If "your" not good with grammar...

Don't make shirts with words on them:

(Thanks for the heads-up on this one, Garrett.)

Four Chords, a Cat and Some Dream Hands

One of the benefits of hanging out with teenagers all the time is that I get to stay tuned in to pop culture...or at least be reminded when I've fallen woefully behind.  I spent last weekend in Ocean City with the teenagers from our church.  In between the times when we talked about God and stuff, we were entertained by the viral videos that at least 21 million other people have already seen.  It's good to be in the loop again:

Snow day slacker

It snowed two inches last night, so, naturally, we don't have school today.  Usually I welcome these days to get caught up on my grading or get a jump-start on lesson planning.  Not today.

I attended an event with a student last night, so I intentionally left a stack of papers and my flashdrive at school.  I knew I wouldn't get to it last night.  So what to do now?  A snow day with no work?

1.  Take Barley to the dog park and tackle him in the snow.  Try to throw a snowball to him (usually he tries to catch it), only to have it hit him in the face.  Poor baby.

2.  Shovel our steps.  Then our sidewalk.  Then the rest of the sidewalk on our side of the street.  Subsequently talk myself out of going to the gym.

3.  Get caught up on my reading, especially my wonderful Christmas present.

4.  Consider cleaning the house, but convince myself it's "really not that bad."

5.  Write about how little I've done today so I feel just the teeniest bit productive.

You should see the other guy

Maryland received a fair amount of ice last night, so our entire neighborhood was pretty slick this morning.  I tried to warn Barley of that before he went outside this morning, but chasing squirrels was just way too tempting.  He shot out of the back door like he always does, slipped on the deck, regained his footing, tried to sprint down the stairs, and ended up going arse over teakettle the rest of the way down.  The last thing I saw was a white fuzzy bum spinning into the snow.  He stood up, saw a few stars, then remembered the pesky squirrels and resumed angry barking.

It wasn't until a few hours later that I noticed the gash over his right eye.  It's much smaller now, but it's still a good sized cut.

He let me clean it and stop the bleeding, but the whole experience was still taxing on him.  Trauma is exhausting, even for brave puppy dogs.

Every time I feel the spirit...I make a fool of myself

The Holy Spirit can move anything--even chapstick.

It had been a while since Matt and I attended our church's formal service.  We went back this morning.  I think it's best we stay away.

This morning, we came in late.  Actually, we were right on time, but at the formal service, that's "late."

During the opening hymn, Matt asked to borrow some chapstick.  I spent the next two verses rummaging through my purse, much to the annoyance of the elderly woman sitting behind us.

At the end of the hymn, Matt was getting irritated that the organist was slowing down too much.  I was trying to explain that he was doing this for dramatic emphasis, but as I made the universally acknowledge hand gesture for "dramatic emphasis," my chapstick flew up into the air, fell onto the pew in front of me, took a mammoth bounce (who knew chapstick could bounce?), and rolled under the foot of the person in the row in front of us.  He looked around with "Did I just hear something?" puzzlement, but, thankfully, remained confused.

We're going to back to the noisy come-as-you-are contemporary service.

Conservative Constitution

There was a wonderful article in the Opinion section of the Washington Post last weekend.  I can't get its "Preamble" out of my head:

We, the Real Americans, in order to form a more God-Fearing Union, establish Justice as we see it, Defeat Health-Care Reform, and Preserve and Protect our Property, our Guns and our Right Not to Pay Taxes, do ordain and establish this Conservative Constitution for the United States of Real America.

The rest of the "Conservative Constitution" is worth a read.

Cleaning up Christmas

We took the tree down today and put away most of the Christmas decorations.  This wasn't nearly as much of a downer it normally is.  There are too many exciting things on the horizon to feel blue.

While I was cleaning, I found our camera and realized I didn't take one picture while my parents were here for a holiday visit.  I suppose that's because we took a break from the touristy things and just had family time at home.

In fact, our time together was so wonderful that I find myself now wishing they were still here.  I'm 31 years old, and I still miss my parents.  When do you get too old to miss Mom and Dad?