Extension on Life

Snow days are precious in the south. Any mention of snow sends the majority of the local population in a tizzy searching for bread, milk, and eggs. Everyone spends their lunch glued to weather updates and giving their predictions as to whether or not it will actually snow.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a decent snowstorm in Knoxville. The NWS thought the storm would hit in the middle of the day, so they canceled school early and I spent the day glued to the TV watching my favorite "test pattern" (aka the Weather Channel) give updates. The storm ended up hitting later in the day, but by morning we had a blanket of 6 beautiful inches of snow. The University let out (a rare treat!), so Miles and I got to spend the day playing in the snow and binge watching TV.

Of course, 6 inches of snow means the city shuts down for at least two days, so I spent all of Friday relaxing, too. Yep, so that means I got not one, not two, but three days off for 6 inches of snow. And it was wonderful!

Books Read in January 2014

  

 

Canadian West series books 3-6 by Janette West

Mama Ph.D. edited by Elrena Evans

The Yard by Alex Grecian
Return to Tradd Street by Karen White

So January consisted of 5 extra days off of work thanks to the polar vortex in early January and the southern snow storm in late January.  For some, those extra five days means extra sleep, cuddle time with kids, binge watching BBT, or Facebook. For me, extra days means three things: Lewis, Clark, and a book! (Lewis and Clark being my cats!)

Reviews: Mama PhD has been on my to-read list for a while. I'm thinking about getting a higher degree, but I also want to have kids. This is an enlightening read about being in graduate school or on the tenure track and having children. The Yard was a random book I grabbed in B&N back in December. It wasn't bad. Think Jack the Ripper & Sherlock Holmes.  Return to Tradd Street is the 4th book in the Tradd series. The Tradd series is by far one of my favorite book series (ever), so it's not a surprise that I loved this one, too. If you like ghosts (I do), you'll like the Tradd series! As for the Canadian West books... I loved the 1st & 2nd book. The 3rd (When Hopes Springs New) was okay. The rest of the series (especially the last book!) wasn't anything to rave about. And the ending of the last book made me want to vomit. But because I'm committed to finishing a series, I stuck with them. Lucky for me, they were all library eBooks, so they didn't cost me anything.

What are you reading?

The (no-so) Crazy Friday Nights

Three things about this picture:
-Instead of drinking, watching TV, or going out, Miles is reading for his grant proposals. On a Friday night. Someone stop the presses! He's learning already when to squeeze it work.
-We keep the house set at 65 in the winter when we're home and at 62 when we're not home. Call us crazy, but we like the cold. Also: I'm cheap! Any hotter and our system just seems to run nonstop.
-Throughout my flu, Lewis and Clark didn't leave my side. Such sweet kitties of mine!

seen in a grad student's office:

Boots

I've been dreaming of Hunter rain boots since I was 20 years old and it took me until a month ago to finally shop and purchase myself a pair. Only, it didn't go as I planned. Turns out I have Swedish Viking-sized calves. I first tried on a pair of these and couldn't even pull them up the whole way. No big deal right? I'll just try these (even though I hate the pop of pink!). No luck. I was pretty bummed.

However, I stumbled upon another company called Tretorn while at REI and immediately went home and Amazoned them (Like what I did there? Forget Google. Let's Amazon!). Turns out their boots are the go to boots for other Viking-sized calves! They fit perfectly and are very comfortable. And they were around $75 at the time. You like?

Lessons in Graduate School 1

This is a blog about both of us-- him and her-- and graduate school is a big part of our lives. We've done graduate school twice already. Once in Knoxville for a Master's in geology. Once in Georgia (online) for a Master's in Library media. And though we've done graduate school, this getting a PhD thing is a little different, so I thought I'd share what we learn...

Since we've done graduate school, this first semester was really a relearning semester:

-You can't wait until the last minute to do stuff.

-He also says that it was fun to sit in class learning about one topic and remember how much he already knows about it.

-He re-learned that "studying" won't work. He actually has to study.

Books to Read?

Books to read before the movie!

Have you seen this article of books to read?

I think I'll be ordering Winter's Tale, Wild, and Serena.

And maybe Vampire Academy. After all, the movie is by the directors of Mean Girls.