A photo of the pretty pink flowered branches on the crabapple tree in the backyard. It is right outside our bedroom window, so each morning I get to wake up to the beautiful flowers brushing against my window. Lovely, just lovely.
READING: Well, I finished reading my book last night, so now I am just a giving the Dorie Greenspan Baking book a once-over. The girls on the blog have already made more than a dozen of the recipes, so I am giving them a glance to see if I want to retrace that path and make a few of them. Need to get to the library tomorrow so I will have some new historical fodder for the weekend at Purdue...can't go without a book or two dontchaknow.
LISTENING TO: Gustav Mahler, a man never appreciated in his own time, so it's only fair we give him his due every now and again.
COOKING THROUGH: Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours...stay tuned, I will let you know how it goes.
FAV NEW FIND: Highlight tape of differing colors...wow. This is great for knitting patterns because you can place your pattern in a plastic page sleeve and the tape can be used over and over to mark your place in the pattern as you go along. Very nice.
FAV THING TODAY: Well, it sure isn't the weather, letmetellyou. Enough with the rain already. I think my favorite thing today was the day spent substitute teaching at Guerin. It is fun to see the kids and enjoy their high levels of energy.
GOING TO: Three-day swim meet at Purdue. Alex has a scout canoe trip he is looking forward to this weekend.
PRAYING FOR: This is difficult to explain because my heart is always torn. I fully believe that the people living in our country should take the proper legal steps to be here. I always feel a little guilty that I am lucky enough to live here while others live in places I can't even imagine as they are so unbelievably hard/tragic/poor/unhealthy/etc. This past Monday in Postville, Iowa, the immigration people raided a meat processing plant and arrested something like 400 illegal aliens who worked there. (I know, this happens all the time, but this was close to home, was a place where fellow students of mine in high school all worked during the summers when they were home from college, is a town that is home to several of my friends from high school, etc., and it is being touted as "the largest raid ever undertaken in the US.") The townspeople have mixed feelings as their small farming community has seen an influx of these immigrant families in recent years, making up about a third or more of the town's population. The part that tears at my heart is that they rounded these people up (primarily men), loaded them up in buses, and shuttled them off to the Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo, Iowa (okay, they housed them in the ballroom there, but still...). The hearings have been going on way into the night. Many of the men don't speak English, their families do not know where they are or what is happening to them, their children are left in the care of whoever will look after them while the wives try to find out what they can about their husbands, brothers, friends. And, yes, I know that they are all here illegally, have used false identity cards, usurped social security numbers, etc....but those little children...my heart just goes out to those little children. So, for this week, my prayers are for those people, please join me in any way that your heart feels it can do so. It just feels like a "no win" situation...prayers always feel useful to me in times such as these.