Christmas Day

Nathan & the log splitter

Grace & Sebastian

Caroline & Charles II

Peter & the Advent wreath

egg nog

I can make my own egg nog!

While it is not the point of Christmas, I get excited about egg nog every December.  (I think people either hate it or they love it.  True?)

Eggs, whipping cream, milk, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg (not to turn this into a food blog...)

Dad didn't like it.  He said it tasted like raw eggs.  Ah well, "All the more for the rest of us."

in the doghouse

Room enough, Pounce?

Meanwhile, canines Bear and Sebastian enjoy the 4-degree weather outside.

I always said if I were an animal, I'd want to be a cat.

for the last time...

Another paper -- did she survive??

(Did her family survive?)

"Come back tomorrow to find out."

Okay, so it's not isthmus...

Error in the last post due to me, not my intelligent brother:

It's bismuth, not isthmus.

Try saying that five times fast.

Each one of my family members kindly took time out of their day to inform me of my error.

There's a reason I majored in English.

Peter says...

My little brother is nine years old.  These are the sorts of things we hear from him:

To me:  "What do you want to be when you grow up?"   (I said, "Well, I think I want to be a teacher.")

To Grace (just returned from first semester of college):  "I decided I do miss you after all because nobody else is hyper like you and nobody else feeds me gluten-free cookies."  (If you know my sister, you know how true this is.)

To me:  "Do countries besides the United States make computers too?"

To me:  "Why is everything above the atomic number of isthmus active?"  (I forwarded the question to Mom.)

Which one is better?

grammar jokes

Beware, lest more than one woman should want her hair cut at once.

Bear with me while I post photos from my afternoon walk:

(Alki Beach in Seattle)

Pleasantly, this place is a three-minute walk from my aunt's house (where I'm staying this week).

I tracked this boat for about twenty minutes (also please notice the mountains):

Eventually it made it to the sun path:

When I boarded the plane for Seattle, I commented amiably to the middle-aged man in the front seat, "I see you have to sit by the door with all the cold air."

He said, "Your hair is fwrffnyl."

I couldn't hear him.  "My hair is funny?"

"Your hair is WONDERFUL," he repeated loudly.

"Oh!  Thank you."  I scruffled it self-consciously.  "It's a mess.  I haven't done anything to it all day."

"It's wonderful."

I did not feel inclined to disagree so I thanked him and bumbled my way down the aisle with greater self-confidence.

Day Seventy

Yesterday was my last day of student teaching.

I went through my folders and sorted through my lesson plans:

I know they look like sticky notes to you, but that's actually two weeks worth of lesson plans.

I won't miss grading grammar exercises, but I sure will miss the kids.

harping around

On Sunday I played in a Christmas concert in Sioux Falls.  This is a special Christmas concert because it is harps -- only harps, all harps.

There were 39 harps and harpists total.

Usually I feel special lugging my harp around because nobody else has one.  This time when I marched in with my harp, I felt...I don't know, like a zebra suddenly surrounded by zebras.  It's come home to its kin, but it doesn't stand out anymore.

Well, maybe my harp cover stood out:  Yes, it's a first-class sleeping bag.  Looks rather like a stocking cap, doesn't it?  Festive.

I was apprehensive in the days leading up to the concert.  When I tried to play in this same concert two years ago, I got a dreadful case of pneumonia.  I have also landed in the ditch twice with my harp.  So, I was particularly glad to end up on a stage this time and not in a bed or a ditch.

Kidding and covers aside, it was a wonderful experience.  The strains of "Silent Night" on thirty-nine harps is lovely, even more so when you get to play it with fellow harpists.  In keeping with the Thanksgiving spirit, it made me want to go home and thank Mom and Dad for getting a beautiful cherry-wood 34-string Regency lever harp for their 15-year-old.  It bumped all the way from Pennsylvania to Nebraska on a Greyhound bus eight years ago, and I have played it happily ever after.