Paint Night (I refuse to use the marketing term, Paint Nite)

One of my colleagues is having a bumpy first year at our school, so when she asked if I wanted to use a Groupon and go painting with her, I said "yes!"  We had a very fun time~although, I think I created a floating onion instead of the graceful lotus in the demo painting.

All that Tabula Rasa just waiting.

If I weren't so tired from three 12-hour back-to-back days, I would write something pithy and metaphoric about how things look messy, but are merely in development to something gorgeously blooming.

(this is NOT my car)

Whew.  Is all you can say some days.

At the end of yesterday, was sitting and waiting to make an unprotected left.  And watched in knowing horror as the person in front of me~for whatever reason, didn't wait for the green arrow and turned.  As you can guess, they were smashed into at 50 mph.  I could feel the thud.  Feeling lucky that they didn't spin into me as I'm decidedly not in the mood for more car repair or car payments right now.

And yes, the drivers were okay.   Other than having their afternoon/evening plans completely altered.  

It was a moment to reflect that while things may seem to move slowly~that truly?  Things sometimes can happen in a nano-second.

WHERE IS SPRING BREAK?

Maybe because it was in the high 70s today and the avalanche know as the spring musical has come upon us, but boy.  It does not feel like January right now.

Yes you, too, can have a glowing experience

You can now purchase LED lights to make your nocturnal bathroom visits...cheerier? 

adage for the addled

since I didn't win Power Ball, I had jolly well had better win the faculty raffle

Our theme/focus this year is faculty/staff wellness.  There are several exercise classes offered after school, walking/running groups that meet on weekends, etc.   We also have turned in monthly spreadsheets documenting things such as: exercise, sleep, water/caffeine consumption, time spent with family/friends, volunteering, going TV free, etc.

Today we got raffle tickets for our autumn charts and I happy to say that I turned in EIGHTY-FIVE tickets for various prizes.  There was only one person higher than that, at 87.  

Tune in Friday next to see what my efforts won!

not quite poetry

Just some end-of-the-week whimsy:

Don't know if it was the short week, the high winds, or the MS dance tonight, but the kids were WIRED this week.

If only it were an eight hour wait...

Happy, oh happy Friday all y'all!!

just call me Pretty Fingers Dupree

Using this chart in tomorrow's 6th grade jazz class.  

What's your name?

churchy humour

Bwa-ha-ha.

support and sistering

A new word for my vocabulary and a fabulous concept.

the small things

Some fun for the end of the weekend.

ka-ching

Just home from putting a new clutch in my car~aside from the traffic insanity, it is difficult to find joy in this day of draining my bank account.  The only thing I can come up with is that this was a planned repair and didn't happen alongside a road.

Happy Friday, y'all.

happy is smaller than you think

is one of my favourite quotes that I read last year.  Today's happy were~a quite literal necklace with the molecules of serotonin.

(One of my piano student's father stared at it and asked me if I knew what it was.  I said yes.  He told me that it is also the molecule found in caffeine and cocaine. [I am guessing that he's a chemist by profession?].  I just laughed and said that it was a reminder to look for whatever gives one a lift.)

And!  Someone at work gifted the studio teachers with passes to the Blanton.  If you've read my blog for awhile, you know how fond I am of this UT museum, but once school starts, I am unable to make the free Thursdays.  Now, I get to visit this weekend!

yin/yang

Just got a salt lamp~hope it helps with the slumber this week.

salvation through slobber

For the kick-off to faculty work week last August, we were divided into groups and sent all over town to partner with various organizations.  Partially this was team-building and partially it was to show us what/where is available for our students to volunteer.  (Trinity grads have to log so many volunteer hours as a graduation requirement.)  I was part of the group that went to the pet center.

And what a marvellous thing that turned out to be~I grew up with dogs and love dogs and love long walks. However, with the long hours I work and the minuscule places I rent, it wouldn't be fair for me to have a dog for a pet.  (And for the record?  If it fits into your purse, it's NOT a dog.)

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to become a dog walker, but I am halfway through my training now.  Austin Pets Alive is an incredible organization and is responsible for making Austin a no-kill city for four years now!

I've also logged in several hours in the laundry and in the Cattery.

Stay tuned when I win the Powerball this weekend and buy a ranch and adopt ALL the puppies...

Exactly

This is going up on the bulletin board at school.

Friday? Please Gawd, let it be so

Although it was a 'short' week of 'only' four days of teaching, I would say the faculty are all feeling as though they've been flattened by an avalanche.  June seems very far away at present.  But~in the small joys.  Found a lovely saying in a sidewalk while out walking errands this evening.  I love that I'm still discovering things in my 'hood.

And, although it's been in the 70s all week (who drives home from work with their windows down in JANUARY?  At least in the US?), decided it was time to switch to a winter wallet.  This was a lovely gift from Scotland which I received this summer.   I know that there is eye-rolling going on because I called these horns Texan!

Proof.

city scenes

The photo doesn't do the gorgeous twilight justice, but this is the view from my bedroom.  There were gorgeous New Year's fireworks that I enjoyed from this vista.

Apparently, I was mistaken in thinking that I got myself a sofa.  Evidently, the factory fumes have worn off and Monsieur Bogart is now ensconced in his new favourite place.  I'll have to lure him off with tuna so I can have my reading spot back.

I'm a grown-up now

Hmm.  Yes, I read the rave reviews of this sofa, but am not quite sure there's an actual human-sized piece of furniture in there.  Ah well, Bogart will love it.

Inside the box.

This is the chapter in every good book where the protagonist wishes they were in a different story.

Voila!!  It's comfy and cosy and the perfect place to snuggle up with a good book.  (The only downfall is that it slides across the floor~any tips to keeping it in place?  

who knew?

"This is what happiness really looks like: Molecules of the protein myosin drag a ball of endorphins along an active filament into the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex, which produces feelings of happiness."

radiance in darkness

It's been a cosy rainy day~the perfect day to be tucked in with a good book.  This lovely letter was part of my morning reading and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Letter Written by Fra Giovanni

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

and now you know

Or, in some years with the Christmas ornaments taken off, it can stay up until Easter.