Friday, September 9, 2011

A Quieter Week

These gorgeous chartreuse and deep purple gladiolas are in the living room and I just love them. I picked them up for less than $4 and they have been a wonderful, simple pleasure this week. I know I post lots of flowers* on this blog; I just like to accompany a post with a photo even if it is not anything particularly in line with the content of the text.

After the Labor Day fires, things have been a lot quieter around here. We still hear sirens several times a day but the fire near us was one of the smallest in the area so we don't worry too much. It seems that some jumpy folks call in any smoke they see, even if it has likely blown in from a distant fire. It turns out that not only was this the hottest, driest summer on record for Texas but also in any state of the union. Fortunately we're now enjoying overnight lows in the 50s which is like heaven to me.

It's been an average work week here. I've had several interviews with participants so I'm officially in the data collection process of my dissertation. This involves lots of follow up writing and then scheduling more interviews. I'm enjoying it and working closely with my chair to make sure I'm doing things correctly given that I've never written a dissertation before. Not teaching has been a real relief and I've also been able to do some side work on publications and conferencing to continue to add to my CV in anticipation of job applications.

Last night we watched and thoroughly enjoyed the Packer game. Stinky, however, is no fan of the occasional cheer, groan, or other uncivilized noise-making.

We have a quiet weekend planned with one outing to a favorite dive pub to see some friends. We may also try to do some yard work in the cooler hours of the morning. Essentially, we're looking forward to seeing where the weekend takes us and hoping things continue to stay quiet.

*I grew up picking wildflowers and my mom always called me her "flower child."

1 comment:

Erin Conroy said...

Sounds like things are moving along smoothly for you; great to hear that. Too funny you say that about Stinky, though. Both our cats stayed upstairs during the game...can't imagine why ;).