Well, here's my star for completing my first week of the President's Physical Fitness Challenge! I completed it with points to spare. Downside ... I'm still sick. :-( Upside, as I feel better, I'll get a more accurate idea of my "comfortable" level of exercise, in presidential points, so I can start planning my goals for the bronze medal (which I'd like to do this summer).

Beautiful, beautiful day today. I stumbled around this morning feeling horrible, once I was up a couple of hours and was breathing better, I ran a couple of errands with Clay. I got in a small walk this afternoon, went Target shopping with Harrison (the bulky stuff - paper towels, toilet paper, etc. - sales and coupons), corrected 70 pieces of homework, did a couple of loads of laundry, and generally felt like I was moving in slow motion! Can't wait to feel better; getting so little done makes me feel worse (unless I specifically PLAN to spend a day doing nothing!).

Since I've now lost my voice, I believe I'll be showing a movie tomorrow instead of lecturing. I'm quite sure the students won't mind! :-) So the day after tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. I might be part Irish. Hard to know. My mom's family came straight from Germany (WWI), so I KNOW I'm 1/2 German. My dad's family is less sure of their heritage. They say my great-grandfather was an Irish Jew (??) who immigrated to Canada, lived with a Native woman and fathered 6 children with her, then left her (what a slug!) and moved to Jackson (what for, I can't imagine) where he met my great-grandmother, who was an English immigrant. So, my grandfather was half Irish/Jew and half English and married my grandmother who was Irish and English. So my dad would have been half English, half Irish ... and 1/4 Jewish?? I'm laughing. I honestly think they didn't have a clue! Anyway, that means I might be 1/4 Irish/Jew.

I saw this cool website where for $250 bucks you can get a DNA analysis to trace ancestry. Might be interesting. When I lived in Colombia, they said I looked Colombian (and everyone always spoke to me in Spanish). In Miami, I only get spoken to in Spanish - they say I look Cuban. In Mexico - Spanish - they say I look South American. In Spain - Spanish, South American. In Italy, Italina, they say I look Italian. In Greece, people speak to me in Greek and say I look Greek (??). In Germany, I'm approached in German, which makes sense because I am part German. So I'm thinking a DNA analysis might tell me I'm Italian by way of the Roman invasion of Ireland, therefore part Irish, German, and let's throw in some other miscellaneous European stuff (they moved around for hundreds of years!) - maybe I'll be part Greek, part Gypsy (that sounds fun), and let's toss in some Morroccan, just for fun. :-) I know Morrocco is in Africa, but it's very close to Europe, so there's been movement for many, many centuries. Really, though, it would be interesting.