Working to Slow Down

We got 15" of snow out of last Sunday's storm. This winter is reminding me of how I recall the winters from my youth in the mid-'60s. Apparently, we're close to setting a record for total winter snowfall. We may as well at this point but once we've reached it I really hope this stops abruptly. I'm past ready. In the 18+ years I've been in our home, we've never had snowbanks like this at the bottom of our driveway.

Tammy and I spent Thursday afternoon at Foci working on the glassblowing fundamentals we've learned. We were greeted by Roxanne at the back step as we arrived and fortunately for her we had a bag of sunflower seeds, suet, and dried corn-on-the-cob. She's a sweet little girl.

We'll be back in the studio both Thursday and Friday this coming week.

With a family history of chipped and cracked teeth, I suppose I should consider myself fortunate to have gone this long without the need for a crown but my luck has finally run out. I was in the dentist's chair last Friday morning for over two and a half hours having a back tooth fitted for a temporary crown. The procedure could've gone better. They shot me up with Novocain then let me sit for nearly 45 minutes while the lone dentist worked on an emergency walk-in patient. It gave me plenty of time to mess with my Droid and photo myself in various poses and change my Facebook profile pic. My last ten minutes of the procedure were the ten most difficult minutes I've ever spent in a dentist's chair. It had nothing to do with pain. I simply couldn't lay in that position any longer and wanted out. I've never experienced that.

We're in the book of Acts in our small-group at Hosanna. I've only been in one other small group and never in one where we took a book from the bible and dissected it as we are with this one. There's simply no comparison between reading scripture on your own and reading it with others while asking questions that delve into a deeper understanding. Tammy is the lead for our studies for the most part but I'll occasionally step up.

Speaking of dissection, I got a text from Rachel a couple nights ago: "Guess where I'm gonna be next monday". "where" I replied. "Cadaver lab at Mayo :)))". "I'm so excited! It'll be an experience I won't forget." I'm curious to see how it goes for her. I think she said once that a person never knows for sure ahead of time how they'll react to that experience. I think she'll do fine.

When Rachel had her dance recital this past spring with the studio she'd been with for years, we assumed it would be the last time we'd watch her dance in that sort of setting. I remember how sad it left Tammy (Actually, I was too pumped from the Dads' Dance to be sad). But we were mistaken. Because UMR is such a young campus, they lack the many activities of a more established campus; no team sports or even a campus newspaper, but they do have ballroom dancing. I remember how excited she was to see an article in the StarTribune last year about their ballroom dance team. It was around the time she'd settled on UMR as her choice of college.

This weekend her ballroom dance team competed in the Star of the North DanceSport Classic in Minneapolis. It included dancers from all over the region, as far away as Illinois. Rachel took two 1st place finishes. She and Nick won in the Cha Cha which consisted of three or four separate elimination dances to pair down the field of 23 couples to determine the winners.

It was a long day for everyone with the competition beginning at 8:30 in the morning and not finishing until nearly 11:30 at night. Rachel thoroughly enjoyed herself and although Tammy had to be in the office most of the day she was able to see a few hours of the evening performance.

I'd really hoped to have our final panel done this weekend but I simply ran out of time with all we had going on. I put in close to 15 hours on it but still came up short. It was one of those weekends where going back to the salt mine today was the only way to slow down. The story of my days off but I don't think I'd change a thing.