About that snow...

Last night it snowed. A lot. At least six inches. Here is J shoveling our front steps. He is so good.


And here is the excellent work he made of the back yard so we could go out for coffee and scones this morning.



I was glad that my lady friends still made it over here yesterday for the first ever craft night. They braved the elements, steered their little cars through snowy streets to come drink wine and play with yarn. Our man friends got together over beers and acted like men, only to return in time for apple pie and ice cream. They had been driven out of the house for fear of catching a bit of the lady-ness that had taken over the living room.

There is something really nice about a crafty circle, about a bunch of people sitting around and feeling comfortable with the inevitable silences. Knitting can do that. J's grandma just died and one of the fondest memories I have of her is from several Decembers ago, when she and I sat next to each other near the warm wood stove, in recliners with the foot rests up. She talked, I knitted. For hours. While I worked through some scarf or hat or something, she told me about J's early days, about her early days, about the family farm thirty years ago when Kay and Mitch first moved there. She was 97 when she died a couple of weeks ago. The things she had lived through...it gives me hope that life feels longer than you think it will.

For the love of words (and of winning)

Today is J's mom's birthday. Happy birthday Kay! 

J comes from a family steeped in the tradition of Boggle, that long-heralded word game that makes geeks feel like kings. It is one of those rare phenomena that actually rewards all things geeky with the awe and appreciation of friends and onlookers. Spelling, vocabulary, knowing the names of obscure birds and obsolete sailing vernacular...for once, all are deservedly envied. 

Anyway, so we picked up a new Boggle set for Kay to replace the pencil-marked, scratched-up, taped-box version she currently has. She will probably argue that her set is just fine, but we like to play when we visit and we think she needs a new one. Only the best for special people.

If you haven't played Boggle before, you must try. Especially if you like crosswords and other egg-headed pursuits. The goal is to look at the letters (like in this photo of a Boggle set) and make as many words as possible with letters that touch each other, and without re-using individual letter blocks within a word. Three-letter words are shameful but acceptable. For example, here we have star, shear, slant, heat...I could go on, but I don't want to strike too much fear into the hearts of my dear competitors. 

I wrote an earlier post about one particularly fiery match between J and I that set the tone for the next many years of Boggle bouts. I hate losing. Which is just one reason why, just last week, I gave him a rather thorough trouncing. 

More on the smart front: Yesterday I found out that one of my papers has been accepted for presentation at an academic conference at the University of Tennessee. This is good news. It's the same paper that was accepted earlier in the month to be presented at the upcoming American Studies Symposium at Purdue. This is also good news. Now, if only the other two papers I've been shopping around would receive some attention...