Education

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die."  – John Taylor Gatto

Dance

I started taking a liturgical dance class at our local dance studio in October.  I'm the lone adult taking the class with five teens.  I'm not sure what they think of me but they're nice girls.  I never really wanted to learn ballet (hip-hop, jazz, modern......okay.  Ballet?  Uhm, I never considered myself graceful) until our instructor started using a lot of it in class.  All those French words!  I'm now wanting to learn more. I've asked for a recommendation for a good beginning ballet video as there is no class for this for adults.  Julie says I'm doing fine, but for those who know me well, know that I have this perfectionist tendency ;-) .    Anyway, I'm also an impatient sort of person when it comes to wanting to learn something new (you know, right now?) so I looked on the internet and found some videos done by a professional ballerina and teacher named Jodie Gates.  Guess what?  All those French words are getting more familiar :-)

Learn Basic Ballet
Placement and Alignment for Basic Ballet
Ballet Barre Basics
The 5 Basic Ballet Positions
Moving Between Ballet Positions
How to Move Forward in Ballet

Happy New Year!

"I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."
~Anaïs Nin

From Our Home to Yours -- Merry Christmas!

http://mysite.verizon.net/respb203/creekside/

What I've been up to

Wow, I haven't posted in a while.  Life has been so busy lately and I've only really had time online to read messages.  No time to reply much either.

Some highlights since my last post:

• dance class
• AWANA
• walking everywhere (my attempt to not gain weight this holiday season and save gas money)
• coffee with a friend
• parties
  
• our church's live nativity went really well and we had a larger cast this year, and therefore more costumes to be made, plus more sets along the drive-thru
• Christmas projects with family and friends (decorating, cards, gifts, baking, etc.)
• practice so we have singers for our Christmas eve service
• caroling with our homeschool co-op
• everyday things (library trips, grocery trips, trips to piano lessons, laundry, dishes, cooking, etc.)
• educational pursuits (helping the kids with these)
• planning for a New Year's Eve get together at church
  
• sadness over situations within my family (please pray)

And now, I really should go to bed because I have more to do tomorrow...

Live Nativity

Our church is putting on its second live nativity (December 4 & 5) and I'm the costume coordinator again.  A group of us work on the costumes and those days have been teasingly dubbed the Grace Fellowship sweat shop ;-)

(You can see a hint of the costumes to the left but that's only about 1/4 of them)

There are 80 volunteers involved this year and they aren't just from our church.  Wow!

Its fun and exhausting but so worth every minute of it.  Especially when you hear how much it blesses people and reminds them why they celebrate Christmas to begin with.

To all the volunteers..........THANK YOU!!!

What characters are my family this year?  Noelle is Mary, Kyle is a shepherd, Kirk is a wise man, and I'm a villager (so I can help where needed and take pictures :-)  Hopefully, I'll get us together (in costume) for our family Christmas photo.  Some of the families did this last year and the pictures were great!

I am taking off today through Saturday to focus on Thanksgiving and enjoying my family.  I just wanted to share while I had a few minutes.

The Apprentice Puppeteer

Noelle is involved in puppet ministry this year and really enjoying herself.  She got her "hood" last night and has been having fun creeping us out, lol.  She put the thing on my head when I wasn't paying attention to her and, yes, you can see through it, but I would have liked a proper warning :-P

Pepperoni Pizzaz

Here's what we had for dinner last night.  I'd never made it before, but some similar, and we have decided that this ones the best!  I also got to use my Home and Garden Party cranberry bean pot for the first time (I only got it a year ago, lol).

The recipe came from a Quick Cooking cookbook, though its not really that quick (unless you have a food processor, which I do) but is worth the time spent.

Pepperoni Pizzaz

8 ounces medium tube pasta, cooked and drained (do this while mixing other ingredients so pasta stays warm)

1 jar (28 ounces) spaghetti sauce, divided

1 jar (4-1/2 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained

1 package (8 ounces) sliced pepperoni

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp crushed rep pepper flakes

1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

Combine 2-1/3 cups spaghetti sauce, along with next 9 ingredients, in a bowl.  Add pasta to sauce mixture and mix well.  Transfer to a greased 3-qt. baking dish.  Combine the tomato sauce and remaining spaghetti sauce; pour over top.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until bubbly.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.  Bake, uncovered, 5-10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  Yield:  9-12 servings.

As usual, I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  Pizza is usually topped with what each family likes best so I only did what we liked and had on hand ;-)  I left out the mushrooms, halved the pepperoni amount (and cut the pepperoni into small pieces), and upped the onion and pepper amounts. I also didn't have the red pepper flakes so used hot sauce instead.

If you make it, let me know what you think.

Hard Drive Failure

No, I didn't have it backed up. Yes, I lost a lot from the last couple years (a lot of my pictures have been preserved on Flickr and Picasa, PTL for that, but the videos are gone). The hard drive was so dead that I wasn't even charged a fee by the computer shop for trying to retrieve my files. Some lessons in life are learned the hard way *sigh*

I have a new hard drive now. I've also resolved to buy an external hard drive to do back ups on, as well as continuing to use online sites for storage. I'm trying not to be paranoid about the whole thing, just going to do what I should have been doing all along.

What caused the failure? I didn't get my firmware update accomplished in time. If only life didn't get so busy that many things get put on hold until "a time when things aren't so busy". That's my excuse anyway ;-P

Oh well, moving on....

I Continue to Stand in Awe of You, Lord Jesus

I am continually humbled by my Lord and Savior. I'm very moved by all expressions of worship and after watching/listening to this song just had to share. Enjoy!


When I Speak Your Name by Gateway Worship