Isn't it pretty? I love how pretty this mountain can be, especially with sunrises and sunsets.

Note the road. Yes, I prefer to drive this way. Yes, I got stuck once trying to come home this winter on this road. I was driving and then the car started sliding and pretty soon I got the car perpendicular to the one lane plowed out on the road. My dad and a brother came and helped dig me out. Yes, it was in the dark. Of course. But this picture is from today! And I didn't get stuck today (though I did miss a turn onto a different road because I tried to slow down, but should have started sooner, because it was icy and the car started slipping, so I went on straight and turned around a little farther on).
Here is a picture to try to show how much snow we have left. Not really too helpful, because some of the snow is from shoveling off the driveway. Recently it has snowed a little, which is why the driveway and the road above are so white.

Ah, beautiful. Sunset time.

I have taken my mid-term exam for my missions class! That is very nice to have finished. Now I think I will do fine test-wise for this class (though I don't have the results back yet from the exam). The remaining wild card for my grade is the paper I need to work on (but not today!).

Friday :)

Another work week has been survived! I'm still coughing, but I think less today than yesterday. Who would have thought that working with children could actually separate you from children (thinking of the baby twins I want to see, but I don't want to cough on).

No pictures for today's entry. Just words.

It has been an interesting week. I've been thinking. (Haha, are you surprised?)

I've been thinking I've seen the New Perspective on Paul again, in something I read. I've been thinking about how serious is it. I've been thinking about how to respond. It really is an idea set (you can look it up on the Internet, info for and against it), and I really disagree with it.

And I've been working. Overtime. Art of the week: Monday, paint with fingers. Tuesday, I forget. (Or did I forget Monday and paint Tuesday?) Wednesday, paint with watery watercolor and paint brushes (actually, I still haven't finished cleaning up from that). Thursday, crayons. Friday, markers.

Now... wash dishes maybe?

On Tuesday (if I have the day right), I took a picture from a wide place on the dirt roads on my way home from work.

On Thursday, I worked later and stopped at the Library to drop off books, CD, and video (and then I picked two new books), but I took a picture from the same stretch of road.

Then today, I got off work really delightfully early (I've been sick all week and working late and today was able to leave early). I took another picture. My hope was that the pictures would show a little of my life and would show how the road conditions on the back roads are changing. Maybe you can see between Tuesday and Thursday that there was melting. Maybe you can't, but it seemed like it to me.

Anyhow, I went home and slept! So nice.

Reading somebody else's blog. Somebody who was out of the States for a year-ish and came back. Somebody who dared to have a posting about being homesick (for their out of the States location).

I look American, because I am American. And English is by far my most fluent language. But I wanted the speaker at my class to speak in Spanish. Even though I wouldn't have understood it all (might have missed ALOT). But he spoke English. Duh. It's an American class with American students (he may not even know more than a few words in Spanish, if that). But somebody came and sang a song in some language that was not Spanish or English.

Advice for the teacher of 1 (to early 2)-year-olds

1. Rice (originally) placed in the sensory table makes a fabulous (and hazerdous) mess, especially if you haven't established pretty good classroom control yet. Rice scattered liberally accross the floor by young hands enables people to slip more easily.

2. Cottonballs sound much cleaner, and are, but don't overlook the fact that they can be ripped into smaller (messier) pieces.

Sunday

Tropical plants that I got Monday (Picture from Tuesday or Wednesday?). One of them wasn't looking so good anymore yesterday and today.

The rest of the pictures are from today.

Ruffy's King of the (a) snow mound.

See the fence? Yeah, I mean that lump of snow in the middle. There should still be a fence underneath it, though it is covered in snow. The fence is fairly straight and it's snow image shows up nicely, I think. Also note the sunlight on patches of snow. Pretty sunshiney moment.

See? Blue sky! And snow :)

Bella laying on a path. Again, note the sunlight and blue sky. It was wonderful!

And this is after/during the warm time when things seemed to be melting, but it looks like we still have enough snow!

Today was a lovely Sunday, to a large extent. Having missed work the day before because I decided against driving through about a foot of snow that was a bit heavier than the fluffy powder we had earlier, I really wanted to get to church today. I thought it was important. It was.

Sunday school... Ephesians 3 and 4. I had looked over the chapters earlier, which was good because I was really late for class. They are good chapters. I am inspired. Read them and be inspired, too. Be new in Christ! This is how I plan to get through the week. Learning to be new in Christ. The internet is being trouble right now, and my goal was to get to bed by 7:00... hmmm.

And the main service at church, and talking to people, and I was encouraged.

And the sun shone! And I saw blue sky! And I drove about 50 miles per hour! (i.e. I was somewhat confident - though still a little concerned - that I wouldn't spin of the road because of ice or snow!)

[more] snow

Here are some pictures - I think my mom took them all. After the ~3 foot snow last week, it has snowed off and on, typically with some kind of weather warning, antisipated or currently occuring, reported via the internet. This last night and morning, we got another foot or so. But it is warmer now, and this snow is heavier than the multi-foot powder snowfall.