Peace

Last night I went to an interfaith service for peace at a Lutheran church in Northeast Portland. I was blessed to hear the perspectives of many people from many different faith backgrounds. I sat on the pew and took in all they had to say. These people were all so gentle in spirit and had deep devotion to God and to humanity. Their perspectives were new and refreshing. While these faith leaders have fundamental differencesin their beliefs, they were able to share things and agree that what we are doing in Iraq and aroung the world is not noble nor honorable. These spiritual leaders prayed earnestly for the troops serving in war and for the people we are attaacking. They want healing and reconciliation. They want people of faith to stand up against violence.

I am still processing and may have more to share at a later time. In the meantime, I encourage anyone reading this to contact your Congressmen/women and let them know that you want the insanity of this war to end!

Snow Day

Today I am stuck at home because of the sudden onset of snow. I am already battling a cold so I'm thankful for a day of rest and a boss who said "Don't even bother trying to come in later, just stay home and get some rest". Ok, twist my arm.

I've been laying on the couch all morning watching the news, flipping through other channels and reading.

Today I'm glad that I don't work at home like my dad, because he is still working. :) No travel excuses for him. He is currently out taking a walk up to the grocery store so that we have some food for dinner. Yay dad!

Hopefully we will melt and all will be normal tomorrow.

Alrighty, back to the couch for reading and relaxing. I am glad that my throat is no longer on fire and I can swallow like a normal person. Simple pleasures people, simple pleasures.

Being LAZY

I had the pleasure of being out of the office for 11 days and I LOVED every last stinkin' minute of it. My week consisted of lots of movie watching, old TV show watching and book reading. When I say that I watched a lot of DVD's I don't think that I am actually portraying with much accuracy. When I think of it, I will have to get a list of all the things I watched during my week off.

Some that I do remember are:
*Kate & Allie (Season 1)
*24 (Season 4)
*Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
*Bewitched
*Millions
*Prozac Nation
*House of D
*Felicity Season 3 (first three discs)
*Brooklyn Lobster
*World Trade Center
*The Excorcism of Emily Rose
*Heavenly Creatures
*The Black Dahlia
*The Skeleton Key
*Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

I know, I know, it's a ridiculously long list of things to watch but it's not exhaustive and I don't get to this very often. I justify it all by saying that I also read (or completed) three books during this time. I FINALLY picked up Running With Scissors and finished reading it. I kept pushing it back to read other things. THanks for letting be borrow it Breanna! It was good and weird all at the same time. I've never read anything like it. I feel like the next guest on Oprah is going to be Augustun Burroughs (the author) calling him out for making up his stories like James Frey because how can this be real???!!!! I also finished a book related to work: College of the Overwhelmed, and the second volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography, Gather Together In My Name. There are still too many books to read in the amount of time that I have in a day! I am on a mission to get through as many volumes of Ms. Angelou's autobiography as possible before she comes to town in February. My brilliant parents got me tickets to see her for Christmas! I went to see her a couple of years ago with Jean and I loved every minute of it. I wanted to be sure and see her again.

My break was refreshing and restful. There haven't been many vacations where I really just did whatever I wanted. I loved every minute of it. Now, I am back at work scrambling and trying to get ready for the students coming back next week. I am always filled with mixed emotions when they come back. I want to see them but I like the quiet. Back to work I go.