Monday, January 23, 2012

A family that watches TV together...

I'm not sure why but both Hamlet and Darwin are a lot mellower in this house than they were in the "country estate," and often, when I sit on the sofa to watch TV, all the furry children (well, except for Evil Magellan) want to be on or near my lap, as this photograph attests.

Now that we're pretty much settled here, and the house in the country continues to get some traffic (one more showing today and one "Under consideration" from the three showings on Saturday), I'm looking forward to getting back to my research so that I can finish the book manuscript on time (by June 1st is my deadline, August 31st is the publisher's). The move and its concomitant and unending "to do" lists have not been conducive to getting work done so I haven't had a chance to do much more than think about my project for the past three weeks. I hope to get back on the groove starting Wednesday (tomorrow I go up to my small college on the hill).

In addition to my book work, I received two readers' comments on a chapter I'm contributing to an edited collection of Transcendentalist women and they were very encouraging although also very demanding in the changes they suggested. All of the suggestions make sense and will make the chapter much better than it is right now so I want and need to devote a good amount of time to re-thinking that work. The editors wanted me to turn it around mid-February but I asked for more time since the changes will be substantial. The good thing is that I know where I have to go with that piece and am excited to get started.

This semester I'm going to finally honor my research leave and am cutting back on most, if not all, of the service endeavors I was involved in last semester. Except for only a few projects, I am going to devote my time to what it needs to be mostly devoted to: getting my scholarship finished. And I think that being away from the campus definitely helps because the distractions and possibilities for deviating from that purpose are significantly less.

Even though my basement office here tends to be much colder in winter than I'd prefer, I like that it's quiet and secluded and I can close the door and focus. I also like that when I need to take a break, there's lots of good options to do so. For example, today was a hard day of a visit to the endodontist in the morning and then two visits to my general dentist, all in the span of three hours. What's the best way to end a day like that? Well, we decided to walk Lizzy to the nearby Jeni's Ice Cream and my husband enjoyed some Whiskey and Pecans ice cream while I chose The Milkiest Chocolate in the World.

It's definitely true what they say, that all is well that ends well.

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