Light and Momentary

Pride, Humility, Christians in the Academy, and the Spouse of Dr. No

Remember Dr. No? Her husband is also on faculty in my department. He coordinates the departmental seminars, and he emailed two of us who were defending our dissertations in March, asking if we would please please present our findings in April. His emails were very jocular and encouraging, and so I was blindsided when he took over the Q&A time after my presentation last month.

"Are there any questions?" I asked.

"Oh," he said instantly, "I have about a BILLION questions. Did you have a hypothesis?"

In the Merry Month of May

Heart:

• put a ruthless end to computer drift: set blackout times for internet goofing around and stick to them faithfully <-- ai yi yi, this is hard for me
• root out the #1 cause of uncharitable thoughts, words, and deeds: barring circumstances like a sick child, be in bed by 10:30 each weeknight (11 on Fri/Sat) -- I'd say I managed it 90% of the time, and this was a tough one for me. Calling it done.
• stick to morning routine, every day
• ditto for evening <-- see update post
• work on mid-morning and mid-afternoon routines: stick to them 75% of the time <-- progress, hurray!
• teach Psalm 100 to boys
• pray the Pentecost novena with the family -- it was actually mostly just me, with the older boys joining in three or four times
• read Finding and Maintaining Peace -- it disappeared for a week (thanks, Stella) and it's not a book I want to race through

Head:

• grant application
• surprise guest lecture
• write exam questions
• conference poster
• IRB application
• begin article draft
• graduate (!!!)
• read borrowed books: Swimming with Scapulars, Switch, The Ever Breath

Hands:

• finish green socks for me
• finish a pair of kid socks
• draw up sample design
• get a veggie/herb garden planted
• get some annuals in along the east side of the house
• and the south side too
• weed and mulch the west bed
• figure out those north beds before the dandelions grow fangs and start attacking the postman
• five months' worth of pictures in an album

Home:

• declutter music room
• >declutter living room
• declutter our room <-- progress!
• look through Confessions of an Organized Homemaker for useful ideas

Hips:

• run 20 miles (or do the equivalent in other exercise if weather/aging joints make it impossible to run)
• resurrect The Vegetable Project: 5 servings of veggies and a gallon of cold water daily; no sugar with an exception for graduation day <-- see update post
• 15 mins of T-Tapp at least 10 times <-- not 10 but 7
• lose 6 pounds

Half-pints:

• finish Return of the King with Joe & Marty
• read Horse and His Boy to Joe and Pete
• finish Webelo requirements with Marty
• finish Parvuli Dei award <-- this thing goes on FOREVER
• exercise with Alex (5 times, we'll say)
• make a curtain for Joe's clubhouse <-- this should only take me about 20 more minutes. I just need to buckle down. A June project.

Seven Quick Takes: Really Really Speedy Edition

1. I just submitted a grant proposal.

2. That's why I've been scarce.

3. It was surprisingly fun to say, "You should give me thousands of dollars, and here's how I'm going to spend it all." I started the proposal out of a sense of obligation -- grant-writing is a skill I ought to develop -- but I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

4. I asked my advisor for a simple (required) letter saying that this project I'm proposing wouldn't interfere with my work duties next year, and she wrote the very nicest, most enthusiastic letter you could imagine. You should totally give that money to Dr. Gladly, she told them, because she will spend it very wisely.

5. Dr. Gladly. It's going to take me awhile to get used to that.

6. I am resurrecting The Vegetable Project, about which more soon.

7. Dishes call.

More quick takes.

Dust

Yesterday I said that I was going to post my BIG list today. It's the first of May and I have a lot to do this month. This morning I was going to whomp the laundry and the paper clutter into shape, and work a little on my grant application and then throw a birthday party. Instead, last night I was felled by a GI thing. I woke up this morning feeling like the whompee and not the whomper. (Do you find that a GI thing leaves you aching the next day? Not just my abs, which did get an unaccustomed workout, but all over. The soles of my feet hurt.)

I tried to fold laundry, but even sitting down I couldn't keep at it. I rallied enough to lead birthday party games with a measure of enthusiasm (alterna-hopscotch: you have to jump over the squares with added fangs and fingers, or they will bite you/tickle you respectively). Now I am tired -- so tired that I'm having trouble spelling.

I am thinking that the timing is something I should attend to: perhaps I need to discern a little more carefully where I am planning to focus. I have a tendency to get overenthusiastic about the First Day of the Rest of Your Life business. I am thinking about Psalm 103:

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on the faithful
For he knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust
Our days are like the grass; like flowers of the field we blossom
The wind sweeps over us and we are gone.

Candor compels me to admit that I am also thinking about something much more shallow. One of the things I wanted to do in May was take off the first five pounds of this annoying extra weight I have been hauling around. And hey! Overnight success on that item. At least temporarily.

That's the whole trouble with change, isn't it? It's the temporary sort that's easy.