Our boss called us into a meeting in the middle of the workday Friday to let us know we were all fired, including himself.

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a great vacation! You've so graciously been given 4 weeks notice. Can't tell you why. Ta!

"Though the fig tree does not bud and ther are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the field produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior."Habakkuk 3:17-18

Native English-speaking teacher/animal trainer

We are recruiting a native English-speaking teacher/animal trainer to work as part of an EU-funded zoo-preschool project at the Magdeburg Zoo.
You will be part of the world's first zoo with direct connections to a bilingual preschool located directly on zoo premises. Your English-language activities will serve to teach German-speaking preschool children between the ages of 3 and 6 about animal habitats and the care of animals.
Seriously?!

Also considering moving to Siberia.

It was a bad week. It started alright I guess. My co-worker and I bought tickets to take a trip to Philly/DC over our Winter Break. We are off to a nunnery and other places to be sure. On Wednesday I went to a program graduation- chit chatted with the former students and co-workers. I realized at some point on Wednesday that I had forgotten my phone at home.

Over the summer TX DOT opened an exit one exit before my exit. My exit is 161 N. The new exit is 161 S. Sometimes if I'm not really thinking about it, and sometimes even when I am thinking about I take the first exit, which is not my exit. This wouldn't irritate me so much if 161 S. wasn't a toll road. I have to pay 57 cents (or something crazy like that) to get on, and again to get back off. That's one exit, turn around get back on. There's no other way to get back to my place without paying the toll twice. It's not a big deal, just annoying.

Wednesday night after the graduation it was getting kind of cool, in the low 50s. I took the wrong exit. I had taken the wrong exit the day before and payed the toll twice, and I didn't want to do it again, so I decided to go across the median. The median is pretty small, maybe about 10-12 feet across, level. There were tire tracks, looked like lots of people made my same mistake, but maybe they weren't driving Priuses.

I drive a Prius. (What does your car sound like? Mine sounds like . . . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm When it's stuck in the mud between the highway and the wrong exit is sounds like . . . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)

Now, that 25 year old Z sitting in my parking lot would not have been stuck. It sounds like RRRRRRRoooMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I wasn't driving the Z.

I looked for my phone to call Pudding. I didn't have it. I could have sworn I put it in my purse that morning. But, no fear. Inexplicably I have two cell phones. I was carrying the one I never use, which I usually leave at home. I picked it up, I called the number, it rang, the phone turned off. The battery was dead. But that's ok, I had the charger with me. Here's where it starts to break down.

The phone won't charge and turn on at the same time. It has to be turned on before you start charging if you want to use it while it is charging. So, I plugged it in to start charging, but the car has to be turned on for the phone to charge. Fine, but I saw on the console that the electric battery was completely depleted. Fine, except that I was also almost out of gas. So, if I turned on the car to charge the phone, it would use the gas engine, so by the time I made the phone call I might also be out of gas.

What it all came down to was pudding stopping to buy a tow rope, the police shutting down the exit and me getting extremely muddy. In the end all was well- except that the inside and outside of my poor little car and my shoes are covered in mud.

When I got home I found the other phone, in the other purse which I had just transfer ed everything else out of before I left that morning.

I finished the white elephant, and her leg warmers, and her beret. Tonight I nearly finished a Christmas stocking. I'm on a finishing kick- next I want to finish a penguin. It's kind of an ugly penguin, but super simple. I'm making it to see if it really is as easy as it looks to be. (Kinda like why I made the elephant.) After the penguin I'm considering finishing a mermaid or a tiny hand towel.

I'm currently wearing a moo-moo (or is it mu-mu?) I just looked it up- seems either 'moo-moo' or 'muu-muu' is acceptable.

As for why I'm wearing a moo-moo. I'll tell you- it was all the rage in my neighborhood in India, additionally I just found it in my closet. It's really really comfortable. Wow. Impressive.

To bad it's so very ugly. It's sort of like a table cloth, folded in half, seemed up the sides (holes left for arms) and another hole for my head. There is a drawstring belt, but the drawstring has been lost . . .

It is dark blue with a white batik design down the front and back center, repeated on each side and around the arm holes.

While it does make me feel like an India house wife, I'm way too lazy to start slapping my laundry on rocks.

On facebook I was tagged to make a list of 15 movies in 15 minutes. 15 movies that made an impression on me. These are the ones I thought of. Most of them are comedies or kids movies . . . what does that say about me?

Amelie
Bubble boy
Children of Heaven
Finding Nemo
Finding Neverland
Lilo and Stitch
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Napoleon Dynamite
Out of Africa
Princess Bride
Return to Me
Schindler’s List
So I Married an Ax Murder
The Red Violin
Zoolander

It's not really my fault. I saw a dauchshund in a manger in a cartoon and I couldn't unsee it. One thing led to another . . .

Now I'm working on a white elephant. It's a pretty cool pattern- the whole elephant is made in one piece (talking about knitting of course) then folded up to make the elephant shape. I had white yarn- three small balls of the same brand white yarn. Unfortunatly I can clearly see where I began each ball of yarn- strange. Also unfortunate is the fact that this elephant has some crazy long legs. It's like a daddy-long-legs-phant. I figured I'd make her some leg warmers and a beret and tell people she's a dancer.

Psalm 1
BOOK I : Psalms 1-41
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.