More Updatage - at LAST!

Hello dear ones over the ocean! Oy vay - we have been staying in SO many places w/o wireless internet. Argh! But at LAST we're somewhere where I can actually connect with the rest of my known universe.

And so, now that I'm connected, I'd like to say: I am officially loving this trip. Since my last update I was blown away by Wordsworth's home and the fact that I was there, endeared to the Bronte's home, intrigued by the medieval reenactments and the history at Warwick castle, awed by Shakespeare's birthplace and the many literary giants who've visited there to pay their respects (many of them etched their names in the glass of the actual room - Keats, Scott, Tennyson, Dickens, Emerson, Longfellow, and Twain, at least), delighted by the beauty and quaintness of the villages of the Cotswolds, satisfied by Oxford (it lived up to my expectations!), inspired by Tintern Abbey, charmed by Bath, envigorated by Tintagel (where King Arthur was supposed to have been born - a fitting castle waaay up on a cliff above the sea), fascinated by the geographic marvel of Land's End - the little tip of England jutting into the Atlantic, grateful to the Pilgrims in Plymouth (they grow palm trees in Plymouth - what a shock New England must have been...), thrilled by wild horses (they were ponies, actually, but wild horses sounds so much better!) in Dartmoor, delighted by Gold Hill, reverent-ed by Winchester Cathedral (not to be confused with Winchestertonfieldville Cathedral), historied-out by Portsmouth (esp. the HMS Victory where Nelson defeated the French but lost his life), and moved by a day trip (via overnight ferry) to the beaches of Normandy in FRANCE. Whew! What amazing days these have been!

And we're also having a GOOD time in prayer, over and over again. Praise the Lord - I'm believing for a difference here because of FAITH in GOD!

And now, I'll repeat some of the highlights via photographs! Wheeee!

This is a "Royal Tournament" we watched at Warwick Castle. The guy getting bashed about is the bad knight. The guy doing the bashing is the good knight! Yay!

I just want to add this picture because I love it! It is me, crying, after bashing my head on the post at which I am pointing. That commie post. It was right over my bed, and it hurt so bad. Grrr. Anyway, I told KJ to take a picture while I was crying, and the result was great gales of laughter. "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion!"

This is Broadway Castle - a little one-man castle, as it were, built for fun by some Duke or other. It commanded an amazing view of the Cotswold region. Daddy was quite taken by it, so I think I'll have one built for him when my teaching career starts pulling in the big bucks...

Here is some of that famous Cotwold stone, golden in the evening light. Ahhh, what a place. So many totally charming little villages like this one!

Here's KJ and me at Tintagel. We're in the arch-way after having just entered, and behind us (faaaaar below) are the cliffs of the Cornwall Coast looking their wildest. WHEW! Breathtaking.

The wild "horses" of which I spoke! These two don't look especially wild, but the boy horses (um, stallions?) were a pretty lively bunch, thundering around the turf. It was pretty exhilarating to behold.

THIS is Tintern Abbey, one of my all-time favorite locals. Its grandeur was amazing. I've never been so moved to worship by architecture.

This is "Gold Hill" in Shaftsbury. Do you love it?! Can't get much more "charming English village" than that! You should have seen how smitten Mama was - I think that was half the charm right there!

Speaking of things that are quintessentially English - we "happened" upon this CRICKET GAME! Isn't it beautiful? And one of the players actually spent 15 min or so explaining what was going on! I felt like I'd had an epiphany:) And in return, I got to explain to him what an RBI was - something that had been puzzling him for awhile. What a great event!

And this is Omaha beach, one of the two American beaches in D-Day. Stunning beauty to commemorate stunning heroism and valor.

So there you have it! Another glimpse into our merry travels.

Now I'm in England!

Hello again! Well, we've finally hit another B&B with wireless Internet... They seem to be few and far between. But that's okay - it gives me a chance to get some choice gems photographically:) I have over 2000 pictures on my computer right now. Oy vay! And I've deleted much more than I've kept.

(NATE - THANK YOU FOR FINDING ME MY CAMERA!!!)

We've finished our stay in Scotland, and have now crossed over into England. I love this place, too! Oh my word. Tonight we are in the Lakes District, where WORDSWORTH wrote! Wheee! I'm getting into the Literary places big time. Two days ago was Sir Walter Scott's place (and wow, it's awesome - everyone needs to go to his house, Abbotsford), yesterday Wordsworth's birthplace, today his grown up home, tomorrow the Bronte sisters, then it's on to Dickens and Shakespeare... WHEEEEE! What wealth.

Okay, now for some pics from the last four days:

This is beautiful Melrose Abbey, established by Scottish King David I, and closed down by Henry VIII. We saw several Abbeys, and I think this was my favorite. Okay, maybe just one of my favorites:)
This is another favorite abbey, the one connected to Holyrood Palace!
And THIS is Sir Walter Scott's home, which he designed and decorated. I LOVED it. I'm so inspired about reading his work now:)
Here we are at Hadrian's wall. We got there just in time to see this Pict sneaking up on the diligent Roman.
This is Blair Castle, the seat of Clan Murray. Whooo! (Liane & Gretchen, I'm thinking of you and how you were there. Awesome, eh?)

Beautiful Edinburgh! This is taken from Calton Hill where we got some great shots of the city.Here we are, officially crossing from Scotland to England. A momentous occasion...
And now we're in Wordsworth country! We even saw a rainbow, and I was delighted. I mean, how appropriate is that?! Especially considering this Wordsworth poem:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
Etc.

I'll leave you to look up the rest on your own:)

I'm so thankful for this incredible opportunity!

I am in Beautiful Scotland!

Hello from Scotland, everyone! We Murrays are having an amazing time. I am so in love with this place! I have a new regard for that line from the song Scotland the Brave: "Land of my heart, forever." Oh ya!

Here are some pictures, to give you a small glimpse into what we're experiencing.

Kilchurn Castle, which KJ and I had great fun at - we climbed around in a nearby copse of trees to get this picture (and many, many other pictures, too!).
Eilean Donan - definitely one of the most beautiful sights I've seen thus far. What an incredible castle! We got to go inside and explore it today - my favorite part was the banquet hall. Well, favorite on the inside. Obviously this view is my favorite part of it!
This is Flora MacDonald's grave. I've been thinking of the Bonnie Prince Charlie story a lot this trip, obviously, and was inspired by Flora's loyalty and giving of herself to a cause. It inspired me to be that way in my walk with God.
This is a view from the Isle of Skye (one of my new all-time favorite places on Earth!). We hiked across moors to this northern point to pray. See the tiiiiny white spot between the crags? That's a seagull. We were way up there!
And this is Duntlum Castle, also on Skye. We were supposed to have rain this day, and God, in answer to prayer, gave us sun. What a blessing! Skye was one of my top destinations, and I was so thankful to be able to see it in all it's glory!
This is Inverness - the "Capital of the Highlands." We didn't spend too long here, but enough for me to enjoy the charm and beauty of the city.
And here we all are, in the Highlands (near BEAUTIFUL Loch Lomond - which you can just see in the background), totally smitten with the beauty of Scotland, and having a wonderful time. Praise the Lord!

I'm Going to BRITAIN!

I've been getting more and more excited about our trip! You know, the one we're leaving for in 15 hours!! I'm so in the groove now. I just finished formatting the poetry I want to print off to take, and collecting song lyrics to sing ("Scotland the Brave," "Will Ye No Come Back Again," etc.). And I'm listening to "Loch Lomond" as I type. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

And the closer I get, the more I realize that this is a dream come true. Ever since I was old enough to think about a desire to travel I've wanted to go to Britain. It seems like I've been in love with Scotland all my life, and the more I learn about Literature, the more I fall in love with England. And now I'm going there! I'm going to where my ancestors came from - I'm going to see my homeland. It's amazing!

And now, to climax this beautiful moment with a quote from The Emperor's New Groove, "See you [or write to you, anyway]... on the other side."

One of those This and That Posts

*I'm was planning to be all packed for Britain at this point in the day. HA! (Sigh)

*I was going to get some Internet stuff out of the way while my clothes dried in the dryer, and ended up spending FOREVER trying to update my expired virus protection program. Grrrr. The happy news is that I finally worked things out before actually buying the thing all over again. Yay for me, saving money!

*I can't believe I'm going to ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND AND IRELAND AND WALES AND FRANCE! OY VAY!

*My family and I have been getting into the groove. Saturday night they waited up for me to get back from Lindsay's so that we could look at Dad's past England slides. It was awesome! I kept howling "are we going there?!" Wheee! Then, on Sunday, we watched "The Longest Day" (we're going to Normandy one day) and also went over the Kings and Queens of England (I learned this awesome poem during Brit Lit: "Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve / Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three / Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two / Harry Four, Five, Six, Then who? / etc.) and the roles of the heroes of Scotland (William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Bonnie Prince Charlie). I'm SO ready for this trip!

*And to get even more ready, I've been working on getting a collection of poetry to read at opportune moments along the way. You know, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, etc. Then, when we're at some poet's birthplace or something, I can whip out a poem! Kimberly's wicked excited about this... I just read one to her and said "Isn't that beautiful?" and she responded "did you think I was listening to you?"

*KATIE ADAMS IS COMING TO FAIRWOOD TONIGHT AND I'M SO HAPPY ABOUT THAT!!!

*I've dreamed about the youth convention every night since it ended. Oh my word. My subconscious is still wicked processing. Peace out, subconscious!

*I'm hoping to be able to post now and then while oversees! Apparently some of our bed & breakfast places have high speed. Yay! No promises, but high hopes:)

*OH MY WORD! KATIE'S HERE! WHEEEEEEEE!!!

The Past Two Weeks!

Hello again, dear readers! Long time no write, eh? PHEW have I been busy. But also having a blast. As you probably know, since my last post I have been to California, led 15-17 girls in Girls' Week, and seen four of my students through their first ever youth convention. Praise God all of the events were wonderful, and I couldn't get over how my two worlds - school and home - meshed so smoothly. My kids had a WONDERFUL time. Oh, and CA was an AMAZING trip. So rather than go into detail on it all, I will post my past two weeks in pictures! If you scroll down, you will find one post of CA pics, another of GW pics, and the last of convention pics. Enjoy:)

Youth Convention Pics!

Here is Melissa rallying the troops - what a great leader!
Craig masterminded an incredible amount of really fun activities,

including this game of tossing rubber bands into a bowl,

his own variation on field day, including this team long-jump competition (go Ben!), and a hilarious skit activity!
I enjoyed the kids, without having any big responsibilities. Yay!

Here are the kids awaiting the next great adventure.

Oh ya, and we had meetings, too. :) Actually it was a really good, spiritually rich time, I thought. Notice how we're standing on our chairs here - we're singing the song "Higher Ground." (I am in awe of Uncle Neil and his good ideas!)

And of course, things wrapped up with the annual last-day picnic. Hurrah for God's blessing on the youth convention!

Girls' Week Pics!

Here is my LOVELY girls' week group. We had such a good time together!
This year the girls asked to sleep outside one night - daring girls...

We had a wagon ride...
Followed by strawberry picking.
We made amazing strawberry shortcake!
They had fun doing daring exploits (you should have seen them getting out there!),

and playing lots of games together (this is Moose). We had a great time! Thank God for a really good, blessed week!

CALIFORNIA!

Here we are in the middle of the night (more or less) waiting for the shuttle to take us to the airport. We look pretty happy for having between 0 and 3 hours of sleep (depending on who you asked...)!
We hustled right to the beach that first night and had an smashing time!
The lighting got more and more amazing. Hurrah for sunsets at the beach!

The next day we saw our dear Matt-ay again! It was so good to see him!

The last day we were there was the wedding - and I'm happy to report 2 things: the wedding was very God-centered, and I really liked the bride. Hurrah! A wonderful time was had by all.

The Effects of 24

I'm closing in on finishing Season Four of 24, and I can definitely tell that it is affecting me.

I was driving to school (back when I was actually teaching - woooo for summer!), and I saw this white van on the side of the road. It was one of those work vans with no side windows - the kind bad guys on 24 are forever using. It pulled on to the road just after I passed by. Oh my word! My hand was practically on my phone before I realized that the 911 call would be really strange. "Um, ya, there's a white van on the side of the road. Only it just pulled onto the road again. GET OUT HERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN! Don't you know it could be housing kidnapped government officials or endangered secret agents or nuclear weapons?!" I settled down, laughed at myself, and continued on my way to school.

Later on I was driving home from school and passed a car with all of its windows down, and someone's sleeves flapping in the wind out of the back seat. OY VAY! Gunmen on the highway! I could practically see the sniper rifle emerging from that back seat and leveled at my head, and I could almost feel the bullets whizzing by me. It's a dangerous commute out there, people! I really need to consider some bulletproof glass.

Of course, then there are the positive, if also somewhat odd, side-affects, like the grin that appears on my face all of a sudden in the grocery store parking lot, as I recall Tony behind that pistol at the crucial moment, or the great hoots of joy I want to break into when I think of Chloe getting that bad guy. Wheeee!

And I think of how safe I feel when I remember Jack Bauer is on the job... until I remember that he isn't. But I console myself by thinking that Jack Bauer-ESQUE people are on the job.

The craziest thing of all of this is that as totally hooked as I get on 24, I haven't watched an episode in over a week! And I only have one and a half left until I finish the season! Oy vay! I've been so ridiculously busy that the nuclear bomb that is whizzing toward some unsuspecting US city is just sitting there in mid-air waiting for me to get back so we can resolve this thing. Phew!

I'm hoping that tonight I'll finally be able to see Jack Bauer save the world yet again. Hurrah!

Help!

People, I need advice. What shoes would be best for kicking around England?! I don't think we're going to be doing much hiking, but we could potentially be on our feet a LOT and I'd like something supportive but not screaming "tourist!" Any seasoned travellers who can weigh in on the issue? Any people who know good footwear? Anyone? Anyone?

GRADUATION!

Last night my dear senior graduated from high school! I was so proud of him, and so thankful to God. I've been so stressed out in the past couple of days, and if I've been stressed I'm sure he must have been going crazy! But it went SO well, and was SUCH a beautiful and worshipful evening. HURRAH!

One reason I was under a lot of pressure was that I was helping him with his graduation speech. Gulp. He refused to let his parents read it (and were they ever blessed when they actually heard it last night!), so the responsibility was mine and mine alone. I did read it out loud to Melissa, though, to get some further input. (As I was reading aloud the line "Now I close the door on my past high school experience" I put my head down on the counter and wailed aloud. I'm going to miss him SO MUCH!) And she had excellent input which I rapidly e-mailed off to my senior. The dear boy had left the writing of his speech for the day before graduation, so things were a little tight:)

I went over to his house a couple hours before the ceremony to put the finishing touches on it, and LO, it was beautiful. He'd done a REALLY good job. Melissa and I had tweaked, but he had done the bulk of the work. Yay for him!

Dad, Mom, Gretchen and KJ all came down for the graduation and I was so happy to have them witness such a big moment in my life and in the life of the school. And then, after the ceremony, they mingled and mingled with all my school people and I shot picture after picture. "Oh my goodness, Dad's talking to a board member!" click click click. It was great fun:) I loved being able to introduce people I've talked about over and over. They really enjoyed it, and they were so blessed by the wonderful ceremony.

As I was driving back home, and they were heading back to NH, I called them and KJ put me on speakerphone and we "debriefed" for a wicked long time. It was such a good time! "What did you talk about with ..." "So and so said this..." "I loved the part when..." "Oh you're right, that student is adorable!" Etc. FUN TIMES!

But most of all I am full of gratitude for God not only for an amazing graduation ceremony, but also for his faithfulness in the past 13 years as He crafted the school and led it along step by step. This was the first ever graduation in the history of the school, you see. They've been adding grades little by little as they went along. It was often a hard journey, but last night saw one of the biggest evidences of fruit to date. May my senior be the first of many!

Closing in on the end...

Saturday I had my First Annual Senior Cookout at the Browns. It was so much fun!! Of course, we have only one senior, so I invited the junior, too, to keep him company. We had a MARvelous time. They were very them, which made me happy. I was afraid they'd clam up around strangers (you know that Melissa...), but instead they leapt right into the conversational fray with stories and jokes and banter with the best of 'em. Hurrah! I'm so thankful.

And now I have ONE more day of teaching! OH my GOODNESS! That went by soooo quickly. I'll still have a bit more work to do in terms of grading and such, but no more classes to teach. Wow.

And yup, that's all I'll write for now. Sorry it's short! Papers (and other things - heh heh heh) are calling.

Recovering...

So, right after Anna's wedding I started feeling a bit odd... and spent Sunday night and Monday quite sick. Last night I went to bed planning to teach in the morning, because I just hate missing days - especially this close to the end of the year (one week from today is my LAST DAY!). I went to bed niiiice and early, and lo, couldn't sleep for hours. I'm pretty sure I got no more than 5 hours of sleep.

AHHHH! This is such a boring post! Nobody cares how much sleep I got!

Oh well, I'll cut to the chase and say that I had a wonderful day today - an answer to fervent prayers for help. Thank the Lord!

Okay, more interesting topics. Let's see.

Mixed metaphors. Those are so much fun. I totally almost committed one by nearly typing "I'll cut to the quick and say I had a wonderful day today..." Hee hee hee.

But my recent favorite came when I told my kids they had to know some material cold for their test. They said "Hey, our last teacher just told us we had to know some material cold turkey!" Hahahahahaha. That's so much fun. I know there was another one I came across recently, but I can't remember what it was. Do you remember, KJ? It seems like you were the one I told...

Kevin Youkilis hit an INSIDE THE PARK homerun last night! That was pretty awesome. Oh ya, one advantage to not sleeping last night was that I actually heard the end of a Red Sox game. That's pretty rare for me.

This morning I was pretty wide awake at 4:50. What is that?!

Oh, my 9th grade boys were so funny today. I laughed so hard. They have this habit of saying something shocking and then instantly asking "what?" in innocent wonder as if they had no idea what they, themselves, had just said. For example, "Why does Miss Murray always tell us how much sleep she got the night before, what?" (Okay, I really don't tell them - they're usually the ones telling me.)

Have I expressed in this format how incredibly adorable it is that I have been accidentally called "Mom" TWELVE times by my 8th and 9th grade boys?! I'm sure that says something about how I need to be harder on them. Sigh. But I think it's totally endearing.

Yay! I want to play tag, too!

I was tagged by Penny (whom I love!), so I must share seven random facts about myself and tag seven other people, listing them here on my blog and leaving comments on their blogs so they know they've been tagged.

My seven random facts:

1. I just successfully made my own Del's by putting lemonade in the freezer for about 4 hours. YUM!

2. I have three scars on my face. This makes me feel like I must be an adventurous person. But I'm really not...

3. I help my students way too much on their math tests. They are going to be in trouble next year when they have a real math teacher.

4. My political science professor at PC is now the finance minister for the new government in Afghanistan. He was asked, back in the day, to join the Taliban, but he disagreed with their policies.

5. I took something like 43 pictures of my students dissecting squid at Mystic Aquarium last Monday.

6. I really enjoy washing dishes in pretty kitchens. I love the warm, soapy water, and the satisfaction of before and after.

7. I have this friend named Derrick who LOVES this kind of thing, so I'm definitely going to make sure he gets tagged next...

People I'm tagging: Derrick (obviously), DJ, Xeo, Dero, Mr. Anime, Deej, and DRJ. Have fun you guys!

Just Because I Feel Like Posting...

Guess what I was interested in for the first time in my life last night? The NBA draft! What?! you query. Ah yes, I reply. These are the effects of listening to sports talk radio (WEEI) every single day during my commute.

Speaking of effects, I finally learned, after I started teaching, a fool-proof way to remember the difference between effect and affect. Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb. It's so simple!!! Why didn't someone TELL me?! Actually, I did figure that out one time, but then I couldn't remember which was which. When I started teaching, however, my dear senior (I'm going to miss him so much!) said he remembers it by the saying "cause and effect." In that case it's a noun, and in that case it's spelled with an "e." And now I can always remember! Yay!

So. NBA draft. Apparently if you are REEEEALLY bad, you are nearly guaranteed a good draft pick. There's this lottery, with ping pong balls, see. And if you do badly your chances increase. This year everyone wanted pick one, so they could get this young phenom named Odin. Well, out of five picks, the Celtics got..... FIFTH! Poor souls. Just when they needed it the most I jumped on the bandwagon, practically guaranteeing them the worst possible outcome. Sigh.

Speaking of sports radio, my students are aware of my strange listening habits (classical and talk radio? are you serious?), and it comes up every now and then. A couple of months ago I was following the basketball team to their game, and saw them put up a handwritten sign for me to read. Sadly, I couldn't quite see what it was without rear-ending the coach. So I zoomed up to pass him, and they put it in the side window. "Sports radio?" it read. Hee hee hee. I nodded, got back into my lane, and giggled away to myself for the next ten minutes or so.

I'm reading "Much Ado About Nothing" with my SEVENTH AND EIGHT graders! And, what deserves even bigger letters, THEY ARE ENJOYING IT!!! It's so awesome to see them laughing and comparing things to their own experience!

Don Pedro and Claudio talking behind Benedick's back, and tricking him into loving Beatrice by saying things like "he's way too awful to be worthy of loving her," made one of my students say "Hey! That's like when I want my older brother to play a game with me, and I do it by saying 'There's no way you could beat me...'" What a clever comparison! Hee hee hee. I love it! I can't believe they like Shakespeare at such a young age. HOOKED!!! Mwahahahahaha. :)

YIPPEE! What a beautiful world.

Ya Nevah Know

Recently I heard a testimony from someone pretty close to me. It was about a period of darkness and struggling and depression. And I sat there, shocked. I'd had no idea. It had gone on for about three months, if I remember correctly, and there had been only one time in that period where I thought "hm. She seems down." I think (and hope!) that I prayed for her at that time, briefly. But for the rest of that time I was clueless.

This really struck me, and made me think. We can never really tell what's going on in someone else's heart. There's no way to know, really. But we can be consistently loving and supportive! We can uphold each other regularly. I know I have the tendency to get really tunnel-vision-y, and focus on the things I need to accomplish, and on myself. And I'm also not a very observant person. Not a good combination. I need to stick my head up and peer around now and then. And I need to love others as Christ loves.

It made me think about this literary argument held in the early part of our country's history. Writers like Franklin and Emerson believed in the autonomous man. The individual is all, and he can accomplish anything on his own. And, furthermore, no individual can every truly connect with another individual. Writers like Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe believed the opposite: man needs his fellow man in order to survive and flourish. As Melville said, "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow man." And that's why (incidentally) Poe's characters were often mad. They had fallen into madness because of isolation. His characters' madness wasn't because he was crazy, it was because he was conveying a warning to his readers.

Anyway, before I get into too much detail, I will go on to say that this argument really intrigued me. I heard it at a time when I was feeling isolated and was really needing re-connection. So of course I sided with Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe. And I was desperately hoping they were right. But I really didn't know for sure.

But then, three years later, I was thinking about this testimony, and about the fact that I need to love everyone, all the time, because you never know (and because God tells us to!), and I was talking all of this over with Amy P, when I realized, hey! M, H, and P were RIGHT! I don't agree with them because their view is nicer, or rosier, or whatever. I agree with them because they agree with God! It's the whole idea of the Body of Christ! And unity! Etc. YES, God created us to be connected with other human beings. And therefore, it is possible, and it is right, and it is worth striving after. Whew! What a relief that I had the Bible to assure me, and not just human authors.

So, all this is to say that we don't necessarily know what's going on with other people, but as members of the Body of Christ, we can support and love no matter what.

And the other encouragement was that even though I had no clue what this other person was going through, God did. And His Spirit brought her through into victory. He is always faithful in the lives of each one of our loved ones! And that is a wonderful assurance.

Why Mom is My Hero (Reason #13984)

Okay, so if any of you don't know, I'M GOING TO BRITAIN THIS SUMMER!!!

Dad, Mom, KJ and I are taking off on a loooong dreamed of adventure to our mother-land, as it were. [Which reminds me, someone at school keeps saying 'if you would' instead of 'if you will' as in, 'our mother-land, if you will,' and it's driving me crazy. Should I be driven crazy? Or is that a legitimate expression?'] HURRAH!!! The anticipation is so much fun. And I can't wait to actually experience it!

Anyway, Mum decided to hire someone over there to deal with the itinerary and bed and breakfast reservations and stuff. It would save hours of work, and the price was waaaay cheap. So we hired this nice lady, Jill, and told her how much we wanted to spend [or rather, how much we were willing to spend] and where we wanted to go.

After some e-mails back and forth, tweaking of the itinerary, etc etc, Jill finally had to back out. Finding prices as cheap as we wanted was just too big a task. I don't blame her at all. And Mama was actually excited - she'd been kind of wishing she could do it herself!

After all, nothing is as exciting to Mom as a good bargain!

And hunt she did. WHEW! She has more drive than my entire generation put together, I'm pretty sure. Well, excluding Mary, maybe:) [Did everyone see Clyde's graduation cake?!] She spent hours and hours hunting on-line and making phone calls. She practically filled an entire notebook with notes and directions and numbers and descriptions. I am in awe of her.

And you know what the result was? She compared the final price and the price we had given to Jill initially, and she had saved us

Hundreds of Dollars!!!

Now THAT is doing your homework, people! And you know what was awesome about that? We saved hundreds of dollars! Okay, what I should have said was you know what ELSE is awesome about that?

I believe it was that very morning that I actually got concerned enough about my money situation to pray about it. I had the money for England, but I also needed to fund an excursion to California for Matt's wedding! So between the two I was a little concerned. I thought I could probably foot the bill, but it would pretty much clean me out. Soooo, ya. I prayed.

And then that night Mama told me how much I'd need and it was hundreds of dollars less than I'd thought! Thanks to HER!!! They say everything costs either time or money. But in this case I saved money, and spent MOM's time! What a deal! :) But really, I appreciate it so much! Now it's okay if my car breaks down or something. Wait. No. That's not okay. But I would survive it if my car broke down! :)

The point is, I appreciate Mama's relentless pursuit of the best price, and I appreciate God's showing me that He cares about MY finances! It was a pretty awesome moment. The Lord doth provide!

It's Like Riding a Bike

I'm sure you've all heard that saying "It's like riding a bike; once you learn how you never forget." Well, this post reminds me of that. It's about a subject that's closely related to bike riding. Because recently I got my BIKE out and RODE it! Ya, first time in years... SO MUCH FUN!

Rediscovering bike riding has been most interesting. Here are some tid-bits:

*It's really disgusting to ride one's bike through a cloud of bugs. There are these little clouds along our road, and there is no clear way to avoid them. I just put my head down and plow through. I hope they don't stay in my hair. Ewwwwwwwwww.

*I don't remember the seat being so hard when I was a kid.

*Biking is way more fun than running. You don't have to kill yourself quite so much, and you get to go much faster. I never rejoicing in the wind when I'm running, but I love it when I'm biking.

*Day One I didn't put my hair back. Consequently, when I checked over my left shoulder to see if a car was coming, all my hair promptly flew into my face. There was a car coming. And I was riding blind. If he'd checked his rear-view mirror he would have found a Chewy-like beast trying hard to avoid the ditch with one hand, while swooping hair out of the way with the other. I have put my hair back every subsequent day.

*I don't have a helmet. And I never wore one growing up so it seems like a foreign concept. But I passed these little kids riding with their helmets and I felt like a millstone should be hung around my neck. I can just imagine their poor, frazzled mother shooting daggers at me, the proof that not EVERYone wears them...

*Also on Day One I didn't wear my glasses. When I called out to Aunt Laurie, who was walking down the road toward me, that I was reliving my childhood, I realized that it wasn't Aunt Laurie after all. It was a stranger whom I knew slightly, and hadn't seen in a loooong time. Ya, that's how I usually greet people like that. I still don't wear my glasses though.

*I REALLY love it! It's exhilarating and childhood-ish and fun! It almost seems like cheating to count it as exercise.

Oy VAY!

I KNEW I loved Curt Schilling for a reason!

I'm getting ready for the day listening to a Curt Schilling interview on the radio. The announcer guy was asking about Schilling's blog "38 Pitches." What word does Schilling use to describe it?

CATHARTIC!

Oh my word. There is a Renaissance Man in our midst...

:)