I don't have a clever title

Just a quick post to say happy weekend! My sister and her boyfriend are in town this weekend - he plays lacrosse for Texas State and they are playing at SMU on Saturday - so that should be fun!

Also - I just started reading "Same Kind of Different as Me" - have you read it? I just started, I'm about halfway through, but it's hard to put down! I love it so far - I'll give a more thorough review after I finish it this weekend! If you get a chance though... pick it up! Happy Friday! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Did you eat enough dirt?

Dirt is good for you.
I just wanted to share this article I found today that I thought was pretty interesting. Especially teaching preschool, I can see the increase of allergies in young children even when compared to when I was growing up. So many parents these days are so concerned about a clean, sanitized environment for their children, and while I certainly wouldn't suggest living in a garbage can, I think a lot of people tend to overkill the cleaning part of things. I've got at least 5 out of 15 kids in my class that have already been to an allergist and have allergies ranging from peanuts to pollen.

I don't have a whole lot to say on this topic - I just thought it was interesting to point out that when we were all sitting in the backyard test-tasting the dirt around us, we were actually doing our immune-systems some good! Maybe I didn't eat enough dirt growing up and that's contributing to how many times I've been sick this year? OR maybe it has to do with having mono 3 times and working in a petri-dish called a preschool class? Who knows...

Why I love living in Texas

ICE DAYS! While I'll admit, it is pretty cold right now (19 deg) and the roads are completely covered in ice this morning, had these conditions occurred in any state north of here (or even in other cities -- I don't recall Tech ever canceling classes because of a little ice on the roads), everyone would go about their days as usual. But not here! The local news keeps going on about the "HUNDREDS of cancellations today!", which I am most certainly not complaining about. Oh, and I should add that we are expected to hit a high of 42 deg here. For those of you that don't know, I was born in Minnesota and lived there until I was 9. Although my skin adapted quickly to the Texas heat and I could not take the cold there for an entire winter if I was paid to, I thought I'd share an email my mom sent me recently.

Cold Weather Behavior

• 60 above zero: Floridians turn on the heat. Minnesotans plant gardens.
• 50 above zero: Californians shiver uncontrollably. People are sunbathing in Duluth.
• 40 above zero: Import cars won't start. Minnesotans drive with the sunroof open.
• 32 above zero: Distilled water freezes. The water in Bemidji gets thicker.
• 20 above zero: New Mexicans don long johns, parkas and wool hats & mittens. Minnesotans throw on a flannel shirt.
• 15 above zero: New York landlords finally turn on the heat. People in Minnesota have one last cookout before it gets cold.
• Zero: People in Miami all die. Minnesotans close the windows.
• 10 below zero: Californians fly away to Mexico . Minnesotans dig their winter coats out of storage.
• 25 below zero: Hollywood disintegrates. Girl Scouts in Minnesota still selling cookies door to door.
• 40 below zero: Washington , D.C. finally runs out of hot air. People in Minnesota let their dogs sleep indoors.
• 100 below zero: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Minnesotans get upset because the Mini-Van won't start.
• 460 below zero: ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). People in Minnesota can be heard to say, "Cold 'nuff fer ya?"
• 500 below zero: Hell freezes over. Minnesota public schools open 2 hours late.

If 20 deg above zero is all it takes for us to close school - I'll take it! The news keeps showing all the overpasses with cars stuck on them. Some facing the right way, some not so much - while I certainly don't wish an accident on anyone, and am praying for my husband to have a safe drive this morning - I can't help but think there have to be a lot of idiot drivers out there for the news to have THIS many shots of people off the road. I also think that if we are going to live in an area where the roads can be covered with ice, they should have more than a little sand to cover it up. On the other hand though - it does make for some comical videos of the cars moving about 20 mph on the highway, and I can't help but think that everyone north of us would be falling out of their chairs laughing when they heard our newscasters say "watch out out there, we are still WELL, WELL below freezing at 22 deg". REALLY?

Happy ice day!

blonde vs brunette

Every now and then I get the urge to dye my hair dark brown. I've done it a few times. Usually, I like it for awhile, until it starts to lighten to my natural color (which is like a dark dishwater blonde) - and then I end up highlighting it again. I'm starting to get that urge again... what do you think I should do?

So who has more fun?? Vote to the right -->

Does this mean I'm hard to work with?

You tell me... does that mean that I am nit picky and he knows I will complain about anything that doesn't look perfect?


Besides our builder calling out the obvious flaw in the sheet rock on our island, the exciting news on the house this week is that we have cabinets! From here they start painting, finish up the trim work, and in a week or two we will have counter-tops!

You can see his sign nailed to the island in the above and below pictures

In other news - I'm sick again. I'm really hoping that this first year teaching is building up my immune system so that after this, I won't catch anything. Aside from being sick though, we went down to Austin this weekend for my old roommate, Joanna's, wedding! I didn't get to take as many photos as I meant to, but here are a few. It was at Mercury Hall off South First and I thought everything was gorgeous! Congratulations Joanna & Aaron :)

Happy Sunday - have a great week!

Thank you for giving me something to blog about...

I've been tagged!

[1] Grab the nearest book.
[2] Open to page 56.
[3] Find the 5th sentence.
[4] Post the text of the next 2-5 sentences and these rules.
[5] Tag 5 peeps!

If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense. On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. Or if you take 'paying the penalty', not in the sense of being punished, but in the more general sense of 'standing the racket' or 'footing the bill', then, of course, it is a matter of common experience that, when one
person has got himself into a hold, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend.
Mere Christianty C.S. Lewis

I have been trying to read this book for months now, and unfortunately, I can't give you any background on what he is talking about because I have yet to make it to page 56. I promise I'm not illiterate - no really, I'm not. If you can't tell from the length of that last sentence - C.S. Lewis can be a bit tough to read at times.

Even though I doubt anyone else will actually do this, I tag...
Katie
Davi
Emily
Jill
Sarah

Why I love preschoolers

"Dear God, I hope that William, Paris, Neal and Emma are not sick. I hope that they are healthy. And please let everyone come to Jack C.'s birthday party tonight. Thank you. Amen"

Again - I know this is not the most advanced blog topic, and while most people are discussing the inauguration and the implications of Obama being our new president, my blog will continue to stick to the cute/funny quotes that my 4/5 yr olds say in class. The above prayer was from Colin today (who is super bright), listing off the 4 kids who were not in class today while he was "blessing" our snack time.

Also - I had another "you know you teach in Highland Park when..." moment yesterday.

While holding my hand, Frensley looked down at my ring and said "ooh I love your ring, my mom's is the same one.......... except hers is much bigger"
I love this age - because everything is so simple - she was just callin it like it is!

A movie from a 5 year old's perspective...

"Did you know that a robot named wall-E.... he scoops up trash in his tummy and then it goes in there and then it's in his back and then his tummy opens back up and the trash is in a square."

In case you were interested in seeing the movie Wall-E and hadn't seen it yet... I just thought I would share the plot with you. :)

I guess when I don't have updates on the house, and not a lot of adult interaction throughout the day - this is all I can come up with to blog about!

Quick update

Another quick brick post. I drove out to Murphy today to see if they had finished, and they had! So, I thought I'd share a few more photos -- having the rest of the brick/stone up makes a huge difference in my opinion! We should be getting our cabinets once they finish sheetrock and trim, which will mean we are approximately 60 days from closing!

our shutters:) They will be stained later...

All the brick is done! the posts by the front porch will be stained as well... not sure when that happens

front porch

back porch

Happy Wednesday :)

Trying to keep my promise...

...to blog more this year! This was our first weekend to stay Dallas in quite sometime. As much as we enjoy traveling around to see family and friends, it was really nice to stay home this weekend. Friday night we went to the Studio Movie Grill (which is like an Alamo Drafthouse for any Austinites reading this) with some friends to see Gran Torino. Quick review: similar to Crash in some ways - pretty intense movie, but definitely worth seeing in our opinion. Much more so than Revolutionary Road which we also saw this weekend. Matt's review: "Didn't have the magic of Titanic" Honestly - it's a pretty depressing movie, if you're looking for a feel good time, don't go see Revolutionary Road.

On another note - today after church we decided to go to a "Starving Artist Sale", which was held at the Holiday Inn in Richardson (just north of us). They have pretty annoying commercials that come on to advertise it, and that's the only way you would ever know about it, because when I looked for a website for more information, I found nothin. The commercial shows giant oil paintings and flashes "NOTHING over $59!!!!" Anyways - we learned some lessons for our next visit to a "starving artist sale":
- get there when it opens (I think it started at 11 and we were there by 12 and it was already really picked over)
- if you see something you like - do not hesitate to push past people and grab it. asap. even if you're not sure you want it - carry it around with you the entire time, because if you decide to go back 2 1/2 minutes later thinking "surely it will still be there - there were 4 of the same one" ...you'll be wrong.
- The $59 limit does not include a frame...
Despite our lessons learned, we did get something we're really excited about! With the new house I know we'll have a lot of empty walls, so I thought this would be a good time to find a good deal to help fill it up! Despite having to pay a little more than we were expecting because of the frame, I still think we got a great deal considering this painting is larger than our 50" TV and we got to pick the frame we wanted for it!

And - to top off our weekend'o'fun in Dallas, we went out to Murphy again to check on the progress of the house. They called us on Friday to let us know they would be starting the brick/stone and the sheetrock - yay!! Here's some photos to show the progress! (I apologize for the amount of pics to follow - we're really excited to have walls)
p.s. mom - you can click on the pictures to make them bigger :)

We have brick and stone!

close-up of the brick/stone

front porch :)

brick on back of house

Matt standing on the left front of the house

looking into the study

from the entry hallway - looking back towards kitchen/nook and family room

standing outside the kitchen while they were putting up the sheet-rock

standing in the breakfast nook looking back towards the front of the house -- family room is on left, dining room is the through the big open archway, kitchen is on the right

master bedroom

Ok, I guess that's enough for now - if you're actually still reading this - congratulations on making it to the end! Maybe in addition to trying to blog more, I should attempt to make them shorter as well... we'll see.

I'm back...

Obviously, I decided to take a small hiatus from blogging over the holidays - but I'm back and although it's not an official new years resolution - I'm going to try to blog more!

Matt and I had a wonderful Christmas break. As most of you know, we went to London for a week to spend Christmas with Matt's family this year. I was really looking forward to a relaxing trip, and that is exactly what I got! Thankfully, we went to London over the summer, so we were able to do most of the touristy things at that point (read: when it was warm), so I didn't have slave-driver tour-guide extraordinaire, Kelly, forcing me to go out into the cold. Kelly and I got to go to the spa at Selfridges one day, which was my kinda day if you know me at all, and Matt's parents also got us all tickets to see Spamalot and Chicago. Speaking of Spamalot - I was tricked into coincidentally sitting in the "special" seat, which meant I got pulled up on stage! (Quick background: because we walk everywhere in London, I always asked what shoes I should wear so I didn't slow us down. This night in particular I wanted to wear boots that have a sort-of high heel and everyone had told me that was fine, but we did have a pretty good walk after the show to get ice cream. SO... during the show I decided to take my boots off so that my feet weren't tired at all after the show.....) Fast forward to the show: I get pulled up on stage with only my socks on. (Thanks Matt for telling me to put my boots back on when you knew I would get pulled up -- I owe you one.) Oh well - I represented Texas well, and won the "Best Peasant" award on stage :) I'll spare you that level of detail for the rest of the trip - we ate, played games and shopped! Thanks Maggy & Rick for a wonderful Christmas trip! Here's a few pictures from our trip...

The Eye, Westminister Abbey and Big Ben

A monument in Sloane Square

After Spamalot - with my award (and my boots on)

Kelly and I in Sloane Square

Matt and I in Sloane Square

Matt and I in Sloane Square

At Benihana's with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law

After London, we came back to Dallas for a few days before heading down to Austin for a belated Christmas celebration with my family. During our brief stop in Dallas, we had our pre-sheetrock meeting at the house and my parents were nice enough to come up for that! I have to say, though, that I did feel a little sorry for the builder -- they say engineers are their worst nightmares! Not only is my dad an engineer, but he knows pretty much everything there is to know about home building, so our builder, Todd, had a pretty tough critic. I'm so thankful they came though, because Matt and I are pretty clueless since this is our first home! Thanks mom and dad!

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while we were in Austin (Katie - why did we not take pictures in our pj pants??). We had a great time while we were there though -- lots of good food, games and good company!

One last update on the house front -- once it passes all of it's inspections they will start the brick/stone and sheetrock! I can't wait to have walls! Once there's some new progress I'll post some more pictures. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas -- Happy 2009!