New Tricks

Austin (the dog) has always been very bad about asking for things. She never caught on to the concept of asking to go out. She just holds it until we let her out or she pees on the floor (to her/our credit that hasn't happened in years).

In the last 4 months we've been able to train her to tell us when she is out of water by scratching her bowl. She has it down pat and even when we are downstairs in the office we can hear her scratch her bowl above us and we fill it up for her.

In the process of learning this she now knows we are "trained" to answer her when she scratches. What does that mean? She scratches her toy when she wants to play, she scratches the rug when her ball rolls under and today she was scratching the tripod we have in the office. Why? I have no idea. I thought maybe it was in her way so I moved it. Then she just scratched it again. Maybe she is just lamenting the loss of production equipment in our basement.

I miss it too Austin, but now we have lockboxes, real estate signs, and rolls and rolls of architectural plans. Get with it! This is our new life.

Starting to Paddle

This week is the official "Fykes Community Involvement Initiative." Last night we listened to our senator Bob Corker's telephone town hall meeting. If given the opportunity I was going to ask what he saw as a good first step for the health care crisis since within the first 3 minutes I heard him say he was vastly opposed to the current initiative so we didn't need to beat that issue to death. I was not going to go on and on about my hip ailment nor was I going to mention my age which seemed to be what most callers brought up. Funny what you say when you get your "moment" with someone important. Reminds me what this well known band was telling me one time about what people would tell them during meet and greets. You have one minute with this band whom you love and you tell them about how you almost missed the show because your dog threw up on you? And then you want to squeeze in between them for a picture? Nice.

Next stop of the night was our neighborhood association - community cares committee. I am now co-chair of the welcoming committee because as my mother always says if you have an idea you will be put in charge of it. No worries though I'm paired with a great teacher which means we will both be hard workers.

Thursday we attend a meeting about Nashville public transportation to try to be a part of that solution. I don't know how impactful we can really be at that one but darn if we aren't going to try.

We are all done sitting on a sinking ship just waving at the passerbys. Until we have kids we can do all these things and STILL have time to watch episodes of This American Life at night.

Party in the Back

This weekend Joshua and I played badminton as our Saturday exercise. I went outside to set everything up and noticed a lot of mosquitoes. So like a responsible adult I went back in and told Joshua we were going to need some bug spray. So I sprayed myself and then Joshua. And by "spray myself" I apparently mean that I just spun around with the bottle spraying the air aimlessly. Joshua had not a bite on him and this is my aftermath.

I adjusted the color to try to capture how much these buggers itch but it doesn't do it justice. In hind sight the stationary bike we are borrowing would have been a better choice.

4 Years of my Life

So I was in the band in high school. I played bells on the sideline. Its one of those things that consumes at least half of my really great memories from high school. At our school the band was just as good as our football team (better in 1997). Now don't get me wrong, you didn't earn "cool points" for being in the band but you didn't really lose them either. We had our fair share of homecoming queens that had to change into their band uniform at halftime.

Somehow I came across a link to one of our shows on facebook. Thought I'd share it with you.

Now this was my least favorite show from high school so don't bore yourself with watching it all but just skip ahead to 4:32 and hear my little solo of "Jesus loves me" that the percussion director added in there for me. It was an Arabian show so why Jesus loves me? I have no idea.

Then you can also skip to 4:54 and imagine the camera director saying "Piccollo girl, scoot over so we can loose that random girl behind you. Camera 2 can you get a better shot? THAT GIRL IS RUINING THIS SHOT." Yeah I'm in all kinds of other people's shots due to where I had to stand. Awesome!

Anyway, if you want to hear a show that I loved that would be the show my freshmen year. We basically won state with this show.

So what did you do in high school that none of your adult friends know anything about?

Makin Usselves Smawt

Joshua and I have started reading out loud to each other. We were watching John Adams and thought it was such an inviting image, John and Abigail sitting by the fire reading aloud to each other. Sounds like a past time that makes you smarter. Not like this summer reality television that will slowly simmer your brain. Now I'm not talking about the quality Fall Reality TV - this stuff is "More to Love" and "Help, I'm a celebrity get me out of here." This is trash and if you watch this stuff I'm sorry but we can't be friends. Now if you watch Survivor or Amazing Race pull up a chair.

Anyway, back to the not being stupid. At the same time that we made the decision to entertain ourselves like an 18th century intellectual couple, Newsweek came out with their 100 Best Books list. Well darn if we don't need to make sure we've read all of those. Perfect timing! To make sure each book we read is better than the last we are starting at the end. As appealing as Churchill's history of World War II sounded, we decide to skip ahead to the first novel The Color Purple.

Currently we are just shy of the halfway mark. If you aren't familiar with the book it is written as letters to God in broken English. So, instead of sounding smarter today after the hour we read last night, I sound uneducated and have to consciously insert prepositions. Because Joshua was only listening last night he has no issues today but I am really struggling. You just wouldn't believe how quickly those little things lift right out.

Turnabouts Fair Play

Check out this article I found via @mproctor on twitter. (I know that sentence makes no sense to about half the people that read this).

If we are going to have churches that meet in movie theaters this seems only fair.

http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2009/07/20/story2.html?b=1248062400%5E1860793&ana=e_bjtt

Honestly it is great from a sustainability standpoint and it is also great for preservation. Win, Win, plus its just cool!

Isn't it Pretty?