"Never Alone"
I waited for You today
But you didn't show
No no no
I needed You today
So where did You go?
You told me to call
Said You'd be there
And though I haven't seen You
Are You still there?

I cried out with no reply
And I can't feel You by my side
So I'll hold tight to what I know
You're here and I'm never alone

-Barlow Girl

Here in a few minutes, we will be loading up the car again...and driving back to the airport...again...and I will be getting on a plane...again. This time headed back to SC to finish out the semester before coming home for a couple weeks for Christmas.

I have to say that we made an exciting purchase today...the final season of Alias is finally in my collection...and I couldn't wait, so as soon as we got home, I popped the first one in so I could see it before getting on the plane. I have to say that it was quite the shocker and leaves me a little disappointed...so I'm curious how the rest of the season will play out. Regardless, it will be nice to have closure. :)

Anyhow, lots of thoughts...no time for them now. Gotta hit the road and pray that my flights are on time so I won't get home much later than 2am. Fly into Charlotte and then a joyous drive back to Cola. Giddy up. See you when I get there.

Brenna and I this afternoon after our 2nd Thanksgiving meal of the week. :) She's fun. 

The Page Family Thanksgiving...2006. Ok, so Bradford's head is cut off, but this is the only pic I have of all of us from this year. It was a sweet day with family and far too much food! Happy Thanksgiving all! :) 

And this is what we saw as they took the big family pic for this year. :) 

Brenna and I on the way to Thanksgiving dinner...we got bored and creative with the pillows in the backseat. :) 

Steph and her daughter, Lexi. :) 

And it wouldn't be a Page Thanksgiving without some frisbee action. :) Evan teaching his nephew, Bradford, how to toss the disc. :) 

My lovely cousins...Steph and Cara holding the newest addition to our family, Lexi. 

Yesterday I had the joy of taking THREE Praxis exams. For those of you not in the educational world, those are the tests a teacher has to take in order to have his or her license. I think it was a beautiful day yesterday...but my tests ran from 7:30am until 5:10pm...so I don't really know for sure. I drove into the sun heading to my test site and into it going home. Fun times. But its over...in four weeks, I'll know how I did. I should be more concerned, but I'm just not. :)

Not much else going on around these parts. I'm heading off to the store in a few minutes to get some ingredients to try out a new recipe for cookies...pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! I'll let you know how it goes...the recipe is from Mon Amie...and if she permits, maybe I'll post the recipe so y'all can enjoy the goodness too. ;)

Confession: I have a fetish with pens. I have found my new favorite brand of pens. Check them out...it is by Paper Mate, the Xtend medium point pens. They are not expensive (hence the reason I have them)...and they are pretty colors; yet also practical. Just wanted to pass that on. (So I just got done writing with one for the last 2 hours...incase you wanted to know where this came from!)

Help Needed: I have no idea what a "Quick Read" format for a paper is. I have asked my editor friend and she also had not heard of it. I looked it up on the internet and found nada. So I guess if no one else can help me out, I will make the assumption that there needs to be lots of headings and bullets. :) Let me know if you have any ideas as to what this format is.

I got to the end of the school today and was doing some prep for tomorrow...when I went to write tomorrow's date on the white board. Tomorrow is only Wednesday...which means today was only Tuesday. It's going to be a long week, me thinks.

Someone put this quote on the comments section of my blog...and I have to confess, I would love it if you would identify yourself, my mysterious "anonymous" friend. :) I really enjoyed this quote, so thought I'd share it with those of you who aren't in to checking out more than the front page of this thing. :)

"Her motives include faith -- a quite confidence in God and in the mercies of God that radiate from the self-giving work of Jesus Christ. She knows God is good; she also feels assured that God is good to her. Her faith secures her against the ceaseles oscillations of pride and despair familiar to every human being who has taken refuge in the cave of her own being and tried there to bury all her insecurities under a mound of achievements. When her faith slips, she retains faith enough to believe that the Spirit of God, whose presence is har renewable resource, will one day secure her faith again." -Pantinga (Not The Way It's Supposed To Be)

It's almost 8pm and I can hardly stand up straight anymore...I'm going to bed...good night, friends.

I love this passage from LOTR...it often rumbles through my mind. Today is one of those days.

"I can't do this Sam.";

"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.";

"What are we holding on to Sam?";

"That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.";

- Sam to Frodo, at Osgiliath

Today is election day...and that means I have the day off. I had big plans for the day...but as usual anymore, they fell flat and I find myself with no motivation to read the book sitting next to my computer that I have to have completely read by Friday in order to write a paper. I just find myself running out of steam as the semester creeps to a close.

Last night, after a nice time with some friends I invited over and made chicago-style pizza for, Bekah and I both fell asleep as we were "letting our food rest" before heading out to walk it all off. A friend called me about an hour or so after my nap started and needless to say, I wasn't that sleepy anymore...so I picked up a book that I read when I was going through a really tough time a couple years ago. As I was reading, I ran across this quote and it just struck a chord somewhere in my heart. It's not the most uplifting, and for that I apologize...but I think it is painfully true:

"We have become used to living with our pain. We almost don't notice it anymore; its just the way things are. That would be fine if the heartache remained in a back closet somewhere like an old school photo album, but brokenness is never quiet or completely in the past. The pain that we experienced as children or in other relationships as we have grown casts long shadows over the present. It affects the choices we make and the way we respond to life, to God, and to others."

-Sheila Walsh

I am constantly amazed at how quickly the blood thins and my body adapts to a new range of hot/cold...but last night, even for you northerners checking this, it got cold. Below 30. So what did I do? Yep, I went for a walk in it. Good choice...so today accompanying my constant state of being cold I now have a sniffle. :)

In other news, I realized yesterday (again) when I was teaching that my kids are growing up in a whole different world than I did. We were talking about "I feel" statements to use for effective communication when we ran into a scenario of 9 year old Tashia who wants to walk to the public pool 6 blocks away by herself, but her parents won't let her. So the idea was to open up the lines of communication to get her parents to realize she was responsible enough to do that very thing on her own. But instead what happened when we began talking about what she could say was that my kids pointed out it was GOOD that her parents wouldn't let her go alone....their reasons? Drive by shootings, gang members, and kidnapping. Its a far cry from the safe, quaint, little 2,500 member community where I grew up!! Needless to say, we changed the assignment a little and they instead had her thank her parents for not letting her go alone because they loved her that much.

I was just looking through some pics tonight and I ran across this one from last year when I was home for a bit. Brenna and I decided one morning to go out and build a snowman...such sweet moments...I love how they still make me smile. :) Just a couple more weeks and I get to be with my family again...I can hardly stand the wait!