Links of interest...

...some found serendipitously, some searched for...

Carolina moon photos

Jeff Elder's column today in the Charlotte Observer (esp. for Jenny and Curtis)

the making of some really great chocolate

Room to Read

Just touching base briefly between trips... Tomorrow is the State Mathcounts Competition so I'll be heading up that way this afternoon, and I still have one client coming in less than 15 minutes so I'll have to make this short.

I've been reading Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood -- a very exciting book! Please check out their website and give this wonderful cause some serious attention... If you are reading this blog, you are very privileged, not because my blog is so special, but because you had the opportunity to learn to read. This opportunity is denied to many millions of our planet's present inhabitants! For years I have been reading about how reducing illiteracy helps to solve a lot of other problems in poor countries, but I have never seen an organization until now that works so hard, with such great results, to eradicate illiteracy. Please let me know if you are interested in helping me to sponsor a school, a library, or a girl's scholarship. I am seriously considering making the effort to do this, hopefully with help from my friends, family, and clients. The only thing that remains is to figure out how to go about it -- I'm going to read the pertinent info on the Room to Read website as soon as I get back from Durham and hopefully that will get me started.

Please wear your seat belt!!

Yesterday my daughter, Emily, was a passenger in a car that was broad-sided and flipped over. I realized, as she was telling me late last night about how it happened and how she got out of the car, that wearing her seatbelt definitely saved her life. She was apparently injured the worst of the four people involved in the accident. As it was, she has some lacerations on the bridge of her nose, a swollen forehead, and a terrific headache, but x-rays turned up no broken bones in her neck and elsewhere. I am so grateful she wasn't more badly hurt, and I am ever so grateful that she and the others in the car had the good sense to wear their seatbelts!
Please keep Emily and the others involved that wreck in your prayers as they heal and rest up from the trauma of the experience. And never be in too much of a rush to fasten your seatbelt!

Another post about the wreck is here

wanting to post...

...but not having the energy, or any great ideas. The photo linked above almost makes me want to see Italy someday. It is not (and has never been) on the top of my list, though -- Scandinavia (especially the fjords and the aurora borealis) has had that honor for years. Scotland and Greece are way up there, too, and talking with S.K. about her upcoming trip to Africa makes me want to see Africa, too.

Anyway, in this fried state I just don't think I can write more. I'll do what I always do when the Feb.-March crunch hits: keep on putting one foot in front of the other, and take each day as it comes, finding pleasure in the little things. And I'll try to write about some of those later....

I hope it snows a little in Evanston next weekend!