Join the cloud.

The latest trend taking over my newsfeed: "My Most Used Words on Facebook" word cloud! If you can't beat 'em...

Ten things.

The latest Facebook meme: Little-known facts.

1. My all-time in-person game-watching record is 157-64-2. In DKR, I’m 116-38-1. For Texas-ou games, I’m 12-14-1. Of all those 223 games, you can probably guess which one was my favorite.
2. My mom was one of my kindergarten teachers. We lived in Premont, a tiny Rio Grande Valley town, and all the kindergarten kids rotated among the three K teachers in the afternoons.
3. In addition to being a minister, youth minister, deacon and elder, my dad was a song leader at our church in Tyler. I think that’s a big part of why I’m drawn to the AV stuff at Heritage.
4. When it was time to pick teams in elementary school, I was always picked first—if we were having a spelling bee or class review game, that is! Kickball, not so much.
5. As a senior I won the UIL state newswriting contest. I came away with a gold medal and a $4,000 college scholarship. For years my winning story was in the UIL journalism handbook.
6. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class. That achievement got me the chance to lead the pledge at graduation and a year of college tuition, but that’s about it!
7. Our high school band played in the 1983 Aloha Bowl (nearly 30 years ago! WOW!). It was a great trip, made extra fun because we could share it as a band. The fundraising effort was almost as cool as the trip itself. It felt like the whole city pitched in to get us to Honolulu. Then the summer before my senior year, I joined a group of American band students and performed all over Europe. Over the course of three weeks, we played in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the U.K. My favorite memory is talking to some Parisians after we played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” That song brought a couple of them to tears since it reminded them of when Paris was liberated at war’s end. My parents made a lot of sacrifices to pay for that trip, and I’m certain I never said thanks enough.
8. As a mom, I’m thrilled that both of our kids are in high school band. I knew that if they got half as much out of the experience as I did, it’d be worth whatever time and money it cost. And I can barely talk about seeing Ryan march in the 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade without choking up! I’m so grateful that Katie and I could be there to see them parade down Colorado Boulevard.
9. Now that my mom and dad have passed away, I’m struggling with a bit of an identity crisis. It’s like in that scene from Back to the Future when Marty starts to disappear from his photograph. There’s no one who truly shares my childhood experiences, and it’s lonely to carry those memories by myself. I anticipated profound grief, but I never expected to feel like I’m losing my history, too.
10. My husband’s my hero. But that’s not much of a secret, huh?

Perfect end to a perfect day.

This was the perfect Friday. In fact, it was so incredible, I posted this as my Facebook status:
Because Senior Project presentations were over, my students were in an incredible mood. But as relieved as they were, they were also grateful. I can't remember the last time I had so many students express their thanks, and it was humbling. I even received a note (you know, one of those read-in-case-of-bad-days notes) from a sweet student, and her words really touched me. The whole day was just a string of feel-good moments with my students, and it truly reminded me why this teaching thing is not just a job but a calling.

So to top of my fantastic day at work, we had our Friday Family Night dinner at Los Molcajetes and then took a walk.

And what a beautiful night it was for a walk!




Brett and the kids showed me a section of the park I'd never seen.



So nice to wrap up such a wonderful day with my favorite people in the world!

Busy birthday.

I began my 41st birthday with a yearbook work session. WOO-HOO! Just the way you want to spend your birthday: at work on a Saturday. It's yearbook season, and with our final deadline fast approaching, we really needed to spend some time in the lab today.

Leave it to my students to sweeten my day with cupcakes! "The orange is for UT, and the blue is just blue," my student told me. When I suggested maybe the blue could be FOR OUR SCHOOL, she quickly agreed. Too funny—and too sweet of her to bring the treats!

After the work session ended around 1:15, it was off to our city's rec center for a basketball triple-header:



Katie's team won one and lost one. With her two games complete, she was ready to conduct a little business. Last summer, inspired by Brett's fanzines, Katie created her own magazine. Today was its long-awaited release, and she sold three copies!



Her Retro Magazine was a hit! It includes several of her own articles and games/activities plus a couple of features submitted by her dad and Nana. Copies are only $1 if you'd like your own!

After that brief literary intermission, we were back to more basketball.


Ryan's team won their game by a lot to a little.

With yearbook and basketball out of the way, it was time to get down to birthday business! For the second year in a row, we headed to Razzoo's for some spicy Cajun cookin'.

Originally Brett and I had planned to go out for a date, but because the rest of the day had been pretty crazy, we instead opted for a family outing.





After dinner we went back home for cake.

My sweet kids, husband and mom all had special treats for me.

Does Brett know me or what?

And this? This cake made me laugh out loud! As a lifelong Cowboys fan, I never thought I'd see a Steelers cake in my house! (It's true, though; I'm rooting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl but only because of that team's three former Longhorns!)

Tonight, after our band had played a Guitar Hero gig, Katie asked me what the best part of the day had been. I honestly couldn't answer. It was a full day with students and family and basketball and dinner and cake, set to the soundtrack of my phone's rhythmic DING each time a Facebook friend sent me a birthday greeting.

The best part? I loved it all.

Facebook frenzy.

I've lost count of how many of my Facebook friends have posted their "25 Random Things." I gave in and used our "ice day" as an excuse to add my own list. Here it is in its Facebook form. I'm including the instructions since I reference them in #1.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. The parentheses within parentheses in those instructions really bug me.

2. I'm one of those grammar freaks who will notice errors like that, but I'm not going to call you out if you make that kind of error because we all make mistakes. And sometimes I like to break rules. Like putting periods at the ends of my blog post titles. And intentional fragments. So there.

3. However, I reserve the right to cringe if you misuse to/too or your/you're.

4. Outside of my classroom, I hate to correct people, even if they're mispronouncing my name.

5. My kids have easy names because I wanted to spare them the hassle of hearing their names mispronounced their whole lives.

6. My name is the Greek word for grace, and my dad picked it out after attending a sermon seminar about grace.

7. I miss Daddy.

8. We named Ryan after Ryan White, the kid with hemophilia who tried to enlighten people about AIDS.

9. We named Katie Katie just because we liked the name. (It also didn’t come with any negative connotations. You’d be amazed how many names were off the table because of former students who misbehaved!)

10. My mom is my hero.

11. I’ve been lucky enough to marry the man of my dreams twice. (Yes, both times I married the same man!)

12. Brett is an extraordinary husband and father who never fails to support me and the kids in our many endeavors. He saves my life every single day. And he cooks!

13. He also indulges my football addiction (or would that be enables?). In 23 years of buying season tickets for UT football, I’ve missed only four Longhorn games in Austin and one Texas-OU game. (I missed that game only because Katie was born five days prior.)

14. I still get goosebumps when everyone in the stands sings “The Eyes of Texas.”

15. I’ll never forget playing in the Erwin Center as a member of the Longhorn Basketball Band. I’ll never forget playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” for Parisians who remembered that tune from when allied forces liberated their city. And I’ll never forget playing “Mele Kalikimaka” with my high school band in the Aloha Bowl in Honolulu.

16. I was valedictorian of my high school class of 545, and I mention it here because being able to SAY I was valedictorian is about the only benefit that has come from that honor. (Well, there was that tuition-free year at UT.)

17. In 1986 I was the state newswriting champion. I won first place in the UIL 5A newswriting contest and “Tops in Texas.” I also placed fourth in the state feature writing contest. Because of that, I won a $4,000 college scholarship. Pretty cool.

18. I love planning trips almost as much as I enjoy taking them.

19. The Brady Bunch is my all-time favorite TV show. Seeing the Studio City home that was used for the show’s exteriors was one of the highlights of our California trip.

20. Lyle Lovett. LOVE him.

21. It freaks me out a little to see friends from all my "worlds" listed together on Facebook.

22. I love blogging. Since I spend a good chunk of each day reading others’ writing, it’s nice to get to express my own thoughts. And it’s so therapeutic! My scrapbooks may be woefully behind the times, but at least some of the thousands of photos we take have a home on the blog. While I keep the blog for my family’s sake, it still tickles me when someone mentions something they read on See-Dub.

23. I’m rooting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl because that team has three Texas Exes (Casey Hampton, Limas Sweed and Tony Hills) and the Cardinals only have one (Lyle Sendlein).

24. I’m a Christian and a Democrat, and I resent it when people assume you can’t be both.

25. I thank God for my church family, and I pray that someday we’ll find ways to employ everyone’s spiritual gifts to work together for God’s glory.