Sunday, November 16, 2008

Fireside Chats

This isn't exactly what Carol's stove looks like, but the hearth area is
similar. (sans the bear rug on the floor! yikes!) Next time I go, I'll take a camera!

I spent a happy 2 hours tonight with my best friend Carol Gaunt. Now Carol has a woodburning fireplace sort of stove in her family room. It is possibly one of the coziest places on the planet. I sat there toasting my toes and talking with her while rocking in a comfy rocking chair near to the hearth. As I got home later and reflected on my evening, it made me smile. You see, Carol is only just lighting her fireplace this year! It's been in her house since she moved into it almost 6 years ago, but until this year she didn't light her fireplace. Two winters ago we had a big ice storm. And it's taken that long for Carol to get the chimney checked and everything she felt needed to be done in order to eventually use her stove just in case there's another ice storm in the future.

Tonight, as we sat there talking and toasting, we laughed about all the things we each have on our personal "to-do" lists that seem to only get longer with each passing season. But just for tonight, we enjoyed the fact that Carol & Doug have checked the one called "get fireplace working" off their list! It is a great place to sit and I plan to do it repeatedly this winter! So here's to friends with cozy hearths! May the logs burn bright and conversation never run out!

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Time of Greyness Begins


My husband and I are not great fans of the return to "non-daylight savings" time. It seems that we get up in darkness and return home in darkness at a time of year that one can barely tolerate being in darkness... the weeks just preceding the Winter Solstice. Then you add rain and cold damp weather....

What you see here is the view outside my classroom window. Wet, grey, chilly... miserable. I am not excited for the arrival of the wet times.
On the other hand, I love winter. Pure, crisp, cold winter. It seems like it's the genuine article. No fooling-around-flat-out cold! I say let's skip the grey, wet, murky days of late fall and jump right into winter. Oh wait! I live in Missouri! There's SNOW in the forecast for tomorrow! Huzzah!

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Scottish Eggs and Other Yummy Tidbits!

Eggs Benedict... Scot style. That's salmon between the poached eggs and the baguette!

Clock wise from the silver dish... smoked salmon, bridies (little tenderloin stuffed pastry puffs),
Scotch eggs, and sausage rolls.


Well, I must admit, we like food. And some of the food we like is rather unique. Today was one of those "unique" dining experiences. We visited a place in St. Louis called "The Scottish Arms", a restaurant/pub specializing in authentic Scottish food and pub grub. They have a Sunday Brunch there that was AMAZING! (Cock-a-leeky pie anyone?) So of course, I had to bring out my phone and take photos of our plates. The food was as yummy as it was strange looking. I had a Scottish take on Eggs Benedict...they called it the Seamus MacBennedict; however, instead of Canadian Bacon on the entree there was smoked salmon! It was GREAT! Ed had the "Highland Hangover", a delightful sampler plate which included sausage rolls, bridies, salmon, and Scotch eggs. Everything was so good that we've decided we have to go back at dinnertime someday. They have Fullers, Guiness, and Newcastle all on tap... and all of those go much better with dinner than breakfast! For just a little while it felt like we were in Edinburgh again! Lovely!

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Election Reflection.... or the Day After

Our entire family blogs, so it's been interesting to see and share one anothers thoughts on the developments of the past 48 hrs. I, too, had to put my thoughts into print on the day after this now "historic" election.

As my family is an interesting and tolerantly loving "camp divided", I found myself thinking about what I would most want to say about the election results. and my chief inspiration ironically came from the election night speeches of both candidates which were, in my mind, eloquent and unifying.

The beauty of the American democratic process is that we all have this opportunity every four years to stop and evaluate what it is we value in leadership and direction for our nation. We align ourselves in various and sundry ways behind the national and local candidates and ballot issues and we vote. Prior to that vote, things can get a bit heated at times; we wrangle, debate, campaign, and agonize about "what the other guy" will be doing on Nov. 4.

However, the beauty of our system is also what happens on the Wednesday AFTER we vote. My students were wrestling with this today. Teenage emotional highs and lows were all over the hallways of my school. Kids were proclaiming loudly about which foreign countries they might need to move to (next week!) and even some rather darkly inappropriate things were said about what could "happen" to our President elect prior to Jan. 20th. That's when I had to speak up and remind them about what happens in America on the day AFTER the election. That's where the true beauty of our democracy shines its brightest and best... where we become collectively "Americans" again... divisions aside, and look around and say, "So how will I be involved in making my country stronger and better? Where do I fit in the next four years? or (in a very Lutheran sense, ironically) What does this mean?"

That's not a pie-in-the-sky thing to do... to reflect. To stop and think, to realize one can't spend the next four years being either euphorically the victor or the angry defeated. Because to do that, devalues what the process is all about, exercising one's citizenship is as much about what we do in the four years between elections as what we do at the polls on one day. So I find the day (and days) following to be ones where I must examine what I will do and where I will find ways to make a difference as a citizen.

This campaign was long, and perhaps the very length of it explains why we all feel so jubilant that it's finished. It also might explain why feelings seem to be running so deep on both "sides" afterward. My prayer is that all Americans can manage not to be inclined to view the results the way we do our sporting events, with a winner-loser mentality. Politics are not a competitive sporting event, they are a reflective event, a visionary event, and a radical exercise in what it means to be citizen owners and cultivators of our democracy. We are a marvel to the rest of the world as we particpate in the process every 4 years. May God bless us all as we continue to grow our democracy; it's always a work in progress!

This is my favorite poem about what Election Day means... I have it on the bulletin board in my classroom all year round. Leave it to Whittier to put it all together so clearly.

The Poor Voter on Election Day
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by John Greenleaf Whittier (1852)

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.

To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man’s common sense
Against the pedant’s pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

While there’s a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon’s vilest dust, —
While there’s a right to need my vote
A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man’s a man to-day!


Sunday, November 02, 2008

I live in Disneyland... oops... St. Charles


There's no way to deny it, St. Charles is a lot like a small downtown Disneyland. Every now and again as I walk around downtown St. Chuck (as we like to call it), I am struck by how totally picturesqe my town is. It's one of those cases where you are occasionally blind to your surroundings but all it takes is a gorgeous fall day to bring it all vividly back to mind. Take today for example; 78 degrees, driving with the convertible top down sort of weather... and there we were, walking around in short sleeves and soaking up the fall beauty. Now, give us 24-48 hrs. and all that could change dramatically. But just for today, it was perfect. Check out these photos and you'll see what I mean.


A vine covered winery on Main St.

Just one autumnally decorated shop of the over 80 on Main Street.

Yeah, the color is actually THAT beautiful!


Ed and Chas by the Lewis & Clark Memorial in our riverfront park.


Me and my puppy... yes, it really IS Nov. 2nd!

Pretty riverfront... cute canoodling couple on a blanket... fall in Missouri.... Beautiful!


So if any of you are looking for a great place for a fall vacation... give us a call... you can't beat Disneyl.....er uh, St. Charles!

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Ladybug, Ladybug, Time to Trick-or-Treat

"Gramma has an electric punkin??? How weird is THAT? Oh well, never mind, these leaves on the porch
are more interesting to look at."

"Don't you just love my spots, grammy?"

"I don't know WHY I am in this get-up, but it makes my papa smile, so it's all good."

"Mom, why don't YOU have a costume on?"

This is actually Syd BEFORE she went out for her candy... gotta rest up to make the rounds!

Halloween... and we had our "rookie" Trick-Or-Treating Ladybug to make us all smile and feel like little kids again. Sydney made the rounds of family friends and neighbors, escorted by her parents who had possibly even more fun than she did. Funny though, we could tell by her giggles and smiles that she knew this night was a special one, she seemed to sense that THIS kid's fest would be one that she would want to do again and again in years to come.