My School

The school I teach at is really remarkable. I thought I'd share some pictures I took of our new building. I also took some pictures of the building that I teach in. It once was a home to some wealthy people from Pennsylvania. When some of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart toured the property they saw a saying inscribed above the pool that read "The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the bird for mirth, one is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth". That did it... they bought the property and made it into a Catholic school for girls. The house is called "El Jardin", which in Spanish means "the garden". It's a wonderful place!

This is the new building from the outside.













This is one of the handpainted ceilings in the new building. Beautiful!

















This is a portrait of Mater, or Mary. This is hung in every school of the Sacred Heart around the world. It is modeled after a mural in a chapel in Rome. Ben and I saw the real one on our honeymoon. This one is special because of the background. It's like you're looking out of El Jardin.














El Jardin interior.



















El Jardin exterior.

Mommy, I want a doll for Christmas

If you ever need a way to silence that spoiled child, this is it. One gift like this and they'll never demand anything ever again ... or they'll become the most twisted child in the western world and make Damien from "The Omen" look like a bunny rabbit eating marshmallows.

It's a surreal art sculpture called a "toddlerpede" by Jon Beinart. Pretty weird freaky stuff. I'm thinking it would be a great replacement for those fake owls you get on top of buildings to scare pigeons away.

Plus, it holds your car keys!

Redneck Stuff

These are some pictures that made me smile. I thought the gingerbread house was so cute. These pictures are courtesy of my favorite (and only) sister, Stephanie. Thanks Steph!

Our New Seat

For Martin Luther King, Jr.'s holiday Ben and I both had off of work. So we thought we'd invite some friends over and grill out and play the Nintendo Wii for a bit. Ben was worried we wouldn't have enough seats for everyone, so he set off to get some plastic chairs for the occasion. Being in a one bedroom apartment severely limits the amount of "stuff" you can have. Boy, was I surprised when he came back with this! I think it looks like an Amish quilt box, so that's what I'm calling it.
So if any of you come to our place... rest assured you will have a place to sit thanks to my loving husband.

When the going gets tough...

Former California State Assembly speaker, Herb Wesson, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju in a spat over who has the biggest Star Wars collection.

There's more than one way to shine a politician's shoes. Hiyah!










I'm just glad buddhist's don't play poker!

Here's the complete story. An oldie but a goodie!

Picture Fun

I don't really have much going on right now, but I was looking through some of our old photos on our computer and I wanted to share them. I think they are very interesting. Maybe you will think so too! This one is of Ben jumping off of a swing at church. We took this photo on a cell phone camera. We entered two different contests with it and won a free dinner for four at a nice Italian restaurant in town!





This is a photo of when we visited Missouri. Ben ordered a tenderloin sandwich. Never in all my days have I seen such an intense sandwich.

This is a photo of some early graduates of the first Sacred Heart school in St. Charles, Missouri. We went and toured the school. The headmistress used to be a director at our school, so she showed us around. I think it's so neat how they dressed back then. This is later 1800's. These girls spoke French in the school.

This was taken at my parent's place in Alabama. These are hummingbirds. Don't they look like little tiny angels?

30!

Today I am entering a new era in my life... I turn 30. I feel truly blessed and just know my thirties are going to have many wonderful, incredible moments. I had a very good day. Ben gave me a very nice card and took me to see the Chihuly exhibit at Fairchild Tropical Garden. We took SO many beautiful pictures that it was very difficult to decide what to even post. I've been to Fairchild Tropical Garden before with my mom, but it's been maybe five years ago. The mixture of the glass art and the nature was just great. Dale Chihuly is the artist. He is THE major glass artist and his pieces go for a bundle of money. He lives in Seattle, but sets up his exhibits all over the world. You will see some examples in the photos.

You would walk along the path and suddenly come up to some glass art. Beautiful!

This next one is of Ben and I under a canopy type thing. Like my hat? Notice Ben's "John Deere" hat from Alabama.




I wanted to take my picture with these flowers. They are so wispy and pretty.

Look closely at the bark of this tree. It's called a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. It comes from Papua New Guinea (hope I spelled that right). Most Eucalyptus trees come from Austrailia, but not this one. The air changes the color of the bark from green at first, then it peels, and then to blue, and then it peels, and then to red. Never seen anything like it before!


This is a fun one. This is some of the glass art again. This piece is called Carnival Boat. Notice the iguana on the limb above the boat? We saw lots of them today... they give me the creeps. Apparently, they are really a big pain because they eat all the plants and stuff. I asked Ben why they don't just "accidentally" poison them.

These little onion shaped pieces are called Walla Wallas, but they reminded me of the candy from Willie Wonka. It was pretty.

This is a glass sculpture. One of the many on display. They say that you can come at night to the exhibit and they are all lit up. This sculpture weighs literally about two tons.

Barbeque by Mail ...

My mom was really generous this Christmas and sent us a huge rack of ribs by mail. The barbequed ribs and brisket were made in a restaurant in Kansas city that she swears is that absolute best in America. Well of course, Meredith has tasted some pretty fine BBQ in AL, so I think mom had something to prove.

The fact is - we haven't tried the ribs yet because they're going to take another 24hours to defrost. Why? Because they were packaged in dry ice!

Of course, I've never had my very own dry ice to mess around with so I was immediately more fascinated with the packaging than with the package contents. Here is a quick video we made of me experimenting with the dry ice... and you just thought you were going to read about barbeque here! Pretty exciting stuff!

(Please try to ignore the out-of-sync audio: our camera and youtube.com don't mix well).



Don't try this at home ... erm ... like we did!

Cooking in Winter

Ben and I decided that we would try out his Christmas gift to me- a pasta maker. I've never made homemade pasta before, but in the instructions it says that with practice you can make pasta like a real Italian! So here are some pictures from tonight's adventure with pasta making. The pictures really don't do justice to how it tasted. It was good. Oh, and also I will include my recipe for meatballs... they are good!



Pasta is made of flour and eggs and a little bit of water. Once you have the dough, you cut it into sections and make flat sheets. Ben liked this part.

















Then you run the flat sheets of pasta through the cutting part of the machine. We decided to make linguini style noodles tonight. I've seen on TV how cooks put their pasta in "nests" or little piles... so here are my nests.








Then, after boiling the pasta for 4 minutes, you mix with sauce and it's ready. Here's Ben giving his vote. When he saw this picture he said "now, why does my head and my fist look unusually large?" I thought it was funny.










Italian Meatballs

1 lb lean ground beef (I used ground turkey)
1/2 C Italian style bread crumbs
1/3 C water (more or less)
1/4 C grated parmesan cheese
1 medium onion
garlic (I eyeball it)
salt (I eyeball it)
pepper (I like pepper a lot, so I add a lot)

Mix all ingredients... not too much water, moist only
shape meatballs with damp hands and place on broiler pan, broil. (I use parchment paper too) Broil until slightly brown and turn. (about 4 minutes on each side... watch carefully because the broiler will burn them easily)
Add to spaghetti sauce and simmer at least 20 minutes.