Spring Cleaning

For the past week or so, my dreams have been coming true. Peter and I have purchased files and files boxes, gone through both the giant Rubbermaid box filled with "important papers" and our overflowing "inbox," recycled a bunch, filed even more and basically tamed our paper tiger (for now). The laundry is mostly done, dishes are under control and I've manged to fill a box with stuff to donate. It's great!

In other Spring Cleaning-ish news, I've completely chopped my hair. It's now at my chin (!) and I love it. As soon as I can take a picture of me that I think does it justice, I will post it here for all to see. Why did I get such a drastic cut? I wanted to be able to donate my hair to Locks of Love, so that's where it ended up (byebye 11 inches!). Summer, here we come!

Fun New Toy

As you may or may not know, we are finally honeymooning this summer, in Alaska, and as you may or may not know, Alaska is said to be a photographer's dream. Since I dream of being a photographer, I'm quite excited about Alaska. Only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreamin'... oh, sorry!
Got distracted by the oldies radio station in my head. So as I was saying, I know I'm going to take a LOT of photos, but we aren't bringing a computer with us, so I need a way to dump photos (I'm NOT buying a jillion SD cards I won't need again).

Enter this little beaut:

Baroo? Here, does this help?

Yes, my friends, that is a magical little converter doohickie that makes it possible to upload pictures FROM THE CAMERA TO THE IPOD. Wow. We got it this morning at our friendly local Apple store, I took a few seventy pictures of flowers today:




came home, hooked up the hookups and voila! Teeny versions of my photos were floating through cords like magic. The I plugged in the iPod (whose batteries were quickly depleted; a wall charger will the the next purchase) to the computer, and loaded them into iPhoto! Easy peasy! Now we just have to see if it will work with movies I take on the camera. If not, at least the pictures work!

Widowed too young

Like many women today, I've been widowed before my time. The culprit isn't football anymore, which at least has a set season, but a more insidious villain. Video games. They never, ever have to end. Someone else is always online, or else there are games to play alone, but there are always games. Free on the Internet, cheap at the store, or purchased poison. Luckily, my dearest husband recognizes the dangers.

When I told him what I was writing (as he entered the umpteenth hour of Battlefield of the Immortals), he looked very sad and contrite. As well he SHOULD! But I should go a little easier on him. After all, he did just finish 672 straight hours of school and homework in the marathon of Maymester. But still!

Hair-Raising

I've been meaning to get a haircut for quite some time. Like, a year. My subconscious must be getting in on the action, since I had a dream about getting a haircut last night. It was at a place in Reno that I had gone to once, fancy shmance and a bit full of themselves as those kinds of hair salons can be. I got a good cut, but had a bad experience with them later. But in my dream, I was there at opening at the place was a mess. Not all the lights were working, chairs scattered everywhere, people still setting up for the day.

My hairdresser was a stylish older man, flamboyant and a bit rotund in a teddy bear way. He was confident and excited about his "vision," even when it clearly conflicted with everything the client wanted, though he was sensitive to their feelings. My hairstylist was Frank from Trading Spaces.

In the dream, my haircut wasn't exactly what I wanted, but considering who was cutting it, I guess it was miraculous I didn't end up with a shaved head painted with a chic country scene.

I guess I should call the hair place tomorrow and hope Frank isn't working.

Potty Break

I had a very exciting Saturday night. I babysit for a five-month-old baby girl and an almost-three-year-old boy. The parents have been trying to get him potty trained off and on for a long long time, but he's never shown the slightest interest in the potty or learning to use it. I was sitting for them tonight and as I was walking past the little boy, I caught a whiff of something awful. Fearful I would have to change his poopy diaper (I haven't yet, knock on wood), I asked him if he had to go potty or if he needed a diaper change. Turned out it was his diaper bin, but he took that question to heart and ran downstairs to pull his little potty chair out of the closet where it's been languishing for who-knows-how-long. After that, I couldn't keep his pants on and barely managed to persuade him to leave the potty long enough to take a bath. He probably sat on that thing for at least an hour or so, minus bath time, and didn't even want to get off for bedtime. I seriously, seriously hope this sticks so I never have to change one of his poopy diapers (knock on giant sequoia).

And now I understand why mommy blogs are so much fun to read. Things actually happen and you get to legitimately talk about poop.

Being a Housewife

My first week of mostly not working while Peter goes to class and tutors is done. What have I accomplished? What have I learned? Well, mostly that the dishes are never fully done because more always come, catching up on months of housework is very time consuming and even when I'm busy the whole day, I never seem to get everything I want to do done. On the good side, I *am* getting things done, just not as quickly as I would like. Dishes are getting done, the laundry is down to one small basket, I've put in a fair number of hours at work (not really housewife-y, but it's still less than part time) and I've started some projects I've been thinking about all school year. I've also read several books that weren't required for anything or even slightly educational!

Peter will be finished with his summer school class by Monday, and then I really want to do some hiking, camping and short road trips with him. Plus, he'll be a house-husband, so maybe we can get our apartment into shape that much quicker!

Summer Pro

Man, I could do this for a living. I mean, time to do dishes, catch up on laundry, wash my hair, check the email, and even start fun new craft projects! Where do I sign up? I could totally be a housewife if it weren't for the seclusion, lack of mental stimulation and daily housework. Cuz really, doing housework when you never have time is a novelty, but I know that novelty wears off quick. And as a housewife, you are expected to have a spotless house. Because what else do you do all day? So I will just enjoy what may be my last free summer ever and savor this fleeting moment where doing dishes is a delight.

Digitization.... complete.

It used to be if you wanted information, you had to hunt for it. Check the manual to learn how to use your new camera, look at the liner notes for the indecipherable lyrics, look up a definition in a dictionary. Answer not there? Better hope you have a friend who knows all. Or at least who will enter into a spirited debate with you.

Now, if you are of a certain generation or young enough to have a certain mindset, printed materials will never be your first answer. Google is your best friend, MapQuest a lifesaver and dictionary.com quite helpful. If I'm ever lost or want to know how to get to a new restaurant we decided to go to on a whim after a long trip, do I pull out a map? No! I try to call a friend who I think might have access to the Interwebs (we don't do this often enough to warrant paying more to use the internet on our phone, but that is definitely another option). Of course, this usually doesn't work anyway, since the friend might not be home or might not answer their phone. But it's still my first instinct.

At my job at the Writing Center, though, the stack of dictionaries, thesauruses and reference books are always my first reach. Why? Simply because they are more convenient at that location, but I've noticed an added benefit. There is something timeless about it, feeling like part of a long tradition of scholars throughout history who worked as hard (or harder) as us, using very similar tools, all working together to build the foundations we rest our current research on. Even if most of the young scholars I work with will not devote their lives to study, or even continue beyond undergraduate work, while they are here, they are following the steps of millions before them and continuing in the same tradition. I like books.

Familiar and Unknown

When I flew into Reno, the pilot took a different route than I was used to, so I sat peering into the dark, trying to identify landmarks and coming up completely lost. I suddenly felt that maybe this wasn't "home" anymore, that everything that was so familiar to me might have changed to the point of unrecognizability and I would be a stranger in my own hometown.

As it turned out, they are doing construction on the main runway, so that's what caused my disorientation. Reno has changed, but I still recognized people everywhere I went, and as usual, my reaction to these encounters depended on who I happened to see. Most of them I didn't greet, either because I thought they might not remember me or because I had no desire to speak to them. Mostly the latter. Even though we've lived in Boulder two years, I'm certainly not to the point where I know people anywhere I go, and I'm thankful for this. I'm also thankful for not having drama and a past in Boulder. I lived a very boring, drama-free life compared to most of my friends, and yet even I have ghosts I'd rather not run into while shopping.

This is why people from small towns leave.

Productivity and Sloth

Wow, it's amazing how quickly I can downshift from uber-productive mode to where-did-the-day-go mode. Yesterday, I turned in my final paper, I finished a large chunk of work for one of my jobs and basically finished what I needed to do before I leave tonight. I got a lot done, and not just homework. This morning, I still had that energy, so I sewed a missing button back on a pair of shorts, mended a hole in a favorite t-shirt (both thanks to my mom, who brought her sewing machine with her from Reno and outfitted me with necessary sewing supplies and skills over the weekend), and did some laundry and dishes. Sometime between the dishes and the email checking, I shifted into Summer Mode. Before I knew it, hours had passed and I was still in my pajamas, watching YouTube videos and playing solitaire. Eek! So I went and cleaned the bathroom, did another load of laundry and tidied up a bit.

Last summer, I had tons of plans for my time, but it turned out that much of that time was spent watching The Most Adorable Baby in the World, so while it was great, I slacked on a lot of projects. This summer, Peter and I have more free time than we may have ever had before. Thanks to school shortening our summer (Maymester for him, August-mester for me) and a few longish trips smack in the middle of that, we don't have enough time to get summer jobs and the jobs we do have are quite flexible in time. The end result: a lot of free time to go camping, traveling, sewing, woodworking, photo-taking, blogging, cleaning, organizing, catching up on housework, and anything else we want to do. So exciting! Now, the trick will be to not slip completely into Summer Mode and spend my summer playing solitaire!

Grad-yu-a-shun

The Flatirons
Originally uploaded by shanbrite2.

I've officially completed the graduation ceremony! Yay! I still have several papers to write, then I will *actually* graduate in August! It was a great time; my parents came in from Reno, we went to multiple parties with our friends and the weather was absoultely perfect. The best part? I didn't get sunburned at all!

So... close... to... the... end!

Just a few more days, and my semester will be over! Hopefully by that time, I will have passed all my finals (2 to go), finished any and all course requirements (possibly another paper to go), and then I will be done! My parents come in Thursday night and I want to be done with everything by then. I can't wait!!!

It's just that time of semester

Everyone is on the verge of a meltdown. I have more things due next week than I really care to think about and I'll probably spend most of this weekend working on them. I'd like to actually complete all course requirements this year and just be done! Graduation is in two weeks, and though I still have a teeny bit of work to do before I officially get my diploma, I'm so close I can taste it!

Also fun is that this summer is shaping up to be filled with traveling and visitors. My parents are coming for graduation, then I'm going to Reno for my brother's graduation shortly after that, then we have a possible trip to Northern Nevada with Peter's family, then Peter's family is coming here, then we go to ALASKA!!! Very exciting. We haven't traveled very much at all in the past few years, and we (I) have missed it. Be sure, I will be taking a LOT of pictures (especially in Alaska), and hopefully I will get some of them posted here.

It's very hard to write a 10 page paper on hereditary neurological deafness when I can daydream about all our fun trips!

Super busy weekend

Remember how weekends are supposed to be the time you get to relax and unwind from the stress of the week? Yeah, me neither. Today, when I was eating my lunch at 4 PM at work, my boss said, "Hey, you do know it's Sunday, right?" Yeah, I'd almost forgotten :-)

Yesterday was Earth Day, so this being Boulder, we expected it to be a city-wide holiday. Sadly, we quickly realized that in Boulder, they must subscribe to the "Every day is Earth Day" philosophy. In Reno (not the hippy-est town), Earth Day was huge, with GIANT tents with dozens of cool vendors, live music and everything to make a good festival. And it's not that Boulder can't throw a good fete. In May or June, Boulder's Creek Festival is amazing, with more vendors than Reno's Earth Day and lots and lots of activities. So with these facts in mind, we set out Saturday morning to the farmer's market, which is right next to where most Boulder festivals take place. Last week, there was a big "save the planet" rally there, so naturally we expected something this weekend (the actual weekend of Earth Day).

Last weekend:

Hug your mother:This weekend:

Crickets chirp...

So while we bought some lovely fresh food at the farmer's market, we had no Earth Day. Since this is practically Peter's favorite holiday, we tracked down the "main" action. It was at NCAR, which we'd often heard about and could see up on the hill from town, but had never been to. All I knew was that it was designed by I.M. Pei, which makes it important. While the Earth Day stuff was a bust (I think we were the only people there without kids and it showed, though the exhibits were cool if you DID have kids), the going-there was great. The view is incredible and the location can't be beat. There are beautiful trails all around that are more easily accessible than some of our other favorites. We will definitely be bringing visitors there now, especially if they like science, since they have some great weather exhibits in the public lobby.

"Fly fishing" under the Flatirons:


After that, we accidentally found out about "Astronomy Day" at the CU Planetarium. I'd been in there for a lab once, but Peter had never been there. We were in for a cool experience.

The planetarium had just recently acquired a "Science on a Sphere" exhibit, of which there are apparently only two in the world right now. It's basically a huge floating spherical screen that has four projectors projecting images of planets, moons, and pretty much anything else onto it. The system makes the images rotate, which makes the sphere look like it's rotating itself. It's incredibly beautiful and amazing to see the individual craters on the face of one of Jupiter's moons so clearly. Here's a video that sort of shows it, but it is much, much cooler in person. If you get the chance to see one of these, definitely do.

Sunday was even busier for me, but it was mostly work stuff. We did get to see our friend Kris perform in one of her clarinet recitals for her PhD in music, which was incredible. If you are a music buff on a budget near a university, try to find out when recitals are. The talent was incredible, it was totally free and I think things like this happen all the time.

Hope everyone else had a nice weekend!

Spring snow tomorrow?

That's what the forecasters are saying. Apparently, we could get up to a foot of snow by tomorrow evening, which makes me sad. All the flowers and trees are blooming, unaware that their effort will shortly be buried under snow. I guess I can't blame them, as the early bloomers tried last week and got snowed on, then frozen under sleet. As soon as the weather cleared and the temperatures warmed again, anything that hadn't bloomed before furiously worked on the task. So now the campus is filled with flowers of all kinds and I feel compelled to photograph them all. I love taking flower macros, and now that we've been here long enough to experience all the seasons, I've learned that I really have to seize the day, for they may not be here tomorrow.

R.I.P.

Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. The world has lost someone very unique and our culture has lost an important voice. I am very sad. I've read and loved many, many of his crazy books. I always thought of him as immortal, but at least his words are.

Honeymoonin'

Yay!!!!! At long last, we are taking our belated honeymoon! When we were planning our wedding for August of 2005, little did we know that I would be starting my new MA program just a week after our wedding date, several hundred miles away. We picked up the moving van the day after the wedding, so needless to say, our honeymoon had to be delayed.

Fast forward to now, and we are finally taking it! We had talked about Iceland, Costa Rica, Europe and other places as well, but thanks to some free tickets from my wonderful parents, we are going to our 45th state together: Alaska! Neither of us have ever been before, but we've heard such wonderful things about it from friends and family who've been.

Yesterday, we booked all the basic/important stuff. We have the place tickets, the ferry tickets (the Alaska Marine Highway, AKA a ghetto cruise, but actually it's supposed to be way better than a regular cruise and WAY cheaper), and even our car rental. Now I just can't wait for the semester to be over so we can see some gorgeous stuff! I'm planning on taking a TON of pictures and we are figuring out how to rig stuff so that we can upload our pictures to our iPod so we can clear out the memory cards. So exciting!!

Easter Party 2.0

Today we had our second annual Easter brunch (yes, I'm aware we were a day early, but that's how the fates aligned this year). Last year, we had an easter egg hunt in our living room, a bunch of great people, good food and a ton of fun. Part of me was a little worried this year wouldn't live up to last year's fiesta (it was the only party we had that people still talked about months after the fact). Would people be too busy on Saturday? How could we top last year's egg hunt?

Thankfully, I needn't have worried. We have awesome friends and the weather was extra crappy, so I guess we were the best thing going :-) That, and Peter had plans to expand the hunt considerably. I accidentally bought way more eggs than he had planned (they were on sale!), so we had 103 and a half eggs to hide in our rather small apartment living room. Amazingly, it wasn't that hard at all and we could have hid many more quite easily (next year, Gadget, next year).

Thanks to my sell-out video, I learned how easy and fun stop-motion movies are, so I decided to make this my next project. Want to see how crazy 20 people hunting for 100 eggs in 250 square feet is? Check out the video:


Looks like fun, huh? Join us next year when we hide 200 (or more?) eggs!

Holy crap!!!

I juts got the email that said I passed my comprehensive exam! I really thought I was going to get called in for oral exams, and I'm not really sure why I didn't, but I'm happy!

Luxury

The past few days have been heavenly. I've done pretty much nothing, or only exactly what I want to do. It all ends tomorrow, but I've certainly enjoyed the time I've had. I like working hard, but I also like doing *nothing* really productive when possible (like most people, I'm sure). Today I was thinking about when I was a kid; I couldn't understand the concept of adults liking work. I would hear people talk about feeling productive like it was a good feeling and all I could think about was, "How is this better than playing? If you have the chance to play and choose to 'feel productive,' how is that good or fun or even remotely preferable?" I understand it now, though I'm not sure exactly when that transition took place. I can only "play" for a few days now before I start feeling restless and need to be productive. In fact, many of the things I do for fun are actually productive in some sense (or at least give me the feeling of being productive). I like making movies, taking pictures, writing blogs. Even getting through more of my Netflix queue makes me feel good in that I feel like I've accomplished something by taking three more movies off my list.

Some people lament this change from the days when playing pretend in a field was all we needed to be fulfilled. I think it's just a necessary step for a functioning society. If no one ever derived any satisfaction from a job well done (or even a job simply done), would anything ever get done? And if things did get done, would anyone ever be happy? I think it's good to enjoy doing work, but it's also good to play pretend once in a while.