Teaching ... myself

 Wonderful, bizarre, heartbreaking, fulfilling, enlivening , beautiful, satisfying, disappointing, peaceful, stressful, unsure, secure, fun, happy... yeah, I think that pretty much sums up the holiday season for me.  It all began with exams...those works of wonder conjured up by the state to give a uniform standard of measure no matter what the cost - emotionally, academically, or financially.  And once again I got to watch students who know the subject well enough fail because they don't read/comprehend multiple choice questions real well.  And by fail, I mean that they pass the class and the exam but they don't score quite high enough on the exam to be given credit.  So they don't fail, but they do.  The system is bizarre and hurtful.  Oh, and did I mention that its kind of a ju - ju as to how the test is graded.  Some questions don't count, but no one knows which ones those are.  Its all a mystery wrapped in an enigma, balled up in a piece of toilet paper.  Its fr...

Don't laugh (well, try not to) - we cut the branches from a 3 year old hanging dead black locust tree (perfect wood - still in perfect shape after all that time) - I did it with Adia on my back and Zoe helped me drag the branches back to the house... in snow flurries. We peeled the branches and then "assembled" the tree in the basement. Wrapped it in lights and voila - Christmas spirit jumped into the house without the guilt of buying a pesticide treated tree that is polluting our groundwater. Thank you Jed and Deby for the idea. Ornaments are not on yet... more pics to come. The standing joke now is "who's go nna water the tree?" . . . . . . . . 1 day later. We put on the ornaments and now the Christmas Twig is complete. Pictures included in various formats for your viewing pleasure:) Pappy, Mimi and Morgan came up today we had a really wonderful visit. It was so great to see them again and reconnect. Me, Zoe, and Morgan went up on Bobcat hill and plastered...

Its been a great start to winter so far - as long as you like snow days and cold weather. I read today that this is the 3rd coldest November in the past 80 years here. Zoe, Adia and the dogs like it, though. We all went sledding the other day (on the same sled) and had a ball. Hardly anyone got hurt:) You can see Zoe and Riley in the pic with our newly-being-painted-except-for-this-cold-weather barn in the background. In triabetes news, Reid is into the Triabetes thing full bore and even got his triabetes blog up and running. http://trashmantoironman.blogspot.com/ He is trying to outdo Dave to see how far off the couch he can go - but he's got big shoes to fill. Rumor has it that Dave was interviewed for a story...about him...in the New York Times. I talked to him before the interview but I haven't talked to him since. I hear it will be out in early 2009. I'm pretty proud of those 2 jokers. Which reminds me - I am also proud of my chickens. Nice segway, I know. Of th...

All right. A lot has happened. And I am just going to give the condensed version or this would take waaay too long. First and foremost for us is that Ashley was diagnosed with a clot in her leg (saphenous from knee to junction with femoral). She worried she had a clot but had a devil of a time convincing doctors of that. After a few weeks of pain - it changed color and she once again called the doc and they said to go to the ER. After a very long time in the ER and very little sleep and an ultrasound, Ashley's worst nightmare had come true. Now I am not just joking about that. It really is her worst fear..and tornadoes. We would always joke about DVT (deep vein thrombosis) whenever anyone had a twinge of anything in their leg. Joke is on us, now. However, after numerous talks with doctors all over the place (we go to Asheville today for another) we have learned a few things. 1) don't joke about DVT - the universe has a sense of humor (2) DVT is not the guaranteed death we used ...