Read This!

If you love New Orleans, do yourself a favor and read this article. While there is some Saints focus, it is at its core more about the city and its people, including the bounce-back from Katrina. You don't have to like the Saints, or even football, to enjoy this moving piece.

Christmas Tree.2009

Between swim meets, basketball games and snowstorms, we managed to get our tree up the weekend of December 12-13. It's not the biggest tree we've ever had, but it came together very nicely. Particularly after I followed up what I refer to as the kids' "provisional" ornament hanging with a little recalibrating.

Stephen and Nina are the most diligent and focused decorators, as evidenced here:

Although David gets bonus points for figuring out how to simultaneously hang ornaments and consume a gigantic spoonful of cookie dough:

And, of course, Matthew is Matthew:

More pictures of the tree trimming here (view in full-screen mode to see captions), although I just realized as I was putting together this post that I did not get a picture of the finished product! I will rectify that in a later post.

Tempting The Gris-Gris

I know Saints fans everywhere are excited about the 11-0 start. But Saints fans of all people should be well aware of the power of the "hex", and therefore should avoid things like this, which I found buried in the article linked here:

Even Mardi Gras is making way. One parade was canceled because it was set to roll on Feb. 7, the day the Super Bowl will be played in Miami. Another parade will be moved to the following Tuesday if the Saints make it to the big game.

That's what I call getting ahead of ourselves. All the 11-0 record means is that the Saints will finish no worse than 11-5. To be canceling Mardi Gras parades at this point, on the assumption the Saints will be in the Super Bowl, is sure to cause a major gris-gris to envelope the Superdome!