so blogger says i've hit 100 posts

And it's all because of you, faithful readers. All because of you that I keep racking my brain every few days to fill you in on all the gory details of my little northwest life. This is actually post 101. And technically, if I went in and separated the myspace blog archives, I'd be even farther along than that.

With that said, did you know I took a personal day yesterday? Just to be personal. Kidding!!! I wrapped presents that are Ohio bound, addressed Christmas card envelopes, listened to Christmas music, enjoyed the quietness of the apartment for a change. I don't think anyone was home on our side except me. NICE!!! I graded a stack of papers that I was beyond behind on. I know, why grade papers on a personal day? Well, it's all about keeping my sanity. That, and the fact that progress reports go home next week and I had hardly any grades recorded. It was relaxing. I stayed in my pajamas til noon thirty, drank hot tea, made a grilled cheese, played around on the computer. It was glorious. And the best part is, I still have two more left :)

I brought home our tree today from the school lot. Did I mention that it was pouring rain out all afternoon? Ya, my trunk is probably soaked. We got it all set up in the stand and are waiting for it to drip dry. We're going to decorate it tomorrow night.

Then after that whole ordeal of trying to get the tree to stand up straight in the tree stand, we went on a date.

Phil took me to see Michael W. Smith's Christmas show. Oh. My. Goodness!!! I have always loved his Christmas music and tonight I got to experience the real deal. Full orchestra, beautiful Irish flutes & pipes, poundingly good piano playing. I could seriously sit and listen to music like that all stinkin' day. Belinda Doolittle (from American Idol) was there. That girl has some chords, let me tell ya. She can sing. We were kind of off to the side, but the seats were still good. Got a few pics to share, but mind you, the zoom on the nighttime setting isn't the greatest. Proof, more or less, that we were actually there. (Gig, these are for you, simply because instead of enjoying a really good concert, you had to sweat it out at the country club with Todd! Hope you found something nice to wear!)

The concert was a smaller venue, at one of Portland's larger churches. While we were there, we bought 4th row tickets for Chris Tomlin in March! Hurry, Glenda, there's still time!