Christmas pix

Hallie and Bubsy

Christmas

It came, and it was good, and I felt it.  I directed a surprisingly large--30ish kids in the combined choir--group at our 4:00 family service, and they sang like angels and made me cry.  That started it, and I was wrapped up in it from then on.  I dragged Hallie and Ian there to play percussion and hand chimes for my kids' anthems, and Dave was one of the Wise Men in the pageant part of the service.  It was all sweet and touching, and then we rushed home.  Hallie and I changed into dressy clothes (no choir robes on xmas eve) and rushed back in time for the 6:00 call time for the next service, a traditional lessons and carols service with a candlelit Silent Night at the end.  Beautiful music, hugs from old friends, surprise visits from all-grown-up former choir members.   

As we do every Christmas Eve, from there a big crowd of us went to our friends', the Kelleys, house for roast beef sandwiches, a huge pot of homemade potato soup (must be my week for it), all kinds of holiday baked goods, and copious amounts of pomegranate martinis, compliments of Dave.  Then we all returned slightly drunkenly BACK to church, grateful that we only had to go a block, for the 11:00 communion service in which most of us had to sing More candles, more beautiful songs and carols, more hugs and old friends.  (Yes, it's the churchiest imaginable Christmas Eve, for such is the life of a church musician.)  Finally, after midnight, back home to sneak one by one to the fireplace to fill stockings.  

We all slept till about 9, then dumped out our stockings (no diamond rings, lots of stupid stuff and candy) and then cooked up a huge brunch just in time for some friends to arrive to share it with us--along with plenty of mimosas.

After that, it was presents, then our annual Christmas Day trip to the movies.  We saw Benjamin Button, and I found it magical and beautiful and was completely transported by it.  It's LONG though--so make that prophylactic trip to the ladies room before it starts.  When we got home, we were too full of popcorn and Junior Mints to have any interest in the big dinner I was planning to cook, so we heated up some delicious Antonio's tamales, changed into jammies, and commenced to watching, reading or playing our various Christmas "toys."

I think I learned the same lesson the Grinch did.  You can fight it, but it comes anyway.

God bless us every one.

An email I got from Bert:

It had the subject line, "Soup."

"I was going to comment.  I noticed that everyone was giving the word they'd gotten for WV.  So I hit comment and then had to stop...is someone trying to tell me something?"

Below that message was the image of Bert's word verification word.  It was, no kidding,

schmk

Soup

I made a big pot of cream of potato.  And Ian's home for a few days.  My mood is lifting!

It's cold and rainy here, but I know it doesn't even compare to the rest of the country.  How's the weather where you are?

An observation

A diamond ring is not a "stocking stuffer."  Neither is an iPod.  

A stocking stuffer is, say, Silly Putty.  Or a yo-yo.  Or maybe a Snickers bar.  Or, in my childhood, apples and oranges and ribbon candy and maybe a candy cane.

But not a diamond ring.

Today

I shipped all my out of town Christmas presents.  I'm hoping this will improve my attitude, which is bad.  Very bad.  I'm just not feeling Christmas.

So you know how I reported a refrigerator full of green bean casserole and scalloped corn and cranberry business and all that?

Well....it's still in there.  At the rate I'm going, I'll have a fine crop of mold by Christmas.

But heck, my tree's up.

A recipe

Cranberry Business

12 oz bag fresh cranberries, chopped in food processor

2 3 oz. boxes lemon gelatin

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained

2 cans mandarin oranges, drained

Dissolve sugar and gelatin in boiling water, stirring till thoroughly dissolved.  Add the rest of the ingredients.  Chill until set.

I cooked all day

And now I have huge pans of green bean casserole, scalloped corn, do ahead potatoes and stuffing in my extra fridge in the garage.  I also baked two pumpkin pies, a two-crust apple pie and a pecan/chocolate tart.  Hallie is currently working on a cranberry dish and a sweet potato dish.  (I don't like sweet potatoes, so if she wants 'em, she has to make 'em herself.)

Tomorrow, all I really have to do is turkey and gravy.

It has begun...

Today, I made three batches of double-crust pie crust.  I'm planning to make four pies, two pumpkins, a pecan and an apple, but the apple has a double crust, so that'll give me one extra crust to work with.  That Libby's pumpkin pie recipe makes a pretty full pie, so I usually make those in a deep dish.  So six crusts ought to be about right.

I also bought all my Thanksgiving dinner groceries today.  Hallie asked the Fitkins, our friends whose house burned down and who are joining us this year, if they had any dish that it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving if they didn't have, and they said green bean casserole.  I don't usually make it, but I like it and it's easy, so I added it to the list!  I also bought a can of that jellied cranberry sauce that you push out of the can and slice.  I know some people really like that, so we'll have that and also home-cooked cranberries.  I'm also making my sister's do-ahead mashed potatoes for a crowd and scalloped corn.  I'm going to have Hallie bake a couple of loaves of her famous bread, too.

I Started!

Christmas shopping, that is.  Nothing too much--but a small gift for Dave, a couple of things for my sister, and a few things for Hallie.  I'm rolling!

In honor of our HUGE game with Texas Tech tomorrow, I present, for your amusement:

Ring that bell, baby!

A New Day

Since I am MOST decidedly not a nervous wreck any more, I figured it was time for a new entry.  I don't have much going on, though.

It's Thursday, which means I'm getting ready to go to church for an 8-hour marathon.  I love it, though.  We have our 4-6  year olds choir, then our elementary choir, then we (my boss and I) go out for dinner and a planning session, then we come back for handbells and chancel (grownup) choir.  I absolutely CHERISH every second with the children.  They learn new music so fast that they remind me of a giant sponge.  I can't feed them fast enough.  My accompanist and I both laugh at how if I just mention the title of a song, they begin singing it with such gusto that it takes me five minutes to quiet them down and explain whatever point I was trying to make.

I have the sense when I'm with them that I'm doing exactly the RIGHT thing to do.  It feels like I'm doing what I was designed by nature to do.  It's a feeling I've really never had before in my life, and it's grand.  (But it's a blessing I don't have to try to make a living doing it.)

I'm about to leave for the gym, and I've already been three times this week.  I'm also doing very well with Atkins this time--staying on it effortlessly and having that curious energy that you get when you're in ketosis.  So that's good.

I am a complete idiot.  I'm involved in a gigantic argument on a message board.  I am "fighting" with a bossy, Southern fundamentalist "Christian" man who thinks he is right, and "righteous" about everything.  This argument got started, unsurprisingly, because of my feelings about Prop 8.  He looks down on homosexuals, believes that the government should be Christian, believes that life begins at conception and that abortion is "murder" (I don't know why he thinks it's ok, then,  to murder those innocent "souls" who are the product of rape.  I guess they are less deserving than other fetuses.)  He has a scripture to quote for everything.   He has said that I don't know the Bible, that I "seem like an atheist."  He is indescribably, infuriatingly smug and his reply to nearly all my responses, was "oh come, if you're such a Biblical scholar, you can do better than that."  By the time I departed the argument, I was so upset that my hands were shaking.  Why, oh why, do I get myself into these things?  I asked him, as I left (for good, because he's not worth letting my day be ruined) if he thought that his behavior and attitude were worthy of Jesus, if he believes that he is helping others find faith with his words, since that is the primary responsibility of any Christian.  I'd like to go back and see what he said, but don't let me!  Please, don't let me!

Peace out.

I'm a nervous wreck

It's gonna be a squeaker, and it could go either way.

Prop 8--all about hate

I am sick at heart at the behavior of my community concerning California's Proposition 8 (which would repeal same-sex marriage in California.)  Yorba Linda is BLANKETED with "Yes on 8" signs.  They're everywhere.  And we actually have protestors--chubby blonde soccer moms and their chubby blonde children, grinning and waving and carrying "Yes on 8" signs on street corners.  Why on earth do they care about who somebody else marries?  Exactly what kind of intolerance are they teaching their soccer players?

Hallie read an article that said the lion's share of the money backing Prop 8 is from the Mormons, which just sickens me.  Of all the outfits to go all righteous and holy about the "sanctity of marriage"..."

Between the racism directed at Obama and this awful Prop 8, I feel weary of being a part of the human race.  You broards are all that's giving me hope.

YES WE CARVE!

A "Yes We Carve" party was held at my house last night.  Bubsy put on his Halloween sweater for the occasion!

Names

Several years back, I became completely obsessed with online genealogy.  If you haven't tried it, visit Ancestry.com and use their free service.  Type in the name of a forebear a couple of generations back, preferably an unusual name and not "John Smith."  If you get a "hit" and find that someone else has already entered your family's info on the world family tree, it's very easy to get hooked!  It's like treasure hunt, and you become consumed with seeing how far back you can get!  I met all kinds of distant cousins, got packets in the mail containing photographs of people, headstones, houses, homesteads, and all around had a wonderful time.  Ultimately, I kind of got stuck, but this was after finding literally HUNDREDS of family names and tracing a number of my lines to people who were born before 1700, and several before 1600.  Through my grandmother's Goodloe line, one enterprising soul had traced the Goodloes back to somewhere around 1400, with a surprising amount of detailed birth and death dates and burial places.

Anyway, one of the most entertaining parts of this was learning some of the delightful names of some of my ancestors.  I thought I would share with you some of my favorite ancestresses:

Sophronia America Chappell  (Sophronia was my great-great-grandmother, and is my favorite of all the names!)

Betsy Breedlove

Sally Featherston

Paulina Thomason (they pronounced the "i" in Paulina as a long "i."  The original Paulina must've been much loved, because the name went on for four generations.)

(The three above were grandmother, daughter and granddaughter.  All had lovely names, to my ear.)

Other favorites I came across were Cecily Osbaldston, Alydia Anderson, and Lydia Ederington.  I could go on all day--I found hundreds of ladies with beautiful names.

One of the oddest names I found was a woman named Barnaby Roberts.  Barnaby??  Another odd name was one Easter Burch, born 1671.  You can't help but wonder if somehow "Esther" was misspelled on a document.

Though not an ancestress, the oddest of all was one poor man with the name Payne Payne.  The most horrifying?  My ancestor Richard Cheney, born 1620.  I decided not to investigate THAT line too closely.

My "prize find" was my many times great grandfather Robert Thompson of South Carolina, a Revolutionary War hero known as "the first martyr of the American Revolution."  He was one of the "Regulator Boys" (an organized group of rebels protesting lack of representation, extortion and oppression by the British colonial government) of South Carolina, and was shot to death by the British Governor Tryon, while returning from a meeting in which he tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution between the British troops and the 2000 or so Regulators.  Pretty interesting!

Colin Powell says it better than I ever could

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said.  Such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.'  Well, the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.'  But the really right answer is 'What if he is?  Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?'  The answer is 'No, that's not America.'  Is there something wrong with some 7-year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president?  Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.  This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Santa Ana skin care

I have just declared a full-scale Santa Ana skin crisis.  This morning when I woke up, I saw that I had scratched my dry, itchy arms and legs hard enough to bring blood, all while I slept.  That was my cue to go into full-blown crisis management.

This generally involves dumping about a half a bottle of Neutrogena body oil into my bathtub morning and night, and then applying a thick layer of Palmer's cocoa butter to everything but my face while I'm still damp, before the winds can completely deplete my cells of all moisture. The face gets a coating of vaseline around the eyes, nose and lips, followed by a thick layer or two of Chapstick on the lips.

Before sleep, I put a bottle of water and a tube of chapstick on my nightstand, because when the crazy winds blow, I tend to wake up during the night with a mouth and throat dry as parchment, and cracked lips to boot.

As a final sleep aid, I bring the old, noisy box fan in from the garage and turn it to "high," (pointed away from the bed, of course.)  The idea is to drown out all the scary banging and clanging and creaking coming from outside, as lawn furniture, umbrellas, trash cans, small pets, etc,  blow through my humble homestead on their way to the ocean.  It's not unlike the scene from The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy watches from her bedroom window as the residents and contents of her farm blow past.

Strange days.

And now, in honor of Spidey and Orbie, another 70's wedding pic!

If you squint, you can sorta see those green tuxes in the background!

Hot, hot, hot

It is unbearably freaking hot in Southern California today.  Yorba Linda got to 105.  And it's not just hot, it's also humid, which is very freakish for here.  I was just absolutely SWEATY all day.  I mean armpit ring, beads of sweat on my upper lip, shiny forehead sweaty.  It was gross.  I was gross.  Being so sweaty made me feel queasy and weak and tired.  

It needs to be fall.  Soon.

Aren't they cute?

This is one of my groups from last year.  That age group is even bigger this year.  My challenge is to find a way for you to hear them sing!

Here's how bad my day sucks:

I both unloaded the dishwasher AND cleaned the toilets today.

Hey, Emma!

Hallie is visiting your state this week!  Her magazine is photographing boats all week.  I can't remember where--but I know it's a lake!  ;)

What's your least favorite household job?

Mine's unloading the dishwasher.  I hate it so much that I sometimes let piles of rinsed and ready to load dishes sit in the sink because the dishwasher is full of clean dishes and I don't want to take them out.   I hate the silverware basket the most.

I guess cleaning the toilet is grosser.  But I still hate unloading the dishwasher more.

obit

On this Lunch Monday, we found ourselves running so far ahead of schedule that we ended up spending the last fifteen minutes of Hallie's lunch hour sitting in the parking lot eating McD's soft serve cones and reading the newspaper.  I happened to have my section open to the page with the obits when suddenly, Hallie piped up with, "Mom, I've been working on an obit for you."

My curiosity was piqued, but I was suspicious.  "Oh yeah?  What?"

"Well, so far, I only have one line:  'Her death was made even more tragic by the fact that she was only four Babies short of completing her life's work--collecting every Beanie Baby ever made.'"

For what it's worth, by the way, I don't collect Beanie Babies (or anything else.)

9/11

On the one-year anniversary of 9/11, Yorba Linda had a community-wide ceremony.  It was put together by our inter-faith council and a lot of churches plus a Muslim group and our local synagogue participated.  It was a walk down the length of Yorba Linda Blvd., beginning at the Catholic Church at one end and ending at the Baptist Church at the other.  People walked, sang, and carried candles, and there was prayer at each stop along the road.  Hundreds, maybe thousands of people went.  It was very moving.

But that was seven years ago.  In the intervening years, some bad stuff has happened in peaceful little old Yorba Linda.  Some white junior high kids ganged up and beat a Middle Eastern kid senseless at the skateboard park one night.  Elsewhere in Orange County, some Muslim organizations' buildings have been defaced.  Anti-Muslim propaganda circulates regularly on the Internet.  Perfectly sensible, otherwise intelligent people are thoroughly convinced that Barack Obama is some kind of secret Muslim terrorist.  Many otherwise intelligent people believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists.  People who would never dream of unleashing hateful rants about, say, Catholics or Jews feel absolutely entitled to spew violent anti-Muslim vitriol. It's starting to frighten me.  It needs to stop.

It's time to leave 9/11 in our past.  Our world is too small and too crowded to keep crowing over tragedies that are in the past, things that cause hostility and hatred against innocent people who are living in the now.  It's time for us to prayerfully and quietly remember the lost and to work diligently toward creating a future without racial and religious hatred, a world in which another 9/11 won't happen.

Summer's Gone

And I'm glad.  I'm ready for it to be fall!  I took the floral wreath off my front door and put a fall leaves and berries one up.  That's about as far as I can go for now--in SoCal, September is usually hotter than August.  Sweaters and the fireplace and hearty pots of soup and such are going to have to wait.

In 59 minutes, I have to go to the dentist.  But, ya know, who's counting?  

I am, obviously.  I have the worst case of dentist-phobia of anyone I've ever encountered.  It all started in 6th grade.  I was being fitted for a retainer, the object of which was to close the slight gap between my two front teeth.  As the family sadist, er dentist, was perusing my most recent x-rays, he came to realize that my right eye tooth was still a baby tooth.  Looking more closely, he saw that, waiting to come in above the baby tooth were two full-sized permanent teeth AND a stunted little miniature tooth.  All retainer plans were put on hold and the experts were called.

The plan that ensued involved me having the baby tooth pulled and waiting for something to happen.  Nothing did.  There was just too much up there for anything to have room to come down into the space.  Next, I visited an oral surgeon, which ultimately resulted in my having a huge hole carved out of my palate, from which were extracted the mini-tooth and the extra permanent tooth.  The gaping hole that was left was filled with a plastic packing material until the exposed nerves were once again covered with tissue, and then the packing was removed--leaving me with, as you might guess, a gaping hole in my palate.  But no, the fun did NOT stop there.

Next, the permanent tooth grew down into the now-healing gaping hole, whereupon the "difficult cases" orthodontic specialist my parents had engaged put a band around it (and all the rest of my poor miserable teeth) and over a period of three long, unpleasant (in my view) years, pulled that tooth from the center of the roof of my mouth up to the space it was meant to go in.

Needless to say, word quickly got out in junior high that there was this weird girl with a tooth in the middle of her palate, and I was frequently called upon to display my claim to fame, to the amusement of everyone except, of course, myself.

I'd like to say that this made me the most popular girl in seventh grade, but that would be a lie.

Is it any wonder I hate the dentist?

(P.S.  They did close up that gap, though.  I have the straightest teeth in town.)

holiday weekend

Ours was relaxing and fairly uneventful.  Saturday, Dave and I went to the NASCAR races in Fontana.  A young man who posts on the sports message board I bought last year works for one of the big drivers and got us pit/garage passes, which Dave got a big kick out of.  It was gawdawfully hot and humid that day, and the pit has a dress code--long pants, no open shoes, no tank shirts, etc., which made it even hotter.  I declined to visit the pit and remained in the (mercifully shaded) grandstand seats while Dave went down there.  I enjoyed watching the race more than I thought I would.  It's a lot more interesting in person than it is on TV.  (But what ISN'T more interesting than televised car races?  Golf, maybe...)

We also happened to have tickets for A Chorus Line at the OC Performing Arts Center, so Hallie used those.

Sunday, Hallie and I sang a very pretty duet arrangement of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" at both services at church (last week of summer fill-in music--next week it'll be back to full choir). Later that day, she had a pool party for a pretty big crowd of friends.  Dave was the designated pomegranate margarita maker and I did the food--taco bar, chile con queso, guacamole, plus chocolate torte a la mode for dessert.  They stayed up late.  We didn't.

Yesterday, we saw the most absurd movie ever--Hamlet 2.  I was wildly amused and laughed nonstop all the way through.  Some people in the theater were sort of stunned into silence, apparently, but I found Steve Coogan to be almost painfully hilarious as the most affected, ridiculous high school drama teacher ever to write the most hideous play ever performed by high school drama nerds (Hamlet and Jesus Christ, who sports a hot swimmer's bod, travel in a time machine and arrive just in time to save Ophelia and the entire cast from tragic death.)  If you like odd movies, and I do, go see it.

We finished up the day with yet another Mexican feast at Cafe El Cholo, a venerable LA institution, which incidentally claims to have invented nachos.  So maybe we're a little fatter than we started, but we're happy.

Book Carnival

There's a funny little bookstore I sometimes go to.  It's in a very low-budget and rather down at the heels looking strip mall in the humble town of Orange.  It labels itself as a shop for "mystery and dark fantasy."  It's smallish, cluttered and dusty, and never seems especially busy.

What's fascinating about Book Carnival is that EVERYBODY, and I mean everybody, who writes mystery novels has book signings there.  The owner, so I've heard, is retired LAPD and great friend of Michael Connelly and many other renowned mystery writers.  The shop was actually featured in one of Connelly's recent Harry Bosch outings.  

I get a card from Book Carnival every month detailing the upcoming month's signings   This month it's Margaret Coel, Stephen Hunter, Michael Connelly; and Dean Koontz.  Recently, I got a chance to visit there with one of my favorites, T. Jefferson Parker (a handsome flirt who had a fairly nervous wife/girlfriend hovering nearby).  I'm hoping to get down to meet Connelly this month, and I'd love to see the head that holds the brain of Dean Koontz.

You can read a little more about it here.

Happy 23rd, Halliekins!

How is it possible that my children are the same age as me?

Today is Lunch Monday

Every Monday since Hallie started at the magazine last November, I pick her up at app. 1:00 and take her to lunch.  We call it Lunch Monday, and we've only missed it 3 times in nine months, all times when I was out of the country.  (In the case of Monday holidays, we have Lunch Tuesday, not as alliterative, but we are seriously committed to this thing.)  Often we take the other Ad Coordinator, Kristin, with us.  Sometimes we take other people from the office, too.

Tuesday is Movie Tuesday.  Dave is out of town every Tuesday and Wednesday, so Hallie picks me up on the way home from work and we see whatever lame chick flick we know Dave would never want to go to.  Last week it was Traveling Pants 2.  Sometimes we don't do Movie Tuesday, because sometimes there's just no movie worth seeing.

But NOTHING stands in the way of Lunch Monday.

Back on the Treadmill Again

No, I'm not referring to my job, which starts again in a week or so.  I'm referring to the actual treadmill.  For reasons which I shall choose not to examine too closely, I just up and quit going to the gym back before my trip to Barcelona in May.  Every Sunday night, I would say to myself "Yeah... this week I'll go back to the gym."  And every week, not only didn't I go, but I didn't really even seriously consider going.  I've been living a land of dreamy, restful denial.

It's not like for all the years I've been going every day, I was ever making great advances toward becoming athletic or anything.  I was just holding my own against the constant weight gain that is the lot of the menopausal.  At this time in the life of the female body, you either live in a constant state of mild hunger or you steadily and slowly edge toward chubbiness.  And that's what I've been doing.  And not really that slowly.  So today when Dave, who is training for a triathlon, mentioned that he was heading down to do some cardio, I said "yeah, me too."  No one was more surprised than I was when I said it.  I guess it was just time.

Next challenge:  making it two in a row.

I'm thinking of ending my relationship.

With Sprint, that is.  After eleven years, the bloom is off the rose.  

Oh, in the old days, it was all love and laughter.  They were the only company that had a tower that provided a signal in the foothills I live in.  I had a plan that gave me 500 minutes a month for only  fifteen bucks.  Then I added two phones for the kids to my plan, plus a LOT more minutes to get Hallie and me through being separated for four years while she was at college.  Things got a lot more complicated.  But I still loved them.

But now when I call them, I get someone in India who doesn't understand a word I'm saying and doesn't care, anyway.  Their phones always break just in time to force me to up my service agreement with them yet again in order to get a deal on a new one.  And their reputation has gone to pot.  

It'd cost me $200 to break up with them, the bastages.  But it might be worth it.

Jury Doody

I have call-in jury duty this week.  I was feeling pretty ok about this, since when Ian had it last summer, he merely called at 5:00 each afternoon to find out if he had to go in the next day.  If he didn't (and he never did), he could go ahead and make plans for the next day.

My group number, however, has to call at 11:30 every morning to find out if we must report at 1:00 that same day.  It sucks.  You can't plan anything until you know, but by the time you do, it's too late to really plan anything or get much done.  I don't like it.

Hallie uses her brand new school supplies

And Speaking of Songs

I found this list of Spinner.com's take on the 25 saddest songs.  I don't know that I agree.  Any list that doesn't have "He Stopped Loving Her Today" at the top has to be wrong.

But I did find a place where you can listen to the very beautiful "Mad World," from my list of favorite songs.  If you don't know it, take a listen.  It'll make you want lock yourself in the bathroom and weep.

So what do you think is the saddest song ever?

Words to Live By

I have a real problem with fretting and stewing about things.  I do it so much it's like a hobby.  It didn't arise out of nothing, mind you.  I learned it at the feet of the master--my mother.  And she learned it at the feet of an even greater master, her mother.  It's some sort of horrible family legacy.  All in all, I'd rather inherit the sterling.

I think it's a trait that goes hand in hand with being ultra-sensitive and whether I like it or not, picking up on every tiny nuance of mood from every person in the room with me.  I don't want to notice that Dave is seeming brooding and distant or that Hallie looks a little sad or that Ian's voice sounds tight on the phone, but I do.  And then from there it can ramp into full color, horrifying fantasies about what might happen someday.  Or sometimes I drift into the past and dredge up what I might have done to be at fault if someone I care for isn't completely happy all the time.

Not everyone does this, I know.  I know people who sail blissfully through the world without really picking up on the vibes of anyone but themselves.  These are people who have let yesterday go and don't really have time to think about tomorrow because they're busy experiencing today.  I hate them.  I want to be them.

I've been actively working on not doing this any more.  The terrible part of being a worrier is that it keeps you from being in the moment.  It robs you of the simple pleasure of a sunny afternoon, a delicious meal, a great song on the radio, a joke shared with a friend.  So I have a few mantras, and I remind myself every few hours throughout the day, "live in the NOW."  If I catch myself starting up a big fat stewing session, I repeat the words from the sermon on the mount, "Sufficient unto the day are the troubles therein."  There's really no need to borrow some troubles from tomorrow, or drag some forward from yesterday.

I really do this.  And it really helps.  Got any words you live by?

Some songs that I like

Levon

The Superman Song

If I Loved You

Let Him Fly

Mad World (Donnie Darko theme)

Pie Jesu (Faure Requiem)  (although I like that Lloyd Weber one, too)

Tecumseh Valley

I Still Miss Someone

Hallelujah

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

That's just a start.

Bubsy likes ice cream

A Question for ElizaSand

OK, so you know how I slavishly mimic everything you do and stuff...and I think I told you I was going to get a voice recorder for my iPod so I could record my choirs like you do.  And I did, and they sound precious and I practically cry every time I listen to it.   But is there a way for me to upload their singing to my computer?  It would be cool if I could email recordings of our practices to them so they could work on the hard stuff at home.  Or maybe even put their adorable singing on my blog?

Or is that completely impossible?

Fried Worms

Last night, we had worms for dinner.  At least that's what Hallie calls it.  We thinly sliced 3 huge, sweet onions, slowly caramelized them in olive oil and butter for about a half hour, and then gave them a good dousing with balsamic vinegar.  The results tastes heavenly, but looks surprisingly like a pan of earthworms.  Yum.

I think I'm turning into Alex

I have conceived a late-in-life passion for ironing.  Several months ago, I bought a new ironing board, a pretty blue and white ironing board cover and a big, fancy Rowenta iron.  It generates so much steam that I'm always a little scared when I'm using it.  It's heavy, too, and between the steam and the weight of it, very little actually effort has to go into the ironing process.  I bought four pairs of linen pants for summer, and every week, I wash them, hang them to dry, and look forward to ironing them into amazing wrinkle-less-ness.  It's shockingly satisfying.

(Thanks for pointing me toward the Rowenta, Alex!)

Trying Again

I didn't succeed, but I'm an optimist, so here I go again!