Recharging

My handful of regular readers have probably noticed I haven't posted anything new lately. No, I haven't abandoned this blog, until recently I've just been too busy to keep up with it. Since defending my capstone project almost a month ago (wow, has it been a month already?) I've completed my last project for my other class, gone to the other side of the state for a meeting, finished the semester, cleaned the house, travelled to Dallas for a conference, and had hubby's parents come to visit. All of the activity overloaded this poor introvert's circuits so I've now spent the last week recharging by staying home and trying to remember my name. I've also attempted to catch up on things that inevitably got left by the wayside while I was running from one thing to another, though I've come to the conclusion that my feeling caught up on everything that needs to be done may be as elusive as my winning the lottery. (Particularly since I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life.)

To make up for lost time I thought I'd post a few random pictures I've taken of things over the past few weeks. I'm not an avid photographer by any means, but I remembered to bring my camera along most of the time and occasionally I even remembered to use it.

An otter at the Asheville Nature Center. I can't tell you how many pictures I had to take before he finally posed for me this way. That little guy books!

The Hyatt Regency Dallas, where the conference I went to was held.

Results of strawberry picking with hubby's parents. Strawberry pie, anyone?

One Word

The DJ's on K-LOVE's morning show have been been doing a program on "My One Word" this week, asking people to select one word as a kind of "New Year's Resolution" for 2010. Some words I've heard people use are "purpose", "available", "present", and "dream". When I heard the challenge I immediately knew my one word for 2010:

GRADUATE

It may not be the most spiritual or enlightening word but that's definitely it.

What's your word?

(Note: K-LOVE's blog post on the topic directs readers to the Choose Your Word Web site for help in choosing an appropriate word. If it doesn't immediately come to you like mine did, that is.)

Random Citings

I've been collecting some random musings lately so I thought I'd share.

1. Whenever I do laundry I inevitably forget about it and end up leaving it in the washer (or dryer) for several hours.
2. I only buy chocolate chips in 72 oz. bags. Anything less is hardly worth it. (Have I mentioned chocolate chip cookies are a staple in my house?)
3. Sometimes I like to be domestic—cooking, baking, that sort of thing. Unfortunately my desire to be domestic never extends to wanting to clean the house.
4. I like blueberry-chocolate chip pancakes, as in both of them in there together. It occurred to me once that I liked blueberry pancakes and I liked chocolate chip pancakes, so why not try them all in one? Yum.
5. It takes two people to give our dog a bath. At least. She's a squirmy thing! (But oh so clean and fluffy afterwards.)
   
6. I have lots of freckles. Probably has to do with my reddish hair, which I think was even more reddish when I was a child. (Never carrot-red, though.)
7. I make an awesome dog nurse. (I nursed my dog back to health and got her to eat again when she was sick over the summer.)
8. My hubby and I met online, on a Christian dating site. Maybe I'll tell that story someday...

And last but not least:


9. The professors in my department have a conspiracy to have everything due on the same day. Really. I asked one of them about it last night, why major projects in different classes are always due on the same day. He said it's a conspiracy.

Back to the books!

Little Victories

I kept thinking that one of these days I'd put together a philosophical post about some things I've been thinking about recently, how I don't want to just do "good enough" and skim through graduate school (or skim through all the reading I have to do), how I went back to school to really learn and not just get letters by my name. I thought I'd try to throw in some Bible verses about what God wants from us and how this is all part of His plan. Yep, that's what I thought I'd do when I had time. Now back to reality: I will NEVER have time.

Since I really want to get an update done before the three people who read this blog think I've died I'm going to talk about some lighter subjects instead. Recently I lost a barrette. I don't lose things very often so it's always a little annoying when I do. It was a cheap plastic one, though, so I figured I'm not perfect and I didn't give it that much thought. I also don't wear my hair in a barrette very often so again, not a huge deal. This morning I decided to put my hair back in a barrette, though, and I remembered a silver one I have that I used to wear a lot; when I went in the drawer to get it I discovered it wasn't there. Now, you're probably thinking my first thought was, "Oh no, I've lost another barrette"—nope, that's not what I thought. The silver barrette is a nice one and I knew I wouldn't have lost it. My first thought was, "Ok, those two barrettes are together somewhere, probably in this house." From there it was a quick matter of deduction: Since I don't wear barrettes very often the only time I have them together outside the drawer where they live is when I travel. When I travel I put whichever ones I bring in a cosmetic bag, so I went and looked in the cosmetic bags I usually bring on trips. I looked inside and they were all empty, but then I noticed a zipper pocket that was open in one of them. I put my hand in—and pulled out the two barrettes. I hate losing things so finding both of them easily this morning made my day. Given my ridiculously busy, always tired graduate school life I seem to be living right now it's the little victories that keep me sane.

This reminds me of when we moved to North Carolina. Everyone knows when you move you always lose things, right? After unpacking everything and finding several things we thought we'd lost it finally came down to one thing I just couldn't find: The cyclometer that goes on my bike. I figured maybe I forgot to take it off the bike and pack it elsewhere so maybe it fell off the bike in the truck and we somehow never noticed. I didn't like losing it but kind of like the plastic barrette it wasn't a huge deal and wasn't worth getting that upset over. Last May we went to California to visit family. I took out a carry-on bag that I don't use very often but I'd decided I wanted to bring on this particular trip. I was taking some extra straps out of it and put my hand in one of the outside pockets—and pulled out the cyclometer. I must have taken it off the bike and in my packing haste thrown it somewhere it would be safe. I'm sure I had other things packed in that bag when we moved so I must have just missed it. Apparently I don't unpack bags very well!

And one more: My latest assignment for my social media class is to put together a photosharing site for an organization. I'm doing it on the state park where my husband is a Park Ranger since I have an "inside track." This afternoon I went there to take some pictures. On my way home I decided I needed some ice cream (I really like ice cream); unfortunately there's no ice cream place between our house and the park and the closest ice cream place isn't all that close to us. I didn't have any great plans for dinner tonight, though, and ruining my dinner with a Baskin Robbins chocolate peanut butter shake sounded like a fine idea. So I went out of my way to get it. I figure I probably drove 8-10 extra miles and paid way too much for it, and now I feel royally sick from drinking the whole thing. And you know what? Totally worth it. :-)