Everything is fixed now, and heat is really nice! so are garbage disposals, and sooooo are yummy cinnamon rolls! I think we will survive Saint Louis just fine after all!

Let's hope this trend does not continue!

I don't know if this will qualify as whining or not, but I'm mostly just amazed at the appliances in our apartment right now.
Friday, I made up some bread dough, and went to turn the oven on and the knob swung around like the wheel of fortune with no apparent effect. So we called maintenance. This morning, it was 60 degrees in our apartment. When Jonathan turned on the heat, nothing happened. So I called maintenance. Thankfully the soup I'm making is keeping my kitchen warm, so I've been able to take off my hat. Two minutes ago, I tried to put the carrot peels down the garbage disposal. It produced a little whirling fountain of dirty water and food bits in my sink...now the sink is clogged and won't drain. So I've called maintenance. We haven't seen a maintenance man yet. I hope they really exist, because if this keeps up we are going to be camping soon!

Huh! What do you know. . .

I thought I had a tumor growing right below my belly button today. I felt this hard bump that didn't move. I discovered it while babysitting a friend's two year old. I was so worried I asked her to feel it when she got back. She felt it and said, "Keren, that's not a tumor, that's a baby foot!" Such a possibility had never occurred to me! My little "tumor" stayed planted there all during my walk home and long enough for Jonathan to feel it too. Then, then sure enough, the next time I sat down it disappeared!

eclectic update

It is fall break! I had forgotten how lovely school breaks can be. We have really been looking forward to this one. Jonathan and I slept in this morning and were finally pulled out of bed by a windy rainy morning. Well to be honest, I get a little quirky when it is raining and storming outside. I get so excited that I can't sleep any more. So this morning, I made Jonathan get up too. I lit candles all over the house, and then I made him hot chocolate to help him get in the mood of celebrating the RAIN! Though I'm not sure how well my schemes have worked, he is currently settled at his desk in the office happily perusing the internet in the "ambiance" of a candle and steaming hot chocolate...which of course I put there!

(One of my favorite traditions on gloomy days in the fall and dark winter mornings is lighting candles when we get up instead of turning on any lights. This morning it meant rummaging through our storage closet until I could find the tea lights, but it was worth it!)

This last week I did two days of substituting at a different school in their 5th and 6th grade classroom. I got such a kick out of them. They thought they were pulling the fleece over my eyes when I let them arrange their desks however they wanted to, but it sure gave me some powerful leverage to keep them in line when they started goofing off! I only had to issue one warning and they were back to looking like adult learners in a college classroom!
Also, the teacher had asked me to lead a discussion comparing and contrasting the two presidential candidates. (Can you imagine me, having any sort of meaningful political conversation? I feel like I finally got Republicans and Democrats sorted out last year! ) And, I was warned that the class was VERY opinionated...so I wondered how I was going to keep the comments above the belt. Enter my educational ministry class with a cape and red underwear! I remembered we had discused critical thinking and that being able to affirm an aspect of something you don't agree with, or being able to challenge an aspect of something you do agree with are very difficult to do. I thought we would try that in class, though I wan't sure if 5th graders could do that, since most adults can't really either. I was so proud of them, though! We watched a couple clips from a presidential debate, and then each student had to have one affirmation and challenge for each candidate. I put their comments up on the board and moderated the discussion to make sure they were stating more than just their opinion. By the end, we had four colums up on the board. We actually learned a lot about the candidates from each other, by thinking through how their positions were helpful and/or detrimental to the US!
One boy did make an interesting prediction: "If Obama becomes president, we are going to have the third world war with Russia. And since they have so many more nukes than we do, it will probably destroy the whole world. And then Jesus will come back."
. . . OK! . . . and moving right along! . . .

Craft Update:
a little knitted something is finished for a little girly someone who is due to arrive in November in Seattle. It's going in the mail today, so pictures will of course be posted after the recipient gets first looks!

My lovely friend Janelle sent me the most beautiful skeins of baby wool for a sweater for our very own little one. I agonized over the pattern and have started the back.

I'm not sure I'm completely satisfied yet, but I think I need to keep going to find out. It looks like this so far.

My other lovely friend Megan is getting married this Thanksgiving and has asked me to be her matron of honor. I am making my dress. In attempt at thrift, I decided to re-make it from a prom dress I found at Goodwill. So far I have discovered a few pros and cons to this plan.
Pro: You really can't beat $13 for all the fabric you need.

Con: Taking out endless seams on a store made dress is anything but the way you want to start out a sewing project! At two hours in, I have just finished taking out the lining and zipper.

I've never made a maternity dress before. Hopefully the result will not be entitled "Keren, the full-sailed barge billowing down the isle!" I'll keep you updated on my progress.

On that note, my favorite pajama sweater is slowly becoming my pajama "shrug." I think they should invent "favorite" clothes that have the ability to grow with you!

That's all the news I have to report for now.

Our plans for the weekend include: making bread, doing 4+ loads of laundry, going to the Art Museum, catching up on our Covenant Theology reading, starting to study for our Spiritual and Ministry Formation midterm and having friends over for lunch after church on Sunday.

belly shot

Well this is for those of you who have asked for pictures...or have a voyeuristic need to see the expanding size of my belly. Jonathan took me out on the balcony for this photo-shoot with you all specifically in mind. Hope you enjoy!....

And yes, that is coffee I'm drinking. I really hated it for a while there, and wondered what was becoming of me. Hooray for having part of myself back, even if there is another part taking off in a totally alien direction and inhibiting my ability to turn over in the middle of the night, or reach things at the back of the shelf!

Also, the next week is going to be very busy with papers and midterms, so keep us in your prayers!

Diva, Divas, and the Diva!

I have been hired as a contract teacher at Dayspring School of the Arts. In the last 24 hours I was the substitute teacher for three art classes, I taught one private voice lesson and assisted teaching a musical theater class of 20 five-year-olds whose parents enrolled them in the "Diva" class because they displayed a propensity to drama! Whew!

After suffering withdrawal from my lack of interaction with children, yesterday and today were just plain fun--and exhausting! So I just had to share some stories with you!

Here's the highlights:

I had to tell the junior high art class, as they gossiped and chatted and got nothing done, that the privilege of speaking came with the responsibility of getting their work done. I told them if they wanted to be treated like the adults they were becoming , then they needed to act like adults. Hah! It was such a funny self-conscious moment as I realized I was acting like my teachers in middle school had! What was even funnier, to me, was that it worked! I guess that summs up my first foray into classroom management as a success!

Last Thursday, my Covenant Ed. class was about using the art of questioning as a teaching tool. I thought the last art class of Friday would be a good time to experiment with those concepts because the kids were starting a new design project that they needed to brainstorm about. I started asking questions, and in no time the kids were all talking and excited and throwing out ideas. It really worked! Not that I didn't think that the profs at Covenant knew what they were talking about, but what a blast to be able to apply something so soon!

And that brings me to the Diva class. They are singing a dramatic song about the Emperors New Clothes, which I coached them through. We worked on the differences between the first and second and third verse--talking along the way about "nice singing voices" and "ugly singing voices." Then, I had to coach the shy little queen to convince me she had a voice at all as she sang her part. What more can I say, except to describe the short, chubby-cheeked boy with floppy blond hair who crawled around most of the time because he thought he was a lion....or the little girl wearing high-heeled pumps who had blue eyeshadow and glitter all over her face and arms? Deee-lightful!

My conclusion, as I lie here recovering on the couch, is that I think I really like teaching...and perhaps it is also good that the Diva class only meets once a week!