Lucy Rolled Out the Red Carpet for Our Return

Of course she didn't.  We got back last night and she scowled at us when we walked through the door.  Buck up, Lucy, spring break is over for all of us.

It's going to be this 24/7 for the rest of the week:

The weekend was a good one with the fam.  I tried to blog from G's iPad but the internet connectivity wasn't working and I gave up.  It doesn't take much for me to give up on technological issues.  (Can't find the power button?  No problem, just call the whole thing off.)

We stopped to see my bro and his girlfriend for a few hours on Friday.  We saw both of their apartments.  As we squeezed ourselves onto their miniature furniture, G sighed and said it brought back memories.  I was like, "Of what?  Last year when we, too, lived in an apartment???"  Ha.

 

Our time in OKC was way too short, then we had to head over to AR for some grand parent lovin's.  G's papa is still as saucy as ever, so I had to put him in his place by stealing taking his wheelchair out for a spin.  That thing is no joke!  It goes really fast!

He tried to catch me, but a 92-year-old is no match for someone who works with kids first thing in the morning.  Mwahahahaha.

How did spring break pass so quickly?  When my alarm went off this morning, we all groaned.  Even Lucy.  I need a life of leisure and I need it soon.

You peeps who are enjoying the break this week are lucky dogs!!!

Off to tutor.  Word on the street is that I may have a third student soon.  Cross your fingers!

Last Day: A Whole Lotta Nothing Going On

I'm calling today The Last Day of Spring Break because we head out of state for a whirlwind family visit tomorrow.  Although it will be all sorts of fun, it will not be relaxing, so today was it.

To be honest, most of today was spent like this, which is what happens when I really get into a book.  I cannot seem to find my way out again.  And therefore a workout and most household chores simply did not happen today.  Real life will resume quickly enough, so I won't be too hard on myself.

It's so odd to "prepare" for a short flight.  I think my brain is programmed to take every sort of entertainment I could possibly need for the next three days...and it's weird to take a book and a magazine for a simple 90 minute flight.  That's like, nothing.  I can't really comprehend it.

Got together with the Russkie tonight!  We're making this a weekly thing and I'm loving it.  Too bad she's off to The Motherland for the next few weeks.

We had a little of this:

That's not a cigarette to the left.  Or anything else of ill repute.  It's a folded napkin.

And a little of this:

Source

I have heard mixed reviews of the movie, and since I enjoyed the book ever so much, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew the movie would be visually stunning and well-acted, but I was curious to see how true it was to the novel.  You guys, it was so good!  It only took liberties with the story a couple of times, and at least those were in line with the themes of the story itself.  And I really enjoyed Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby - well done.   The book is always best, but after having been immersed in it for a couple of weeks, seeing it portrayed so respectfully (minus the rap music - come on, Hollywood - I mean, really) on screen was a real treat.

Off to finish packing and then dive back into my Lit Society book.  Will try try try to blog this weekend but one can never be sure when one travels where the internet sometimes cannot go...so will hopefully see you peeps on here after that short flight.  :)

Day Three: What Was I Saying About Getting Ahead?

Today started off with a whole lot of sitting around and drinking coffee.  With classical music playing in the background for Lucy.  We're quite taken with the classical music TV station offered by our cable company; it allows us to get a lot of reading done while subsequently not falling asleep.  Every now and then the drums startle us out of our seats, but otherwise it's great.

What do you want, woman?

Hurry up and leave town so I can have some peace and quiet.

I did manage to take a leisurely walk and enjoy the local sites.  The weather lately has been so great that I may not ever go back to work.  Dang those bills.  Rich benefactor!  I'm telling you!  I need one, stat.

Such a neat looking house.  Like it should be in a story book or something.

First signs of spring!

Then, I should have worked on rewriting my paper but instead I spent hours and hours reading the next Lit Society book.  I don't want to speak too soon, but get ready for a good book review (for a change). 

Before I knew it, it was time for an evening of loving on animals tutoring.  Which is why my car looks like this most of the time.  The open can of Diet Dr Pepper is never out of arm's reach.

How can tomorrow be Thursday already?  I'm going to need another week off.  Thanks.

Day Two: Reconnecting

Tonight I had dinner with my good friend from college, SJ.  We were inseparable during undergrad and I used to devour all the Indian care packages her mom sent her from their home in Africa.  It is an absolute travesty that we don't get together more often these days, since we're only a few miles apart in CO.  She is busy with this little 4-month old.

Could you die or what?  So cute!

I hung out with her fam for a while tonight and we promised to get together regularly from now on, come hell or high water.  Her parents live with her but are originally from Zambia, so we had to talk all things Africa.  They gave me all kinds of tips for the next time we go (DEAR GOD, I HOPE IT'S SOMETIME SOON.  I NEED A RICH BENEFACTOR TO SUPPORT MY LIFESTYLE.  IT'S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO, AMEN.)

Totes adorbs kiddos.

We haven't aged a bit!

I'm super proud of myself because I used today to make up for all the productivity that didn't happen yesterday.  I'm proud to say that I resealed all the kitchen tiles!  Domesticity: check.

I also finished the abstract for my final paper, made some progress in our latest Lit Society book, ran errands, worked out (!), completed additional tutoring lesson plans for the coming weeks, and contemplated getting started on my paper rewrite...still haven't cleaned our bathroom.  Still haven't finished the laundry.  But there's a goooood chance I'll go for a run tomorrow.  It's all coming together.  I need a spring break every other week or so.  Someone needs to do something about that.

Time to don the jammies and read, read, read.

Day One: Rest

Day One of my Spring Break was spent recuperating from last night's Supper Club.  Which went really well, by the way.

Living like adults.  With Lucy locked away in her cage, drooling over a functional fireplace.

Last night's theme was home made pasta, featuring several different stuffed ravioli with a few choices of sauce.  My pants no longer fit. 

So I spent this morning cleaning every dish we own and recycling 49 wine bottles.  I made a dent in the laundry and considered cleaning our bathroom before chuckling to myself and heading downstairs for a second cup of coffee.  Then I prepped for the next few tutoring sessions and melted into a huge puddle when this came in the mail.

I haven't read the article yet, but what do you wanna bet that rabbits show up at some point.

Animals ended up featuring prominently in my day, as my first student is raising some baby chicks in the guest bathroom.  Guess what we did during each break?

My second student of the day has an old little beagle who likes to curl up in the living room and fall asleep while we read.  Then she starts snoring.  Loudly.  Inevitably, we ignore it as long as possible, then collapse into a fit of giggles.  It's hilarious.  It never gets old.  Who am I to criticize a little lady for taking a nap, I mean, honestly.

Source

Most notably, though, today I watched an astonishing episode of The Good Wife.  <--------- A note to my 2 devoted fans who are still catching up on this show.  DO NOT WATCH anything about this for the next couple of weeks.  There was an absolute BOMB in last night's episode and I'm sure it will be all over the entertainment news.  Don't ruin the next few seasons for yourself.  You have been warned.

Important things I did not do today:
*Start sealing the kitchen tile back splash.
*Research an abstract for my final paper.
*Start rewriting my midterm paper.

Oh well.  There's always tomorrow.

The Lost Weekend

Both G and I are battling colds - or really bad allergies - this weekend, so there's nothing exciting to report.  When we have not been laying around making fun of the rabbit, we have been cleaning, dusting or disinfecting every surface in the house because I'm hosting Supper Club tonight.

It's going to be interesting because we normally entertain in groups of four or - if we're really throwing caution to the wind - groups of six.  Tonight there will be at least 8 ladies, if not more, and honestly someone's gonna end up eating in the rabbit cage because we just don't have that much room.  Or that many place settings.

However, I did make this fabulous Italian Cream Cake from scratch!

 

We had a convo this morn that went something like this:

B:  "Hey G, come here."
{G trudges downstairs from his nerd room.}
G:  "Hmm?"
B:  "Go look in the fridge."
{G looks in the fridge and pretends to admire the cake sitting on the bottom shelf.}

B:  "See that cake?"
G:  "Yes."
B:  "And....?"
G:  "And if anything happens to it or touches it or falls on it that can even remotely be traced back to me, I'm dead."
B:  "Mmm hmm.  And....?"
G:  "And there won't even be time for an explanation, I'll just explode into flames and once I'm dead and you collect the insurance money you'll still divorce me anyway."
B:  "Right.  Ok."
{G trudges back up to his nerd room.}

In other news I did manage to cull through my magazine backlog and actually start reading some of them.  One was from, I kid you not, October 2012.

All the shelves have been dusted so that (1) it appears we have a clean house, and (2) our lives look somewhat put together.  I may even lock Lulu Bell up tonight so that I can un-block the fireplace and perhaps even light a few candles.  It will look - for a brief moment - as if adults live here.

Instead of this.

Ok, break time is over.  Time to sweep the floors and dig around the cabinets for every spare plate and fork we own.

TGIF, people!

T Minus One Day

I would just like to say that I have one more day of work and tutoring before SPRING BREAK HALLELUJAH AND PRAISE GOD.

I plan to spend the majority of my time like this.

And a fair amount of time like this.

With that very same book, might I add, because I have to work on a paper rewrite.  And an abstract for our final paper due in May.  And also, just because, I'm going to re-read The Great Gatsby.  That's just the kind of Type A scared frantic dedicated grad student that I am.  Actually, the book is so phenomenal that I basically flew through it to see what would happen, and the language was so lyrical that I want to take my time going through it again in order to appreciate it more fully.

There will also be a fair amount of this.

Who cares that marijuana is legal in CO?  The real addictive substance is this sugar cookie from Panera.  Just one?  Don't be silly.  Dang they are so good.

Might I also mention that I'm going to knock off some of my March goals, such as re-sealing our kitchen back splash tiles, working out more often during the week (um, easier said than done - see sugar cookie point above), reading our next Lit Society book, making fun of the rabbit, culling through my 500,000 unread magazines, and prepping for a quick trip to see G's family.  Also getting ahead on tutoring lesson plans for April.

Also?  Two dinner dates next week with peeps. 

I could so get used to a life of leisure...T minus one day...and counting.

An Atheist Manifesto Disappointment

Well we finally got around to having our most prestigious and elite Literary Society last night.  It has been postponed for a couple of weeks because of my crazy homework and Nat King Cole's brush with death.

Let me just say I'm sooooo glad we're done with this book.

God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

As a lifelong Christian (and a Southerner) I have not come into close or personal contact with many atheists.  That said, I understand why people don't believe in God.  I think followers of many faiths - Christianity most certainly included - are off-putting or come across as saccharine, shallow, and narrow minded.  At this point in the world's timeline, and in our advanced country, we have remarkable access to scientific discoveries and explanations of all kinds of theories, historical events, and educated futuristic guesses.  It would be easy to believe God is not behind it all.  What better time in the history of the world to seriously ask questions like, where do I come from?  Where am I going?  What happens after I die?  What is the purpose of life?

I wanted to read this book because I had heard that Christopher Hitchens is one of the intellectual atheist voices of our time.  He has written some introductions to other books I have read, and I got the impression that he was a good writer.  So, since I'm not close enough (not by choice!) to any atheists to sit down and talk with them over coffee, this book was the next best thing, right?

Wrong.

My main problem was one of expectations:  which is to say I was expecting Hitchens to be a non-believing version of say, Timothy Keller, or perhaps Philip Yancey.  I was expecting a straight-forward style of writing which included establishing an argument, providing facts and support to back it up, and providing facts and support against faith-based beliefs.  This is not what Hitchens provides.  In fact, he doesn't even set up arguments.  He basically calls faithful people (of any faith) stupid and unthinking.  He blames faith for all of the world's problems but does not say how the lack of faith would be any better.  He uses fallacious and circular reasoning, strawman arguments and mud-slinging instead of clear and precise written debate.  His line of thinking is unsound and his writing is so disorganized and loaded that it is insulting to the intelligence of the average reader - it is a waste of time.

I am extremely disappointed on two levels:  (1) As a Christian who was looking forward to an educational and interesting challenge, and (2) As a reader who was looking forward to a good book.  This is a personal rant against believers of all types from a journalist who apparently forgot how to back up his points.

Don't read it because the title says it all and he doesn't put his money where his mouth is.  That said, any good atheist books to recommend?  Pass them on!

Slainte!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I walked into my student's house tonight and he took one look at my Irish scarf and said, "Oh crap!  You remembered to wear green.  I was hoping to pinch you!"

I was like, thanksssss.

The Irish are some of the nicest people I have ever come across.  I hope we get the chance to go back someday!

Driving on the WRONG side of the road

Dublin in the background

Obvs

Blarney Stone

Castle Blarney

My fave pic from the trip!

Hope you wore green and no little kids wanted to pinch you!

Worth the Price of Admission

G got an email today from the hotel where we stayed in Hong Kong.  It's like rubbing salt in a big ole festering wound.  Why can't we go back - you know, now that it's only in the sixties there??????

Can someone please figure out how we can travel to exotic locations every two weeks or so and still get paid?  Could one of you please step forward to subsidize our lifestyle?  Thanks.

Until then, we must hike every weekend possible.  Today we went to Roxborough State Park, over close to Red Rocks.  Words don't do it justice, so I'll skip straight to the pics.  Which are not edited or filtered, by the way.

I love the weekends.  I love the land out here.