did you see it?

Did anyone see the amazing sunset yesterday evening? If you didn't you missed out on something spectacular. We had a faculty meeting after school yesterday and I was grumbling about having to stay after - especially since I had a lot of studying to do for tonights exam, but, if it hadn't been for that mild inconvienence, I wouldn't have been driving home at 5:40 and I would've missed out. Perhaps some of the things we grumble about are there to put us in just the right place?

Yes, this is me driving and taking a picture at the same time. not the safest thing in the world, but i promise i was only going about 10 miles an hour because of rush hour traffic (wait, does that make it more or less safe?) besides, it would have been a crime to pass up a picture of a sky like this. not that the picture comes anywhere close to representing the beauty held in the sky yesterday evening.

okay, so maybe this one's blurry because i was going a little faster than 10 miles an hour.

by the time I had figured out how to turn off the flash (so as not to ruin the picture with glare from the windshield) the best colors were gone, but hey, these weren't too bad. Just imagine what it looked like 10 minutes earlier. :)

And of course this picture has nothing to do with last evening's light show. These are my nieces and nephew...the joys of my life. The picture is from thanksgiving, which was, as usual, a delightful evening of very loud conversation with mom's side of the family. For those of you don't' know, a few people in my family have some hearing trouble, so our family gatherings tend to be loud. Plus, we all like to talk, and we have a tendency to just talk over one another when it becomes hard to hear. The struggle for conversational dominance, in combination with the hearing problems, makes for a high decibel family.
I also took a cool picture of all the hands of the women in our family, but for some reason it didn't upload to the blog. maybe next time.

well, i've got to go study. just a few hours until my throw down with domestic relations.

What I like about being sick

I am sick. Actually, I was sick. I think i'm mostly better now (or at least better enough that i don't need to say that i'm sick). It struck me last week, or rather creeped up on me last week. A scratchy throat at first, then a headache, and since i can't really afford to take off work and school I couldn't shake it. My illness has just held on for over a week now. I'm feeling much better than this time last week and I'm hoping that with five days off I can make a full recovery. Good thing too, because being sick really cramps my style. I hate being tired and unable to fully participate in all the fun stuff my friends and family are doing. And being a touchy kind of person, I hate that being sick requires me to keep my distance from others so as not to endanger their health. I need hugs and kisses and people don't usually like to hug and kiss germ-y rachel. Being sick is awful, so what could I possibly like about it? (note: I started with only three things, but I felt like it should be a list of at least five, so forgive me if 5 and 4 are sub-par).

5. It's a license to rest. Sometimes I don't voluntarily take time to rest. Occasionally I'll imagine that sickness is God's way of requiring me to do so. I, like so many others I know, feel that I have to be doing something all the time. Work, school, meetings, social events etc., sickness is a free pass to skip all of that stuff without feeling guilty.

4. It reminds me how much I am loved. My friends, family, and even co-workers have been checking on me a lot this week. Even my students at school have asked how I'm feeling. Its nice to know that so many people actually care about me.

3. It teaches me empathy. When i'm feeling awful and can't even get a safe hug and kiss for fear of spreading germs I really empathize with sick people. I ache for those in the hospital especially, lying in bed feeling icky and in need of human touch.

2. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Yep, if I don't die from this illness, I will be the proud owner of new immunity! Hooray!

1. The BEST thing about being sick, is those first few days that you don't feel sick. We often take for granted what it means to feel well, but everytime I recover from feeling icky I am sooo thankful for my health. No matter what the circumstances of the day, I am always so happy on the first days of feeling well. The crappiest day is still wonderful when you're not sick.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Bourbon is magical!

Well, I did it. Last Saturday, Nov. 10th I successfully completed three decades of life! Okay, if you wanna get technical I completed three decades last year when I turned 29, but just go along with me here.
My 30th birthday was pretty quiet and unassuming. I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I should have because I had a law school exam hanging over my head. Though several people had invited me to do things on Saturday, I had to turn most of them down because I needed to work on my 10 page paper. Then I began feeling bad about myself for being so uptight and not enjoying myself. Add to that the "excitement" of a birthday and then weird "i'm getting old" feeling and the day ended up being one of up and down emotions. A few days have passed now and I'm realizing that 30 really is just a number and I don't feel any older than I did last week.
The one fun thing I did take time to do on Saturday is make a trip to Versailles (the Kentucky one, not the France one) to the Woodford Reserve Distillery. If you've never been, do yourself a favor and go. Jenny and I had been talking about going there for over a year now and we finally decided to just do it. The trip was a pilgrimage of sorts, as Jenny and I have acquired a bit of a taste for Woodford over the last year or so (spending 30 bucks on a bottle of bourbon as opposed to 10 bucks is definitely a sign of age). The drive to the distillery was great because it takes you through horse country - amazing farms with black fences that go on for miles. I'd venture to say most those fences cost more than my house and the horse barns are definitely more costly than my own abode. There were still a lot of leaves on the trees and of course they were beautiful in their golds, reds, and oranges.
Once we arrived at the distillery we bought our tickets for the tour. Unfortunately, we had just missed one and had to wait an hour for the next. We entertained ourselves in the lobby and giftshop until our time came. The tour was amazing! I'm so in love with bourbon now! The process is so fascinating and I couldn't get enough of the smells. The fermenting grains, the white oak barrels, the bourbon! Bourbon is magical. I'd enlighten you with all the details of how it's made, but I don't want to ruin the tour for those of you that might go. If you want though, let me know and I'll let you in on the magic and mystery of bourbon. If only it tasted better.
The only "bad" thing about the trip was that neither of us brought a camera. Its just as well I suppose. The scenery and the lighting were so perfect that i'm not sure there's a camera that could capture it. Like when you try to photograph the grand canyon, or the ocean. There's no camera like the mind.
After the trip I returned home, visited with Jill a bit, and then I spent Saturday night of my 30th birthday working on my law school paper. You know, I don't think I really regret the way I spent the day at all. It wasn't full of excitement and celebration, but it was full of "moments," and after all, those are the things we remember. ....but I think I will do some celebration this upcoming weekend just to be sure i'm not getting too old. :)

It's all fun and games until....

Well, i'm not sure what to do about my dog. I've got three, Lucy, Moogle, and Kenya. Moogle is a 9 year old overgrown shi-tzu, Kenya is about 5 and looks kinda like toto, but she's a mutt. Lucy is about 3 and she's an orange and white hound mix. They're all very sweet in their own way, but recently Lucy has become over-possessive of me. She cuddles in close and if the other dogs try to get near she gets very upset. She's actually attacked moogle about 4 times in the last couple of months. Up until last night, the "attacks" were scary but nobody got hurt. At about 5:00 last night though, I sat down to eat some food in bed. Lucy came up close trying to get some of the food and when moogle came up she went for him. I had a harder time separating them than I usually do and by the time I got them apart moogle had been beat up pretty good - specifically, his right eyeball was nearly hanging out of its socket. Yeah, it was gross and it freaked me out. Jill and I took him to the doggie emergency room and last night he had surgery to have his eye removed. Guess who's going to be a pirate for Halloween next year! It was sad...and very expensive, but now comes the tough part - what to do with Lucy? So far as I can tell she's just very jealous. I don't think she'd ever attack the other dogs for no reason, just when they get too close to me...and usually you can tell when she's getting upset so it's somewhat preventable. On the other hand, there's always a chance that one of these days she's going to really hurt one of the other dogs (it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye). So do I try to "reform" her and work with her to be nicer. Do I supervise better and avoid those situations? Or do I say that she's had a good life for the past couple years and she's just too dangerous to keep around. I'm not sure what do to here. Any thoughts?