Marion: Why did you moon my bridge club?
Arthur: Because your bridge club is stupid.
Marion: You think the democrats are stupid; why haven't you mooned them?
Arthur: I was tempted in '72.
~Newhart

So I've missed a few days again. Some days it's because I forget to bring my camera with me, and some days I just don't get a chance to upload any pictures.

Pictures of the twins for Monday and Tuesday...



This caught my eye on campus Friday. I have no idea where the hat came from.

And today I went to the park. There's a pine wood that has always creeped me out. It feels like the dark part of a story. They named the trail running through it, as if it wasn't bad enough.

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
~Leo Buscaglia, "Born for Love"


These are my Firefly slippers. My sister wrote Chinese phrases on them for me. They say things like "Serenity," "little sister," and "explosive diarrhea of an elephant."

So I've missed a few days of pictures. I'll have something for tomorrow, but today, I give you Garfield minus Garfield.

Yesterday's picture.

This is a Christmas present from one of my Sunday school students.

This is called pipkrake. Or needle ice, but I like pipkrake better.

A few pieces of my Liberian nativity set. It sits on an old trunk underneath my bedroom window.

I think I need to pick a time this week to sit down and actually focus on writing a real blog post. I've got a few things wandering around in my head, and it would do them well to get out into the air, as it were.

My butterfly faerie votive holder. You can't see it very well in this picture, but she's wearing an acorn cap and sitting on a buckeye.

Every time I come home, I accumulate more books. A few of these I got for Christmas, but most of them I found in the attic.

My dad makes the best pancakes. Partly because he always makes them into shapes. This one is a bison. At least, that's what he said.

Two pictures today--yesterday's and today's.

This picture doesn't quite capture yesterday, but I liked it anyway. My sister and I went with two of our friends from church to visit another friend at the coffee shop she works at. I got Gumby and Pokey for the white elephant exchange at the New Year's Eve party. Anyway, we had a splendid day of visiting and shopping (and enjoying Steak n Shake, which we don't have out in Virginia).

Yes, this is my sister vacuuming a Christmas tree. Trust me, if we didn't vacuum it, it would make quite a mess when Dad takes it up to the attic. Only the trees that get the plastic snow need to be vacuumed, though. Our aunt is here for the weekend, so we worked on taking down Christmas. Next week, Sarah and I are headed back to Virginia. I need to find out if ETSU has sorted things out yet. I'm wanting to transfer there this semester, but the weekend before Christmas they lost my high school transcript. Sigh. But I guess it's what I get for not sending everything off as early as I should have.

One of the fun things I want to do this year is called Project 365. Basically, you take one picture every day for a year. Obviously, you can take more than one picture a day, and then you can choose which one you want to use for that day. Anyway, I would have posted this last night, but my internet was acting up.

I actually went to a New Year's Eve party this year. We had a lot of fun, and ended the night with a toast--using sparkling grape juice, of course.