Finals ended last Friday. Usually by Tuesday, I would have had everything graded already. I would have been sitting on grades for the past two days, agonizing over whether or not to bump that person from a 3.0 to a 3.3. This year, however, I didn’t do jack over the weekend. I pretty much spent Sunday sitting on my butt, watching TV and knitting.

So for the past two days, it has been a grading fest. I did take some time and leave the house to do a little Christmas shopping but not too much. I tried to run yesterday on the treadmill, but my left hip was hurting pretty good. This afternoon, the ache had spread to both hips. My first thought was bone cancer, but I realized that while possible, it was highly unlikely. More likely was the fact that I spent about 10 hours out of each of the past two days, sitting in one spot on the couch and grading.

When working at home, I usually sit in my office on the nice, ergonomic chair. But because it was snowing out and the heat from the fireplace doesn’t quite reach upstairs, I decided to move the whole operation to the den. Another hazard of working by the fire is residual snooze gas. Just check out the exhibits:

I thought cats did SOMETHING during the day. The other cats might, but Caymus does not move from the chair during daylight hours.

Indi set up camp the furthest from the fire. She is quite enamored of the tree skirt in the living room and spends a great deal of time sleeping on it. I was pretty excited to see her in the den!

While I spent the whole day on the couch, I didn’t spend the whole day grading (sorry students). Part of the reason was this little guy. Max decided that today was a good day to test out the lap.

But grading is done and the grades tentatively assigned. I’m going to sleep on it overnight and then submit everything tomorrow. I won’t be checking email for a few days so as to avoid students.

Happy Holidays!

My cell phone battery won’t hold a charge if I’m talking on the phone. All conversations must be 20 minutes or less. Then it’s immediately time to plug it in, justin case someone else tries to call.

Oh, and I was recommended for tenure!

I got the good news on Thursday. I really wanted to go out and celebrate but I hadn’t finished writing my final. And the whole fact that the final was the next day at 8AM. It really cut down on the possibility of a late night.

But I did take the weekend off. 100% off. Friends were over for dinner on Saturday. Today, I have done nothing worthwhile, besides fix holes in socks. I didn’t even cook dinner – we ate leftovers. It has been a blissful day of nothingness and sitting by the fire.

Of course, doing nothing today means that tomorrow I have to grade ALL DAY. I have to start planning for the Christmas party and finish decorating the house. And shop for Christmas. I’m late again this year.

Oh well. It’s been worth it for a nice, leisurely, lazy day.

It’s the 2009 limited edition ornament:

The Max Head!

Yup, Max has finally figured out that the tree is good for climbing. I was eating my lunch at the dining room table and notice the tree was shaking in an odd manner. Further investigation revealed the tree shimmy was not a train passing by or a random earthquake, but a little grey interloper.

I wish that I could say the red and white striped ribbon in the picture was a tree decoration, but instead it is the tag from the tree farm. The only decorating that we’ve done is to put some plastic ornaments on the bushes outside. When I was stringing them with fishing line today, I seriously thought about reserving them for the inside tree. The are supposedly unbreakable and with a tree climbing kitten, we might need that safety net.

It’s like kitty jail, but with lots of twigs to play with and pine needles to puke up!

I love sparkly, glittery things. Shirts with sparkles, dangly earrings, diamonds, Kleenex, whatever. Now that I am closer to 40 than 30, I try to rein in some of the sparkles. It really isn’t appropriate for me to be shopping in the children’s section of the store anymore, even if they have the best shirts.

Back when I was in high school and wearing WAY too much makeup, I bought some powder that said “Shimmers” on the label. WELL OF COURSE! This sounded like just the product for me. It wasn’t until I put it on and went to school and was out in the morning sun, during marching band practice, that I realized that shimmers=glitter all over my face. I’m sure I tried to rub it all off, but that episode further cemented my reputation on campus.

I pretty much stayed away from the glitter powder and makeup from then on.

Fast forward twenty years.

The other day, as I was getting ready for work, I noticed that I had a faint glitter on me, especially on my chest. I immediately flashed back to my HS days but was pretty sure I hadn’t bought any new makeup lately. I dismissed it as maybe there was residue on the towels from a shirt that had perhaps snuck in in the laundry. I didn’t really worry too much about it because – hey! It’s glitter!

The towels got switched out and I still had the faint sparkle. Now I’m starting to get a little concerned. As I starting to sweat something that is reacting with my clothes? I kept meaning to ask Husband if he was noticing glitter to see if it was laundry related but how do you bring up that subject with your spouse?

“So honey, have you noticed any rashes that look suspiciously like glitter?” I can just imagine his expression. He’s already worried about my sanity at times and this might just win me a trip to the padded room.

But thankfully, I figured out the problem before I had to ask any embarrassing questions.

One of my favorite body washes is the Oil of Olay Ribbons. Especially in winter, the extra moisturizers in there really help to keep me from looking like a lizard. I was in Meijer during the summer and found two bottles on clearance AND I had major coupons. Of course those babies are going home with me. I didn’t start using them for awhile because 1 – I’m cheap and already had an open bottle of soap in the shower and 2 – I forgot that I had them.

About two weeks ago, I pulled a new bottle out from under the sink. About the same time that I noticed my unusual glow.

Yup. My body wash has glitter.

I’m now trying to think of all the times that I work a V-necked or low cut shirt. One time jumps out in particular.

It was during my tenure interview with the president.

Thanks to Claire for the photos!

I’m standing in front of the tree for scale here. It was pretty darn cold and I probably should have worn more clothes than this! Thankfully my ears were warm. That’s because I was wearing Husband’s hat. His ears were pretty cold.

Notice that we are not cutting the tree down. That was Gavin. Gavin who has a bad back with a ruptured disk. I did take a (very short) turn, but we quickly realized that we would have been there all day if I had been stuck under the tree with the saw. Husband and I were very good at pushing the tree over to help with the cutting.

While we were out at the tree farm, there was a rare sighting of the Coldilius Downunderian:

Rumor has it that if you put out a glass of Penfolds Shiraz on your deck, they’ll come flocking.

Quote of the day:

I find it hard to believe that I understand quantum mechanics more than I understand our financial system.

Lisa, I feel your pain.

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In recitation tonight, I overheard a conversation between a couple of people about their favorite Windows operating system. It had the weird overtones of “Who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman?” I’m guessing the next conversation from that side of the room will be “Playstation or XBox?” I have to remind myself that they will always be 19-21 years old.

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A conversation in 4 photos.

I have a toy:

It’s a fun toy:

Give me that toy!!

I have a toy!

There are many holiday traditions around our house:

• Cooking a thanksgiving turkey that can feed 20 even though only five or six are coming to dinner
• Preparing holiday cards on iPhoto that never get ordered (two years in a row now!!)
• Grading
• Getting a 12 foot christmas tree

Yup, it’s that time again – getting a tree that is too big to fit in our car! We always have to borrow a friend’s truck to get it home and this year was no different.

What was different this year was bringing strong friends to “help” us cut down the tree and get it set up in the house. (Yes, Gavin actually did 90% of the cutting. Husband and I helped to push the tree over though! Claire – can you send me those photos?)

What was also different this year was the strained back muscle. I’ve been sitting on the couch for the past two evening trying not to move too much. It didn’t hurt too much on Friday, but Saturday afternoon I was in serious pain. I was very excited to read that you get to use heat for this type of injury. Most of the time, I “get” to use ice on my aches and pains – not fun.

Yesterday, I could sit and read without too much guilt because there was still Sunday left in the break. But today, I couldn’t put it off any longer – I had to grade presentations. It wasn’t that hard, but I have been ignoring it for about a month. That worked for a little bit because I didn’t want to change my grading scheme while there were still presentations to go. I need to be consistent! But not any longer. Monday is the last two presentations and I’ve already had students bugging me about their grade. It’s finally done and didn’t take me as long as I though – 3 hours instead of 4!

It’s almost 7PM and I think I’m done for the evening. There are still things to do, but I think I can get everything done tomorrow at work in plenty of time.

I should just push through and get it done, but I’m still fighting the post-tenure interview blues. Pretty much as soon as my first interview was over, I have been fighting the “why bother?” bug. I used to do lots of work on the weekends and evenings but not this semester. I don’t think I’ve done work during the week after 7PM (lots of caveats there…) since the beginning of September. I also haven’t done much cooking or work around the house either. I’m blaming it all on the stress of waiting for the tenure decision.

I’m getting a little better though. Instead of doing nothing during “Six Days of Sweats”, which I had originally planned, I did a little bit. I got the kitchen clean for Thanksgiving, hung some photos and some laundry done. I shopped for chemistry department’s “Adopt a Family” family and played with Max. I even multitasked and did a few of the things at once!

Max approves of the boy’s gifts.

“I checked in the bag – you need to go back to Target. You forgot MY gift!!” (Silly kitty – the gift is the bag!)

I’ve learned one thing about myself this Thanksgiving – I don’t handle obstacles well, especially when it comes to food.

I had a plan this year. It involved a raw turkey and lots of butter. But when we went to pick up the bird, it was partially cooked. This was not a good thing. Not because Chef was going to cook a bad bird, but because all of my plans and timelines were now thrown out the window.

But I persevered. I decided that I would treat this as a boon. Less cooking, less stress! I now only had to focus on the sides. Chef said about a hour and a half at 350 would bring the centerpiece to perfection.

I trusted in thermodynamics which almost led to my downfall.

The oven was turned on at 1, in time for Thanksgiving dinner at about 3:30. But when is was 2:15 and the temperature of the damn bird had not raised a single degree, I was beginning to stress, JUST a little bit. I was 2 minutes from a holiday meltdown when our first guests arrived. I pulled it together and turned around to see the thermometer click over a new temperature. Success!!

Dinner was over an hour late, but what a feast it was. We had a 20 pound turkey for six of us and sides to feed about twelve. The best part was a great evening with friends.

After the main course was done, it was a good thirty minutes before any of us could even think about eating or drinking anything else.

But somehow we managed to make a serious dent in chocolate roulade, cherry pie, coconut bars and cornflake cookies. I only broke two plates, the first of the wedding gifts to get broken in over five years.

Hopefully next year you can make it too!

Day two of “Six Days of Sweats” and all is good.

We staged our own mini wine and chocolate tasting this evening. The star of the evening was a 2003 Alban Reva Syrah. Husband decided we should treat ourselves and I can’t say that I disagreed with him. This was the first bottling of Alban that we were able to purchase. I could go on about black fruits and smoked meat but I won’t. Husband thinks that the wine is slightly out of balance (too much alcohol, ripe fruits, a little pruney), but I like my wines a little on the ripe side. I enjoy big luscious fruits and a touch too much alcohol.

But the fun part was the chocolate pairings. I picked up a little kit at World Market that had several different kinds of chocolate with recommended wine pairings. Originally we just tried the 72% and the 55% cocoa chocolates, but we later expanded to include the 31% and the 61% too.

I’m drawn to dark chocolates so I tried the 72% first. I was amazed at how bad it made the wine! The wine lost of its the acidity and brightness and tasted flabby. Husband isn’t a fan of dark chocolate so he didn’t like it at all.

From that point, it was really a matter of personal taste. I thought the 55% was the best pairing, but Husband liked the 31% (milk chocolate) the best. He has a sweet tooth but I thought the sugar completely overpowered the wine.

The verdict – personally, I think syrah is better with a medium dark variety but none of the pairings was perfect. For chocolate, try coffee or a sauternes.

Technically, we had classes today. And by technically I mean – not me. I was supposed to have an evening help session, but students were already talking about how they weren’t going to show up for it. So I cancelled it and posted everything online. That means I didn’t have to go to work today! But it wasn’t a vacation. I have SO much to do around the house to get ready for Thanksgiving.

I went grocery shopping and spent a butt-load of money. I haven’t done a serious shopping trip in two weeks. This trip, I had to stock up on regular food and also Thanksgiving goodies. I thought I got a lot of stuff, but when it came time to prepare my dinner tonight, I didn’t have anything to eat. There was some leftover meat and I thought “Burrito!” But there wasn’t any shredded cheese. Then I looked around and saw some buns. “Open faced sandwiches!” But there was no cheese; sliced, shredded or otherwise. It seemed like everything boiled down to a lack of cheese. So I had to run to the grocery store for a quick cheese run.

I wish I wasn’t so darn forgetful at times! If I had taken about 2 minutes, I probably would have remembered that I didn’t have a lick of cheese at home. It’s really bad at work too. I’ve put up a check list by my door so as I walk out, I can look at the list and make sure that I have everything that I need. It’s saved me MANY trips back up to the office to grab my cell phone, drugs, computer charger.

I like to blame it on being perpetually sleep deprived, but I’m not sure that is the whole reason. I think it’s caffeine. I used to drink a lot of caffeine. But I’ve been on the wagon for about a month now and it’s helped. I slow down and think about things instead of rushing around with my mind racing. But this morning, I had a cup of chai, full strength. It was heavenly but I did forget a ton of things at the grocery store today. Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I need to lead a completely caffeine-free life.

Give me strength.