Keep a garden that would feed Justin and me. Donate the rest. Cut flowers and give to others. Cook for people who are too busy. Keep my house clean. Help others with their laundry, shopping, errands. Write letters, call people, send emails. Take pictures. Tutor elementary, middle, and high school students. Help with Ohana more often. Write letters to Compassion children. Knit scarves, hats, baby booties, bibs, socks, mittens, and gloves for people who need them and just for fun (baby showers, etc.). Read and journal. Volunteer at food banks. Exercise. Take people to coffee or to dinner. Work on my dissertation (at some point). Go for walks. Babysit for tired parents. Travel with a cause: building schools, building homes, teach intensive gardening, etc. Start cleaning out stuff we don’t use/need anymore. Write letters for Amnesty International. Visit family for long stretches of time. Host more get-togethers. Go camping and hiking. Travel anytime.

Can I be a millionaire without working so I can keep my house and afford to give to others?

Is this insane?

But I was just thinking about the people who have gotten to stay home with their kids, bake cookies, take the time to write to relatives, and just take life a little more slowly. Because we CAN’T make it to 4 Christmas parties in a weekend, go to the mall, or get gussied up for a night out at the Nutcracker, perhaps we can focus on the reason for our festivities. Some people have no power, which shuts down access to the internet, video games, and DVDs. Maybe we use our minds to read, create, and write now–an option anytime of the year that is usually overridden by our constant access to passive media.

Justin and I went on a walk to the mailbox and to Schuck’s to see if they had tire chains (walking–another benefit of icy roads!). On the way, we saw that the gas station was out of gas, and that Firestone and Schuck’s were out of chains. However, the most heartwarming sights we saw were neighborhood kids playing together, using McClellan’s closed roads as a sledding course, and seeing adults help cars get un-stuck from the snow. We saw another man skiing down another hill.

I’m not excited that we’ll have to go to school until almost July, that my flight was postponed, or that many retailers will face dismal sales this year due to the weather, but I am thankful that I’ve had just a little more time before the holidays to rest, get caught up on that which gets neglected during my busy school year, and enjoy the company of my husband.

How might our world be different if we took ownership of our food, especially for our children’s sake? What if all cities had a School Lunch Initiative that replaced over-processed, HFCS-infused mystery meats on a stick, made into fingers, or put on a bun with fresh, local, nutritious ingredients, as Alice Waters has done in Berkeley, California. Granted, Seattle Public Schools has made progress
with multigrain buns, seasonal fresh fruit, vegetarian options, and r-BST hormone free milk, but could we partner more with local farmers or p-patches for some of these meats, fruits, or veggies?

Last Friday, Justin and I celebrated our 8-year anniversary at a neighborhood restaurant that attempts to use as many local ingredients as possible, and I must say, it was delicious. What would it look like if more restaurants adopted seasonal ingredients and seasonal menu? Again, I think Seattle is ahead of the curve with such restaurants as Union, Dahlia Lounge, and La Medusa (all delicious!) that make it their mission to feature fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients. But should I have to pay almost $100 a meal for two people to enjoy the delights of fresh, local, seasonal, and organic foods? Right now, enjoying a slice of an heirloom tomato or a prairie-fed, pan-roasted organic chicken in a restaurant is an exclusive treat that few can enjoy, when it used to be a routine that most Americans What about the majority of our nation’s restaurants–can they, too, benefit from a partnership with local farmers? One might state, “But then the menus would be different from month to month! But then a meal in Santa Fe chain might be different from one in Vermont!” Yes. The towns in the US might just regain some of their regional distinctiveness again, perhaps at the expense of our all-important consistency and homogeneity in fast-food restaurants and sit-down chains. Americans might have to regain their sense of taste and seasonality in an effort to cut down on carbon emissions, support local farmers, and eat in a more healthy manner.

The other day Justin and I walked to Safeway in our neighborhood. On the end of an aisle, right next to the checkout, there was a display for 10 Little-Debbie boxed snacks for $10. Each box contained at least 1600 calories, meaning a person could buy most of a day’s worth of calories for $1. But is that the type of food that we want to encourage our American families to eat? Apparently someone close to home has thought about this, because Seattle’s Columbia City Farmer’s Market, according to the Rainier Valley Post, is doubling food stamps. This means the “money” will stretch a little further for these families at the sometimes-pricey farmer’s market. Sustainable, local food should be an option for low-income, urban apartment dwellers and middle-class suburbanites, not just a luxury that a few can afford due to lifestyle changes of neo-hippies who move to a coop, rural families that still sustain themselves through hunting, fishing, and growing their own food, or those with enough money during these hard economic times to spend on quality food. Now….who wants to help me figure out how to raise chickens?

At any rate, I can’t blog long, as there is a bowling match going on tonight that I MUST be part of. Lesley, Dawn, and I are going to face off tonight at the Imperial Lanes. Wish me luck!

Today is a room-temperature, yet cloudy, Saturday. We slept in (and I’ve been getting plenty of sleep lately!!) after leaving the bedroom windows open all night. I made raisin toast, eggs, and bacon for breakfast while we listened to This American Life. I worked in my garden; Justin went to Lowe’s. Today is laundry, de-clutter, vacuum, dishes, and all-around chores day. Tonight: a bridal shower (read: Mexican food and Wii games). Tomorrow, I anticipate reading and going to Ohana Project. Perhaps I shall even watch a movie (I’d love to go to Get Smart with Justin!). No grading or lesson planning awaits.

Monday (and for two weeks thereafter) I shall be attending a “Summer Institute for Biology Teaching” from 8:30-3:30 at the UW. I expect I will enjoy it, although I will be missing the home visit training and the AP Bio institute.

Well–it’s time to de-clutter. Hopefully I will blog again before two more months pass!

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I am working on this online bible reading plan to get through the bible in a year. Somehow I like reading it online, and then I thought about getting it emailed to me. However, the site charges $9 a year for the emails, so I guess I need to find another site.

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I finished the Miranda July book, and now I am working on 3 books: Holly Springs, Surprised by Joy, and Omnivore’s Dilemma. I want to get more seriously into reading, hiking, and knitting after my grades are due. Right now those are on hold, like just about everything else (house cleaning, hanging out with friends, etc.).

I am concerned about how stressed I am about work, especially since my visit to the ER last weekend with chest pain and trouble breathing. I still have a dull ache all around my left chest area, but I don’t know what to think about it. I had bloodwork done, and EKG, and a chest xray, but they didn’t find anything (they were worried about clotting). They suggested anxiety and internal bruising from soccer. I don’t know what it is, but it’s still bothering me and I’m worried about playing soccer this Thursday.
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My grad school application is due this Friday. I’m pretty much finished; I just need to print out all of my materials and take in my immunization records and transcripts. I will feel much better about life when all of that is done (as well as my grades).
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Paul, the guy who has lived with us in our garage for the last two years, is in a coma in the hospital. It’s not looking promising that he will get out of it this time. Please keep him, as well as his family and friends in your prayers.

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So that’s the news from around here! I know–it’s all rainbows and butterflies, right? I really am happy–I just have a lot on my mind. That seems to happen as I get older. I want to focus more on the beautiful, positive aspects of life. It’s hard to walk the line between being Eeyore and Pollyanna.

Books:
Currently reading Surprised by Joy (C.S. Lewis) and No One Belongs “Here More Than You (Miranda July)–both for book groups.

Music:
Just got DMB and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City and Grey’s Anatomy Season 3 Soundtrack for Christmas. In awe at Reynold’s guitar skillz.

Movies:
Depressed myself by watching A Crude Awakening about the upcoming oil shortage. Makes me want to live on a farm.

Trips I want to take in the near future:

I’d love to go to Portland for a long weekend trip to visit Powell’s. I also want to visit The Bridge church and stay at McMenamin’s Edgefield outside of Portland in Troutdale.
Quebec–just to feel like I’m in Old World Europe in the “New World”
New Zealand/Australia: it’s all about the wildlife and scenery….plus they speak English
Kenya or South Africa on adventurous days
New England/East Coast: we have lots of friends and family there
Idaho: visit J’s parents; ski or snowboard; play in snow; sit in hot springs in the cold weather

Knitting Projects:
Finished Anna’s Alpaca fuzzy black scarf. Still working on baby kimono. Might finish when baby is a teenager. Started making baby bib in purple and green jewel tones.

Seattle Weather:
Boring. Just boring. I prefer exciting weather, for instance snow and drastic changes in temperature. At least the past two days there has been some sun! I really should live further inland somewhere if I prefer such excitement.

Education:
I still have bitten off more than I can chew in my current teaching assignment: 3 preps in a high needs school is overwhelming, so I spend a lot of my “free” time working on school related work. Nevertheless, I am applying for a doctoral program called Leadership for Learning at the University of Washington (L4L at UW, shorthand). The program is mainly geared to people preparing for superintendent duties, but my focus would be on leadership for educators at the school-based level. My application is due February 1, and I still have so much to do on it. I have 2, 3-day weekends coming up.

TV:
Not much of this in my life, but I have enjoyed watching the Colbert Report and The/”A” Daily Show with John Stewart this week. I watch it online, though, which means it’s a day late.

Theater:
One of my new year’s resolutions is to actually get to the plays we have season tickets to. Seattle Rep won’t let you in late, and we inevitably get there 5-10 minutes late, at least the last few times. We have one coming up in February. Here’s to punctuality.

Technology:
Not much new in this category. I am working off of Justin’s old Vaio so we can both have wireless in the same room. Since the addition of Lesley’s cat to the household, we have not been working in the office, as we’d have to keep the door closed, and that’s a rather confined space.

Science:
I’m teaching AP Bio this year, so this week I will be working with Sordaria in a mitosis/meiosis lab. Woohoo!

Grrr…
I have too many for this category. Let me first state that I began to dislike being asked how my break was, because overall, it was a pleasant experience with friends and family, but a series of unfortunate events seemed to befall us. Let me explain.

The first leg of our trip went fine, except that I got sick the day after Christmas with a cold, right after having a sinus infection earlier that month. Being sick again meant that flying, which we did 2 days after I got sick, became ridiculously painful on my ears….and we had to do it twice that day. I couldn’t hear normally out of one of my ears, and a few days later (New Year’s Eve) I went to the doctor in my hometown. I ended up having an ear infection and got put on antibiotics that I just finished. Justin got the same bug, but it wasn’t as bad.

The next Grrr….comes from our flying experience. We just made our connecting flight from Salt Lake to Cincinnati, but our luggage apparently didn’t make it. My sis picked us up from the airport (and we got pulled over for speeding on the way to my Papa’s), and we decided to make our return trip to the airport the next morning, since our next stop would put us through Little Rock anyway. No luggage. Flight didn’t make it. “We’ll deliver it,” they said, “between 3 p.m. and 3 a.m.” 3 a.m……still no luggage. We called them. “We’ll deliver sometime today.” 4:30 pm: we got our luggage…2 days late. All of the presents I had for family I wouldn’t see again that trip was in there. Thanks, airline and baggage delivery service, for your convenience.

The time had come for our trip home. I called the night before to confirm that we had a 7 a.m. flight, which meant getting up at 4 to leave for Little Rock. “Yes,” the live person at Expedia said, “that’s correct.” 5:30 a.m. at the airport: “Your flight has been changed to 2 p.m.” Justin discussed this with an agent for an hour; they both made many phone calls. 2 p.m. remained the departure time. The glorious byproduct of this situation is that my parents were able to take us to Cracker Barrel and we has a scrumptious country breakfast (I, of course, had biscuits and gravy).

More rants: Why does UPS try to do deliveries that require signature confirmation on M-F during normal working hours? If I wasn’t there today between 10-2, why would I be there tomorrow at that time? And then, why are you not open on Saturdays?

Running:
Can we skip this one? OK, so I haven’t done much of this since Aaron, my running buddy, left. Also, I don’t have a gym membership anymore, and it’s dark before I get home (any more excuses?), so this isn’t so much part of my life right now, although I’d like it to be.

Church
So since our group isn’t meeting on Sundays anymore, we’re trying to figure out what to do next. For some, it means individual spiritual time on Sunday mornings. For others, it is visiting churches. For yet others, it is a combination of the two, depending on the week. That’s where I fit in. We’re still doing our other activities, but we’re trying to figure out what Sundays should really look like.

Exercise
I’m getting this some days, thanks to exercise videos for abs, buns, arms, and cardio. Yay! I like being sore, as it means I am making progress and working hard.

Food
I like cooking, but I don’t like HAVING to cook. I like being creative and I like having a choice. I think sometimes getting the pioneer organics box stresses me out because it’s like the fruits and veggies are a ticking time bomb that need to be cooked…RIGHT NOW!! We postponed our order for the last month, and I’m a lot more relaxed, although I haven’t been eating as many fruits and veggies. This AM I made blueberry pancakes and meatless bacon. I want to eat more healthily, so I like planning my menu ahead of time.

Friends and Family
I love you all and I don’t see you enough!

Last year we got out for Christmas Break on December 15, but this year we drudge on until the 21. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, at least in daylight hours, but I think it will be a long one for me, as I will be teaching all 6 classes, finalizing my packing, cleaning the house a bit, completing Christmas cards, and doing all those last-minute right-before-a-vacation household chores. We wake up early Saturday morning to head to the airport to catch our flight to SLC (we’ll end up in frigid Pocatello). The only sanity-saver I have is knowing that I won’t have to go to work for 16 days, and that I will get to spend time with friends and family in the meantime.

Although this trip will be a time of catching up with friends and family, I have calculated that on each day of this break, I must grade 3 senior papers. I also have to grade 30 mitosis labs, 30 photosynthesis labs, 70 biology notebooks, 30 AP Bio Mitosis and Cell communication tests, 30 AP Bio photosynthesis tests, and 70 cell quizzes. As you can tell, I am a bit behind on my grading, as I was out sick for 3 days last week and I simply have not caught up. At least my Christmas shopping is finished, right?

I should go to bed so I can face the last day before break as a well-rested human being!

Right now I am in the HW center at my school and sun is streaming through the window onto my monitor. I should have brought papers up here to grade, but I will have to wrok on those later this evening, sometime before my soccer game at 9!

I haven’t played soccer in a few weeks, mainly because so much else is going on related to school. I have a student teacher, and I’ve been at a technology conference the last three days. Since I’ve written last, we’ve had an open house, as well as a walkthrough called “Data in a Day.” I’ve been to science professional development, Spamalot, a movie, and much more. This weekend holds a play at the Rep, and a birthday party for Dawn (happy birthday, Dawn!), as well as lots of grading.

From my room I can see the thunderstorm progress across Boeing field and I-5, There are showers here which surge at various rates, and the lightning a moment ago caused the lights to flicker and caused my monitor to get a greenish hue, which is bothering me and is persisting.

Tonight I hope to get a bit of grading done, but I don’t want all evening to be about school. Perhaps some exercising and knitting will be what I need.