Row, Row, Row Your Boat….

 It’s hard to believe how fast the summer’s sliding by. 

I’m struggling to wrap up an incomplete in a class. A professor friend and mentor and I have a date Monday to try to sort out the analysis and figure out what story I’m telling in the paper. There are some weird things going on in the models (mostly related to colinearity and variables being dropped depending on which referent group is used), and not being a STATA guru I can’t quite sort it all out on my own. 

J defended his dissertation, and is moving on with life. He’ll be starting a new job in August. We celebrated at home with sparkling wine, and I baked him a chocolate chip oatmeal pie. (We didn’t have storebought pie crust, and I discovered that the pie crust recipe that my  great-grandmother inherited from her mother-in-law doesn’t take well to an electric mixer, but that it turns out to be surprisingly reliable in the face of user error).
 

We took a couple days to run over to the coast for our anniversary. It rained off and on most of the time we were there.We stayed in an adorable bed&breakfast downtown, with an open courtyard area for breakfast and wine&cheese in the afternoon.

For our anniversary, we dressed up in wedding clothes and walked over to an Italian restaurant, which had absolutely amazing food. I had lobster  ravioli in a shrimp&crabmeat sauce with truffle oil. J went for pasta with asparagus and mushrooms in cream sauce- we sampled each other’s food, and both were absolutely amazing. 

Aside- if anyone has any advice on caring for vintage lace dresses, it would be extremely welcome. That’s a Harry Keiser dress from the early 1960s, and I really do want to be as careful with it as possible (while continuing to wear and enjoy it. Yes, I realize that’s an oxymoron). This last wearing I noticed that some of the seams in the lining of the bodice look a little weak, and some of the lace looks like it might be starting to pull apart in places. After some research I’ve decided to quit hanging it in the closet, and lay it flat in a box with acid-free tissue paper (I also plan on putting a couple photos of the dress being worn in the box, as well as purchase details and a list of every time I personally have worn it). I think I may also try handwashing it after the next time I wear it. I’ve been taking it to the local eco-friendly drycleaner, who assured me before the first time I had the dress cleaned that their processes were safe for vintage fabrics. Sadly, thanks to heat and humidity, it really does need to be cleaned after I wear it . Anyway, it’s a lovely piece of history, and I’d like to look after it. 

Anyway….speaking of history, we thoroughly soaked ourselves in it, thanks to the weather. We made a trip to the oldest museum in the US, and prowled around historic streets and houses. 

 
(J’s sulking because I asked him to pose in front of the pink trees.)

And we  got cupcakes at our favorite spot.

It was a good two days.

Since then, I’ve been plugging away at work. Realizing that I’m very, very, good at managing research study data. Earlier this week I sent an article I recently had published out on a related email list that I’m on.  Was rather surprised to get very positive responses back from two people at a major nonprofit that I’d love to work for one day. One email asked me to let them know if I’d be interested in blogging for them…which I did, and am now waiting to hear back….

Health-wise….well,  I haven’t noticed much difference in my energy levels, but I’m doing about three times as much stuff as I was a few weeks ago, so I must be doing better. Humira was definitely the right choice, much as I don’t like giving myself shots. "Don’t like" is putting it mildly. I seriously sit there just holding the pen to my skin for a solid 3-5 minutes before getting up the nerve to push the button. It was a little easier last week….maybe next week will be a little easier too. 

The garden’s doing great. This summer hasn’t been as hot and dry as last summer, and my whole "plant flowers so pollinators come visit" strategy seems to be working. "Garden" loosely defined as all the various pots of stuff on my front porch. Consisting of tomatoes (This variety -which I’m quite happywith, besides some blossom end rot issues), cucumbers, basil (purple basil and lemon basil…apparently I didn’t have any just regular basil seeds when I started planting this spring), mint,  Aurora peppers (presently purple and amazingly beautiful), Malabar spinach  and eggplant ( which isn’t yet producing fruit at  the moment), along with the pot of morning glories which keep reseeding themselves, California poppies, and zinnias. One day, I’d like to be organized enough to plan for one meal a week during the summer to come from homegrown produce.