Hi (Insert Your Name Here)!

It's been a long week. A good week, but long. I've been struggling to come up with a design for a new WIM display. This week I was really under the gun; my boss needed to take a hard copy with him to St. Mary's, GA, to show the directors at their semi-annual board meeting. Yikes! I had nothing!

I love it when I share my challenges with folks; they pray immediately for God-inspired creativity! And I think it works. I'm sitting on this pretty design right now and Steve's taking it with him to Georgia. Am I 100% satisfied? I dunno. I like it pretty well and I guess I'll chew on it over the weekend...the thing is, I have to like it enough to want to gaze at a 5x5--foot version of it for the next three years at least.

In other news, Hannah had a meeting last night at her school concerning Electives next year for 7th grade. I was pumped: this is when the fun begins! Now that she's familiar with middle school and learned to handle the stress, she can get into Theatre, Yearbook, even Highschool Spanish! I'm pushing her to do Spanish; it gets her highschool credit and a jump-start on learning another language. And Mom can learn along for FREE. Que bueno!! Hannah was interested in Life Skills (translation: Home Ec) but realized Grandma teaches her all kinds of stuff during the summer when she goes home so she put that one low on the list. Same for Art.

TURKEY: I'm gathering funds for Turkey in June; so far I'm $680 into my goal of $2500. The biggest deadline is to have $1700 in by May 1 for airfare. In preparation, I've been taking Farsi (Persian) lessons in Austin on Saturdays and also reading whatever books I can find on the Middle East. Currently reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East," by Robert Fisk, a British journalist who's covered the M.E. for 30 years. This is not light reading at all!

I've taken some photos of Hannah holding Izzy, her parakeet, and they're quite lovely. I'd like to try and paint one of them...

We'll be home in GA for a long Easter weekend. It's my BigMama's 90th birthday and the whole Nutt clan is gathering from the four corners of the U.S., even as far as Alaska. It'll be the first family Egg Hunt I've ever seen with extended family (it's BYOB, "Bring Your Own Basket") and I'm delighted to be at New Covenant for Easter Sunday. Hannah's counting the days til she sees all her grandparents and her best friend, Megan.

Plans for the weekend? Not much. Prob'ly hang out with friends, vacuum my car, make calzones and rent a movie. It's too rainy for outside stuff and we have no obligations this weekend!! A first in a looong time.

Have a nice weekend yourself.

Peace,
Rachael