somebody needs a haircut & a bath....

I wish I had a better singing voice...

And I wish I had recorded some of the music back at our old church.

I was looking for the Scooby Doo laugh and stumbled across some site that has muzak sounding recordings of Christian songs... and I found "Ancient of Days." It is one of my favorite songs at PFC. I couldn't quite remember the lyrics so that prompted another search. Then voila!

So, just ten minutes ago I was singing to this with the lyrics from here. And thankfully Shane is a wonderful husband, person, all around nice guy... he didn't outwardly cringe or laugh at my singing!

I wish I had a better singing voice
.... so that CHispita wouldn't look at me crazy when I sing...

Yes, she actually looked offended at my singing. Or confused. :P

How's the weather

It may get cold here in Blacksburg (freezing rain today). But I take comfort in the fact that I don't live in Barrow, Alaska where they can look forward to a high of -13 today.

Snow in Blacksburg, whodathunk

Here's a video Jessica took of a snowfall last month. There was a bigger one since then.

So Valentine's Day occurred sometime last week...

Shane and I went the undtraditional route (there were no flowers, candy, special dinner date...and so on). Instead over a month ago I signed us up for a couple's massage class. It took place on two consecutive Friday nights (the Friday before & after Valentine's Day). It was great. There were about eight couples in attendance; all ages (college age- retired age). It was really cool. I learned some new things and better techniques, too. I think that was the best Valentine's gift we could get each other; a gift that lasts longer than one day! I highly recommend it to all married people.

Over the weekend we celebrated one of my new friend's birthday. In total there were seven couples of which five have kids. They range in age from infant to about 11 years old. It was a mad house! We should've requested a banquet room/area- we were a rather large group. Then the funniest thing, to me, was that Shane was the only "non-hispanic" in the group.

Sometimes it feels like we are being "immersed" in the Latino culture like never before. Being from LA we we've been exposed to a lot of people from many different cultural backgrounds and such, but for the most part we hung out with "Americans." "Non-Hispanic-White" Americans, Mexican-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans, African-Americans, Ecuador-Americans.... mostly born and raised in the US. (Of course, Shane was exposed to more non-Americans through his job/school. But not so personally.) Here, though, we are getting to know these families in a personal/familial way. So, Shane told me "funny how you found this here in Blacksburg."

My new friends are Mexican, Colombian, and Puerto Rican. They are amazing women that are here because they, too, followed their husbands. They followed them to, of all places in the whole world, this small town called Blacksburg. Their husbands are here either for work or they're VT students pursuing a PhD (one is a post-doc). The ladies are all college educated as well. It's funny because we talk a lot about adjusting to being housewives and such. I suggested we start our own reality show called- "The Real Blacksburg Housewives!" We are far from desperate, but definitely have some interesting tales to tell. (Sometime last week I realized that at least 50% of my conversations are in Spanish. I use Spanish more than ever that, even when I am home alone, I find myself thinking in Spanish!)

Well, anyhow. It was great to hang out on Saturday. That same day we also went to B&N and bought some Spanish vocabulary flashcards. They came in handy yesterday. Since it was windy, sometimes it would snow, then it'd be just cold.... we stayed in. We spent some time with the cards. I was surprised at how many words and phrases I know. There were plenty words I have never heard, and some that I've just never seen written. It's cool that while Shane quizzes me he also learns some new words and uses (sometimes he'd ask me to use the words in a sentence. Pretty cool tool.).

Well, Happy Monday.

Check out this video .... of a dog wearing shoes. We aren't the only sick people that get enjoyment out of accessorizing our dog. This video is hilarious! That is exactly how Chispita walked when we first put her SuperDog booties on!

Our first YouTube video upload

Chispita is a sad dog in this, her video debut, but why? Maybe it's that ridiculous outfit she's wearing!

Sub Rosa

This short film was made by my brother-in-law Chris for a short film contest run by Steven Speilberg. The goal is to find promising young filmmakers.

You can comment on the video here.

some pics

-This is where we went playing in the snow. You can see our footprints and the tracks we left behind where we sled. I took these pics the morning after we went playing.

-I find it incredibly beautiful to see the ice on the trees. When it's sunny out all the trees are glisteny. I always wondered why people put tinsel on their Christmas trees. Now I know why. Because that's what it looks like- glittery and shiny.

-Chispita is not too happy to wear her SuperDog booties. We got them a while ago- before we actually truly needed them (when we were still in CA). I thought they were funny, but now they are necessary. With the salt they put out in our sidewalks I was having to wash her paws every time she went outside. She isn't used to wearing them but I will keep putting them on until she gets the picture.

(Click on the pictures, for a more close up view.)

Are Atheists Victims of Discrimination?

Depends on what you mean by discrimination. Read the article.

Here's an excerpt: 'If by discrimination we mean drawing distinctions at all, then I think most Americans do “discriminate,” and rightly so. Religious belief and practice aren’t like being born black or white or brown or yellow, or male or female. They’re not biological realities beyond the reach of choice. How one views the nature of the universe, humanity, and man’s place in the cosmos–the biggest of life’s big questions–should, like any major choice, have enormous implications for all aspects of life.'

By the way, Princeton is mentioned as particularly non-anti-atheism for all you Princeton fans out there.

Hello

Cool world! We saw run lola run and it made me decide never to use punctuation ever again hehe jus kiddin ill still use correct speling wen kneaded. u r ok? c u l8rz r0dent d00d

Here is that same commercial...

Not as clear on youtube.... but just as funny!

This crazy house!

Okay, not this crazy house.... it's more like,
THIS HOUSE IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!

This commercial kinda describes my experience (Shane and Chispita, too). It is too funny! Check it out.

His and Hers...

Yesterday afternoon we got snow... lots of it. Within an hour, I would guess we got about 3 inches. By morning it grew to about 5 inches. All day I was tempted to go out and play in it. I had my lady friends over all afternoon, so I couln't do it. When the last one was leaving she told me was heading to the thrift store to go see if they had any snow sleds. She invited me, so we went on a wild goose chase. Okay, not so wild. First, the thrift store was closed. So, then we headed to the Family dollar store. They didn't have any. The last try was the market next door. We saw these beauties the second we walked in the door! She bought one, and I bought two. One for Shane and one for me.

When Shane got home, we ate dinner pretty quickly then headed out the backdoor! We went across the street to the church lawn. Yes, a church lawn. It was pristine clean snow. Noone had dared all day to break it in. Since it was dark out noone saw us or chased us away. We played in the snow for about a half hour. It was a workout! Now we are back in our warm and cozy home.

More pics from Sedona...

The day I set out to explore.













I went up some road to see if I would end up at the foothill of what I think is called the Coffepot.













This is another day. I took Shane to check out the Shrine of the Red Rock. The mule deer were still hanging around and Shane got a better picture of them.














Shane found this place. Too bad it was closed. So we couldn't take a picture of our aura.


















This was the view from our hotel room.














I took this one on the first day of exploring. I just love it. I should blow it up and make a poster of it!














After the rain stopped and the sun came out for a minute, I took this picture the afternoon we left Sedona.

We are baaaack...

Sedona was a lot of fun. I didn't do what I thought I would do (read/draw...). Instead I went out exploring. I took off to check out what they call "Tlaquepaque.". It is a shopping center that was designed to look like an actual small town/district in Mexico by the same name.
Now I can say that I have been to both. I prefer the original Tlaquepaque because they have good Mexican food there.


















Then I went to look for a vortex... apparently one of several. I heard there was one near the airport mesa. Once there I got to this spot called the "Shrine of the Red Rocks". As far as feeling any type of energy I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. Later I figured out that I wasn't really near a "vortex." It was down the hill on the other side of where I was standing. Oh well. It did have a really good view of the city and the beautiful mountains across the valley. The best part was spotting some mule deer nearby.
















They are sitting under a tree (see the middle part of the picture).