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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Pater noster qui es in caelis:
Sanctificetur Nomen Tuum;
Adveniat Regnum Tuum;
Fiat voluntas Tua,
Sicut in caelo, et in terra
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a Malo.

Amen.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

More Neil

Can't help it...I've been addicted lately, and this is one of my favorites.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Snow

The older I get, the more convinced snow that makes life hard in general.  It's not just that I hate driving in it (but I do) or that it makes work busier (but it does).  Everything seems to be harder to accomplish when it snows.  I opened the front door today and looked out at the mailbox, about 10 feet away, and then looked at our sidewalk to the mailbox which is covered in about ankle-deep snow and decided it wasn't worth it, I'd just wait for Nathan to shovel.

You have to put on extra clothes to go outside now.  You have to make sure to pull the car in if you don't want to spend 10 minutes scraping and brushing.  I've don't even think snow is pretty anymore, just a nuisance.

I really miss our 50 degree January days!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

My favorite things

There have been a lot of new experiences and ideas going on lately and I thought I might share some of my favorites.

I've never liked pie much.  However, last shift rotation, one of my coworkers brought in a cherry pie and I had a slice.  I loved it! Since then I've made two myself.  I just buy premade pie crusts and cans of filling and make it that way.  Maybe I'll have to try making my own crust one day.


Nathan asked for clothes for Christmas and I was happy to buy them for him.  I realized, though, that I haven't gone out and bought clothes for myself probably since college.  Back then, my style was what I call, "15 year old skater boy."  I wore a lot of T-shirts and jeans.  Well, this year I worked some overtime Christmas eve, and there was also some holiday pay on the last check, so I decided to take the extra money and spend it on adult clothes.  Mom and I went to Old Navy, where the extra money went much farther than what I spent on Nathan at Christmas.  By far my favorite things I bought are my new jeans. When we walked in, I went straight to the 4-short size, because that is what I've always been.  Not so this time.  I bought two pairs of...wait for it...size 2-short!  I have never been a size-two before.  I haven't done anything to earn it and they probably just made their sizes bigger, but the tag says "2" and that's all that matters.  Not only that, but the legs are just exactly as long as I need them to be.  I'm not trying to brag, but it does make me feel good.


One of my Christmas presents was a gift card to Barnes and Noble.  Nathan and I talked about going up to the store in DeKalb one day before I hopped on their website.  I love the Barnes and Noble website.  I picked out three books The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Agony and the Ecstasy and Chesapeake.  I chose to order them used, which means I could afford all three and only go $.88 over my gift card total.

Several years ago, I read Wicked by Gregory Maguire.  I was entranced.  Then, Son of a Witch came out and after that A Lion Among Men appeared.  In the mean time I read his other books for adults and loved them all too.  About a month before Christmas I was reading a People magazine and saw Out of Oz listed in the book section as the last book in the Wicked series.  I put it on my Christmas list for my mother-in-law and received it.  The two middle books are good, but not as good as the first.  But this one, this is every bit the book Wicked is.  I love it.



If you've never seen my engagement ring, I'll tell you what it looks like...it's an oval cut sapphire with three diamonds on each side of it along the band.  I love it.  Diamonds have never been my thing and blue is my favorite color, so the sapphire is perfect.  Nathan told me for our anniversary this year he wanted to get me sapphire and diamond earrings to match it, but I don't wear earrings and I'm not about to start. (even though it was an incredibly sweet thought).  Instead, for Christmas, he got me a sapphire and diamond pendant necklace.  It's beautiful.  It is an oval cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds.  One of my coworkers mentioned that it looked like the Duchess of Cambridge's engagement ring.  And it does a little.

At first I didn't even know what it was, and then I resisted it as long as I could because, to be honest, it is a strange concept.  But one day I couldn't hold back any more, there were just too many cute, intriguing and interesting ideas out there.  I asked for an invite to Pinterest.  I have been hooked ever since.  It is a weird idea, just to post images out there and move them around.  But I think it's cool that there is a whole community of people willing to just share and inspire others.  I have more boards than I thought I would and I think I pin a little too much, but I can't help it.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

2012

Thank God for a new year.  Life has been standing itself back up again for a while now and I feel more normal than I have lately.

We have had shift change at work, but fortunately nothing happened to me: still enjoying my third shift with Tuesday/Wednesday weekends.  Nathan just started back to work last week after his Christmas break.  The students are still a week away from returning.  So for him work is busy enough but not quite crazy.

We had a great Christmas and gave and received many lovely presents.  We hope you did as well. 

I've never been big on New Year's resolutions.  It makes more sense to me to wait for Lent to make an effort to better myself.  And I am looking forward to Lent this year, more than I ever have before.  I guess I feel like there's a lot to work on.

But my big goal for the year temporally speaking, is to finish my book and have it ready for publication.  It's something I've been working on for many years and I think it's time to finally be done with it and move on to a new project.  Also I hope to keep up better with this blog.

This is probably my favorite picture from Christmas this year.  That's me in the hat helping Sophie open one of her presents at my in-laws.