It's the most wonderful time of the year....

There is nothing better than the voices of children singing Christmas songs.

It makes going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark all worthwhile.

Simple

All it takes to make me happy is a paper umbrella stuck in a straw stuck in an apple. Oh, the ridiculousness that is my brain after working 12+ hours.

It can all change in a minute

Tonight, right after supper, we realized a house down the street was on fire. We could see the flames leaping up into the tall pines. It was horrifying to watch the firemen try to get into the house - it was totally engulfed. And we all feared the owner was inside as he pretty much never leaves the house.

After a few minutes, they got him out and rushed the stretcher to the ambulance. For a moment, he had a weak pulse. By the time the ambulance pulled off, we could see them doing CPR.

I hope he'll be okay.

Maybe a little sleep is in order

I volunteered today as a docent on a tour of lofts in my downtown. This is the view from the roof of the apartment I was working in. There was a big hot tub on the roof, too. Isn't it fabulous?!

Afterwards, I ran a 5K dressed as an elf. As soon as the race was over, I rushed home, showered, and went to dinner with some friends.

Now that sore throat that I was trying to ignore is really hurting. And I'm running a fever.

I don't like getting sick.

On the third day of Hanukkah

We finally decided to light the candles.

It was a different miracle of sorts.

Teamwork

Just for the fun of it... really to foster a sense of cohesiveness, I had my faculty reply on the faculty wiki with the one word they felt was synonymous with the word teamwork. Then I took all the responses and put them in a wordle to create a fun design and had it printed on a t-shirt.

The t-shirts came in today and the results were fabulous!

It was so much fun giving a fun gift to the faculty for no real reason. Giving really is the best gift of all.

Tall tales

At lunch, one of my students told me that he'd gone scuba diving and found five golden pirate coins. He went on to say that the coins were worth $1 million dollars each and that he'd bought a private jet. When I asked if he was sure, he said, "Okay, okay... really I only bought a car."

This kid just makes my day!