Playing Hooky With Abe

Tomorrow, I’m skipping school to go hang out with Abe Lincoln.

Actually, it’s for a really good reason. I’m taking my kids to Washington D.C. to see the monuments and museums. Sunday is West Virginia Day at the National Cathedral, and they’re going to be participating in that as acolytes (altar boys) so we decided to make a long weekend of it and see the sights.

Some people would take issue with me pulling my kids out of school for a little mini-vacation, but since nobody does the 5th-6th grade field trip to D.C. anymore like they used to, I thought it would be ridiculous to take them to DC without spending at least one entire day touring D.C.

I’m pretty excited about it, actually. Giddy, even. A day off, plus extra time with my kids, plus history plus art? It just doesn’t get any better than that. Well, actually, it could have been better — I’m missing the Edward Hopper exhibit by a week. Of course, I don’t know how much time we’ll have for art exhibits, especially since the kids aren’t quite old enough to really get Hopper, so I probably wouldn’t have gotten to see it, anyway. So it’s really better that it not be an option, because I would have to see it.

Mike is staying home with the baby, so it’s just the big kids, my Mom, and myself. As much as I will miss the rest of my family for the weekend, it’s going to be neat having the “big kids” to myself.

I’m finishing up my sub plans and then I’m outta here. See you all back here on Tuesday! I will probably post a photo or two.

This post is bananas!

… and so is my morning.

I was on my way to school this morning on Rt. 119 halfway between Spencer and Walton when I saw a guy pulled off on the right side of the road, in a really narrow place. One of my worst fears is of hitting someone who’s having car trouble (especially after reading Evil Twin’s Wife’s story yesterday) so my attention was on that side of the road, especially since there was really no room for him to park on the shoulder there.

In the oncoming lane, a guy was traveling at a pretty good click when all of a sudden, he decided to swerve into my lane to pull up behind the broken-down vehicle. He was going so fast that I really didn’t expect him to suddenly decide to drive the wrong way in my lane, and I was looking around the stopped vehicle, so we came thisclose to smacking head-on.

It would have been ugly. My 1998 Maxima -vs- his old-school Ford Bronco (made back when cars were heavy and everything was made of metal.)

I swear, the guy swerved so close, I think I felt our bumpers touch. I couldn’t find a mark on my car, so maybe it was my imagination, but it had to have been really close. I saw the accident start to occur and had come to the conclusion in my mind that I was going to die in a head-on collision today, listening to Grunt the Pig on the Bob & Sheri morning show, and having an especially good-hair-day. (At least I would have died laughing and happy.) I didn’t even have time to come up with a really good string of expletives, or to slam on my brakes. That’s good, about the brakes, because I probably would have hit the other guy or the rock wall to my left to avoid a head-on with Mr. SUV. I really don’t know how I avoided hitting anything, other than to assume divine intervention or some other unexplainable suspension of the laws of physics.

I swear, idiots should have to have a large insignia on their vehicles, sort of like slow-moving vehicles have those big, orange triangles. “Warning: This person has poor decision-making skills. Keep clear.”

Sheesh. And now to move on to the slightly less-nervewracking task of teaching teenagers.

Embrace

Midterms

I hate doing my midterm grades. I would rather figure out taxes. Seriously.

ROWR!!!

Dude! I’ve won an award for blogging! I am pretty stoked about this, because I’ve only recently started writing very much on my blog — it used to be mostly art and very little writing. So, yay! (See? I’m so eloquent that I can get by with gratuitous “Dude!” and “YAY!” statements.)

So, thanks a bunch to Evil Twin’s Wife from the blog The Glamorous Life of a Housefrau. She’s got a great blog, and if you don’t know her, you should check her blog out.

Now, I’m supposed to give three bits of advice to fellow bloggers and nominate 5 other bloggers that deserve the award. Here goes:

1. Don’t limit your topics to one thing. I started out trying to focus this blog on art only, but my life is all over the place, and so I felt like I was missing out by not writing about things I felt strongly about. While I do try to post an original photo or piece of art every day, I write about anything and everything. It keeps me entertained — hopefully, you enjoy reading about my crazy life, too.

2. Lern tu spel. Lern grammer, to. Really, it’s like hearing your favorite song played on an out-of-tune violin to read a great blog post with major spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not a language Nazi, and I’m sure I live in a glass house, but I do believe that everyone should have at least a passing understanding of the English language. If you don’t know how to spell a word, look it up.

3. Keep it simple. It’s a blog. Casual language is fine. It’s easier for others to read, and writing in a casual voice gives your posts personality. Conversely, writing in a more formal style makes your posts seem stuffy and it sometimes hides the simple beauty of your observations.

Okay, now for the hard part — nominating others! There are so many great blogs on my sidebar, and even more that I’ve subscribed to on Bloglines that I haven’t gotten around to linking to, yet. Here are the top 5 who come to mind:

Author Suzanne McMinn — her blog “Chickens in the Road” is dear to my heart because we are practically neighbors, but also because her blog is everything a blog should be: thought-provoking, full of useful information, humorous, and heartwarming. I love her writing style, but — duh — she’s an author!

Juanuchis’ Way — an awesome artist, all-around cool person, and fellow ‘Piskie! She writes about whatever’s on her mind, from art to news to animals. Her blog is always a good read — hilarious-yet-poignant stuff.

Don’t Print This — You probably read Bill Lynch’s writing in the Gazette, or in the Gazzblogs, but his personal blog is my favorite. Bill is an excellent writer, and he’s written some great posts about heartwrenchingly personal issues. That’s not easy to do!

Interview With The Chinchilla – I love interviews. I really, really love to read about other people and what their lives are really like. Mr. Chinchilla’s interviews are great because he asks the most interesting questions! I don’t have a clue how he types (do they even make chinchilla-sized keyboards? He must be a text-messaging wiz!!!) but there is always something great to read. And he’s just so darn cute, too!

Goat Rope — This one’s a new addition to my blogroll, but it’s quickly become one of the blogs I check first. El Cabrero has just done a series of blog posts centering around some central ideas of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” and is now writing about faith. From Sun Tzu to Philosophy? I’m there!

I only get to pick five to give the award to, but there are so many who truly deserve it. Hey, maybe these guys will pick some of the ones I wanted to pick, myself.

Making a Room Divider From Old Doors

4 old doors from the Habitat for Humanity Re-store: $100

paint: $50

hardware: $20

a space of one’s own: priceless!

My oldest son is eleven-going-on-fifteen. He shares a huge L-shaped bedroom with his two younger brothers and has been jonesing for his own room for a while, now. Building a new room is out of the question, but I came across the idea for a room divider a while back and thought that would work out perfectly!

I really wanted some cool vintage doors with panels in different configurations, but couldn’t find what I wanted, so I finally just settled on some plain hollow-core doors from the Restore. This worked out just fine for a kids’ room, because it has a really smooth, modern look. I painted them with shiny, primary-color paints, except for one door, which I painted with chalkboard paint. I then put the hinges on them accordion-style so the whole unit would fold flat against a wall when we need to open the area up. I attached leftover metal flashing cut into square shapes to the red door — you can use write-on/wipe-off markers on it and it also holds magnets! I am going to put hooks on one blue door, and maybe some cork tiles painted red on the second-to-last blue door. I’m also going to put a funky doorknob on the red door because the hole is already there.

It looks really good, it’s sturdy, and it moves easily so Isaac can have his “room” completely private or open it up all the way without much difficulty. I might attach one side to the wall if it gets tipped over, but it seems sturdy enough that it shouldn’t tip unless someone really gets a good run at it and knocks it hard.

He’s pretty excited about it. He’s still got a pretty good-sized man-cave back there, and the two younger kids have a regular-sized room, too. I probably wouldn’t recommend this for a smaller room unless you used something lighter, like screen doors with filmy curtains or something. This would be too imposing for a small room as-is.

Abandoned, Part II

Another picture from the abandoned church I shot yesterday.

I really wanted to go inside and take some pictures from the inside looking out through the windows, (I love these windows!) but the people who lived next door were eyeing me suspiciously. When I walked toward them to ask permission, they went inside and started watching me through the window. A weird reaction, for sure! So, I got outta there.

I am obviously an “outsider,” though — here’s what these people probably thought of me:

* I was not driving a pickup truck. In fact, I was driving a (gasp!) Japanese car.

* I was wearing a Charleston Catholic hoodie — Charleston = city dweller (scary) and Catholic = rich people cult, very much like Scientology, but with pedophiles (even more scary.)

* I didn’t have a single NASCAR sticker on my car. That could have bought me a little bit of credibility around here.

Of course, I am neither a Charleston resident, nor a Catholic (and the Catholic church is definitely NOT at all what people make it out to be) and I do know a good bit about NASCAR history, although I’m not exactly a fan. But they didn’t know that.

This experience really drove home the fact that, no matter how long I live out in the boonies, I will always be a “city person” to the locals. Not that that’s a bad thing — people around here love the outsiders just as much once they get to know you, but there’s always that delineation. You’re never a local, even if you live here your whole life. And it takes a long time and a lot of work to really be accepted around here. It has taken me since 2001 to start to feel like I really belong here, and the belonging part has really only happened within the last year.

The way I see it, though, I’ve got the best of both worlds. I work in the city, among the hustle and bustle of city life and gorgeous architectural treasures everywhere you look, but then I can go home and climb trees and catch turtles with the kids and not have to worry about letting them run free through the woods. I can have a cappuccino and look at art galleries during my lunch break, then stop and buy eggs from somebody’s house on the way home from work. I live the perfect life for me, long commute or not.

Although, next time I shoot this church, I’m going to drive there in my husband’s Ranger, wearing an Earnhardt shirt.

Abandoned

I have this obsession with finding and photographing abandoned churches and old schoolhouses that can only be rivaled by Suzanne’s obsession with outhouses. It’s something about finding something that has been such an important part of so many peoples’ lives, like a church or a school, just abandoned there to fall apart. I would love to know the stories these buildings could tell. I guess I’m a closet history nerd.

I’ve driven past this abandoned church on Middle Fork Road near Reedy, WV a few times, and have been taken by the country-gothic windows. I stopped today to snap off a few photos, despite the fact that it was so cold my hands were too numb to feel the camera. No matter– look at that gorgeous sapphire-colored sky! Blue skies and bright sunshine can be deceiving.

St. George’s

I love this building. It looks kind of out-of-place in Charleston, right next to the uber-boring architecture of the shopping mall.

I’m home sick… feeling horrible. I had just kicked the upper-respiratory funkiness that everyone in my home was passing around, and now I’ve got the sinus funkiness that everyone else is passing around. My head feels like it’s encased in a thick block of Jello. I would really like to go take a nap, maybe watch a good movie or do something that involves a minimal amount of standing upright… but it doesn’t seem likely. *sigh* Moms aren’t allowed to have sick-time.

Laundry calls…

Hey! I know these kids!

A student (girl) and ex-student (boy) of mine are having their first art exhibit opening today — 5:00 PM at Komax in South Charleston, WV (D-street.)

I’m not taking credit — the exhibit is of work created in an afterschool art program taught by local artist (and amazing person) Barrie Kauffmann. I am just really happy to see these young artists getting some exposure, and I hope they have a really good turnout for their show. They’re both super-cool kids and I know the art is going to be impressive!

I probably won’t be going … my daughter had ear tube surgery this morning (it went really well!) and we’ll most likely chill out at home tonight. I will be catching the show at some point, real soon, though. I am so proud of these kids!