Sunday, April 27, 2008

Sunday bliss.

What a wonderful day! Why?

~Thunder and lightning through the night and well into the morning made it PERFECT weather for having a lie-in with good books. I'm on Chapter 4 of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (slow reading because you simply must re-read some paragraphs...highly recommended!) and am nearly finished with a silly Lemony Snicket book called Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid (not so highly recommended).

~Sunday Baroque took a literary twist today.

~Now that I'm in charge of the church bulletin, I was able to sneak in my grandmother's favorite Bible verse:

“There is no one like the God of Israel. He rides across the heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor. The eternal God is your refuge, and His everlasting arms are under you…”

--Deuteronomy 33: 26-27a

(New Living Translation)



~A wonderful, tearful church service. An elderly gentleman named Noble Harris asked for our prayers as he fights his final battle with cancer. (I trust that he doesn't mind me sharing his name with the friends & loved ones who look at this blog...)

~Calling my brother on the way home, who made me laugh and miss him and remember how much I adore my family.

~Taking May Bee to the community mailbox tonight to find ANOTHER great NetFlix selection...a Helen Mirren mystery. (Just finished Cate Blanchett's amazing, breathtaking Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Hate to mail that one back!)

~Finding out that our Internet, although halting and limping, is sort of working again! (Our ISP told Karen that they were having "issues" with their tower when she called to complain.)

~Oh, and learning that Kirsten's blog features video of me in the dunking booth yesterday--and even though my throat is sore and I'm sick today, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Hoping that your Lord's Day was as wonderful as mine,
Kristy

Saturday, April 26, 2008

A witch! She's a witch!

Bad news...still having trouble with the Interwebs at the house so I'm up here at school checking my email before it's my turn in the dunking booth. I'm fully dressed--with earrings, hose and purple high heels--to make it more fun.

Won't they be surprised when I sink like a rock?

Will post pictures later, if anyone takes them!







Thursday, April 24, 2008

P.S. We saw jackelopes.


Happy Belated 21st Birthday to Bethany, my little travelin' buddy. (Our Internet went down so you and Shakespeare went unrecognized yesterday...Karen's calling to raise Cain with our ISP today!)

Monday, April 21, 2008

They don't make 'em like they used to...

Have you ever seen the old black & white Katherine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy movie Pat & Mike? It's great! So romantic (yet the whole family could watch it!)...no bad language, no gratuitous sex or violence, and lots of cameos by famous athletes of the day!

The girls and I watched Pat & Mike this afternoon while we ate our half-price cheeseburgers and sugar-free Luigi's water ices. (The girls *loved* this light-hearted comedy...or perhaps they were just being polite to their Aunt Kristy...or maybe it's just that the lack of cable tv has made them desperate.)

Put it in your NetFlix queue and be sure to keep your eyes open for Jim Backus (THURSTON HOWELL THE THIRD!) and (TEXAN!) Babe Didrickson Zaharias and Chuck Conners (THE RIFLEMAN himself...one of my earliest childhood crushes!).

My favorite quote?

Hucko: "Hey, you want me to tell Mike on you?"

Pat (Katherine Hepburn): "He didn't make you and doesn't own you and you wouldn't go down the drain if he dropped you...you oughta' belong to yourself...You ought not be worried about anyone--Mike or anyone!"

I kid you not.

Happy Earth Day! Hope you wore your blue today.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Have you read this blog entry, written by a Baltimore, Maryland man, which mentions my dad? It's terrific and you'll LOVE it, but anyone who refers to Pastor Fowler as a "soft-spoken, gentle man" has clearly NOT had a spanking from him.

(I had to read that line twice. Dad's spankings were epic, the stuff of legend!)

However, soft-spoken, gentle men live longer...so ROCK ON, DAD! You make the whole family proud! Have a great birthday.

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Googlegängers & Retail Therapy

We truly are "fearfully and wonderfully made!"

This week, one of the science teachers and I were discussing the possibility that this planet came from nothing, by accident, from materials that were created by no one...that a cell (made by nobody) crawled from a sea (made by no one) and spontaneously divided and mutated into the diverse animals of the sea & land & air of this Beautiful Blue Marble in a Gloriously Spectacular Universe.

And the fact that the incredibly complex human creatures make music and cry over poetry and sometimes sacrifice their own lives...well, that doesn't make any sense. Beings who are passionate about art and beauty and music and relationships and IDEAS sound like they were made in the image of a Creator. For me, believing in a Big Bang story is harder than believing that God set evolution in motion. Ben Stein and many others maintain that you can believe in God *and* science...instead of being mutually exclusive, they make MORE sense together.

And speaking of the complex human species and your amazing brain, check out these articles!

*This morning on NPR's Marketplace, scientists showed that SHOPPING can stimulate the brain in the same way physical intimacy can. (No wonder so many people love shopping! And those cute new shoes won't make you watch sports or spend time with in-laws...) They stuck program host Tess Vigeland in an MRI machine and watched her brain shop. Fascinating!

*Have you found your "Googlegängers" yet? A quick Google search of your name will reveal all sorts of people around the world with your same moniker. Here's the weird part...you are predisposed to judge them favorably. According to this article, social scientists say it's because "...human beings are unconsciously drawn to people and things that remind us of ourselves. A psychological theory called the name-letter effect maintains that people like the letters in their own names (particularly their initials) better than other letters of the alphabet."

So hats off to any KGFs out there! Fly your Fowler flag proudly! (And call me if you see any hot sales...)




Friday, April 11, 2008

Map, schmap.

Hey, y'all, check out the Flickr mail I got today!!!!!!!!

****
Subject: Schmap Texas Second Edition: Photo Inclusion

Hi Kristy,

I am delighted to let you know that your two submitted photos have been selected for inclusion in the newly released second edition of our Schmap Texas Guide:

Fort Worth Botanical Gardens
www.schmap.com/texas/parks/p=123073/i=123073_4.jpg

Kreuz Market
www.schmap.com/texas/attractions/p=346616/i=346616_5.jpg

If you like the guide and have a website, blog or personal page, then please also check out the customizable widgetized versions of our Schmap Texas Guide, complete with your published photos:

www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=27116744N00/c=SG33011877

Thanks so much for letting us include your photos - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

***
I'll try to figure out the widget thing someday and put it on my blog. (If I'm in prison or confined to an iron lung or something...who has time to learn widgets?)

A published photographer, at last!
mad4books

HAPPY WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Sleepless in Suburbia

No, I can't sleep. Yes, I've been up for hours...and tonight is the Adult Spelling Bee onstage at McMurry University! I'll be the one curled up under the chair, napping while the mayor spells a-c-c-o-u-c-h-e-m-e-n-t, a "confinement or lying-in related to childbirth." (Mike called last night to be sure I knew this one since it was used in the finals of the Scripps National Bee a few years ago. Pretty thoughtful!)

When we called to register our Madison team, the Bee People said there's no handbook or word list to study; teams of three from all over Abilene just get up on stage and wing it. (I've brushed up on "connoisseur" and "daguerreotype," anyway.)

Being up before the rest of the world is kind of fun, though. The house is still and quiet, except for May Bee, who is snoring LIKE A LUMBERJACK. (When the reading lamp beside the bed came on, she came over for a cuddle, but afterwards, I made her get back on her pillow in the corner of the bedroom...the sleepy world just isn't ready for her braying bark at three in the morning.)

And it's a good time to read, too! Snuggly under the covers with the world fast asleep...delicious, in fact, if the alarm clock and WORK and the thought of being onstage tonight weren't looming large. Oh, well...here's the Thomas Merton prayer I read and loved this morning:

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."
--Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

How comforting! It's okay to have no clue about which house to buy or how you're going to afford it on a public school teacher's salary. We serve a Creator who loves us more than we love ourselves...One who will never, ever leave us. Everybody has money worries--for lucky Americans, it's usually about mortgages, car payments, and college tuition.

For most people in this world, it's how to feed a family or pay for a funeral or how to get a child medical care. Kind of puts my worrying into perspective...and almost makes me want to get back in bed.

Almost.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Staircase vs. Highway

The best thought from today's faculty meeting came from our principal:

"It's a STAIRWAY to Heaven...it's a HIGHWAY to Hell. The stairway is difficult, and it takes effort to climb, and each year you grow older or have a few extra pounds to carry, and the staircase gets even harder! And sometimes you may be tempted to slide along that wide, even, easy highway with all the rest, but I assure you, ladies and gentlemen...Heaven will be worth it. Keep climbing that staircase."

Glad to be among friends on the staircase,
mad4books