we interrupt our regularly scheduled lack of programming to inform you . . .

. . . that tonight, for the first time in almost three years of marriage, all the laundry is done.

all of it. all clean, all at the same time.

special times, ladies and gentlemen. special times.

"She looked like the Soul's Awakening, done in pink."

Oh my oh my.

Dallas has been invaded by Aldi. Three stores opened this week, all close to our house.

Today, I went to the nearest one, which is three minutes away.

It was kind of an emotional experience.

I felt a new dawn breaking as I strolled aisles packed full of things that cost $1.49.

Beautiful.

And now, for your reading pleasure, we have yet another monstrously long and self-indulgent post in which the author rambles hither and yon.

The Bradford Pears bloomed overnight! Yesterday they Weren't, and today they Are-- a lovely surprise this morning, driving to school with my windows down. It reminded me of the year my family went to Scotland. We were gone for three weeks, from mid-March till early April. Spring was late that year, and sudden apparently, because when we left it was winter, and when we returned spring was well underway. I remember driving home from the airport and realizing that the row of Bradfords outside my parents' neighborhood had already bloomed and gone, that I'd missed that week or two when the world's at the tipping point, when winter melts. That's where we are this week here in Dallas, and I'm so glad I'm here to watch. It's like a happy secret that's just become known, and you can see in people's faces that they know and they're wondering if you do too.

I've settled on a theme song for my junior year: 'wake me up when it's over,' Norah Jones. Though, having said that, I will also say that my acute Junioritis is actually more under control lately. Of course, spring break being on the horizon doesn't hurt any. The past four weeks have been one scholastic emergency after another, largely owing to two major creative writing assignments due the same week and then catching the flu and getting behind in everything else. After today things calm down substantially, so I'm going to clean my house and start feeding us again. I'm not sure what Dan and I have been living on, seeing how long it's been since I cooked a good meal. I keep trying to apologize for being a horrible wife, but Dan seems to still think I'm a good one. Because he's just like that. (I like him.)

In related news, I'm happy (and rather surprised/relieved) to report that my first portfolio of poetry for this semester got really good reviews and that my first short story ever was also met with a pleasant balance of praise and criticism. As in, my teacher had as many criticisms as with my peers' stories, but had a surprising amount of praise as well. Dr. Bondurant is a very frank critic-- a little intimidatingly so, actually. I was nervous about my table reading and review, but he actually seemed pretty pleased with my work, in as much as he ever seems pleased.

Oh dear. I don't mean to make him sound like an ogre. He's just very. . . to the point. If you see what I mean. Doesn't hem and haw much, or squiffle about the bush. He goes straight for it with the pruning shears.

Actually, technically speaking, it wasn't my first story. I wrote several as a child, and a couple as an adolescent. They were unfortunate. My last was written at fourteen. It was entitled "Bella," and it chronicled a young girl's Self-Absorbed Attitude and Subsequent Awakening of the Soul to New Depths of Tenderness and Love and Awareness of Beauty. As I recall, the catalyst for this transformation was a tumble off a garden wall whilst Bella was walking by the light of the full moon, which resulted in a broken ankle, weeks in bed, and much Time for Reflection. I was monstrously proud of this piece, which Claire and I subsequently staged, with myself in the title role. Being a very subtle, internal-monologue type story, it was impossible to reproduce without a narrator, so I recorded all the necessary bits of exposition onto a tape recorder, which was artfully concealed on the set. We choreographed it so that one of us would be near the recorder any time it was called for so's to turn it on discretely. It was all very artsy. We were most impressed with ourselves for how artsy it was.

And that's quite enough rambling. I should go to bed. I hope to dream of Edie, our newest friend, and a delightful friend she promises to be. Goodnight, all.

hi ho hi ho

Alright. I need to focus. (So you ask, why am I blogging? Good question.)

See, my days have a very different rhythm than ever before this semester, because I have no morning classes and probably won't have to go to school at all most Thursdays (which, in case you hadn't noticed, is today, and as per the above I am home all day). So whereas before I've done school in the morning and early afternoon and then had late afternoon to do housework and errands and such, now I have to reverse it and do housework in the morning. It's really dumb how hard a time I'm having of making the switch. I catch myself wandering around the house not getting anything done sometimes because it feels like I should be at school.

So. As I said. Time to focus. Which for me means a List.

Which brings me, at long last, to the point of this epistle. My head, I know, is a silly place, but I wanted to know if anyone else here (and I know that there are many inveterate list-makers on both sides of the family) shares this particular quirk: I have to make my lists in very strong black ink or I don't follow through. It's as if a list in pencil, or in a skritchy pen that's not writing smoothly, or (horrors!) colored ink just doesn't have as much authority. It's more like a suggestion-- "ahem, ah, miss? yes, you. well, I was just. . . yes, just going to suggest that if you, well, if you happen to find the time, you might-- and i'm not saying you absolutely have to, but you might consider cleaning out the refrigerator. . . but don't let me order you around."

For today's list I'm bringing in the Pilot V-5's. There's a pen that means what it says. I think a To-Do List written by a Pilot V-5 ought to be extremely convincing. The difference between being told to do something by Jimmy Stewart and being told to do it by Gary Cooper, if you see what I mean. You probably love Jimmy more, and will probably get around to doing the thing just to please him, but Gary makes you feel it Must Be Done.

So as I was saying-- does anyone else feel this way?

(probably not. I'm probably just being a silly.)

(ok. back to work.)

a scrub a day keeps the scum away

Oh dear. What a to-do. I just cleaned my shower. I will tell you, though surely most of my close acquaintances will already know this, how much I hate, despise, and loathe this most odious of tasks. What I shan't tell you is how long it's been, or how long it took me, or what percentage of the hot water in the tank it required, because any of the above would be most embarrassing if generally known.

But instead of complaining, I am going to focus on the valuable lesson I have learnt today:

"A scrub in time saves nine. . . or nineteen. . . or perhaps even twenty-nine. . ."

(heh heh heh. . . just realized this is our 100th post. Well. And such a post, too. I hope this isn't indicative of . . . something. . .)

And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

A this-and-thatish sort of post. . .

Thanksgiving with the Greens was SO MUCH FUN. I'm glad I like my inlaws as much as I do. (I do!)

It's a lovely cold-and-rainy day here, and while driving wasn't much fun it sure was wonderful to come home from school and have some tea and honey in the drizzly quiet, with train sounds from the freightyard every so often. I don't know what it is about the train whistle+rain combination, but it is evocative of so many things I can't quite understand but can feel. It's gotten really truly cold here at last. We woke this morning to find that the row of crape myrtles in our front yard have turned the most breathtaking mustard-gold color, tinged with crimson. I keep staring at them.

Since I'm starting to run out of schoolwork, I'm getting back into couponing this week. I stopped doing it when we moved because I didn't have time, but the great thing is that since I couponed so much over the summer we had a lot of basic supplies stockpiled and we've bought basically no household items other than food all semester-- no shampoo, toothpaste, razors, or anything like that. Today I did my first CVS deal since August, and let me tell you it was a great'un, even though I didn't have any extrabucks to start with. Here's an outline for those of you who might be interested (I guess that means you, Rebekah. . .): my total was $37, then I got it down to $21 with coupons. I paid that with a gift card, and got back $18 in extrabucks! $18, all in one fell swoop! It was so much fun. I'm officially back in the game now.

Last night I had trouble sleeping, and when I have trouble sleeping my brain likes to amuse itself by pestering me with unpleasantness. The variety of unpleasantness it chose last night was to drag up memories of almost-regrets. You know what I mean? Those things you've done, or said, or didn't do, or didn't say, that you don't quite regret, but which make you feel just a bit squiffly around the edges. If you thought about them long and hard enough you might start regretting them, just a little, but you'd have to take them very seriously, more seriously than they seem to deserve. And that's the trouble. At that time of night actual regrets are much less troublesome, because you know exactly what you think about them: you've processed them, you've decided that the incident was worth regretting, and thus you've been able to package it up and store it away in a little cubbyhole where it can sit out of sight and not cause mischief. These squiffly thoughts, however, aren't so easy to process. So they poke around in odd places in your brain and start making faces at you when you least expect it. Some of the things I was thinking about last night I haven't thought about in ages and really had almost forgotten. But my brain's awfully good at making trouble so it's no wonder it was able to dig them all up and dust them off to show them to me.

(explanation of title: I'm listening to a recording of various poems in my car this week, and Jabberwocky is on it. I love it ever so dearly.)

(One-two, one-two, and through and through,/His vorpal sword went snicker-snack!)