Sunday Night Baking

I made these tonight. They're for tomorrow's work function but we tried a few out ourselves. b and I both liked them but Boy was not impressed (he's a fussy one).

My Week As A Western Movie

The Good

I'm teaching a practicum class with both graduate and undergraduate students in my field. As a class we've been planning a large event in the community. Students had to secure space, funds, contributions, and volunteers as well as handle food and decorations. They also had to advertise and recruit participants. As a group we coordinated the entire event through class meetings and Blackboard.

The event occurred today and it went off like a charm. My students, 11 amazing young women, were awesome. The participants enjoyed themselves, learned a few things, met new people, felt pampered and appreciated, and were extremely appreciative of the all the hard work that went into the event. My students felt like they did a good job, worked well as a team, got professional experience, and made a really great day for some women who don't often get special treatment.

I felt proud.

The Bad

A few nights ago one of my colleagues, an avid bike rider and crusader for bike safety, was hit by a car while riding home from the office. The young woman who hit him was text messaging while driving. He is in the hospital with multiple broken bones, including 5 vertabrae. He is definitely improving but it will be a long recovery process. He lives alone and his family lives in another part of the country. On top of all this, it seems his elderly mother has been in and out of the hospital for most of the week, which means his sisters cannot come and take care of him.

[A small piece of good from this event is seeing how much the entire community (department, school, university) are rallying around him and helping him through this tough time. It's feels good to belong to such a supportive group.]

The Ugly

My mother was visiting this entire week. She is never an easy woman and has some serious emotional issues. I noticed when she arrived that she was in one of her "funks," not depression but rather not taking care of herself and drinking more than normal. Towards the end of her visit she manipulated b into a full-scale blow-out fight. She is known for this type of behavior, often with her sons-in-law, but b doesn't really fight with anyone and they certainly have never fought before.

The fight was, of course, over something stupid and if you followed it, which I had no choice but to do, it didn't make much sense. It escalated quickly and got really really bad. In the nine years that I've known him I have never seen b so angry. At one point I couldn't take it any longer and I just lost it. I yelled at them to stop and started crying. (I'm not someone who cries very easily or frequently.) b stopped immediately and came over to comfort me. Boy, who was also witness to this ugliness, acted like the man he has become and firmly but gently told his inebriated grandmother to stop (because she wouldn't) and then took her outside to walk around the block. Afterwards I learned he made idle conversation to divert her attention and when she wanted to continue talking about the fight he told her she could do that the next day, when she was sober.

Afterwards we all went to bed but the house was tense for the rest of her visit. She apologized in the morning but everything she said made it obvious that she just doesn't get what she did. I know she doesn't realize the damage that she has caused to her relationship with all three of us. I've seen her do things like this my entire life but it was the first time b and Boy have really experienced it up close and personal.

[The small bit of good in this was seeing how my sweet, caring, anxious little boy has grown into a mature, sensitive, and tactful man. I often wonder where he came from and how I got lucky enough to be his mom. His behavior with her and his gallantry towards me that night were really quite impressive.]

b just called from work and asked me out on a date to our favorite date restaurant. I'm happy to put this week to bed and that it is ending on such a happy note.

Leave No Trace

b is a "Leave No Trace" master. In addition to the the impressive title, it means he gets to spend the next two days training people to become "Leave No Trace" trainers. To conduct the training he must, of course, go camping. So tonight he is out there sleeping in our new tent while I am here snuggled in our new bed. Pupzilla, who generally has mixed feelings about camping, was not allowed on this trip.

I'm not really sure what occurs at the training but I do know the seven principles of Leave No Trace are covered. They are:

1. Plan ahead and prepare
2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces
3. Dispose of waste properly
4. Leave what you find
5. Minimize campfire impacts
6. Respect wildlife
7. Be considerate of other visitors

I think most of these work as well indoors as outdoors.

Easter Camping

We like to camp on holidays. Thanksgiving is probably the best. b is an amazing dutch oven cook and can create an entire Thanksgiving spread in the woods. He spends the day cooking, while Boy, Pupzilla and I laze around the campsite. At some point we all go off for a nice hike. After dinner it's apple cobbler and cocoa around the campfire while b reads from A Christmas Carol.

This year our state had a burn ban and there was no Thanksgiving camping.

So with our new tent arriving last week and the ban being lifted, we were very psyched for an Easter camping trip. We keep things simple and go to a pretty campground not far from home. The complications this year was b's work schedule and my mother's visit. b was scheduled to work until 4 pm on Saturday and needed to be back to work very very early Monday morning. Mom's flight came in a 5:30 Saturday evening.

It took some hustling but we managed to get everything and body (except Boy who was working all weekend long) to the campsite before sunset. We had cocktails and talked and b cooked spinach lasagna. A beautiful spring day turned into a crisp and chilly night but we had a raging fire to keep us warm. The new tent is a dream. It's comfortable and roomy without being large and it has a very cool vestibule and lots of vents and windows. In the morning b made his famous egg bake and then it was time for a hike.

Normally we would have spent Sunday night but it made no sense with his schedule. So we packed up and came home. We were pleasantly surprised that Boy had a 3 hour break and could meet us for lunch. The day ended with a very late but yummy supper and some cobbler. We are all stuffed and sleepy and Pupzilla is passed out on her bed.

Six Word Memoir

A fun little meme has been making it's way around the blogosphere and life-of-a-fool has been kind enough to tag me so I can play along.

Here are the instructions:

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4. Tag five more blogs with links

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

Here we go:

I wondered. I labored. I loved.



I tag:

jo(e), dr. bad ass, Amanda, dr. zombieswan, and Katie

How is it....

after only one week off I can be almost completely caught up in my home life but completely behind in my work life?

Spring Cleaning

Spring Break has meant Spring Cleaning--or really Spring Total Reorganization--in the House of Dirt and Rocks. You see we recently came to the realization that we don't want to move anytime soon. Our original plan was to live in this house for a year--or so--while we figured out what we really wanted. As it turns out we really enjoy living in the middle of the city, where I can walk and b can ride to work, with restaurants, stores, and sundries all around us. We've also grown fond of this little house. It fits us well and we've been (mostly) comfortable.

The uncomfortable part was how we set it up when we first moved in. I felt we were not getting maximum usage out of the available space. We have also managed to acquire a boatload of junk in just under 2 years. So I was feeling crowded and cramped and decided we need to move around three rooms, clean out the attic and the closets and that b needed to build us a new bed (aren't you glad you're aren't married to me). I'm happy to report that we managed pretty much all of it (and got our taxes done too) and things now actually fit in the closets. Even the attic is neat and organized.

The bed is probably the most amazing: a platform with built-in bookshelves. Space for books has been non-existent and my books have been living in boxes in a closet. Finding a book I needed/wanted was not an easy process and browsing was out of the question. They don't all fit in the bed-bookshelf but with the reorganization I can get most of them out. It was great fun sorting through them all today and coming up with a new categorizing scheme for shelf prominence. Now I need the semester to be over so I can start re-reading.