the fall)

in a funny mood

i'm feeling both lighthearted and lightheaded today. i'm not sure of the cause of either, but the following are some effects:

1. realizing two hours after putting pants on that the reason they are so uncomfortable is that they are on backwards! (in my defense...they were sweatpants)

2. allowing my students to bend the rules a little more than normal while playing floor hockey (btw - i think one of my students cracked the knuckle on her thumb today..she took it like a champ!)

3. taking time to laugh at videos like this: (i love these guys by the way...i highly recommend taking the time to watch ALL of their videos...i've been following them for about 3 years now)

these pictures are way too fun not to share

front porches. rainy days. hot tea. good book.

two songs

two songs I'm diggin' right now (both of which I can actually play on guitar!)

i will rise by chris tomlin

there's a peace i've come to know
though my heart and flesh may fail
there's an anchor for my soul
i can say, it is well

jesus has overcome and the grave is overwhelmed
the victory is won, he is risen from the dead

i will rise when he calls my name
no more sorrrow, no more pain
i will rise on eagle's wings
before my god, fall on my knees
and i rise, i will rise

(v2) there's a day that's drawing near when this darkness breaks to light
and the shadows disappear and my faith shall be my eyes

(bridge) i hear the voice of many angels sing, worthy is the lamb
i hear the cry of every longing heart, worthy is the lamb


giving up by ingrid michaelson (i happen to think that ingrid is a very clever songwriter)

what if we stop having a ball?
what if the paint chips from the wall?
what if there's always cups in the sink?
what if i'm not what you think, think that i am?

what if i fall further than you?
what if you dream of somebody new?
what if i never let you win, chase you rolling pin?
well, what if i do?

cause i am giving up on making passes
i am giving up on half empty glasses
i am giving up on greener grasses
i am giving up

what if our baby comes in after nine?
what if your eyes close before mine?
what if you lose yourself sometimes,
then i'll be the one to find you, safe in my heart.

i don't think this is the "official" video, but it's really ingrid singing

one of the things i've been doing in my quest to do new, ambitious things is to watch all of the Academy Award Best Picture winners. by the end of this weekend, i will be one-fourth of the way through the list. in celebration of this, i thought i would share what i have seen.

1929 - The Broadway Melody
1932 - Grand Hotel - i really liked this one!
1939 - Gone with the Wind - i actually had never seen this one. i had always been under the impression that Scarlett O'Hara was some wonderful heroine so you can imagine my distaste at discovering what a self-center, devious women she was!
1941 - How Green Was My Valley - the ups and downs of a mining town told from the perspective of a boy
1964 - My Fair Lady - of course, i love it!
1965 - The Sound of Music - and this one too
1968 - Oliver!
1976 - Rocky
1980 -Ordinary People - i actually watched this for my communications class in undergrad...it's odd, but interesting
1984 - Amadeus
1990 - Dances with Wolves
1993 - Schindler's List
1994 - Forrest Gump - is this movie really 15 years old already?!
1997 - Titanic
1998 - Shakespeare in Love
1999 - American Beauty
2001 - A Beautiful Mind
2003 - Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - it's the only one of the trilogy to win
2005 - Crash
2006 - The Departed

next two to watch: 1937 - The Life of Emile Zola and 1985 - Out of Africa

randomness captured on film

i call this one "death among beauty"



a closer look at the death



raina and i were driving down I-70 one sunday morning when this trailer bed full of big ceramic things came up beside us....we laughed for a long time.

the americana boot had a spur on it!

this, folks, is a chicken. a 15 foot chicken.

ornamental tradition

i awoke this morning to find the ground blissfully white. it made me want to drag all of the boxes from the basement labelled "christmas" and tinsel the room in merriment. considering we have yet to take our current decorations down, adding more would turn our house into the "christmasland" i recently saw on a lifetime movie, and the neighbors might think us a little insane. so i pulled out the boxes and began to take my share of christmas down in a surprisingly joyful manner.

when i was a young tyke, my grandma started what has become one of my most favorite aspects of christmas. each year since 1985, she gives each of us a wooden ornament. most of them are hand carved and hand painted and were discovered in some little store on one of my grandparent's many world adventures. i love the smell that wafts from the tin when the lid is peeled back. each ornament gets carefully unwrapped and turned over in my hands so that i can appreciate the corners of intricacies. when we were younger, my sisters and i would all put our ornaments on the tree in the living room, but since "growing up" i've yet to do so. i've always found an alternative spot such as door frames. this year, they hung from the fire place where, instead of being tucked into branches, they were on display for the whole world (all ten of them that came into our living room) to see.

the picture below contains my favorites. the bell on the far right is the very first ornament grandma gave me in 1985. the music note next to it is the 2008 ornament. the manger carving in the middle is actually from jerusalem! the angel on the far right is the one non-wood ornament amongst them. i love it's simplicity.

traditions are not something my family seems to do very well. other than grandpa always using pink frosting on cake and mom making lep cookies every year, we don't really seem to repeat anything for more than a couple of years. but grandma has been very sucessful in this tradition, and i love it so much that i one day plan to do the same for all fifty of my grandchildren.

grandma - thanks for making us a part of tradition. and go big red!

everyone else - yes, my grandma is tech savvy enough to read my blog. she even emails me sometimes!

men of the romantic variety and other various ramblings

work is really slow today. that NEVER happens. ever. so i thought i'd fill a few moments with some really random thoughts.

exactly one week ago, i changed my facebook status to read "reason #237 why it would be beneficial to have a man of the romantic variety in my life: i have a flat tire and the lug nuts are too tight." if i were to write that today, it would say "reason #238 why it would be beneficial to have a man of the romantic variety in my life: the dryer isn't working effciently and i really want my sheets to smell like they have been line dried anyway. " aka - i think there is something wrong with the dryer and i really want a laundry line.

i had coffee last night with some really fun women. two of them are from my new church. the other was someone to hopefully call a new friend. we met at this little corner coffee shop near the history museum. it's unique in that it has a bike shop attached to it. bikes and coffee.

one rant i've had for a while, but keep forgetting to get out in the open: those darn plastic coffee stir sticks. they don't work. the minute they hit the liquid heat, they bend thus not fulfilling their intended purpose on this earth. i don't even know why coffee shops by them. the wood ones, however, are great! at locations that choose to use these, i can actually taste the sugar in my coffee on the first sip as opposed to the mountain i get at the bottom of the cup when using the plastic stirrers. local locations that use the wood stirrer: kayak's and kaldi's (at least two locations). the place we went to last night goes a step higher - they use a good old fashioned spoon!

my grandpa came home yesterday from his third stint since thanksgiving in the hospital. what started as pneunomia ended up as half a lung removed for cancer. in an odd way, i'm grateful that his pneunomia landed him in the hospital as they then caught his cancer fairly early. my grandpa is an ornery old man (who is really very young). he doesn't like doctors, and he tried to get me to take his potassium pills for him when no one was looking. don't worry, i didn't do it. although i probably could have gotten some money out of the deal...

randomness and rants make me think of my friend jake. he and his wife are seminary students in denver. jake is one of my most favorite people so there are a lot of things i will always remember about him, but one thing that i was remembering recently was how he and his brother liked to play with words. they would often put the emphasis on the wrong syllable or say words backwards. quirky, i know. check out his blog.

tonight is the annual covenant presbyterian church trivia night. last year the covenant christian school teachers table took a very close second (like 3 points close). as the pe teacher, i feel it is my job to not only encourage, but to evoke a competitiveness that will drive us beyond the close second to a victory! i can see it now: just as players dump icy gatorade over the heads of coaches, my trivia players will dump bowls of popcorn over my head in triumph. just kidding. the reality is that i'm really dead weight when it comes to trivia. i'm still hoping for a win.

top ten albums of 2008 according to me

thanks to kale and my guitar playing adventures, i've been thinking a lot lately about music that moves me. being the emotionally oriented person that i am, i connect with music that really speaks something to me; that reaches down and "strikes a chord".

the following are my faves from 2008. these albums weren't necessarily released in 2008, but rather, I purchased them or discovered them and listened to them a lot. below the album, i listed my favorite songs.

1. The Builder and the Architect -Sandra McCracken
Thy Mercy, My God
Rock of Ages

2. Ampersand - Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken
If Not for You
When the Summer's Gone

3. Vive la Vida - Coldplay
Strawberry Swing
Lovers in Japan

4. We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things - Jason Mraz
Lucky
Details in the Fabric

5. Ingrid Michaelson - songs from a myriad of her albums
Album - Be Ok, Song - Be Ok
Album - Girls and Boys - Breakable
Single - Giving Up

6. Once - Soundtrack - Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova
The Hill
When Your Mind's Made Up
Falling Slowly

7. Twentysomething - Jamie Cullum
Twentysomething

8. 19 - Adele
Daydreamer
Hometown Glory

9. a random mix my roommate made for me for my trip to california

10. Sandra McCracken - Red Balloon
The Tie that Binds
The High Countries

i also "rediscovered" a couple of oldies in my stash during my move this summer that have become permanents in the rotation: Chicago: The Heart of Chicago 1967-1998 Vol II, and Hanson: Middle of Nowhere. yes, kale already informed me that listening to Hanson is "totally normal."

raina's birthday cake

moldy pumpkins and dead mums...

a sign of winter?

betty crocker strikes again!

My grandma was once upon a time Miss Betty Crocker, meaning she won an award. I think it runs in the genes...look what I made last night for a bridal shower!

totally fashionable

Being the anti-morning person I am, I often catch myself dressing last minute in the dark. I thought I looked especially cute today (at least I was feeling cute) so imagine my surprise when 6 hours after I had left my house, I looked down at a student that was near my feet and saw this:

memories from the womb

At one of the schools where I teach, I have a class of 4 and 5 year olds. In that class, I have a set of twin girls who are absolutely hilarious. The following is a a quote from a story that one of the girls was telling me this morning:

When we were in Mommy's tummy, Mommy would eat broccli and we would play catch with it. Then one day we decided we wanted to come out of Mommy's tummy. I said "I want to go down the big slide first." Sissy said, "No, I want to go first." Then I said, "No, I want to go first." Then Sissy said, "No, I do." So I said, "Okay, you can first." Then Sissy went "Weeeeeeeeeee," all the way down the slide. I went down the slide after her. I remember.

Today someone said this of me:

"You scurried around like a woodland creature in autumn, smiling all the while..."

Somehow I can't shake the picture of me with a rather squirrel-like tail from my head :)

apparently my christmas presents were more fun than his