I am thankful

In the blog and Facebook world, it is trendy to post all of the things we are thankful for at this time of year. I tend to shy away from all things trendy, but I am so blessed that I can't seem to help it.

I am thankful for:

My husband. He is a wonderful companion and I am so lucky I get to share my life with him. <3

My parents, who are so supportive and special. I don't know what I would do without them.

My sweet cousins, each of whom is special, talented, and amazing in his or her own way.

The rest of my crazy awesome family! I love them all!!!

A whole crowd of the best friends a girl could ever hope for. I don't dare to list people here, because I'll surely miss someone, but suffice it to say that I love you all!!

My job, including my fabulous coworkers, who help me do my job to the very best if my ability, share ideas with me, and encourage me when I'm struggling. I couldn't ask for a better school family.

Music. Books. :) Nuff said.

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a brief teacher rant

"I don't want to tell my students what I think they need to know, I want them to discover what they need to know so they can take it to the next level." -a woman I work with at A&T this summer.

I don't think its fair, as a science teacher, to expect my students, who have so few experiences, to discover all the things discovered by Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Watson, Crick, Darwin, and Curie. That expectation may be the cause of their frustration. I am a teacher...isn't it my job to impart knowledge?

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A present

Matt came home yesterday with new Droids for both of us. It's really exciting! I certainly haven't gotten anything done since he brought them in...I've just been playing.

So school is almost over for another year. I will be so relieved when it ends...it's been one heck of a year. For the past month, we have been consumed with testing, remediating, and more testing. Ugh. We haven't had planning time and we haven't had time to be a family like we normally are. One of my colleagues is dealing with a major tragedy, and I feel like we have barely had time to s upport her and grieve with her. We just need a break so we can get it all together. Four more days.

At home, Matt and I have been dealing with some weird stuff...our lawn mower was stolen, and twice now we've heard people walking in the woods behind our house late at night. The police implied that it might be deer, but deer don't talk. They also said that they knew there were homeless people living in the woods behind our neighbor's house, which is empty, but apparently there's nothing they can do about them. Woo!

On a lighter note, I am the Assistant Stage Manager for CTG's production of Willy Wonka in July, so I am rehearsing for that on weeknights. It's really good to be back in theatre. Goodness knows I've missed it. :)

Matt is doing P90X and I'm thinking about doing the ab routine that's part of it. It would be nice to do something active.

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9 Ingredients to Avoid in Processed Foods

I was skimming the Yahoo! homepage when I noticed the teaser for this article. I thought it was very interesting. :)

A convenience or an abomination?

We were shopping at Home Depot last weekend when I discovered a new tree I've never seen before! It's called a Fruit Salad tree and it produces peaches, plums, apricots, and nectarines, all on one dwarf tree!

I am 100% sure that there are people in the world who see this as a wonderful thing. How exciting, to have one tiny tree which will provide a family with a variety of fresh fruit throughout the year! What a novelty, as well!

I just can't get on board.

I think that if God had wanted us to have fruit trees in pots on our back patios, practically dumping different kinds of fruit into our hands throughout the year, He probably would have provided that. I think this particular garden innovation leans toward the abomination end of the spectrum.

Getting involved

I added a button to the blog today. It's a link to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. He is advocating for better school lunches, something vitally important as more and more families in this country depend entirely on school cafeterias to nourish their children and educate them about food. It's frightening to walk through the lunch line every day and see the same endless parade of brown foods...breaded and fried chicken strips, fried veggies, rolls...nothing with any real nutritional value.

I also skimmed the Facebook petition to ban High Fructose Corn Syrup from the United States. I completely agree that we consume entirely too much of this artificial sweetener ("fine in moderation", as the commercials say, but how can it be used moderately when it's in everything?). I lost about 10 pounds simply by cutting back the number of Cokes containing HFCS I consumed every day. It's disturbing to shop the center aisle and even the dairy case at the grocery store! Everything has corn in one form or another, or was fed corn when it was alive. While that's truly a post for another day, I was interested in the Facebook petition. However, I decided not to sign. I want to see a change in the ingredients in food in this country, but further legislation will not bring about positive change. The only way to truly influence the food industry is to put money behind my beliefs. If I believe that HFCS is bad, then I will stop buying products that contain it. While my personal statement is very small, if enough people make the change, eventually the economic pressure will be substantial. Also, in the meantime, I can use the money I'm not spending on HFCS products to support products that use more natural ingredients.

More outdoor fun!

Yesterday we bought a riding lawn mower! Matt started mowing the front yard before we had to get ready for Aunt Jeep's birthday party. While he was doing that, I spread the rest of the mulch on the flower bed at the end of the driveway, cleared a few tenacious weeds, and planted some new plants at the end, where there used to be a huge peony.

I planted two daylilies called Stella de Oro. They have pretty yellow flowers and long narrow leaves. According to the tag, they'll bloom well in the summer and into the fall and they love full sun, which is what they'll get at the end of the flower bed.

(Thanks to www.gardenality.com for the image!)

Behind the daylilies, I planted three Dracaena Spikes! These look awesome and they'll get nice and tall. I can't wait to see how they do.

(Thanks to www.naturehills.com for this image.)

I'll try to post some pictures of the flower bed and the mower soon!