FINALLY!!

we are moved in! we still have some knots to untangle (we had the escrow officer from h3ll and are still dealing with that mess), but we are sleeping in our new house and unpacking all our boxes. thank heaven.

*and* my mother and sister are coming to visit this weekend (and hopefully mil too), so we are going to barbacue and drink margaritas and daiquiris and have a grand ole time for the holiday. cheers!

i really hope...

... that our new church has a worship eagle.

the waiting is the hardest part

it is almost unbelieveable that we are this close to closing on our house - it was not so long ago that it seemed like eons before that house would be ours. and now it is imminent! i am so excited i can hardly sit still. i spent a marathon weekend packing while brian worked (poor baby) and am exhausted, but still insanely excited. just think, by this time next week, we:
- will be living in our new house
- will be unpacking all these boxes
- will not be commuting 90 miles each way to work
- will be doing laundry in our new washer and dryer instead of hauling it to the laundry room
- will be cooking in our new spacious kitchen
- will not have to coordinate morning showers, because we will have more than one bathroom
- will have space to barbecue on our back patio
- i could go on and on.

running to stand still

nothing interesting is really happening in my life at the moment - just work and driving and waiting for the house - unless you count running out of gas on the freeway the other night on the way home from work. so in leiu of anything interesting, i thought i would share what has been in my head lately: the song "running to stand still" by u2, from the joshua tree album. one of my all-time favorite songs, on one of my all-time favorite albums, and it's just so hauntingly beautiful the way bono sings it, and the lyrics are so heartbreaking.


and so she woke up, woke up from where she was lying still
said i've gotta do something about where we're going
step on a steam train
step out of the driving rain maybe
run from the darkness in the night
singing ha ah la la la de day
ah la la la de day ah la la de day

sweet the sin - bitter the taste in my mouth
i see seven towers but i only see one way out
you've gotta cry without weeping
talk without speaking
scream without raising your voice
you know i took the poison from the poison stream
then i floated out of here
singing ha ah la la la de day
ah la la la de day ah la la de day

she runs through the streets with eyes painted red
under black belly of cloud in the rain
in through a doorway she brings me
white gold and pearls stolen from the sea
she is raging
she is raging and the storm blows up in her eyes
she will suffer the needle chill
she's running to stand still

it was a pleasure to speak with you?

do i have a nice voice or something? someone who knows me personally, please let me know. i just got hit on, this time by a potential policyholder, a 26-year-old kid (well, i guess he's not really a kid, but whatever) whom i have never met - only talked to over the phone. the only other time this has happened (a year or so ago, by a man old enough to be my father), i had never met the guy either.

it cracks me up that this should happen, and kind of creeps me out a little. i'm not sure what to think.

happy anniversary!

no, not my anniversary (that's in august) though today is the one-year mark for our friends jimmy and nichole.

the man we are most proud of today is my amazing husband brian, who gave up tobacco and nicotine one year ago today! quitting was hard for him and i imagine it continues to be a struggle (especially with all our life stress lately), but he did it. i cannot even describe how insanely proud of him i am!

the keepers of our culture

the fort worth and las vegas school districts have started recruiting campaigns in california, aimed at luring away teachers - and our lovely state superintendent of schools jack o'connell just whines about it. he complained that it basically isn't fair for them to come in and pick off our teachers, because they make it sound like education isn't a priority in california.

hello?

am i the only one who thinks that he is out of touch with reality? i mean, when has education actually been a priority in california? it's not like the state schools (sfsu in particular) make it easy to get credentialed - it's a year and a half of full time grad school classes, and then a year of student teaching - unpaid, of course. if you're a normal (read: not independently wealthy) person, it's pretty difficult to live on that. after that, you get a job that pays a pittance of a salary, so you'd better have a spouse making some good money if you want to be able to pay your bills, because it's not like it's cheap to live in california.

oh, and then you have to deal with all the political crap (because, you know, education really ought to be a political subject). in the meantime, you also have to buy books and supplies for your students and classroom, because california schools are so chronically underfunded that they often cannot provide these things themselves. not to mention dealing with parents who just don't care.

no, we've certainly made education a priority. definitely.

* i admire anyone who has a passion and a desire to teach in this kind of environment, because you really have to have a calling to do it. i think teachers should be revered not only because they are the keepers of our culture and pass it on from one generation to the next, but because they do it in an environment that is so hostile to their profession.