to continue in the trend of sharing other people's genius, i find this quote from sweet juniper fascinating:

"Did you know Donald Rumsfeld was the one responsible for pushing aspartame-based artificial sweeteners through the FDA approval process without the appropriate testing back in the eighties, and he received a $12 million bonus from the company who developed it (he'd been its president)."

"Is that true?" I ask.

"Yeah, and you know how well he thought out the whole Iraq War."

i'll never drink another diet soda again.

the tunes

upon my mother's request, here's a live version of the aforementioned lyrics...
(don't forget the fingersnapping!)

beyond the sea by bobby darin (sung by kevin spacey)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SwqynmqPPLA


and while you're at it, this next link is for a video that is so precious.
i love it.

first day of my life by bright eyes
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwFS69nA-1w

song of the day

if you can believe it, i'd made it through my entire life without hearing this song! then one day nick was merrily singing it and i absolutely loved it. now i can't get it out of my head!

hopefully it will get permanently entrenched in your head today so you can share in the joy :-)

(make sure to include finger snapping as you sing it to yourself)

Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sand
And watches the ships that go sailing

Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms I'd go sailing

It's far beyond the star
It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be, beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt,
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet, I know we'll meet
Beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be, beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

out with the new & in with the old!

nick and i are ecstatic to announce that we're the proud new owners of a 1986 ford f150!!


this may sound like a downgrade from my little gas-saving toyota corolla 2000,
but after i explain to you the details of the situation, you'll come to understand our enthusiasm.


pros of owning a huge pick-up:
#1: you get to sit in the middle of the benchseat next to the driver, like a proper hillbilly
#2: you get to haul BIG stuff around
#3: you're much more protected from serious bodily injury in the event of an automobile accident
#4: you just feel cool

pros of NOT owning an efficient little car:
#1: you don't have to make car payments!
#2: you no longer have to have full-coverage car insurance!!
#3: you get to spend quality time carpooling with other teachers
#4: you no longer increase the hole in the ozone layer
(you may disagree with this assertion and even argue that i'll be increasing it sizeably by driving a truck, but given the fact that i'll probably only be driving it once a week or so (and to haul big stuff, of course) it evens out to being environmentally friendly after all...)




it rained for the last 28 hours, so it's been pretty deluvial, but nick and i ventured out into the flood after dark to claim our prized possession, that's how excited we are about it.
we even celebrated with a trip to dairy queen.

goodbye little car. mark bolger will treat you well.

mohinder strikes again

this is the ludicrous scene that greeted me upon ascending the stairs to my bedroom the other day.

i totally cracked up laughing.

given the fact that i leave mohinder home alone all day long, how can i begrudge him a little fun?!
granted, it took me half an hour to wind up all his fun which he misconstrued as even more fun, making it rather difficult to accomplish...

that's cats for ya.

nature walk

a couple of weeks ago, i was so completely irritable from having different things happen with students & whatnot, so 4th hour we just took a walk instead of doing art.
it was just the perfect thing. and the kids didn't mind either.


there's an 'outdoor classroom' a little ways away from the school. it has some trails and benches and it's just nice and peaceful in the woods. we walked around then sat around, then headed on back.

ah, the perks of being in charge. sometimes you can just do absolutely nothing and it's legal.

sunday good sunshine

saturday good eats

we had the most fun on saturday night!!
let me tell you about it.
our friends kristin & aaron (on the left), zach & ann-victoria, and nick & i had the first monthly cook-off for dinner. each couple brought 4 ingredients of their choice, then we drew names to see whose set of ingredients each couple would get. then we made something out of it, including necessary staple items like flour, sugar, oil, etc.
we came up with some really tasty creations!!
nick & i ended up with angel hair pasta, green olives, cashews & fresh spinach.
we turned those into a stir-fry with soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and other chinese-y spices. i wasn't optimistic, but it was actually great!
aaron & kristin had chicken, raisins, cabbage & apples.
they created a apple,cabbage, raisin stuffed chicken concoction that i could easily have imagined in a restaurant somewhere. so good!
ann-victoria & zach had canned pineapple, canned cherries, oatmeal & almonds.
they expertly turned them into individual pastries that were incredible.

we were all the winners. not only was the end result amazing, but we had so much fun doing it along the way!
and we all had so many ideas of ways to improve the general concept with our next month's rendition of the couples cook-off.
i can't wait!

p.s. kristin's having a baby!!!

friday good times

in case you need a translator for andrew's enthusiastic comment, he's saying, 'i didn't fall down!'

big cedar = big fun

my dear friend allison works at big cedar lodge & resort, which i drive past every day on my way to work, but have never experienced in all it's grandeur. the big cedar administration wanted each staff member to spend a night in one of the cabins so they would know how better to assist their lodgers. allison invited me to come along for the 'educational experience', and i was more than happy to oblige!



we cooked an amazing dinner, built a cozy fire, played on allison's new laptop, watched 'becoming jane' on the huge flat screen t.v., slept in the giant, feather-toppered beds in a cloud of cushiness, and had general, all around, luxurious fun.

and bonus, we didn't have school the next day! it was one of our infamous 'snow days' with no snow to accompany it. to be fair, i think part of the blue eye area had some snow. not my part.

so we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, took a shower in the shower with FOUR shower heads -- a rain one overhead and three ones that were coming out of the wall at various places. talk about strange! but i think i could probably get used to it.

we kept trying different spots for a timer shot and we were just not very photogenic. but we gave it a valiant effort. hopefully we'll be more photogenic at my wedding! allison is one of my lovely bridesmaids! i'm so glad for our friendship. she's a gem.

reality check...

and to refute alyssa's claim that i have the most fun ALL the time, here's me, right this second, looking completely un-fun.
i would just hate to perpetuate the myth that my life is all rosy by only including the fun things on my blog!
right now, my lips are chapped, i'm a little cold, the only sound i hear is the heat trying to keep up with the demand, and i'm having very uninteresting thoughts.

there is real fun frequently being had by all means, but not as all-encompassingly as this blog could make you believe.

be not deceived, my readers!

whoa nelly.

this weekend was so full!
let me enumerate.

saturday, nick showed his true undying love for me by accompanying me to a bridal show.
'no man hath greater love for his fiance than that he lay down his life and attend a girly-fest'... or something like that.

it was such an incredibly beautiful day -- the sun was warm, the air was balmy, it felt like spring. which is naturally a harbinger of another winter storm on its way. (most likely no school tuesday & wednesday!!)

after a few hours of perusing the photographers, floral departments & dj's, oh, and eating a whole lot of wedding cake, nick jetted off to work, to be replaced by allison. we enjoyed some good steak & shake while waiting for the bridal fashion show to start. it was marked mostly by the startling discovery that 3 of the wedding-dress-wearing models were blue eye high school students!! there's something alarming about seeing a 16 year old that you've had in class in a wedding dress.
my favorite part was when the announcer affirmed a particular dress's style as flattering on any figure. the dress she spoke of was modeled by a lithe teenager, so it's hard to say if she was telling the truth or not.

then we were off to the symphony, ode to joy, to enjoy some good classical music. the most exciting part of it, of course, was that erica & casey were part of the choir!! here they are singing their hearts out.

we were literally sitting on the back row of the top balcony (free tickets) but thankfully my camera goes up to 12x zoom!

it was my first time to attend a symphony and it was incredible. the video clips obviously can't do it justice (notwithstanding the highly illegal nature of any video of symphonies -- i didn't notice all the signs outlawing it! i promise!)
erica & casey were in the far back right corner. it was in german so i couldn't distinguish any words, but the sound alone was overwhelmingly beautiful.
i thought especially of aunt robin with these clips, being the vocal talent that she is. i think she even used to sing opera? (i should know this for sure about my own aunt...)

anyhow, so saturday was so socially busy, i was exhausted and spent. for the first time in years, i stayed home from church sunday morning for no particular reason except feeling tired & needing alone time.

it was wonderful. i missed seeing everyone, naturally, but it was just the thing to restore my soul. i slept in, read, journalled, read some more, slept some more, cleaned my house... (mohinder was VERY mischievous with the broom & mop action -- this is him pre-pounce)

i even baked bread!
it was beyond tasty.









and now we're back at school, but we'll probably have another weekend consisting of tuesday & wednesday snow days! we're supposed to get 6-8 inches tonight.
good grief.
will it ever end??!!

oh, and here's the video clips. it's especially fun to play them all at the same time.

ode to joy