Seniority...

As the school year winds down there's the giddiness of summer, for sure. And then there's the bittersweet goodbye that comes with graduation.

My foray back into teaching has been amazing. That there were ups and downs is almost an understatement. After many trips down to the administrative suite at the beginning of the year to make sure we were all "on the same page" about the role of the student publication, I almost quit. I wanted to teach ground-breaking journalism from a Christian worldview and I felt like we were publishing a mini-version of the yearbook.

Then two things happened. First, one of my students, JT, wrote a story on Jon Foreman (Switchfoot). It'd be a LONG story to tell all the details, but the short version is that JT wrestled through the process and brought forth a piece that left me speechless. "This is why I teach," was all I could say for quite a while after reading it.

Second, I was down in the administrative wing yet again at the beginning of the second semester, this time trying to determine whether we were allowed to publish "Best of 2008" movie review of The Dark Knight. The answer was no. The surface reason was that the school doesn't condone PG-13 movies. The real reason... administration didn't want to offend families that feel like they must walk a very narrow road in order to remain in God's will for their lives. It reminded me of Romans 14 and 15, and for the first time, instead of wanting to quit, I "got it" that there are many modern day equivalents to eating meats sacrificed to idols. And for the sake of the weaker brother, I'd rather not eat meat again. MB was the student writer for The Dark Knight. He didn't like sacrificing a piece he'd worked on so hard, but he (and I) submitted to those in authority. No regrets. (On a happy-ending note... MB loves film making and he took his passion for movies and entered a film festival where he won three awards.)

After The Dark Knight incident, I was cool, and instead of pining away for the end of the school year (Read: my contract to be fulfilled so I could get out), I couldn't wait to go to work each day.

I am so proud of our kids. They did an awesome job. And the seniors... wow... I'm going to miss those guys so much. I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to use them as they go to college and get on with life outside the walls of our little school.

Our Editors:

JG: Editor-in-Chief

KW: Assistant Editor

MW: Copy Editor

JM: Design Editor

JM will serve as our Editor-in-Chief next year. Yay!

MW and KW are headed for the same college at the beach.

JG is going to my alma mater and planning to major in journalism, though he is the quintessential English professor in the making. He'll figure it out, though. :)

These are the seniors. All of them are in Europe this week. Join me in praying for their safety and that they'll have an amazing time.

JG, KW, MW, MB, CD, KA, JT, AE, JM, AC

And creeping in the background is KO. She's just a sophomore, but she's not returning to our school next year. I'm going to miss her too!

What an amazing time of life... full of possibilities, packed with dreams. I pray the Lord will guide them and protect them as they travel the next steps of their journey.

I am blessed to have taught them all.

If you give a mom some fabric...

My favorite children's books that have been recently published are the If you give a _____ a ______ series. If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake... If I were a little more creative and a little less sleepy, I'd write a lovely curtain-making parody.


But my brain is fried. I've been making window treatments for the past week. And, in case you haven't made window treatments in a while, it forces you to combine right-brained creativity with left-brained math. I hate math. We are not of the math tribe. It is foreign to us.

My friend, Angie, got the ball rolling on my curtain-making frenzy. She teaches Domestic Arts (Home Ec) at our school. She helped us redesign our rec room area this spring. (Pictures will come shortly; we're not quite finished.) Angie picked out the cutest fabric, and for some reason, I can't seem to sort-of do anything, so I took everything that was left and bought a little more and now our entire informal living area on the main floor is bedecked with window treatments.

See...

Tomorrow I'm making coordinating pillows! My brain should be completely mush by the time I'm done.

Sometimes it seems like 2006 was just 3 years ago...

Oh wait. It was.

Look who's swooping by...

I know, I know. It looks like a chicken. But it's not. It's a hawk. And it is apparently living in our backyard, which means Pepper the 10 lb Shih Tzu gets an escort for every trip outside.

Wired4Film...

Wolverine* and Star Trek* hit the theaters over the past couple of weeks in what Hollywood hopes to be its first truly blockbuster summer in a very long time.


Summer movies on the way are:

Terminator Salvation * (May 21)

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian *(May 22)

Up *(May 29)

Land of the Lost *(June 5)

Imagine That *(June 12)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen *(June 24)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs *(July 1)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* (July 15)

G-Force *(July 24)


How do I know these movies are coming? I went to the local cinema recently and saw a whole slew of trailers. And I watch TV and see a whole passel of commercials. And I surf the 'net quite a bit and stumble on a bunch of ads and industry reports.

Now... here's the BIG question: What faith-based films are either out now or in the pipeline? Besides Facing the Giants and Fireproof. Hmmm... Where do you go to find THAT?


You go here:

Wired4Film.com is a Hollywood Reporter-type site for faith-based films. Click on the logo above to visit the site. I have a buddy who is big in the world of student filmmaking (teaching students to make films) and he is friends with the guy who is trying to get Wired4Film off the ground in a major way.

So if you have a spare moment, pop in over there and show them some love. It's a great site to help you choose where you want to send your movie-ticket dollars. And if you're one of those activist-types, you can pummel your local theater with emails and calls and letters, asking them to show some of these faith-based indy movies.

*Disclaimer: I am not endorsing any of these movies. Goodness... I haven't even seen them, although I'm hearing great things about Star Trek. I'm just making a point that there's lots of publicity out there for this summer's line-up. Y'all are smart people. See them if you think it's a good thing and don't see them if you don't. I highly recommend reading the Plugged-In Online review before you spend your hard-earned cash to walk across the sticky floor and sit and stare at the GIGANTIC screen for two hours.

Front-load funnies...

I was SO excited when I found Tide Free on HUGE sale. It was in the big white bottle. Same Tide logo. Same assurance of no added dyes or perfumes. The only thing it didn't say... the only thing I neglected to look for... was "HE."

"HE" stands for "High efficiency." Front-load washers are magic. They make bubbles at an astounding rate, so you have to use a special detergent so that it doesn't bubble too much.

Oops!

Here's a shot of the cushion from the front porch rocker AFTER a double rinse.

At least Kelsey had fun with the new art medium.

As fun as my front-loader is, my friend, Jenn, has one that eats socks and spits pinkish funk. Check out her story here.

Blue Heaven...

Woot! There are those moments that happen that you just know are sent from Above. After all, every good and perfect gift does come from Above. And this certainly was good and perfect. (All you ABCers can just hush. Let me have my moment.)

We had been talking about the big planetarium field trip for weeks. I was a student at UNC for six (+) years and had never been inside the planetarium. I walked across the sundial a gazillion times, but never ventured inside. How I missed out on that part of the scavenger hunt when I was a pledge (yeah, yeah, yeah... new member... whatever), I don't know. It was on the list, but I missed it.

Anyway, we determined a week or so ago that we were going to go on the field trip and since returning to school with the group wasn't mandatory, Zack and I thought a milkshake at Sutton's Drug Store would be the perfect way to spend the rest of the morning.

So after watching stars and planets spin around for about 45 minutes, we headed up Franklin Street. And what to our wondering eye should appear, but a legendary Tar Heel, making a quick stop at Sutton's during finals.

After I gave him the answer to the first fill-in-the-blank question on the final ("You're Tyler Hansbrough!"), I asked him if I could get a shot of him and Zack, and Number 50, said, "Yeah, sure!"

^^^^^

See?!!!!

:-D

Zack & his posse after the brush with greatness...



Oh yeah... we went to Chapel Hill to see a show at the planetarium...
but you know, the b-ball star was the brightest!

...raisin' the boy right.

We drank from the Old Well, and then Zack announced

he wants to go to Carolina. Maybe the

legend is true!

I think this is a picture in front of South Building, but

Zack says it's a picture of him in front

of the round thing that's on the

t-shirt in the student store.

That would be us... in front of the student store.

No round thing, though.

Greenlaw... where I spent most of my waking hours

at UNC.

Z-dawg at the entrance to Arb Lane.

My sorority house... diagonally across the street

from the planetarium.


Yep... Chapel Hill... the southern part of heaven...

17 Again...

With the boys all venturing out and doing guy-things this weekend, Kelsey and I decided to have some girls' time.

We went to see Zac Efron in 17 Again. As I seem to be on a trend of rating things, I'm going to have to give 17 Again two thumbs up too. Zac has perfected the slightly-confused, partially-flustered, yet totally-hot look for adolescent males. Not that I find the dude "hot," but I believe the girl sitting to my left actually swooned in a couple of places during the movie.

Before we watch any movie at the theater, I always read the review on Plugged In online. Most of my parents-of-teenagers buds do too. It is, hands-down, the very best movie review resource out there for Christians. I have no idea who these reviewers are, but I stand in awe of their ability to track EVERYTHING in the movie... profanity (words, context, frequency), sexual content (type, context, frequency), drug and alcohol content (type, frequency, attitude), violent content (type, context, frequency, nature), etc. There is no way one reviewer can track all that stuff. There has to be a team with the profanity-counters and spiritual content analysts. And they're smart. And focused. My ADD-self can hardly fathom how they do it.

Anyway... I read the review and knew there were some "things" in it that I didn't want Kelsey to see unless we could talk about them. I didn't want her to walk away from it thinking that the world's way of handling teen relationships was OK ... as long as you love someone, you are fine getting physical. OR... if you make some bad choices, it's nothing that a little medical procedure or a few thousand dollars to an attorney can't fix. But when I actually sat and watched it, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead, the movie is all about owning your choices and embracing your responsibilities. And love. True love. The kind that covers a multitude of sins.

I didn't like the fact that the whole journey for Efron's character was courtesy of a Spirit Guide. Bleh. It said a lot about where we've come spiritually in the last 50 years. The dude looks like Clarence, but is a Spirit Guide instead of an angel. Ridiculous.

I LOVED hearing the abstinence speech coming from the 17-year-old mouth of the almost-40-ish-year-old dad. It was a great speech and a wonderful wake-up call. We all need to be a little more into our kids' worlds. The dad found words for his concerns when he literally lived life in his kids' world; he had no shortage of words (nor a lack of courage to use them) when he walked into the middle of a health class where the teacher was saying the school policy was teaching abstinence, but handing out condoms with the concession that kids will do it anyway, so they need to do it safely.

Yes, there are plenty of opportunities in this movie to see teen girls and guys kissing and hinting at more. But it seems... so... icky. And gross. There is nothing appealing in the way the daughter and her boyfriend "relate" to one another. It's just... yucky. Which is pretty accurate for real life, too, when we jump out of the beauty of our Creator's design for love relationships.

I've been chatting with a friend who shares my burden for young women and their moms. Seems that in just about every bad choice situation, there's an overwhelming lack of communication between parents and children. Not all those situations, but many of them. I bet if we could BE in their world, we'd all find the words (and courage to use them) to tell our kids there's a better way. And we'd do it with a sense of urgency and compassion and love, not so much the lightning-bolt-from-Olympus-if-you-mess-up way.

That said, whoever made the movie had quite the grasp on many cultural undercurrents, from the bizarre back-stabbing nature of the pharma sales industry to the curriculum's-a-joke nature of schools to the tendency for people to put blame for their bad choices on the ones they love the most.

I was SO tired last night and I really didn't want to brave the sticky theater floors to watch a teen movie, but I am oh-so-very glad that the Lord gave me the grace to get over myself and go. Somewhere in the midst of that theater and in our conversation that ran throughout the rest of the evening, I feel like I connected with my girls in HER world.

And that was very, very cool.

ShamEww...

I did it. I caved and bought an "As Seen on TV." $19.99 at the SuperTarget. ShamWow!

We have used only one of the big ShamWows, cutting it in half. It's absorbed 8 ozs of chocolate milk off the kitchen counter and soaked up about 14 ozs of lemonade off the bamboo rug and wood floor. Vince is right. It works dry or wet. I give ShamWows two thumbs up on the old rate-the-As-Seen-on-TV-product scale. I'd definitely buy them again.

And then yesterday, the dog piddled a huge puddle in the office for reasons only Cesar, himself, could figure out. But I was right there, so I ran to the kitchen and got a ShamWow, and guess what! It totally absorbed the piddle spot. Wow! And ew!

I'm still wowed by the ShamWow, but after the nasty chore this one got stuck with, it's been dubbed our ShamEww. I washed and labeled it. I am never, ever going to use it on a spill again. It will forever be a handy dandy helper for doggy piddle.

German-engineering ROCKS!