Nothing Good to Say

I've been suffering from a touch of blogger's block this week and just haven't felt moved to post about anything in particular. Fortunately, it didn't develop into a full on case of writer's block, and I've managed to make a bit of progress on an article manuscript. However, the vast majority of my energy this week has been funneled into working on course proposals, grading papers from my 100-level Western Civ class, and worrying about a few things.

The issue of not having a very good work space means that I've been doing a lot of my work on the couch. We filed a claim with the moving company, but that means that we can't take any steps to repair our desk until the claim is processed. I have my writing desk and a table in my campus office, but neither of those are ideal for certain kinds of work that need lots of space for the spreading out of research materials and having books close at hand. My department put in a request for facilities to move a set of bookshelves into my office early last week, but it still hasn't done. That means that my books remain in boxes even though they arrived exactly a month ago. This was all exponentially complicated by the fact that earlier this week, I was told that they were going to pull my furniture out and that facilities would install it next week, only to be told yesterday that they weren't going to do it after all. It's no one's fault, but it is frustrating.

My backyard is a scene of tree carnage. After five of our trees blew down in less than two weeks, we took the advice of our handyman and authorized him to cut a number down. Our backyard looks like a mess, and we've had to ask our neighbors if we could temporarily take down part of their fences in order to get the job done. I feel like I owe them all chocolate and wine.

My dog has also started having seizures. She had one a few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon. We suspected what was happening, but we had never seen it before, so we grabbed her and drove to a nearby animal hospital. By the time we got there, she was returning to normal. Since they told us that there would be a lengthy wait for her to be seen, we returned home and decided to just schedule a vet appointment as soon as we could. We took her to the vet earlier this week, and the vet told us that unless we saw more than one a month that it wasn't a condition that we should worry too much about. That evening Bailey had another seizure.

Both my mom and my sister are having some health problems, and it's just hard to be so far away. It would have been just about as hard the past few years, but now it takes multiple flights that cost so much money to go to see them.

M. has been working a temporary gig that he landed almost as soon as we arrived. It has been extended a couple of times, but it looks like it's coming to an end sometime in October. They thought they would have a project for him that would extend through most of the month, but the budget for it still hasn't been approved so he may be unemployed again by the end of next week. I hope that he finds something soon that he really enjoys or that he at least tolerates with aplomb. There's a certain amount of guilt that occasionally crops up when you are the spouse that gets followed.

I haven't had much positive to say this week, and I guess that's part of why I've been silent. I realize that all of these problems very much fall into the category of #firstworldproblems. Nonetheless, I hope your week has been better than mine.

Wishlisting

I mentioned to Kyria the other day that I want a hybrid bike and she asked me about it, so I thought I'd post here about what's currently on my wishlist.

1. A hybrid bike. M. and I are trying to make it for at least another year or two of sharing a car. One of the reasons that we looked specifically at homes in our neighborhood is because here we are close to a bus route that takes me to campus. However, I'm just about as close to a bike path that also would take me to campus. Moving has been expensive and I can ride the bus for free, so I'm holding out on buying a bike (I sold my old one on craigslist before we left the Midwest) until the spring. But I'm already thinking about models that I'm interested in and the Novara Fiona is one of them. It's a hybrid bike that blends elements of road bikes (lighter frames) and of mountain bikes (a more upright frame, wider tires). The Fiona is just over 30 pounds and has 24 gears. I'm hoping that my local REI gets her back in stock before long so that I can handle the bike in person before I make a several-hundred-dollar decision.

2. Furniture and art for my campus office. Unfortunately, this one won't be happening for a few months. My office was vacated by its former occupant over the summer, the old furniture was removed, and it was painted. I, along with my colleagues, was supposed to get new furniture that was supposed to arrive sometime during the first couple of weeks of the semester. Due to what I can only describe as a giant inconvenience, we found out yesterday that none of us will be getting our new furniture until January. I don't want to go into too many more details here, but the situation is extremely frustrating. (For me it's compounded by the fact that my desk at home needs repair in order to be usable and we jettisoned some bookcases because I had planned to take most of my books to campus.) It looks like I will probably temporarily have to move into a different office for the rest of the semester and move back into mine at the start of the spring semester. In my dreamworld, though, my furniture is being installed tomorrow and some awesome person gifts me a high quality, framed reproduction of Titian's portrait of Philip II Wearing Armor.

3. Le Creuset cookware. Right now I especially have my eye on the Moroccan Tagine in cherry and the Round French Oven in a serene shade called caribbean.

A new pair of rainboots would be on this list, too, but I just I ordered a pair online....  What's currently on your wishlist?

July Goals

First off, I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. The cupcakes and Harry Potter helped immensely, as did a long talk with my husband and a fun and relaxing day yesterday that involved an 8K race, a few hours of quality work on my article, and then reading, eating, and chatting on my deck in the late afternoon and evening. We didn't see any fireworks this year, but it was the reset that I needed to get back on track.

Watching the fireworks on Rockaway Beach, NY, July 4, 2008

The year is half way over, so I've been evaluating where I stand with some of my long-term goals for 2011 and trying to keep them in mind as I set my goals for the month of July.  I have lots of running and writing on deck.

Writing/Professional Goals 

- Finish revising an article and resubmit it to an academic journal. If I don't succeed in accomplishing this goal, I am going to have to stop writing this blog and reading other blogs until this is off my desk.  

- Write a draft of the conference paper I will be presenting in August. I still have some reading and research to do for this, as well, but I need to start getting my thoughts down on the page - even if they aren't as fully formed and polished as I'd like to be. I find that it's often through the process of writing and agonizing over how badly I'm writing that I figure out what I actually want to say.

- Write the syllabi for my three fall courses and three lectures for my new upper level course.  My summer break is more than half way over so it's time to start getting the jump on the fall semester.

- Finish organizing my new office on campus and establish good writing and work habits while using it. I got a new office with a window (the view isn't great but yay for natural light!) and a much bigger desk. I'm going to try working on campus a couple of days a week for the month of July to see if I can establish some good writing mojo to carry into the start of the next academic year.

Fitness/Health Goals
- Run 90 miles. I picked a marathon training program (more on that later), and I want to do all the scheduled miles. I'm hoping to do my long runs and some of my shorter Wednesday runs with a local running group.
- Create a Chicago Marathon training journal and inspiration book. I was very much inspired by Amanda to do this. While I log my workouts on daily mile and often blog about the experience of my training, I think I'm lacking a more tactile experience with my training.  I'm hoping this will help me to visualize running the race in my goal time and inspire me on days when I'm feeling disheartened.
- Journal everything that I eat. This is part of my larger 2011 goal to maintain a food journal for the entire year. I'm hoping to get back on track for a solid second half of the year with this goal. While my real reason for maintaining a food journal is to make healthier choices, I wouldn't be opposed to losing a few pounds as a result either.
- Do yoga at least twice a week. I'm hoping to get a couple of practices in out on my deck when weather conditions are good for it.

What are your goals for the month of July? Any big career moves or training plans? Any new adventures? I hope all of my American readers had a wonderful and safe 4th of July!