storm before the calm

I find myself greatly in need of a little peace and calm. Hopefully I'll find it when we see the mountains and trees and waves and get away from the craziness that has been "one of those weeks" one right after the other. Somewhere in this I'm learning and growing and becoming better prepared for next year. Sometimes I just wish the learning and the application weren't the same thing.

I hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving with family and friends and wonderful food and hearts full of love.

too mad to say

Just image a stream of vitriol strong enough to melt brick at 50 yards. That's what I wish I was doing to a certain someone who abandoned all his vows to leave his church and his wife. Then he got re-married to a woman his wife knew while they were married.



There are not enough words for men like him.

pincushion in underpants

I remember Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) saying something to the affect that the doctor saw him as a pink pincushion in underpants. Well, I can relate. There's something about needles that gives me the heebie jeebies. Can't stand the things. Just thinking about them can make my stomach turn. Yeah, lovely confession for a self-proclaimed grown-up. It's not the pain (which is minimal). There's just some sort of icky gross-out factor that churns my stomach. But, I made an appointment. Tuesday. Nine vials. Fasting. It's bad enough of a full stomach, but you're going to stress me while I have low blood sugar? Jeesh. The doctor he lied to me. He said we probably wouldn't have to do the whole thing again. We'd just do a touch-up. Uh-huh.

Oh well, at least I'm not one of those people forced into getting used to needles. My head is pretty rational about the whole thing. I just wish it could convince my stomach.

Gut reactions? Not always helpful.

Pumpkin Cupcakes + Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

A teacher at our school got engaged and provided the perfect opportunity to whip up some lovely pumpkin cupcakes. I ended up using a Martha Stuart recipe because it only used ingredients I had on hand and didn't leave me with extra pumpkin puree languishing in the fridge, and they came out very well. As several reviewers noted, these are true cupcakes with a light, moist crumb and none of the heaviness of a nutty, dense muffin. I topped them with a luscious maple cream cheese frosting and decorated the tops with silver sugar sprinkles and edible heart glitter. These things are good! They are somewhat intensely spicy though, so if you make them either plan on adding a nice cream cheese frosting or consider toning down the spices just a little. Needless to say, someone ended up being pretty popular today :)

reviving the grad school dream

I finally found the program. New Saint Andrew's College has a new masters program for educators in classical schools with low tuition and low residency requirements. It's lovely. Allen has already said that we can talk about how to make it work out for me to go. It's not going to be this year. I'd have to retake the gre and get just slews of paperwork together, but we're definitely looking at figuring out a way for me to apply. At three weeks a year residency requirement it's even something I could potential do with kids, so I reckon I can afford to wait a little. Until then though I can save my pennies and work on getting my credentials together. Either way I'm really excited about the opportunities here. I'm finally getting to do something important that I've wanted to do for years. It's where I want to be. Speaking of which I have a presentation on Rousseau to write.

stay at home wife

Ok, time out blogsphere. Where are the blogs for stay at home wives? Can someone point me to even one? 'Cause I've done a little cruising around and as of yet haven't found any blog that really managed to write for women like me. There are plenty of homemaking blogs, but practically all of them veer off into Momland at some point. I'm reading this great post about organizing your time and discover that it's a post about how moms should use their time. Nothing against moms here. They are the salt of the earth and bearers of our future. But. I'm not a mom. I don't have to balance play time with me time with hubby time with...... I've got a whole heck of a lot of me time that I have to balance with my incipient laziness and my desire to put my fingers in too many pies. Believe it not, my needs are different. I'm not a single person with a husband or a mom without kids. I'm a wife who stays at home while my husband goes off to work. While I'm not ideologically committed to this way of life for everyone (or even for all seasons of my own life) it's what works now. And by "stays at home" I mean rises around 6:30 twice a week to go volunteer at a classical Christian school along with the various other ways I try to help out my church and community. I'm no "church worker," but I do try to put myself out there and help. Sometimes I help too much and laze around too much at home. Sometimes I do a pretty good job at home and feel the need to reach out more. It's balancing act with a huge learning curve for me. If I had more brains or a better handle on things I might try writing my own stay a home blog for wives. But what would I write about? I'm not sure. There'd be lots of links to Femina (see sidebar) and lots of questions. Of answers I am not so sure. Still, I wish we had more examples that didn't jump straight to motherhood. I wish I had a better idea what I was doing here. I wish I could shake the last of this lousy cold so I can actually start doing it.