#48 - read one book each month outside of schoolwork

If there's one thing I love--luckily, I love more things than that, but if there had to be just one, and it wasn't Ricky or my cat or my family or any of those things--it's Julie Andrews.

I didn't mean for Home to be my September book. In fact, I was really eying a Dostoevsky for this month, but Ricky and I made the mistake of going into Borders one night and I found this beauty on sale for five dollars. I opened it up there in the store and proceeded to read for 20 minutes until they announced that the store was closing and I better buy the book or get the heck out. After a tiny twinge of guilt for spending money on a book that I certainly don't need...I bought it anyway. (It's a problem.)

And it was AWESOME. Julie Andrews had a fascinating childhood, and the way she writes is so astoundingly British that my inner reading voice actually develops a strong accent. I love it. Her children's book, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, is my favorite in the genre--so favorite, in fact, that I bought an extra copy just in case I need to loan it out to someone so they can understand how wonderful it is.

Did I mention that I love Julie Andrews?

Anyway, Home was a quick, enjoyable read and I hope that Julie Andrews has more memoirs out there for me to devour. This one ends right after she signs on to do Mary Poppins, and who isn't interested in hearing that story? If you love Ms. Andrews, you'll love the book. But, as a wise man once said, "You don't have to take my word for it!"

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#16 - go to Claytor Lake

Yes, it is mid-January, and yes, I did decide this was a good time to visit a lake. Claytor Lake has free admission if you bring your Christmas tree for them to submerge as a reef for the fish, so off we went! It was a balmy 60 degrees with some pretty good wind, so not too terrible overall for a go-outside-in-the-dead-of-winter activity. We had fun throwing rocks in the water (B) and walking the trails (decidedly not B, who announced "I'm bored of walking!"). But hey, we did the thing. (Currently making plans to come back in the summer when we can actually go in the water!)

2021, in conclusion/memoriam

We're all just ignoring any and all goals we set during the pandemic, right? Right. After the nightmare that was 2020, 2021 wasn't so bad. I submitted my first first-author publication that uncovered a long-standing misconception about airborne transmission of disease, and it got me featured in WIRED magazine . I successfully defended and submitted my dissertation about volunteer health communication in US refugee resettlement. (Those two projects sound very unrelated, but medical rhetoric is the key there :) :)) After 2 years of doctoral coursework and 3 (soul-sucking) years of dissertating, I graduated with a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech. My mental health immediately improved. While I was finishing my dissertation, we sold our townhouse in Blacksburg and moved to a 1910s-era bungalow in coastal North Carolina. My daughter started 1st grade (!) in a Spanish immersion program. We all got vaccinated. I was on set as an extra in a Simu Liu/Phillipa So...

2014 roundup

One of the perks of being pregnant is that you can do all the lazy, procrastinaty things you would normally be doing, and everyone gives you a pass because your body is growing another body with no conscious effort on your part. (The perks of pregnancy end there, very abruptly. Everything else is the worst.) So with that in mind, I'm off the hook for not updating my blog ever, right? The important thing is that I'm still checking things off my list--more slowly than I would be if I could still see my feet, probably--but checking them off nonetheless. Here's 2014 in review: #2. run a 5K Most people (read: sane people) prepare for a 5K by doing logical things like actual running. I prepared for my 5K by saying "Hey! A 5K! I should do that!" and paying the registration fee for my free t-shirt. I'm almost positive I put this goal on my list initially to make myself run more regularly, which means I completed this goal while also laughing in the face of my ...

Katie's 99 in 999 (currently 55 in 555!)

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