catching up

1)I had a really good time at our annual ladies' retreat last weekend. My friend, whose identity I have sworn to protect from communists, taught me some important truths about grace. Another 3 friends led worship, and it was delightful. Also, I'm pretty sure our staff wives skit was fantastic. :-)

2)There has been much made about whether the show "24" or the show "Lost" is better. I am loyal, so I have not watched "Lost" in the past, scoffing at the notion that it could even come close. However, due to the writers' strike (yay, it's over!) C and I felt pressure to rent seasons 1-3 of "Lost," or go to bed tv-less. Anyway, I have grown to love "Lost" over the past couple of months, but it's Alias-weird. Which makes sense, since the same guy created both shows. So I must still cast my vote for "24," because I still think it's the best even though its long absence may cause my memory to deceive me.

3)A's basketball season is winding down, and we're thankful. She LOVES it, but it is difficult to sit in the stands. Her team's high point game is 7 and they are winless. A has been scoring, though, so at least we get to cheer a couple of times each game.

4)C and our personnel committee are getting ever-close to hiring a middle-school minister. this is exciting news.

5)I'm getting old. Have noticed gray hairs and am playing bunko once a month.

I think "Babe" is the operative word here

So did that last blog creep you out or are you just sitting there dumbfounded, feeling sorry for me? It's ok. If you ascribe to the literal account of creation (which I do), we're all related anyway.

Yesterday, it was hard to get B's head in the car to go to church. Our house had been toilet-papered, and not in the usual way. (Aside - Our house has been wrapped NUMEROUS times, but w/ increasing regularity since B got to middle school. The toilet paper is now more often a result of his social life than it is of C being a minister to youth.) Anyway, I noticed it out the window, and tried to open the front door to inspect the damage. But the door was tied shut with Valentine-hearted red string. I had to get scissors to cut my way out. There at the front door were gifts...a cute little Valentiney prickly mammal of some sort and a box of heart cookies. So we investigated further. The mailbox was similarly wrapped in red heart string. But the driveway was the most telling part. The entire thing was covered in chalk-writing...heart after heart and messages like, "I love you" and "Sexy Babe"??? WHAT??? It was signed, "Secret Admirer". Since C and I are married, and to each other, we figured the messages weren't for us. And A, well her friends go to bed before midnight, so we can cross them off the list. What we were left with is that someone went to great lengths to get the attention of our 12 year old son. And, in typical B fashion, he got in the car for church with a big grin and said, "I hate being this good-looking." :-0 Pray for me, people.

Inbred Mutant

i've been called a lot of things, but...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327070,00.html

Can I have a different spice, please?

There was no repeat champion of the Frank Seale Spelling Bee this year. B was ready to go. This morning he woke up and said in Nacho Libre voice, "I want to weiin!" He had studied, but sometimes it just doesn't go your way. He made it easily down to the final 10 of 35, and was smelling certain victory, right up until the point when the caller said to him, "cinnamon." My immediate thought was, "He knows this," since I had called that word out to him before and he spelled it correctly. But then my very next thought was, "OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" when he paused with uncertainty and then asked for...a definition? And then a sentence? With B, if the spelling isn't out there in 2.3 seconds, it's probably not coming out right. I think he froze. And as he was standing there frozen, in my head I was begging for there to be a great disturbance in which they would feel led to give him a new word. A new spice, even....oregano, cilantro, cumin. But there was no great disturbance, and out came an unsteady, "C-I-N-A-MMON." His dream of a rematch with Amy Cho and somebody named Patel will not come to fruition, until maybe next year!

josie...

email me. i need your current email address!

cchopkins@gmail.com

I don't even have to embellish this story

This weekend we had our annual Hi Def event for our students (your church probably calls this same event Disciple Now). Anyway, we did things differently this year, taking the whole crew out to Mt. Lebanon for the whole thing. This might have been brilliant if 1) it weren't painfully cold and 2) the cabin's heater worked better in the wee hours of the night and 3) the juniper trees weren't doing whatever they do to cause massive swelling of the sinus cavities, sneezing, sniffling, itchy & watery eyes, and even swelling of the FACE in one unfortunate middle-schooler's case. I brought B home Sat. evening in hopes that he might be able to breathe. Sadly for him, and me since he slept with me Sat. night, it didn't work.

Actually, we did have a great weekend overall. We had about 90 students and another 15-20 adults. We had some really good worship leaders and C taught the large group sessions based on Bill Hybel's Living Beyond Myself, and of course, the B-I-B-L-E. We were all challenged to serve one another. I'm not sure it took w/ B, though. In our post Hi-Def lunchtime conversation, his focus on the whole experience seemed to be late-night cabin activities such as mattress surfing and wrestling (the boys had made their own wrestling ring with about 10-15 mattresses. He is just in the 7th grade, though, so I guess that's pretty normal. I heard that he shared in the large group time this morning that he learned that God will call him to serve in ways that he'll like..."but if He calls me to serve in a beauty salon or something, I won't do that. I'll just wait for Him to call me to serve somewhere else." he may be small in stature, but he is a spiritual GIANT. :-)

But back to coldness. I'm watching the NYG/GB football game where it is -4 degrees. and there are people there who don't even have to play in the game. I can't fathom that, because it was 20-something degrees at Mt. Lebanon this weekend and I thought my ears might break right off.

Tutorial

It's funny how just 4 hours a week can seem so huge. I usually try to write a session of LifeWay curriculum each week, but I'm having trouble getting that done now that I'm tutoring 4-5th graders in math every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. I'm sure I'll get it down eventually...hopefully before the end of April, which is when my tutelage ends.

Every Monday and Wednesday I sail through the first 3 groups thinking, "I could do this again...I could go back to the classroom full time." Here's a for instance: my precious 4th graders somehow got on the topic of church as they entered the room yesterday. One boy asked another, "Have you been bath-tized?" And the next group follows them up each time with equal endearment. We're working on memorizing multiplication facts. I have discovered that none of them have bothered to do this in the past, causing much angst over math and certain failure on the TAKS. So we take timed tests. They're given a page of 25 problems covering one set of facts (they all started with the 3s) and 90 seconds (this is quite generous on my part) in which they must complete them all with 100% accuracy. When they pass that test, they get to move on to the 4s, and so on. I had given each of the kids their appropriate test and was about to start the stopwatch when one little girl said, "WAIT! I have one more important thing to do first, and it's called prayer." I smiled and said ok and the others and I watched as she bowed her head and spent a few moments asking God to help her pass the 6s. See what I mean? precious.

But then in walks my 4th and final group where I'm reminded loud and clear that this is not so much fun after all. It's a shame that this group must come last, leaving me greatly annoyed and even mean at the end of the day. Perhaps this is God's way of telling me that I'm doing exactly what He wants me to do right now. On the other hand, it could just be that there is no perfect job!

Gifting by the H's

We got ourselves some super cool Christmas gifts this year. Check out the awesomeness:

C got me a massage table and a hoodie (completely unrelated, in case you were wondering)
I got him a book called "Massage Basics" :-). That was mostly for grins, his real gift was a Home Depot gift card, with which he has since purchased -
one garage door keypad
one cooling system (like the misters at Six Flags) to go over the garage for more comfortable basketball playing and back porch for more comfortable summer sitting.

B got the Weider Total Body Works 5000, which is a neato resistance-based workout system thingy that the whole fam has already used

A got some good stuff, too, but hers are pretty much only to be enjoyed by herself. Unless you count the iPod she got, which has so far ended all car pestering and complaints.

now you comment me about your most favorite Christmas gift this year!

Merry Christmas!

The Hs have had a fun-filled week leading up to now...it's good to be finished w/ all your shopping and work so early! We've had lots of fam time (due in part to a certain child's extended grounding :-) and made an overnight trip to Waco to share gifts w/ family. Two movies: Alvin and the Chipmunks (***) and National Treasure 2 (*****). A is sitting here beside me and she'd like to dispute the 3 star rating I'm giving to Alvin. However, I'm going to stand by my 3 stars for several reasons - she's 8 (A would like me to say "almost 9" right now), finds chipmunks humorous, and did not see National Treasure.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everybody~ Hope your worship this Christmas is especially joyful!

yay for me!

woooooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooo!


in case you were wondering, today i finished my writing assignment (the one for YOU, the African-American piece). also, c mailed out our Christmas cards. oh, and all my Christmas shopping is done. it's footloose and fancy free i am!

my life and stuff

you beg for a miley report and then you comment not. sheesh. you ppl are hard to please.

tonight i went to fbc waxahachie to get their youth workers fired up about the curriculum they're about to use. i got two 11th grade boys to go with me, bc when the youth min. told me he wanted my talk to be "high energy", I didn't know if I was up to the task. But i think it went well and the boys were just happy to get a free meal out of the deal (the youth workers were also having an appreciation banquet). ANd as I sat watching them wolf down their 2nd dinner of the evening (they had both already eaten at their homes an hour earlier), I began to realize that when B is a teenager I'm going to have to get a 3rd job (in addition to writing and tutoring) bc 16 year old boys eat a LOT. It's not even like it was a light meal...they were serving spaghetti. and they both cleaned their plates

B's bball team played a team from mansfield Monday night and got beat 78-15. ouch. but B scored 2 of those 15 on a nice little drive in the lane and ball fake. That one moment almost made it completely worthwhile for c and me to sit through that otherwise dismal game. They get to play another Mansfield team next week...woohoo!

mileyfan@blogger.com

The Hannah Montana concert did NOT disappoint. I think the only other pop concert I've ever been to in my entire life was Rick Springfield in about 1985. And though Rick was everything I'd hoped for and more :-), there's just no comparison. Concerts have come a looooooooooooooong way. And when I was explaining to C that sometimes the stage looked like the set of High School Musical or something with all the dancers and choreography, he pointed out to me that Disney backs her and they don't do anything 1/2 way. AFter the Jonas Brothers opened (btw, i think that one guy is more in love w/ himself than all the little screaming girls combined...."I'm Joe Jonas!" [pause for dramatic effect]) Hannah Montana descended on the stage (literally...she was in some kind of big cage-like box that came down from the ceiling) in dramatic fashion. Several times between songs she went into an on-stage dressing room and changed clothes as the band/others played intros to whatever song was coming next. In the middle of the concert, the J brothers sang 2 more songs while HM transformed into Miley Cyrus, and this is how she performed the remainder of the concert. It was like 2 concerts in one. Oh, and a few times she disappeared or reappeared through the stage floor. There were fireworks (of some sort), streamers exploding into the air, video, and lots of flashing lights. (I was worried that someone in the audience might seize.)There were 5 tour buses outside, just to let you know what a big operation this thing is. Anyway, fun was had by all and A was happy to receive such a cool Christmas present early. so there ya' have it. My 2nd pop concert in 38 years of living. At this rate, I'll see another one in the year 2025 at the age of 56. ROCK ON!

scary stuff

it's a little bit scary how techno savvy kids are these days. Last weekend when we had family here, A and I had gone out for a bit. When we got back, my laptop had been sabotaged...screensaver, wallpaper, homepage and more was all t.u.'d up. Later, when I realized it, A said, "I can fix it, mom." Within minutes, she had me all fixed up, even with improvements made to my previous settings - she'd put a pic of Kyle Field on as wallpaper for me. She's EIGHT.

and speaking of scary, C and B got to go to the Cowboys/Packers game Thurs. night, courtesy of friends who ended up not being able to go. C said it was INSANE...people acting like complete "morons" from start to finish. But they had a good time still, despite the drunken stupor of tens of thousands of crazed fans.

and speaking again of scary, A and I are going w/ some friends up to OK City tomorrow to see Hannah Montana in concert. I wonder how many miniature, wigged Hannah fans will be there. I'm thinking that's probably where it starts...Hannah wig at age 8, married to drunken man who paints himself blue and gray (or wears a block of cheese on his head) at age 35. We'll be going as ourselves. :-)

Justice, fairness, and all that, but please just do it quickly

I don't know a whole lot about the writers' strike, but since the public cry here on "because i can" demands some ponderings, I'll give it a shot.

My M.O. on such issues could be described as open-minded and generally unopinionated because I figure people have reasons for what they do. Sometimes they might even be good ones, or at the very least they probably have a legitimate complaint or two. So you'll not read any angry "BRING DOWN THE ESTABLISHMENT" or "JUST DO YOUR JOB AND STOP COMPLAINING" here. That said, I'm a writer, so I might be a wee bit skewed. And I'm not complaining --if you think so you're misreading-- it is a job that is largely underappreciated (unless, of course, your writing is for the edification of the church, in which case your rewards are really cool and shiny :-). I mean seriously, can you name a writer of one of your favorite shows? But that's where the real creativity and excellence is found. Sure, there are some great actors-- Hugh Laurie of House, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton of Friday Night Lights head my list--but without the story, who would care?

That said, they better get this worked out before long. In case you were wondering, the last strike (1988 Writers Guild of America strike) lasted 22 weeks, costing the American entertainment industry an estimated 500 million dollars. I don't want to go 22 weeks without good TV. that's what the summer is for! Gas prices are high so it's not like we can go places for entertainment. Nope, we're stuck inside. Thank goodness for Netflix and all those tv shows on dvd that we haven't watched yet. Otherwise, I might have to go old school and read something at bedtime.

p.s. Chick fil A has some really good writers. Everyone should go get a kids meal. They have these little question packs that we've been using at dinnertime. They're very fun...we've fielded such questions as: If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
If you could move in with one extended family member, who would it be, and why?
What was your favorite vacation?

The kids love 'em.

Boo

Upon review of my last several posts and your lack of response, I have gleaned that you are more interested and involved in reality tv shows than you are in my actual life.

Me, too. :-)

Game ON

B had his first ever "tryouts" last week. Thursday and Friday after school were basketball tryouts for 55 7th grade boys at his school. On Friday afternoon he came out of the school grinning from ear to ear and holding up his newly acquired practice jersey! We don't know if he's A team or B team yet, but it doesn't matter one bit. He's flying high and loving it so far. In fact, he got home today at 5:15 after his daily 2 hour practice, dropped his backpack in the garage and shot baskets til dinner. And right now, at 8:33 PM, he's upstairs shooting baskets on the little wall-hoop. AH, and it brings back fond memories...I once owed my big bro 100 packs of Hubba Bubba from our gambling on games of "Horse". good times...

Um, I don't think that hotel evaluator job is all that great. in fact, I don't think i want to do it again...EVER. It is perhaps the most tedious, brain-cramping job known to man. Just fyi, bc I don't want to leave you with a false impression that it is really cool and fun. bc it's not.

But TAKS math tutoring, on the other hand is VERY fun (after 1 day on the job). It's only 2 hours twice a week and it's MATH, which is a nice little diversion from writing. I think that's why the hotel thing wasn't so fun for me. I write all the time, and so the tediousness of that highly technical writing was just piling on my already tired writer-brain. I have 4 groups of 5 kids 30 minutes each, back to back to back to back. This week I tutored them on place value and used the salaries/contracts/net worth of Tony Romo, Dirk Nowitzki, Bill Gates, and Daniel Radcliffe to do so. More tuting tomorrow...

yee-haw and stuff

so i'm here in n'ville and it's pretty festive. i didn't know it til i got here, but it's CMA week. this means that even MORE guitars are out on the streets than usual. i've been keeping an eye out for billy ray and miley, since they're the only ppl i think i could recognize. sadly, though, they're not hanging out at lifeway. but kinda cool is that my new editor for the previously mentioned african american curriculum is mandisa's bff. really. and a girl who sings backup for mandisa and melinda doolittle sang for me tonight. actually, she was singing for all of us writers, but i do tend to be a little egocentric.

Schwank, part deux

C and I enjoyed a 2-night stay in the Highland Park area of Dallas this week. I don't know how many of these hotel evaluations i'm going to do, though, bc it's A LOT of work. I think there were 23 checklists, to be exact, and each one requires a detailed narrative, complete with quotes, time stamps, and a play-by-play account of the events. IT's a whole different experience staying at a hotel when you're evaluating, bc the instructions were to perform specific tests that required us to be (in my opinion, at least) quite high maintenance. Here are a few for instances: the first night we were to order room service right before they closed for the night. The next morning, we were to call Engineering and tell 'em we needed to leave soon, but had locked something in the safe and couldn't get it open. On the way out that same morning, i had to ask the concierge for some dinner suggestions in another nearby city (i chose Addison) with a "lively atmosphere and good menu." I was to tell her that I had to leave, but "could you have a list of suggestions for me when I return?" And my favorite was that while I was having this conversation, C had to strike up a conversation with the valet about how "green" (eco-friendly) this hotel group is. this was fun for me bc i think C was growing an ulcer thinking about how he would carry on this conversation, seeing as how that topic is such a natural one for him and all. he did great, though, and when we weren't causing the staff to earn their pay, writing about it, or taking pictures, we hung out at Northpark Mall and ate some good food.

I DID get that massage...about 25 minutes in two different chairs at Brookstone. :-) Turns out it wasn't a required part of the evaluation after all. :-( But this was nice because while I was getting a great chair massage, I learned so much. Did you know that in Asian cultures, skipping a 15 minute daily massage is as bad as leaving the house w/out brushing your teeth? Also, the cost of such a chair really isn't that bad ($5,000) if you consider the cost of a weekly one hour massage. Over a year, you come out pretty even and, with the chair, you can have 2 massages a day if you want. In that case, we'll take 2. we're gonna need them for our private island, don't you think?

Food Challenge

I'm changing my list of fave shows. Now it goes like this:
1. 24 and Friday Night Lights (I can't choose bc 24 isn't on right now, but that FNL is a GREAT show.)
2. 24 and Friday Night Lights
3. The Closer
4. House
5. Kid Nation

So last week on Survivor, they had the season's disgusting food challenge. They're in China, so they were having to eat some Chinese delicacies that were WAY over the top, in my opinion. Let's see, there were the little baby turtles, chicken hearts, eels, 1,000 year old eggs, and the worst of all...chicken fetuses, complete with feathers and all.

Watching this got me wondering, if another country was doing their own episode of Survivor, and the setting was America, what would be the food challenge that would make the foreigners gag and the show's watchers dry heave in their living rooms? At first I was hard pressed to come up with comparable food items, but then maybe not:

Spam
beets
Pork rinds
fruitcake
raw oysters
grits
chitlins
rattlesnake

and C wants me to add boiled eggs (but i like those)

maybe you'd like to help me with my list?

new stuff

I got myself a new little job this week. I'm gonna be a math tutor at A's school for 4th and 5th graders who need extra help getting ready for the TAKS. It's just 2 afternoons and only 4 hours a week, but I'm excited about it. I've been wanting to get back in the classroom, but only a little bit...not much! Mainly, I'm missing human interaction every day between 8-3. So this seems perfect for me. Plus the pay is really good, so of course, that's an added bonus.

Also, I'm going to be working on a brand new curriculum piece for LifeWay. Its for African-Americans. I know, I know...this brings up all kinds of questions. I'm not African-American, so why am I working on the piece? And why is there a need for a separate piece for African-Americans? I don't know all the details, so I can't really answer these questions adequately just yet. But I will learn them very soon, and so we shall discuss it further then.