life in EdnaLand

Is very very slow these days. Work has been so boring that I’m about to lose my mind. I don’t remember it ever being quite this dead before. We are always slow during the summer sessions, but this is crazy-making. I’ve done a lot of Create-Your-Own-Projects. And we’re moving again in a few weeks, so there will go this quiet time. Naturally we’re moving exactly when second session wraps up and we send out "You Didn’t Graduate, Loooooser!" letters. So I’m trying to get as much done as I can ahead of time, which is not much. 

You might think it seems like we JUST moved into our current offices. It does seem like we just moved, because we DID just move. Well, we moved a year ago in May. We figured we’d be here a couple of years – the plan was always to move again once the College of Ed’s brand new building was finished, because we get their old offices, but since everything always takes YEARS longer than planned, we just assumed it would be much longer than the 18 months they estimated. Bizarrely, it’s turned out to be much LESS time than estimated. I don’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned that I’m moving right back to the exact same office I was in during my College of Ed Hell years. Well, nearly the same office – I’m not sure exactly where I’ll be but it’s in the same suite of offices for sure. Yippie. It’s an old (and not in a cool historic way), dreary, dark building from the 60s. And not the Retro-Sixities; just the boring dreary blocky box building Sixties. But it is in a more convenient part of campus (we are WAY off from the main campus here, up on the hill by the stadium, with a bunch of athletic offices that don’t bring in the big bucks so didn’t get to move into the Extremely Expensive Fancy Fieldhouse, like, of course, football.) 

So, I won’t be dying of boredom forever. And I’m just happy to have a job to be bored in — serious cuts are hitting our university now, and they are going to be cutting jobs. The budget has been terrible for years, but this is the first time they’ll be doing more than not filling vacant positions. So that’s a little scary. We don’t know yet who gets the ax, but I’m keeping my head down and looking busy whether I am or not. I’m not TOO worried about our immediate office- our cuts are coming from a number of departments – but cuts are never good. 

But on to more cheery topics. One thing alleviating boredom (while making me look like I’m doing something besides surfing the web) is my latest Exciting Purchase. (I keep swearing each purchase is THE LAST, and I think now that June is long gone I really have to stop buying myself birthday presents, no matter HOW major a birthday it was). 

I got:

OH, hahahahaha, I see I already went into great detail in my last entry about how I am suddenly CORRESPONDING WITH MY LITERARY HERO TR PEARSON!!! Complete with lots of FanGirlSqeeing. Well, "corresponding" in the sense that we’ve exchanged a few emails and he sent me an eCopy of his newest novel, Warwolf, which I will review upon reading. Sqeeeeeee!! But I did mention then that I was seriously considering an eReader. But later on! Like, for Christmas!! Ummmmmm, yeah. No. Could not read the novel on my computer. Which is kind of weird, since I read all day long on the computer – I hardly ever read an actual physical newspaper anymore, for example, just read them online. But I found it REALLY difficult to read a book. I think because there are endless distractions. With a newspaper (which isn’t a "paper" anymore- what IS it??), I can read an article or two and then go check my email and check Facebook and whatever else is beckoning me. Then go back and read a little more. Obviously it’s a classic case of Short Attention Span Syndrome, and although it’s not annoying when reading "papers" and blogs and whatever, it’s VERY annoying when trying to read a novel. 

So, I ordered a Kindle – and I LOVE it. (I don’t think I could have gone too far wrong either way, Kindle or Nook, but in the end Kindle won out). It is SO cool – I am amazed at how functional and intuitive it is to use. And how much stuff is free! Or very cheap. One of the things holding me back until now was thinking you had to pay $10 and up for everything you wanted to read. Not true!! I ended up buying Warwolf again for $3- I think I could have downloaded the copy I had on my computer, but hey, I’m supporting my Literary Hero by just buying it, and it’s CHEAP. And I paid  a dollar for the entire series of Oz books! (One  drawback – no pictures. Except the covers. But still.) I think that’s all I paid money for, and I’ve downloaded a BUNCH of stuff. I also wish I hadn’t just bought two more Torchwood novels, because I could have downloaded them for the same price and not had the physical book – and not having a physical book is a GOOD thing when your house is a clutterfest and overrun by physical books, and these are not exactly collector’s items. 

But anyhow. Obviously I am very pleased. It’s also great to read on, very easy on my eyes. And the font is adjustable so I can actually see what I’m reading. (I REALLY need new glasses, can’t see to read anything with my Old Lady Bifocals anymore and when I’ve got my contacts in I have to use reading glasses which is tremendously annoying). So, I’m so glad I took the plunge. And I’ve been reading like crazy, and LOVE Warwolf. Very very TR Pearson. It’s about a deputy living in a very small town in the mountainy part of Virginia, near Charlottesville, who finds a dead man in a tree, and embarks on a hunt for a serial killer. He’s written several books about this same deputy- Ray Tatum – but I think this is my favorite so far. To quote the Amazon review, since I couldn’t say it better myself, it is "hilarious and deeply unsettling". 

Well, I’ve certainly killed a few minutes here and need to get back to "work". I’ll leave you with some pictures of our "garden". Which is unusually pretty this years — I don’t know if it’s the mulch I put around everything (from the ice storm winter before last, where tree limbs fell EVERYwhere in our neighborhood and we all rented a chipper and ground them into mulch which is still piled up all over the place) or if it’s just been really good weather for blooming stuff, but everything has bloomed like mad all spring and summer. Even the rhododendrons which our neighborhood is packed with are blooming more than I’ve ever seen them bloom. So I guess it’s not just the mulch. 

My hydrangeas have been stunning –

This one is taller than I am. 

I’ve had a hard time getting a really good picture of the color, though. It’s been just breathtaking, but doesn’t come out so well photographed. 

This one has been blooming more near the bottom of the plant than on top, oddly-

But the blooms are this amazing purple-

One of these hydrangeas was originally a teeny little potted plant from my grandmother’s funeral, and the other one was a teeny little potted plant I bought at Lowes. I can’t remember which is which now;I’ve had them both for years. The one from my grandmother’s funeral sat in my livingroom for a YEAR until I finally planted it – she died in May and I didn’t plant it until the following summer. So those things are HARDY. My dad has one in front of their house that has been there as long as I can remember – it’s in front of the front porch and we used to jump over it into the yard when we were kids, for amusement. It gets very big too. It’s blue, like my very blue one. 

This is kind of the whole garden. Okay, it does look a little weird. Hey, we ARE weird! It looks a whole lot better than it usually does, I’ll tell you that. It’s kind of just the center of the yard. I stuck a couple of bird feeders and a hanging plant in there for effect. 

I’ve also put up some hanging baskets at last – I just realized I have not taken pictures of them or the windowboxes, except through the window. I better hurry, since I’m sure I’ll kill them soon from lack of watering. They’re under the eves and don’t get rained on, but I tend to forget that and when it rains every day like it has been — it storms just about every afternoon — I keep not watering them.