insert really amazing title here

there is so much swimming in my head today i don't know where to begin.  it was a historic day, one where i'm sure that 10, 15, 20 years from now i'll still be telling my students where i was and what i was doing.  but...

i really wish that this day were historic for the sole reason that it marks the end of an eight year presidency for a man with a low approval rating, who did the best he could with the circumstances that he was given.  i do not agree with everything that former president bush did, i agree even less with much of what he said, however, only history will tell what his legacy was.  i do believe that he believed every second that he was doing the best job he possibly could.  we only know part of the story, until every american citizen is part of the daily briefings of the president, we have only the slightest ideas of the challenges this great nation faces.  i wish that this day were historic for the simple changing of the guard, the perhaps only temporary move from republican to democratic leadership, in all actuality, this peaceful changeover of power in many areas of the world would be a miracle - one that as americans we take for granted.  in the words for ronald reagan upon the occasion of his first Inaugural address:

To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

but no, while today is a historic day for all of the aforementioned reasons, for many today will be remembered as the day that america's first biracial, read: black, president took office.  it saddens me to think that today, in 2009, we are are not culturally able to get past the idea that a person is more than a color or a gender.  i am sad that as president and mrs obama stepped out of the protection of their armored car this afternoon, the newscaster on CNN remarked that it was a "brave" action.  at this day and age, many of us would like to think that we live in a period of acceptance and tolerance, yet this is not the case.  for our children, i hope that today's events will leave a legacy of open-mindedness and of hope.  that anyone can be elected to our nation's greatest office based on nothing but merit, achievement, and force of personality.  that they will truly be raised in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  

president obama has many challenges ahead of him, challenges not of his creating, nor challenges the sole creation of his predecessor; but problems nonetheless that will need to be dealt with swiftly and decisively.  history alone will be the judge of how well president obama rises to the occasion, tonight i add in my hopes that obama will not be judged a a great black president, but as a truly great president.

dear readers

i was just flipping through my sitemeter and saw that there a few ips that check in on a regular basis, including one in houghton.  come on all, make yourselves known, leave some comment love!

merry everything.

Guess the most common words in the English language

I got 47 my first time out.  How'd you do?

100 most common english words

Adventures in Home Improvement Warehouse Shopping.

Today Shannon and I hopped into Matt's new truck and set off on a mission to buy a sink and toilet. I've never driven the truck into the city so I was very nervous.

Stop 1: Target
Made it there in one piece and I love riding above the crowd rather than below everyone in the civic. We went perimeter perusing - Shan found a TP holder for $2.50 - woot! I printed off some pictures of the world's cutest 1 year old and picked up some new method aroma pills in citrus cilantro. They make the house smell so clean, I love it! Actually I love pretty much anything method makes, good for the environment and it smells good. Check it out. www.methodhome.comStop 2: Home Depot

I knew I wanted to pick up the sink today and thought I was going to buy the toilet and I wanted to use my free $50 gift card I got for test driving a Toyota Tundra. Adventure #1 finding a cart. Apparently they horde the big flat bed carts and you have to hunt for them.

off, they wouldn't match it. So the mean lady left us and we went to look at toilets. I agonized over which to buy. Shh...don't tell, but I actually looked at reviews of the two that I liked online to make sure they flushed well. I decided not to buy it now and went off in search of the rest of the list Matt gave us, which included 12 - 10' sections of pvc conduit and 2 giant bags of cement. So we hunted down the cement - I used my brawn to heave the 94 pound bags onto our cart (no strong men around at that point) then went off in search of conduit. Found a cute sales boy whoWe finally hunted down the cart and headed back to the fixture section. I found the sink I wanted (see picture a few posts down) and the base was on sale! Sweet - I didn't have to make them price match Lowes. But the sink was $20 more than Lowes and because one number was pointed us in the rightish direction and we piled the conduit on. The question became how do we maneuver the cart because I decided that I did want to buy the toilet after all. So I straddled the 4' pipe overhang and the handle end. Sure straddle the pipe and 2 men come running over asking if I needed help. I think they had pipe envy, because mine definitely won :) They asked what we were building...A dollhouse? Um, no buddy. I'm old, building a house, that's why I'm carting around cement and piping. Anyway he let me leave my cart with him while we went on another hunt for gold...er a flat cart. Found one, and had one of our pipe envy guys call ahead to have someone lift my potty.

Uh oh. It's the same lady who got annoyed when I wanted her to price match for me. Um, I just had a strong man, why can't he do the lifting? Whatever. I make up my mind to get the one with better reviews and she loads it onto my cart. Just as she got it loaded on, she noticed a scratch on the bowl. She made to take it off and get another...so I asked if I could have a discount if I took it! She rolled her eyes at me but I scored 10% off! Woot.



Made it to the checkout and even managed to back the truck to the loading area without hitting anything (score!) and helped a little kid load the truck. Find that the conduit does not fit in the truck bed and I didn't bring the straps. Crap. Good thing I had the Cheese with me, who suggested opening the back window and shoving them through. Crisis averted.

Stop 3: Lowes

I left Shannon in the car to guard my pooper while I ran in to grab the sink basin. I had to wait for a guy to pick it up for me (holy heavy batman!) and I ran up front. Then I felt the ominous buzzing in my pocket, it was Shannon, someone had hit the truck! Oh crap, Matt's going to kill me. Sounds like someone pulled in too close and bumped it, gave Shannon quite the shock, but everything was fine. Phew. Get off the phone and realize that hey! I'll be Lowes will match HD's price on the base. So I went back and had the guy load on the base. Go back up front to find that yeppers, they can price match, so I saved another 10%.

Stop 4. Home Depot
Get back into the truck and decide that since we're already in town, we should go to HD to return the sink base. Drive over there, figure out which base came from them, and leave Shan to guard the goods again. Wait 10 minutes for someone to take care of the guy in front of me, and return the sink that I bought there 45 minutes ago. I should have told the girl that lowes had it cheaper to see if they would undercut themselves. Oh well not that smart.

Finally made it home 4 hours after I left but I have bathroom fixtures that I love. Life is good.

Is this for real?

When did I become a grown up? Was it when I received my college acceptance letters? The day I graduated from high school? Perhaps the day that Matt asked me to marry him? Was it the day that we walked down the aisle? How about moving in together? Could it have been when we packed up and left for Houghton? The day we moved home forever? Perhaps the day we bought our land, or the day we took out a mortgage? Weird. After all that and I still don't feel like a grown up. It's weird. I have a husband, I have a couple of degrees, I have a dog, I have bills, and yet deep down, I wonder when I turned into a grown up.

Today, as alway I was amazed when I walked into my old high school; as an employee not a student and said hello to the other teachers, greeting them by their first names. You know, I think that's when I became an adult. I was teaching summer school when one of my colleagues said "you know Vicki, the world will not end if you don't call me Mrs. Smith." And you know what, I called her Carol and the world didn't end.