A few random things

It has been a while, once again. Not much going on, and at the same time crazy busy and stressed. At any rate, a bullet point update. More in depth thoughts later.

• My little sister came to visit a few weeks ago. We had a grand time, despite it being horrifically rainy the whole time. Probably the best day was when we got rained on while trying to hike at one park, discovered the trail was flooded, went to another park to eat a picnic and got rained on again. We ended up eating lunch in my car and then heading back to my apartment. We wanted to watch movies, but also to be warm in bed so we folded out the futon and curled up under all the blankets I owned for the remainder of the afternoon and watched dMad Men, Up, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There were other highlights of the weekend as well-an epic shopping trip, roasted pork tenderloin with apples, regaling my grad school friends with tales of the insane games we played as kids at a thai house lunch, homemade pizza and popcorn, dinner with some of our good college friends and meeting their ridiculously adorable puppies, honey glazed pear upside down cake, a brief road trip to Atlanta and the Coke Museum and then she flew away. A short, sweet visit.
• Speaking of my sister, the P. Sister Book Club finished our "Dysfunctional Families" reading list and has moved on to a study of the "Devil and God".
• I am inching (so slowly!) closer and closer to graduation. My second paper, on a project that has been incredibly draining in terms of effort and the ridiculous politics among various people involved, was accepted for publication a few weeks ago. I found out today that a review I wrote in December was also accepted. woot!
• I am trying my hand at gardening once again this year. I always have high hopes of growing a beautiful patio garden full of flowers and herbs and vegetables, and I always fail miserably. I planted tulips and hyacinths, and so far so good! All are blooming and lovely. Of course, the constant rain means that their chances of dying because I forget to water them for two weeks is very low.
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