Just signing on for a moment to wish everyone celebrating a very Merry Christmas!!! :)

Mass tonight was awesome! Toaster was cantoring, her father did one of the readings, and Father Cayer gave a great homily; plus we went to the children's mass so there was a great deal of adorable going on. Oh - and I saw someone from work there! I'm going to try to work on some Christmas music tonight in the hopes of playing some tomorrow at my parents' house. :) :) :)

I ought to be working on Christmas icons, but I've seen some amazing ones and grabbed a bunch already. Instead, I'm posting coffee icons. I drink a lot of coffee, and I've been wanting a coffee related icon for ages now, but I haven't seen one I liked. Last night I attempted to make some bases. Since I don't belong to an icon community - you are the ones I'm turning to yet again for icon questions. :) What do you think of these? Most are under a cut for your friend's list sake. Anyway - what do you think of them? Is any one better than another? Is there one that's cool but too dark ... blah blah blah. Know any good and short coffee quotes?

I also want a tea icon - but I'm holding out hope that I'll find a clever one made by someone else. :D
I had a list started of icons I wanted, but I can't remember. I haven't found/made a reading one I like yet, either.
I wouldn't mind an angel one, either.



( coffee bases )

Every December we would gather at Kwix & S₂K's place to celebrate the Winter Solstice. It was a sharedish, so there was loads of good food. We also traditionally used this gathering to exchange gifts. I have lots of happy memories crowded on their patchwork couch. Anyway, just before midnight they would hand out candles - often candles they made for us as gifts - then when the hour struck we'd run around like mad lighting all the candles in the house. It was soooooo much fun! We'd also go out to their yard to light the Yule log. Sometimes someone would sing a Yule related song.

It meant a lot to me to participate in this important event with them - that I was invited to celebrate with them and that they trusted me to respect the tradition.

It meant a lot to me to have the time together with my loved ones, because our group is very much a family.

I'm lighting a candle tonight for you guys. Welcome back the sun!

I wanted an icon to use for birthdays, and I don't like the one I'm currently using. If you were being wished happy birthday - which would you like to get?

( you can tell which are the birthday ones and which is just because I want something sweet. )

I was productive today! I did three loads of laundry, made out a few Christmas cards, wrapped some presents, dropped some clothes off at Goodwill (it was easier to get to), dropped off a bunch of plastic bags at Walmart w/o actually going inside, dropped off some food at Caring & Sharing, did bank business, paid a bunch of bills, visited with my godson & got to hold & and read a Dr. Seuss book to him, visited with my parents and watched a BallyKissAngel episode, and packed up clothes and food to take to my parents for Christmas. Now I need to get off this computer and unload the dishwasher...

A story from Taking Flight by Anthony de Mello

A Sufi saint set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca. At the outskirts of the city he lay down by the road, exhausted from his journey. He had barely fallen asleep when he was brusquely awakened by an irate pilgrim. "This is the time when al believers bow their heads toward Mecca and you have your feet pointing toward the holy shrine. What sort of Muslim are you?"
The Sufi did not move; he merely opened his eyes and said, "Brother, would you do me the favor of placing my feet where they won't be pointing to the Lord?"


My friend Jenna gave me two books as a gift last Easter upon my joining the Catholic church, and I'm finally getting around to starting them as I work my way through the books I was given/bought this year. She gave me The Song of the Bird and Taking Flight. Taking Flight is a collection of stories from various countries, various religions, various cultures. de Mello said "his task has been that of the weaver and the dyer. He takes no credit at all for the cotton and the thread." So far in 19 pages I've read a story about saint learning to appreciate the sound of the frogs, a Hasidic tale about the value of dancing as prayer, and two snippits also about dance from a Dervish and an unspecified religious leader. This book is amazing! I usually put post it notes in books to mark the passages that impact me the most, but I don't think I own enough post it notes for this one.

My husband cohosts a podcast dedicated to old school macintosh computers. He's the sidekick. :) They just celebrated their 3rd year of podcasting! Normally it's just an audio podcast, with Monkeys at our house and James at his place using Skype to communicate, but on special occasions like this they meet up in person and record video. This clip is the third bit of the episode, I'm posting that one because at the end of it Monkeys does a cute little bit pretending to show up at James's house in a robe. You can watch the entire show if you like via the links on the side of the clip.

Click me! Click me!
( Monkeys is adorable )

I saw these on vixyish's page. It's two high schools (I think in her area). Shorecrest High School Video class did something called a libdub then challenged the rival high school to do a better one. How amazing are these? I don't remember doing anything this cool in high school. Although, I am feeling nostalgic about high school after watching these. Wish we were having a Saturday night gathering! I actually have something to show!

( click to see the youtubes )

One of my favorite college professors passed away this morning - Dr. Richard Warren. He taught humanities for the college for many years. I had his Introduction to Humanities back in 1988, just out of high school. One of my favorite memories from class is of him doing an impression of "Papa Haydn" telling the story about how Haydn would place LOUD INSTRUMENTS in the middle of quiet sections of his symphonies to wake people up. Dr. Warren would start the story in a quiet voice (the music of the symphony could lull audience members into sleep...), then he would talk really loudly saying "boom boom boom" or some such, then go back to his normal voice to finish the story - all with the happiest expression on his face, marching back and forth pumping his arms and beating the air as if he were playing a drum.

He also told a story about when he and his wife moved down here in the sixties. At a laundrymat there were signs on the machines saying "whites" and "colored," and his wife who had never seen such blatant discrimination pointed to the signs and said "Look, they make you presort your laundry before coming to the shop." I don't know why, but that story really stuck with me.

Finally, I remember loving him because of his views on the Gordon Rule. In Florida we have a law called the Gordon Rule that requires all AA degree seeking students write a minimum of 24,000 words over the course of their degree. Colleges can decide how this is accomplished. When I was a student I had to write 6000 words in each of my English composition classes and 6000 words in each of my humanities classes. Dr. Warren must have thought the same as I still do - if you are adding extra words to your research paper to pad it out, that is not good writing. Conciseness is a virtue in writing. Admittedly, it's one I lack, but I know it's admirable. Anyway, Dr. Warren let us count the words in our class notes in addition to the words in our papers. If we still didn't have the 6000 words, he let us write a word over and over again (Gordon Rule, Gordon Rule, Gordon Rule, Gordon Rule) until you finally reached 6000. It felt rebellious.

He retired ages ago, but just this past year I happened to bump into him at the post office. I got to tell him how fondly I looked back on his class and how much I learned from him. He was really pleased, and he talked at great length about what he'd been up to lately. He was in great spirits, he was being recognized for some sort of award, and he was all smiles. I'm glad that's my last memory and that I got one more chance to see him.

Something that made me happy today:

One of my favorite instructors dropped off a giant stack of grade change requests today. It's not uncommon for him to drop off a giant stack of grade changes, which means he has spent a lot of time chatting with me in my office while I process the requests. I've talked about him before - he breeds rabbits and has a million fascinating stories. Anyway, as he was leaving he casually mentioned "By the way, the dog we named after you is having puppies." I didn't know he'd named a dog after me! Of course, once I found that out I asked him a billion questions. Apparently they got her in April and she carries a recessive redhair gene, hence the namesake. I think it is incredibly sweet, although being a breeder he has named loads and loads of animals, so it probably doesn't mean as much to him as to me. Doesn't matter, I'm still tickled pick that I'm thought of outside of the office. Sometimes you feel like a little unappreciated automaton in enrollment services office.

No, I'm not getting one of the puppies. He breeds dogs, too, and these are purebred and quite costly. But he's promised to take pictures for me. :)

I guess I was lucky my friends just left lobsters everywhere. :)
Speaking of lobsters, one of my friends gave me a lobster Christmas tree ornament today. :) :) :)




I think my favorites are the toilet paper and the clock. Part of me thinks "I hope they used recycled" paper or "this is not a green prank," but most of me giggles. In the response video you learn they also wrapped his mail and his mailbox.

I want a reading icon. I don't know what I want. Look at the cute owl icon I made while messing around with pictures of people reading.

So I got the job that I mentioned earlier. (yay!) I'm going to be a teacher at Crestview High School. It's in a EH classroom, and I'm not exactly sure what I'm expected to do yet... but I think this is a direction that I'm meant to go in.

This should be an interesting semester. I'm starting this new job, and there will be lots of learning associated with that. It's also the final big semester of my Masters degree and there's a big project involved. Also, part of the classes are in person, in Pensacola, on saturday mornings, so that's gonna suck. (ugg!) I'm a little concerned about the clash of the classes vs. new job, but when April finally rolls around it'll be smooth sailing.

Then one last class over the summer and I am DONE with my education for a looong time. I am *sick* of spending every waking moment thinking about when my assignments are due.

So.. here we go!

My coworker sent me this...

Why won't all that soot make Santa sick?

( answer )

You can groan now.

Saw this on ohiblather's LJ. :) Since we aren't getting together this Saturday I'm going ahead and posting it. :) :) :) Put if on full screen if you can, his expressions are so cute. His nose is itching or something, but he won't stop playing to scratch it. He's also *really* good at ukulele!

I did not have a good day today.

When I opened my office door the background paper for my decorations snagged and came loose so that my Winterland came toppling down on my head. I couldn’t get to the only non-wheeled chair near my office right away because of the Toys-for-Tots bicycle currently residing in my office, so it took some finagling and moving things around before I could repair the damage to my door. Immediately after fixing the door, I picked up my bags and attempted to move them to my desk whereupon I dropped my (empty) coffee cup. It skittered across my entire desk before whacking into the printer. I almost caught it, but the trajectory change sent it to the floor, where the handle broke off into several pieces. The distraction of the door and coffee cup made me forget to take my keys out of my doorknob, so about an hour later I got reprimanded by a coworker and lectured about the dangers of leaving your keys out for students to steal. She also questioned me in a what felt like at the time an accusatory tone as to why I didn’t have the Jabberwocky doll hanging from the door like I had originally planned on doing. Unfortunately, I was on the phone, so when I didn’t answer her questions she left. After I got off the phone I tracked her down to explain the morning’s events, and she was perfectly normal and not at all huffy, so I don’t know what was happening earlier. The Toys-for-Tots frustrations continued today, to the point where I actually gave what felt like a “I cannot believe this” expression to someone and walked out on the conversation. I am never volunteering to help with Toys-for-Tots again. Next year I'm just going to donate $$ and stay out of it. ((If I go to each team member and ask for a preference/opinion and everyone in the group says "Whatever the group wants." then it means THE GROUP DOESN'T WANT ANYTHING and either NOTHING WILL BE DONE or else the other team members are unfairly forcing one person to have to make the decision instead of doing a democratic vote. This is especially unfair if said person IS NOT THE GROUP LEADER and EXPRESSLY SAID in an earlier email "I would like to help with the wrapping" and "I do not want to be in charge.")) Grrrrr. Also, it was just plain busy today. I had several “I cannot believe you are actually asking these questions” moments, where people honestly do not seem to realize they are asking something off the wall or impossible and get upset when it can't be done. And I had another student who instead of reading the letter sent to him calls in to have me read the letter to him over the phone. I swear, that is all I did. He had the letter in his hand. I read the copy we have on file. I did not explain it, he didn’t ask for an explanation. That was it. Does that make any sense? No. The weather seemed to be working in concert with the day's events. It was foggy and rainy, so the drive in and the drive home was unpleasant and at times scary. Our parking lot has bad drainage which, when coupled with the construction of the new community center, led to a GIANT mud puddle covering 90% of the lower parking lot. I had to go to my car to pick up some Christmas bags for the Toys-for-Tots gifts, so I had to make a wide detour to start at the high ground and walk back down the lot between the car hoods using my umbrella as a brace to pole vault from cement blocker to cement blocker in front of each parking space in an effort to get to my car w/o soaking my new shoes. When I returned to my office after loading up the gifts I left my umbrella and my keys in my coworker's office. My back hurts. My stomach hurts. I accidently stayed 45 minutes late, forgetting Sears was coming by tonight to discuss a new A/C. Dealing with them actually lifted my mood because they joked around a lot. Doesn't change the fact I just spent a bunch of money and delayed dinner two hours (my fish was dry & my broccoli soggy), but I did laugh a lot, which means I'm smiling as I'm typing this whine.

I recognize it could be worse - my door decorations could have been destroyed when it fell, my coffee cup could have been full of hot coffee, someone could have stolen my keys, my coworker could have not noticed my keys and umbrellas and not returned them to me leaving me frantic when it came time to leave work, I could have soaked my shoes, and I could have gotten into an accident/trapped in traffic due to the inclimate weather. Even though I got frustrating questions, I've certainly had worse. I'm still irritable over the Toys-for-Tots, but the cause is good, so I just need to get over it. Plus, I'm sure the other group members are probably thinking "That MLR is demanding, why does she keep asking me the same question over and over." or "Darn it all, why can't MLR just make a decision." w/o realizing 1) how incredibly hampered I feel by the fact that I'm not the team leader so I don't feel justified in making a decision and 2) how when the times earlier that I expressed my opinions were questioned it destroyed my confidence in my opinions, so as much as I'm feeling taken advantage of I also recognize they may be feeling the same thoughts. My back hurts, but it's certainly hurt worse. And my stomach is feeling much better now that I've eaten.

So I wouldn't call today a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. It just kinda sucks a little.

And we're under a tornado warning right now.
And they keep cutting into the show I'm watching.

But if the news reports are to be believed, people in the areas just above me have it a lot worse, so once again I should shut up with the whinging.

And even with the tv cutting out for weather notifications, I still got to see the party where Felecia Day was singing "White Lie", which was adorable.

I sullenly declare the glass half full. (Possibly due to all the rain.)