in case you don't frequent my small group blog, here's a shout out to the homeys, yo. i think we've finally gotten to the top of the hill and are coming down the other side. it was a rough go of it for a while there, but we persevered.

we're going to have the coolest christmas party! i can't wait! we're having it in my classroom and we're going to screenprint eikon t-shirts, eat christmassy food and watch christmassy movies. i'll be sure to give you the d.l. on that.

a georgia thanksgiving

despite having an 11 hour drive on each end of the 2 days nick & i spent in georgia, it was a truly wonderful holiday.
on wednesday, mom, dad, nick & i drove down to atlanta to see aunt robin, who had made some of the most skillfull hats! she's gotten into knitting and felting. this picture doesn't show the scope of how cool her hats turn out.

she made a homey meal for us and we enjoyed her for a couple of hours before heading back to tunnel hill.

even though the temperature dropped, the sun made a few appearances -- and the leaves are still such beautiful colors. they haven't dumped off the trees yet like my missourian trees have.

we all did quite a bit of lounging around in between the eating.

and of course in between the eating and the lounging, there were a couple of pretty daggum cute kids to be photographed.

brayden is getting gigantic, and learning his letters.
genius toddler. he'll be reading before he can talk.

i went a little camera crazy with the adorable trinity sky.

but seriously...





how funny is that last one?!

it was way too short a visit, but perhaps we enjoyed it all the more for how short it was. i surely do love my family. they're good folk.

the most exciting thing happened friday morning before we left, and i didn't hear about it until we were on our way back to missouri...
nick and dad went for a walk before i woke up. it evidently turned into 'the walk' when nick asked my dad for his blessing to marry his daughter!
i heard the story from nick's side and then from dad's side later when we talked on the phone, and it just filled me with such a deep sense of gratitude for the good men in my life. i'm so proud to have a guy like nick and a dad like my dad.

oh, and he gave his blessing, in case you're wondering :-)
now before you get all excited, that doesn't mean we're engaged. one thing at a time, people!
but definitely a good thing.

live genius action

fall has fallen

this lovely pecan tree had millions of leaves on it last week.
this week it decided it was time to dump them on the ground.
erica decided to get them off the ground and burn them, a pretty normal fall-like activity.
i've totally underestimated the amount of effort it takes people to rake and burn leaves though. i see these people from time to time, with their rakes and their smokiness looking fall-like and picturesque.
it took a first-hand witness for the magnitude of this job to sink home.

what a woman.


i don't have what it takes. if it were up to me, the leaves would stay where they fell, gradually piling up higher and higher until one day they would cover my house with me in it.

it's finally over!!

blue eye high school's drama/speech/spanish/french teacher, the lovely mrs. parsons, is retiring after this yaer (we'll have to find 4 teachers to replace her!) and the medieval dinner theater tradition is retiring with her (praise the lord above!).
not that i don't enjoy the 2-4 weeks of stressful backdrop creating, using all of my classes all day long every day to get it done in time...
this being my 4th year doing it, i'm just really very happy to not have to do it ever again.
this was her 12th medieval. i don't know where she found the energy.

i took nick along to experience the glory of it all -- he was in his element. he loved it. if i'd said he had to wear a cape and a sorcerer's hat, he would have been even more enamored, but i made sure to NOT say that.

he did not, however, love the beard-rubbing sierra & crystal decided to give him before even meeting him. they came up from behind and ambushed him when we were sitting at our table, calmly enjoying the show.

this was only about 1/2 the cast -- it was quite the production.

the gargoyle dance was the best part. if only the lighting had been more photographically conducive. but then it wouldn't have been as cool a dance...
oh well. can't have it both ways.


here's the finished commons, looking castle-like. (or at least trying...)
it wasn't my favorite decor, but it got the job done. there were definitely some cool elements, like the suits of armor and the stained-glass windows.
all in all, my kids did a pretty good job.

the changing of the seasons...

with a title such as that you might be expecting some lovely fall leaf pictures... some golds and reds and yellows...
there are surely enough beautiful fall pictures around the blogging world.
who can compete?!
so i thought to myself, 'am i going to follow the trend?'
and i answered... 'no!'

let's see some ugliness!




falling leaves are pretty, but i think bransonians are possibly taking advantage of their forgiving coverage to hide some pretty ugly junk. this is just around my neighborhood, mind you.
here's hoping for even more forgiving snow that covers a multitude of eyesores!

look at this beauty of a sign nick made for work! he even drew that little fish guy. isn't he artistic?
he's really coming into his true sign-making manliness.
he's learned a new word for his position -- a luthier apprentice. i'd never heard the word 'luthier' before, but it's what you call instrument makers. the word hearkens back to ye old days of lute-making.

and speaking of words, the word i'm especially keen on lately is...

snarky:

1. Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide.
2. Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.

From dialectal snark, to nag, from snark, snork, to snore, snort, from Dutch and Low German snorken.

it's not a happy word mind you, but sometimes it's just fun to use.

thanks, laurita!

who wouldn't love an owl basket arriving in their mailbox?!
i know i sure did.
i'm not exactly sure what prompted his arrival... a happy daylight-savings-time-ends present? or perhaps commemomorating election day...
both worthy reasons.
or maybe you just don't need a reason to send someone an owl basket!

thanks to laura (the wingo) tyler, my chimney is gracefully adorned with charming owlness.
thanks, laura.

and this is for danyelle -- a picture hearkening back to july when i first found this sleevy beauty. i just wish i were more practiced with arm posing. there's only so many ways to hold ones arms to show off this dress's true potential without getting weary.

holy toledo!

i had a horrible realization last night... medieval set has to be done by THIS FRIDAY!!! not next friday, as i was originally thinking!
you can imagine the panic this has triggered in my anxiety-prone spirit.

thankfully, after an evening of mulling over this tragic turn of events, and with the help of nick's calm problem-solving skills, i'm calm. i'm zen. i'm in a place of acceptance and peace.
things will get done.
the school cafeteria will look like a castle.
i won't quit my job.

so in a shameless distraction ploy, here's some fun pics from our costume party last sunday...

if my dress looks vaguely familiar, remember the swayingly dancy video with the swoopy sleeves? this is my thrift store find from long, long ago (well, july anyways) that i was so thrilled about!
i finally found occasion to wear it. nick went for an equally 70's look, but more in the spirit of will ferrel/john travolta/rockin' cowboy.

our mormon brother rob was trying his darndest to convert someone, but to no avail.

zach & ann-victoria were the christmassy hosts of the party.

erica was the slightly frazzled 50's housewife.

all around, there were fun costumes a-plenty...
now i just need to find another excuse to wear my dress.

art 1 projects

after a long 6 weeks, my art 1 classes finally finished these paltry projects.
well, they're not paltry when you consider that each one of these things encapsulates 6 principle words (balance, emphasis, harmony, movement, rhythm & variety), painstaking design creations for each word and a final arrangement employing harmony in the overal composition...
but when just looking at them, they do indeed seem paltry.
oh well.
mostly i'm just glad we'll be moving on to something new.
after this daggum medieval dinner theater is over, that is. yes, that's right, it's that time of year again. but thankfully, this is the drama teacher's last year before retirement!! that deserves an unabashed 'huzzah!!'
meanwhile, 2 more weeks of faltering along, hoping it will all come together in the last final days. it always has, but somehow i'm at the point in the process when i feel like it's all going to look like crap, no matter how much i stress about it, so i might as well throw up my hands in surrender.
i'm sure you'll be hearing more about that. be warned.

another one bites the dust

remember sweet asia from posts of yore?
today she went home with somebody else.

i was so sad to see her go.
she was my favorite of the litter, and i always said i wanted to keep her. today she went home with one of my high schoolers.
but it's a good thing, really!
just sad at the same time.

i feel like i haven't been a very loyal cat owner lately. i wish i could just have a kitten, raise it, keep it for years and years, tend to it when its fur is falling out in old-age-clumps, then give it a quiet resting place under an oak tree when its time for it to go to the happy stalking grounds in the sky.
right now i feel more like a stopping-off point myself, like a bus stop or something. maybe the cats in my life are a reflection of the relationships in my life. the last 4 years of owning this house has seen me with at least 6 different roomates, all passing through on their way to somewhere else.

hmm.
interesting.

anyhow, i took asia to school with me this morning. it was a 1/2 day for the kids, so she hung out with my classes for a few hours, then went on her merry way with kylie. having her in the classroom made me so much more attached to her -- she was so cozy and lovey and cuddly! i know she'll make a good cat for them though. it's just not the right time for me to be having cat attachments.
it's possible that fantasia's pregnant again (that tramp!) so maybe i can keep one of her next kittens.

in the meantime, i still have malcolm & milo. although probably not for long! having asia at school made all 109 of my other students want to keep her and when i told them she has brothers i think i got a couple of takers. it's funny to me that fantasia's so not attractive, as far as cats go, but that she has such beautiful babies!

maybe it's god's way of consoling her vanity by giving her pretty progeny.