two out of three ain't bad

I made it through Christmas. Didn't set myself on fire, didn't get sick, everything went off without a hitch.

So of course two days later I get sick. I'm staying away from any candles. Not going to push my luck.

goodbye Mrs. Mills

I found out last night at my parents house that my best friend from elementary school's mom, who was also one of my favorite middle school teachers, died this weekend.


Donna Mills spent most of her adult life confined to a wheelchair, but that didn't stop her from becoming an active and caring teacher at *** Middle School. Mills, an English and history teacher at the school for more than 20 years, died Sunday at her home following a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 59.

"She always put everyone else's comfort and happiness above her own," said fellow teacher Bruce Robb. "She really was an incredible inspiration to all of us."

"Whether it was accompanying students to an outdoor education camp or joining in a school relay race, Mills became personally involved in her students' education. She was a ready listener and made a point of praising students for a job well done."

She just loved helping her students, and she just loved being a teacher," said her daughter, Amy Brasil of Penngrove.

Born in Reading, Pa., Mills was a young woman when she lost the use of her legs in an automobile accident southeast of Visalia near the Sierra Nevada foothills community of Springville.A few years later, she met her future husband, Paul Mills, and they were married 24 years.

She graduated from the teacher preparation program at Sonoma State University in 1985. The next year she took a job at ***. She developed close friends among the school's staff and became widely known to the city's students and parents.

"We couldn't go anywhere without getting stopped," Brasil recalled.

Mills, who was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, was able to keep teaching until this school year.

Along with her husband and daughter, Mills is survived by another daughter, Katy Mills of Freestone; a sister, Joyce Ney of Reading, Pa.; and her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Mary and George Van Loon of Riverbank.

this is why I hate the media

Beware, Krystle is pissed.

Yesterday morning at our staff meeting I learned of the two shootings that happened in Colorado over the weekend, the first at a YWAM base in Arvada, the second at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Four people were killed (five including the gunman) and several were injured. I don't have TV so it didn't seem too incredibly weird to me that I hadn't heard about these shootings until then. Though I was, of course, shocked to hear of them. Yesterday after I got home from work my roommate was reading the paper and I asked her if she'd heard about the shootings. She said she had, and I asked her if it was in the paper. Where did we finally find it? Page A6! A6!!!! A guy opens fire in a Minnesota mall and it's on the front page two days straight, but someone walks into a church with a semi automatic weapon and proceeds to fire rounds until he is shot and killed by an armed security guard (!!!) and it winds up on page A6?! Seriously?! Now, I haven't seen today's paper and since there is more information available about the shooter there might be another article closer to the front page. But still, the Monday after two related shootings have occurred at religious institutions you'd think it would get a little better press.

So what was on the front page, you ask. Let me tell you. The headline was "At Christmas, It's All in the Cards." An article about Christmas cards. Not even joking. "I love getting holiday cards in the mail. That's why I send them out." I'm so glad that we could be informed of Stacey Dougherty's love of Christmas cards a whole six pages before we got to the real news. Good grief.

For more information about the shootings you can visit here for fox news or here for CNN. It's a tragic story from every angle.