Columbia MD -- aka home.

photo source: Jessica Anne, via the You know you grew up in Columbia MD page. Used with permission.

Confession: I now have three hometowns.  When I leave NC to visit PA, I'm going home.  When I jaunt from PA down to MD, I'm going home.  When I drive south and to NC, home.  It's a good thing.

But the place I spent my formative years, where I grew up, where I first believed in God, where I sang in children's choir, and where I graduated high school (Go Lions!), is Columbia MD. It's a planned community located midway between Baltimore and DC, and it celebrates its 50th birthday in June 2017¹. What sets a planned community apart is its deliberate avoidance of urban sprawl -- there's no haphazard growth until the town runs into the next town and becomes a metropolis. Columbia has 10 villages, including Oakland Mills, Phelps Luck, Owen Brown, Harpers Choice, Dorsey Hall, each of which has a village center. A village center includes an anchor grocery store and strip mall, which includes such things as a hairdresser, a restaurant, some retail spaces, some fast food joints, maybe a bank, probably a gas station. So you're never far from where you shop and eat, and you get to know the local owners and your neighbors while you're at it. Each village also has several neighborhoods, many of which have an elementary school, and each of which has a convenience store. Also probably a pool run by the Columbia Association, which is a really enormous version of a homeowner's association.  

1 How does a town celebrate its birthday? If it's Columbia, it's with enough sheet cake for everyone to get a slice, served down at one of the primary green spaces in town, Lake Kittamaqundi. Literally thousands of slices of cake. And not just on the "big numbers", like the silver and the golden anniversaries. Every. Single. Year. Back at the 20th anniversary, 1987, they took a stairstep photo with a kid who had been born in town at Howard County General Hospital for every single year of Coumbia's existence. My little brother was the 1983 kid.

Fun fact: if you still have access to a hard-copy World Book Encyclopedia, if you look up "City", there's an aerial shot of Columbia. 

Now Money Magazine has chosen Columbia MD as America's #1 Best Place to Live, and in addition to that cover article, it's done up some lovely interviews with some of its citizenry.
 

How America's #1 Best Place to Live got that way
 

Thank you, James Rouse.

Lillary, 7yo

(For some things I use my blog simply as a means to be able to refind things later on.  This is one of them.  Read the linked article, which includes the letter.)

The Day Hillary Clinton Won My Heart - scarymommy.com article

Our new hometown

One thing we love about Kernersville is its downtown.  We know a number of the small business owners, and we enjoy all the events they do to bring people downtown.  

They've now written about the town in our own magazine.  Not too shabby for a town of 23,000.  Sometimes you just need to brag on yourself.  
Kernersville magazine article about Kernersville

Fighter Verse 1

Our evening church kids at Grace are working with the Fighter Verses curriculum from Children Desiring God over the course of this school year.  It includes a heavy dose of scripture memory with the goal of equipping these kids, so that when tough times come (and they will), God's Word will be hidden in their hearts so they would not sin (Psalm 119:11).

Fighter Verse 1
Deuteronomy 7:9
Spoken rhythmically, as a march or a handclap. 

Know therefore that the
LORD your God is God,
the faithful God who keeps
covenant and steadfast love
with those who love him
and keep his commandments,
to a thousand
generations.

DEU 7:9 ESV
http://bible.com/59/deu.7.9.ESV

Making the world smaller

This is powerful.

Where are you from?
Would you like to take a journey based on your DNA?

Heart of the Triad Choral Society plays ball

Heart of the Triad Choral Society sang at the Greensboro Grasshoppers game today.  And despite a few hurdles, like it being the first week of school and the penultimate game of the season, we planned to take a group of 30+ people, an even split of singers & supportive family members.  Then six days ago I got a first-thing-in-the-morning call from our group sales contact.  Due to a rain cancellation rescheduling, our 7pm game was suddenly a 5pm doubleheader.  Could we still sing? 

I put up some protests -- after all, as an adult choir, people are juggling work schedules, family schedules, and just plain getting to Greensboro from ALL OVER the Triad.  But at the same time I was incredibly glad that the call came on the day of rehearsal instead of the day after.  (God has a sense of humor.)  And I love that our choir is dedicated and our members want to see the organization succeed.  And we had a dozen singers and an equivalent number of friends and family join us at the ball game.

We are definitely doing this again next year!  Everyone had so much fun!

Guilford

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QOTD:
T (directed at a 13yo fan, the child of one of our members, whom we'd recruited to video us): So, how'd we do?
13yo:  Ennhhhhh.
T:  What?!?  I thought we were friends!  You're supposed to at least pretend we sound good!
13yo (furiously backpedalling):  I'm sorry!  I thought you were talking about the video!  I don't know how it turned out!  I'm sorry!

Star Spangled Banner


We wish the stands were fuller, but with such an early start time it was a little sparse.
We were not expecting fireworks! Neither was our phone-video guy. And the kid who was buddy to the third baseman literally did a duck-and-cover move.
(Can you hear the Murlander?)

The cheesesteak stand girl said we were so good she almost cried.

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For the 7th inning stretch, we didn't go onfield, but we did get the crazy guy "Spaz", the guy with the mic, to come to our section.  

Spaz

And thanks to the quick thinking of a social media director for a fellow local nonprofit who grabbed some video, we present to you...

(Our wonderful director had us send the words around in advance, just in case we were thinking of going and singing "Take me out to the ballgame/mmm mmm mmm mmm mm CROWD/mmmmmmmmm CRACKER JACKS...)

Note to self: next time we sing "root-root-root for the Hoppers".  Hubs thought of that too late for it to be immediately useful.  But next time.  And we are definitely going back next season; we've already been asked back.

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PS Try the brisket nachos!  Brisket.  Nachos.  They're at Hickory BBQ, right behind section 111.

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PPS One of our board members said she was really sorry she couldn't be there.  But we spotted "her"!

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(I have a request in for any video their camerapeople got to be sent along to us.  We'll see what comes of that.  But I'm not waiting to post this.)

Gnocchi with Chef Reto

Chef Reto, of Reto's Kitchen in Greensboro, not only caters and does private parties, he also teaches!  Some friends & I were able to set time to learn from a real French chef, hands-on, in a real catering kitchen.  It was a blast!  I'm so glad I met Chef at a Yelp Elite event there earlier this year and that he was able to fit us into his schedule.
 

A few quotes from the evening:

More butter!

Why? Because we can!

Cow patties, please, not turds! (with regards to shape)

Pressure is everything. (with regards to piping)

Loads more photos available on FB  (public album)

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Chef Reto taught us in an approachable way.  His food was amazing and it's also something I can replicate at home.  Really!  And he took us thru hands-on training on knife skills, including sharpening a knife and the difference between chopping, slicing, and mincing.  We learned to pipe, to knead, and that fire in the kitchen can be fun and not frightening.  Opa!  Even the tomato sauce and vinaigrette salad dressing were simple and from scratch, and again completely duplicatable.  I'm excited to apply these things in my own kitchen!

I encourage you to sign up for his open classes (he also did kids' camps this past summer), or get a group of 6-10 friends together and set up a private class!