SNOW!!

This past week has brought some incredible snow. We woke up Thursday morning to around 7-10 inches of it. Nearly all of the roads in the entire state were covered and the major interstate highway was closed for part of the night. It was beautiful! The only downside to our snow day was that the University was still open and I had to miss the first day of two of my classes. Major bummer. Aside from the many times that I regretted not being able to get out of the driveway, we enjoyed the day at home. We played outside with J.J. and had a snowball fight. It was still a productive day, because I submitted my first article for publication! I've been working with a professor and some other students at the University this past semester on a project and I finally submitted it for review to a major journal. We should hear back in month, and hope that they'll let us do revisions and re-submit. It would be really exciting if they accepted it, because I am first author. :) Which means that someone could cite "Cisco et al.". Cool!
So, with missing the first day of some classes and one of our jobs not starting until next week, the first week of school was odd. We've had a good and productive weekend at home, with lots of reading and starting first assignments due tomorrow. We hoped to visit family this weekend, but many of the roads are still very covered and we got more snow today. We decided it was safest to stay home and venture out another weekend when we don't have 6+ inches on the ground.
This is what we saw on Thursday morning... J.J.loves to catch snowballs in the air. So much snow!! Have a safe and warm week!

Unlikely Friends

In case you haven't heard us tell this before, J.J. has an unlikely friend. He is my sister's pet mouse. It's incredible, but J.J. loves this little guy! He gets really excited if you ask him where "Mousy" is, then he'll run to the cage and sit, waiting for you to take out the mouse and let him lick it. Then he'll let you put it on his face or back. Bizarre. We didn't believe it before we saw these pictures that my mom took. The strangest fact is that J.J. and my mom's cat fight over the mouse! And not to see who will get to eat it, but who will get to cuddle with it! Now that's just plain weird.

Final Day of Winter Break

Today is the last day of winter break. Tomorrow the spring semester begins. We have had a great holiday and break. It's the first time that I haven't worked through a break, and it's been nice. Not nice being unemployed, but great to have the time to de-stress and prepare for another semester. We've made good use of our time. We've read a lot, spent time with J.J. and family, and done a lot around the house that gets neglected during the semester. For example, I have baked homemade bread (no more buying it!), made homemade granola, homemade lentil soup, tomato soup, and learned how to made coconut curry tofu. I've also done yoga almost everyday (every week-day) and we've cleaned and organized all of our files, cabinets, and drawers. We hope that starting the semester with a clean and organized house will help us keep it throughout the semester. Here is some of our break in pictures: We got snowed in for two days last week! We bundled up and took J.J. out to play in it. We've observed the family of deer return to our neck of the woods. Or rather, our backyard. And Mom got some touching photos of J.J. this week.

A Fresh New Year

Ah, a fresh new year is upon us. 2010 was a good year, but everyone I know is optimistic about 2011, including myself.

We had a very low-key New Year's Eve and Day, in which we stayed up until 12:01, kissed each other and J.J. and went to bed. It was very nice. We both always have resolutions for the New Year, and have been good about keeping them for the past few years. I have a few, but the most important is a changed mind-set. My goal is to endeavor to alter how I view graduate school and my role in it. This might be quite difficult, given the fact that I've always given 150% of myself in school as long as I can remember. But what I hope to accomplish, or at least move nearer to, is an approach to school that is more calm, less stressed, less rushed, and...well, less focused on perfection. I'm not perfect, of course, but I'm never content if I don't ace everything I attempt. I'm not saying that this will be an experiment in under-achievement - far from it. I just want to do my best without putting so much pressure on myself to have the perfect graduate school career. Because honestly, that is not what is important to me. I don't want to be an R-1 researcher someday. I don't even know if I want to be a full-time professor. So it doesn't make sense to put myself through bouts of vomiting and illness to achieve some mystical level of perfection that is not truly important to me. Here's what I care about - family. And time with that family. That's my New Year's resolution.
We're really enjoying our break. It's given us time to enjoy things that we don't get to do during the school year. Such as wandering around Toys'R'Us, reading for hours at Barnes and Noble, taking walks in the snow with J.J., and reading books that aren't homework. It's been fantastic.
One night we played a game called Balance and we got 10 pieces to balance!

Today we took J.J. for a walk in the snow. It was really beautiful.


So it's been the best break. We start again next week, and though I will miss being off, I hope that my efforts toward changing my attitude will make this semester far more enjoyable than the past.
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and are as optimistic about 2011 as we are!

A Very Merry Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas this year. Christmas Eve we drove to Jonathan's mom's house, where we spent the evening with family. Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents and enjoyed a tasty breakfast.

J.J. loves to wake people up - here he is waking up Lydia on Christmas morning.

Jonathan and J.J. opening up a present.
Christmas afternoon we drove to Jonathan's Dad's house where we opened presents with the extended family and had a yummy pasta dinner with lots of desserts. The highlight of Christmas is always watching kids open presents.

Me and my 12 year-old niece who is as tall as I am!
A few days after Christmas we took my sister and her boyfriend out for an afternoon of laser tag and bowling. The boys kicked our butts in laser tag, but half of our team were under 5', so that's our excuse.

Jonathan and Will after laser tag.

We were supposed to be doing a "tough guy" look - but Amanda just smiled and I look silly. :)