I should be blogging about my volunteer position, but since it got rained out Tuesday morning, I'll have to wait another week. What a tantalizing little clue! What could it be!? Feel free to guess. I've only told one person (a classmate) other than Tom. It is something I have never done before.

You have been in my thoughts a lot the last few weeks. I'm so glad Connor's surgery went OK Monday and that y'all are back home. Thank you for being there for me this spring even with so much on your own plate. I admire you in a lot of ways.

I'm off to the beach in 5 hours! The guys have already started driving me crazy. Can I say "zip it!" every time someone tries to talk to me this weekend, or would that totally cement my crotchety old lady status? I am still looking forward to plowing through some books. I can put my earphones in and if I ignore anyone, they'll assume I just couldn't hear them. Right?

I will try to tweet, but who knows if I'll have a cell phone signal. I'm guessing I'll lose it outside of Corpus Christi. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Blogging is kinda hard these days. Things are tough, and the "What should I blog about?" question doesn't always yield a topic that meets my "personal benefit outweighs depressing my readers" condition. I feel good overall, but this week it's like every day has been a week in itself. Everything changes so fast! I struggle to keep up. This week, I realized that my current schedule isn't cutting it, and I need to put in more hours over the weekend. Seriously, I'm doing a MILLION times better with productivity than I was this summer, but it's not quite enough for this semester. I'm going to the office tomorrow to get some work done. I need to make a to-do list for every little thing I have going on right now, from various work projects, to grad school applications, to class, to LIFE. That (and formatting a big fat data file) is what I hope to accomplish at the office tomorrow.

Why not a countdown? That requires minimal effort!

1 day til we grill steaks.
4 days til I try out a new volunteer position (you won't believe it...but it will make an interesting blog, so I'll save it!)
6 days til we leave for Sharkathon.

Intermission: Sharkathon is a fishing tournament at Padre Island National Seashore. We are tent camping the whole time. I am entered in the trout division, which is less of an investment than the shark division. This is my first year to attend. I plan to listen to my MP3 player and plow through some more of the Sookie Stackhouse novels (I'm on book 3). I am seriously looking forward to it even though I'll be deserted with a bunch of smelly boys for 4 days (Tom, Clint, Reade, and John).

11 days til my first exam of the semester!
15 days til my next conference presentation - this one's in Dallas, which is kinda nice.
About a month and a half until we lose an hour (daylight savings time) and the clock in the truck is finally in sync again. It's been off by an hour, but why change it? We're so close to having daylight savings time do the work for us! This is the same date that my grad school app is due...

And with that, I'll close. I sincerely hope everyone has a great weekend!

I cooked a lot this week that I'd never done before.

Grilled eggplant. It was good. Tom loved it. I'd just as soon eat zucchini.

Quinoa. I made this recipe. I loved it, Tom could live without it but said he wouldn't cry if I made it again.

Lentils. I made this salad. Not much to look at but tasty. It was a good lunch.

Hummus. I used this recipe. Really good. Used it as a dip for carrot slices.

And now, I'm going to quit washing my hair and get dredlocks, quit wearing deodorant, and stop shaving.

Just kidding.