Hopeful Thoughts

It’s been too long since my last post. You’d think that with three days off of work last week due to the Swine flu that I would have had time to post. Here’s a few interesting items from the three weeks since my last post.

This is the Ethiopian restaurant Ryan and I went to with some friends last weekend. We decided almost two years ago that we were going to get together with these two other couples and eat foreign cuisine once a month. We went out for Indian, had a great time, and didn’t every schedule another food date until now. This time we scheduled the next location and date while we were still sitting at the table at Queen of Sheba. Next month is Texas de Brazil for “beef on a sword” according to the men!

We ordered sort of a sampler of a few different items and they brought it all out on a large tray for us to share. The food is served with a crepe-like bread and you tear it off in small pieces and use it to pick up the food. The entrees were pretty good, but, unfortunately, most of us didn’t care for the flavor of the bread. I think I would eat here again, but use a more traditional fork so as to enjoy the flavors of the meats and vegetables without the acidic flavor of the bread.

The week following our food adventure will most likely go down as one of the biggest over-reactions in public school history. In the wake of the Swine flu scare, just as reports are coming out that it’s not as bad as they thought, my school district decided to close for a week. Don’t get me wrong, I like to have time off work as much as anyone, but this seemed a bit extreme. We’re worried about the kids getting sick, so we’re going to close schools so that the kids go hang out at the malls and movie theaters instead? It only got worse when our district decided mid-week to RE-open, but excuse the absences of students who couldn’t make it since many families had to take their kids out of town to find child care. At the high school level, this simply meant two more days off. I had to go to work, but less than a third of my kids showed up. So how much instruction do YOU think happened?

At any rate, I did get three days at home. I spent two days with my friend Bethany (check out her blog on my side bar). On Wednesday, I made wash clothes and burp clothes to post on my Etsy site. (Which I will do as soon as we have a sunny day on which I can take better pictures).

Here’s an up-close shot of my crafts. The burp clothes are made from a large pre-fold cotton diaper that I ordered from here. I washed them hot to shrink them up and then stitched a band of flannel down the center. The wash cloth/baby wipe is flannel and terry cloth. I stitched the two right sides together, turned it right side out and then top stitched around the edge to give it a nice shape.

Here’s the STACK I made of each.

On May 9th, I graduated from the BTCL program at Denton Bible. According to Pastor Tom Nelson, I now have the right to be entrusted with leadership in the church. WOW! I am starting to feel the burden of responsibility. I hope to comment more on this experience in a later post, but, for now, here’s a picture of the women in my small group whom I have come to know and love dearly over the past two years.