1/31: a selection

...of good things to start the work week:

Pelicans on the lake again!

Students' careful, close readings of passages from The Lightning Thief.

Office hour appointments that went more smoothly than I thought they might.

Catching up on email and some record-keeping.

Having defrosted pierogi casserole for dinner, and making a salad with lettuce, apple, and green onions to go with it.

Spending some time this evening with Chris.

Drafting an overdue note.

1/30: finally recording

...the last bunch of books I read in 2021.  It was a big year for me and reading:  a book every 3 days on average.  A lot of my 2021 was rickety in various ways, so it's especially nice to realize that reading was one thing that went well.  All upside.

1/29: seeing the stars

...when taking the garbage out this evening.  

1/28: pelicans again

...sighted this morning on the lake as I drove to school.  It feels like a prize to see them.

1/27: being warmed

...by portable oil-filled radiators.  My one at school worked valiantly today.  It couldn't conquer the cold entirely, and I spent much of the day very chilled in my office, but it would have been much worse if I hadn't had the heater at all.  This evening another radiator at home has kept me (and especially my feet) comfortable as I've done my reading.

1/26: doing

...my own version of a passage-analysis assignment that my students will be doing later this semester.  It was fun to choose a passage to work on and spend time noticing new-to-me things about it.  It's nice to have an excuse to spend some time doing close reading.

1/25: a sighting

...of the migrating pelicans on the lake this morning, along with cormorants and gulls. Hurray!

1/24: writing

...to a friend who wrote to me a month ago.  I've been meaning to write back almost every day since, but I told myself that today would not end without my actually doing so.  And I held myself to it.  (Just barely:  I clicked "send" 5 minutes before midnight!)

1/23: caramelizing

...onions for dinner tonight, with pasta, balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes, and tomatoes.

1/22: forgetting

...that work was work.  I'm not supposed to work on Saturdays (according to my own rules), but today I did.  I'm assigning an ekphrasis project of sorts in my mythology class, and since it's a somewhat unusual assignment, I wanted to give the students an example of it.  As I was getting ready this morning, I had an idea for a hypothetical painting based on the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos, and this afternoon I wrote it up.  It's nothing grand (it's not supposed to be a big project), but I had fun doing it, and I hope the students will have fun describing their own hypothetical paintings too.

1/21: ending the week

...well, I think.

- The students in my classes did a nice job of keeping things interactive while we were doing online meetings.

- I had time for a walk in the late afternoon.

- We had Friday night dinner (fish-less "fish" and french fries) and watched The Repair Shop.

- We read a chapter of Moominland Midwinter out loud, and it was about the Great Cold--fitting for a chilly evening.

- I enjoyed the colored holiday lights in our main room.

1/20: remembering a kindness

A friend of the family recently passed away--a former husband of one of my parents' earliest students.  I didn't know him particularly well--I was young when they would come back to visit my parents--but I remember that during one visit he gave me his copy of  The Name of the Rose.  It had just recently been published in English, and I had (also just recently) read about it in the NYTBR.  When he heard that I was interested in reading it, he gave me his copy on the spot.  I don't think he was even done reading it himself.  Coming across books was harder in those days--there was no internet to order from, and less "discretionary income" was available to me as a freshman in high school!  It was a wonderful gesture on his part.  It made me feel grown up and plugged in, and I'm sure I didn't thank him for it enough.  I'm sorry to read of his passing and to think of his loved ones' loss, and I'm grateful for the reminder that little things like that can be important.

1/19: telling students

...about Hunca Munca smashing the plaster ham in Beatrix Potter's Tale of Two Bad Mice.

1/18: tinkering with the feed

...on my webcam so that I showed up in black-and-white while doing my online teaching today.  Being in black-and-white makes me feel a lot better about being on camera.  I think it's because it's so clearly an image of me and not "really" me that way.  It also makes whatever is in my background more abstract or geometric-seeming and less distracting.

1/17: going old school

I remembered late this evening that I had hoped to make flaxseed muffins for my breakfast tomorrow.  They are good morning fuel for me!  I was worried that, with a late start time, they wouldn't have time to cool down before I needed to head to bed, and I didn't want to put them in the refrigerator while they were still steaming-warm.  Chris reminded me that I could make use of the chilly temperature outside by putting the muffin pan on the (screened-in) porch to cool.  It was a perfect solution and felt a bit old-timey (which makes me smile).

1/16: two great chapters

...at the start of Moominland Midwinter.  I read the first one out loud after dinner, and Chris read the second.

1/15: figuring out

...how to keep my glasses from fogging up while wearing KN95 masks.  We'll need to switch to KN95s for school this semester (at least at the start), and that posed a bit of a challenge since my face is too small for the KN95s to fit snugly.  My beautiful petite Graf Lantz cloth masks are perfect for my face, and I will miss them!  But I understand why we need to ramp up our efforts.  I figured out how padding inside the mask can fill in places so that the molded nose wire can do its job without compromising the seal.  The mask-fit problem was stressing me out, so I'm glad I don't have to have it churning in my mind's background.

1/14: on the last weekday

...of winter break I kayaked in the morning and went to Heber Springs with Chris to see the swans at sunset.  I squeezed a little necessary work into the afternoon, too.

1/13: the perfect afternoon

...for croquet with a friend.  The light and the temperature were perfect.

1/12: changing my routine

...this morning by longboarding at the bike trail in town rather than walking on the ridge.

1/11: finishing

...a report that I needed to write and two collaborative collages which my sister have been passing back and forth through the mail for over a year.

1/10: an experiment

Today I made a chocolate biscuit cake but added 1 cup of fruit peel/citron and broken-up gingerbread instead of other cookies.  It tastes like Christmas in a single bite.  My goal had been to make this for Christmas Day, but we had a lot of other goodies on hand and the grocery store was out of peel.  Next year I'll plan ahead!  But for now it's nice to have a bit of holiday-ness lingering this week as we transition to back-to-school.

1/9: a late lunch

...whose lateness was worth it.  I made hot and sour soup, and it came out better than the few other times I've made it!

1/8: making

...a little paper mosaic while listening to Classics talks this afternoon.  I cut tiny tiles from a page of last year's Metropolitan Museum of Art's daily calendar, and the colors made me happy.

1/7: having

...an editor from Harlequin in the audience during my online presentation on the uses of Classics in historical romance.

...and then, afterwards, having a phone conversation with a friend (who had also been at the presentation) while I picked pecans.

1/6: attending

...the annual Classics conference from home.  Though I know there are odd things about a digital format, I think it's so much better than the economic and environmental costs (not to mention health costs this year) of an international in-person gathering.  I hope that it stays around even when COVID is over.  (If COVID is ever "over"?)

1/5: animals

An eagle circling our house this morning.

A rabbit hopping near my path back from the lake after sunset.

A batch of teaberry pig cookies baked this evening.

1/4: buying

...chocolate covered cherries as an impulse purchase while looking at the selection of 50% off Christmas candy at the grocery store.  When I was little, my siblings and I each had a particular candy that we would get each year as part of our Christmas gifts:  my sister's was a Whitman's Sampler, my brother's was chocolate cars, and mine was chocolate covered cherries.  We didn't choose these initially; my parents chose for us, and then they just stuck.  (I have to admit that I sometimes wished I had been the one who had been "assigned" the Whitman's Sampler!  Though that was a little silly, given that we all shared all of the candies.)  Today it seemed disloyal to see the chocolate covered cherries on the shelf and not put a box in my cart.

1/3: another day

...of holiday-ish rest.  In the morning I read in the main room with the colored holiday lights on and Tilde in my lap.  It reminded me of stretches of childhood holidays spent reading beside the Christmas tree.

1/2: holiday

Other people's holidays are ending, but today was kind of the first real holiday-day for me this break.  As soon as classes and grading were over, I moved into paper-writing.  I took Christmas Day off, but my presentation was on my mind, and once the presentation was done, I turned to Heron Tree.  Not complaining!  These were things I wanted to do.  Still, they got compressed into the last space of 2021 because my fall courses took an unexpected toll on my time and energy, and that compression has been intense rather than restful.  It feels both good and weird to have spent the day without feeling like something was waiting in the wings to be done.

1/1: colors

I worked on a pamphlet using different greys rather than my usual plain black printing.

I enjoyed having the colored holiday lights on in our main room all day.

Chris and I did some watercolor doodling after dinner.