what have i been doing?

certainly not being a diligent blogger! let me start the updates by recapping my trip out to Palm Desert over Thanksgiving...

It was a wonderful time being with my Grandma, cousins, aunt & uncle. My folks flew out as well so it was a blast to all be together. Here I am with my cousins and Grandma-

It was the first time I had been to visit Palm Desert in seven years, and it was definitely time! Here is my beautiful Grandma on Thanksgiving

It was gorgeous out there, and I loved just driving around looking at the palm trees that lined the streets. Even the airport terminal was entirely outside and lined with palm trees. Sadly I don't have a picture of that because it was dark both times I was there, but here's the palm tree in my Grandma's front yard.

My Grandma was in great health and we went on several grand adventures. One day we drove over to the Salton Sea, the largest lake in California. It sits on the lowest elevation in the Colorado Desert and was formed in 1905 when some dams along the Colorado River broke during heavy rainfall. The entire river emptied into this basin for 2 years before it could be redirected, covering up small towns and a rail line. It has no natural outflow and is only fed by rainfall and irrigation runoff, and is therefore evaporating significantly every year. As it recedes things that had been buried keep surfacing. Its salt content is also on the rise because of the evaporation and that fact that it sits on salt beds. There were dead fish covering the sea shore due to some sort of chemical the algae lets off. It is also prone to flash floods and has buried trailers and homes before in sediment. Altogether it was sort of a depressing and gross smelling place- but very interesting!

all the brown flecks below are dead fish

another day we went to Joshua Tree National Park. It was beautiful (although quite chillier than down in the desert!) and fun to see the scenery and imagine ourselves on the cover of the u2 album. there is a lot of hiking and rock climbing but you can also drive through the entire park- which is what we did.

it was certainly a different kind of beauty that i'm used to living in VA, but it was quite interesting to experience a desert landscape in the US. i couldn't believe i had never been to either of these places out there, and it was fun to experience them with my Grandma!

all in all it was a wonderful trip and just a great time to be together with everyone.

6 credits down

i just turned in my last assignment for my grad classes this semester! one class finished up last night (teaching reading and writing in the content area) and i just finished my final for the other (special ed law). it feels good and strange to be done! i'll start back up with 2 more in january but until then will certainly enjoy this next month of freedom from studying!

now to celebrate with curling up on the couch with a t-shirt blanket and watching a movie :)

sunny C-A

tomorrow i head to Palm Desert to visit my Grandma for Thanksgiving. she was diagnosed with lung cancer back in the spring and after a somewhat rough summer is doing incredibly well. (even better than she was before being diagnosed!) i'm so excited to have a chance to get out and see her! my parents flew out yesterday so will be there as well.

what are your Thanksgiving plans?

Capernaum videos

i'm involved with an organization called Capernaum, which is basically Young Life for people with disabilities. the past 2 months the leadership team and i have started creating ridiculous videos to intro the skit and or theme of the month.

here are the first 2.

this first one draws its inspiration from the classic dance scene in Footloose, and Bret's Angry Dance from Flight of the Conchords.

this second one began our "Donut Olympics" club. and this one's just ridiculous.

so yeah. that's what i've been doing in my free time :)

normally i'm not a big fan of hand sanitizer

i know they say it kills the germs, but something about rubbing it on and not taking anything off makes me nervous. i just love soap and water.

but recently i've been discovering a new appreciation for the gel. we use dry erase markers on laminated sheets at work and i was having a hard time cleaning them off. what gets off the marker? hand sanitizer!

then last week i was showing a student how to pump gas at a gas station. unfortunately i forgot to tell him to not press the trigger when he pulled the pump out of the hole... resulting in a significant quantity of gas on my pants. a coworker recommended hand sanitizer to get the stains out, and when i got back to school i went to town. sure enough, the pants are saved and hand sanitizer comes up big again! after a good dose of sanitizer and perfume i was a bit of a smelly nightmare the rest of the day, but i survived, and my pants did too thanks to hand sanitizer.

what do you think? are you pro or con hand sanitizer? folks with medical knowledge- is it just as good as hand washing?

ribbons ribbons everywhere

last weekend while driving up to DC i got stuck in some traffic. in typical fashion i got frustrated and impatient, until i saw this car in the lane next to me.

that is a lot of awareness on one car (and don't be fooled- that dark spot in the middle of the car where they could have fit one more... it's actually a dark ribbon)

it got me thinking about all the awareness ribbons out there, so i wanted to see how many types there are. wikipedia (the keeper of all knowledge) lists 26 different ribbons, with some having as many as 24 causes associated with them. (and many of the ribbons on this car weren't even listed). the blue ribbon can stand for awareness of child abuse, colon cancer, Canada's anti-tobacco, anti-second hand smoke campaign, or international no diet day (among other things). how do you know if someone with a green ribbon is promoting awareness for lyme disease or pedestrian safety? there's just no way to tell.

check it out

this is my friend Jonathan.

we met up in India a couple times when I was over there, and about a year and a half ago he decided to go back to India and take his dad, who had Huntington's, and film a documentary. they were there several months and it sounded like it was an awesome, tough, amazing journey. the documentary is still in editing stages, but there are a few trailers out there. Jonathan's dad passed away a few weeks ago, and what an awesome thing to do in the final days of his life with his son. the most recent trailer is particularly incredible. check it out:

anyways, i just thought this was awesome and wanted to pass it along!