The First Snow (sort of) and Other Newsworthy Events

Remember when you were in college and you couldn't get started on your homework until your room was spotlessly clean? (What? Just me? Oh dear...) I think the same principle applies here, but instead of a little homework and a small dorm room, I've been battling between three major grad school projects and a modest-sized house. Not surprisingly, our house is currently in a state of supreme cleanliness it has never known. The homework? Not so much.

The blogging has been a bit boring these days, which seems sort of strange because our schedules have been anything but boring. Soon we'll have interesting pictures and stories to share, but for tonight it's just the wrap-up:

Boxes: We spent the day at work packing up our desks and boxing up our files to get ready to move to a different office building (seriously, didn't I just do this?). Here's my favorite part--we could be scheduled to move, with very little notice, any time between December 1 and January 4. Since Congress has yet to adjourn for the year (fuming inside), there is a very real possibility that I will need any number of files in the coming weeks that may or may not be in the bottom box of my 5-box-deep stack. Should be fun.

Flurries: It snowed today--just a few flakes, and just for a moment, but I happened to be walking to Cosi to order my obsessively favorite Roasted Turkey and Brie sandwich as the flurries started. Mmm... Love of snow is very strong.

Ice Cream: The season for frosty desserts is, obviously, over, but Cole and I have a date for ice cream when we go to Idaho next week. Shaanti said he was very excited. I'm not sure whether he is more excited to see me or to have ice cream, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if it really came down to it, he'd go with the ice cream. I mean, ice cream is really good.

Sleeping: It has been a fun fall, but we are ready for vacation. Early morning French, two grad school classes, and looming economic disaster have really worn us out! Luckily, we are packing up fun reading material and boarding a west-bound plane on Sunday. It will be "Thanksmas" at the Johnsons'--my mother, who on principle strongly opposes any opening of Christmas presents before December 25th, has decided that if we are going to do "Christmas" together when we're all home for Thanksgiving, she is going to make it official with the tree, all the Christmas decorations, and group viewings of "White Christmas."

Boys: There are a few other really good reasons we are looking forward to our trip--namely this and this. And, of course, lunch at Red Robin...

Veterans Day

We government employees get pretty used to having a Monday off every month or two for a federal holiday, but Veterans Day is always a bit weird, appearing exactly on the 11th of November instead of the second Monday or the fourth Thursday or whatever. Since the 11th was a Tuesday this year, we had a pretty random day off in the middle of the week. Weird, but nice. Especially since somehow last week all the balls I'd been precariously balancing in the air went a'tumbling.

It was a brilliantly sunny but freezing day, so I was delighted when I got back from my run to see Jason building the first fire of the season in our little fireplace. We brewed some tea and cooked up some breakfast, then promptly curled up in our little living room with books and stayed there for a while. Ahhhhhhh... And the best part is that all day today it felt like Monday, but in truth the week was half over. Hurrah!

Jason is reading The Historian now, and of course he is enthralled. One nice side effect of marriage is that our tastes seem to merge a bit as the years go by. Gone are the days when I was baffled by the idea that we didn't have anything in common. These days we both really like cashew chicken curry and watching "House" and singing "Victory in Jesus" when things get a little too Baptist on Sunday mornings. Perhaps I will win Jason over to country music eventually--I mean, we're going to be married a long time, after all.

Downward Facing Dog

So, this will be week three of the Missy Tries Yoga, Part Two, experiment. Missy Tries Yoga Part One (circa 2006) ended up with a bad headache that lasted, oh, two months. So far, Part Two has been much more successful. There was a time when I equated yoga with eating organic food (which I sometimes do) and voting Democrat (which I never do). But then my favorite sister-in-law turned out to be a pretty skilled yoga instructor, so I decided to reconsider my position.

Turns out that yoga is pretty great. As I described to a patient Jason last week, I can see why people are so into it. And it turns out that contorting my extremely inflexible body into strange poses like "cobra" and "pigeon" and some other dog pose is surprisingly relaxing. Who woulda thunk? Maybe I'll add yoga to my List of Things That Makes Missy Feel in Control, along with having my nails painted and writing lists on restaurant napkins and drinking tea with milk.

In other news, we've been flying along at an almost alarming pace this fall. Add to that the fact that my family is opening Christmas presents when we are together at Thanksgiving, which means that I'm actually really behind on my Christmas shopping, and my head is spinning! Our past two weekends have been full of all sorts of domestic-ish things, like:

• Yard Work: It has been getting downright chilly around here, but on Saturday the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we headed outside to plant the tulip bulbs that we bought in Holland. What started out as a small project ended up as an all-day yard work fest, which included expanding the strawberry patch, cleaning and organizing the gardening stuff for winter, and mulching around our trees. Thanks to lessons from my dad and lots of practice, we are much better at yard work that we were two years ago, and I'm excited to see our pretty tulip bed in the spring!

• Baking: I love grilling in the summer, but I have to confess that I've really enjoyed getting to know my oven again. I've been experimenting with seasonal eating this year, so I've had to beef up on my squash recipes (turns out the delicious, sugary squash bake my mom makes for Thanksgiving is not the kind of thing you should eat every day). I found this amazing little number in the Williams-Sonoma catalog that arrive a couple of weeks ago. It is on the menu for Wednesday again this week. Also on the menu for sometime this week is pumpkin pie ala real pumpkin. We'll see if it's really worth the hassle.

• Church Stuff: Somehow, we have had some sort of church activity not just every weekend, but every night of every weekend for the past few weeks! Friday was the big Halloween festival at church, where I got the privilege of manning the bouncy-bounce when it deflated on five small children. Those suckers go down fast! It all ended okay, but it made for an eventful five minutes.

• Studying: Yesterday I got my first public library card in, like, 20 years. I'm pretty sure my last library card (for the Meridian City Library) was a paper one with that metal clip that they used to imprint your account number on the card in the front pocket of the book, and it's possible that my last library book was a Babysitters Club book. Turns out that these days they have fancy electronic key fob library cards and that the Arlington County Public Library is a pretty sweet place. And, for the record, it's not that I don't believe in libraries--it's just that the Library of Congress delivers to my office. That's a pretty hard system to beat.

• Knitting: Tonight I'm watching the Redskins (lurve the Skins) and knitting up a storm. There's Baby Mason's blanket to finish before he joins the family in a few weeks. Then I was planning to get a good head start on a blanket for Baby Crosson, who won't be making an appearance until summer...and then Dawn called to say that it is not Baby Crosson but BABIES Crosson! I wasn't kidding when I said that babies are overtaking the planet!

• Batwatching: Seriously, just try to read about Cole's Halloween without laughing out loud. (Troy was a hotdog. Still waiting for the pictures.)