Table Camera Pictures

I’ve put the pictures from the table cameras up on my photo album. There are a lot of great pictures there, here are a couple to whet your appetite:

Running off to Minnesota tonight — Grandma is auctioning off the rest of Grandpa’s farm equipment, the farm land and the farm house. It’s going to be a hard weekend, but I’m glad that I’ll have the opportunity to be there.

Swift kick in the gut…

I suppose I should have been expecting something bad to happen — it seems that any time something really good happens in my life, I get a swift kick in the gut a week or two later to remind me that life can suck, too.

Kim had warned me a few weeks ago that she might have trouble finding funding for my thesis work, but that the lab should be able to cover it if she couldn’t find money from her own grants. Well, her grants ran out, and the lab will have to start covering my grad salary, but they won’t pay me at the contractor salary that I’ve been making. The upshot? I’ll have to take a pay cut of 25% if I want to continue my thesis work.

So that’s now the big question. Do I want to continue my thesis work?

My intial gut reaction was, no, of course not. I quit my grad work in 2001 because I no longer wanted to life on a grad student’s salary — it was too much to have to constantly worry about how I was going to pay all my bills each month (answer: they didn’t always get paid…)

But, on the other hand, I’ve come so far, and I am at least in a different situation than I was before when I first quit. First of all, I’ll still have “real pay” for half of my work, so I won’t be dropping into the absolute pit of grad-student life again. Secondly, I have a husband who wants me to finish (if I want to finish), and will help out with expenses and cut our budget where we need to in order to make it work.

Back to the other side, though, I’ve been finding my thesis work unsatisfying and a slog for the last year. I find that I don’t necessarily care about the results, and I’ve been wondering if my choice to return was really wise. I’ve discovered that while my reason for leaving may have been primarily financial, it seems that it was also based on a true dissatisfaction with my choice of career.

I’ll regret it if I leave now.

I’ll be miserable if I stay.

Ugh.

Those weren’t clean, were they?

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

by Judy Blume

This is another book I picked up to release during Banned Books Week. Several of Blume’s books appear on the list of the most challenged books of 1999-2000, which is a complete mystery to me. I remember reading Blume’s books as a kid, and loving everyone one of them. This, however, was one I hadn’t read before.

Margaret is an 11-year-old girl with a Jewish father and Christian mother. Her parents gave up their religions when they married, and have been cut-off from her mother’s parents. Her father’s mother, however, has stuck by the family, and looks at Margaret as “her Margaret”. Margaret has grown up without a religion, which didn’t matter until her family moved to a suburb of New York where the girls talk about going to Sunday School or the Jewish Youth Center. Margaret is confused about where she belongs and her parents are no help.

We follow Margaret through her sixth grade year, anticipating “developing” and her first period. She also attends temple for the first time with her Grandmother for Rosh Hoshanna and church with a friend for Christmas Eve services.

As with most of Blume’s books, this as a good, honest coming-of-age tale for girls.

Wedding Pictures

My friends took a bunch of pictures with my camera while we were getting ready for the wedding and at the reception. I’ve posted these in on Flickr. I’ll post more pictures, for example from the disposable cameras, as soon as I get them.

Go Ask Alice

by Anonymous

I picked up this book to read and release in honor of Banned Books Week. It has been one of the most challenged books of 1990-2000.

This book is the diary of a teenager who gets caught up with drugs and struggles to free herself both from the drugs and from the stigma of having been part of “that crowd”. This is an excellent book, even 30 years after it’s first publication, and can certainly speak to teens of today. However, the book does not answer any questions, but should instead be used as a springboard for communication about drugs and their dangers.

I’m not sure why this book has been challenged so much, since it does not glorify drug use. I suppose it also talks about how great a high can be, which could make drugs more attractive; however, if anyone actually reads the whole book, including the epilogue, they will understand that the dangers far outweigh the highs.

A note from Snopes: this book is actually written by Beatrice Sparks, an author who has written several books, all purported to be true stories, about teens who’s lives are ruined by drugs, pregnancy, sex, etc.

First Wedding Pic…

I heard from the photographer today — I’d wanted to make sure that we had paid him for all of his hours. He’s been working on the pictures, and is hoping to have proofs ready for us in the next week or so. Yay!

In the meantime, he sent us this one to enjoy:

[Credit: Tom Madden, MPI]

Andrew looks a little embarassed to be with the rest of us…

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

3.5/5 stars

We finally got to go to a movie in the theater today. It’s been a really long time, at least for us. We decided that of the movies we want to see, Sky Captain would be best on a large screen, and boy were we right. It’s a beautiful film to look at and a lot of fun to watch. Andrew commented, though, that it’s too bad the plot made not one bit of sense. I disagreed — if you stand back and squint, the plot makes perfect sense.

Not Quite Married….

We came home yesterday to find out that we still weren’t quite married. The fill-in minister who performed the wedding didn’t realize that we would be in Virginia until just before the ceremony. She’s licensed in DC and MD, but not VA. Oops.

We had two choices — we could either re-say our vows in front of another officiant that she had lined up for us, but then our license would reflect the date and place where we re-took our vows, or we could go through some rigamarole at the Fairfax Courthouse. Andrew didn’t have strong feelings, but I really wanted our marriage to be recorded as the day we celebrated with our friends and family. So…we ended up at the courthouse today filling out paperwork. It should be official sometime next week.

Honeymoon

We’re back from the honeymoon…it did not last long enough, but at least we were able to get some down-time. We stayed at Creek Crossing Farm, a bed & breakfast in Lincoln, Virginia, just a couple miles from where the W&OD trail ends/begins. We took our bikes and went out a couple times, and we took our books and read a lot.

Tuesday

We started the day with a wonderful breakfast of fresh scrambled eggs, toast and fried apples. Then we hopped in the car with our bikes and went out for our first bike ride in a long time. Unfortunately we had forgotten that one of my migraine triggers is the sudden cessation of stress. Yup. About 3.5 miles out my vision started to fuzz out. We turned around, and biked back to the car as my vision fuzzed in and out. By the time we reached the car, the headache had started, though I did pop some Tylenol on the trail (I’m never far from a source of aspirin or acetaminaphen).

I was feeling stubborn, though, and only slept for an hour when we got back to the B&B. Then we went off to town to get lunch and check out the shops. In Purcellville, we stopped in a couple shops. One was a toy store with way cool toys, including some mint in-the-package toy sets from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There was also a full-sized Lego Darth Vader there (not for sale).

Then we went down the street to Final Draft, a used book store. I found a couple more books for Banned Books Week and Andrew even picked up a Bookcrossing book. When I mentioned Banned Books Week to the clerk, she looked up the website and list of 100 most challenged books of 1990-2000, and commented on how many of the summer reading books for the local school were on the list.

After the bookstore, we drove the ~10 miles to Leesburg to check out the shops and restaurants there. (We had almost exhausted the restaurants in Purcellville.) We went into a few of the shops on King Street, and then stopped for dinner at an Italian place, also on King.

In the evening we went back to the farm and vegged in front of the TV with the dogs and cats of the house.

Wednesday

Another great breakfast started the day — this time waffles and fried apples. Yum! The we packed up the bikes for our second attempt at the W&OD trail. This ride went better. We went 15.4 miles round-trip! Our longest ride so far. On our return trip we stopped at a picnic table in Purcellville for a picnic. I took lots of pictures of the ride, which can be seen in my photo album.

We went back to the farm after our ride, showered and napped for a little while. Then we walked up to the Goose Creek Burial Grounds, which were about half a mile up the road from the farm. There was a wide range of gravesites there, ranging from as recent as 2003 to as old as the 1700s.

In the evening we popped up to Purcellville for dinner, then back to the farm to veg out with the animals in front of the TV again.

Thursday

If we had many more breakfasts like we did at the farm, we’d be 500 pounds in a year! This morning we had buckwheat pancakes and more fried apples. Then we packed up the car, and started back home stopping in Middleburg on the way. Middleburg had a wonderful Main Street filled with shops. We shopped for a couple hours, had lunch at a deli just off the main street, shopped for a bit longer, and then hopped in the car and drove home.

Wonderful, relaxing few days.