Day 304

I'm not big on holidays, and Halloween definitely is near the bottom of the list. However, this year, I did at least buy candy in case any trick-or-treaters braved our unlit front door.


Judging from the fact that it's 9:00 and the candy isn't even open, I'd say it's headed to school tomorrow!

Quote of the day: A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view. -- William Askinas

Day 303

Best way to spend a Saturday - in your pj's! I've been able to get my winter pj's out this week, and it's been nice to get all snuggly in them again! Today's "new" discovery? My fluffy blue slippers!


And I apologize - I forgot yesterday's "quote of the day," so I'll give you two today:

1. We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart. -- Blaise Pascal

2. Kindness and intelligence don't always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: There are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships. -- Barbara G. Harrison

Day 302

Happy birthday to my wonderful husband, Patrick! Here are the remnants of his birthday celebration - the cookies I made last night and a cup from our trip to Whataburger for dinner tonight!

Day 301

Remember our "earthquake damage" - a candle fell onto the stovetop? Well, tonight we got worse damage, but not from an earthquake. I baked cookies for Patrick's birthday tomorrow, and when I shut the oven door, a different candle fell and broke my spoonrest. To be fair, it's broken this way many times (and we just keep supergluing it back together), but it struck me as ironic that an earthquake didn't break anything, but simply closing the oven door did. I am probably going to have to admit defeat with the spoonrest like I did with the water bottle yesterday, but I just hate it because the spoonrest came from my grandmother's house.


Also, in response to last night's call for blog requests, I bring you the first of 65 inspirational quotes / songs:

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it. -- Margaret Thatcher

Day 300

My most special water bottle has a slight leak, so Candace made me promise to get rid of it. Before I did, though, I wanted to capture it in the blog. It's from last year's (2009) Summer Bridge Program, and it brings back good memories of my students and co-workers. :)


In other news, I can't believe we're at Day 300 already!!! Any special requests for the last 65 days of the 365 blog?

Day 299

I gave a test tonight, and I was definitely tuckered out by the time I got home. Case in point: I had to turn my laptop on to go over some edits on a paper (thanks, Mom!), but then I promptly turned it off and put it back in my bag -- knowing full well that I still had to blog. *sigh* Here's the culprit hiding from the blog:

Day 298

First hot chocolate of the season! I wasn't actually cold at the time, but it sounded good, and I thought it would give me a burst of energy to work on stuff tonight. Current status: The hot chocolate WAS good, but the working hasn't quite happened yet... :)

Day 297

My meteorologist informed me that this weekend was the appropriate time to switch out my summer and winter clothes, so now I have sweaters hiding in my dresser drawers instead of shorts! However, I still hold to the opinion that if it's going to be cold, I would like some snow...

Day 296

Mmm... I love the way brownies look when they're all cut up and ready to be eaten! So nice and neat in their little rows and columns!

Day 295

Very cool morning view out my office window this morning, from left to right, as storms headed in:




Also, after dinner tonight, Patrick wanted to stop by the cookie place in the mall. He was very pleased to see they are finally carrying his favorite cookie again - and I saw one I wanted to try, too. Guess which "black sheep" in the cookie bag belongs to me? Always chocolate... ;)

Day 294

Apparently, it started sprinkling less than five minutes after I got home today. When Patrick got home (during said sprinkles), he let me know that we had a rainbow east of our house. Here's one side of it:

and here's the other side:

From the back door, we could actually see the entire arc, but I couldn't get it all in one shot. You can also see a double rainbow in these images if you look really closely. :)

And, in other news, I started conducting interviews for my dissertation today! I had two today, and boy, am I tired! This girl is hoping to get to bed early tonight!

Day 293

Some days I spend a lot of time in the stairwells of my building, since most of the Math Department offices are within two floors of my office. My office is on the 9th floor, so if you look over the edge of the railing, it can be pretty intimidating. But, for you, blog faithful, I squeezed my eyes shut and held the camera over the edge to give you the view looking down:

...and up:


And then I was dizzy and had to go back to my office. :)

Day 292

I sent out interview requests for my dissertation today... now the fun of scheduling begins! My head is spinning with dates and times already! Looks like this guy will be getting a lot of use in the very near future:

(And many thanks to Dr. Trytten for allowing me to borrow her recorder!)

Day 291

I taught for another teacher in the department today, and after the second class I taught for her, one of the students came up and asked if there was anything he could pray for me about today. I was taken aback by his boldness with someone he had just met, yet somewhat envious of his courage. He seemed truly interested in being a blessing to a total stranger and was willing to risk rejection to benefit someone else. He did pray with me for my dissertation, and then we chatted very briefly before parting ways. In the face of such servanthood, I am ashamed to admit I didn't think to ask if I could also pray for him. I may never see Alex again, but he sure made an impression on me. I didn't have a way to capture this experience with a picture, but I wanted to commemorate it in the blog.

Day 290

My not-so-secret secret stash...

Day 289

Today, Michelle, Candace, Evyn, and I went to lunch to celebrate Candace's birthday. The place we were planning to go was closed, so we ended up at Olive Garden. After some yummy food (and a ridiculous number of breadsticks), we got some gelato at Il Dolce. It looked so good in the display case that I just had to take a picture:


Naturally, I intended to take pictures of the people involved in our outing as well... but I guess I got distracted by eating the gelato. Oops. So, this will have to suffice for today's blog. :)

Day 288

Yesterday morning, I carefully selected a pair of white socks that had no holes to go with my white tennis shoes that are backless (in case my socks showed at any point during the day). When I got home yesterday afternoon and took my socks off, this is what I found:


I'm still flabbergasted that I got a hole the size of my thumb in my sock -- and I have no idea how it happened! Shouldn't you feel whatever is strong enough to tear a huge hole in an otherwise unblemished sock? Good grief!

Day 287

It's okay, lonely toothbrush... Patrick comes home today!

Day 286

There was an earthquake centered in Norman today! It hit shortly after 9 AM just a few miles east of our house. I have heard reports that it was a 4.5, 4.3, or 5.1 magnitude - at any rate, fairly strong for Oklahoma, but not strong enough to bring down a building or anything. I was in my 9th floor office when it hit, and boy, was it scary! At first I thought it was just a plane flying too close to the building but then I realized it wasn't just the windows that were shaking! I ran out in the hallway and realized other people had felt it, too. We all ran downstairs (in case it was something besides an earthquake, and because it seemed safer to be outside and not in the building tower, regardless). I was a bit concerned to head home this afternoon, because I thought we might have pictures off the walls or even things that had broken. Want to see our earthquake damage?

Can't tell what the damage is? The blue candle on the stove surface used to be up in the gap on the top of the stove. Thankfully, nothing broke, and as far as I can tell, nothing else fell, either. So glad that God kept us all safe during this scary experience!

Day 285

Sorry for another shot of the TV, but this is too big a story not to get a blog post:

Praying that God will be with the miners and the rescuers during the rest of this rescue operation.

Day 284

I've been working on my dissertation for a few weeks, mostly writing very rough drafts of parts of chapters. I have been using colored highlighting in the Word files to remind me what actions need to be taken with various sections. For example, blue indicates a citation I need to look up later, while yellow indicates a section that hasn't been written yet (but has a heading in the document holding its place). I'm up to five colors (plus comment highlights), so today my dissertation made me think of a box of crayons. Naturally, I had to dig out the crayons Patrick gave me while we were dating and feature them in today's blog. (Apparently, he thought the coloring would help me relax, even then!) First, comparing the crayons to the Word document:

Then, a close-up of the crayons, just because it's fun:

Day 283

To be quite honest, I had a slower week last week than I've had many other weeks this semester. I still had plenty to do (and probably a lot more that I could have been doing), but I didn't have to put as many things in my planner as normal. So, I thought I'd let you see what a light week looks like around here:


I took this picture last Sunday, previewing the week ahead... incredibly blank for me looking ahead at the week to come.


I took this picture today, to show what my planner looks like at the end of the week. I have purposely blurred these shots to protect privacy, but I think you can still get the idea. Here's hoping that next week is slow but also very productive!

Day 282

Well, I goofed. In the October 1 post, I promised you more about a special sweet treat... and failed to deliver on that promise. Here, faithful readers, is the aforementioned goodness:


Well, to be more precise, here's what's left of the treat - pumpkin frozen custard. Oh my. I wait all year for October 1, which is when our local frozen custard place replaces strawberry with pumpkin (in addition to vanilla and chocolate). They keep the pumpkin in circulation until the end of November, so we typically keep a quart of it (shown here) during those months. (And, to be completely honest, I stock up on it at the end of November so that it lasts through the holidays - hopefully!) Anyone who visits us in the next few weeks HAS to try this stuff. Mmmmm...

Day 281

So far, the Braves have not looked so hot in the post-season... C'mon, Braves!

Day 280

Flu shot day! (Hey, at least I didn't get a picture of the nurse sticking a needle in my arm...)

Day 279

Figured this guy deserved his own day on the blog... he's worked hard this year!

Day 278

The group of girls that was having weekly lunches this summer is still going strong! Today, we ate outside at PadThai on Campus Corner. It was really beautiful (once we got the patio umbrella situated), and apparently, some local birds thought it was a good day for a swim in PadThai's fountain:



They were really cute. :) Unfortunately, the girls on the fountain side of the table got splashed a bit in all the fluttering around. :)

Day 277

It definitely feels like Fall today. It was chilly outside this morning when I left for school, and on my way in I saw that one of the churches near campus had set up its annual pumpkin patch. I managed to get a couple of shots with my phone. (Don't worry; there was no traffic, and I was stopped on a side street.)

Day 276

Patrick has had this blue fleece pullover as long as I can remember. Sometimes, when I get cold around the house, I put it on. It smells like him. :)

Day 275

Today was the infamous OU / TX "Red River Rivalry" football game. Candace and her daughter (plus a friend) came over to watch it with us. Despite the fact that the Sooners won, Candace was a true longhorn fan and still had her horns up after the game:

Day 274

Patrick let me pick lunch today... and I picked a place called MeMe's Pizzeria. They have delicious, Chicago-style, deep dish pizza. The best part is that you can order an entire pizza or buy it by the slice. For my birthday last year, I ordered 2 slices for lunch, and it was WAY too much. This time, I only got one, but man, was it good. :) In fact, I was halfway through it before I remembered to take a picture of it! Only having once slice saved me room for a sweet treat later on (more on that tomorrow...)