I'm a-leavin' on a jet plane (puddle-jumper, actually) for the wilds of Alabama and Arkansas and not-so-wilds of Tennessee for an extended weekend visit to my hometown of Hughes, Arkansas. It seems that the student body of the school district is so small that the district is being consolidated with Forrest City -- a community about thirty miles ( Read more... )

November: After the frenetic pace of October, November seemed downright sedate. I wore my suffragist sash to my polling place on election day, but people were much more interested in my purple hair. Le sigh. My Aussie aunt came to town and I got spend about an hour visiting with her just before she headed down south to meet back up with Mom and ( Read more... )

April: IT FINALLY STOPPED SNOWING! Praise Jesus, God, Buddha, Allah, Steve the Galactic Fruitbat, and His Noodlyness combined ( Read more... )

How are you? I'm good, really good. My summer has been pretty full with a couple of business trips, ten days of vacation in the deep south with my family and friends, and miscellaneous weekend shenanigans ( Read more... )

Scott had movers come to the house Friday to take the larger pieces of furniture and boxes of books, etc to his new domicile. When I had work to do or a concall on which to participate, it was fine. When I needed to actually talk with Scott, I fought to keep from choking up. It's still weird to see missing bits of furniture, artwork, and books but ( Read more... )

Five more hours and I am OUT OF THE OFFICE FOR WEEK! Yeah, doggies. Tonight, I'm getting a pedicure and then throwing some dirty clothes in the laundry and then packing my suitcase and not succeeding in going to be early. Tomorrow, Hubbyfink and I rising at the crack of dawn and hitting the road for Germantown, TN. WHOO HOO ( Read more... )

**Hubbyfink is recovering amazingly well after his surgery. As of today, it's been a full month since the tennis ball-size rock was removed from his head. He still fatigues easily and the deafness in his left ear is going to be permanent, but he is otherwise back to himself. He'll be home for another week and I'm trying to convince him to go back ( Read more... )

We had a beautiful Christmas. Christmas Eve gave us a dusting of snow, half of a workday, and a viewing of "The Hobbit". Scott and I even drove around looking at Christmas lights for a bit ( Read more... )

Two weeks ago, I was the Dallas suburb of Richardson attending Juniper routing protocol training and meeting the Texas-based part of my work organization. The class itself was poorly taught, but my team mates and I -- who took a similar course this summer in Columbus -- caught on to more of the hows and whys during the lab practicals. The best part ( Read more... )

Last Saturday we took off for a week of fun which was unlike any other vacation to my folks' house. For one, no one was home when we arrived. We expected this as Mom and Pete were down at their under construction lake house in NW Alabama and baby brother John was still in Knoxville to finish up summer school exams. With that knowledge, we took our ( Read more... )