I'm back!

So after a slightly mad start to the summer, I've been spending some quality time puttering around the house and enjoying life. Unfortunately, my computer's been on the fritz and hasn't wanted to connect to the internet, so I haven't been able to chronicle said putterings for you, my adoring fans. The computer's at least fixed enough now to connect to the internet from public wi-fi hotspots (I'm at the library now, which is blissfully air-conditioned, so this is not entirely a bad thing), although the dumb thing still won't connect at home. Oh well. Here I am, anyway.

The project I was working on in June was defending my master's theses, and, as all (2) of you probably know by now, I passed. Callooh! Callay!

Now I'm working on getting my reading list together for my general exams, which I'll take in January, and after that (assuming that I pass, of course) I'll be "ABD", or "all but dissertation." Callooh! Callay!

In the (copious amounts of) time that I haven't been working on my reading list this summer, I've been very much enjoying my garden, which is thriving, and riding my snazzy (old) new bike in to the farmer's market on Saturday mornings with Paul. We're also in the finishing stages of a very fancy bathroom remodel that I'm excited to share, although I've been sworn to secrecy until the project is complete. Paul thinks that people won't appreciate it as much if they see it before it's all the way finished. We finally ditched our dumb phones for smart phones this past weekend, so I'll have pictures to show for myself again as soon as I figure out how to get the pictures off the phone and onto the computer. The problem I'm finding with technology is that the operator is still required to be smarter than the device. That wasn't hard with the dumb phone. It's proving to be slightly more of a challenge with the smart one.

In any case, this was meant to be a quick check-in, yes, I'm still alive, sort of post, so I'll wrap it up with promises of being back again soon. Love and best wishes and all those sorts of things.

I thought I was, but I wasn't

So I thought I was starting summer and things would calm down. I finished grading my student's papers and final exams, I turned in my final paper, I spent about half a minute just lounging and enjoying life... and then things got busy again. I have a project that I'm keeping under wraps for the next week, but assuming all goes well there will be balloons and streamers and general merrymaking around these parts, and then maybe posting will pick back up. But things will be busy, busy for the next week.

Back soon, I hope.

(P.S. The garden is growing beautifully. I harvested my first Costata Romanesco zucchini yesterday, and I have a couple of okra ready to eat today. Tomatoes are coming on, and the edamame and peas are looking good. We've been eating radishes for a couple weeks now. Yum.)

Bang!

Me: "I love it when students make up words on their exams. Listen to this: "The printing press changed the course of history. It changed how people taught, it universified language....""

Paul: "Isn't that what happened at the Big Bang?"





(Finally done grading exams. Now finishing my paper, then doing absolutely nothing for a few days. Back soon.)

Rain, rain, go away....

I'm disgruntled because it's planting time and it's been raining torrentially and it's supposed to keep raining pretty much forever and the world is ending on Saturday anyway (or so I hear) and I really just want to play in my garden. I didn't have time to mow on the one nice day we had last week, so now the yard looks like we should just leave it and harvest it for hay in another week or so. I made a plan for my big garden plot yesterday and I'm ready to put it into action, except that the garden plot is just a big mud pit. *le sigh*

Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day,
Little Elizabeth wants to play.

Photo here.

Sunday Funday

Mom sent me these pictures from Sunday dinner last week and (since I haven't posted pictures in months and months) I thought I'd share.

Eric and Bethany brought over their wedding pictures, so while we were on the subject of weddings and wedding pictures Erin and I tried on Mom's wedding dress. Mom and Dad got married in October of 1981, and I'm told by somewhat reliable sources that this was quite stylish for 1981. (My sources are only somewhat reliable because they are limited to my mom, and why would she admit that wearing a lacy turtleneck isn't necessarily the most stylish thing in the world?)

Reliability of sources aside, however, both Erin and I were pleased to discover that we fit in Mom's wedding dress. She had a pretty kickin' hat, too - in fact, I'm wishing I would've borrowed it to wear for my wedding. Incidentally, that's my own wedding bouquet we're holding. Mom asked what I wanted to do with it after our wedding and I told her I didn't have room for it, so she took it home and let it dry. It still looks pretty good!





Mom even dug out the exact pair of glasses she wore in her wedding for Erin to try. They're... ... ... there are no words. ;)



We also got to spend time with our new little nephew, Marley. He's a beagle mix and he's about the cutest thing I've ever seen. There's nothing cuter than a beagle puppy. Paul and I brought Penny over to Mom and Dad's to see Charlie, so we had quite the menagerie.





And finally, an utterly gratuitous picture of Paul and Marley. Is there anything cuter than your husband holding a baby? Yes: husband + puppy = love squared. :)

Books of 2009-10

I'm clearing out my "Printed Words" list to make way for the books of 2011, but it made me sad to think of just deleting them, so here's what I read in the past year. (Incidentally, I'm in graduate school and I read at least a book a week if not more for school, so I'm not counting all of those books. These were for pleasure, and are the ones that were memorable):

My Life in France, Julia Child
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
Pardonable Lies, Jacqueline Winspear
Birds of a Feather, Jacqueline Winspear
Cemetery Dance and Brimstone, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, mark haddon
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
This House of Sky, Ivan Doig
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen
Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Profitable Hobby Farm, Sarah Beth Aubrey
Alex and Me, Irene Pepperburg
The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
Holy Feast and Holy Fast, Carolyn Walker Bynum

What I [didn't do] on my spring break

So here's what my March has looked like so far:

Thursday, March 3: my students' book reports due (45 of them. ugh.)

Friday, March 4 - Tuesday, March 9: grade, grade, grade, grade, grade

Friday, March 11: last day of winter quarter, lunch with Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies visiting speaker, speaker's lecture, straight to work

Saturday, March 12: wake up at 5:30am and drive to Marion, OH to adjudicate the DI tournament

Monday, March 14: my student's final exam (3 in-class essays)

Tuesday, March 15 - Thursday, March 17: grade, grade, grade, grade, grade

Thursday, March 17: heart attack because my computer won't connect to the internet and I can't submit grades. Go to work early to use chef's computer to submit them. Sigh of relief until I realize I still have 7 pages of my 15 page paper to write before the next day.

Thursday, March 17, 10pm - Friday, March 18, noon: write, write, write, write, write, submit

Friday, March 18, noon-4pm: put together application to be a facilitator at the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching's fall teaching orientation. Submit.

Friday, March 18, 4pm-5pm: practice the piece I'm supposed to play in Eric and Bethany's wedding. Curse my rusty piano skills.

Friday, March 18, 6:30pm: Eric and Bethany's wedding rehearsal. Have a heart attack because I can't remember how to play the piano.

Saturday, March 19, noon: get ready for the wedding. Still panicking about the piano thing.

Saturday, March 19, 2:30pm: wedding starts. Still panicking.

Saturday, March 19, 2:38pm: play the piano well enough that I didn't embarrass anyone. Feel like I could use a stiff drink.

Saturday, March 19, 2:44pm: Eric and Bethany married. Cue the party music.

Saturday, March 19, 3:45pm: receiving line finally done. Happy I'm not in the wedding party because I don't have to stand for a million pictures. Three family pictures and then I'm done. Find some punch, then go home and let the dog out before the reception.

Saturday, March 19, 6:46pm: Eric presented with a magnificent ball and chain by his friends at the reception. He tells them to have fun in Ohio, he's taking his ball and chain to the Caribbean.

Saturday, March 19, 7:30pm: Paul, Amy, Kyle and I plan our escape. Go home and put on comfy clothes, then go to the movies. Rango wasn't as funny as I expected, but it was fun.

Sunday, March 20: Sleep in

Monday, March 21: Spring break starts. Resolve to do absolutely nothing except read books on my Kindle all week. Get through a good chunk of A Game of Thrones.

Wednesday, March 23: Ikea and the Jeffersonville outlets with Amy

Thursday, March 24 - Sunday, March 27: still doing nothing. Finish A Game of Thrones.

Monday, March 28: School starts again. No more laughing, no more fun.