Theo and the Mouse, and Other Tales

Sammie had a super-fun date/dance last night: a masquerade. Adrienne created these amazing masks for her and her date. Check them out! Adrie is off and running on another semester and applying for the special ed program. She is super-excited to do that and is doing so great.

I went snowshoeing with the bike shop gang Thursday evening up American Fork Canyon to a place called Pine Hollow. It's really incredibly beautiful. We had quite a bit of snow. We went up to two meadows and an overlook where you could see some peaks, some valleys, and Heber in the distance. The stars were great because there was a new moon.

Along the way, Theo found a mouse somehow. He chased it down, batted it between his paws, and picked it up in his mouth. Then he spit it out again and let it run, chased it down, and got it again. What fun! The mouse had been on the packed down trail, but Theo took it into the deeper snow. I suppose this wasn't as fun because it was harder probably for both the mouse and Theo to move. I'm not sure what happened. I lost track, but there's probably a dead mouse up there.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts is a book called Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. It makes really amazing, crusty-on-the-outside, dense and moist on the inside, artisan breads of the kind you might find in good bakeries in, really and truly, about 5 minutes a day plus 15 minutes of prep time every 5 days. It's our new favorite thing. The only downside is that it uses just basic flour so you don't get all the different kinds of flours, but maybe there are recipes later that use other flours. Try it!

I have here in front of me a seed catalog. The first sign of spring. It is time to order seeds! I just pulled the last of the frozen green beans from the freezer. I still have beets and carrots in the garden ready to harvest. Leaving them in the ground to harvest in January and February is a wonderful way to have fresh veggies in winter! I tried Burpee seeds once, and they were terrible. So now I'm trying Johnny's. I ordered spinach from them in the fall so I could get it in and it would over-winter and come up in February. I got them in pretty late, and then Theo discovered how to get over the fence and tear up the garden, so I'm not sure they survived. Plus we've had a layer of snow now for a week that is not going anywhere. So, we'll see if we have spinach in February. Maybe not. But I'm cheering for the spinach. And at least the seeds came on time and sprouted well.

This new year has started so well! I'm very grateful not to be teaching. I've been able to focus on administrative and management issues in the department. I'm going to lead an effort this semester to re-think our curriculum. The face of our department has changed dramatically in the last 15 years and it's a good time to re-think what we are doing. I sense we have the capacity to do more and better.

Leah had her first swim meet yesterday. It was very cute and fun seeing her excited to do well. She dropped 6 seconds within the same meet on the 50 free! Nathan has a good basketball team, but they got beat yesterday by a tremendous team. I took him to the gym last night with sweet new basketball shoes to work on some skills. He met a guy his age doing the same thing and they had a lot of fun.