Bounty

Alexa (Lexi)

I've survived the first two weeks of the semester (almost--one day of classes left this week), and so far things are going very well (other than being back to my not sleeping patterns).  The first week of classes is exciting--meeting the new students, starting a fresh new semester--but not particularly fun.  I have to spend way too much time going over syllabi and other boring administrative-type tasks and way too little time coding.  The second week we start coding a bit, but by next week, we'll jump in with both feet and spend the rest of the semester in that mode.  That's when it really gets fun.  

I have women in my programming classes!  Yes, that's womEn, not womAn, because I have more than one woman in each of my three programming classes, and my classes are a bit more diverse than usual.  I'm quite excited about the diversity, as I think it makes for a better class.

Mimosa (Mimi)

The animals and I are still suffering from my back-to-school withdrawal.  We have gotten used to being together all the time, all summer, and this summer I was even more of a homebody than usual.  I struggle with being gone from them for so long.  I will adjust to it, but right now I'm still feeling sad and guilty when I leave them every day.  

Last week I pushed myself far, far out of my comfort zone and participated in a Flashmob, performed by faculty for the students.  We learned the dance on Tuesday during our staff orientation day, and then practiced at home with the video until our performance last Wednesday.  We invaded the commons, which was packed because of the free food SGA provided, as zombies and danced to Thriller. I'm not a fan of zombies or Thriller, but I do love to dance and we had a ton of fun practicing and stressing out over getting the steps right. I almost backed out about 20 times, but I knew my colleagues would curse me forever for such cowardice, so I forced myself to stick with it. We pulled it off, and though it was great fun, I'm fairly sure it was NOT pretty.  I had visions of my students breaking out in uncontrollable giggles for the remainder of the semester, after seeing me make a giant ass of myself (a la Elaine's employees after seeing her very special dancing on Seinfield--a classic!), but no giggles so far--at least not to my face. :)  The video has been posted on Facebook.  Ugh.

In addition to the crunch of prepping for and returning to school and learning a dance, I have been trying to keep up with the garden, which is incredibly bountiful right now. I'm trying to stay ahead of harvesting and either using or freezing the produce.  We've been eating very well, and enjoying a bumper crop of eggplant.  Fortunately, we all love eggplant, and it is so versatile that nobody minds having it 2-3 times a week, because each dish is completely different (eggplant "bacon" is great in wraps, miso-glazed eggplant, eggplant lasagna, eggplant & chickpea curry, black-eyed pea & eggplant curry, eggplant curry burgers, roasted eggplant & other garden veggies in a peanut-lime-sriracha sauce, etc.).  I'm going to really miss eating most of our meals directly from the garden, when the season ends!  

We grew an experimental batch of Timothy grass this year, and since it went very well, we'll be growing much more next year. The rabbits and guinea pigs go through so much organic Timothy hay that we'd like to grow some of our own. They enjoy eating the grass, too.  I've been hanging small bunches of grass in the house in an effort to determine the best means of making hay (haha).

We don't eat much pasta anymore (wheat!), but I made this Mac & Cheese recipe, which allowed me to use a bunch of cherry tomatoes from the garden.  It was delicious--out of this world! M rated it one of his top three favorites, so I'll definitely make it again. We have tons of cherry tomatoes this year, so this will be my go-to dish for using them up.

I managed to make the best salsa I've ever eaten but I didn't use a recipe and will probably never be able to recreate it exactly. I went out to the garden with a basket, picked everything that was ripe and could be used for salsa, roasted about half of the veggies and left the other half raw, and threw it together in the food processor. I only have 1.5 jars (of 3) left and will then spend the rest of my life chasing the dragon to make that magic again. Why oh why do I not write down my experiments?!? This is not the first time I've done something like this, and I'm annoyed that I've done it again.

Projects

We have one week of classes and one week of final exams left of the semester.  Projects are due next week for all four of my classes, so I'm swamped with helping panicky, tired, stressed students troubleshoot projects.  This has left me little time for grading, so I'm a little stressed myself.

I took a few hours away from projects today to do a little cleaning and organizing.  M informed me that he's bringing the Yule tree up tomorrow, so it was really necessary to get the house back in order.  Not fun.

I'm posting some pics tonight that are from this summer (the leaves, not the cute bonus pic of Lexi above).  The girls participated in the Rotary Botanical Gardens' artist fundraiser, and they had oak leaves this year.  We won both in the auction, and they are now our backyard.  Sadly, L's has faded a bit, which is strange.  Her leaf took her countless hours, as it is all hand drawn with a black Sharpee (lots of them, actually).  We don't know why some portions faded while some held up well.  The whole thing is sealed.

Time marches on

We celebrated my birthday this weekend.  My bday was Saturday, which also happened to be our date night.  M made plans for the night.  We started with dinner at Taj Mahal.  We had a great dinner and were walking out to the car, when M mentioned my new age.  I had completely forgotten the fact that my age changed.  I like to think of my birthdays as a celebration of me, rather than the aging association.  I guess my plan is working, because until M reminded me, it completely escaped my notice.  For the next three weeks, I will be two years older than him, rather than just one, so he has the next three weeks to revel in his cougar jokes.

After dinner, we attended a play in Madison at Broom Street Theater (Seeking Flight).  It's been a while since we've been there.  M picked the play as a surprise because it was about birds kept in captivity.  I would normally not have attended the show, simply because I hate crying in public and work very hard to avoid anything that may cause that to happen.  We enjoyed the play, and I managed to keep it together for the most part, but I felt very sad after.  The play actually had a happy ending, but it was based on the real situation of Alex the African Gray parrot who spent his life as an experiment.  Alex didn't get a similar happy ending, and most birds don't, so I couldn't shake the sadness, even after a happy ending!  I also kept thinking of poor Sagan and lonely Simi, which added to my malaise.

Dej brought over some of the most delicious vegan cupcakes ever.  Our friend, Ande, makes them, and everything he makes is delicious.  These were chocolate/chocolate chip with raspberry frosting.  Yum.  My mom also baked me my favorite cherry-chocolate cake.  I'm revving up the workouts, so I can fully enjoy my delicious baked goods.

 I am once again wearing a wedding ring, though not my original set.  I've worn the rings less and less through the years, and really reached a point where, for a variety of reasons, I felt I didn't want to wear a ring at all.  I don't like rings.  I love the way they look, but they drive me crazy to wear.  Partially because I have very skinny fingers, and my mid knuckle is the largest part, which means my rings slip and slide and spin constantly, even when they fit as tightly possible over the knuckle.  I do so much with my hands, and they always seem to be in the way.  I don't feel the need to broadcast my marital status, as it's not relevant to anyone other than my family.  I have some major issues with wearing expensive gold & diamonds that serve no purpose.  I'm a bit embarrassed that we followed that stupid tradition way back when, and I don't think they accurately reflect me or my values.  My skin frequently reacts badly to metals--even gold (because of the nickel? it's cut with).  For these and a few other reasons, I had just decided to forget the rings.

M wears his ring, and since it won't come off anymore, he will continue to wear it.  He finally expressed a little discomfort with my intention to remain ring free.  I don't quite get it, but in deference to his feelings, started doing some research to see if I could come up with a compromise.  I found one that seems to work.  I got a simple titanium band.  It's indestructible, doesn't cause skin reactions, and is more reflective of who I am and my values.  I am trying to get used to wearing a ring again--right now it's very irritating, but eventually I will get used to it and not even think about it.  I think it's a compromise that we can both live with.  Now...I need to find a similar compromise for our toilet paper wars at home!

Just when I think I have a handle on things...Things have to get less busy at some point!  I have lost so much time the last few weeks working on a correspondence course.  I didn't think it would take nearly this much time and effort, but it has.  I will have it all finished and mailed out by Tuesday, so maybe I will get a little breathing time then.  I usually love learning almost anything, but this is not fun.  It's sickening and depressing and leaves me feeling like I just returned from a long day at war.  I will share more about it once everything is finalized, and I will be SO happy to move on.  I suspect I will have some nasty dreams tonight as a result of the things I saw and read.

The animals inside the house, as well as wild animal issues/rescues have also kept me hopping and created unexpected time vacuums.  To some extent, I realize my life will always be full of the unexpected with so many creatures sharing my life.  It has been a rough year for squirrels!  I don't think I've ever had so many squirrel rescues in a year.  Since I thrive on a highly scheduled, pre-planned life and intensely dislike surprises of any kind, this will always present a challenge for me. 

Life's not all drudgery, though.  Last night we had a blast at the AFA Annual Chili Cookoff.  All seven chilis were delicious (though two of them had corn in them (GROSS!) that I had to avoid), and the desserts were so good that I've been thinking about them all day today.  I left with my friend Marina's peanut butter cup pie recipe--Marina and her pie were the hit of the night!  We were all so incredibly full when we left, that we were quite uncomfortable, but it was so worth it. :)  Whenever I attend an event where there is a winner (and therefore also losers), I end up feeling really sad for the losers.  Last night was no exception.  I was awake for a couple of hours in the night worrying that the losing restaurants may feel bad, and their chilis were all good, too.

We went to the Arboretum before the chili dinner.  The five of us (M & I and the kids) walked through to look at fall color.  Before leaving, I ran back into the house to grab my camera.  I stuck it in my purse when we arrived, and discovered when I got it out to snap the first picture that the batteries were dead.  I was really bummed to not be able to take any photos, but M had his camera, so I'm using his pictures.

I finally got some pictures of little Lexi.  She's looking for a good home--one that has more room and is less crazy than this place.  She's healthy, sweet, cuddly, shy, tiny, and about a year old.