Frolicking Fairy

Trinity finished painting this last night for her great-Granny B (my grandma) for Christmas.

Not too shabby for a 13 year old!  We're still debating the title of the painting.  I said "Frolicking Fairy" (can you tell I'm a sucker for alliteration?), Trin said "Fairy" (try not to be overwhelmed by her cleverness), and Clint said "This Fairy Blows".  Um, bubbles.  Since all of our ideas suck (or blow), any suggestions you might have are welcomed.

Oh, I finished my peacock painting, which I'm giving to Teri now because she really wants it and I don't really have any connection with it.  It came out pretty, but the peacock is just standing there, posed on the canvas, when I'd like to have something with a little more energy or motion displayed in my home (like the one illustrated above).  I'll post a picture of it on my other blog later once I've recovered from the holidays.

Speaking of, I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow!  Sorry for this very un-Christmasy post.

Staring at the Ceiling

I think I must post this on my blog every year...this is my all time favorite not-really-a-Christmas-song Christmas song:

Maybe by the time I post it next year, there will actually be a decent lyrics video to go along with it.  Everything I found was mushy and full of fireplaces and hearts.

I can't make up my mind about this next song.  His voice has an interesting quality and definitely isn't what you'd call 'manly.'  But the song has been sticking with me since the very first time I heard it, so I think I must love it.  It's not a Christmas song at all, but he does mention snow, so close enough.

There's quite a few parallelisms between the two songs, actually.  They both mention dimly burning lights and empty glasses.*

*(The rest of this post has been deleted because...well, it was just me lamenting)

Language-Hugger

I just saw a commercial for the La Cordon Bleu Culinary School that got me thinking about the English language.  The commercial displayed a close-up of a cell phone receiving a series of text messages trying to persuade the viewer to join the Cordon Bleu institute.  It went something like this:

Hey U!
Y RU sitting on UR couch?
Don't U know that La Cordon Bleu Culinary School has over x amount of classes 2 choose from?
Isn't that gr8?
So get started 2day!

I think I cringed more during this commercial than I did when Trin and I had to clean out my hen's injured butt.  The thing is, ever since the influx of texting and social networking, us Language Arts teachers have been fighting a losing battle to preserve the integrity of the English language.  Unfortunately this new generation is so saturated with texting lingo and acronyms and shorthand that not only is cutting corners in writing the norm, but many kids don't know any other way to write.  On the other hand, I text entire paragraphs, which has got to annoy the hell out of people.  I use complete sentences, commas, apostrophes--the works--and I'll tell someone that this or that was "hysterically funny" or actually type out "haha" in lieu of LOL.  Heaven forbid you're not on Verizon, lest my one text comes to you in three or four segments.  Yeah.   So you can imagine how much phrases like isn't that gr8 just gr8 on my nerves.

But the question I have been asking myself lately is, do I need to just let it go?  Is this really a bad thing, or am I acting like the traditional ole' grandpa who refuses to use an ATM machine because he likes doing things old-school?  When you think about it, language has never been static.  Since the beginning of time language has been in a state of perpetual evolution, with new words and phrases--slang or otherwise--added to our lexicon every year, and older words such as "jirble" and "beef-witted" becoming obsolete.  Texting, e-mailing, and social networking have simply launched our language's most recent set of adaptations.  We live in a fast-paced world that no longer has the time or the wherewithal to communicate through eloquent expressions and long passages of writing.  Maybe it's time for me to quit being such a language purist and just deal with that fact.

Yet the moment I try to adjust, I'll come across an old historical document, or a diary entry from the past, or a letter.  The way people used to communicate was so beautiful and so right.   How can I let that go?

The answer?  I won't.  In the same way some people insist on listening to their music on vinyls or refuse to let the tradition of the quill pen die, I can't 'evolve' myself into a creature that writes "CU later" when I've experienced and loved language at its fullest.  But maybe our world was meant to be equipped with obsessive preservationist like myself.  Without us, things like record players and calligraphy sets and pocket watches would go extinct.  Someone needs to tell the future generation what the word 'flabbergasted' means or defile the laws of texting by throwing in the occasional adverb....Why can't that person be me?

A Post of Excuses

Ditto what Jodi said! Every day this week, I have felt like I need to write a post about our vacation, but there is just SO MUCH. I do not know where to begin. And Jodi is absolutely right- our pics are inconveniently scattered among several cameras. Sadly, the pics I have on my camera are very few. Even worse, an entire island isn't even on a camera at all, but is still on a CD we had to purchase for $40 (we couldn't take our cameras because we were kayaking and snorkeling). To further complicate things, I am having a hell of a time uploading pictures at all onto this blog. Egh!

By the way, GETTING to our cruise ship was the WORST travel experience in my life. Jodi will confirm this.

I will try and write a decent post about our vacation this weekend (I was secretly hoping Jodi would beat me to it). Maybe I will just do bullet points or something.

Back from Paradise

Shan and I were officially home from our cruise late Saturday night (more like Sunday morning), but I've been avoiding our blog because I'm overwhelmed by the idea of writing about our week.  It would take pages to describe ONE day of the cruise, let alone the whole eight days.  Plus my pictures are still spread amongst five different cameras, and since I'm not on facebook anymore, it's going to take awhile for me to wrangle some photos to post.  Basically the cruise was amazing, but blogging about it right now sounds like a big fat chore.

So until I get around to doing a real entry about it (feel free to step in here any time Sho), here's a 15 second video clip of us girls playing on the beach at Atlantis (Shan in gray, Mom in blue, me in red).  It was stormy that day, but my mom labeled this afternoon on the beach as one of her most memorable moments of the whole cruise.