In which I am done in by Sundance.

Not the film festival, sadly. (Damn Robert Redford!) No, by the Benjamin Moore color, painted over a medium blue that proved to be the hardest color ever to cover. It took me four quarts and two days to paint one small bedroom (yes, I'm aware that four quarts equals a gallon, but an optimist buys her paint one quart at a time, thereby providing endless amusement for the paint store guy who always gives Peter a lollypop.) It did turn out well, and Peter's in favor, so I'm just glad to be done.

In garden news, our blooming tree out back is blooming, I've decided to nurture some vines that might be weeds, might be flowers by providing them with a trellis, and one of two rosebushes seems to have survived the winter and the onslaught from rabbits. I think I'll replace the other one. Finally, goofy self-portrait from Peter - he's such a big and capable guy these days.

Spring dancing

Apologies for the photo quality - the no-flash policy during Grace's recital made for some dark and long-angle photos. But the recital was fun - I've never heard the techno version of "It's a Small World," much less seen an acompanying tap routine, but it worked and was great fun for the dancers. The ballet number went really well too, and the other children's dancing was alternately impressive and very, very cute.

Peter waited a long time to give Grace some flowers after the recital, and they were both equally pleased with the moment.

Window box time

We put in a few cold-hardy window box plants today, just to get our spring officially started. We stuck to vinca, violas, and petunias, so we'll likely have to replenish as the summer progresses, but it really is too chilly for much else yet. When it gets a week or two warmer, I'll put coleus in pots for the front steps and get nice hanging baskets. Not to mention do a ton of weeding and decide what vegetables to put in since we're planning to move before full tomato harvest time. I'm thinking carrots, beans, peas, herbs, and just a few tomatos.

In which I am a flower girl.

Ok, not a *literal* flower girl. But if you've ever attended a wedding where the charming child attendants refuse to do their part and must be gently walked down the aisle by a slightly embarassed parent [yes, I have done that, but not today], then you've basically seen Peter's soccer game today. It's not that we're Soccer Stage Parents who are forcing him to play - it's more that he loves the *idea* of soccer but not so much the actual going out on the field all by his ownself.

So, sigh, enter Mama. Yes, I joined my kid's soccer game today (not, I hasten to add, anywhere near the ball, and I stayed well out of the way of the 4-6 year old players) in order to get him on the field. And he loved it! and he kicked the ball! and he ran! as long as I was within a couple of yards of him. All was well until the 12 year old ref gently told me I wasn't allowed on the field. I pleaded only for a moment - "My kid is four! He's scared to be out here alone!" before realizing that I didn't want to be the mom who disobeys the referee. So I exited and that was the last of Peter's participation in the game, but I have high hopes for later on in the season. His coach has been totally decent about the whole thing and very gentle to Peter, plus the coach amused me by openly rolled his eyes when the ref sternly told the kids to play a "clean game," since dirty play is just not quite within their reach, at least not intentionally.

We did not take photos of me on the field, but here are a couple of the kids in soccer gear, including Grace in full playing mode - she took a turn as the goalie today [not pictured!] and did pretty well. The boy/girl colors of their soccer uniforms are totally accidental, by the way.

Unexepcted garden excitement

So, the most exciting garden thing that has ever happened in our garden... well, it happened! In our garden! And it's only going to get more exciting from here on out. That? in the picture? Next to our house, nestled in amongst the daylilies? Would be a duck, in a nest, sitting on eggs. We'll have to do some research on proper distance-caring for a duck, and maybe we can somehow help her and her eventual ducklings across the two busy streets to the modest pond nearby. But how fun - a nesting mama and (hopefully) little ducklings in our yard!



Other garden happenings pale in comparison, but here they are: the beebalm is going wild, various things I've forgotten the names of are growing and budding and blooming, and the oregano has staged a very vigorous comeback.

Happy Earth Day!

We celebrated Earth Day by using our feet and our fannies to bike ourselves to school, instead of fossil fuels. It was fun, Peter did great on the longest bike ride of his short little life, and now that weather permits, we'll do it more often.

Editing to add: I had a fascinating conversation with Peter about Star Wars today, which largely involved the issue of whether Yoda has claws (his argument: He is a creature, Mom! He *has* sharp claws!) and how to spell "Darth Vader." I spelled it out for him carefully several times, and he started to object that I wasn't calling him "Dark Vader" so we had a talk about Dark vs. Darth. Peter got increasingly frustrated and then finally asked, "Mom, how do you spell coo-coo head?" Anybody need to guess whom he might have been thinking about there?

Anyway, the overall news there is that we're raising him up right, to revere light sabers and argue nuance about science fiction movies.

Dissertation week continues...

So for a project that's done, it turns out that this dissertation is really more like "done." Meaning, there's done, and then there's done. Today I went to a little class held by the Dissertation Office that was on formatting and other troubling topics, to find that my title page is all wrong and my table of contents is similarly all wrong but that "there is still time." One helpful strategy for prospective Ph.D.'s who might be out of town during the potentially hazardous 10 day period preceeding commencement was to give "someone you trust" some of the official dissertation-printing paper ($35 for 500 sheets!) in case you need to make changes to the Official Offical copy (not to be confused with an of the ninety-seven preliminary copies.) This Trustworthy Soul then makes your changes, or prints from a document you email them, and toddles over to the Dissertation Office with the precious replacement pages.

I also had a fun conversation with my advisor today, who was worried that on page 37 and then again on page 242 I neglect to mention the difference between history understood in according to two particular German terms which both translate to "history" in English. She mentioned a specific book where this comes up, and I told her I didn't know of it, and she paused and said, "Oh. It's a classic." Which - so helpful six months ago, but today not quite as much. So I wrangled a copy and then while I was picking up the kids she called and left a cheery message that her concern had been a false alarm, that it's not Bultmann who makes this claim at all, it's Barth, so not to worry, although if I were to rewrite the dissertation and make a point of looking up in the German every time Bultmann uses the word "history" in English translations to see what he was talking about... well, but that would take a while. Yes, yes it would... so that's not on the table, but it was a brush with terror there for a few minutes. As it turns out, I did make a footnote about it, so it's all good.

Then I met with the person at the Div School who does the actual putting of paperwork in its proper place so as to assure timely graduation, and she was also cheerful and encouraging, and told me about one of my fellow prospective graduates who *has not finished writing* his dissertation yet, and somehow this made me feel much, much better. I also got the word that there's no hooding ceremony during the graduation, so while I need to own the hood, I can't wear it to the graduation, but I should have my husband carry it around until I've actually graduated, so I can wear it to the Dean's reception, and I won't feel left out when I see all the *other* graduates wandering around with their hoods.

She also warned me to make sure my printer prints pages perfectly level, and not in any way crooked, because the Dissertation Office cannot accept crookedness for reasons of microfilming. I investigated, and my printer does indeed print crookedly, so when the actual $35-for-500-sheets paper comes out, I'll have to print somewhere else, like Mike's office, to ensure that the print job is acceptable. This is all starting to feel a little Kafkaesque to me, which reminds me that I have a copy somewhere of a short lecture that Bultmann delivered to a group of French tourists, including Franz Kafka. One doesn't really picture Kafka as a tourist, or even as an acceptable traveling companion; it sounds like some kind of esoteric joke: where does Kafka go on vacation? Of course, since his idea of a good time was listening to theology lectures from Bultmann, maybe it would have worked out just fine.

I estimate that I will run out of paper (the ordinary kind) in about one more chapter, and it would be too, too sad for the whole project to come apart because I was too lazy to go to Office Max for more, so I'll stave off irony and get going.

Mama runs!

So, total vanity blogging here [wait: is that redundant?], but I ran a 5K this morning to celebrate dissertation doneness, and it was fun. The race was a benefit for the Special Olympics, and it was in Evanston along the lake so it was really pretty. The organizers were really peppy and there were only about 120 runners so it was really friendly. Mike stationed the kids at various points to cheer me on, and took some pictures of the running and the skyline.






editing to add: As I forgot to mention, my time was pretty decent - about 29 minutes (I forgot to take exact note, but they were keeping track, and I think the idea is that they email you, but I don't actually know.) I'd hoped to be in the neighborhood of 30-32 minutes, so I was really pleased. For those not accustomed to this bit of math, 5K is just over 3 miles, so I was running slightly faster than 10 minutes a mile, which ain't too bad for a not-very-athletic mama in her thirties who started running about six months ago after a 15+ year hiatus. I am pleased. :)

More growy stuff

After the long winter, the garden just seems wildly active to me, although it's really moving at a perfectly ordinary pace. Mostly we have just little bits of things poking up out of the ground still, but knowing what they are (and in some cases, like with the peonies, knowing that you didn't manage to kill them after all) makes it so much more important.




We've got plenty of daffodils in bloom now, although the ones around the mailbox are not what I remembered planting. The coral bells are sprouting up really nicely, and the little teeny lily plants look great. I'm so excited that things transplanted well and survived the winter!

Holy everloving printer action!

So Peter and I trooped into town today to leave a copy of the dissertation for my advisor and give one to the dissertation office. I got a couple of pictures of him standing on top of the printed copy before we left the house, which he found wildly amusing. When we got to school, we accidentally entered a classroom which I *swear* used to be offices (oops! sorry about that) and then found our way to the right office, the one with the inboxes, and there's a photo of him putting the thing in the right box. Then we dropped a copy off at the dissertation office and had lunch at the duckpond. Peter charmed the coffee shop folks while we were buying our lunch and I told them that he was here helping Mommy turn in her dissertation, and they went, "Awwwww...." and then, "Wait, are you Mommy? Congratulations!" which was fun. We watched the turtles and fish and ducks, then I let Peter take a few pictures, and he cashed in his chips on the way home and is still sleeping peacefully.

The dissertation is done, dude!

Ok, so I'm alluding to a cheesy early-90's movie called (if I recall correctly) "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," which involved... Christina Applegate? Something like that. One character has a great line - he's been using dirty dishes for skeet shooting targets in lieu of washing them, and afterwards he turns to a friend and says, "The dishes are done, dude!" There may be a little bit of pot smoking in the movie, which led to the dirty dishes in the first place, now that I think about it.

Anyway. Good times. I'm actually maybe mostly a little bit done with my project, and I'm printing out the final revisions to bring to my advisor tomorrow. Final page count is north of 350, which is a lot of paper. [side note that the printer? is not my friend today. I am irked at it. It is not printing reliably, which is a serious flaw if you are - as it claims to be - a freaking printer!] I'm thinking I should plant a tree to somehow compensate the earth for the reams and reams of paper that graduate school has consumed.

There's a charming scene in the Ann Pachett memoir "Truth and Beauty" where she and her writer friend finish their books at about the same time - they each have a fellowship and have been working on their respective books for a year - and they print the books out and stand on them to see how much taller they are. I don't want to do this, but I do want the kids to do it, so presuming I can get them to cooperate and can get Chapter Six to print (grrrr) I'll have them do this and take some blog-appropriate pictures.

Notes on the upcoming: Grace has a dance recital the week after next, the kids start soccer practice this week, and I'm running a 5K on Sunday, so we'll have all sorts of visual fodder to spread across the Internets. You know spring is here when your Saturday schedule involves soccer practice, an outdoor play at the preschool, the opportunity to pick up a free rainbarrel, and the 5K you've been planning to run. Something had to give there, so I chose a different race, which is clearly organized by human beings, since it starts at a very forgiving 10 am.

Green growing THINGS!

We spent a few minutes this afternoon investigating what's growing and blooming in our yard - holy green growingness, right outside! We've got some chives from last year's herb garden, and I'm hoping the various oregano will also make an appearance. Blooming are some teeny violets that grow all over the yard (a weed, I'm sure, but whatever) and some crocuses I'd forgotten that we even planted. Various other things are budding/returning/looking hopeful and I'm remembering how much I love spring. The salvia is back! The tree out back is about to bloom! The daffodils are going to bloom tomorrow or the next day for sure! I even saw tiger lily nubs, which is so exciting - those were transplants from someone's yard last year and Peter was a little hard on the blossoms so hopefully they'll give a nice showing again this year and we can actually get a chance to see the flowers.







There are also lots of daylilies, and the beebalm is looking awesome. Some of the tickseed is looking ok, and I think we lost the dianthus, but maybe we can replant that bit with something sturdier. The hydrangias are looking pretty good, too - I'm hoping the plants we put in last summer do some good blooming this year. I loved our hydrangia last summer and spent great hours working at the dining room table and looking out the window at its flowers.

I bought a bunch of packets of nasturtium seeds and I'm going to let the kids just go crazy planting them wherever as soon as it's warm enought. We don't do many annuals, except for marigolds, and there's no reason not to put a few seeds in and hope for the best. I'm not quite optimistic enough to plant the window boxes yet, but another two weeks and I'm there!

Peter is fully and completely four.

We had Peter's official kid party at a local place that does art classes and parties - the art teacher was great and very patient, the space was a genuine studio so mess was no problem, and we had a good time doing our projects. The concept was maybe more Grace's speed but Peter and his compatriots caught on quickly. We had a little show at the end where each kid talked about his or her artwork, and they just ate it up.




I was story parent at Grace's school this week, and Peter is well-known among her classmates - they vied for hugs, said how glad they were he had come, and were generally tickled to see him. We noticed today how much the reverse is also true - Peter's friends know Grace and are excited to hang with a big kid.