You said it, Bob!

My 11th-grade U.S. History teacher loved the 60s. She had us prepare a whole "60s Night" to be held on a Wednesday night after school. She explained the mandatory attendance to this event as, "I know some of you have commitments, like church youth groups. You can miss one night. You won't go to hell." Yes, that's how passionately she felt about it.

Aside: Everyone had to participate in some kind of "act." Britt and I performed an amazing reenactment of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The amount of aluminum foil we used was, and is to this day, probably unequaled by the likes of anything seen in the Cary High School gymnasium.

In preparation for the evening, our teacher had us learn protest songs. Even now, I find myself singing "Little Boxes," "If I Had a Hammer," and "The Times They are A-Changin'."* That last little number is what brings me to my post today.

I've been thinking lately about how things change. Specifically, how you can look back at a chapter of your life and remember the emotion of the moment. Even when details become fuzzy, you can recapture the feelings and thoughts from the past. Sometimes all it takes is simply looking at a picture, hearing a song, seeing someone, catching a whiff of a familiar scent, or some other innocuous, everyday experience to trigger this reflection. While we continue to change, it's as if our past selves are frozen into place, accessible by our current selves.

*We learned a LOT of songs, and after a while I gave up trying to learn all of them. I would just hum along and join in on the choruses. As a result, I can't guarantee that we learned this last one, but I think we did ;)

Little Visitors and Little Lessons

My mom had a few little visitors at her house just recently: baby birds. A mother bird built a nest in the wreath on the front door, so Mom had a great seat for all the action. Visitors to her house were not so lucky; she roped off the front steps so no one would knock on the front door and scare off the mother bird.

She kept me posted on their progress. They started out with few feathers and mouths constantly open, eagerly awaiting a snack. Pretty soon they got feathers and began looking more like, well, birds. (Very young birds look a tad reptilian, in my opinion.)

In a few weeks, they matured and flew away. We were sad that they had left the nest (literally and figuratively) but pleased to have seen them.

It could have been an inconvenience to have the birds take up residence on the front door, but my mom chose to view it as a unique, fun experience. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

We can choose to throw stones,
To stumble on them,
To climb over them,
Or to build with them.
-William Arthur Ward

Maybe this week I could try to change my mindset about an unexpected challenge and view it as an opportunity. Maybe ;)

Photo courtesy of Virginia Enzor

How Blogtastic became Barftastic

I should have been reading. It's a simple as that. But I thought, "I'll just paste this one little thing into my blog real quick." Boo. One wrong click later - literally, ONE - I have now messed up my template. Double boo.

I really can't put off other stuff while I feebly try to fix this, so this template will have to do for now. 

The moral of the story: stay on task!