1/30: more voices

I tried a new way (really a new inducement) to get more people to chime in during the Myth class, and it seemed to work well!  We'll see if it holds (fingers crossed that it does).

1/29: braving the chill

The crocuses on a frosty morning.

And a student in the late afternoon, as it was getting colder and colder, who chalked this on the campus sidewalk for everyone to enjoy:


1/28: kayaking 2018

This afternoon I took my kayak out on the lake for the first time this year.

1/27: nevertheless

A few years ago I started trying to keep Saturdays free from school-related work, and I've mostly been successful.  Today I had to do work to keep other days from becoming unmanageable.  But I got it done by mid-afternoon, giving me time to take a walk and do some more micro-collages.

1/26: something my mother made

A black faux fur coat, made for a punk rocker who is up for a Grammy award.  He wanted to wear one to the award ceremony this weekend, and he put out a call on Facebook for someone who could make him one.  One of my parents' former students saw the Facebook post and thought my mother might be up for it, and she was.  She sent me a picture of herself with the musician (Jami Morgan of Code Orange) as she was doing a fitting of the coat, and the whole thing makes me smile.

1/25: some quiet in the morning

...to do work.  The afternoon was much less calm and left ripples of un-calm extending into the evening, but I'm glad that in the first slice of the day I was able to focus and think in a measured, unflustered way.

1/24: received

... 2 altered Odyssey pages from Spain!

1/23: disconnected

...from the school's email server tonight.  There was work I needed to do that was in my inbox, but I couldn't log in remotely for some reason.  Vexing, but it freed me up to do different work for tomorrow--some translating of Ovid's Metamorphoses--, which I enjoyed.

1/22: a few minutes in the sun

...while walking the labyrinth.

1/21: unbeknownst

...to me, Simon the New Cat slept alongside me for part of the night.  Chris woke up at one point and saw it.  Simon won't cuddle with me when I'm awake, but at least this is a start.

1/20: Simon inside

We'd been feeding a stray cat outside for over a month, and we started to call him Simon.  Early this week he finally got calm enough that Chris could scoop him up and take him to the vet.  He spent a few days there getting checked out and up-to-date on his care, and now he's with us.  Emma, Tilde, and Phineas are doing their best to adjust, and Simon seemed to enjoy an afternoon of sleep.

1/19: from Chris

Chris got me a copy of Greek Tales for Tiny Tots.  It was published in 1929 and isn't easy to come by, so he has been keeping his eye out for it for months.  The copy he found is in very good condition and has a handwritten inscription by the publisher.

1/18: birds

Water birds, both local and migratory, standing on the ice, or swimming around it, or plowing through it and leaving furrows.

1/17: almost a full draft

...of an overview of the Classics program that I need to write for work.

1/16: unsmooth but okay

It was the least smooth first-day-of-classes of mine that I can remember, but I got through it, thankful for the goodwill of the students and some colleagues.

1/15: morning at home

It was a get-ready-for-the-start-of-classes day, but in the morning I was able to do my work from home, which made a gentle on-ramp to an afternoon on campus.

1/14: 101

... 1-inch by 1-inch collages which I've made over the past 8 days.  They're not elaborate, but I enjoy them as abstract exercises in combining colors and patterns and (importantly) in not-over-judging and not-over-thinking.

1/13: morning, afternoon, evening

Morning:  writing some Postcrossing postcards.

Afternoon:  talking with my childhood best friend for hours on the phone.

Evening:  starting to put my home office to rights and, though daunted by the task and by no means done, enjoying the feeling of straightening things up.

1/12: glossing

I had a number of goals for the winter break, and I won't have reached some of them by the time it ends (on Monday), but I did manage to write all my glosses for the commentary on Trollope's An Old Man's Love.

1/11: discoveries while Gutenberging

I proofread this month's set of pages for Project Gutenberg this afternoon.  They were from a novel by Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861-1947), a Canadian author whom I'd not known of before and about whom I'm glad I know now.  The pages I got to proofread had some interesting remarks about war (against it) and cats (celebrating them).

1/10: working on Trollope

A friend and I are writing commentary about the uses of Classics in An Old Man's Love by Anthony Trollope, and we've been using the winter break to make some headway.  We don't live nearby one another, but we've been spending some afternoons, each at our own place (states apart), working on our glosses and knowing that the other is doing the same.  It's been fun and sweet and smooth-going.  But today was a bit more intense/vexing/puzzling on my end: there was a nut to crack about a particular mention of Horace, and though it took about two hours of researching and poking in the Odes, I think I finally got it.

1/9: kindle app

The Kindle app on my iPhone means I can always carry a book around with me.

1/8: food and light

We went down to Little Rock this evening, first to eat at Three Fold Noodles & Dumpling Co (which I had been wanting to try) and then to see the performances and lights at the Arkansas Chinese Lantern Festival.  We've been staying very close to home (mostly at home) during the winter break, and that's been really good, but it also felt good to venture out a bit tonight.

1/7: walking among

...a flock of blackbirds, settling-flitting-settling-flitting and singing.

1/5: field walk

Chris and I walked along the edge of the fields below our house, and I caught the late afternoon light on the ice of a small pond.

1/4: in the afternoon sky

...white birds wheeling as I listened to the final bit of The Shepherd's Crown.  I started listening to Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books last January, and what a marvellous year it's been to have them in my ear in Stephen Briggs' voice!

I once told a friend that Trollope's Barsetshire books made me a better person, and I think it's true of this series, too.  I am so grateful.

1/3: relief

I'm in the last half-hour stretch of The Shepherd's Crown audiobook, and in the half-hour before that it seemed like the book was setting up the death of the main character at the end, something I really- really-really don't want to happen.  But last night before I fell asleep I remembered that in an earlier book in the series an older version of the main character comes to help her younger self--so she can't really die at this point.  Whew.

1/2: enjoying

...eating the last two pieces of the chocolate biscuit cake with Chris.

...recording my day on one of the few remaining pages in my eye/jar journal.

...doing some laundry, sweeping, and tidying up a bit.

1/1: new from old

I've been binding notebooks using paper from previous semesters that's still blank on one side.