General Goings On

by Kimberly 

I thought we might stop it with the birds for a minute and talk a bit about other stuff that goes on around here. I mentioned in the first post that gardening is one of the things we do here. Well, it's January, so there's not so much of that going on right now. Although there's probably more of it happening here in TX than in most of the country. We have garlic, collards, brussel sprouts, and broccoli growing right now, but only the collards are ready to eat. Everything else has months to go, but Michael did discover that three of the broccoli plants actually have baby broccolis on them! We've done broccoli before, but without much luck. They're in a new spot this time, though, and I think it might be helping. Yipee! That's all there is to say about the garden really. We actually ate some cherry tomatoes in our salad tonight that Michael pulled off the plant today. Texas is C-R-A-Z-Y ya'll. Some of the cherry tomato plants look like they might live through the winter. Nutso. Likewise, our lantana is happier than it ever was in the summer, and the morning glory vines might make it to spring as well. But man do they look sad right now. We still get the occasional bloom off of them, but they're kind of an eye sore. But the drought has been so bad here, that we figure the plants will do better if we let them try to hang on and maintain their root system so they don't have to start over in the spring.

The main other thing happening here is that the semester is about to start. This is likely to be the last semester for both of us here, and while we're both looking forward to moving on to the next chapter of our lives (cliche alert) we have no idea where that next chapter might be, and that's freaking me out. The job market for academics is really terrible right now, and I'm not having a lot of luck on the job market. I'm starting to swirl around ideas for alternative jobs in case we find ourselves out of work come summer time. Keeping those under my hat for now though.

I usually feel hopeful about each new semester, but the fall was just so brutal. I'm feeling more anxious than hopeful this time. We both have some syllabus finalizing to do before classes start next week, so it looks like the break is over (*weep*).

Nothing to do but get to it. Or maybe I'll watch Top Chef. :-D