I wrote this huge last blog entry my last morning in Colombia and the dumb computer there promptly froze and ate it.

Moving on.... right before I flew to Colombia I got to attend the BP A+ for energy conference with my fellow winner, Ben. This year instead of writing a grant together, we both won $10,000 grants individually!

This year my class will be exploring the history of Petroleum in Santa Fe Springs, and Ben's class will be studying how to create Hydrogen as a fuel source by using solar energy. Yeah, I don't understand his, either. :)

Colombia pictures coming soon!!

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little brother!!! (He occasionally reads my blog...) :)

Greetings from sunny west Texas! I am flying back to Long Beach tonight, but it has been a great two days in Ingram, Texas with my grandma, Uncle Bill and Auntie E. There's not much to do to help her here, her and Uncle Bill really did get a lot done in the past two weeks since grandpa died. That is not to say that we still can't paint and fix up the place, but Grandma wants to visit first and leave the work to do when we've all gone and she's lonely. Good thinkin'.

So on Sunday we got right down to it- Taco Cabana and a game of Dominoes!

Yesterday we went to Hunt and ate at the Hunt Cafe, then drove out into the Hill Country. I've never been to Africa, but I have to believe that Africa looks like this. I saw a lot of African gazelles and such behind the super high fences of exotic ranches as we followed the Guadalupe River back to its headwaters. Part of me will be really sad when grandma moves. This is a very pretty, very DIFFERENT place, where people are proud of being kind and caring for each other. I miss that in LA. I guess as long as Auntie E. is here I'll still have reason to come out this way and ESPECIALLY shop at the Copper Cactus! (yeah for new earrings and beads for my necklace!!)

While I was fasting a few weeks ago, I prayed this prayer for grandma. I am excited for her and this new transition.

Peace, hope and strength, Lord. Bring community and friends, get her out, and let her serve. She has so much she wants to give! Build up the pieces that have been broken, buried or shamed. Bring health and vitality. Joy-let it flow. Let a healing balm cover her heart. Let her feel Your arms around her in the night, and kiss her in the morning. Bring beauty back into her world. Open the windows and let Your refreshing wind pour through her soul. Bring new life into places once thought to be dead and open her eyes to tomorrow's possibilites. Amen.

It feels like a blogging day. It's nice to have one for a change. :)

I woke up to a text message that my grandfather in Texas is in the hospital because he can't walk. He has Parkinson's, and it is amazing that he is still kicking it as well as he is. He did make some remarks about the snow this morning (yeah, there isn't any in that part of Texas. Ever.), but he seems to be doing better. There is a special spa resort awaiting my grandmother in heaven for all the nursing she has been doing for the last 10 years with him. Amazing woman.

I decided to crawl my way back to Eharmony today. I've been doing Eharmony for a few years primarily because I am a teacher and most of the men I spend 75% of my life with are either married, gay, dating or 14 years old. Not good prospects. :)

It is always an excrutiating experience because you have to go through all the "closed match" messages and read all the reasons why guys reject you. I usually get "other" with occasional "I don't feel the chemistry is there" (how do you even KNOW that yet?!). Today I got a weird one- "I think our family backgrounds are too different." Ugh. Whatever.

Many of the guys on Eharmony are really short. I have to date a guy that is taller than me or else I feel like the dominant one. Ew. I've only had a few dates from Eharmony in the few years I've been on it. I am considering tossing in the towel, but I can't really pull the trigger because of the nagging thought that I'd be shutting a door that God can use. I'm not desperate to be dating or married, really. I love my life a lot, and I feel really fulfilled. Maybe that's why the process is not going faster.

Today has been really chill. I watered my lawn, I'm working on the dishes, and I watched protestors against the educational budget cuts file past my house yelling. That was a first. Had I been able to find my glasses, I might have joined them. As it was, I was winding up a twisted garden hose.

Oh yeah, and I started back on Jenny Craig this week. Erwin is doing a series at Mosaic called Vital Signs about being healthy in all areas of your life, and I was convicted. It also helped that on the way back from Cincinnati last weekend, I was in a particularly small plane seat and I was uncomfortable for 4 hours straight. Something has to change, and I need to lose the weight I picked up after my skiing accident and surgery a year ago. Sigh. I like the discipline, though. It oozes into other areas of your life.

Much of all this stuff is based on the word I received from God at the beginning of 2008, that this was a year of bridal preparation. Now whether that is literal or figurative, I have no idea. It has been driving me to get healthier physically, start National Boards preparation so I can be more flexible in my teaching certification should I need to change states, torture myself in Eharmony, work on my financial protfolio and invest in becoming more creative (I take Improv Acting classes at IOWest in Hollywood and I'm on an Improv team called Monkey Butler).

I think I'll go off and create a Powerpoint presentation about my trip to Northern California las summer.  Talk about random....