July 20, 2008 by Jen.

These are a few of my favorite things about summer and about being a teacher in the summer! I highly recommend it!

1. Traveling around the world
2. Going to the beach
3. Sleeping in
4. Eating only locally grown, fresh produce from our local fruit stand
5. Mint iced tea
6. Reading books all day
7. Swinging in the hammock
8. The great western Maryland outdoors: hiking, canoeing, swimming in lakes
9. Ice cream: homemade, store-bought, roadside vendor
10. Lightning bugs in the evenings

Posted in Fun | 4 Comments »

July 15, 2008 by Jen.

This is just a test of something…

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

July 9, 2008 by Jen.

This is the title of the opening track on Coldplay’s new Viva la Vida album. I love the song, and it inspired me to play around more with Photoshop and collages. I love life!

Posted in Fun | 7 Comments »

July 4, 2008 by Jen.

Today Robby, Meredith, and I ran our 2nd annual Williamsport “Run for Freedom” 5K. It was lots of fun! We had to wake up early (ugh), but we’re feeling great right now! Robby and Meredith are great runners, and they both had excellent times. Meredith–like last year–won her age category and received a trophy! Great job! I’m feeling very proud of myself since I improved my time significantly over last year. My time in 2007 was 33:02. My time this year was 28:15. Five minutes faster than last year! Of course I’ve been exercising like crazy this year, and I’ve tried to do some good training over the last 2 weeks. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

July 2, 2008 by Jen.

I nearly always long to be traveling. Even though we just came home from a lovely 12 days in Ireland, I could quite easily pack up again and leave tomorrow to wander the world. I gain energy, insight, and oh so much joy from experiencing other places on this amazing planet that God created for us, and I have such a long list of locations I want to see or return to for further enjoyment. I found Billy Collins’ sarcastic poem to be a great description of my feelings on this subject this summer, and every summer!

Consolation

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon’s
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

Billy Collins

So, yes, I’ve become a little addicted to photo collages. Bear with me for a time while I get it out of my system. Perhaps the faithful few readers of this blog would like to identify the locations of all 16 photos. You have probably seen them all before in one forum or another.

Posted in Profound | 10 Comments »