This Classical Life

I really wanted to post a full-length post about each book I read this year. January is coming to a close, I’ve finished three books and made ZERO posts about them :o/ Will try to remedy that soon.

If you don’t have the Iron & Wine cover of “Such Great Heights” (originally recorded by the Postal Service,) you ought to. It’s been my lullaby for a while and I never tire of hearing it.

I got my first summons for jury service a few weeks ago, exciting considering I’ve been a registered voter for six years now. The funny thing was, it was a summons from Travis County, Texas and it was addressed properly, to our home in Richmond, and not forwarded.

I am simultaneously not qualified (as I am no longer a resident of the county, state or time zone, for that matter) and exempt (as I have legal custody of two children under the age of 10 who I care for during the day.) Oh well. I am sure I’ll get around to completing that civic duty at some point!

I had a great day with the girls and got a lot of housework done, which is always encouraging. Then I spent the evening working on getting Lexi’s birth announcement out. As my dear husband pointed out to me, I *could* just use outlook and run the envelopes through the printer. But I so enjoy busting out my best cursive and addressing them by hand. It may be progressive to use technology, but I’m a stick in the mud, I guess.

Here’s our tea wishlist, just for kicks. Mornings have been a little bit duller without Masala Chai to help me wake and deal with the newborn’s cold and the toddler’s busyness. Dependency is a difficult thing!

Having babies has definitely increased my interest in Mary, the mother of Jesus. I was shuffling the iPod today while driving home from women’s bible study and heard two of my favorite songwriters’ excellent treatments of her.

“And the stable was not clean / And the cobblestones were cold / And little Mary full of grace / With the tears upon her face / Had no mother’s hand to hold // It was a labor of pain / It was a cold sky above / But for the girl on the ground in the dark / With every beat of her beautiful heart / It was a labor of love.” –Andrew Peterson

“I don’t know if you ascended / I don’t care what’s been amended / He was once your miracle / the faith of a little girl named Miriam / Oh you are blessed indeed / Blessed is the fruit of your tree / Yeshua King of Kings / Son of Miriam // No banners were unfurled / when God stepped into the world / held in the arms of a little girl / named Miriam” –Pierce Pettis

So, for the first time since middle school, I’m not rabidly following the Tar Heels’ every move this basketball season. Now that we’ve won the national championship, am I just resting on those laurels and hanging up my obsessive fan hat? I feel like I should have to do some sort of penance for this behavior.

I actually learned this in a linguistics class, but:

Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

If you can raed tihs psas it on!

I wonder if this works with other languages, though. I know I can’t do this with latin, but is that because it isn’t my native language (and I’m not fluent yet) or because morphology is so important?

Rachel C. tagged me for the 4s meme, so here it is:

Four Jobs I Have Had:
Soccer Referee
Staff Writer
Third Grade Teacher
University Photographer’s Assistant
(more…)

Four Jobs I Have Had:
(more…)

We just ordered our Christmas present from Mike’s parents — a digital camcorder! I am so excited. It’s our first camcorder and we got to pick it out ourselves!

Yesterday we received an unexpected package from a couple we are friends with that shall not be named. I opened it and inside was a wedding gift! A wedding gift they purchased before our wedding, forgot to give us and just found with the gift receipt dated July 2003. The accompanying note had me in stitches. Thanks, friends!