More from the master builder

For months--maybe even years--I had been complaining about Matt's nightstand. It was an old piece of Target or Walmart do-it-yourself furniture, and it looked awful next to the rest of our bedroom furniture. He must've gotten tired of listening to me complain, because he built the most beautiful piece of furniture in our home:

And it's already right at home, complete with a laptop, textbook, and all sorts of other things cluttering it.

Partners in Crime

Matt was having trouble with a computer recently. Thankfully, Barley was there to lend moral support (not to mention technical assistance).

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas puppy wishes all our friends and family a happy Christmas and a healthy new year!

But he also kindly asks that you keep it down. He's exhausted.

O Holy What?

In honor of (or perhaps, quite unintentionally, to dishonor) the upcoming holiday, I have to share this update of a Christmas classic.

I hope it brings all of you as much joy as it brought a building full of cranky people, forced to teach sugar-high teenagers for four worthless hours the day before a holiday break.

"A few" packing peanuts

Because most of our friends and family live elsewhere, Matt and I spent a lot of time packing and shipping Christmas presents over the past couple weeks. After a particularly disastrous shipping experience last year, Matt became concerned with shipping safety this year. Add to that the fact that we were shipping some bottles, and he was downright obsessed. He started squirreling away packing peanuts, spare styrofoam, you name it. He urged me to be sure I didn't throw away any packing materials that came our way.

So when a colleague sent an email last week advertising "A few" available packing peanuts, I went to his classroom quickly to claim them. Little did I know that his definition of "a few" was either questionable or intentionally dubious:

Those aren't two huge bags of packing peanuts, but rather one giant bag stuffed inside a smaller bag. Even after we sent packages all over the country...

our bag of packing peanuts didn't look any smaller:

In fact, I think it may have grown.

Snowtopia

The Baltimore area was hit with a blizzard this weekend. For those of us from a naturally snowy climate, it was like a small taste of home. In fact, I think there may even be more snow on the ground in Maryland than in Minnesota.

The entire area shut down for the entire weekend, and we were out of school today. Here's just a glimpse of what our neighborhood looks like (we haven't ventured much farther than that):


And, of course, a video of Barley trying to run/hop through the snow:

Nuggets of Matt Brilliance

Matt and I have been cooped in the house for the last couple days because of all the snow (more posts on that later). As might be expected, we've let personal hygiene slip in the process. Until now...

Matt: "I just took a shower."

Me: "Well done."

Matt: "That means you have to take one, too. If one person takes a shower, then the other person has to. That's the rule. I don't want to notice how you smell."

Lovely.

Santa Fred

First, please note that this post has absolutely nothing to do with 2007's lackluster holiday movie, Fred Claus.

It does, however, have everything to do with my father's inherent potential. Some people were born to do certain things. I've always thought my father was blessed to have three choices:

1. Inspire children to enjoy American history and politics,
2. Mow the lawn at Jerry Garcia's estate just to see how many stoned "Deadheads" would think Jerry was back from the grave, or
3. Work just one or two months out of each year playing Santa Claus.

For years, I was convinced the answer was #1, all the while hoping it would be #2. Looks like #3 wins out, much to the benefit of little children everywhere:

Nuggets of Matt Brilliance

Matt makes me laugh just about every day. No, Matt makes me laugh every single day. Far be it from me to deprive the world of his quips.

One of my favorite of Matt's quirks is that he is a terribly picky eater. He doesn't eat gourds (pumpkin, squash, etc.), he doesn't like nuts in anything, and he always leaves just one little bite on his plate of whatever he's eating. Just today, when cutting in to some delicious coffee cake:

"Wait a second. This better not have anything fancy in it like stupid figs or nuts...or dates...is this a raisin?!"

An etymologist's dilemma

On the way home from school today, I was passed (quite speedily, I might add) by a man driving a vehicle with handicapped plates (or, for the PC and alliteration-loving among us, "disabled person parking plates").

First, the juxtaposition of the plates with the speed with which he passed me (he was going at least 90) made me laugh. Before he completely zipped by, however, I caught a glimpse of something that kept me entertained for the rest of the trip--vanity plates that read "LAME."

This puzzled me. Did he mean that it was "totally lame" that his know-it-all children or bossy wife made him get the "disabled person parking plates"? Or was being lame, in fact, his disability?

Dialing down the teacher

This time of year is always busy, but this year seems busier than most. I seem to have an inordinately large number of papers to grade, more students than average who need extra help, homework and presentations for the class I'm taking, not to mention loads and loads of Christmas shopping. Perhaps because of all this seasonal stress, I've had a harder time than usual lately dialing down the teacher while in public.

At a local mall just last night, I had three separate teacher moments with local teenagers:

I saw a young man with low-riding pants, and I had to stop myself mid-sentence from telling him to take pull them off. "No one wants to see that," I started to say.

I saw a young lady drop something, pause long enough to look at it, then keep walking. This time, I tried to stop myself but succumbed to the pressure. I asked her to come pick up what she had dropped.

I saw a group of young men wearing the exact same red baseball hat, all of which had oversized flat brims and were far too large for their little heads. This time, I didn't even try to stop myself. I turned to the friend I was shopping with and said rather loudly, "Isn't it a shame that they couldn't at least find different dorky hats?"