red carpet dress

Here is a picture of Joe and I going to the FilmFest. The attire was "thrift store formal" and my friend April graciously allowed me to borrow a dress of hers circa 1990.If you haven't already, be sure to watch our 5 minute film submission!
katmosphere: BEST VIDEO EVER!!!

Hair Be Gone

I've finally cut my hair shorter again! I now have two ponytails that are 10.5" long to donate to locks of love. I'm so happy to have shorter hair - long hair just wasn't me!

Before

After

one thing I don't appreciate

One thing that I don't appreciate is closed-minded feminists.

An article in the New York Times (click here to read it) entitled "Off To Work She Should Go" talks about the decreasing number of married mothers who return to work after having a child. The author (Hirshman) felt it necessary to express herself after hearing the results from the study "Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of Infants." Hirshman summed up the results:

"Sixty percent of married mothers of preschool children are now in the work force, four percentage points fewer than in 1997. The rate for married mothers of infants fell by about six percentage points, to 53.5 percent. The bureau further reports that the declines 'have occurred across all educational levels and, for most groups, by about the same magnitude.' In sum, sometime well before the 2000 recession, wives with infants and toddlers began leaving the work force. And they stayed out even after the economy began to revive."

Here is my least favorite section:

"Should we care if women leave the work force? Yes, because participation in public life allows women to use their talents and to powerfully affect society. And once they leave, they usually cannot regain the income or status they had."

Is the only way a human can "participate in public life" or "powerfully affect society" by joining the traditional work force? And, how much a person uses their talents or affects society has almost NOTHING to do with the income level they have. I would venture to say that a person who is earning money buy only using their talents is NOT meeting their full earning potential.

"And despite the happy talk of 'on ramps' back in, only 40 percent of even high-powered professionals get back to full-time work at all. That the most educated have opted out the most should raise questions about how our society allocates scarce educational resources. The next generation of girls will have a greatly reduced pool of role models."

So, I'm officially taking the stance of disagreeing with Ms. Hirshman. What a limited view she has. I wonder if she is able to live up to the standards she has for success. Considering she has a law degree but is a feminist author, I'd say - by her standards - SHE wasted some "scarce educational resources."

BEST VIDEO EVER!!!

Okay, maybe not the best, but you still have to watch it. Here's the video Joe and I made for the filmfest our church did. (note: Our church is called Community Church, and we abbreviate a lot of things with Com, such as ComChurch and ComGroups. Hopefully that explains a joke at the end.)

Stalacpipe Organ Video!

I finally put up the Stalacpipe Organ Video (see "for lovers" post).

Road Trip Part 4: For Lovers

Click here to see the map of Day 4's travels.

We packed up camp the next morning and headed to Staunton, VA, to stay with Joe's cousin and his wife (Jesse and Laura). Most of the day was spent driving, but we enjoyed a yummy dinner and catching up with the two of them that night.

State #6 for the trip: Virginia

The signs all over say "Virginia: for lovers" though I'm not really sure why. It was very beautiful and I'm sure it's amazing when the trees have leaves, and especially when they are changing colors. And maybe lovers enjoy beautiful places together?

The next day we spent exploring that part of Virginia. (Click here to see the area.)

Downtown Stauton

We played some disc golf (if you're surprised, you really don't know Joe).


We visited a cemetery with a mass grave for Confederate soldiers.

We visited the Luray Caverns, famous for the stalagtite organ it has. (I have a video of this, and will look into posting it when I get a chance.) One area had a shallow lake (about 6 inches deep) that showed a beautiful reflection of the ceiling. Here's a picture - it's hard to believe that the bottom is actually perfectly smooth.

The Blue Ridge Mountains were beautiful!

Road Trip Part 3: Forging for Pigeons

Click here to see the map of Day 3.

We woke up at 10:30 later in the morning (hey, that's barely 6 hours of sleep), and chose a pancake house for breakfast/lunch in Pigeon Forge. I tried corn meal pancakes. I LOVE cornbread and corn, so I'm glad I tried them, but they are really too dry for pancakes. It was neat to put honey on them instead of syrup.
Outside the Pancake House, we saw a HUGE mosquito hawk. We had been taking way too many pictures and felt like complete tourists, so we figured we should also take a picture of him.



We had plenty of options, but Joe generously chose to take me to Wonder Works - a museum / theme park (for kids). One cool part was a bathroom in a crowded hallway with a big window. When you locked the door, the glass became opaque so that you couldn't see through it. We also got to look like astronauts!









We went back to Gatlinburg and walked around some of the shops. Joe bought some awesome blueberry crumble coffee, and we bought a chocolate cake for later that night. We had read about the cake shop in the New York Times, so we expected greatness.

We then drove along the border of the Great Smokies National Park to Cosby. The park is known for its waterfalls, but we did not get to see any of them. You have to hike to see any of them, and the shortest hike near where we were was 1.2 miles (each way). Unfortunately, we just didn't have time. We did see some beautiful streams, though.We had been monitoring the temperature predictions all week, and the expected low for our night of camping in the mountains varied from 32 - 46 degrees. While eating cold salads with cold chicken for dinner wasn't the best idea, the chocolate cake was delicious. We built a big campfire and stayed warm until it was time to put it out and go to sleep. We had lots of blankets, so it wasn't too cold for us that night.

Road Trip Part 2: Daylight Savings Time

Click here for a map of our second day of the road trip.

We stayed up late chatting with Joe's aunt and uncle (we hadn't seen them in a while), and got a slow start to our day. We knew it was going to be the longest day of driving, but we underestimated how long it would really take. We got on the road by 10am (hey, with how late we stayed up that wasn't bad). We had good weather and 5 new CDs we had bought for the trip, so the going was good.

first came Louisiana

We had packed snacks as well as salads and grilled chicken for several lunches, and so we stopped at a rest stop in Louisiana to eat lunch.

crossing the Mississippi River

second came Mississippi

We began to realize that the trip was taking longer than Google Maps had anticipated, but kept on truckin'!

third came AlabamaThe sun set as we crossed Alabama. The trip was taking MUCH longer than expected, and Daylight Savings Time meant that we were going to loose an hour that night. Joe drove most of the time, and was doing great (thank you gas station coffee).

fourth came Georgia

As you can see in the picture, along with a welcome to Georgia, we were notified of the change to Eatern Time Zone. We had both forgotten that eastern Tennessee was in another time zone. On the entire trip, we only stayed at a hotel for one night, and Saturday night was that night. We did call the hotel to tell them we'd be late, and they said it was no problem. At this point, it was already late and we were several hours away from the hotel, and that time zone reminder was just about the last thing we wanted to see.

Finally Tennesse, our 5th state!

As we approached Gatlinburg, we drove through Pigeon Forge. I don't think I can express how difficult it was to maintain the 35mph speed limit on deserted roads when our hotel was less than 20 miles away. It was hard to find our hotel. Both the Google Map and the hotel's map were not helpful and we ended up turning around several times. We arrived at the hotel at 4:15am local time. They told us we had to check out at 11am (in less than 7 hours!) but Joe got them to move it back to noon. I think there were only two other people staying in the entire hotel (judging from the parking lot), so it was actually pretty rude of them not to extend it longer - I've stayed at plenty of places that will give you until 2pm without charging for another full day. (A related side note: we do NOT AT ALL recommend the Scottish Inns in Gatlinburg. The place was cheaply built and decorated, though you wouldn't expect that given the cost. It was also very dirty - so gross I don't even want to write about it! The only good part is the location, but it is surrounded by other hotels that would be better choices.) We immediately went to sleep.

sick of the news

Yet another reason I am sick of the news and media in general...

(both from CNN.com)
Today's headline news: Cheaper gas seen in 2007

Yesterday's headline news: Gasoline pump prices soar 10 weeks straight

I think I'm in one of my cynical states. Why does media over-dramatize everything? I guess that's the wrong question - I know why: money. Fear drives people, and if they exaggerate everything, then they will get people's attention (and money). But could news be different? It seems like such a waste.

Road Trip Part 1: Rental Car

Joe and I went on a road trip recently, and this is the first of 7 posts telling about our trip!

Thursday we took our car in to get checked out since we'd be driving over 3000 miles. We got a call Friday afternoon saying we had a water leak, and they could not fix it anytime soon. While the water leak wasn't bad, it could get worse on such a long trip. To be safe, we decided to rent a car.

Because of all the changes in our plans, we got on the road later than we had planned, but we made it to Nacogdoches, TX. We stayed there with Joe's aunt and uncle.

Click here to see the route on Google maps for Day 1.