*cue happy dance*

I PASSED!

General exams are over and I'm officially ABD. Let the general merriment and celebration commence.

Happy Walentines Day

I've developed the annoying habit of replacing V's with W's, as in wegetables, wiolins, and Walentines Day. I'm not quite sure why that is or where it came from, but there it is. So, whether or not you celebrate Valentines Day, I wish you a wery, wery happy Walentines Day from me and my walentine to you and yours.

*I'm in the trenches of finishing preparation for my general exams, grading students' midterms and papers and generally acting like a responsible student. Maybe someday I'll be a responsible blogger, too, but probably not quite yet.

Printed Words

Another year flown by. I can't help but think I'm missing some books below (I could've sworn I read more than that!), but I can't think of any off-hand. Oh well. Printed words, 2011:

Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver
The Woods, Harlan Coben
The Falls, Joyce Carol Oates
Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel
Keeping Watch, Laurie R. King
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent
Riptide, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Game, Laurie R. King
Justice Hall, Laurie R. King
Organic Farming, Peter V. Fossel
Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry
Knockemstiff, Donald Ray Pollock
The Holy Thief, William Ryan
The Dirty Life, Kristin Kimball
The People of the Mist, Henry Rider Haggard
The American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Maria Francis Child
Stories of a Woman Homesteader, Elinore Pruitt Stewart
AfterAge, Yvonne Navarro
State of Siege, Michael Wallace
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
The Naked Gardener, L B Gschwandtner
The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova

The garden of our intelligence

"So let us then in the prime of our lives not be indolent or slothful, but with all vigor apply ourselves to the study of grammar until we have arrived at the knowledge of rightly reading, understanding and composing prose or verse. And let us now plant and seed the garden of our intelligence, so that we may eat the sweet fruit all the days of our lives."
- A sister at Ebstorf nunnery, c. 1490*




*Quoted in Anne Winston-Allen's Convent Chronicles, 2004.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for many things this year. A great family, good health, good friends, a good church, a nice house, a new car... the list goes on. We've been very blessed this year. I'm most thankful for my new branch of our family, though. Being married is every bit as great as I thought it would be (case in point: Paul woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at five am, put on his 'turkey pants' and is happily banging around in the kitchen getting ready to smoke our Thanksgiving tom. He even sang a song about it.) We've added a new member to the family since last year. Nick was our Christmas kitten and he's been a fun addition to the family. Penny is just as great as ever - it's been a learning experience being the primary caregiver for a puppy since she was five weeks old, but it's been a lot of fun. I can't wait to see what new adventures we'li have to be thankful for next year.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Nostalgia

I've been feeling quite nostalgic about Penny's puppyhood lately, so I've been looking back through some old pictures. She was so little! These are from the Fourth of July at Brendan's cottage in New York last year.







And in case you don't believe that dogs end up looking like their owners (or is it the other way around?), check out these crazy 'dos:

Writing and Conferring

I'm in the process of turning a seminar paper into a conference paper. It's been a busy month and it's going to stay busy right to the end... I'll be back with something (potentially) more substantive in November. In the meantime, I leave you with my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic- it sums up academic writing all too well.

In the meantime, Happy Halloween!