It's been nice to ease into my somewhat more relaxed summer schedule. I've actually been pretty productive at Getting things Done like critiques and planning for TNEO, but I've also done some reading, taking walks, etc. I finally signed up for Netflix and watched "Milk" last night. Good movie. I was young enough when the events in the movie ( Read more... )

I finished my teaching duties in the high school music magnet program yesterday in the early afternoon, and Stephan and I hit the road for Delaney Creek Park in southern Indiana. I'd been on a solo camping/hiking trip there back in October (I wrote about that in this post). I've been wanting to go back ever since!

( Trip Report with pictures )

The weather cleared up yesterday and Stephan, Chris, and I had a nice visit in Bloomington and a lovely walk in Yellowwood State Forest. Much of southern Indiana had some flooding in all the rains of Wednesday. The trail was quite wet , so we had to cross many impromptu streams. We also had to drive through some running water a couple of times ( Read more... )

Stephan wrote about our Thanksgiving eating/hiking/caving excursion here. I carried my new frame pack with about 15 pounds of stuff in it just to get used to it, because I'm planning to do some overnight hikes in the spring on the Adventure Trail and Knobstone TrailStephan did a great job of summarizing our trip, but I'll just add that I ( Read more... )

Ok, I did manage to come down with a cold from the camping trip I posted about.But it's not too bad. I'm still glad I went ( Read more... )

I posted a few days ago about getting a tent and preparing for a hiking/camping trip, but then the weather reports got worse and worse for Friday, so I wasn't sure what I'd end up doing ( Read more... )

Next week is mid-semester break at both Earlham College and Broad Ripple High School, so I get almost two whole days off ( Read more... )

I've always loved the outdoors, and have been hankering to spend a whole day in the woods hiking, bringing lunch, my journal, and other essentials. But I've never been one to sleep out of doors. I've thought at times that I should try camping, because after all, I have characters in my stories and novels who do, and it would be research, right? ( Read more... )

Varda's appetite has come back with a vengeance. She's even eaten some dry food, which I wasn't sure she could do with the very limited number of teeth she has left. She was a pretty bedraggled and woozy kitty when we brought her home on Wednesday evening, but she's acting pretty much like her old self now. She's still an old, skinny cat with ( Read more... )

The Indy Feral volunteer came back with the six cats that had been trapped in our yard, now all spayed and neutered and given their shots. In addition to the original five, a largish male cat I hadn't seen before ( Read more... )