She was Marshall

Eric and I are looking forward to seeing "We Are Marshall" with my mom sometime soon. The tragedy took place during her senior year at Marshall University, and she knew six passengers on the plane that crashed. It must be fascinating to see a Hollywood film about something you experienced firsthand. It's unfortunate that it has to be a sorrowful experience, but all indications are that the film is about honor, community and resilience.

Freudian slip?

Trivia: "Meet the Press" is the oldest continuously running television program in the world.

I was watching "Meet the Press" this morning as they discussed key points in President Ford's political life. Tim Russell accidentally referred to President Nixon as President Clinton. I thought that was ironic.

From everything I have heard and read, President Ford's only major flaw was graduating from Michigan....

Go Bucks!

Round Two

So, you probably know we're dealing with more snow.

I've noticed that a few churches have already canceled services for Sunday. And the city of Denver enforced the removal of vehicles from the posted snow routes for the first time in 24 years. This storm wouldn't be that big a deal if it weren't for the fact that we're still digging out from the last one. As the mayor said last night, "we're running out of places to put the snow." I was just out shoveling our driveway, and I ran into that issue. The snow around the perimeter of the yard is stacked so high now that it's hard to get the shovel high enough to dump more on it.

Another issue is supplies. The grocery stores never got caught up from the last storm, so they're really understocked now. And the cat food I ordered for Trisket two weeks ago still hasn't come in since they've missed 3 deliveries in a row, and he is not the most understanding cat.

I've lost 5 days of teaching in two weeks. That's a whole week of income, and since it's the same students I couldn't see last week, the likelihood of making all those lessons up is basically nil.

Still, we have everything we need and since Eric was still able to get to work the last two days, I've finally gotten some good practicing in. I also had plenty of time to make some fudge and a favorite jello recipe of my mom's that I haven't had in years.

Killer Bunnies!

Merry Christmas!

We had a nice Christmas despite some unpleasant circumstances... namely that I had the stomach flu and Eric still has a horrible gout flare up and the pain meds make him sick. Too sick to go to Mom's on Christmas Eve, we entertained ourselves at home playing with one of the presents Eric gave me, a card game called "Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot."

It's a clever and fun game with lots of booster packs to keep it fresh and exciting. We've had a lot of fun with it, but we can tell that it will be a lot more fun with more people, so just let us know if you want in! Check it out at http://www.killerbunnies.com. They even have the instructions posted so you can arrive already "in-the-know."

Storm update

Well, the measurement this morning was only 44" because the wind stopped blowing, but the snow hasn't let up for a moment. It's exciting. :-) It reminds me of the blizzard we got just a month after our wedding in 2003. Nine months later, when I went Christmas caroling at the hospital, the maternity ward was overflowing!

Here are some pictures.... I am reposting the shot of the backdoor from yesterday so you can see it against the one from this morning. Also, a picture of the front. My car, you'll notice, is totally buried. Eric's is still visible because he didn't get home until around 2pm yesterday. And FYI, the house across the street does not have a big hill in the front yard - it's usually quite flat.

Let it snow!

Blizzards are really fun when you're "stuck" at home with everything you need. No part of my car is visible.

We last measured about an hour ago and the snow drift against our back door was 43". We'll measure again in the morning and report back to you. It's nearly 1am now. This picture was taken when it was still daylight, so at least 8 hours ago.

Photos from Rome

Someone from the choir posted their Rome pictures on photobucket, so I decided to post some of mine, too. This represents maybe 5-10% of the pictures I took. They're the ones I thought would be different than what other choir members captured. There are some videos on there, too - they are the ones with a film border and .flv extension. I used video to try and capture the essence of certain places better than one could with a still shot. Anyhow, enjoy!

http://s144.photobucket.com/albums/r172/eseligmann/Rome%202006/

Just a "note" from Ellie

I passed the second half of the piano proficiency this morning. :-) Not a surprise, but definitely a relief. And by God's grace, I played everything about the best I ever have, which is truly miraculous given how nervous I get when I play the piano in front of people.

Now I have an hour and a half to kill before my guitar final.

Thursday night, I get to sing the Hallelujah Chorus as a quartet! My friend Jen from Sunday School directs the orchestras at Cherry Creek H.S. and they are playing the HC, but due to scheduling conflicts, they could not do it with the school choirs, so she hired a pickup quartet consisting of two CCHS teachers, me, and a friend of mine from Musicians of Saint Clare. It's always fun to sing in a quartet and it's always fun to sing with an orchestra, so this will be FUN!

He's a keeper!

Tonight Eric brought me a bouquet of red roses and white callalilies....the same kind of flowers I carried in our wedding nearly four years ago. And I haven't had callalilies since then, except the porcelain one he bought in Florida and gave me for Christmas in 2004. It's so romantic that he actually remembers what kind of flowers I carried! :-)

Do you believe in magic?

Some things I was reminded of this afternoon:

a) God really loves me.
b) I can still B.S. my way through just about anything.
c) You can get away with a lot in an undergrad course when you have a grad student's experience and background knowledge.

Undergrad course? Yes, I'm taking a few of those this semester in working towards my teaching licensure, while simultaneously working on my master's degree in Music Education.

So, one of my courses is "Guitar in the Classroom." We had an assignment due today - to choose a song from somewhere other than our book, learn it, and accompany ourselves on the guitar as we sing it for the class. I thought it was due on Thursday. It wasn't. It was due today. And I hadn't even chosen a song yet, let alone learned one.

So, I'm sweating in my seat wondering what on earth to do. I start wondering if I can make something up. It occurs to me that I can do a I-IV-V-I progression in the key of G, so I'm racking my brain to think of songs that use only those three chords. I came up with Happy Birthday and Silent Night, neither of which I had ever attempted on a guitar before.

Suddenly it's my turn. The teacher asks what song I will be singing. In a split second, I choose one and confidently (yes, oscar winning performance on that one) announce that I will be singing "Silent Night." I aced the assignment, doing better than about 1/2 the class who had spent actual time practicing much more complicated songs. The teacher came up to me afterward and said he would have picked Silent Night, too, because he likes that song so much.

Does God love Ellie? I think so!

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:32