Memory Lane

On Meghan's blog, she's doing a do-it-yourself series, and one post was about cutting out magazine pictures and gluing them to poster-board. Her project triggered a memory I'm reposting here:

When I was Xan's age, I had a composition notebook full of magazine pictures that my parents had helped me cut out and glue to the pages, and I loved looking through the book later. You could tell what pages Mommy helped me with and which ones Daddy helped me with, because Mommy's pages were full of babies and dollies and Daddy's pictures were of rootworms and lambsquarters.

I wish I knew what happened to it.

Bor-ring!

I need to get in the habit of posting, even when I think I don't have anything interesting to say. I don't know why I feel I can't inflict pointless ramblings about my life on the internets, just like everyone else. At least I do it in complete sentences.

I feel like I'm contstantly working out. I've resolved to go to all Tae Kwon Do classes between now and Testing, because I was out of the habit and I'm planning on finally testing for my first degree on the 12th of December. I go to the gym three times a week plus two TKD classes and two teaching classes and I don't know how people get up the motivation to work out every day. Every day! This schedule is killing me: I'm so hungry I can't stand it and I'm sleeping like a log.

Last football game is on Friday, and I'll be pretty glad when it's over. The last one was cold (but knocking off undefeated Penn State was worth it), and this one is supposed to be colder. Six layers of clothing may not be enough this time.

No news on the teaching front, but we'll be having an instructors meeting sometime soon. Establishing expectations works for adults, too.

I'm in the process of making Hayden's Christmas stocking. It's the first time I've worked with multiple colors, and I'm pleased with the way it's turning out so far.

Two weeks until Thanksgiving! Hello, pie!

Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood

I am proud of America today. I am proud that America had the guts to elect a president it deserves: a man who is intelligent, compassionate, and representative of the America we all want to be from. This man, a man of mixed race heritage, a man who forty years ago would have found it difficult to vote, has become president in a sweeping election.

I think that Obama's election is one of the most poignant illustrations of the progress we have made in attitude in this country. I don't mean to imply racism is non-existent, because I still see it. But when you can look at this election and see that we do live in a nation where a presidential candidate is judged not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character...well, I think Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights activists of the 1960's would say it is no longer merely a dream.

My hope for America is this: that the record voter turnout renews an enthusiasm for civic contribution. That America is known for its compassion instead of its aggression. That we can come together and solve our problems with that "can do" spirit. And most of all, that this election is the catalyst for a new era of American idealism.

God bless the USA, and God bless our new president.