America's Song

Free Download until 5 p.m. on Thursday! Check it out: http://www.oprah.com/article/world/peopleandpolitics/pkginauguration/20090119_tows_americassong

INSPIRED

Ok, I won't write a long one here because I don't want to be overly political, but man, after yesterday and today, I can't help but respond. I have so much faith in America today. Faith in Obama, yes, but also tremendous faith in the goodness and hope and vision and potential for all Americans to achieve their worthy dreams and create a future for our children that is solid and bright and empowering. I have been teaching rhetoric and poetry lately, so the inauguration festivities fit perfectly into my lesson plans--and after watching the ceremonies today, my students and I looked more closely at Obama's speech and Elizabeth Alexander's poem, as well as the 3 (4 if you count "Dedication") previous inaugural poems. Something about studying just a couple elements of this historic day and these traditions makes me a bit sentimental--and proud. We are lucky to live in this fine country.

As I begin to study "Gratitude," the theme for our Sunday School class this week, I can't help feeling today an immense amount of gratitude for all of the people, past and present, who have brought us to this historic, exciting day. There certainly is work to be done--and I am excited to do it!

A New Respect for Single Parents

I don't know how they do it. Wow. Clay has been out of town since Wednesday at a soccer conference in St. Louis (where is it seriously 0 degrees--yowzers!), so I have been on Cam-dawg duty. Who knew a beagle puppy could be so high maintenance--and such a comforting companion. Here he is looking for Clay out our living room window :-). We both miss Clay. It is just not nearly as much fun without him!

After a Wednesday night filled with chasing Camden around the dining room table after yet another shoe or trying to get him off of the couch for the fiftieth time, I decided Thursday that I would skip exercise and spend some quality time with our puppy instead. Maybe it was Marley and Me that reminded me of what gifts our pets are in our lives. So I came home to a sweet Camden who had been cooped up all day, took him on a long (and frigid! Brr!) walk around campus, and then loaded him in the car for a field trip. Yup, we were off to Aunt Sue's K-9 Bakery. He flipped he loved it so much. One half of the store is literally a kitchen in which "Aunt Sue" bakes treats for dogs all day--and Camden definitely got his fill that afternoon. After selecting a bag of homemade goodies and a new bone, we were off to visit his vet for some new food and then home for more play time. What a difference it made that night. He was an angel, so happy and eager to curl up with me as I worked and read in our quiet apartment. I know most people love their dogs and think they are the best (as they should), but man, the past few days make me wonder if we didn't totally luck out by somehow bringing home the cutest, sweetest dog alive.

Clay comes home tomorrow night, and we can't wait. It's amazing how long 5 days can feel when you are used to seeing your love every night. But he is having a good time with the thousands of other high school soccer coaches at this conference and learning more about the game, so it was a good one for him to attend.

Tonight I head back to school for a lock-in with the 10th graders from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m., so Camden will hopefully hang tight and not bark too much without the two of us for 11 hours (sweet Ashley is checking in on him, so he's not totally being abandoned!). It will be a night full of Dance!Dance!Revolution, Guitar Hero, movies, relay races, ice cream, board games, and swimming. The girls are adorable and fun, and the three other chaperones are also fantastic, so it should be a lot of fun. It's just too frickin' cold for Ashley and I to do our usual Saturday morning run together tomorrow, so we will be P90X-ing it instead on the big screen TV in her dorm. Awesome! A little more baking (I am making granola bars like it is my job), perhaps a bit more of a workout at the Sports Barn, and some quality time planning for classes and reading on the couch tomorrow is my plan until Clay comes home. And then, life will be better once again.

Happy weekend, everyone!

A Few of My Favorite Things--Just This Week!

My students are currently working on writing (and recording) their own "This I Believe" statement to be shared with their peers and submitted to NPR. Let's cross our fingers at least one of my girls makes it on the radio or website!

I cried cried cried. If you have ever loved a dog, you need to go see this movie. Loved it.

In the midst of high-energy, full of interaction days, there is just something soothing and illuminating about yoga.

This is the latest on our Netflix queue, and two nights of duty this weekend enabled us to really get into it. I have to admit, though, this show makes me glad I wasn't a working woman in the 60's.

My Mom's pumpkin bread. It doesn't come much better than this, folks. Our Sunday School class savored the final bites from the Christmas installment she sent home with us. Our class also enjoyed the yummy wheat bread I baked from scratch with Erin this weekend!

Books 1 and 2

Hooray! My new year's resolutions are off to an exciting start! I watched Suze Orman on Oprah today while I was at the gym and thus got my financial lesson for the day (by the way, you can download her Action Plan for 2009 book for FREE this week on Oprah's website! This is the second time these two go-get-em women had tag-teamed to give one of her books away for free and I loved the first one, so download, here we come...). The more I learn about managing money, the more I want to know. It's fascinating. And while Clay nor I may ever make millions of dollars in the lucrative field of education, we CAN be smart about what we do with it. Saving is the name of our game right now, friends.

I am also reading up a storm. In an effort to learn more about our new President before his inauguration, my first book of the year was Obama's Audacity of Hope. I don't want to get too political here, but reading his book made me have even more confidence in his intregity, vision, and understanding of what needs to be done for the good of America. It also gave a very real account of the challenges he and Michelle constantly navigate in their marriage and family life. She seems to definitely keep him in check, reminding him that his work in government is important but so are his roles as a husband and a father. He admits finding the balance between these two main responsibilities in his life (public figure and family man) is extremely difficult and potentially impossible to ever be satisfactory, but he tries to remain mindful that the fact he has two such weighty parts of his life also makes his extremely fortunate. His book is divided into thematic sections such as "Opportunity," "What Makes the World Go Around," and "Race, " so it is an easy one to pick up, read, and then put back down again without being totally lost upon your return. That said, I read it pretty quickly--I didn't want to put it down.

My second read of the year was a book that my kind, thoughtful in-laws (by the way, I hate that term--feels so cold), Pat and Kay, gave me for my birthday: Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage. Talk about a perfect present-this is a concise, accurate, thoughtful overview of Shakespeare's life and work that enabled me to quickly and enjoyably prepare to teach Macbeth to my 10th graders this quarter. What I didn't know is that this text is part of a series called "Eminent Lives" in which well-known and reputable authors write short biographies on "great figures." Others in the series include Francine Prose on Caravaggio and Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson. I made tons of notes as I read--this work seemed to synthesize a lot of what I had previously read about Shakespeare with new insights and a very readable, storytelling style. Perhaps what I liked most about it was how it began: "He is at once one of the best known and least known of figures." Ah, if only we knew why he left Anne Hathaway with his "second-best bed." I guess it will always be a mystery!

What am I reading now? A book my friend, Kat, lent me called While I Was Gone. Perfect; I was in the mood for a little fiction :-). If you have any book recommendations at any time this year, I would love to hear them!

Chicago!

Early Saturday morning, Clay and I drove to the Chattanooga airport and hopped on the first (and let's be honest--probably ONLY) flight to the Windy City for Blair and Jurgen's wedding. Before we knew it, we were walking around downtown Chicago at 7:45 a.m. looking for fun.

Since nothing opened until 9 a.m., we window shopped along Michigan Avenue until we could go to the top of the John Hancock Building to see a panoramic view of the city. We LOVE Chicago! What a beautiful, fun city. As we listened on our interactive media headsets to David Schwimmer "tour" us around "his" city, we couldn't help but marvel at Lake Michigan, the Navy Pier, and Chicago Tribune building. While we wish we had more time to really get to know the city, standing on the 94th floor of the third tallest building in Chicago (and fifth in the U.S.) gave us a pretty cool sense of how broad and dynamic it is.

After grabbing brunch at the yummy Grand Lux Cafe with my sister, Brittany, and hitting up Crate and Barrel's sales and Anthropologie (LOVE this store!!), Clay and I headed back to the hotel for a glorious nap before Blair and Jurgen's wedding....which was beautiful! Blair, our family's dear friend ever since birth (our moms were in each other's weddings) looked radiant and she and Jurgen looked so happy. She has been keeping an excellent "Wedding Blurg" about her experiences as a bride-to-be--check it out to the right if you want to see pictures of the cute couple. From the instant photo booth to the delicious food stations around the room to seeing my sister as the Maid of Honor for the second time, we loved loved loved being a part of their thoughtful celebration. Congrats Blair and Jurgen!

Having fun at the reception

Look at that cute fam!

Brittany, me, Clay, and Mom

Brittany giving her awesome toast to Blurg

What a cute couple they are! Love the dress!

At the next-day brunch before we all said goodbye

Okay, now it's back to reality: Clay has an inservice tomorrow and I luckily have one more day to prep for classes, but then its full speed ahead as we jump into Semester #2. It's been a restful, love-filled, enjoyable break, though--we are pretty lucky.

New Year's Resolutions

"I wish for those I love this new year an opportunity to earn sufficiently, to have that which they need for their own and to give that which they desire to others, ot bring into the lives of those about them some measure of joy, to know the satisfaction of work well done,

of recreation earned and therefore savored, to end the year a little wiser,

a little kinder and therefore a little happier."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

You would think that working at a gym for several years in high school would turn me off of new year's resolutions, but there is something about the start of a new year and time to reflect that always makes me excited to consider the possibilities for a new year. As a person who loves to write lists and set goals, resolutions are right up my alley.

Every year I outline just a couple key goals for the year. Last year's included running a marathon, starting a blog, and immersing myself in as much Shakespeare as possible when in Oxford finishing my degree. 2008 was a great, great year. We moved into the dorm, Clay and I traveled abroad for the first time, we got Camden :-)...great stuff. But I have noticed that I was constantly in a state of movement, of trying to do 10 things at once. I think I actually like life that way, but one significant activity kept being pushed to the side: reading. As an English teacher, I need to read. And aside from the 11 Shakespeare plays I read this summer at school, I haven't been reading thoughtfully or regularly. I even dropped out of my book club because I was embarrassed at how little I was reading. So after some thought and several lists, here are my goals for 2009:

1. 2009 is the year of the BOOK. There are probably hundreds of books on our bookshelves that I yet to read. I am focusing on them. I want to read the books we already own and that promise numerous lessons within their pages. I'll keep you updated.

2. 2009 is the year of FINANCIAL SAVVY. I already am a bit obsessed with this, but I want to push myself to find new ways of saving and spending wisely and intentionally.

3. As always, I want to write more letters.

That's it! I have a feeling these will keep me pretty busy. If you are making resolutions, I would love to hear what they are! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!