2/28: goodbye to a good month

February 2013 has been good to/for me, so today's post is a recap of some of the month's milestones.

Tilde the Kitten has taken her place as part of the family.

I have at least some clarity on my pain situation and some medicine to help.  I honestly couldn't remember that it was possible to feel this good.

Plans for my sabbatical have taken more definite shape.

I've had the chance to take many photographs, and I have the good fortune to live in such a lovely place.  Sunsets have been gracious, and here's a last one for the month:

2/27: faster than anticipated

Thursday is usually a day for catching up at school, but tomorrow I have a lot scheduled so I had to do my reading for tomorrow afternoon's class tonight.  It went more quickly than I thought, and it feels good going to bed knowing I won't have to rush it tomorrow.

2/26: draft done

I'm on a little ad hoc committee at work to suggest guidelines for various scheduling issues that have arisen as our school gets larger, everyone's time gets tighter, and shared expectations have gotten less clear (indeed, less shared).  The three of us on the committee had a meeting last week which went very well in that we agreed about pretty much everything we wanted to recommend.  (How often does that happen?)  This morning I had an unexpectedly free chunk of time so I decided to take a go at writing it all up for public consumption.  Bureaucratic discourse isn't my favorite thing to generate, but I got a full draft done and managed (I think) to be fairly compact, which can be a challenge with that kind of writing.  Though our recommendations may not be popular with some folks and may not even get adopted, I feel better for having tried to do something positive and helpful.

2/25: some funding, some sun

I got news today that my school is going to help pay some of my tuition this summer and next year.  With that grant plus another one in the works, about half of my costs will be covered.  I am grateful.

It turned rainy and grey today, but I got to enjoy a bit of nippy sunshine this morning as I stopped at the pier on my drive to work.

2/24: hildegard's cookies (kind of)

Hildegard von Bingen wrote a basic recipe for a spice cookie, and it's been adapted into a contemporary recipe by the Benedictine sisters at the Immaculate Conception Monastery.  We ordered some, and they are tasty.  I may even try making my own, using an online recipe.

Neither the sisters' cookies nor the various online recipes I've found are entirely faithful to Hildegard's recipe, which is much more spare.  But it's a nice reminder of an amazing woman nonetheless.

2/23: bluebird & beer

Seeing a bluebird on our redbud tree this morning with Chris.

Drinking beer with a neighbor at the dock.  He saw me heading down to watch the sunset, so he brought a beer for himself and for me.

2/22: half a dozen

1.  Chris and I had similar enough schedules today that we could drive to school together in the same car.

2.  I thought some new things about a Hesiod passage, particularly a bee simile.

3.  Discussion was particularly good in one of my classes, which was a nice thing especially because I was worried about how the class would go today.

4.  I registered for the first course for my graduate certificate.  I decided that The Art of the Picturebook would be a good way to begin.  The course starts in June.

5.  When he heard that I hadn't really had time for lunch (due to an advising situation), Chris went to a drive-through on the way home so I could get some warm food asap.  Veggie burger and fries.

6.  I got some very nice feedback from two friends today about my water close-ups.  Here's one from this evening's walk:

2/21: found poem

A poem I "found" and submitted got posted on Verbatim today.  They don't tell you if they're going to post a submission or when it might appear, so you just have to keep checking the website or follow them for updates on Facebook.  It was a happy thing to find the title, "Handling Queens," in my Facebook feed this morning.