Chinese New Year 4706 is the Year of the Female Brown Earth Ox — sometimes called the cow or water buffalo.

The year of the Ox is associated with domestic trouble that seems to have no solution. The grounded, rational, earth influence of the Ox may bring good fortune to troubled economic times but only with a sustained, well planned effort. The Ox influence brings an aversion to risky credit and quick answers that are not well conceived. The Ox year brings success only through discipline and through hard work. The steady ox is quick to anger when confronted by what seems to be irrational opposition, but the use of reason works well and avoids a charge by the angry bull. There is much danger of war and unrest if diplomacy does not prevail.

The last time the earth Ox was seen as the ruling influence was January 29, 1949 - February 15, 1950. The world suffered a recession in late 1948 and early 1949. The world economy recovered during the year of the ox due to rational decisions and careful planning. By 1951, the recession was over. Many will be searching for a quick solution to the current economic crisis, but the ox favors a well planned, consistent path that will take more time but lay a foundation for long lasting results. The strong earth influence of this year favors a strengthening of the housing market, but risk takers will not find this year favorable. Those who look for long term benefits, have a well thought out plan and are willing to work to see results will find great success.

(I got this info from here.)

Happy Year of the Ox, everyone!

It's been a while. :)

I woke up much earlier than usual on the morning of January 20th, 2009. Remember, I work in the evenings, for the most part, so it's not always easy for me to wake up before 8am. Nevertheless, I set my alarm for 6:45 and was all set to watch the festivities. I won't rehash what you can get from any news source, but I thought I'd share some thoughts.

1) Overall, I thought the ceremony was very nice. It was a stately occasion, but it was not stuffy. I thought that the First Family looked gorgeous. The little girls were cute, Mrs. Obama was very pretty, and the President was very handsome. I enjoyed the quartet; Simple Gifts is one of my favorite tunes. I wasn't impressed favorably by Pastor Rick Warren's prayer. I know that some of my readers love him, but, frankly, I'm not a fan. I did, however, enjoy the benediction. It made me smile.

2) I loved President Obama's speech. I thought he did a wonderful job of showing hope while not ignoring the seriousness of our nation's situation. I loved how he focused on our nation as a whole and not on himself. I found myself inspired and hopeful. My favorite line was this:

. . . know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy

I think that's awesome! What if you . . . we . . . I lived my life as a a builder more often than a destroyer? I mean, deliberately lived that way? Wouldn't this be an awesome world?

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect.

This is kingdom-building at its core--recognizing our responsibility to feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked, and care for the widows and orphans. Of course, I was especially drawn to the line about feeding hungry minds, but I'm sure that if you know me, that's not a surprise. It's the message of Matthew 25. Inspiring!

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

Really inspiring!


3) I found myself really let down by the cattiness and downright hatred from some of my fellow Christians on this important day.

One person, who loves to proclaim herself to be a Christian seemed only too happy to proclaim that she "hates our new President and everything he stands for." Really? Hates? Everything? From what I've seen, our President loves his family and his country, God and humanity. Or, as I posted above,

hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism

Yeah, those sound like things that a Christian woman should be "totally against." Sure, I get that some people don't agree with President Obama's politics, but, seriously, the President said it best in his inaugural address: "the time has come to set aside childish things." Yeah, um, that's from the Bible. Maybe you've heard of it? But maybe you haven't, since you're against "EVERYTHING" that our President stands for. OK, I'm done ranting.

But I urge those of you who approached January 20th with a dirge in your heads rather than a hymn in your hearts to listen--really listen--to what you claim to be against. And whether you agree with what you think Barak Obama believes or you think the change he promises is not what you are hoping for, consider a different mindset. Think instead of how you might build something today. It's what I'm going to do.

Well, Saturday, we finally had our January field trip. We visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It was a wonderful day.

It began with lunch at Daisy Mint. I met Evelyn, Lloyd, Victoria, Finster, Stephen, and Carla at the restaurant. We had a delicious meal with good company. (This is the second weekend in a row that I've eaten at Daisy Mint, and I've had a good experience both times.)

Then it was time for the main event. Everyone was a little late, but finally everyone showed up. And by everyone, I mean . . . LaViva, Jaela, Carla, Lloyd, Victoria, Evelyn, Finster, Stephen, Ashley, Nestor, Shana, Janelle, Virna, Danny, and Michelle. Most of the people attending had not been to the museum before, so it was nice to see it through their eyes. We started off heading in the same direction, but with such a large group it was hard to sightsee together. Nevertheless, we made sure to check in with each other throughout the day, so that it still felt like a group outing. I really love the Norton Simon Museum. The collection is eclectic and wonderful. My favorites are the Degas and Picasso, and the religious art is always interesting. And, of course, I love museum shops. :) Everyone seemed to have a good time and told me that they really liked the museum.

After the museum, some people (Ashley, Nestor, Shana, Janelle, Virna, Danny, and I) went to Starbucks and sat on the patio. After Danny and Virna left, the rest of us went to Acapulco restaurant. We were having such a good time that we didn't want the night to end, so after dinner we headed over to Nestor's house, where we watched "The Princess Bride" and quoted lines to our hearts' content.

Overall, our first field trip was a success. Next month's trip is to the Asia Pacific Museum in Pasadena and will most likely occur on Saturday, February 21st. Wanna join us?

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Something to think about this weekend, as you're enjoying your time off.

I was reading Andy Chrisman's blog and just learned about something pretty cool. I know, it's probably old news. Those of you who are CCM fans probably heard about it a long time ago. It's something called CompassionArt, and you can learn all about it here. Here's what the website says . . .

CompassionArt is a charity that joins the dots between art and poverty. It raises money to help breathe life into the poorest communities, restoring hope and igniting justice.

. . . the dream was born to gather some of the best-known writers in the gospel/Christian music scene and spend the week writing songs that could impact these issues on a long-term basis.

So after many phone calls, the team was assembled, Michael W. Smith, Darlene Zschech, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Paul Baloche, Israel Houghton, Graham Kendrick, Steven Curtis-Chapman, Andy Park, Stu Garrard, Martin Smith.

So, with so many songwriters gathering it felt like we needed a new structure to compliment and carry this dream. The usual way of doing things is for a publisher to own the songs and then distribute them to the writers. Although there's nothing wrong with this it felt like we needed a more radical approach to maximising all the income from these songs as the intention of the writers is to give every cent away. Also a lot of the publishers and managers were excited about being involved too and making a contribution.

So CompassionArt was born, a charity dedicated to seeing works of art generate income for the poorest of the poor. So these songs that will be written in Scotland in January will be owned by the charity meaning that every penny will come to it and the trust will own these copyrights forever. The publishers, the managers, the agents and the writers have waived all their rights to see something historic happen, the music business coming together for something great, something that is about something greater than any individual could achieve.

It sounds pretty cool to me. What a great way to use one's art to BE Christ's Kingdom! I'm interested in hearing the album, too!

So last night I logged onto our business system at work, and I was in for a great shock. I was just going on there to find a student's email address. I was not prepared to learn that one of my classes was cancelled. I'm really upset for a couple of reasons.

1) That is a lot of money that I won't be earning in February and March. I was already in trouble because of the Christmas break, and now I may have to borrow money again. *sigh*

2) No one bothered to call me and tell me that my class was cancelled. Had I known earlier, I could have made plans to be away for the six days that I have off. I could have gone to Hawaii or St. Louis or Chicago or that cruise with the 4Him reunion. Couldn't someone have dropped me an email to let me know?

I'm not in a good mood right now. Grrr . . .

Here's goal #4 for year 2009:

I will get one room clean every week.

Again, this seems like a weird goal, but if you saw our house, you would understand the issue. Years of packratting by me and my parents has resulted in a huge accumulation of junk. So my goal this year is to get the entire house cleaned and to redo at least a couple of rooms. But I'm only focusing on one room at a time. Once I get the house presentable again, maybe I can get back to entertaining. :D

So here is goal #3 for 2009:

Have a blood glucose within range at least 3 times a week.

Since I am supposed to test 14 times a week, this seems quite reasonable. However, let me give you some background. Last year I managed to lose some weight and to get my blood glucose (BG) under control. In fact, I was even able to decrease the dosage on one of my medications. Unfortunately, this did not last long, and I started slowly gaining again. And slowly my BG started to creep up. *sigh* The last time I went to the doctor, I told him that my BG was starting to get too high in the mornings but was perfectly within range in the afternoons. My doctor thought that my BG might actually be going too low at night, and I was catching it on the "bounce" in the morning. So he suggested that I try cutting out one of my medications and seeing if that helped. It didn't. Instead, my BG skyrocketed. I stopped checking, but I could tell that I was really high. So I started taking the meds again on New Year's Day. That day my morning BG was 262, and the afternoon BG was 281. Today I have gotten my morning BG down to 214 and the afternoon to 144. This is much better, but my goal is to be between 70 and 140, so I have a way to go. I'm starting off with a goal of 3 times per week, but I hope to be able to raise this number sometime soon. I'll keep you posted.

I got this an email from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund a while ago. Some of the stories are heartbreaking. I'm reprinting some excerpts below . . .

Dear Diabetes Families and Friends of DREDF:

As you know, DREDF attorneys Larisa Cummings and Charlotte Lanvers have been working full steam on achieving the right to health care assistance in school for children with diabetes. We won a landmark settlement in 2007 from the California Department of Education (CDE). Then nurses’ organizations sued the CDE, and we received a setback a few weeks ago when a Judge ruled that licensed nurses are the only people other than parents, parent-designees, or the child herself who can administer insulin. It would be great to have a nurse in every school, but that is not going to happen. Larisa and Charlotte continue to put their all into this work every day.

In the midst of this work, Lisa Shenson, one of DREDF’s parent volunteers sent a plea for support to her friends in the diabetes family community that we'd like to share with you. It is important for us to reach out to the communities we serve for support, because few institutional funders will underwrite the legal advocacy DREDF undertakes as a 501(c)3 non-profit public interest law firm. Please help us so that we can continue to fight for your children and families.

Here is Lisa’s message:

Dear Diabetes Families & Friends,

Last month an 8 year-old child newly diagnosed with diabetes had no one at school to administer his insulin — there was only one nurse for the district, and she would not train any other school personnel to help this boy. Another child, 6 years old, was told by his school’s nurse that he must learn to press the buttons on his pump or he would not be allowed to come to school. At another school, administrators told a young teen that she may not participate in team sports because of her diagnosis. And a young boy in the Central Valley has been home-schooled for two years because his neighborhood school told his family, “We don’t do diabetes care.”

These are but a few of the real stories of children with diabetes who have recently faced discrimination in California ’s public schools. Be it your family or one you don’t even know, the pain of discrimination touches every diabetes family.

Now, more than ever, all diabetes families need to support the organization that has been leading the fight against discrimination on our behalf … the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF).* DREDF is one of the nation’s leading legal and policy advocacy non-profits, and it is passionately championing the rights of children with diabetes in California. DREDF’s intensive efforts are vitally important to all diabetes families.

Last month, a judge in California Superior Court ruled that only certain individuals are permitted to administer insulin to a child with diabetes in California public schools. This is a major setback. Why? Based on this court ruling, unlicensed school personnel may not administer insulin to a student on a regular basis. The ruling does not prevent trained unlicensed school personnel from assisting a child with self-administration of insulin, or administering insulin in an emergency. But with a serious shortage of nurses in schools, children with diabetes and their families will have to fight for their right to appropriate care in school. Parents and their designees may choose to come to school to administer insulin. But for many families, this is near impossible.

DREDF and its legal partners fought hard to keep this ruling from happening, and they are continuing to fight for our children and to provide legal assistance to individual families so that all children with diabetes are safe at school.

In Gratitude & Partnership,

Lisa Shenson, Diabetes Parent & Advocate

Susan Henderson

Executive Director

I don't really know what I want to say about it. It's just another thing . . . *sigh*

So, one of my favorite animators, Amy Winfrey, has another cartoon! This one is called Squid and Frog, and you can watch the holiday special above. :)

Amy is the creator of my all-time favorite cartoon, Big Bunny. She is also the creator of Making Fiends, which started out as a web cartoon and is now on NickToons every weekend. All of her cartoons are infused with her bizzare and fun sense of humor. Check it out for a good laugh.

Here's another one of my goals. It kind-of goes along with Goal #1, but it's slightly different.

I will do something with friends at least twice a month.

This stems from the fact that I tend to go into a cave from time to time, and this can be a very dark place. So in an attempt to prevent this from happening, I am going to force myself to interact with people at least twice a month. It kind-of goes with the museum thing, since I hope that people will join me at the museums, but I plan to go to the museums with or without people. The "something" doesn't have to be anything more than a quick lunch; it doesn't have to be a big party or anything.

In this way, I hope to keep myself from retreating into myself. It's my attempt to be less "Eeyore" and more "Tigger."

I recently learned about Randy Pausch. Apparently, I'm late in this discovery, since Randy Pausch was recently selected (on Beliefnet.com) as the most inspirational person of 2008. He made a speech in September of 2007 that was titled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." Video of what came to be known as The Last Lecture spread all over, and millions of people considered Dr. Pausch's approach to life and death inspirational. There's some info on Dr. Pausch here. I finally got around to watching the whole lecture, and I must admit that it was pretty cool.

I suppose everyone who watches the lecture or who reads the book gets something different from it. For example, I'm sure that the teaching part isn't what necessarily appealled to the majority of people, but it's definitely something that jumped out at me. It reminded me of how much I love being a teacher, how blessed I am to be a teacher, and how important it is that I share this blessing with the world.

Still, I wasn't as super-inspired as people seemed to have been by the words of Dr. Pausch. Not that it wasn't good . . . it was good and inspiring. And I highly recommend watching the video, if you have 1-1/4 hours to spare.

Dr. Pausch gives a lot of good advice, and there are many lessons to be learned. The one I will take for 2009 is this: Am I a Tigger or an Eeyore? As most of you know, I tend toward the Eeyore side. But I'm trying to change that--really. I honestly don't think I have to be a Tigger all of the time. That would madden me AND everyone I meet. But I think there's room for more Tigger and less Eeyore in my life. :D

As I said before, it's a good lecture. It may make you cry. If you do watch it, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.

I'm not posting all of my New Year's resolutions in one great list. How embarrassing if I can't keep them!

But I thought I'd post some goals every so often.

Here's my first one . . .

This year I will visit at least one local museum every month.

I am surrounded by a lot of amazing things here in L.A., and I rarely take advantage of my environment. I even have a book that lists all of the museums in Southern California. When I bought the book years ago, I went through and put tags on all of the pages that looked interesting. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of that . . . until now.

I'm going to start with something familiar and move on to places I haven't been. First stop, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Who's joining me?

I just read this story about a baby that was born in Peru on Christmas Day. The mother's name was Virgen Maria, and the father works as a carpenter. No, really! I'm not making this up! Of course, they named the baby Jesus Emanuel. Interesting, right?

For some reason this story caught my attention. I'd love to see 25-foot snowman on my front yard or in my neighborhood. If I lived somewhere that was possible, I think it would be fun to be able to do something like that, at least once. Snowzilla has attracted a lot of attention, and I guess that's the problem. Legal action is being taken against the homeowner, because Snowzilla is supposedly a public nuisance. There's even a website to raise money to "Save Snowzilla." Is this really the best way to spend the government's time and money?