Posted on Mar 20, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Well sadly, spring break is drawing to a close. Monday I go back to school. But hey it’s officially spring now so things are starting to pick up again and summer will be here before we know it!
My parents came down to stay for most of the week. This is their second annual flower-planting trip. Our yard was in major need of some TLC (can you imagine??) so my mom and I did a whole lot of weeding and then added to the front flower bed. We also removed the very sad looking ‘Charlie Brown’ topiary plants in the front pots. They were replaced with rosemary plants and creeping Jenny around the bottom. Should be very pretty when they start flowering soon. I hope they still look this way next spring 
Our biggest gardening problem lies in the back yard. Technically the land that we have planted flowers in does not belong to us, it is “common ground” for the neighborhood. But it’s so awkward and secluded that no one will ever set foot back there besides us. Last year we had considered covering the whole area with sod and just extending our yard. But when we weighed the cost of that it was very expensive, especially considering we don’t own that land. So we turned to flowers. The little stone walkway area off to the side was put in last spring by Kevin’s parents. Then for some crazy reason in the hottest part of July Kevin and I decided to plant rose bushes and lilies in the middle. It looked good back then. The problem now is that only one of the two rose bushes survived, and three out of the five lilies are popping back up. So it won’t be the original shape we had intended. The remaining flowers are sort of awkwardly placed now. We’re not quite sure what to do, so we are hoping to enlist the help of a lady who is old friends with Kevin’s parents. She took a master gardening class and Kevin already sent her an email that said HELP!
So, I’ll keep you updated when we plan what we’re going to do back there.
Other than that, I’m looking forward to one more quiet weekend before the craziness of school starts back. Until next time enjoy some pictures of our progress:
Posted on Dec 01, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Well since November seemed to pass in a flash I figured I should catch you up on what we’ve been doing. School has been busy for me as we are preparing for the holiday programs. I have one next week and another the week after. Some of my fifth grade students also had a performance the week before Thanksgiving. Kevin continues to be busy at work and doing his MBA stuff. We had a nice break last week though, when our parents came to visit for Thanksgiving. They were all very gracious to play with Maggie constantly and take her on long walks- so we had a very restful few days! I will share some pictures from the event. This Friday we will go to Kevin’s office party and then get our Christmas tree on Saturday. The day will also be accompanied by two big football games: Army vs. Navy and the SEC championship FL vs. AL. It’s a little emabrassing to say but Kevin and I will actually be rooting for the Gators for no more than 60 minutes on Saturday We really want Alabama to go down. In other big football news, Phil Fulmer coached his final game at the University of Tennessee on Saturday, when they had their 24th win in a row against Kentucky. We are glad he got to go out on a positive note. He has dedicated so much of his life to that place and the team. Big changes are soon to come, as Lane Kiffin was announced today as the new head coach for the Vols. Another positive thing we are looking forward to is my brother Caleb gets to come visit over Christmas! We have not been able to see him since our wedding almost two years ago so it is definitely a blessing.
**FYI** I intended to post some pictures here, but for some reason my computer won’t let me do that right now. I’ll get them up as soon as I can.
Posted on Aug 25, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Well thanks to tropical storm Fay, it has been raining non-stop here since Saturday. At times it has been very heavy with strong winds. Sunday morning when I got up to take the dog out I realized all of the stuff that had been blown around from our back porch. Both chair cushions from the patio furniture had been moved. One was in the middle of the yard and one was missing until Kevin later found it in our neighbors’ yard. The banana plant that my mom brought a while ago, which normally rests up against the house, was also in the yard. And the most surprising thing to me was that our next door neighbors’ large gas grill was completely knocked over. Talk about some fast winds! I actually don’t mind when it storms at least during the night because the rain is a soothing sound that helps both me and Maggie sleep soundly. Unfortunately Kevin is not blessed with that gift. I think he gets jealous listening to the two of us snore through it.
So here we are on our third day of rain and it probably won’t be the last. Like I said I don’t mind all the storms. The only difficult thing is that we can’t take Maggie out hardly at all. And with such a high energy dog like her that means lots and lots of playing inside. Sometimes it is hard to keep her entertained when she hasn’t been out all day. But we have a new thing we are training her to do which is instead of just throwing the ball to make her chase it, we like to bounce it hard on the carpet and see if she can catch it in her mouth. She is getting really good! We are thinking we should enter her in the doggie olympics. She definitely has a high jump and pretends to do hurdles over us on the couch all the time. If she were entered in the chewing competition she would win the gold medal hands down. That dog will chew on her nylon bone for 30 minutes straight until we force her to stop.
Kevin started back to MBA class this evening. So for a while that means I will be spending my Monday and Tuesday evenings alone. At least I have the puppy to keep me company! I am, however, excited about reinstating Thursday date night. We tried doing that last year and then Kevin ended up with a Thursday night class. So now we are back on and I already know what this Thursday will entail: the unofficial kick-off of college football. This theme will pretty much continue every weekend until December Don’t get me wrong though I am very much looking forward to it. Why you ask? Leann you know nothing about football! On the contrary my friends; I have been learning a lot with the help of the book I bought for Kevin (actually for myself) on our 1 year anniversary back in January. It’s called Get Your Own Damn Beer, I’m Watching the Game! : a woman’s guide to loving pro-football, written by the actress and NFL wife, Holly Robinson Peete. My gift to Kevin was that I would read the book by August so that when the season started I would be able to not only watch games with him but actually understand what was going on. And it’s true that the more I know, the more I am interested in the game. I always thought football was way too complicated. And while I still miss a lot of things Kevin is always good to pause the t.v. and explain things to me. The best part is that I get to spend quality time with my husband doing something that he enjoys. Isn’t that the real definition of romance? I love him so much that I don’t care what we are doing, we can always have fun together.
Well now that I’ve rambled on for a while I suppose it’s time to get some ‘real’ work done.
Everyone stay dry!
Posted on Aug 18, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Yesterday our senior pastor Tim came back after a summer-long sabbatical. It was really great to have him back and he preached a message that was pretty convicting for me entitled “So Little Time.” The lesson was not any sort of new profound thought, but sometimes I need a little reminding. The main point came from Psalm 90 that talks about “teach us to number our days.” Tim challenged us to think about how we spend our time here on earth. He made a comparison between the movie Dead Poets Society (one of my favorite movies) in which the whole theme is carpe diem: seize the day, and the Christian viewpoint which also has a similar message. The main difference between the secular and Christian view is the reasoning behind it. The world would say that since there is nothing after life on earth we might as well make the most of every moment. In other words, nothing really matters so make each day count. In contrast, if you believe in eternal life in heaven and know that you have limited time to do God’s work on earth, then EvErYtHiNg you do matters so make each day count.
I was also pretty convicted by this statement: there is a big difference between counting the days and making the days count. If you know me at all you know that I love to have countdowns to things. I used to count down the long days until our wedding, the number of hours ’til graduation, the months until we moved in to our house, the time until we could finally get our dog. And every year I start counting about 4 months before my birthday and let everyone know that it is coming up. So on and so forth. I love looking forward to the big events in life. And I suppose there is nothing inherantly wrong about that. The problem lies in the fact that I am always looking toward the future, as if one day I will finally achieve ultimate happiness. I rarely take the time to stop and smell the roses or try and make a difference in someone’s life today because I constantly look to the next thing coming up. Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.” Being still, I mean truly still, and shutting out all the worldly concerns is something I need to work on.
Children and Music
Another interesting point was brought up on Sunday that I would like to discuss. First I want to talk about the spiritual implications and then I will look at it from a strictly musical standpoint.
The church we go to is a mixture of contemporary and traditional. We do sing hymns and we also sing modern praise music, but we don’t have the full out rock and roll band with flashing lights. This weekend we sang a famous hymn “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” written by Isaac Watts. We learned that it came from a book of some thousand hymns called Divine and Moral Songs for Children that Watts wrote in order for young kids to memorize and learn about some of the profound truths of God. I’ll be honest I’ve heard this song before and while I thought it was nice and all, I really never thought about the words. If you want the full text click here. Sometimes I think we really need to approach worship through the eyes of a child. We forget how awesome and mighty our God is, and how amazing is the beauty of everything He has created. It’s just like how a child looks up at his dad or mom. I don’t mean to slam on contemporary Christian music. I think a lot of it is good and I listen to it occasionally. But if you really take the time to listen to the lyrics, you start to realize how much our modern music is focused on US. Most of these songs talk about what God has done for ME and how I feel about it. We fail to recognize the supreme beauty of our Creator. That’s why I think many of the old hymns are so great, because they are focused on Him alone.
And Now for the Soap Box…
If you have continued reading this long I commend you for your endurance . Kevin thinks that I would make a great lawyer because when I get fixated on something that I feel strongly about I really get fired up and can’t let it go. Well this is one of those topics for me. Speaking from strictly a musical standpoint, I am dismayed at what the ultra-contemporary church’s music has done to our kids’ ability to sing. Why you ask? It has nothing to do with the theology behind the words or the flashy lights of the presentation. It is simply the fact that a lot of our modern Christian songs were written to be sung by one person and enjoyed by the audience. Case in point; I have been amazed in recent years while visiting some mega churches where there might be 4,000 people in the congregation and yet you can hardly hear anyone singing. It’s because they can’t follow the music!! For several hundreds of years hymns from all different denominations were composed following very strict harmonic rules. That’s why it is so easy to pick up on the melody of a hymn even if you’ve only heard it for the first time. Kids who grow up listening to these hymns automatically learn a sense of harmonic progressions because they are predictable and they make sense to our brains. In turn they develop a better ear for singing. I hate to make a blanket statement but I’m going to because I’m a music teacher. It is painfully obvious to figure out which kids have been ‘churched’ from an early age or even just been sung to by their parents, and those who have not or all they ever listen to is heavy rock music.
Ah well, I could go on about this forever. Once again I am in no way trying to preach and tell people to take their kids to church. I am simply saying please expose them to good quality music from an early age and sing to them even if you think your voice is bad. It can make all the difference in the world. Trust me I know!
I suppose my college education really was good for something.
Okay end soap box… =)
Posted on Jul 31, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Kevin and I will be heading out of town tomorrow to visit our married friends in Georgia. But before we do that we are going to make the big shopping trip that I have been gearing up for. I should note that Kevin is very involved and is going to try and help me choose stuff. He will be there to share his opinion and to keep me from buying items that I don’t need. The plan is to buy clothes that are only work-appropriate. Most of you that know me are probably thinking this is nothing new- I have always loved to go shopping. But this is the first time that I am really going with specific things in mind. I plan to buy “classic” pieces that will go with more than one thing in order to create an outfit, and avoid buying something that I don’t really need just because it’s cute. If you read one of my earlier posts, you will see that I have been inspired by the show “What Not to Wear”.
This trip will also be a lesson in budgeting and making the most of my money, which is probably why Kevin cares so much
So I cleaned out my closet yesterday and made a list of specific items that I want to look for:
- Trouser Jeans- these are more like denim dress pants. They would be appropriate for my “casual Fridays” at work.
- Khaki Jacket- not a heavy coat, but a jacket that I can wear during the day over shirts.
- Pencil skirt- from what I am learning this is a must have in professional women’s wear.
- Dresses- either in the wrap style or with an empire waist.
- Shirts- these basically depend on what sort of bottoms I buy. But overall I need to avoid any heavy sweaters because I have plenty of those and it won’t be cold enough to wear those for a long time.
- Shoes- these will be the last things I buy, depending on the clothes I select. The rule of thumb on the show is basically this: if you wear more neutral colors up top then the shoes should be brighter colored in order to “pop”. But if you are already wearing bright colors then the shoes should be more neutral.
And there you have it, those are my goals. I have about 3-4 hours to shop and a set budget so off I go!
On a side note, we chose this weekend to go shopping because in Alabama, like many other states, we are having our tax-free holiday. The way Kevin has explained it to me we are only exempt from state taxes, not local. So if we are used to paying 9% here, with 4% being state, I may still end up paying 5% local. But a discount is a discount. You can read more about the financial aspect of the tax-free holiday on his blog.
Also I recently discovered that since I belong to one of the teacher unions here, I am able to get a few good discounts to certain stores. All I had to do was go online and print out the coupons. I got a $20 off coupon to New York and Co. which just happens to be my favorite store. Score!
Well I suppose it is time to start packing. Everyone have a great weekend!