IT'S OFFICIAL

we're (finally) engaged. a type A idealist meets a part-time bohemian; a 19th century family diamond meets 21st century technology. with something old and something new already taken care of, there's just one thing left to do:
let's get married.

more to come.

the coolest (uh, literally)

so tracy and i have kept up a little tradition of taking short walks in the morning before we start work. we usually walk around the neighborhood or nearby - yesterday, we walked down to the town of pittsboro building to pay our water bill. just after we stepped out our front door, we noticed something strange surrounding the reflecting pool. amazing formations of ice, little springs of water that had pushed themselves up through the dirt and the hay. crazy little things. they look a bit like eyelashes. can anyone explain?

genius

we rediscovered this yesterday and are again obsessed (i can't link directly to it, so follow this link and then click on disc 1, #16 [mr. roberts #1]). genius. the kind that makes you happy.

holiday visits

ack! time passes so quickly! tracy and i intend to post a "year-in-review" here and have used that as an excuse not to compose normal posts in the last couple of weeks. but in the meantime, stories and - more importantly - pictures are piling up, and so i'm just going to have to say something. :) or, rather, post some pictures.












one of the great things about the holidays (and a real house) is that friends who have moved away come home to nc and we get to see them. after christmas, we were lucky to have some of tracy's college friends (whom i have adopted as my own) over for dinner & a sleepover. jeremy & lauren (aren't they cute) -















and sam & terry and their (ah!) new nathan (sam didn't make it into any of the pictures! like a proper father, i s'pose, he was snapping them).

for the first time, conversation did not linger on our new date, new job, new pet, or even new house - instead it was directed to the much more fascinating topic of the new baby. sam & terry - congratulations. this kid's a serious cutie and you two? very cool with him. so cool, in fact, that tracy and i even thought we could do it (for a second - eek).




















year-in-review coming soon. really.

yes, we are employed

even though we never talk about it - yes, we do have jobs. and something a little exciting just happened at mine. the first thing i have to show for my work with public impact is a series of papers that was just published by the north central regional educational laboratory (forgive me if you already got the email). these papers examine the "restructuring" options under no child left behind - the (ideally) drastic changes that school districts have to use if one of their schools fails to meet student achievement standards too many years in a row.

really, you don't have to read them - they're designed for education leaders and are a tad boring - but the website gives you an idea of what i do, anyway. lots of research and writing that's supposed to help schools do a better job.

we hope.