Yea! The Annotated Bib for Medieval Lit is done. And it only took me all afternoon. Of course, I will be reading over it Monday afternoon just to make sure all is in order. True, I still need to develop a thesis for Renaissance Drama. That should only take up all of tomorrow afternoon. I have pulled some articles on Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Revenge. Some have even been read already.

It has been raining here. The grass and trees are happy; however, Puppy did not enjoy it so much. Every time I was going to take a break and walk her, it began to rain again.

Mom bought Charlie Brown’s Easter. The Younger Twin loves Charlie Brown and has been watching it nonstop. Mom said if she has to watch the Mayflower sail one more time, she is going to sink the blasted ship. Apparently the Arbor Day special is not as thrilling, as the Twins are building with blocks and destroying whatever castle was put up. Construction and demolition all at ones stop.

Last night, I cleaned out my yarn stash. Nothing was thrown out, but it does look much nicer now. Even the knitting bags were cleaned out.

I spent the afternoon working at the local public school; it was not all that bad. Tonight the Twins are not spending the night, as everyone else will be at a ball game. Puppy and I opted to stay home. I am unsure what to watch: MASH, Firefly, Shakespeare, or a $5 DVD I picked up at Target the other day. Since tomorrow will be spent in front of the computer, working on an Annotated Bib; I do not want to do anything that requires thinking right now.

Odd, I do not believe I have anything on my needles right now. At least nothing I want to work on right now. There is that scarf I was making for the Younger Twin before she told me she wanted it to be a shawl. One of my friends in Medieval Lit has asked me to make the hat/face/neck portion of a chain mail outfit. I have everything worked out and she will give me the yarn sometime next week. This week alone, I have finished two scarves. I am so tired of scarves.

Is it April yet?

Today was the Maternal Grandmother’s long parent-teacher conference day. The Elder Twin is still climbing walls. In a land marking event, the Younger Twin can now buckle herself into her car seat; if you pull out the belt for her. Everyone here is thrilled. Life remains crazy. What else is new?

It is that time of the year again. Papers. Two 15 page papers due the week of April 15. In addition to these essays, there is the regular course work due each class. I do not even want to consider what that entitles on the 3^rd for Medieval Lit (80 page primary text, 28 page secondary text, and annotated bib with 8 sources). Oh for April to have come and gone already. I love Grad School, but crunch time remains sour to the mouth and disposition. Being sick does not help matters at all.

I slipped away to the Botanical Garden on Tuesday and knocked out some reading I thought I was behind on. The garden was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Not many people were there, just some mothers with their children after school. It was perhaps, the highlight of the week thus far. My new wallpaper is to the left. I wish there was a way to see the fish that were present.

The Cobweb Shawl cannot be blocked in its current form…the top is three inches shorter than the bottom due to a tight bind-off and running out of yarn. No one but I can tell yet I am unsure if it is worth the ripping and correcting. We shall have to see. Here is a pic, just because I promised Dad I would put one up sometime.

Still March 26

Did she even have surgery? I swear, had I not seen the Elder Twin when she came home at lunch; I would not have even noticed the kid even had a bad day. She ate nearly all Mom’s and StepDad’s French fries. I spent most of the afternoon looking at articles while listening for a pair of girls screaming. Then I ducked out for some errands for Mom and washed the sap and pollen off my car. When I returned, Elder Twin was crawling up the walls. Just another Monday apparently.

I was sent to the doctor’s by a pair of Matriarchs, one of whose daughter was married in January. Thank God it’s not strep; they didn’t even run a test.

Tomorrow’s a long stretch for myself and Elder Twin. I have a 12 hour school day and she is not going to school. She likes school, wonder if she likes having the house and sitter to herself as well. The Younger Twin is finally strapping herself into the car-seat. Yes.

My Cobweb Shawl is getting blocked at the dry cleaners tomorrow. I am hoping to post a picture of it sometime this week. That way I only have to send one pic to Dad instead of two (one of the shawl and one of my haircut).

March 26

The Elder Twin made it through surgery just fine. The whole thing took place an hour early. I am waiting for everyone to come home—too much homework/papers to wait around a hospital. Recovery is going to be interesting; the doctor expects 1-2 days of irritably. But she has new books, movies, and I set up a DVD player in her room.

The Younger Twin is waiting with me. She has watched whatever she wanted to earlier. Currently, she is playing with the babysitter. Fun stuff.

Thankfully, I am down to 2 two page papers and 2 articles for this week. But guess what? Theater Memphis is playing my favorite play, Midsummer Night’s Dream the weekend of my birthday. How fun.

March something

Ok, so we were going to the Botanical Garden today. Were being the correct emphasized word. There was a basketball game on, hence the reason did became were. Ah well, I needed to read anyways.

Knight of the Burning Pestle was vastly amusing, even with a rushed ending. I loved it. Why oh why is it not performed more often? It is very family friendly, minus all the syphilis references. Despite finishing one reading, I am still 30+ pages from the end of The Travels of Sir John [de] Mandeville. Everyone else in Medieval Lit raved about how quick it read…I am in the minority of that statement.

The Elder Twin is having surgery on Monday to remove the tubes in her ear. She does not yet know that no less than four new Bernstein Bear books were bought today to kill recovery time. In fact, one of the books has four stories in it.

Everyone here is ready for the Maternal Grandmother to go back to school, including herself. She has clean and played house all week, and the family has been worked to death. I spent most of the week hiding, but that did not work out so well; as I found myself running errands and helping Mom with the Twins.

Speaking of school, guess what? I have two 15 page papers due the third week of April. Between now and then there are extra make-sure-you-are-doing-the-paper assignments, conferences, Fall registration, and the normal reading load including the weekly papers. Oh what fun we have!

So much to do tomorrow: block my blue cobweb shawl, finish reading, do some research, church, family, more reading and research, and counting down the days till Lent is over [now that my biggest project is done, I want another one but lack the yarn].

what day is it?

I ran away from home this past weekend—or was that three months ago? The past two days have been a blur of family obligations and homework and class and more homework. And why does each day feel longer than a month?

The local public school has been on Spring Break, meaning the Maternal Grandmother has been spring cleaning and the Twins are spending their days on a ranch just outside town.

Monday: we cleaned up a bit in the yard. I excused myself after awhile for homework. After homework, I helped pick the twins up at Horse Camp and later watched the Elder Twin so that Mom could work some. The two of us baked a cake, most of the batter she ate though I did have her eat a slice of cold pizza before we started.

Tuesday: class. Took the wrong book to read for tomorrow, therefore I logged some library time and goofed off with my English Grad Buddies. My night class ran over. Came in and barely remember showing before crawling into bed.

Today: had seven inches of hair cut off. Answered phones at Mom’s office, went to her empty house to read. Chased after Twins…twice. Ate dinner. Went to church. Came home and discovered new furniture and MASH season six came in (two days earlier than estimated arrival date).

The Maternal Grandmother’s basketball games interfered with me watching MASH. Hence in a moment of fury the purchase of season six. Tomorrow, I will take my disk to the back bedroom and watch my show while she watches her game; eliminating war over the programming.

I still do not have all of my readings done or papers written: all due tomorrow before noon. Guess I’m lugging my computer to school in the morrow.

March 15

The Younger Twin dug up Mom’s hydrangeas. Why? Because the dirt was too good for them. She wanted to plant acorns so trees would grow.

I learned about 15 minutes ago that the Elder Twin is having her ear tubes removed on the 26th. They are coming out but will not come out right, therefore Mom thought it best that they would be taken out by surgery. Yet another wonderful part of today.

What a day. It was by no means bad, yet everything went wrong. Even after reviewing my Response Paper for Medieval Lit, I still feel as though I unintentionally plagiarized. Nothing I wrote was in the critical piece, but my ideas are so similar to the author’s! I talked to my prof before class, very briefly as she was busy and she appreciated my honesty. Then I forgot to read the supplementary text for Renaissance Drama, and sweat bullets over a paper grade during the entire class (my grade was a B, but the spill at the beginning of class and waiting over ninety minutes got everyone worried). And oh yeah, I locked myself out of the house this afternoon.

I must have started a scarf seven times. Obviously the yarn does not want to be made up.

March 15

The Younger Twin dug up Mom’s hydrangeas. Why? Because the dirt was too good for them. She wanted to plant acorns so trees would grow.

What a day. It was by no means bad, yet everything went wrong. Even after reviewing my Response Paper for Medieval Lit, I still feel as though I unintentionally plagiarized. Nothing I wrote was in the critical piece, but my ideas are so similar to the author’s! I talked to my prof before class, very briefly as she was busy and she appreciated my honesty. Then I forgot to read the supplementary text for Renaissance Drama, and sweated bullets over a paper grade during the entire class (my grade was a B, but the spill at the beginning of class and waiting over ninety minutes got everyone worried). And oh yeah, I locked myself out of the house this afternoon.

I must have started a scarf seven times. Obviously the yarn does not want to be made up.

March 14

The StepDad has strep throat, two weeks after I finally got over mine. The Maternal Grandmother is under the weather…and national test stuff.

Two of the three books I ordered came in today! Yea. Now if I could only find the time to read Orlando Furioso life would be very good indeed. I did manage to read the rest of Ben Johnson’s Bartholomew’s Fair during phone duty. Later, while getting the oil changed in my car, I finished Gerald of Wales’s History and Topography of Ireland. I am starting to see a theme developing in my readings. If only I could finish knitting projects this fast. Sure, I have lately been finishing two scarves a week (including the Never-Ending-Green-Scarf, the recipient loved it). However, I never seem to finish the larger projects, currently numbering two, at any decent rate.

I bought the Twins a surprise yesterday, the new Barbie movie: Magic of the Rainbow. They were happy little girls when I gave it to them this morning, too bad I could not stick around a watch it with them. There is a large chance I will eventually watch it over a dozen times.

March 13

I have new shoes. Unlike other female members of my family, I would rather have a root canal than to go shoe shopping. But it took less than an hour to find the shoes I wanted. Admittedly, I knew beforehand what I wanted. Black sneakers that laced up, not those pulley-string-things. They look a bit like old lady shoes, however, they serve their purpose and will last until the next time I have to break down and buy new shoes.

My Renaissance Drama class was cancelled, and Medieval Lit had “No Class” on the syllabus for today. Translation: 30 minutes until my first and only class today. This never ever happens. Start checking little children’s skulls for numbers.

Much reading is on tomorrow’s agenda. That and answering phones for the real-estate company my mom works for.

Hayley Westenra’s new CD is out. The nice man at the information counter at Davis-Kidd bookstore went through the chart of new arrivals not yet on the shelf for me. Thus far, this is the only location in town that I have managed to locate her albums. I like her version of ‘Scarborough Fair’ better on Celtic Women; it has a little more driving force to it, though the violins are nice on this copy.

The Twins are at dance class right now, I wish I could be there. Sure, I am only allowed to watch the last five minutes, but watching them do the Hokey Pokey is hilarious.

March 12

What happened today? Not much at all really. Another afternoon of glorified babysitting, and this time I read aloud to a class for half and hour. I finished the green scarf that is almost as tall as I am.

Tomorrow involves a lot of reading, some writing, and shoe shopping. Nice.

March 11

Is this weekend over yet?

The local Family was completely tired out by Friday. Therefore, I spent yesterday with my books trying to write an eight page midterm (4 questions, 2 pages each) while Mom and the Twins played outside and the Maternal Grandparents spent the afternoon shopping in Memphis. We all, including StepDad, attended a fundraiser dinner and auction for the Baptist Youth Group missions. This pretty much translates into bad dinner and odd auctioning. How odd? The homemade foodstuff when for very large amounts (40 eggrolls for $100+), gift certificates sold for higher amounts than they were worth ($30 for a $25 dinner), and everything else went for dirt ($2000 boat sold for $300). And some stuff is just confusing. For example, there were some animal prints whose frame job alone was easily over $150. In the silent auction they sold for $70. In the live auction similar prints when for $10.

Around 2050, Mom picked me up to watch the Twins sleep while she and StepDad finished the auction. An hour later, after the girls are in bed fast asleep, they come in with the animal prints from the live auction among other things like a boat. We did not end up with the salsa, 4 a month for a year, as they stopped bidding at $150. Crazy.

Anyways, we all had lunch with the StepPaternal Grandmother today. Mom and I hung the prints up in the Younger Twin’s room. Safari goes well with French Impressionist style murals. The Maternal Grandmother finally bought and hung curtains for my room. I personally did not care if the windows had them or not, however, it was bothering her. I told her whatever she bought would be fine. So long as there was no floral and some blue in it. Now, I have blue and beige stripped curtains. Works for everyone.

I still have 2 pages for the midterm. Better get back to that.

March 8

Today is my sister’s birthday. Yea! Happy Birthday her. The Twins and I called last night to wish her the best, as tonight is baton class and we did not want to forget. Plus the Younger Twin really wanted to call. So we did.

While I’m thinking about baton class, the Maternal Grandmother is taking the Elder Twin to a baton workshop day this weekend. The class thus far has two fund-raisers, making it just as expensive as my knitting.

Temptation struck yesterday…and is still striking today. The Spring 2007 catalog from KnitPicks came in. Nothing in it but socks and baby knits. Yet, I found a nice pattern for penguin looking socks in one of my knitting books and I need gray yarn for it. How far away is Easter? I am determined to actually complete Lent this year and not buy any new yarn until then. Come April 8, I am ordering yarn and be a very happy camper.

I love my Medieval Lit class. It is wonderful—even if we do spend a rather large amount of time on the portrayal of bodies. However, it is becoming a rather expensive class and my bookshelf is running out of space. Having just spent even more money on books along that subject line, I consider myself an expert on this topic. The family has quit asking what I’m buying which is a very good thing. I no longer spend five minutes telling them about it before realizing their eyes have glazed over. Which I completely understand, after all the Poetic Edda is not a text many people around here read in their book clubs. I am just hoping it has the original and translated words side-by-side as the copy my prof has. And that it has some recollection of Balder’s death. No, it really has nothing to do with the paper I am writing, but I was on the Barnes and Noble website to spend the coupon on a copy of Orlando Furioso, an epic poem heavily referenced in my Renaissance Drama class and in some of the critical articles read in Medieval Lit. Did you know there is not a single bookstore in the area that keeps this book on the shelf? Believe me, I have been to all of them and have yet to see it there. Please God let this be an unabridged copy!

March 6

It figures. I have a stack of homework the length of my leg and a book I ordered a month ago finally came in yesterday. The Knitter’s Handbook is defiantly not a school-related text. So I could only flip through it before returning to read Early Irish Myths and Sagas. Not that this primary text is not enjoyable and I have been highlighting, underlining, and making notes in it like crazy—but this is Spring Break and I would like to read something not related to a class.

The Maternal Grandmother has been working hard all year for this next week and a half at school. Last week was a killer, getting all the classes ready to take one of those national standardized tests. Her Spring Break comes after the tests, and she will crash for the first two days. Then she’ll start on the garden while I am busy at class.

I am so glad it is Spring Break, I was about to go stir crazy. It is nice to take a breather before the load gets twice as heavy and deadlines come thrice as fast. But for now, I need to be reading some of the articles I saved on RefWorks.

March 4

There has been a death in the family, a niece of the Maternal Grandfather passed on Friday. Yesterday was chaotic, the Twins had one of their parties and as I was getting dressed for that, the Maternal Grandmother asked me to go with her and the Maternal Grandfather to the town where the family is; requiring a completely different outfit and make-up. Once we got there, we could not even see the family as they were taking care of all the little important details like what the deceased was going to wear.

However, that did not compare to today’s adventure. The Elder Twin has claimed their playroom as her room for about half a year, prompting the Younger Twin to move all her toys into the sleep-room. Mom and others have spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what should be done, since the sleep-room was a tight fit. This morning, a decision was made: move the Elder into the playroom, thus give each Twin her own room.

Everyone, including a babysitter spent an hour swapping rooms before Mom had to go work. The Maternal Grandparents and I spent another hour working before the Younger Twin realized the Maternal Grandmother had committed a grievous sin—she moved some of the Younger Twin’s toys without asking them if they wanted to have a new home. The Maternal Grandparents quickly left and the babysitter took the Elder Twin outside to play. Ten minutes later, I finally get the Younger Twin to stop crying and come up with a solution. The two of us proceeded to spend the better part of an hour asking each and every animal toy the child owns if they would like a new home. Some animals did not want to move while others relocated to under tables, chairs, and a desk. Currently, I am waiting Mom to call me asking why there is a plastic horse in the Younger Twin’s bed.

If I had been given commission on every move, my student loans would now be paid.

March 2

Yesterday was a really good day. After classes, I lingered in the Graduate Office and chatted with some friends. It was our last day of class before Spring Break so we were all a little nutty. Turns out everyone is going to be buried under a mountain of readings, and boy do we have a mountain on our heads. In between books, we plan to sleep.

Yesterday was also my StepBrother’s birthday. I called early in the day, wanting to catch him before school and it was a short call. Turns out he was on the way to a Birthday Breakfast at a restaurant. I am just glad he liked his birthday present. It took awhile to find books I thought he would like. He did not like that I wrote on his card, instead of printing. Oh well, at least he liked the books.

I was called in to sub this afternoon, but when I got there they had to shuffle the plates around—not enough subs. So instead of working in the class I normally get called in for, I was the Accelerated Reader Teacher. Glorified babysitting, really. I watched three different classes read for half an hour and signed off that some of students took tests. Some took to stargazing; apparently they have not yet learned how to sit still for hours on end reading.

I had planed to go buy a new pair of black shoes, but the stores were not open at 0900 when I went. Honestly, I did not want to hang about for an hour, not when I knew I had to be somewhere later. I cannot wait for this spring and I can spend an afternoon at the Botanical Garden reading, knitting, or just resting in the three hour block between my morning and evening classes. Current weather is not ideal for that at all.

PS--Hey Sis, Mom wanted you to know her cell phone is a Nokia 6030.