Akeelah and the Bee

I know we're behind here, but we saw Akeelah and the Bee this weekend and absolutely loved it. If you haven't seen this movie yet, go rent it. It is a very sweet story about a little girl from south L.A. who becomes a champion speller. With the exception of a small amount of language there is nothing that even the most careful parent could object to.

I was a speller in grade school and junior high and I remember the tension, the huge butterflies in the stomach, and the excitement of spelling a word correctly. I also remember the devastation in eighth grade when I lost my last bee and knew that I was never going to the national spelling bee. We didn't do the methodical preparation that champions do now. (Did anyone do that 30 years ago?) And we certainly didn't have coaches. I had my word list from Scripps-Howard and that was it.

Anyway, the movie is worth seeing. My kids all loved it. And now Andrew wants to learn to spell.

Photo Hunt: Soft

This week's theme is soft. The easy route would have been one of the many pictures of my cats. They are both quite soft. But I figure we'll probably see a few cats today and I like to be different.

One of the other softest things that I know of is a new baby. This is a picture of me with my brand new baby brother. Obviously this isn't a recent event. I'm in the middle of scanning my grandmother's slides onto the computer and am finding many treasures.

What's in your fridge?

There was an article in the Indy Star about what was in Quinn Buckner's fridge.

I can't resist. This has all the makings of a great meme. I'm sure that all of us have lots of stuff in our fridges, so just list five things in each category. Pick what makes your fridge original, embarrassing or average. It's up to you.

On the Shelves: eggs, flax seeds, salsa, tortillas, leftover pasta

Drinks: Milk, Honey Brown, Baileys, Guiness, Mountain Dew

In the Cheese Drawer: shredded cheddar, sliced swiss, parmagiano reggiano, Gourmandise with kirsch, colby

In the Produce Bin: celery, romaine, tangerines, turnips, cabbage

In the Door: salad dressing, Red Gold Ketchup, Frank's hot sauce, half & half, dijon mustard
In the Freezer: Breyers Vanilla Bean ice cream, pecans, slivered almonds, brats, broccoli

If you read this, consider yourself tagged. Let us know in the comments if you played.

HT: Opening Arguments

Ashes, ashes

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Pastor Petersen has a great post at Cyberstones about the imposition of ashes. In the few years that we have been at Redeemer this has become one of my favorite services.

Go read.

To gray or not to gray

Polly's reply to my last post made me think about something.

I have stopped coloring my hair. It has been five months since I last used semi-permanent coloring and I think that what I have now is pretty close to my natural color. I've definitely got some gray, but I don't think it looks bad. I've been noticing how few gray-haired women I see when I am out running around. Is this a baby boomer thing?

Days go by

I keep thinking I'm going to have time to write something of substance on here, but then there are lots of things that I keep thinking that I'm going to do.

Spent several hours yesterday and today with my mom and Grandma. Grandma's in the hospital with pneumonia and we know that each visit may be our last. I will be thankful for the rest of my life that we moved back home almost five years ago. The time with family is so precious!

Grandma and I, 1966.

My day of rest

This has been a really stressful week, and next week isn't looking a whole lot better. So for today I am escaping to the wonderful world of photographs and beautiful papers.

Gone scrapbookin'.

Photo Hunt: Antique

Antique:

1.	of or belonging to the past; not modern.

2.	dating from a period long ago

The first picture is the headstone of my GGGGGrandmother who was born in Pennsylvania in 1803 and came to Indiana in 1847. She died here in 1896.


This is an old farm wagon under the overhang of a very old barn on a fascinating farm just south of Fort Wayne not far from the airport. It's many outbuildings are rather dilapidated and it looks abandoned, yet the grounds are kept perfectly.

Penny & me

Patrick and I are scanning my grandma's slides into the computer and I am really enjoying seeing the old pictures. This is a picture of me when I was two with the only dog I've ever loved, my Grandma's Boston Terrier, Penny.
Look at those ears!

English???

Had a frustrating experience today. I have two young adults who are ready to get licenses. One needs to review for her test and the other needs to study so that he can get his learner's permit. So we went to a BMV branch to pick up a Driver's Manual. We drove across town only to find that they only had the manuals in Spanish.

I don't have anything more to say about this. I just had to share.

By the way, these are the same folks who changed my sex on my license to "M" and then made me produce an afadavit from my doctor to change it back. Really.

And people want government health care? Are they sure?

Snow day

This picture is from our side porch last night:

Snowed in!

We are--quite contentedly--snowed in. Bethany's college classes were canceled and Colin was sent home from work late this morning. We had homemade hot chocolate and cinnamon muffins for breakfast. We watched the BBC Pride and Prejudice. We are eking every drop of enjoyment out of our day.

Here's the drift in front of our house as of about two hours ago. It just keeps growing! We have drifts of several feet next to completely bare spots.

What this picture doesn't capture at all is the fantastic blowing snow. I love all of the little whirlwinds whipping the snow around

Bunko

Yesterday was a good day. (Every time I write those words I almost break into song. Anyone know what song?

Anyway. Yesterday was a good day. Wonderful Divine Service. Lots of fun the rest of the day. All topped off by bunko with the Redeemer Ladies. We talked and laughed so much that we hardly played the game. Thanks to Julie for hosting!

This picture isn't from last night; it's from one of our first bunko nights last year, but it captures the spirit.

Saturday Photo Hunt: Broken

This week the theme is broken, and I knew exactly which pictures I wanted use. These are pictures of the remains of a farm that sits along the Winchester Road south of Fort Wayne. I have always been fascinated by these buildings and every year they break down a little bit more.

Susan on being fed

No surprise that my friend Susan has a wonderful post on her blog. We often hear people in Christian circles talk about "being fed." Susan's post is about literally being fed. Go read.

My map of the USA

Apparently I've seen over 3/4 of the US. Next new state on my list is Idaho, where the company that I work with is headquartered. After that I'd really like to get up to Maine, Vermont, etc. I'd also like to go to Boston, which would take care of Massachusetts.



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

HT: Hoffman Homemaker
Aardvark Alley

And a correction. I have been to Mississippi. I purposely cut across the northeast corner a few years ago. I forgot. Too lazy to change the map.

Three weeks from today I'll be loading up the van for our trip to Florida. Gulf coast. White sand. Sunshine. Fresh grouper. Did I mention sunshine?

Feeling domestic

I have an unusual day today. I can't leave my house. I sent my husband off this morning in the only car that's running and I am housebound.

And I am soooo happy!

I usually spend way too much of my day in the car. In the last two days I drove almost 250 miles and I never left Fort Wayne. It feels really good to look out the window at the snow and cold and know that I can stay here.

For lunch I used some leftover chicken and a few cans from my pantry and made black bean chicken chili and some cornbread. There's something about soup and bread that just adds to the coziness.

Now I'm going to do little cleaning. I'm even looking forward to it a bit.

Just two short words

GO COLTS!

Saturday Photo Hunt

The theme for this photo hunt is "gross." I had a difficult time finding a picture for this theme. I looked up gross in the dictionary thinking maybe I could pull out nuances of the word to find something, but no luck.

So what you see is a picture of one of my nieces with her face covered in sambuca laced chocolate. She was licking the huge serving spoon that came with the cannolis at Buca di Beppo in downtown Indianapolis.

This is really only gross if you were wanting to lick the spoon, too.

Taxes

As part of my new non-procrastination routine, I am actually doing my taxes now. My goal is to have our refund before we leave on vacation March 1, so I need to keep moving. The cool thing is that I am almost done! I did a much better job keeping paperwork under control this year, and I have been pulling things together for a couple of weeks. I bought my TurboTax today and things are moving right along.

Can't let fat old Uncle Sam hold onto my money one bit longer than necessary.