Pumpkin Pie and Shrimp Stir-Fry

(Yes, I know, the rhyme is trite. Oh well, it's Friday. I don't care.)

Anyway, I spent a few hours today in the kitchen. My church has Stations of the Cross every Friday afternoon during Lent, and members of the Women's Group generally take turns cooking supper for everybody after Stations. Since I like to cook, I volunteered for this week. I made shrimp stir-fry (which was served over rice), pumpkin pie, and coconut pie. I thought the stir-fry was good. I don't generally eat pumpkin pie, but I wanted to get the last of the pie crust and the pumpkin out of my freezer; the people who ate the pumpkin pie said it was good. And I like the coconut pie; I think it's probably one of my favorite desserts.

I'm going to be spending most of the rest of the evening cleaning my messy apartment. I haven't given the apartment a good cleaning in a while, so I need to chase the little dust bunnies around for a while....

Papers (Mine and Not Mine)

Well, my paper was finished and turned in on time. (I wrote about two literary works from the 1890s and the music of Frederic Chopin. I really enjoyed working on the paper; it was fun.) Now that my paper's finished, I need to grade papers. My students turned in papers a few days ago, and I want to get those back to them as soon as possible. I also have a prospectus for another paper that I need to write. I need to get some research done over the weekend so I have a better idea of where I'm going with that work....

Ahhh, Writing....

I've just finished a draft of my paper, and I'm posting a quick blog as I wait for the printer to finish spitting out my masterpiece. (Well, it's not a masterpiece yet. I plan on doing a few rounds of revisions in the morning.) I have everything read of tomorrow (actually it's today now), so I'm right on schedule. Now I'm headed home for a few hours of sleep before I roll out of bed in time to revise my paper before my class. (It's a 2pm class, so I have plenty of time to both rest and revise....)

Papers and Plants

Well, today was a typical Monday. I still haven't really recovered from the lack of sleep this weekend, so dragging myself out of bed this morning was even more difficult than usual. Classes today were fine, but I need to get to work on things for Wednesday. I have all of my reading for Wednesday finished, but I have a short paper due Wednesday that isn't finished. (I have a solid topic and all of my research is finished, I just need to sit down and write 7-8 pages.) I'll probably work on the paper for a bit tonight and then try to get a good night sleep so I can function tomorrow.

This past weekend was quite busy, though I don't feel that I managed to get very much accomplished. Jimmy took me shopping, and he bought me some early birthday presents: a large mirror and a set of 3 rod-iron crosses. We hung the mirror over the mantle in my apartment and the crosses ended up in my dining room. My apartment's slowly beginning to look less like a college student's dorm room.... I need to either buy or make some little planters to put out on my balcony. I'd like to try to grow some lettuce and herbs this summer, and I think they would look nice on the front balcony....

Tired

Hello, I'm tired. The campus Relay for Life was last night (7pm to 7am), so I was up all night walking and playing and just 'hanging out' with friends. I had a good time, and we raised quite a bit of money (over $30,000) for the American Cancer Society. Though it was all fun, I'm now tired and sluggish and I don't want to do anything. I need to start on Monday's reading or on the paper that's due later this week, but I'm feeling tired and unmotivated today....

Snow?

It snowed...though there's no trace of it any more. There was a nice white blanket over the entire world (or at least as much of the world as I could see from my little balcony doors) when I woke up this morning, but it's all melted away. Since the weather's been spring-like for the past several weeks, the ground wasn't cold enough for the snow to stick or cause icy, messy roads. Hmmm, I wonder how many days it will be until I decide to put my sweaters away again; we'll see if I actually get to pull out the spring stuff this time....

Analogies and Audience

Well, I guess the analogy can be modified based on speaker and intended audience....

Reading Books

I feel like nearly all I've done since I've been back home is read books. Granted, Jimmy and I have gone out during the evenings, but I think I've probably spent considerably more hours with my books than I have with Jimmy during the past few days. I finished Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles last night and then started on James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. While Hardy's works are rather slow reads with a certain strangeness (dare I say coldness and morbidity) to them, I think I rather like them. So far I like the Johnson book as well, but I'm going to set that one aside for a while as it's on the list for next week. I got confused and started in on the wrong text...so now I'm getting ready to start on Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. The only other work by Wharton that I've ever read is Ethan Frome, and I definitely liked that one.

Ah well, books are my life. Sometimes (especially when I'm boxing up things and moving) I think I should have chosen a lighter profession....

Returning to the Technological World....

And I'm back home after my trip homehome for Spring Break. I spent most of my break with Mom and Dad; I got to sleep in a bit most mornings, study my Spanish during the afternoons, play some Killer Bunnies with Eric and Gordon (two of my nephews who decided to spend a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house instead of visiting colleges with their parents and older sister), spend some time visiting with family, and finish a few knitting projects. (Now that the weather's warming up, I finally have my very own knitted scarf. I've made scarves for quite a few of my friends over the past several years, but I hadn't ever made one for myself.) Anyway, I came back home yesterday. Robert Louis Stevenson was my travel buddy via an audio recording of Treasure Island, and I made an afternoon stop at Sterling College (my alma mater) to visit with Dr. Gannon, one of the professors in the Department of English there.

After I returned home, Jimmy took me out for St. Patrick's Day. We first decided to go to one of the Irish pubs in town, but we decided against that after seeing the terrible traffic in the area and noting that their celebrations were scheduled to be outside (it was starting to rain). We then set out for another bar/pub, but we were distracted by a bookstore that we'd never noticed before. ("You know you're a graduate student when you end up in a bookstore on the way to the pub.") After the bookstore, we ended up at a little bar and grill and managed to get a pair of non-green beers and seats near the televisions which, of course, were broadcasting the NCAA tournament games. So, after watching KU lose, we simply decided to call it a night....

Most of the day today has been spent reading. While I did take some of my books home over break, the one that I most need to finish by Monday managed to get left at my house. Thus I've spent most of the day reading Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Though it's a rather slow read, I'm enjoying the book. I've read some other works by Hardy before, but this is a first read for this work. Jimmy managed to pull me away from the book for a while tonight. We went to the theatre to see V for Vendetta. I was a little reluctant to see the film as I'm not a fan of comic books (or fantasy or science fiction), but I actually liked the film. The movie was made by quite a few of the same people who worked on The Matrix, and there were certainly some similarities. I don't think I'll be using this film in any upcoming scholarly projects, but who knows....

Spring Break!!

Woo-hoo!! Spring Break!! I've got a full week off, and I'm going to enjoy it. I spent today just chilling and hanging out with Jimmy, and I'm going homehome tomorrow. Jimmy and I spent the day out and about -- we went to the park (between the little rain showers), went to the mall, and cooked a big supper. We had a nice lazy day; we did quite a few things, but nothing too strenuous or mentally taxing. I'm headed homehome tomorrow, and I'll probably be there for most of the week. I'll be technologically-deprived for the next week, so this will probably be the last blog for a few days. Happy Spring Break!! I'll blog again when I get back....

Relay to Spring Break

Spring Break's almost here!! (YAY! I think I've mentally been on break for a few days already.) The class that I have on Wednesdays didn't meet yesterday, so my Wednesday felt like a Friday. Between my week with two Fridays and the break coming up this next week, it's been quite difficult to focus on schoolwork and stuff like that this past week. I'm planning on studying my Spanish over the break so I'm ready to take my reading exams sometime in April. I think I'll stay in Tulsa for part of the weekend and then go homehome for most of next week. Jimmy's Spring Break doesn't overlap with mine, so I get to go homehome all by myself. I don't know for sure what all he has planned for his break....

We have the campus Relay for Life the weekend after we return to campus after break. I'm participating with a team from my church. We met this week to plan out activities, and we're all still working on fundraising in hopes of winning the team fundraising award. If you would like to support the American Cancer Society in their fight against cancer, follow the link above....

I speak SAE. Do you?

I don't typically like the little on-line surveys and things like that, but I found that this one was fun....

What kind of American English do you speak?
(So, how did you do?)

And my results from their little dialect test:

Picture

YAY me!! I finally figured out how to put a picture on my blog profile and homepage. I'd figured out how to post pictures within the text quite a while ago, but posting the picture in the 'About Me' section was a bit more complex. I finally took the time to figure it out....

Dry Clean Only

I took a couple of my fancy black dresses (my party and opera dresses) to the dry cleaners a few days ago, and I went in to pick them up today. I was absolutely astonished when I got the bill -- $20.90 for two dresses!! (I had a 'Save $10' coupon, so it wasn't quite so bad.) I guess I hadn't taken anything to the dry cleaners in a few years, but I was still a little (okay, more than a little) shocked at the prices. Once again, I find myself thankful that Mom never let me buy 'Dry Clean Only' clothes when I was younger. (I still find myself looking at care labels in the store and avoiding the dreaded DCOs.) I'm also thankful that Mom taught me to look for and use coupons!!

Wednesday to the Weekend....

Wow...it's Sunday and I haven't updated since Wednesday....

The weekend's been rather uneventful so far. Thursday was a long, busy day filled with school work. Friday didn't include any school work, but it was busy nonetheless. I spent a few hours at the laundromat, took my fancier dresses to the dry cleaners, took in the recycling, cleaned house, and thought about doing homework. Jimmy and I went out for supper on Friday night and then we rented movies. We watched _Yours, Mine, & Ours_, and I wasn't as disappointed in the movie as I thought I would be. (I like the old version--the one with Lucy--so I was a little skeptical about the re-make. The re-make certainly isn't as good as the original, but it was better than I'd expected.) Anyway, the house-cleaning got finished on Saturday, and Jimmy, his mom, and his brother came over for part of the afternoon. After that Jimmy and I went out for supper (again) and then we went to the movie theatre and watched _Firewall_. I was thoroughly disappointed in the movie (I don't really like the action/thriller films), but I think Jimmy liked it well enough. Since we went to a fairly early showing, I managed to get back home and get to bed at a relatively decent hour. And now I'm spending today reading...it's _The Beetle_ by Marsh today. So far the book's rather odd, almost like Kafka's _Metamorphosis_....

Happy Flip Day!!

I have a friend who wishes people a 'Happy Flip Day' on the days when you flip the pages on the calendar. Therefore, 'Happy Flip Day!'