Mish-mash

My ride to school this morning was the shortest its been in months at 35 minutes. The temperature was warm. The streets were clear. The wind was with me.

Then we got white-out level snow while I was at school. My ride home was the longest I've ever had at 59 minutes. When I got home, my bike looked like this. Woof!





I've been away from social media for a while. I wanted to concentrate on doing nice things with my sweeties, but my weekend was a stressy one. I was poor company at times, especially for my sweetie Lisa. And here I thought I was managing stress so much better this semester. It kind of snuck up on me I guess. Lisa was generous in her understanding. Did I mention that she bought a Groupon to a fancy grilled cheese place just because she knew I'd like it? She's really sweet. Maybe we'll go next time I'm there.

The two of us drove around on Saturday, visiting a Korean market, and then some drug stores and a Fannie May Candies in search of post-Valentines deals. There was nothing. Fannie May had no sales, and the drug stores were just empty shelves where the pink and red packages of chocolates and candies had been. I was amazed; usually there's still a good selection for at least a day or two.

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Danae is sweet too. I spent hours reading various things sitting next to her on the couch, and getting stuff done helped relax me. Once I was feeling better, I also thought about how I was eating on Saturday with Lisa and wondered whether that was contributing to my headspace. I want to start tracking nutrition better on the weekends and make sure I'm getting enough food and enough protein.

She and I also had a fun conversation about post-modernism. I need to develop a better grounding in post-modern thought. Hopefully my current theory class will have that effect. I find a lot of it really appealing, and Danae, who is not so enamored with post-modern thinking, keeps me grounded in reality sometimes. She has a sexy brain.

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I talked to my history professor today about my paper. I haven't found a lot that directly explains the planning behind the filling in of Pike Creek, which has been my planned topic. Since he cancelled class for the day, the two of us went down to the archives, where I showed him some of the sources I've located so far, including century-old maps that show the course of the creek. Now he's interested too!

He suggested I broaden my topic out to cover the whole history of the creek. I think that will work really well. I already know there are accounts of how the creek looked to early settlers and how they felt about it. And a broader, shallower history should still work as a background information for the Pike Creek related project I'm working on with my adviser. I'm feeling less anxious about sources, and plan to start going broad in my next chunk of research time. Win!

I'm still going to look for more on the actual filling in of the creek in the late '60s. My adviser and I are going to find time to go to the library together here in Kenosha and look through newspaper on microfilm. I think that will actually be kind of fun.

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Speaking of my adviser, I found preserved betel nut at the Korean grocery store and picked some up for her since she's talked about how hard it is to find outside of Southeast Asia! I wonder if it'll be any good.

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I have a meeting at 8 o' clock tomorrow morning regarding the trip to Chiapas, so I'll be getting up at 6. At least I can take a nap afterward!

Money. *yawn*

On top of the dresser that sits in the living room downstairs, there's a small stack of plastic inbox trays. Though they hadn't been used for a while, the thought behind them was that mail would be sorted into them for various people in the household. When I've sorted mail a few times over the last months though, I've just made piles on the porch for folks.

As it turns out, people have been utilizing them. Sporadically at least. I was looking for a Valentine's card from my grandmother (my grandmother is so awesome that she sends her grandchildren cards for just about every holiday) that I couldn't find. My mother directed me to my inbox tray. Wow, there must have been a lot of mail in the last week or so since I sorted everything!

No, there was simply mail sitting there from as far back as last March.

But since there were several statements from the holder of my student loan from Michigan, and I'd never really started keeping track of the oustanding balance on that loan in any way more methodical than looking at it once a month when I get a letter from them, I decided I'd start putting stuff in a spreadsheet.

I'm pleased to see that, since March of last year, the balance is down slightly more than a thousand dollars. When my check from earlier this month is applied, it will be under three thousand in total. I can see a day, a few years hence, when it will be paid off! Of course, by then I'll either be in grad school, or I'll have started paying off my undergrad loans....

One of these days, when I feel like sitting and playing with numbers, I'll figure out how much time I'm taking off the repayments by my typical practice of rounding my checks up about seven dollars to the nearest ten. Though sometimes I just throw an extra ten or fifteen on top of that too. It's nice to see that principal number go down.

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My grandmother sent me $20 inside a card with a yellow lab with knitted red heart-shaped ears. The card says "It's Valentine's Day! ...Another reason to tell you how lovable you are."

I have wonderful family. I'm going to call her and thank her tomorrow when it's not late.