When everything's closed on New Year's Day...

...what do you do? Go to the park and see the crazy, crazy artwork Abilene has to offer.

The statue from the book Santa Calls by William Joyce...the BEST statue in town!

Sudsy.

Oh, if you could only see this up close.

You can not begin to know. There is so much unspeakable about this sculpture (you can't even see the pigs sprouting, fully-formed, from the earth behind the two-faced creature with the empty back!) and yet, it's WONDERFUL. (It's like The Kramer--loathsome and offensive, and yet you can't look away!)

Happy New Year, everybody! Try not to be jealous of Abilene's SWEET artwork...

Why didn't Santa bring ME a Cooler Blaster?

Okay, there are a few bad words, but it's so funny and good-natured that I just had to share!

Your favorite books of 2007?

Of all the books you read last year (not necessarily published in 2007, but read last year), which were your favorites? Did you read any stinkers? Re-read any classics?

Off the top of my head, my favorite "grown-up" books were Prayer: Does It Make a Difference? by Philip Yancey & The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan; my favorite YA novel was Shackleton's Stowaway by Victoria McKernan. (McKernan really did her homework on this book, traveling across the Atlantic to interview the relatives of Perce Blackborow, Shackleton's real-life teenage stowaway.)

What about you?

P.S. You won't regret following the Pollan links above...REALLY interesting. The thought of my Irish great-grandmother, Annie Larkin, reading the ingredient list on a tube of Gogurt made me laugh out loud...

Update: Last night, as I tossed and turned worrying about money, sleep seemed such a remote option that it only made sense to read. The first book I grabbed was Anna Quindlen's Good Dog. Stay., and IT WAS WONDERFUL. Pull out your credit cards (or library cards, if you're broke, too!) and get this book as quickly as you can. And if you're borrowing the Abilene Public Library's copy, I apologize for the little mascara smudge on page 75. (Mom was right...you should always remove your makeup before bed.)

Here's to the revolution.

"Jesus is more counter-cultural than any counter-cultural figure. No one in the last 2,000 years, as far as I can tell, has said anything even approaching the radicalism of the teachings of Christ."

--Moby, Sojourners magazine interview (January 1, 2007)

May your 2008 be filled with tenderness and laughter and compassion and simplicity and fellowship and forgiveness...and may the life of a radical carpenter from Nazareth guide and inspire us all.

P.S. And speaking of laughter...FALISHA CAME TO VISIT US TODAY! Photos coming soon...well, as soon as she mails them to me. :-)

Santa made it...

...despite the Texas wind turbines. And Bethany made it, too!

Everyone's least-favorite tree topper.

(Karen & I LOVE it!!)

(BTW, the kids noted that the Santa voice that accompanied the sleigh bells outside their windows sounded remarkably like Aunt Kristy's! Hmm...)

Karen thought of a terrific gift...REAL New Hampshire maple syrup made by my childhood friend, Melanie (Cray) Blake. Her family makes it themselves!!

Can you tell how content I was to have that sweet Bessie Lou home again? It does NOT matter how old your child gets...she'll always be your BABY. (The blue jewelry belonged to my crazy red-headed grandmother, Lea Emma, Dad's mom. It felt so nice to wear it on Christmas Eve.)

Hope you all had a quiet, happy, blessed Christmas with the ones you love...

Christmas in peril for West Texans!

How will Santa ever make it to Abilene?

A coach sent me this today accidentally as he tried to email it to Mike...but I loved it enough to share it. (My favorite part is the turbine on the far right of the cartoon; it kinda' reminds me of a Claymation Christmas spoof I once saw done on Apocolypse Now...)

Abilene High teachers...

...go above and beyond the call of duty in this video! (Is it any wonder that AHS beat Hebron last week after this inspiring pep rally number?)



Good luck tomorrow at Texas Stadium, Eagles!


Update: Abilene's mighty Eagles had a rough game yesterday, and Pflugerville won in overtime. (The game was tied at 14 points each at the end of regulation.) A friend of mine, who used to be inside the AHS "Champ" mascot suit, sent me a rather naughty email at 1:43 in the morning, suggesting that Pflugerville ...well...let's just say that my potty-mouthed friend converted a taboo 4-letter word into a new, non-existent 5-letter word with a P in front...

Congratulations, Abilene Eagles, on a terrific year and for tying the 1955 school-record for the second-most wins in one season. Everyone at Cooper and in Wylie followed your progress with support and enthusiasm and respect...

Christmas Concert at the Civic Center

We just got home from the first-ever matinée performance of the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra's Christmas Celebration. It was wonderful, and we really made a girls' afternoon of it, meeting Kirsten at Starbucks before the performance. In fact, she snapped the picture above!

In the Christmas spirit yet?

Twelve years ago today...

...Bethany wrote this in her diary.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What a wonderful day! Bethany, SNOW, turkey, sweet potatoes, Grandy's rolls, SNOW, three different kinds of pie, and COLD weather and oh, yeah--did I mention SNOW? It's been snowing almost all day!

In fact, AT THIS VERY MOMENT the kids are out in the front yard making a respectable snowman who could hold his head high in any snowman convention. (Usually, our Abilene snowmen are 45% dirt and grass.)

Not much sun in the "sun room" for Hannah's after-turkey nap...

Right now, Bethany and I are in here enjoying the toasty fire Houston made and stealing a minute at the computer to blog all the thanks and happiness. Karen is outside taking pictures of Sir Snowman and the kids. She'll probably need the computer in a few minutes to do her FIRST blog since we moved in together.

Time to go call Mom and Dad and Russell and tell them how thankful I am for each of them...

In the wee, small hours...

...when crazy dreams wake you up, what do you do?

After I shot the two bad guys in my dream (and told the third one who was hiding in a cupboard to "drop it" and surrender), the police instructor told me that I handled the situation badly. You apparently have to identify yourself and give them the opportunity to "drop it," even if there are THREE of them and they have already killed your partner. Glad to wake up from that dream, I lay there thinking it's a good thing the Abilene Police Department doesn't need me because I'm clearly NOT law enforcement material....

...which reminded me that Jeff Cooper & my dad (both law enforcement material) tell you to always be aware of your surroundings, but when I'd come into the house earlier, I had a dog on a leash, my purse, my school clothes & shoes (I'd just worked out in shorts & sneakers), AND was talking on the cell phone to my mom, checking on Dad who is in the hospital. So I grabbed a flashlight, car keys, and a trusty black hound to venture outside at 2:48 a.m. to be sure the car was locked so Jeff Cooper and my dad would be proud of me.

***quick pause to pray for Dad and to ask YOU to pray for him, too!! please pray that his leg will be healed and that he and diabetes come to working terms with each other since they have to live together for many years***

Well, there was no sleeping after that, so from 2:50 until after 5:00, it was time for a delicious reading opportunity. I finished the delightful French children's book The Pull of the Ocean by Jean-Claude Mourlevat (a former German teacher!) and read the introduction and first three chapters of Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church. Yum.

Hoping your Thanksgiving Eve is filled with tasty books,
Kristy

P.S. Did you hear the Jeff Bezos interview on NPR? What do you think of Amazon's Kindle? (399 dollars? Gulp. Good thing there's free shipping...)

UPDATE: After watching the Kindle video on the link above, I'm hooked. This will be the Christmas present I want NEXT year, when the price comes down a smidge and the glitches are all worked out...

Early Morning Conversation

Karen: “I don’t know what kind of eye drops the doctor used on Houston yesterday, but his eye is as dilated as it was last night!” (Houston got a chemical burn on his eye yesterday after a chemistry class did a lab on acids--and apparently didn’t wash the tables afterwards. Houston and another boy got burns just by sitting at the acid covered desks!)

Kristy: “He can borrow my sunglasses today. Or he can just go with an eye patch like Menachem Begin. Oh, wait…it wasn’t Begin. Who was that Israeli guy with the eye patch?"

Karen: “I have no idea. What year was that?”

Kristy: “I dunno. 1972, maybe?”

Karen: “I was seven that year. You were forty.”


Twenty minutes later:


Karen: “Have you ever heard Coach --- sing?”

Kristy: “YES! He’s amazing! He kinda’ reminds me of Shaft.”

Karen: “Who?”

Kristy: “You’ve never heard of Shaft? You never watched that show? Oh, never mind. I was forty in the seventies.”

Karen: “I remember some shows from the seventies. My first crush was Hutch from Starsky & Hutch.”

Kristy: “My first crush was Starsky!! I loved him and that beautiful car. I specifically remember wanting to be a grownup so bad during one episode when he made a right turn near a corner store…I particularly remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to be an adult because I could just pull in that store and buy a whole bag of Cheetohs for myself. I *could not wait* to be the boss of me…what I ate, when I went to bed, what I drove!”

Karen: “You are so funny. You were independent from the time you were born…at the age of forty.”

Kristy: “The ironic part is…now that I’m a grownup, my hips don’t want me to eat a whole bag of Cheetohs. I’m finally a grownup and I STILL can’t eat what I want!”

Karen: “Blog that.”

Ann Arbor happiness.

This weekend's second celebrity sighting--Sara Kelly Johns!
(WAY more exciting than seeing Sen. Hutchison in the airport...)

Ann Arbor is lovely--lots of trees that still have their fall color, ducks floating on ponds outside the hotel room & the ProQuest office, cool weather...too bad I forgot to pack two spare AA batteries for my camera (which went dead after taking two pictures)! Grrr.

So, in the meantime, you can check out the pictures at Sara Johns' ProQuest album on Flickr:
http://tinyurl.com/39hgzq


Oh, and we talked about databases (and school libraries and kids and budgets) and ate at Gratzi (Italian) and Amadeus (Hungarian) which were both yummily amazing...but the real joy in this weekend is wrapped up in the people. Smart, interesting, thoughtful, well-traveled, and simply fascinating. (Seriously, last night, I raised my glass of Hirter Brivat Pils to toast and clinked glasses with J. Linda Williams, WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION!!) The night before that, I ate dinner with Sara Johns, THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS. (This is like spending your weekend with Spielberg and Scorsese. Or Page and Plant. These two are the rock stars of the school library world!!)

Happy and with a tummy full of paprikash,
Kristy

UPDATE: One of ProQuest's cool new marketing posters with a flying saucer on it led to discussion of the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still...which J. Linda Williams was in. About eight minutes into the film, look for five year-old Linda & her dad getting up from their picnic blanket and pointing at a UFO. (This, btw, raises Ms. Williams even higher than Robert Plant status...now it's like I spent the weekend with The Police.)

Celebrity sighting!

Today, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was in the DFW airport signing her book in the airport! (Oh, I'm in Michigan, btw.)

And here's some really special people, despite their lack of celebrity status...Franklin Broncos! (Guess you could call us "F list.") Now that our campus is closed, we meet once a month at Los Arcos.

Little Marty!
(Welcome to the world, Anson!)

(Notice only one nerd showed up in her Bronco gear. HA!!! What a loser!!!)

Happy Gunpowder Day!

Although we Americans won't be burning Guy Fawkes in effigy or celebrating around bonfires tonight, the least we can do is to post our targets from Saturday's handgun proficiency test. (I shot low and shot wild and had some trouble with misfires, but a passing score is what's important!)
Now if all bad guys would just hold still like this kindly miscreant who allowed me to shoot him repeatedly at different ranges and waited patiently for me to clear the chamber of the misfired rounds. Quite a thoughtful fellow!


Here is one Dan snapped with his camera phone of me clearing the chamber of a misfired round. (And no, the close target is NOT my target!They don't cut girls any slack at the range...)

Reading: Prayer: Does It Make a Difference? by Philip Yancey & Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal by Janice Taylor