All Manner of Pressing Issues

I don’t know if I can handle the excitement of both of these magazines in one day!

Today during our writing time at school, my modeled writing for the students was about my run on Saturday with my friend, Laine.  I was about halfway through the story when one of my students in the back blurted out, “Is your friend really boring since her name is Lame?”

Some of you might remember that I am supposed to run a marathon this week. Thanks to some irritated tendons on the top of my foot and a cold that has lingered for a couple of weeks, that is not going to happen. I decided it’s best to skip this race and be ready for Spring races and next year’s Fall races.

Tonight my running buddies and I made a plan for our Spring and Fall running seasons:

March: Shamrock Half Marathon (Virginia Beach)

April: Country Music City Marathon (Nashville)

October/November: possibly the ING NYC Marathon… if not  NYC, we’ll do Niagra Falls (Ontario) OR (definitely not AND) Marine Corps Marathon (DC)

CAN’T WAIT!!!

Last night I got to go on a tour of the West Wing of the White House. One of my running friends is an attorney and is on assignment at the White House right now. She is quite the tour guide.  It was a great experirence. We saw Robert Gibbs. I failed to mention this previously, but one time when I was out running with my running buddies, we saw Rahm Emanuel. Back to the West Wing tour. I don’t have many pictures because pictures are not allowed inside. I really liked that though because it was more about the in the moment experience instead of trying to document the occasion.

On the walls of the hallways in the West Wing there are a lot of pictures and these pictures are changed weekly. There is a photographer that follows the President everywhere. There is one hallway that leads to the Vice-President’s office that has pictures of the VP, but the others are dedicated to the President. One of my favorite pictures I saw last night was a picture of the President and a little African-American boy in the Oval Office. The President was leaning down for the little boy to touch his head. The story behind the picture is that the little boy asked the President if the President’s head was like his.  That picture was powerful for me because I will never forget on inaguaration day this time around, when I watched the inaguaration with my students, I could look at every one of them and say, “It could be you someday.”

This is a cross-stitching project I started about 10 years ago. It’s been almost that long since I have worked on it. I am determined to finish it, so I got it out Friday night thinking I’d work on it for awhile. Well, I quickly realized why it’s been so long since I’ve worked on it. There are 17 DMC thread colors I need to purchase. It’s kind of hard to work on a project I don’t have the materials for! I did get to work on the bottom of Santa’s coat Friday night. It has been such a long time since I have cross-stitched! I really enjoyed it. I’ll have to go to the craft store soon to get the thread so I can finish this.

When the cross-stitching part is complete, the pieces will be transformed into pillows. That part I will pay someone else to do! Hopefully next Christmas we’ll have three pillows!

When Richard and I first got married, we decided not to get cable. I didn’t have it in my apartment and he didn’t have it in his apartment (neither one of us are TV people), so it just made sense that we wouldn’t get it when we combined households. As a matter of fact, when we lived in Little Rock, we didn’t even have a TV in the living room (which blew my students’ minds) or our bedroom (guest room only). For some reason, when we moved to DC, Richard decided we should get cable.  I know it made sense at the time–maybe something having to do with the internet or something–I don’t know, but nevertheless, we now have cable. I love having cable for a few reasons 1) Andy Griffith, 2) Friends/Seinfeld, 3) The Office, 4) College Football 5) MUSIC CHANNELS. I love the music channels. My favorite is the Soft Rock station.

I also need to tell you that since Richard and I got married, I have stuck to very hard and fast rules about celebrating holidays. I want to fully recognize Thanksgiving and enjoy that season before getting into Christmas. Our Christmas tree does not go up until after Thanksgiving (we at least wait until the kitchen is clean from the Thanksgiving meal). I do not allow anything Christmas-y to go on until after Thanksgiving. It takes a lot of restraint (for both of us actually).

This is where the confession comes in. For at least the last month I have been dying to listen to Christmas music. I ran across my Jim Brickman Christmas CD and was so tempted to listen to it, but I resisted and felt really proud of myself. Last weekend, I turned on the Soft Rock station on our cable and guess what? Y’all will not believe this (unless it has happened to you, too): THEY WERE PLAYING CHRISTMAS MUSIC! I was so excited! I mean I had not voluntarily turned on Christmas music, it was a complete accident and the Soft Rock people were twisting my arm to listen to “The Little Drummer Boy”. After one song I made myself turn it off. This weekend, however, I have to admit I turned it on voluntarily. I didn’t like the Christmas music they had on the Soft Rock channel, so I even went as far to turn it to the Sounds of the Seasons channel. That’s getting in deep. I don’t know if I can quit listening now. I may need an intervention in order to survive between now and after Thanksgiving. This music makes me want to put the Christmas tree up!