Summer Priorities

The past two summers I was knee-deep in grad school. Many things were pushed to the back-burner during grad school, but nothing suffered more than my reading list (well, and this blog). This glorious, post-grad-school summer, I wanted to read as much as possible. I am teaching an ACT prep course Monday-Thursday from eight to noon, but other than that, my summer is commitment-free. Therefore, I committed myself to one book a week. I started the week school got out, and I've stayed on track so far. Here are the books I've read so far:

Vanishing Acts (Jodi Picoult)
The Good Earth (Pearl Buck) (a re-read, it's a favorite)
Shelter Me (Juliette Fay)
The Opposite of Me (Sarah Pekkanen)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)
The Heart of the Matter (Emily Giffin)

I'm about to pick a book for this coming week. My to-read list is a mile long, so I've been having trouble selecting what to read next. Stay tuned for my decision!

Back

Tap tap.....

is this thing on?

It's time to brush the dust off this blog.

Stay tuned.

2010

I didn't make actual resolutions for 2010. I just made some decisions. I decided to give up sweets (with the exception of wedding cake). I decided to work out at least four times a week. I decided to cook more often and eat out less. And I decided to blog more.

The first three decisions have been somewhat easy so far. It's the last one that has been a challenge.

I'm working on it though.

Happy Fall!

Don't lose heart, readers! I graduate with my masters in December and I will blog with more regularity then, I just know it! In the meantime, happy autumn!

Our Version of Rebellion

Jason and I are both feeling somewhat irresponsible after this weekend. It's not your typical version of irresponsibility though. We didn't make a major unplanned purchase. We didn't pack up and drive until we ran out of gas. We didn't sign up to star in a reality TV show. Our version of irresponsibility consisted of good friends, food, games, and absolutely no school work. And it was glorious! Typically, we go out once or twice on the weekends, and then spend the rest of our time on housework and grad school. This weekend, we had dinner with friends on Friday, and then played spades until late. Jason got up and rode his bike Saturday morning while I cleaned our house and made a grocery list (this is the only productive thing that occurred on Saturday). When he got home, we headed out for pizza and Nerts with the same friends plus a few more. Another late night, then up for church the next morning. We ate lunch at Chili's with friends, stopped at Walmart for some groceries (this is the only productive thing that occurred on Sunday), went home and put the groceries away, then went back to church. Of course we had to stay for the homemade ice cream potluck, and then help clean up the potluck (it was during this potluck that I sprayed cherry Dr. Pepper all over myself and several others; on the bright side, it may be a while before anyone asks me to help pour drinks at an event). When the church kitchen was clean and the lights off, good students would have headed home to try to do a little work. We rebeled by going to a friends house so that Jason could play Halo (a video game involving lots of chasing and killing) and I could, once again, play Nerts and Spades. We got home at 11:30 and crashed, and just now the panic has set in that we both have to buckle down and get busy on our classes. Of course this is hard to do when I know that some very important guests will be arriving exactly 48 hours from now (Hurry Mom and Dad!)! All this being said, I will leave you with a few pictures of the massive spider web we discovered built over our back door:

This covered almost the entire outside of our back door.

233rd Birthday

We spent the 4th of July in Jonesboro with my brother, sis-in-law, and nieces. I just thought I'd share a few pictures from our fun day.

This picture is very similar to a picture of me when I was little.

Making Ice Cream.

Watching amateur fireworks.

Caroline is SO CUTE!

All three of my nieces.

Watching professional fireworks.

I realize this is a poor quality picture, but Lo was singing "Happy Birthday" to America and it was SO cute!!!

City Lights

There are times I think perhaps we should move to town. I was having these thoughts just yesterday. A friend of mine is out of town, and she asked me to water her garden while she was away. Her home is in the middle of town, and as I was watering, I was thinking about how convenient living in town might be. I imagined how lovely it would be to be able to walk to the drugstore to buy milk or medicine, the way she can. I imagined how quickly I could get to my work from her home. I then began to reminisce about the house we lived in two years ago, a little white rental house smack in the middle of town. We only lived there a year, and there was much to dislike about this house. It was old, and falling apart, and located at an accident-prone intersection. I couldn’t wait to move out; I distinctly remember telling Jason that I wouldn’t miss a thing about that house. And it’s true that I don’t miss the house~ I miss the little conveniences of living in that house. We used to walk Bailey (she was just a puppy!) over to Harding and let her play in the fountain. I could run home on my conference period to put dinner in the crock pot, or to change my shirt after a coffee spill. Just like the apartment we lived in the first two years we were married, that house is the source of some very happy memories, and a few not-so-happy ones too. Eventually we decided to buy a home, and after living at such a busy intersection, we were excited about the house in the country.

As much as I wonder about living in town, I think just as often about living in California. Not that we plan to move back home (we don’t), but there are things about California that I took for granted growing up. Some of my favorite memories are of sitting in the driveway with my parents, watching the sunset, and then just sitting outside under the stars. Say what you will about Apple Valley, those sunsets and starry nights are second to none. I was disappointed when I moved to Arkansas, and couldn’t see the sunset or the stars very well. Furthermore, sitting outside and trying to enjoy the evening was made difficult by the pigeon-sized mosquitoes that one must constantly slap away. I missed terribly the simple pleasure of sitting outside and enjoying the evening.

Once we moved to our current home, I was excited to find that sunsets and evening skies became far more pronounced when removed from the lights of town. We discovered that on the evenings when humidity had not wrapped itself around our home like an afghan, sitting outside was quite pleasant. The best time is May, when the fireflies are out in droves. It’s amazing to see~ thousands of twinkles, deep in the grass and high in the trees. I had never seen anything like it, and I kept telling Jason, “It looks like Disneyland out there!” Lightning shows are pretty, but a lightning bug show is one of God’s best-kept secrets. Our schedules do not allow us to do this often, but lately we have been making an effort to go outside about 8:30 or so and just enjoy the evening. It is such a lovely time of day, and since we live away from the streams and rivers in the county, we don’t even have mosquitoes to tolerate.

When I got home yesterday, I continued to think about living in town. This is not a new topic of consideration. Jason and I frequently talk about the pros and cons of living where we do. But he was in class last night, and I was left to consider these thoughts alone. Even though he wasn’t home, I still stopped what I was doing and went outside at 8:30. I sat on the porch and admired the clouds, and listened to the frogs and cicadas and the children playing two doors down. And I decided that I didn’t mind so much that I couldn’t walk to the store to buy milk. It seemed not to matter anymore that I have to leave a littler earlier for work. I have a porch, and a sunset, and a husband who stops and picks up ice cream on his way home. Country or town, Arkansas or California… it doesn’t matter. I have all I need.