While Kenny gave me my big present earlier in the week, he had another much-wanted present to give me away last night: the Little Mermaid DVD! This is possibly my favorite Disney movie of all time, yes, I like it even better than Lion King. I now feel really bad because I gave him socks and undershirts. When you do laundry, you kind of notice things that need replacing. Don't yell at me, he also got a leather coat and the box set of the 5th season of Hogan's Heroes. I guess the coat and Hogan's Heroes don't make it a total drag of a Christmas. There is also one other thing I got him, but since it is a gift for a person who reads this blog, I'll have to tell about it later. Let's just say it was on Jay Leno, it cracks us up, and freaks out the cats.
For all of you old school Jim Henson fans, I purchased a little gift for me last night as we finished up our Christmas shopping: Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. How many of you remember this movie? Being the Jim Henson nut that I am (box sets of the Muppet Show play a big part of my DVD collection), I had never seen this movie on DVD. I remember seeing on TV when I was really little, but I haven't seen it in years. It's headed home in my bag for Christmas to introduce it to my nephew Robbie who loves the movie Kermit: The Swamp Years. The next generation is discovering my sister's, brother's, and my love of the Jim Henson characters. I miss those shows, especially Sam the Eagle, Pigs in Space, Animal, Beaker, etc. Good times.
For everyone who is traveling this weekend, be careful. Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy spending time with friends and loved ones.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Update
I know I haven't posted in a while, but it's been a crazy month. December always seems to be a crazy month and things just kind of get away from me. However, while not amusing, here's what's been happening.
1. I now have a new water heater. It took almost three weeks, but they finally managed to put one in. The new water heater was installed the same day Kenny returned from Dallas. Coincidence, I think not!
2. Interesting holiday ornaments. We recently had our Title I Parent meeting. Since I hate talking in front of large groups, and I especially hate talking to parents (I know, kind of weird since I'm a teacher- that's kind of where that phobia began!), I ended up staying with the kids and setting up one of the activity stations to keep them busy. I made dog biscuit ornaments with the kids. Naturally, I made up one before hand for them to use as a guide, but as kids will do, they "didn't need no stinkin' guide". I have never seen more one-eyed reindeer in my life. Christmas trees across Union, MO are decorated with cyclops reindeer. Strangely enough, they were kind of cute. One of my students gave me a truly creative, many-eyed reindeer. I'm calling it the Reindeer of God, since it has so many googly eyes it is all-seeing!
3. My early Christmas gift from Kenny was a new Ipod. WOO HOO! I have wanted one for years, but as you all know, I'm too cheap to buy one for myself. He assures me that it didn't cost too much money since he bought it at the Apple Outlet store and plus he's been saving up to buy me one. As he told me though, it's kind of a Christmas present for the both of us since we'll both enjoy taking it on trips instead of CD cases. He gave it to me earlier in the week because he thought it would probably take me that long to figure out how to work the gadget. Unfortunately, I'm not very technologically adept, so I'm still working on it. However, I have discovered that I need to update my USB port card. So, like an idiot, I'm going to Best Buy today, read off the paper what Alice (our family computer whiz) told me to write down and buy, and then hopefully install it without blowing up my computer. She swears it's so easy a monkey could do it blindfolded. We'll see!
4. Today, I get to visit with my friend Clint, whom I haven't seen in a while. Tomorrow I head home to Malden to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Then on Thursday, I'm headed to North Carolina to spend a week with Sebrina and Joe. I'll have the digital camera with me to hopefully take pictures of the crazy places I see. This time I'll try not to delete the pictures I take, as I did with the turkey pictures at Thanksgiving! One day I'll have a handle on technology!
In any case, if I blow myself up replacing the card on the computer or I run out of time before I leave, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas!
1. I now have a new water heater. It took almost three weeks, but they finally managed to put one in. The new water heater was installed the same day Kenny returned from Dallas. Coincidence, I think not!
2. Interesting holiday ornaments. We recently had our Title I Parent meeting. Since I hate talking in front of large groups, and I especially hate talking to parents (I know, kind of weird since I'm a teacher- that's kind of where that phobia began!), I ended up staying with the kids and setting up one of the activity stations to keep them busy. I made dog biscuit ornaments with the kids. Naturally, I made up one before hand for them to use as a guide, but as kids will do, they "didn't need no stinkin' guide". I have never seen more one-eyed reindeer in my life. Christmas trees across Union, MO are decorated with cyclops reindeer. Strangely enough, they were kind of cute. One of my students gave me a truly creative, many-eyed reindeer. I'm calling it the Reindeer of God, since it has so many googly eyes it is all-seeing!
3. My early Christmas gift from Kenny was a new Ipod. WOO HOO! I have wanted one for years, but as you all know, I'm too cheap to buy one for myself. He assures me that it didn't cost too much money since he bought it at the Apple Outlet store and plus he's been saving up to buy me one. As he told me though, it's kind of a Christmas present for the both of us since we'll both enjoy taking it on trips instead of CD cases. He gave it to me earlier in the week because he thought it would probably take me that long to figure out how to work the gadget. Unfortunately, I'm not very technologically adept, so I'm still working on it. However, I have discovered that I need to update my USB port card. So, like an idiot, I'm going to Best Buy today, read off the paper what Alice (our family computer whiz) told me to write down and buy, and then hopefully install it without blowing up my computer. She swears it's so easy a monkey could do it blindfolded. We'll see!
4. Today, I get to visit with my friend Clint, whom I haven't seen in a while. Tomorrow I head home to Malden to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. Then on Thursday, I'm headed to North Carolina to spend a week with Sebrina and Joe. I'll have the digital camera with me to hopefully take pictures of the crazy places I see. This time I'll try not to delete the pictures I take, as I did with the turkey pictures at Thanksgiving! One day I'll have a handle on technology!
In any case, if I blow myself up replacing the card on the computer or I run out of time before I leave, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Life in Apartment Land
Let me start this posting by saying that I am thankful everyday that I have a roof over my head. Having said that, I will now begin my mild rant on the "joys" of living in an apartment complex.
1. Non-soundproof walls! If I can hear my neighbors and EVERYTHING they do in their apartment, surely they can hear me as well. I simply assumed that they would figure out that if they can hear me, I can hear them, thereby adapting their behavior accordingly! I miss sleeping and lack of sleep makes me a very cranky teacher!
2. A new apartment manager who is a complete jerk: my water heater started going on the blink Thanksgiving weekend. Phone calls were made on Monday and I stopped by the office where he wasn't keeping his scheduled office hours, repeatedly, to get maintenance there to see if it was the element or the whole water heater. On the Wednesday following Thanksgiving, the apartment manager says that he can't get the maintenace man into my apartment because he doesn't have a key, and that if I don't give him a key, he's going to drill my lock, replace it with a new one, and says to me, "You'll get the key at my convenience." Approximately 20 minutes later in a rambling, one-sided conversation, he says to me, "I didn't think anyone was living in your apartment (what - are you incapable of reading the lease I signed in August?) so I was really surprised when I unlocked the door and saw all of your furniture and your pets when I was showing a prospective new tenant the vacant 2 bedroom apartments." To which I pointed out that he said he didn't have a key, so how could he have opened the locked door? He became really angry and rude and said he'd be over at my apartment by 5:30p.m. to check the water heater himself. I go home, move everything away from the laundry closet, and Kenny and I about throw our backs out trying to move the washer and dryer. 5:30 comes, no apartment manager. 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, no manager. We move everything back because we both need to get out the front door to go to work the next morning. At 10:30, the manager knocks on the door and says he's there to check out the water heater. Okay, let's pull everything out again! He just turns the water heater temperature up, so now instead of having 2 minutes of warm water, we have 4 minutes of warm water. We also make sure that he has a key to get into the apartment and ask him to let us know when he's going to come in with the maintenace man or another repairman so we can lock up the cats. By the way, in my lease, it says that the apartment manager is to give us at least 24 hours notice that they are coming into the apartment, unless it's an emergency, and we are allowed, and encouraged, to be there when the manager comes into the apartment. Cut to last night, my phone rings again at 10:30. It's the manager who informs me that the maintenance man will be at the apartment at 5:00a.m. today to look at my water heater. He says that he'll probably turn off the electricity to the water heater, see what's going on, and hopefully will get it fixed by this afternoon. I get up at 4:30 this morning, get dressed, and move as much as I can out of the hall. 5:00a.m. comes around, no one shows up. Since I had early morning duty, I locked up the cats and left at 7:00 to go to work. I have absolutely no idea if anything has been done in my apartment or not. The manager also implied last night that I should have let them know the water heater was going out as soon as I noticed it, but he wasn't surprised that I didn't "being a female, and all." I guess not being able to perform a mind meld to notify him that my water heater would start going out on Monday from my parents' house in Malden on Thanksgiving is a particular flaw that I would not have if I were a man. For all of my intelligent male friends, ignore this next comment and don't accuse me of being a male basher. Just remember, I only bash the idiots and in that respect, no gender is safe. Save me from stupid, egotistical males who have short man syndrome and think that just because something goes wrong in my apartment, because I'm female, I am too stupid to let them know in a timely manner. Personally, I would like hot water from my faucet that I don't have to heat on the stove to do such things as dishes and take a bath! So would Kenny, my male roommate!
3. The drug dealers living in the apartment across the street: I yearn for the days when the tenants across the street only had affairs on their significant others! In the summer, I was able to watch a real live soap opera being played out when a woman came home and caught her husband/boyfriend in bed with his other girlfriend. Let's just say, the girlfriend ran out of the house half naked, the guy wasn't far behind, and the wife began tossing all of his worldly possessions out the door. Now, I get to watch all of the deals going down, which freaks my dad and brother out.
I can't wait to get a house!
1. Non-soundproof walls! If I can hear my neighbors and EVERYTHING they do in their apartment, surely they can hear me as well. I simply assumed that they would figure out that if they can hear me, I can hear them, thereby adapting their behavior accordingly! I miss sleeping and lack of sleep makes me a very cranky teacher!
2. A new apartment manager who is a complete jerk: my water heater started going on the blink Thanksgiving weekend. Phone calls were made on Monday and I stopped by the office where he wasn't keeping his scheduled office hours, repeatedly, to get maintenance there to see if it was the element or the whole water heater. On the Wednesday following Thanksgiving, the apartment manager says that he can't get the maintenace man into my apartment because he doesn't have a key, and that if I don't give him a key, he's going to drill my lock, replace it with a new one, and says to me, "You'll get the key at my convenience." Approximately 20 minutes later in a rambling, one-sided conversation, he says to me, "I didn't think anyone was living in your apartment (what - are you incapable of reading the lease I signed in August?) so I was really surprised when I unlocked the door and saw all of your furniture and your pets when I was showing a prospective new tenant the vacant 2 bedroom apartments." To which I pointed out that he said he didn't have a key, so how could he have opened the locked door? He became really angry and rude and said he'd be over at my apartment by 5:30p.m. to check the water heater himself. I go home, move everything away from the laundry closet, and Kenny and I about throw our backs out trying to move the washer and dryer. 5:30 comes, no apartment manager. 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, no manager. We move everything back because we both need to get out the front door to go to work the next morning. At 10:30, the manager knocks on the door and says he's there to check out the water heater. Okay, let's pull everything out again! He just turns the water heater temperature up, so now instead of having 2 minutes of warm water, we have 4 minutes of warm water. We also make sure that he has a key to get into the apartment and ask him to let us know when he's going to come in with the maintenace man or another repairman so we can lock up the cats. By the way, in my lease, it says that the apartment manager is to give us at least 24 hours notice that they are coming into the apartment, unless it's an emergency, and we are allowed, and encouraged, to be there when the manager comes into the apartment. Cut to last night, my phone rings again at 10:30. It's the manager who informs me that the maintenance man will be at the apartment at 5:00a.m. today to look at my water heater. He says that he'll probably turn off the electricity to the water heater, see what's going on, and hopefully will get it fixed by this afternoon. I get up at 4:30 this morning, get dressed, and move as much as I can out of the hall. 5:00a.m. comes around, no one shows up. Since I had early morning duty, I locked up the cats and left at 7:00 to go to work. I have absolutely no idea if anything has been done in my apartment or not. The manager also implied last night that I should have let them know the water heater was going out as soon as I noticed it, but he wasn't surprised that I didn't "being a female, and all." I guess not being able to perform a mind meld to notify him that my water heater would start going out on Monday from my parents' house in Malden on Thanksgiving is a particular flaw that I would not have if I were a man. For all of my intelligent male friends, ignore this next comment and don't accuse me of being a male basher. Just remember, I only bash the idiots and in that respect, no gender is safe. Save me from stupid, egotistical males who have short man syndrome and think that just because something goes wrong in my apartment, because I'm female, I am too stupid to let them know in a timely manner. Personally, I would like hot water from my faucet that I don't have to heat on the stove to do such things as dishes and take a bath! So would Kenny, my male roommate!
3. The drug dealers living in the apartment across the street: I yearn for the days when the tenants across the street only had affairs on their significant others! In the summer, I was able to watch a real live soap opera being played out when a woman came home and caught her husband/boyfriend in bed with his other girlfriend. Let's just say, the girlfriend ran out of the house half naked, the guy wasn't far behind, and the wife began tossing all of his worldly possessions out the door. Now, I get to watch all of the deals going down, which freaks my dad and brother out.
I can't wait to get a house!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Passings
This is a picture of my friend Sandy Compas. Sandy was tragically killed in a car accident Sunday near her Little Rock home. When I first met her, Sandy was an Ursuline nun. She later left the convent, but continued to work as a director of adult religious education for the Little Rock diocese. In a strange twist of fate or timing, whatever you wish to call it, I received the phone call about her death as I was returning home from the post office where I mailed her Christmas card. Like so many of us do with friends and acquaintances, she and I exchanged e-mails, Christmas cards, etc. but we hadn't spoken on the phone in quite a while. As usual, it was something both of us were going to get around to, but just never found the time to do. Unfortunately, now there will be no phone calls ever again.I'm not sure what I can say, or should say. I go between being shocked and numb, to crying, to questioning why this had to happen to such a good person. I know we, as Christians, are supposed to believe that God has a plan for our lives, but I'm not sure I can find a rhyme or reason to this in God's plan for Sandy. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that she is gone, a person who devoted her life to bringing others to Christ, while others who tear the the image of Christ and religion down are left. When I told my mother last night, she said something that I've been struggling to accept, "Mayb e God leaves the others to give them another chance to become the kind of person that Sandy was." I just hope that I can learn to accept this and become more like she was.
Please keep Sandy, her family, and those of us who were blessed with the joy of her friendship in your prayers. We're all going to need it for a while. While I was looking for this photo, I found a letter from Sandy where she was giving me some ideas to use in the freshman religion class that I used to teach at St. Anns. In the letter, she had included a copy of a poem by Christina Rossetti called "Remember" that I think expresses the essence of what she would say to those of us she left behind if she could.
"Remember" by Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no longer hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned.
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterward remember, do not grieve,
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
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