It's a new dawn...it's a SNOW DAY...

...and I'm feeeeelin' good!

Snow Day! Snow Day! We're having a snow day!

PLANS: Finish John Flanagan's The Burning Bridge. Sip hot tea. Work on "Immortal Memory" speech & toast for this Saturday night's Burns Supper. Sip hot tea. Play with dogs until fingers are frozen...which will require lashings of hot tea.

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

PLAN UPDATE: Share Karen's amazing Apple Bread recipe with the world before we lose the tattered, splattered piece of paper stuck on the refrigerator...

Apple Bread

3 C. (plus 1 tsp.) whole wheat flour (stone ground, preferably)
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs
2 C. sugar
1 C. oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla
2 C. diced apple
1/2 C. chopped nuts (pecans, preferably)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour (except reserved teaspoon), cinnamon, baking soda, salt, & baking powder together. Set aside. Beat eggs & add sugar & oil. Add vanilla and dry ingredients. Stir in apples. Mix nuts in reserved teaspoon of flour and add to batter. Bake in two greased loaf pans for about an hour at 350.

It's a new dawn...it's a new day...

...and I'm feeeeeelin' good!!

Today's historic bulletin board!

Before the Inauguration, we were simultaneously connected via Distance Learning to a live correspondent on the Mall in D.C. and to students from Kenya, New York, and Michigan!

And then DURING the Inauguration, we had over 200 people in the library! After the Inauguration, we played the tape each period until the end of the day for various visiting teachers, regardless of class subject. (Kirsten and I watched the swearing-in five times today!)

And then, after school, the good folks at Reynolds delivered our NEW TABLES!!!

Workin' hard.

Lookin' good.

And then, while I was finishing up today's post, BESSIE LOU CALLED. (Could this day get any better?) She was able to watch the Inauguration at work today, even though she took a little heat for being an Obama supporter. We both agreed that Aretha was amazing, and that Joseph Lowery was, too. (Bethany thought it was funny that I was in tears all day because I'm a Huckabee-Girl-For-Cryin'-Out-Loud, but when Mr. Obama stopped and hugged John Lewis, I got chills. When Rick Warren prayed, I was moved. When Aretha sang, my heart rejoiced. When Joseph Lowery prayed, my heart skipped a beat.)

What a day...

Real Men.

Well, it should come as no surprise that Chesley B. Sullenberger III is a TEXAN! The "Hero of the Hudson" used to be Burnett Sullenberger, president of the Latin Club and president of the band council...the band in which he played First Flute, btw.

Click here to see an interview with his sister and his Denison High School yearbook. (Oh, and Denison H.S. has invited him to this year's graduation exercise AND his 40th high school reunion!)

And since we're on the topic of Real Men, here's how they hug.

Merry Sunday!

Did you hear The Writer's Almanac on New Year's Eve? It was a particularly good one; maybe Garrison knew a lot of us would be off work and listening to NPR on December 31st. The best part was the quote by Junot Díaz, who said of writers: "What we do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy."

YES!! Exactly! Isn't it wonderful to share a great book with friends? Like the old book club we had at Franklin. Like reading the Bible with your brothers and sisters. How my parents are currently halfway through Marley and Me right now, enjoying every page all the more because they have a new yellow Lab puppy cavorting around the house while they read it.

Some of my family's fondest memories are of READING together...or better yet, watching Dad *trying* to read Patrick McManus to us--gasping, wheezing, wiping his eyes--choking out one word at a time through his tears of laughter. (My dad's laugh is infectious, btw. While my red-headed grandmother would crack up everyone else with her shrieks and gales, my dad's laugh is even more potent, but in a different way. When Dad has to hold onto furniture, racked with nearly-silent spasms of jocularity, and all you can hear is wheezing and sputtering and gasping, you can not NOT join in. You may not even know WHY you are laughing so hard, but you have succumbed to Dad's Laugh Virus.)

Ooh, and it hasn't been all fun and games with the reading, either. Mom and Dad had us all in tears when they read that sentimental poem about the bell in the churchyard by John Godfrey Saxe, a favorite still.

Or when Karen and I creeped ourselves out listening to Rosemary's Baby on tape driving home from the Delaware shore, sandy and sunburned and scared of Satan.

Honestly, one of my family's greatest legacies will be the memories of books and reading together, each of us draped over some well-worn piece of furniture around the crackling Franklin stove, book in hand. You know that line "richer than I you can never be...I had a mother who read to me"? Yeah. That's how I feel about my parents.

To be honest, though, when Papa Keillor read the Díaz quote, my first thought wasn't of my family, but of poor Charlie Gibson. When he read an advance copy of The Book Thief, one of the best books ever, he was distressed because no one else he knew had read it...he had no friends with which to share and discuss this amazing work. Mr. Gibson related his quandary to the young author in an interview at:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1737821

(Go ahead. Click it. You have fast Internet, and it's an amazing interview. The author made his own dad cry and considered it revenge for all the spankings he'd received as a boy...)

RANDOM NEWS:

*I walked/ran 2.5 miles in mismatched shoes the other day...and didn't realize it until Karen and I were standing in Office Depot later that night. (She asked me to accompany her to the store and assured me that I "wasn't too stinky.")

The bad news? The people in the park must have felt sorry for the Crazy Dog Lady. The good news? I found out that the New Balance foot felt better than the Nike foot.


*Right now, at this very moment, our three dogs are doing three different things with the warm sweet potatoes I just gave them. Ben has discovered that there's more to the baked sweet potato than just licking the sweet syrup off the jacket and is tucking into the orange yumminess within. May Bee licked hers a few times and is now sitting with her back to it, guarding it. And Dolly? She's burying hers, scooping the dirt back into the hole with her delicate little nose.

I love Sundays. Sunday Baroque is on the radio, hot coffee is in my mug (HEB's Houston blend), towels are agitating in the washer, Houston's giant shoes are banging around in the dryer, I'm getting ready to fill out the church nametags, and all is right with the world.

(This week, Ms. Bradshaw had her kids do research on the Greek gods and their final step was to say which god or goddess they would most like to be. Kids who loved the ocean said Poseidon, kids who loved books said Athena, kids who want to be President someday said Zeus...but it turns out I'm Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home, who just wants to sit by the fire and let the world go by...as long as there's a book and dog nearby.)

You're not a dog person?

Okay, it's no secret that I love Haven Kimmel and believe everyone should read her books (although perhaps Iodine is just for the truly Kimmel-addicted). Here's a quote from Iodine I liked almost as much as the one from She Got Up Off the Couch:

"I'm not a dog person, people say, I hear it all the time. Oh? Oh, you're not a dog person? Are you a zombie, an automaton, a marionette? Is it about your carpet? Your beige carpet? Or is the nuisance, the caretaking, the ritual? Is it about how you'd prefer not to be bothered, or how you find a certain level of sterility necessary in order to support your loveless marriage and your absurd career and your rapid decline and death? The death you will go to without the irritant of dog hair on that black suit, split up the back by the undertaker? Is it because you don't understand that dogs are Other, they are messengers and wild animals--they could survive just fine without us--and they are carnivores, they are dangerous, they could kill us (and do), and yet virtually all of them choose to live in harmony with us for reasons we will never understand? There is no species of mammal on earth with greater diversity: a papillon is a dog, and a Neapolitan mastiff is a dog, and a greyhound is a dog, and a mutt scavenging at the edge of a garbage heap in Calcutta is a dog..."

***
Going to sleep with my favorite dangerous carnivore beside my bed,
Kristy

Happy New Year!

YUM!

Can you see Dolly's pedicure? We took Taylor's "Pittsburgh Steeler" toenail polish along to the groomer!

Happy New Year, everybody! And thanks to the Parkers and the Bushes for such great New Year's Eve parties last night...even though I didn't see midnight, I heard it was great.

HOME!

Back in Texas, filthy and grateful and hot (it was 78 here today!) and so, so, SO tired after three straight nights of little or NO sleep. (Houston and I left Charlotte yesterday and got home today...straight through with no stopping!) Thank God for fantastic weather, not-too-horrible traffic, fun times in NC and Virginia with loving family members, delicious food, great workouts at the gym, a terrific sermon on Sunday, and great travel partners!!!! (Houston and Dolly are CHAMPION cross-country travelers.)

Pictures to come tomorrow or the next day. Or the day after that.

Off to bed to try to make up for all that lost sleep. Good night, Mama. Good night, Daddy. Good night, John Boy.

The trip so far...

I got sugar from Falisha!

She got sugar from Chris! (And The Office calendar from me!)

My eyes got a great view from Russ & Amanda Faye's condo!

My toes got a TREAT...a pedicure...while Burl Ives played on the salon stereo.
Best pedicure EVER!

Houston got hours and hours behind the wheel!

Opus got Bojangles! (Karen is simultaneously laughing and crying right now...
laughing at the inside joke Molly made about Bojangles--and
crying because she's not here to sample the 4-piece snack!)

We got TATE!

Russ got Christmas spirit!

We got PIEWORKS in Greensboro! (The "Salonika" with "burn chicken" is
the all-time best pizza ever, hands down.)

Taylor got to decorate the tree!
(Here she is putting up the Texas A&M ornament.)

I got to meet Mr. Caldwell! And see the DVD of his speech!
And meet his *adorable, feisty* wife!

Houston got to see the absolutely amazing tribute Mr. Caldwell made to the crew of the Our Belle II while a POW! Made from threads he was able to pull from Red Cross blankets and other old fabric in the camp.

We got to see the picture of our handsome Uncle Lloyd and his best friend
on the crew, Levi Frank Caldwell!

Taylor and Houston got to punch musical buildings in downtown Charlotte!

Taylor and Amanda Faye got to find out the sex of the BABY...but they're not tellin'!

Russ got to meet Old Greg!

Tonight is Christmas Eve...and tomorrow we head to Charlottesville, Virginia!!!

Charlotte, here we come! (Lord willing!)

Okay, JUST THIS MORNING, Houston and I decided to make the trip to Charlotte! Please pray us all the way in and all the way back home to TEXAS, where my bones belong.

Oh, and btw, I'm like the Harriet Tubman of the Virginia trip; so far, I've made the drive from Texas to Virginia with three teenagers and always let them drive across the Mississippi River...Russell, a stepdaughter, Bethany, and now Houston!

Oh, and in case we don't have access to a computer over the holidays...I'd better let you see the final Christmas picture we used for this year's card (now that you've all had a hearty laugh over the rejects).

Merry Christmas, everybody...God bless us, every one!

Christmas card rejects!

Here are seven of the photos we WON'T be using for this year's Christmas card...

It looks like May Bee's been sampling the nog in this last photo...

(Thanks to Hannah & Molly for serving as Photographers Extraordinaire this weekend, and to Kirsten, who really CAN turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, for creating this year's card with one of the salvageable pics!)

Look for yours in the mail around Christmas Eve!

Hand in hand.

Recently, Frank Deford shared a touching story about Paul Newman on NPR. Mr. Deford looked over at Paul Newman and his wife, Joanne Woodward, at a concert and was touched to see that Paul had taken Joanne's hand.

Mr. Deford relates: "When the lights dimmed, I happened to glance over, and I saw that, right away, he'd taken Joanne's hand. They'd only been married 50 years. He kept holding her hand all the way through, just like they were teenagers.

I reached over and took my wife's hand. There are not many things any of us could do so well as Paul Newman, but, I thought, if you could follow his lead in any way, then you'd be a fool not to."

And as much as Karen and I love Mr. Deford's tale, it's not our favorite story about holding hands; our parents' love story will always be our favorite.

Below is a letter my mother wrote to her three children...and prepare yourself...because it's the MOST ROMANTIC thing ever. (Recently, I shared this letter with my church at our First Annual Talent and Pie Showcase...and many people--these same people who prayed with me when Mom's health was so fragile and the doctors only had bad news--told me afterwards that they loved her story or actually remembered those days at Dear Old Christian College.)

So here it is...one of our greatest treasures and family stories...and oh, so romantic. (Get a tissue.)

***

March 21, 2003


Dear Children:

I suppose I could say that your father and I fell in love on a Sunday morning in November at “the College church”—or University church, as it is known nowadays. That was our first date. Or perhaps it was at Templeton’s Pharmacy, where your father worked for 60 cents an hour and where I went on the Saturday evening before our first date to order a hamburger (take-out) after I had missed the last bus back to the campus from a beauty shop on Mockingbird Lane and had to walk back to “the Hill,” arriving after the “bean” had closed for the evening. It was there that your father, who was working in the back of the fountain area of the drugstore, saw me sitting at a table waiting for my order to be prepared, and decided it would be a good time to wipe tables so he could seize the opportunity to invite me to church the next morning—he was too polite to ask me for a date for that same4 night. (Oh, yes, that was also the night that a foreign student from Iraq, a modern-day Goliath about 8’ tall, asked me to accompany him that same night to a theatre in Abilene—and I accepted! I didn’t tell your father about that for years, and he still seethes about it.)

Perhaps it was on the steps of the Ad Building at the following Tuesday night’s “devo” where we actually fell in love; but I believe Cupid’s arrow pierced my heart on the following Saturday night as your father and I went on a walk after he got off from his job at Templeton’s at 10 p.m. (remember, curfew was 11 p.m., so we only had one hour). We strolled hand in hand around the campus, stopping in the shadow of Bennett Gymnasium to look into one another’s face and talk eye to eye, and then as the hour neared its end, he ever so lightly pressed his lips to mine for an innocent, demure kiss which lasted not nearly long enough. I was hooked! He would be the last man on that campus that I would ever date! As the kiss ended, I thought I was seeing fireworks, but it was only the porch lights of McKinzie Dormitory flashing on and off, our signal that the doors were about to be locked and it was time for all female residents rimming the lawn to rush forward to get inside just in the nick of time to beat the clock; and as we bid one another goodnight, my Prince Charming asked for my company at the College church the next morning.

The young ladies’ handbook, which was given to all coeds, advised us that proper attire for worship on Sundays included hats, gloves, stockings and high heels. The next morning, I dressed appropriately and went down to the parlor to meet my date when the switchboard operator called my room to announce his arrival. During worship, I was impressed by his good voice as he sang tenor and I sang alto (“Hmmmm! We harmonize well. Could that be a good omen?”). As we settled in for a good sermon from Brother George W. Bailey (the campus minister on whom we could always count for a good message), I slipped my gloved hand out of your father’s hand and removed the glove, joining my bare hand with his again. At that moment, sparks of electricity flew as skin met skin. And you know what? Forty years later, I still feel those sparks of electricity when my hand touches his.

Neither of us had much money to spend, and our dates were usually to church or to the “bean” or to the “grill,” where we would check our mail and then order one coke and two straws, never costing us more than a quarter. We tried to go on dates to the library, but that was never very successful—his nearness interfered with my concentration; and mine, with his. There was only one destiny for us, and that was to blend our futures into one life, one love, one Lord. I thank God for His gift to me—a man who loves Him first and me next. He is a “living stone” in the Kingdom, standing for the Truth, and still holding my hand as we walk toward the uncertain days of our old age. But we both know Who holds tomorrow, and we know Who holds our hands.

Good night, my children. I love you,

Mama
(a/k/a/ Mrs. Thomas B. (Linda Greek) Fowler, Class of ‘64

Thanksgiving Update!

PHOTO UPDATE: Thanksgiving pictures below. Focus less on the maggot casserole (which looked *even more* disgusting if you ran your hand up and down under the flimsy foil pan, making the casserole...well, undulate) and focus more on all the happiness. Thank you to Karen and her kids for being wonderful housemates! Thanks also to Bethany and Falisha and Chris for coming to town and making our very first Thanksgiving in this new house a real reason for giving thanks in our new HOME...

***original post***

Still thankful, even though I'm all hot and sweaty from cooking, and the homemade cranberry chutney I made has the kids gasping and choking that "the house stinks!"

Oh, and my bright idea to add cereal to the tops of 2 of the 3 sweet potato casseroles I made this morning? BAD IDEA.

Now we know why the school cafeteria ladies use corn flakes...because if you use "Alf's Natural Nutrition Brown Rice Cereal," it looks like your casseroles are sportin' maggots.

(You think I'm lying? I'm driving up to school to get the library's camera.)

Oh, and the inspiration to substitute golden raisins instead of regular raisins in the chutney? NOT GOOD. After cooking, golden raisins look like peas. It looks like I'm bringing Cranberry Pea Chutney to Kirsten's party.

(This is why people always put me in charge of napkins and nuts.)

Still thankful, though! What a wonderful time of year! In fact, one *good* thing about this morning's culinary fiascos was the ability to watch John Hodgman's TED speech three times on my laptop, perched precariously on the kitchen counter.

Hope your Thanksgiving preparations are going well! Chris, Falisha, and Bethany will ALL be under this roof tonight, Lord willing, and that's better than ANY casserole or chutney...

How 'bout them Wildcats?

Scoring NINETY-THREE points against West Texas A&M Saturday?

(And I'm not talking about the basketball team, who "only" scored 90 points on the same day before their game went into overtime...)

***

Oh, dear Christian College, we love you
Our dear Alma Mater today.
Like stars shining brightly above you
Your fame shall shine brightly for aye,
To you we’ll prove faithful and loyal
While ever upholding the right
And, gladly we’ll give forth the royal
Three cheers for the purple and white.

Sacred Rhythms

Y'all, this book we're reading in our church reading group is AMAZING. (I didn't vote for it, truth be told, because I wanted to read Max Lucado's Traveling Light. Oh, well. Maybe next round.)

So, anyway, I was sort of bummed that we were going to be reading a book called Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton. (1. It wasn't out in paperback so I'd have to shell out hardcover money. 2. The author wasn't Max Lucado. 3. The summary mentioned the words "spiritual disciplines," and I'm not good at discipline--receiving, giving, or practicing discipline. Discipline is HARD! 4. The title sounded icky; I don't have rhythm and can't hear rhythms. 5. Plus, "rhythm" is a weird word, and I don't like how it's spelled. My shallow list went on and on...)

So what a delight to find out that this book is GREAT. Here's hoping that our Wednesday night Bible class will practice some of these spiritual disciplines together...there's no other group with whom I'd rather be still and quiet and contemplative...if I *can* be still and quiet and contemplative...

You know you're old when...

...you go to the hottest movie in the country and find the main character's DAD, the Chief of Police, to be the heartthrob.


Applying for my AARP card,
the OLD librarian