will pay to the bearer on demand

I got an interesting bill at Panera Bread yesterday. One of the clerks was talking about a customer who paid with a 1928 two-dollar bill. They were joking around about getting lots of money for it and splitting it amongst themselves. When I finished eating, I asked the girl if I could have it and she gave it to me . . . for $2. I looked up the value online and it's estimated to be worth about $4-7. It's pretty much in terrible condition. I'll probably just hang onto it because it's neat to have. Notice the back has Monticello on it instead of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

On another note (ha ha, I'm so funny), I finished my scratch art project finally. Ta da!

Anyway, I'm technically on supervision, so I'd better go.

hee hee

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

distractions

On Sunday, Ryan talked to Kathy Trumper about a job opening at Ridgetop Elem. School near here. While they were talking, I had fun watching this mockingbird making a nest in the holly bush outside of our front mirrored windows. The mirror surface isn't perfect though, and it could see me taking pictures of it. I think it looks angry that it was caught in the act!

It's fun being able to get that close.

I put a bird feeder on my kitchen window. So far, the only animal to have found this 2nd floor feeder is this stupid squirrel. The squirrel didn't care that I was standing right there watching it eat. Even when I banged on the window, it didn't leave.

Jeff called me this morning and asked if I wanted pictures of a red-headed woodpecker. As it turns out, it was actually a female pileated woodpecker on the tree right behind where we park.

After watching with my binoculars, I spotted this male pileated not far away. I'm assuming they're a pair because they weren't fighting.

snow birds

Ryan's here for the weekend. It's a rare weekend for both of us to not have anything at school that requires us to be there. Nikie invited us over for Sabbath lunch and Chadd's parents came too. This picture is us after lunch eating dessert in the living room.

Chadd and John (his dad) love birding and Chadd has a ton of feeders in their back yard, so there are always a lot of birds back there. Because we woke up with snow on the ground and it continued to snow ALL day, the birds were extra hungry. I had fun taking pictures of them on the feeders and deck.

I'm not even sure how many downy woodpeckers we saw back there. I know there were three different ones all in the same area when I looked one time. There were hairy woodpeckers out there too. Watching all of these birds was nice, but the starlings came too. They were eating the seed on the railing, out of the feeders, and even figured out the wood block with suet plugs in it. It makes you want to shoot them all!


Chadd had put seed all along the railing on the deck and lots of birds liked eating off of there. This is a male junco. I also saw a Carolina wren out under the bench.

This red-bellied woodpecker didn't appreciate the starling invasion. She fought them off pretty well for a while.



I think Cardinals are the prettiest birds in snow. Even when they were up in the trees, they stood out really well.





The goldfinches have been around all winter, but this week we've noticed that a lot more of them are at the feeders. You can see that these are starting to get their yellow coloring back.



Have you ever seen a feeder like this? If you want to show preferential treatment to your goldfinches, get one. It is a thistle seed feeder that requires the finches to hang upside down and feed from holes that are under the perches. Other birds aren't smart enough to figure them out.


This fat bird made me just want to squeeze it! Tanya must have rubbed off on me.



And for my last bird . . . a tufted titmouse. I'm still trying to get a picture of one of these that I really like. They don't stay around long to be photographed, unfortunately.





We woke up today with sunny skies, so I ran outside in my pjs and took a quick picture of the snow before it melts. Blue skies are the promise of warmer weather tomorrow!

comical

Oh, to be rat . . . Do you ever feel like doing this to someone?

Hee hee. This is "CAT" in a nutshell. Unfortunately, it's also "DOG." What can I say, Satchel's no border collie . . .

click here if you are blind

Happy Valentine's Day! Well, it's cold here. I'm sure that first sentence applies to everyone I know, except Tara. Having 50+ degree weather yesterday was nice, even if it did rain all day. I woke up to the ground being dusted with snow this morning. It still is coming down a little outside.

The problem with today's weather is that the water on the ground from yesterday froze overnight. I fell on the sidewalk going to work this morning, because the snow had covered up the ice. I landed on my left knee and it already didn't feel good.

I finished my taxes either last week or the week before, I can't remember. Anyway, when I was doing them, I came across this portion of the online process. I think I need to send it to Jay Leno for headlines. Don't you think they could have worded it better?

Tonight I have volleyball, but not much else. It's nice to have some down time!

rainy day

It's 4:35p and we all know what that means . . . Carrie is no longer accomplishing anything at work.

So, because I'm not doing anything productive, here's a quick blog post. This picture is from our 50s banquet on Sunday. They took everyone bowling for the beginning of the banquet, then back to the gym for the food, activities, and movie. Olivia enjoyed sticking her face on the hand dryers at the bowling alley. You can also see that she stole my purse.

I spent this morning in 3 different meetings that totaled about 4 hours in time. We had Ad Council, Finance Committee, and Faculty Lunch. I don't normally have to take finance minutes, but they had a long agenda today and needed reinforcements. Oh well.

I've felt so tired this week (the two long days we've had so far) that I keep trying to distract myself with more active things to do at work to keep myself awake. Maybe I'll go to sleep early tonight??? Probably not.

dance of the sugarplum fairies

JP Mathis has been telling everyone that she's been waiting for the pond behind their house to get totally frozen so that she can go walk on it. Well, the day has come. JP told us that she and Tyler walked on it last night, so I told Jaclyn we should try it in the morning. After all, it's coldest at night and the ice should be thickest then. As you can see, Jaclyn was totally convinced.

After gearing up, we set out for the pond. It was 20 degrees (Fahrenheit, for Matt) out when I checked the weather at 8:00a. The pond was perfect.













Crocs aren't the best shoes for ice skating. They hardly slid at all. Jaclyn and I were both wearing them, so we had the same problem. As you can see, the ice held me just fine.













We handed off the camera so Jaclyn could give it a try. The ice did crack a little and made really cool noises. Tyler broke through last night, but had to try pretty hard before he did.

Fortunately, I know that spreading out your weight is the best way not to fall through. Here, I was actually practicing my swimming strokes. I guess it's too cold for polar bear swimming. It would have been fun to have something to knock around on the ice, like maybe a puck, but the cracking was a little unnerving!

I decided it just wasn't slippery enough with the shoes, so I took them off. My SmartWool socks kept my feet warm and made me slide better.

If you click on the pictures of us standing up, you can probably see the small cracks that spread across the ice. The pond is probably only waist-deep. It only holds run-off water and has no outlet.

Jaclyn thought I was crazy to take the camera out on the ice. I wish we had brought some dogs along. I think it would have been hilarious to watch them try to stand on the ice.

I don't know if I'll get to walk on a frozen pond in Tennessee anytime in the near future. The high today is 34 degrees and tomorrow is supposed to be 44. I guess our cold snap has gone away. Oh, well . . . it was fun while it lasted . . . and we have pictures to prove it!

blast from the past

I found this picture stuck in my junior year yearbook from MPA. I can't remember why it would be in there. Anyway, it's from Nov. 1984. I'm not sure whose house it is. Maybe my Uncle Lester & Aunt Rhonda's.

O'lunch

Well, our trip to O'Charley's was pretty fun. It didn't stress me out that the kids got back late. About 5 of them were late to their classes. I don't know why they thought we would have enough time. Our server was very efficient and we got our food pretty fast.

I did end up ordering grilled cheese. There really isn't a lot of vegetarian food there to choose from. Oh well.

Angie flew through the activities on the kids' menu. They seated us off in a side room by ourselves, so that was kinda nice. It was by the smoking section though, so I came back smelling like smoke.

Randy Bishop, the registrar, and I took mostly seniors, but Katie (left) is a sophomore and Lindsay is a junior. Lindsay went to Mount Vernon last year.

I told David that where he was sitting somehow made him look smarter, so he posed for this picture under the lightbulb. The effect was better in person!

another week down the tubes

Fridays are totally useless for getting anything done at work. I guess I've done a little bit. I am totally frustrated with the student photographers. They don't understand how to document an event. The only thing I got back from the music tour was extremely close pictures of the same 4 girls' faces!!! Grrr...

Today is 100 days until graduation. Where'd the year go??? The seniors decorated the ad building by putting balloons in the halls and writing all over every glass surface in the building with glass markers.

My door had a special message for me. "I want a donut Carrie."

I foolishly agreed to drive some kids to O'Charley's for lunch today. I don't even want to eat there. Maybe I'll get a grilled cheese sandwich like I always did eating out with Rick & Beth.

Yesterday I took a random picture out the window of the back of the ad building. Cars from R to L: Richard, Nikie, JP, Luane, Don, Michael P., me, and the plumbers' vehicles.

Jaclyn's headed here this afternoon for a scrapbooking/Hermitage extravaganza. Don't you wish you were here? I'm sure more pictures will follow.

a good time was had by all . . .

Jaclyn, Hollie, and I at the birthday lunch at Olive Garden Friday. We were celebrating 3-for-1: Hollie, Brooks, and Ryan.

Kim Hinck (sp?) was our server. She went to school with Ryan and remembered it was his birthday, so she and the staff sang to him without us even asking.

Ryan got in the all-important basketball time out in the nice weather before setting out for a hike.

Randy and Ryan on the trail to Sunset Rock. We WALKED there.

Some beautiful ice on the trail. I had to go mountain goat style (in my Crocs, mom) to get this shot.

The view from the cold, windy, cold, slippery, cold top.

Jaclyn and Stephanie make friends with a friendly hypo-allergenic great dane statue.

For Grant and Stephanie: el puente que camina

Downtown Chattanooga - the points of the aquarium sticking up


Who could resist a rousing game or two of Ukranian Manners? Stephanie yanks the pen away from Mary Jane then Jaclyn rolls frantically, looking for a 1 or 6.

But the winner of both games was Ryan. I guess I should have sat on the stealing side to slow him down some. Jason wasn't fast enough.


The real entertainment of the weekend was Ryan's bongo board that Dr. Sloan gave him. We all gave it a shot. I only wish we had a picture of Stephanie, because I'm not sure how she fell the way she did! I did fly off once, but only once. It was really fun. I even tried to steal it from Ryan, but unfortunately it fit in his suitcase. =(

We really should become Southern sweatshirt models. I'll take one in every color.