Ohio was on the national news last week, and it wasn’t for politics.  CNN and the Weather Channel were talking about our state because of the major snow storm that befell Cleveland, not to mention the rest of the state – except us, for once!  Here in the Northwest corner of the state, we dodged a bullet this time.  Got about 2 inches only, and it didn’t affect driving conditions.  My husband didn’t even have to shovel since the wind blew it all off the sidewalks this time!  I hope it will stop snowing for the season soon, but if it doesn’t, any more “storms” like this are welcome any time!

It is very hard to imagine but one of the most controversial movies of all time is a Disney film. Released in 1946, Song of the South has never been released on video nor DVD in the U.S. It won an Oscar for Best Song and has been re-released in theatres several times (most recently in 1986). However, the powers that be at Disney feel that the movie has a strong racial tone. As recently as 2007, the issue has been raised with the same result: no release. However, the movie has been released on video in foreign markets.

It also seems peculiar that there is an attraction based upon the film at Disney World. Splash Mountain takes riders on a journey through the Briar Patch which is populated by Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Bear, Br’er Fox, and other characters from the stories of Uncle Remus.

As explained in the following article, it seems highly unlikely that Song of the South will be released in this country in the near future. However, outlets such as ebay.com may have access to copies.

Well, this weekend it was mentioned that the next church anniversary in September is the its 20th. Yes I know that is nothing compared with some churches celebrating centennials and more. The church I grew up going to is a church like that, but the one I go to now is kind of mega-ish. That is, it is quite large, expands four campuses, and has a couple dozen “plants” following its doctrines and leadership style, but is still nothing compared to the likes of Willow Creek or Crystal Cathedral. Anyway, When I first started going to the church it hadn’t yet celebrated its 10th anniversary. I remember that celebration was done in the school it originally met at before they got their own building. It was still on only one campus, its campground was still in the hands of its previous owners, and even the building they were in wasn’t yet fully utilized. Inside was a big fenced in area of, well, nothing which would soon become the second half of a new improved worship center. Since then much has happened. Besides being on four campuses now (one of which used to be a plant but joined up for a reason I never found out) and having a campground, it has a chapel that didn’t used to be there, used mostly for weddings, a second floor in part of the building (the building was always one floor, with a roof high enough for two), a school, and has undergone much remodeling.

As for me, around that 10th anniversary was when I started working in the children’s ministry. It started with an ambitious children’s drama which took up much of the service time and was scaled back the following year due to the teaching volunteers wanting to, well, teach. I of course knew God wanted me there and so was part of the first cast. This lasted about three years. I even had a short stint at directing in the third year. Well, after the first year I wanted more so I started teaching as well. They put me in fourth grade with another teacher and we took turns week to week teaching the lesson. On the weeks I was also in the drama (there were four casts- one per week of the month with any fifth weekends generally without drama) I would walk the kids down and then go backstage and get into my costume. Believe it or not, I wasn’t the only one who did this. About that time a new combined program for4th and 5th grades was just getting started. The prior year they had it as a Friday night program as a supplement to the weekend services, but now they were making it the weekend service. They started off with just one service on the weekend, but it wouldn’t be long before it expanded to all weekends. Just why they did it this way I am not sure. Anyway, I switched to this service eventually. As I recall they went through a few staff members running it over the years to where it is at now with the current pastor hired about six years ago. I think I am the only one left still volunteering in that ministry from that first year (discounting the Friday night program). Like the church itself, this program has grown and is definitely in a mature state. I reflect on this because there is a high school student who volunteers in one of the services who was one of my first students in fourth grade. He is a senior in high school now. Well, actually from what he says he was a senior because he graduated in January.

I really enjoy working with the kids, and I know God placed me there and has kept me there. In fact, my best spiritual time I think was last summer when I volunteered as a camp counselor for 4th and 5th grade. Also the two summers before. I just wonder if God will ask me to move on soon like the others have, and if so where to? I am still involved with kids ministry drama as well, which after a hiatus of a couple of years came back as a different sort of program. Really, I am deeply immersed in this church and currently have no plans to move on, but eventually God may ask me to. Will I be able to if and when he does? Will I be willing to go where He wants me to? Would I be able to shepherd children myself as a pastor if called to do it somewhere? I can only make sure be ready I suppose in case He does. And how about my own family? Has He been leading me toward this in a way? That is, I am single right now, but is this practice, along with subbing, to lead a family of my own one day, soon I would hope as I am not getting any younger…

It is really a bit sad when a school feels it cannot post pictures of kids on the internet due to the possibility of something happening to one of the children in the photo. But what happens when a school feels this way but really wants to post the pictures anyway? One U.K. school has a stab at an answer… (click the picture for a link to the full story)

Tonight was Williams County Community Theatre’s second performance of Murder with a Silver Spoon at Rita’s Family Dining in Bryan, Ohio.  It was a very different venue than the country club where we presented it last weekend.  Rita’s had a very cramped banquet room in which the audience enjoyed a three course meal between acts.  Although space was extremely limited, it lent itself even more to drawing the audience into the action and allowed for even more audience/cast interaction.  Because the space was so small, the number of audience members was extremely limited.  However, the event was sold out which was great for our group and the theatre-goers all seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously.  For those poor, unfortunates who did not get tickets for whatever reason (trouble finding a sitter :), etc), tentative plans are being made to again perform the show at a venue near you.

Actually, it’s time for the Academy of Country Music awards (ACM’s), which are totally different than the Country Music Association’s awards (CMA’s), but somehow Spring Ahead to the Academy of Country Music Awards just didn’t make such a great blog title.  For you country music fans out there, you know that spring and fall are the awesome times of year for country music awards.  We get 2 great awards shows, and coming up in May are the ACM awards – the nominations were announced last week, that’s why I get to write about this now.  I was lucky enough to attend this show live one time in 2000.  It was TOTALLY AWESOME – I’d LOVE to go back…  something like that (and lots of liquor) just might get me on an airplane again…  yeah right.  Anyway, Dolly Parton hosted, and Dick Clark ran around the stage during the breaks fretting over this and that and everything in between.  Winners’ acceptance speeches got cut off, and there was the general glitz and glam of any L.A. awards show – only we were there!  And talk about a GREAT concert!  Getting to see like, 15 top country music performers LIVE, singing only their hits was unbeatable.  And I learned a lot too because I had never been to the taping of a live tv event before.  Did you know that they have “stand-ins” ready in case anyone who is seated down in front has to leave for the bathroom or anything else?  They pay models to dress up and get ready in case they need to sit in say, Wynonna Judd’s seat so it’s not empty when they show the audience on tv if Wy needs a potty break (that actually happened!).  So anyway, this year I will be watching the ACM’s from the comfort of my couch; hopefully without interuptions from kids (should change the name of this post to Yeah, Right).

I can’t remember if it’s the ACM’s or the CMA’s where they’ll have a live performer, and then that person will be nominated for the next award, so after their performance they’ll be waiting backstage, and every time they end up winning the award!  I wish they’d make it a little less obvious!  We like to fill out our own ballots and make a guessing game out of our picks for winners, and this type of format makes that too easy!  All you have to do is figure out the order of award presentations, figure out the schedule of performers, and Viola!  You’ve won the bet!  I’ll let you know come CMA awards time which awards show does this, unless they’ve (hopefully) changed things by now.

Here are the nominees this year, enjoy the show!

TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST

Luke Bryan

Jack Ingram

Jake Owen

TOP NEW FEMALE VOCALIST

Sarah Buxton

Kellie Pickler

Taylor Swift

TOP NEW DUO OR VOCAL GROUP

Carolina Rain

Lady Antebellum

The Wreckers

ALBUM OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]

5th Gear – Brad Paisley (Arista Nashville) Produced by Frank Rogers

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend – Miranda Lambert (Columbia) Produced by Frank Liddell, Mike Wrucke

Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates – Kenny Chesney (BNA) Produced by Buddy Cannon, Kenny Chesney

If You’re Going Through Hell – Rodney Atkins (Curb) Produced by Rodney Atkins, Ted Hewitt

Taylor Swift – Taylor Swift (Big Machine) Produced by Scott Borchetta, Nathan Chapman # 6 Produced by Robert Ellis Orrall

SINGLE RECORD OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]

Don’t Blink – Kenny Chesney, Produced by Buddy Cannon, Kenny Chesney BNA

Famous In A Small Town – Miranda Lambert, Produced by Frank Liddell, Mike Wrucke Columbia

Lost In This Moment – Big & Rich, Produced by Big Kenny, John Rich – Warner Bros/WRN

Stay – Sugarland, Produced by Kristian Bush, Byron Gallimore, Jennifer Nettles Mercury

Watching Airplanes – Gary Allan, Produced by Gary Allan , Mark Wright MCA Nashville

SONG OF THE YEAR [Award to Composer(s)/Publisher(s)/Artist(s)]

Don’t Blink – Kenny Chesney – Writers: Casey Beathard, Chris Wallin Publishers: Lavender Zoo Music (BMI), Mama’s Dream Music (ASCAP), Sony/ATV Acuff Rose (BMI), WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)

Lost In This Moment – Big & Rich – Writers: Keith Anderson, Rodney Clawson, John Rich Publishers: EMI April Music, Inc. (ASCAP), Romeo Cowboy Music (ASCAP), WB MusicCorp. (ASCAP), Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI), Writer’s Extreme Music (BMI)

Moments – Emerson Drive – Writers: Dave Berg, Annie Tate, Sam Tate  Publishers: Gravitron (SESAC), WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)

Watching You – Rodney Atkins – Writers: Rodney Atkins, Steve Dean, Brian White Publishers: Bethar Music (BMI), Mike Curb Music (BMI), Multisongs (SESAC), Songs From The White House (SESAC)

Stay – Sugarland – Writer: Jennifer Nettles – Publishers: Jennifer Nettles Publishing (ASCAP)

VIDEO OF THE YEAR [Award to Producer(s)/Director(s)/Artist(s)]

Don’t Blink – Kenny Chesney – Producer: Tacklebox Films  Director: Shaun Silva

Lost In This Moment – Big & Rich  Producer: Big Kenny, Steve Lamar, Marc Oswald Director: Robert Deaton and George Flanigen

Online – Brad Paisley – Producer: Frames Per Second – Director: Jason Alexander

Stay – Sugarland – Producer: Kristian Bush, Byron Gallimore, Jennifer Nettles – Director: Shaun Silva

Watching You – Rodney Atkins – Producer: Broken Poet Production – Director: Eric Welch

VOCAL EVENT OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]

Because Of You – Reba McEntire Duet With Kelly Clarkson – Produced by Tony Brown, Reba McEntire MCA Nashville

Find Out Who Your Friends Are – Tracy Lawrence With Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney – Produced by Julian King, Tracy Lawrence – Rocky Comfort/CO5

Shiftwork – Kenny Chesney Duet With George Strait – Produced by Buddy Cannon, Kenny Chesney BNA

Till We Ain’t Strangers Anymore – Bon Jovi Featuring LeAnn Rimes – Produced by Dann Huff – Mecury

What You Give Away –Vince Gill With Sheryl Crow – Produced by Vince Gill, John Hobbs, Justin Niebank – MCA Nashville

I am having some motivation problems with this blog- lately I just don’t feel like writing about work.  It seems like the things I go through are either just too uninteresting to write about when I think about it, or it is similar to something I already wrote.  Sometimes I just don’t get around to it and am too tired by the time I think about it.  These past few days have really all been similar.  I really only got to teach math for the last three days, and today we didn’t even do that so I didn’t do much of anything except help out like a teaching assistant.  Not that there’s really anything wrong with that but it is rather unexciting to write about.  The most tedious part I think was during the morning today, and again at the start of the afternoon when the third graders just played educational games on their laptops (only 4th-6th did testing today, and the other half of the multiage rooms were fourth grade).  I of course had to walk around and make sure they were playing only educational games.  They are not as devious as middle-schoolers, but fun will still win out over education if left unwatched, even with third graders.

Today was actually a very easy teaching day overall, even for the other teacher.  In fact, the only subject actually taught/worked on was reading.  The rest of the day was spend on laptops, read-alouds, silent reading, down-time packets, and classroom games.  Sub + already messed up schedules due to testing = even even worse schedules.  From the last four days, I would say the teacher I was subbing for really owes the other teacher big time for getting sick and leaving her pretty much all of the planning work and team teaching.

Hmm… This was actually going to be very short due to my lack of motivation, but turned out to be quite reasonable in length.  Goes to show that once one gets started, the writing can just keep going.

My blog title is just about as creative as last night’s episode – not one of our favorites.  Let’s start by referring you to the tvguide.com blog.  Thank goodness our regular writer is back.  Not only does she give a complete synopsis of the episodes, she likes to make it interactive by posing interesting questions to the viewers:  https://community.tvguide.com/blog/Lost/800062566

And, as a bonus this week, tvguide.com had a really interesting Q & A with some of the Lost cast members.  It wasn’t just interview-type questions either; it was cast members asking the producers questions about what’s going to happen in the show.  I think I learned more from this Q & A than from last night’s episode!  Check it out here:  https://www.tvguide.com/news/lost-questions-answered/080304-01

Keep in mind that since this is a synopsis of last night’s episode, there will be SPOILERS ahead, so don’t read if you don’t want to know what happened!

When the episode opened last night, we see Juliet in makeup, which tells us this is either a flash-forward or a flash-back.  My first thought (and likewise with the tv guide blogger it turns out) is that it’s a flash-forward and Juliet is one of the ‘Oceanic 6’.  We soon find out that this is not the case; it’s actually a flash-back, and BOOM – here are 2 new characters for us all of a sudden, Harper and her husband, Griffin.  Later in the episode, we find out that Griffin has met his demise already, so at least we only have Harper as a new character to contend with.  I don’t know about everybody else, but I don’t remember Griffin from previous episodes.  They showed him when the Others saw Oceanic 815 fall from the sky, and the tv guide blog mentioned him interacting with Ana Lucia, but I personally don’t remember him.  If I wasn’t worried about being reminded of a thousand loose ends that haven’t been tied up, I would go back and watch the episodes with Griffin in them.  And speaking of Ana Lucia, her name has come up a lot lately for someone who has been dead for awhile.  During the preview for next week’s episode, they mentioned that we will “see a face you never thought you’d see again.”  Please, please do not let it be Ana Lucia!  Luckily, I think Michelle Rodriguez was too much of a liability for the show to ever resurrect her character – I hope.  Didn’t like Michelle Rodriguez (couldn’t she afford a taxi or better yet, to not get drunk at the Lost party rather than drive home?  She ruined her up-and-coming career – what a moron), and I didn’t like Ana Lucia one bit.  And speaking of coming back, tonight’s episode marked the reappearance of the eerie whispering in the forest, along with the numbers (there was a safe on the wall behind a painting, how corny, but the combination to the safe was some of the numbers that played such a major part in seasons 1 and 2 – haven’t seen them much since).  The eerie whispering and the numbers are two things I really hope they will explain someday…  And speaking of questions, here are my questions after watching tonight’s episode:

1.  Locke says to Ben, “There is just one more thing I want to know.”  WHAT?  There is really only ONE more thing Locke wants to know from Ben?  I would have a million questions for that guy!

2.  Why does Ben say something about kids asking for their mother?  Are the Zach and Emma he is referring to HIS kids?

3.  Do Farraday and Juliet know each other?  In tonight’s episode they seemed to, but before this, they didn’t.

Also tonight, there were 2 interesting quotes which I will leave you with:

1.  Ben pulls a video tape labeled Red Sox out of the safe, and says, “I taped over the game.”  I found it kind of cheesy, but my husband thought it was funny.  Cheesy or not, it was pretty funny to hear Ben say that in that calculatingly evil tone of his.

2.  Juliet says, “It was very stressful being an Other, Jack.”  I guess you had to see it, but it was a very entertaining and intriguing line, hearing it after all we’ve been through, especially when the Others were so mysterious for so long.  The tvguide blog mentioned this line too; it was very noteworthy.

I was disappointed after this week’s episode because again, there are more new characters and less answers than ever.  The cast Q & A they had on tvguide.com helped to cheer me up a little though; it gave me hope that the producers and writers do have some idea of where they’re taking this show because I do have my doubts that they know what they’re doing or where they’re going.  I just hope next week’s episode is better.

For several decades, movie directors have attempted to seamlessly blend live action and animation. In the 1945 film Anchor’s Aweigh, Gene Kelly danced with Jerry Mouse. Dancing penguins served as waiters in Mary Poppins. Michael Jordan played basketball with Bugs Bunny and a multitude of other Looney Tunes. There must be several other examples; however, one of the finest films to combine animated characters and live actors is 1988s Who Framed Roger Rabbit.Bob Hoskins plays Eddie Valient, a middle-aged detective investigating the murder of Marvin Acme (owner of Acme Products and Toontown). The prime suspect: Roger Rabbit, star of Maroon Cartoons. Roger is “framed” for the murder after he discovers that his beloved wife Jessica played pattycake with Acme. Valient (who’s brother was killed by a toon) reluctantly agrees to help Roger clear his good name.But, the plot takes a back seat to the cameo appearances by hundreds of cartoon characters. Black-and-white as well as color toons interact with each other as well as with their human counterparts. Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Betty Boop, and Droopy are just a few of the animated characters seen throughout the movie. Donald and Daffy’s dueling piano scene is priceless. With the cast of characters seen throughout the movie, everyone is sure to find their favorite. Although a majority of the toons were created in the 1940s, most are easily recognizable.

I have yet to figure out what makes women so much better at making sandwiches than men.  It might sound funny, but it’s very true.  I’ve been to a number of Subway Sandwich Shops across a number of states, and every time without fail, if a male makes the sandwich, eating it is dreadful.  They don’t spread the condiments evenly, so the sandwich is either soggy or falls apart or both, and it definitely doesn’t taste very good when ingredients are all clumped together and not spread out correctly.  I can think of 4 possible reasons why females make better “sandwich artists” than males: 1.  organizational skills – Women tend to have better ways of organizing things and in a more efficient order.  Apparently, this holds true even when organizing sandwich ingredients.  2.  detail-orientated thinking – Women tend to think about and obsess over every little detail, just ask their husbands.  3.  patience – Women practice having lots of patience to put up with the men in their daily lives.  It takes lots of patience to make a perfect sub.  4.  compassion – Let’s face it, women have more of this than men.  And it takes an understanding woman to want to take the time to care about your sandwich.

Does this mean that having a woman in the white house is a better choice after all?  Probably not, I wouldn’t read that far into it.  But if I were you, next time you go to a Subway and a male worker says, “Can I help you?”,  you should say, “Thanks, but I prefer a ma’am-wich”.

HAHAHA!  Just kidding!  You’ll look like a big idiot if you say that!  If a man makes your sandwich, just wear a bib and don’t expect it to taste very good!