Funny faces

Thanksgiving Family Photos

Paella with Andres and Kristin

Wow Lu!

Looking forward to your competition next weekend in Bastrop!

Final garment modeled by E's roommate, Carleen

Top made from recycled eyeglasses!

Finished collection and technical flats

Men's shirt project

Emily's friend Walsh - proud of their shirts!

Chaps upset Hendrickson in first round of playoffs

All smiles when Chaps win!

Good times with Grandpa

Go Chaps! Making the 'W' with Cathy

Famous Bar-b-que Chicken!

Emily's Collection!

Sally Singletary's Curiosity

It's Women Power Wednesday and today we celebrate Sally Singletary. The girl has been busy! Not only is she an amazing student, enjoying an exciting Senior year at UGA, but she is also a modern day Nancy Drew! J.M. Cattafo looks to be a pretty interesting writer and teacher. Check out this site for more on Sally's friend J.M.

Sustainability

Sally, Emily, Lucy . . . I've been thinking about your futures (as we parent-types tend to do) and often wonder what the world will be like when you are my age, perhaps raising a family of your own? In my work, I occasionally get to spend time with the sustainability experts from Autodesk and I always think that it would be smart for you to look for ways to incorporate sustainability-expertise into your professional skills. This book caught my attention this morning and might be something worth reading. Here is a little more about the book, which Autodesk helped launch earlier this month. I hope you will give this some thought.

The Future

Here's an excerpt from a speech by Brit Harris, Teachers Retirement System of Texas. I really like his message.

It is always easy to assume either that things today are not as good as they were in the past or that they aren’t going to be as good in the future. The first is irrelevant, and the second is usually not a good bet. Mankind is pretty amazing at doing foolish things to create problems and then brilliant ways to overcome them. I am not unaware of the world’s many current problems, but I am optimistic nonetheless. Pessimistic people always sound smarter than optimists, but optimists generally live in bigger houses. Whatever the case, it takes optimism to remain hopeful, and hope is what is needed to struggle on. There is always a way forward if we are willing to look for it, and if we have the collective will and the individual courage to do what is needed when the time comes to do what is right.

With that said, some things are obvious and will have to be reckoned with. The era of disinflation, declining interest rates, multiple expansion and easy credit is ending (or has ended). So too, has the time of protracted deregulation and declining government. Taxes are going to rise. Demographically, the developed countries of the world are aging, but the less developed countries are not yet ready to take up the slack in growth that may create. Monetary authorities all over the world are on high alert. Political in-fighting is unusually high. Full-scale war has been replaced by cyber-terror and vigilante groups. These are the winds of our time, and it may take a while to sail through them.

Still, we will likely have just enough growth, just enough productivity, and not too much inflation to allow the world to muddle through. Despite it all, we are now in the American Empire, and empires, by definition, last longer than most expect. In America we still have more than our fair share of the world’s greatest corporations, the most innovative culture, the strongest military, the best universities, the most effective form of government, a healthy financial system, and reasonably strong spiritual values. As a result, America continues to attract more people to our shores than perhaps all other countries combined. As dysfunctional as we know we are, these truths still remain.