The Mysteries of October

This has been the weirdest month.

First, the snow. Not even sleet, but real tree-padding snow. I'm out there at 6am, trying to leave for work, still wearing my spring jacket, desperately searching for an ice scraper, but at the same time distracted from my swearing and car-scraping task by the breathtaking, sparkling, otherworldliness of the first snowfall. And this year it turned out to be even more otherworldy because of the leaves still on trees, making it appear as if we lived in a world of giant cauliflower. For awhile, I felt awfully happy to live in Minnesota.

Then, Dave and I close on our house this Thursday. Which is also weird, because just a little over 2 months ago Dave didn't even have a job and a little black cloud constantly hovered over our heads. So how WEIRD it is that all of a sudden now we're going to have a house? How did that happen? It has a "poof!" wish fulfillment quality to it, even though clearly we put in a lot of work to make this happen.

Also weird: being a student again. The reading, the group work, the awkward ice breakers and small talk during breaks, the research papers, the funny little cliques and battling egos. It's pulling me back to the late 90s-early 00s when I was last a graduate student, feeling those insecurities and ambitions once more. But this time it's more complicated because I'm used to being in charge of the classroom now, and it's hard for me to not jump in and take the lead. After the first day I thankfully realized that I needed to tone down the Hermione Granger stuff, and allowed myself to be appropriately passive...which in the end made things nicer for all, myself included. But it only adds to the mysteriousness of this October...me sitting there in class thinking "what am I doing sitting here in a class?" as if just waking up from a fitful dream.

Hope your October is full of happy and mysterious surprises as well!

Neglectful

As it's been pointed out to me, I've been rather neglecting the blog. Not so long ago I was thinking of doing two blogs...and yet now I can barely maintain the one. Shows what I know.

But here comes the excuses.

Since Dave is now once again employed. And while neither of us make great money (that's what you get for going into social services), together we do ok. So we decided to gather all our resources, time and energy together and make the Big Move. Turns out buying a house is kind of an involved thing.

On top of the Big Move, I started my graduate program. And Dave, of course, is getting used to his new job.

Anyway, we found our "dream" house! Thank goodness, because for awhile there I was thinking we'd be stuck with "frustrating compromise" house. This afternoon we have the inspection, which is causing me some anxiety. I mean...it's become pretty obvious by now that things in my life do NOT often travel a smooth road. So I'm holding my breath, waiting for the next crisis to occur. Hopefully I'm wrong and those "wait...you CAN'T have what you want after all!" days are behind us. But I've thought that before, too, and have been proven wrong. Which is why I'm wringing my hands over the inspection.

I'll continue to post updates, and after today I should have some photos to share as well.

Oh Deary Me...

This has been a roller coaster summer. No lazy, carefree days...just arms-out screaming as life plunges us to the depths and then just as fast raises us to the heights, and nobody can see anything because everything is just moving too fast. Hair in our faces. Whiplash necks. Hoarse throats.

But at least we're on the upswing of the roller coaster now. Dave got a new teaching position, after a summer of much anxiety and dark imaginings. Which means we'll once again push forward on the house-hunting. It's funny how Good Things tend to come on their own terms. We wanted to buy a house in June/July because we knew that period offerred the rare window of time when we wouldn't be swamped by the "education calendar" ~ if you work in education, you understand the importance of timing everything out just so. So it's kind of another little test that we'll be (hopefully) buying a home/moving right at the beginning of a school year, while Dave is adjusting to a new school and while I'm adjusting to balancing full-time work with full-time graduate school. Literally, the timing probably couldn't be worse. But we really need to make this happen before the snow flies and (perhaps more importantly) before certain tax incenstives expire.

So I won't complain! Not complaining! We're very happy with this development. Perhaps it's just that the universe really, really wants to make sure we want this house...I mean, short of an avalanche or falling trees, it seems every obstacle has been thrown at us. Actually, I take that back. I better not tempt fate by saying more ~ I can already hear it mocking "I'll give you something to complain about!" All the best things in my life have come on their own tardy schedule, so I'll just be content that we're able to move forward now. But do know this. If we've ever done favors for people, we'll be calling in those favors over the next few months (I feel like the Godfather when I say that..."there may come a time when I call upon you to perform a service"). And I also suspect I'll be using my full allotment of vacation time by the end of December, which will make for a very grumpy spring.

Other than that great news, we've been getting healthier. I've been happily losing the weight I gained over this summer (at some point, both Dave and I decided that since life had become particularly hard, it meant that calories suddenly wouldn't count...like a free pass or compensation).

And for being such an axious summer, we have had a particularly good summer in terms of getting together with friends. Our friends are such a blessing! Never has that been more apparent.

Funny how all toppled things end up righting themselves in due time.

And now, I'm taking tomorrow off! We're meeting with a mortgage broker and enjoying one last splash of free time before Dave officially starts his new position on Monday. Yay!

HP Update

I've had some questions on where HP is at. How lovely! Thanks for asking.

This blog was meant to chart HP's progress, along with my thoughts on the struggles and victories found in writing my first novel. But it's turned into a more general "what's going on in mylife" blog. Especially because this has been such a frustrating and tumultuous year, it's been quite therapeutic blogging. Thank you blog! And thank you commentors! And more often than not, I find it difficult to talk about my progress on HP. I mean...I'm at the revising stage, so it's really the writing equivalent of cleaning out and organizing a closet, which is very time-consuming and involving for me but maybe not so interesting to other people. Earlier in the writing process would have been a better time to blog ~ that's when all the exciting stuff happens! But at that point blogging would also have been an unwanted distraction. So I've just been updating about HP when something interesting happens, rather than sharing what's been going on for the last month or two...which includes weeding out excessive "to be" construction, clarifying time shifts, questioning my overuse of adjectives, and other "house-keeping" (boring but necessary) tasks.

As for the blog itself, I'm finding that I'm not sure where I want to keep its focus. If I'll return to focusing primarily on writing/teaching/etc., or if I'll keep it focused on the general doings of my life. I need to think about that. The blog is 1-year old now, so perhaps it's a good time to decide what I really want it to be.

But to answer the questions about HP...I am working on it. Every week. In some cases every day. Never fear! Progress is being made. It won't be long before I'm trying to pawn copies off on people and begging for feedback. So, what IS happening?

Well, I thought the first 100 pages were totally finished. But then I read a printed version of those first 100 pages...and for some reason reading something in print is a very different experience than reading something from a computer screen. I tell my students that all the time. In fact, I go so for as forcing my students to bring actual printed copies of their drafts to their writing groups, and then read those drafts out loud to each other. And when meeting with students, we always start by reading part of their work out loud. The flaws usually become immediately apparent. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps when seeing something on a computer, your mind goes on auto-pilot and compensates for problems...or at least makes them easier to deny ("hmm, that doesn't seem right but nobody will notice"). But on paper it's far easier to read something the way other people will read it. It's kind of like the difference between purposely looking at yourself in a mirror versus accidentally catching a glimpse of yourself in a mirror. Know what I mean? So when revising this section on the computer, I was like "sure, that's good enough" and felt ready to move on. But by the time I finished reading it on paper, each page was covered with red ink, question marks, and frownie-faces.

Anyway. It needed some clean-up. Nothing creative or fun. Just proofreading. So that's what I'm doing now, and hope to finish today so I can finally move onto the middle part of the novel... which I've been talking about doing since last fall.

All this trouble will serve me well as an example next time I teach, when students suggest you can just read a paper over once and call it "revision."

Tall buildings, Impressionism, and Buddy Guy

Dave and I have returned from our escape to Chicago! What a swell way to celebrate my birthday. I'm going to be a lazy blogger and just list some of the fun things we did on our jaunt.

~ Took Amtrak down and passed the time listening to Devil in the White City on my iPod

~ Ate macaroni and cheese in the dining car (I've always wanted to dine on a train)

~ Deftly avoided most beggars

~ Had popcorn at Garrett's

~ Enjoyed brunch at the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building

~ Explored the Rookery and its Frank Lloyd Wright designed lobby

~ Ate hot dogs and chocolate cake at Portillo's

~ Saw authentic pirate ship treasure, dinosaur skeletons, almost every conceivable animal (in stuffed form), Egyptian sarcophogi (sp?), and took a stroll through the Earth's evolutionary history in the Field Museum of Natural History. Oh! They also had those cool plastic-molding machines that they used to have at Como Zoo!

~ Splashed around the fountains at Millenium Park

~ Saw French Impressionist, modern American, and modern European paintings at the Chicago Institute of Art (and yes, we did pose fittingly in front of American Gothic = see photo)

~ Saw these weird minature rooms at the Chicago Institute of Art...I can't describe them, nor did we think to take photos. They're like dollhouse rooms, except made with obsessive authenticity and craftsmanship, each room representing a specific country and time period

~ Saw Buddy Guy perform at his own blues club, and got his autograph

~ Successfully avoided shopping on Mag Mile (ok, I did stop in Macy's and Nordstrom's for somethings in particular but that was it)

~ Took tea at The Drake's Palm Room, and then spent the night (my birthday night) in one of their fancy-shmancy executive suites

~ Received a gorgeous (albeit cumbersome) bouquet of birthday flowers from wonderful Dave

~ At Oak Street Beach we fed a seagull some Garrett's Popcorn. He liked it.

~ On a blustery evening we walked along the lake to Navy Pier

~ Visited Navy Pier's stained glass museum

~ Took a skyline boat tour

Things we wish we had time for, but will have to wait until next trip:

~ Ride the El (didn't do it on this trip...we were within walking distance to just about everything and our hop on/hop off tour did the driving for us)

~ See more of Chicago's neighborhoods

~ Visit the Shedd Aquarium

~ Dave wants to see the submarine at the Museum of Science and Industry

~ Hit more nightlife (I was being kind of Old Lady on this trip; except for the blues club we took it easy at our hotel most nights)

~ Get some deep dish pizza (we did have stuffed pizza on this trip, but didn't make it to Pizzeria Uno or Gino's)

~ Do the architecture boat tour (and a history tour to boot)

~ Get on Oprah

David Day and Terri Day

Every summer Dave and I indulge ourselves with special days meant to celebrate all we've each accomplished over the year...and to counteract any tendencies toward taking each other for granted. And plus, don't you think we all deserve more attention? Adults barely even celebrate their own birthdays! That's crazy! There should be multiple days every year where each of us holds the world back and devotes some focused time to celebrating our own unique brand of amazingness. Or, even better, allows someone else to shine the spotlight on us. So I host "David Day" and Dave hosts "Terri Day" and it's chock full o' fun! Frankly, I think I enjoy planning "David Day" even more than having my own "Terri Day." It's so fun planning a whole day around a single goal: showing someone you love how much you love them.

This year's round of "days" turned out to be more low-key than previous years...but more relaxing.

Dave woke up and was given a printed "David Day Agenda"along with a gift (books). I also made a huge breakfast for him, including eggs, sausage, butter-fried mushrooms, and homemade lemon/raspberry muffins (I got the recipe from SmittenKitchen.com, and I tell you it's freaking amazing!):

Those of you who follow this blog know that sometimes I force spa treatments on my long-suffering husband. Well....we has some left-over cuces, so I thought he might enjoy a cooling eye treatment to relax him before our day o' fun.

Then we went for a long walk at Hidden Falls and eventually enjoyed a picnic lunch (you can see some of the left-over lemon/raspberry muffins there...I wish I had one right now).

Then it was off to the MN History Center to see The Greatest Generation exhibition, the main attraction for Dave being this here armoured car. Dave sure loves armoured vehicles.

Since he loves armoured vehicles so much, I bought him this little souvenir.

Then we had a relaxing evening at home, where I made fresh salsa:

The next weekend was Terri Day, and since Dave is not as much into taking photos of every detail as I am, we don't have many photos to share of Terri Day. But Dave made breakfast in bed for me...quiche, scones, clotted cream, fresh pineapple, yogurt, and something called "wine soda." All things I love. He also bought me this beautiful bouquet:

Then we went to the Titanic exhibit at the Science Museum, had lunch on the terrace of The Liffey, and spent a relaxing evening watching a travel DVD about English villages that Dave surprised me with.

The video was hilarious (not intentionally). In one village by the sea, the tide would come and flood what looked to outsiders like a parking lot (or "car park" as they'd say). Rather than putting a sign up for visitors alerting them that it wasn't a car park, they instead just let people park there then gathered to laugh at them once the tide came in and visitors returned to find their cars underwater. They even took photos of the distressed car-owners as they struggled to move their cars, and then posted all the photos in the local pub....like a "wall of mockery." They interviewed one toothless nasty person from this village, who was like "ahh...we sympathize with the visitors, it's a tough thing..." Well, then how bout this. PUT UP A SIGN! How about doing something to stop it from happening, rather than just taking photos and laughing? Answer: it's more fun to mock. Dave called it Schadenfreude Village. In fact, every village they featured had a subtle (or not so subtle) "damn tourists" subtext. And while it was all obviously scripted, the villagers couldn't even pretend they were speaking extemporaneously...they'd insert pauses where they shouldn't be, stumble over their words, or speak all their lines in one breath: "You (pause) should-go-see-Aunt-Madge-she (very quickly, then followed by awkward pause) will set you up with a nice (long pause) pint." Anyway, it was very funny.

So, that's the story of David and Terri Days.

Since Last Time...

We've been busy, and so have had little time to blog. One of the fun things we had going on was bringing our nephew, Nick, to the slotcar track at Dave's favorite hobby store. Nick had a great time racing his slotcar, and we had a great time too. Nick is some kind of slotcar wizard. Neither Dave nor I were able to beat him in a race (and believe me, we tried...none of this "oh, let the kid win" stuff), and eventually the guy running the place gave Nick a more difficult track because Nick had so clearly mastered the track on which he started. And even with the more difficult track he figured that out pretty quickly too. There's skill to the slotcars...you have to ease up on the handle things (you can see this in the bottom photo) around the corners or else your car will go shooting off the track like a freaking bullet. So the trick is to keep the car going as fast as it can, but also to stay on the track. The cars we were using go about 80 miles per hour, but there are specialty-built ones that go well over 100...which is insane. After slotcars we went to the military museum...somewhere. I don't really know where it is ~ I'm a girl. That's Dave's kind of stuff, and I basically just went along to take photos. And finally we went on the trolley over by Lake Harriet. A really full day of various vehicle-oriented fun! We love spending time with Nick. He is such a sweet, smart, patient, and pleasant young man.

~

Other than that, there's been Dave's job search. He has an interview on Wednesday, but not for a teaching job. I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe that's a good thing? I mean, perhaps being a teacher is just more hassle than it's worth, especiallys since one could do many other (far easier) things and get paid more money...and not have teenagers swearing at you, parents blaming you because their student doesn't do their homework (yes...some parents do believe that teachers are merely hired parent-surrogates), and dealing with almost criminally insane administrators. Maybe THAT'S why the average career-span of a teacher is a mere 5 years ~ work constantly, little pay, and treated like poo. But on the other hand, Dave went through considerable time, sacrifice and money to switch careers and pursue teaching, and I'd hate for him to give it up so soon. He does have the "calling." And maybe there IS some magical school where he'll be treated as the well-educated, dedicated professional he is. Maybe he can find that school and be happy there. It could be just around the corner. So I have mixed feelings about him interviewing for non-teaching positions. But, goldangnabit, I also want to move...NOW! So I guess wherever the money is coming from, maybe that's ok for now.

~

As for me, I have been writing. I'm stuck in the revision whirlpool, however. I keep revising the same things over and over and over. Then I say "I promise next session I'll move forward" but then the next session I read over what I revised the previous day and see all kinds of little things that could be improved. The other day I spent 2 hours revising a single paragraph. At that point, it's not even "revising" anymore. Does this kind of nit-picking make the novel better? Well...yes, I do believe it does! A novel is nothing more than the sum of its parts, so each sentence needs to be improved if it can be. But it's also making it nearly impossible for me to actually finish the BIG revisions that are still awaiting my attention. They're like "hello! Over here in chapter 21! We've got faulty character development going on, so maybe you want to stop fretting over subject-verb agreement in that single chapter 3 sentence. We've got plot holes to fill! How about spending a little time on that, lady?" I need to pull myself away from this charybdis and move forward toward bigger revisions.

~

Finally, we decided to head to Chicago for a week this summer. Yay! Even though suddenly one of us is without a job, we're STILL going to take a vacation. Take that! Take that, unemployment! We're going on vacation anyway. Neener, neener, neener! So what if you suddenly tanked our new home-buying and new car-buying plans. You can't keep us down! Maybe we'll get on Oprah and that will be the day she doles out both new homes and new cars to everyone in the audience! Maybe if we spend some time around her studio, telling passers-by our story, one of her producers will go "they're the face of this horrible economy!" and have us come on her show...which will somehow result in our own reality TV show! Ok, that would be pretty boring...pretty much just us going to Target, working at computers, and periodically getting up to go look in the fridge. So maybe we'll have our own talk show instead ~ I have ideas for that! And then while I'm on her show, I can slip her the MS of my novel and she'll LOVE it and make it the first in her "Unpublished Book Club" series, and then it will be made into a movie starting Toni Colette and Conan O'Brien in his first film role. And even if none of that happens, I hear Chicago has good pizza and a couple museums, so we're bound to at least have fun.