let your heart be light

have yourself a merry little christmas.
love,
jodi, leo, kate, and ian

heaven might smell this good

125 pans of cinnamon rolls baked today. made from scratch. yum.

christmas cookies - 2009 edition

"a day without laughter is a day wasted." - charlie chaplin

my two lovely sisters.  completely rotten, they are.  while i...yes, i...the middle child, am a completely innocent and perfectly behaved little girl. 

those are JILL'S own handprints on her chest.  (lest you think that jim was helping us bake cookies today and became very frisky seeing jill in that auburn t-shirt and simply had to lay rightful claim to the ta-ta's that are already his.)

and this picture.  oh my gosh.  the quality of it is extraordinarily poor because i was absolutely laughing so hard i couldn't breathe.  it still makes me snort out loud.

now taking requests

i've had a couple of people tell me that they're enjoying my christmas music playlist, but that i need to add more songs.  so, okay.  you request it.  i'll see if i can find it.

(*please note, i REFUSE to add "grandma got run over by a reindeer" to the playlist.  and yes, it's been requested to me at work.  i simply can't desecrate the holiday with it!)

one of the coolest things ever

my compassionate and loving co-worker, danielle, sent me the link to this website.  how can you NOT do this?  go there.  now. 

(click on the orange arrows at the bottom to scroll through messages, photos, and links.)

santa baby

me on the left, juj on the right.  at my school's fundraiser this evening.  (our santa totally rocked!)

i need a dog

masking tape won't work this time

i dropped my camera on christmas eve...on my parents' hardwood floor. the lens is completely broken. :(

i need a new camera.
nothing fancy.
nothing toooooo pricey,
because knowing me...

i'll drop the son-of-a-gun.

good intentions gone awry and christmas cookies

i had every intention of posting my favorite snl clips until christmas day, but alas, the ones that bring me the most joy are either nowhere to be found or of extraordinarily poor quality. bummer.

i am posting, however, a slide show of the smith grandchildren baking homemade christmas cookies this afternoon at my house. here are: taylor, kate, chloe, ian, and ben...with a little bit of aunt jill thrown in.

the sixth day of christmas

here's one of juj's favorites, which i'm afraid could have been filmed in pike county...

the fifth day of christmas (or: oh man! copyright law is bumming me out!)

i had all of these christmas videos (from snl) that i wanted to share with you...but man, nbc is protecting their stuff. unfortunately, the nbc site does not have a plethora of snl christmas videos, so i am going to have to change my plans.

from here on out, i will pick snl videos that i think are pretty darn funny, and will hopefully make you smile during this holiday season.

my first "non-christmas" pick is the following sketch of bill murray and gilda radner...it's priceless (although the humor doesn't really kick in until gilda arrives). so here they are: todd and lisa

the fourth day of christmas

this is an oldie, but a goodie. i posted it last year, too.

the third day of christmas

probably the funniest SNL sketch ever...

the second day of christmas

give it on up to homelessville.

the 12 days of christmas...

...SNL style.

in the hopes of spreading some electronic christmas cheer, i'm going to post my favorite "saturday night live" christmas sketches here until december 25.

so, on the first day of christmas, we have john malkovich reading "the night before christmas". i'm not a huge malkovich fan, but i still found him charming and humorous in this sketch.

happy thanksgiving, memories of grandma, and other ramblings

i haven't blogged anything of substance in a long time, mainly because i've really been wondering about the potentially narcissistic bent of my posts. but hey, it's the holiday season, and i've received emails from some of you wondering what the heck is going on in my world...so here you go.

monday night, kate and i went to the ohio theater to see my cousin jonathan and the OU marching 110 perform. talk about amazing ~ wow! first of all, i am so incredibly proud of jonathan for the fabulous young man he has become. he is so loving and affectionate and grounded. and the music...honestly, i don't know how the people around us remained in their seats. (julie and i had to get up and dance at one point). the 110 are cool in a way that the OSU band is not. they are unpretentious and look like they're having the time of their lives. if you ever have the opportunity to see them perform, do it. (for a clip of jonathan and the drumline on youtube, see the post below.)

i won't say how, lest my mother reads this post, but i recently "stumbled" upon a box of photos that belonged to my beloved grandmother. i'm not quiet sure, but this just may be the view from heaven:

this picture was taken from my grandmother's back porch. the shade of the apple tree unseen to the left) is casting a shadow across the back yard. my grandfather usually planted his garden on the left side of the walk only; the other side of the yard was reserved for serious badminton playing.

at work this week, we were talking about thanksgiving traditions. a tradition that julie and i had for many years was setting grandma's thanksgiving table. even during our college years, we would go to her house the night before thanksgiving, get out the china and flatware and beautiful pink goblets, and set the table. then, we would hang out in the kitchen, drink coffee, and listen to her talk about the menu for the following day, which never changed, and was always scribbled down on the back of an envelope (or so it seemed). i'm not sure when the photo below was taken, but this table was definitely set for thanksgiving, and it was done with love by two devoted granddaughters.

i've been thinking alot about everything i have to be thankful for this holiday, and perhaps it all sounds so trite: i have a beautiful family with two healthy and happy children, and i am blessed with a job i truly adore. but maybe, what i'm most thankful for this year is that i have a memory that is sharp and clear and filled with cherished remembrances of a relationship that provided for me the most well-defined meaning of unconditional love that i have ever known. i mean seriously, who couldn't love this...


i was definitely a girl built for relationship. but i must admit, i have done a very sloppy job of cultivating and making time for my friends this year. i am blessed to know beautiful, warm, loving, and funny women who i adore spending time with, but it seems that i allow work, and the overall "busy-ness" of life to get in my way. i need to improve on this. and for those of you still hanging in there and counting me as "friend", thanks. i owe you.

as i just stated, work has been rather overwhelming for me this year. i am team-teaching another class and not taking any planning periods throughout the week. if i take a planning period, i'm letting someone down. i can't be everywhere at once, and most of my co-workers understand this. my principal has been wonderful about me insisting that i take a break when i need one, but it almost seems easier during the day to not stop, to not lose momentum. i must admit, i'm feeling a little more "fried" than usual. but i love my kids. yes, they are a challenge, and i could tell you stories about the most horrific child abuse and neglect and parents in prison and lice infestation and drug use that would bring you to tears. but man, i love those kids.

kate is growing. a lot. the girl is a TREE. she's grown almost two full inches in the past five and a half months. she's also becoming more beautiful. that red hair of hers, though, is no lie. what spunk. i wonder where she gets that from? (see picture above). ian is, quite simply, a stud (yes, he's only 8). kind-hearted, a total cutie, and a fantastic athlete, he is the apple of my eye. i hope to post some up-to-date photos of them soon.

i'm going to close this post with a little silly and a little serious. first of all, as a final thanksgiving wish, i am going to leave you with this clip from the funniest thanksgiving sitcom episode ever: wkrp in cincinnati's "turkeys away", in which the station inadvertantly killed turkeys by dropping them from a helicopter. to quote mr. carlson: "as god as my witness, i thought turkeys could fly."

WKRP in Cincinnati: Thanksgiving Turkey Bomb! @ Yahoo! Video

and lastly, julie used this quote from her message last sunday at church, and it has really hit home with me. i'm seriously thinking about mounting it above my computer at work as a daily reminder of my own need for more humility:

"Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up." - Dag Hammarskjold

my thanksgiving prayer is that God will increase the size of my heart and hands, and give me the vision to see others for who they really are. i do, indeed, need to grow up.

happy halloween!

my ever-present nostalgia led me on a recent web quest for information on this album, which julie, jill, and i had when we were little:

i couldn't remember the exact title, but i knew it was released by walt disney, and side one told the story of two kids who enter a haunted house. much to my delight, i actually found the album cover and title: "the story and song from the haunted mansion". it was recorded in 1969, and ron howard is the voice of the young man on the record.

listening to this brought back so many memories! julie and jill, please be sure to click on the link and let me know if you remember playing this album upstairs on our old stereo...

"mike and karen come in out of the rain" (side 1)

happy st. patrick's day

i'm a day late, but what the heck ~ erin go bragh! or in this case, mobile go bragh!

v-day

the picture above accompanied a very "right-on" editorial piece in time magazine, written by nancy gibbs. if you have time, read the article in its entirety! until you do that, here's my take on nancy's insights into valentine's day.

when i was in high school, v-day was second only to new year's eve as being the "worst" holiday. i was every guy's best friend ~ not the chick whose bra they wanted to unhook and passionately kiss in a parked car. those girls got valentine flowers and candy and what-not. i think i got orange carnations from my dad once.

when i was in grade school, valentine's day seemed more like the event that was most likely to piss off my mom. lord have mercy, that woman was perturbed at us when we (julie and i) would ask her to help us make valentine's boxes for our classroom parties. no kidding...

"i don't even know if we have any boxes." (mom is exasperated)
"when do you need them?" (uh, by february 14)
"you BOTH need one?" (uh, yeah, if it's not too much trouble)
"we're out of glue." (it's too much trouble)
"i'll have to go BUY glue." (guilt trip)
"can't we just cover a box in aluminum foil?" (*sigh* okay)

(when i became a teacher, i promised myself that no student of mine would ever go through this drama. instead, every year i asked a local pizza shop for large white bags, and my kids would decorate them for valentine's day.)

nancy mentions in her article how "Children are expected to bring a valentine for every classmate, unlike the days of our youth, when the teachers would collect the cards in a big red box and then call out names one by one, in a public accounting of exactly how many friends each child actually had."

i think i remember this!!! for some reason, very early on, i don't think i gave valentines to everybody. later, i remember thinking (compassionately ~ wink, wink) , "i'll give a valentine to everyone, but THESE kids will get the UGLY ones because i really don't like them anyways." does this ring a bell with any of you? on the flip side, i also think i remember counting my valentines to see if i had gotten one from all of my classmates...comparing the number of valentines in my box with the amount my friends had. that's a pretty vicious popularity contest to engage in at such a young age. unfortunately, it was a sad pre-cursor to the societal norms of junior high and high school.

"True romance comes unscheduled, unruly, "a madness most discreet," quoth Romeo. Overtime, as it ripens into devotion, still it improvises, a favor rendered, a sudden kiss, a private joke, flowers for no reason."

i agree with gibbs here. the element of surprise, when it comes to love, is most convincing. in reality, any joe-schmo can buy valentine's junk for his sweetie every february 14. it's what happens the other 364 days of the year that really counts. the minute it feels like a duty, it has lost its purpose.

i'll end this post as gibbs ended her piece with the following quote by shakespeare...oh, and here's hoping all of you have a valentine's day filled with genuine smiles and affection...

"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."