Snow "rainbow"

This morning on our freezing cold, but very bright walk we saw a "snowbow". It wasn't really a bow, of course, but a reflection of the rising sun off the snow that ran in a line across the snow from the sun. I've never seen anything like it, and if I went back out there now the light probably isn't at the right angle. But we were walking south along the bike trail and across the snow to the east was this "snowbow" brighter in some places as we walked along. I suppose the brighter spots were where the snow was piled more loosely and the crystals caught the light better than the packed snow. I've looked and looked for images online, but don't see any. It was like seeing "sun dogs" but on the ground in the snow. Very beautiful!

New post at last!

Has it been nearly a week already? I go to my friends' blogs and don't see new ones, so I thought MY friends might like to read something new. Here you are folks!

Monday Will left for school. I don't know why, but I always have a meltdown after he leaves. I guess the holiday time is over and our family is spread out again. I also clean up after Christmas, put away all the decorations, vacuum, mop. Some of THAT is dealing with emotional energy, I'm sure. I did get out and have lunch that day with a friend which was a good thing!
The living room is all clean and tidy once again. These rosemary bushes....I don't know what to do with them. I've shoved them into the corner between the south and east windows hoping that they'll still get enough sunlight to keep them happy and still be out of the way.

Tuesday and Wednesday I finally got to sub at OCA. Ah, it's like being with family to get back over there. Wednesday was three periods for the history teacher. I like doing his classes because he lets me write lessons. So for world history we did Roman emperors from Nero to the five good emperors. I read a lot of Josephus the night before, so most of the lesson was on Vespasian and Titus and what went on in Jerusalem. Matthew 24 gives hints. Pretty awful during that seige. (And kids love to hear gory details!) American history was the Jackson era. The presidency took some interesting turns during his tenure. I loved studying for those lessons as well as teaching them. And I love those students there, too. I came home happy.

An interesting linguistic note. I taught 6th grade English first hour and the vocabulary lesson taught that "till" meaning "until" and "till" meaning "to cultivate the soil" are homonyms. I've never seen that first usage as a word in itself before, as in "I couldn't wait till Christmas." Is this a new development?

It's dark and cold this morning, think I'll read.

Caucus fever

Yes, we all have/had it big around here. We've been looking forward to the Iowa caucus for weeks. Besides being bombarded with Democratic ads by Obama, Edwards and Hillary on TV for weeks, we've also talked about it around the house as well. Will and Linnea fit neatly into the Obama camp of 29 and below. So they went to a rally in Council Bluffs while they were both at home, and they bought each other Obama stuff, like t-shirts and posters/bumper stickers. It kept conversation lively.

Thursday evening Will and a friend went to Carter Lake as observers (since we live in Nebraska). Will really enjoyed watching the whole process first hand. He said there were 171 people at their site. It ended up that 88 went for Hillary, 44 for Edwards and 38 for Obama. He probably was disappointed at the outcome at their site, but he was pleased that the state went for Obama. All of western Iowa was for Hillary. Don't know the reason for that. I talked to my mom this morning, and she had watched the whole thing from her living room. She doesn't like to drive at night so she didn't go, but people from her church were there, she said.

The whole caucus process seems so basically democratic. You know, meeting with friends and neighbors in the local school or someone's house, talking about one's decision peacefully. I thought it was interesting that Bill Bennett in his comments on CNN that night mentioned the unrest about elections in both Kenya and Pakistan, and then contrasted it to the scene we were seeing in someone's house in Persia, Iowa. How thankful we are for this country's way to peacefully transition power.

Gotta stop. Talking going on in the room makes it hard for me to think. Maybe more later!

My year in review

I meant to do this yesterday, but with running to the airport, cleaning up around here and getting ready for a night out, I never got around to it.

I was thinking of highlights of our year, and of course it centers mostly on family events, but there were other highlights not directly related to the extended family. Here are a few:(This took me hours to figure out how to do.With major help from "Yolie")

• Our annual Italian dinner on January 5th followed by Ellen's wedding on the 6th.

Will going to Slovakia to study for a semester was a big highlight for him.

The Cono choir coming to Omaha and our visit with friends there.

The BIG SNOWSTORM the first of March. I had a picture, but I can't find it right now.

Andrew's going to the state track meet and getting fourth place in shot put and then his graduation. (Guess that's two, but it's all about Andrew.)

Our family reunion in Minnesota. It was great to see aunts and uncles, cousins and all their children. The weather was gorgeous; the scenery was beautiful and the company couldn't be better! How blessed we are.

Dennis running in two marathons!!!! The first on his 55th birthday.

Al, my friend from high school coming to Omaha with his daughter for the homeschool volleyball tournament.

Thanksgiving at Ron's and taking Stephanie with us. I guess that was a milestone in Andrew and Stephanie's relationship--her coming with us and away from her family for an extended time!

Last highlight, was my dad's funeral. Another time for family and extended family to get together to celebrate the joy of eternal life and the promise of reunion. Another blessing of the Covenant, God's family covenant, that is.

In between were days of substituting, working in the garden center, taking short trips to Cono, Minnesota, Mom's and Ron's. Reading, card games and dinners with friends, sitting by the pool, working in the yard, shoveling snow and all those things that keep life going.

Looking forward to many good times with friends and family in 2008. Thankful that I don't have to fear the future, nor do I have to think that it is somehow out of God's control. God raises kings up and brings them down. We'll see what He does in 2008!

New Year's Eve (Hogmanay)

In Scotland New Year's Eve is called "Hogmanay". Isn't that a cool word? Wonder what it means? Yesterday was an interesting day. Linnea flew to Chattanooga at noon to spend her N.Y.E. with her friends there. Andrew went with the Thompsons to Missouri to visit their son. He wasn't too happy about spending his whole N.Y.E. either in the car or with people he didn't know, but he figured it meant a lot to Stephanie for him to go. They drove four hours down and four back. They didn't get home until 1:30am! I guess he wanted to be with Stephanie. He really loves the parties at night and had to miss out this year. Will stayed home and his friends James and Arliss came over. Denny and I met up with some church friends, played a rather interesting card game that changed rules every round. Kinda hard for my brain when the game started about 9pm! We did two sets of 6 rounds, changing teams according to which team won or lost. We lost both times... AND we had to have our spouse be our partner. Not always a good idea in our case! We all had a good time. Lots of good food and of course great conversation. Much to our surprise, we rang in the New Year at their house. The time flew by!

Nana's cookies...just like hers

I made my grandmother's cookie recipe today. Ah, they turn out just like hers. I used to walk into her kitchen and look up to the top of the refrigerator to see if she had these in a container. Soft molasses cookies. Yum. Linnea and Will made the dough in order to make their annual movie character shapes, but they never did get around to baking them. So now we'll enjoy them just plain round with sugar....and remember Nana.

Holiday get together

All throughout the holiday season I want to get together with various and sundry friends who live nearby. I always want to do more than I actually do. We have a quiet Christmas with no family nearby, so I like to get with friends. It took me several tries, but I finally got a group together today. It turned out that both families have ties to a church I went to while in college, Walnut Ridge in Waterloo, Iowa. John Meyer grew up there and the other family, the Hamiltons have a brother-in-law who went there! Small world. Connections. I had a good time, and I hope everyone else did, too. I made lasagne. That's easy to do ahead of time and then the mess is already cleaned up. We just ate the leftover Christmas candy and cookies that were around. The time is always too short, though. Good times. Good food. Linnea leaves tomorrow, sad.