Garden

I'm planning to get the garden planted this week. I love the whole veggie garden process. I get to pick out all my plants (I've given up on planting seeds - that's way too much work), hang out in the dirt and sun for a couple hours, watch everything grow, nurture my little youngsters, get pissed at bugs and weeds, then finally reap the benefits of my labor through extra yummy eats!

We probably won't use all of our garden plot, so if anyone is interested, you are welcome to plant a few things. We promise to water it all on a somewhat regular basis...if you're lucky on a nice day I may even pick a few weeds, although that will be mostly up to you. Otherwise, around mid-July through mid-August, stop by for some yummy tomatoes, peppers, and whatever else we get this year.

Mojitos will also be "in-season" starting in June! mmmmm....fresh mint mojitos, I can't wait.

Wedding and Baby Showers

What do people think about showers? I go back and forth on it all. I've had lots of phases in my life on this topic. First, I wanted nothing to do with them...it just seemed like a waste of time. Then I went through the they must be co-ed phase, because if I had to suffer through it, then my s.o. should as well. Next was the, forget co-ed, don't put everyone through the pain phase. I'm coming around slightly on showers as a whole. I think they are a good idea, you are helping jump start a couple's home, or a baby's life, with useful stuff. (I won't go so far as to say necesssary).

Besides the helpful factor, both weddings and babies are things to celebrate, so I'm good with a party. My problem is that these "parties" often aren't fun. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe I'm just a jerk and don't enjoy sitting around, eating off china, and getting giddy over house items or baby clothes.

Here's my philosophy. Instead of showers, people should just be generous. In fact, this happen with lil-M. We had some gracious friends throw us showers and lots of generous friends give us helpful stuff. However, we got TONS of useful baby stuff outside the shower. If that was the standard, then we wouldn't need showers for people to feel forced to give us stuff. Then, all we would need to worry about is the celebration. Just throw a party! We don't need to spend hours opening gifts, because there won't be any, people have just been generous in general. Simple, pure, celebration of the life of a new couple or a new baby. As a bonus, there's no thank you notes to weigh down the new couple or parents.

The problem with my philosophy is the multiple generations. I'm not sure how to handle that aspect in my utopia world of showers.

I just spent my whole Saturday preparing, attending, and post-attending a shower. It was relatively fun, but I would have rather dropped off my gift at my convenience and gone out for a bike ride on an amazingly beautiful Saturday. Then after the sun went down raise a toast to the new life ahead.

Decision Made

We'll have to "settle" for French wine. The plan: a few days in Paris, then on to Nice, with day trips to other parts of the Provence region around Nice.

2 more days before grades are due....I *think* I'll get it all finished!

Final Exams and Graduations

I'm writing this while giving the final exam to my students. It's amazingly difficult to write an exam that actually lets the students who know the stuff prove it, without making it crazy hard or too difficult to grade. I always mess up at least one question. I forget to include something I assumed while solving it and end up with as many solutions as students. My poor TAs. I'm also feeling sorry for my students. This really sucks. Here they are on a beautiful sunny Saturday taking a really difficult exam. It sucks almost as much for me, but at least I don't have to think much. However, I'd much rather be out celebrating Joy's graduation.

Speaking of graduating. Congratulations to all my smart friends who are getting their degrees...Abbey, Joy, LPR. I'm proud of you and hope you sit back and enjoy this moment between life's phases while relishing in your respective accomplishments.

Election day

Don't forget to vote today! Step up, be a good citizen, and use your voice. Your vote really does count in local elections. In particular, they only anticipate about 3000 voters at this election and the mayoral race is likely to be very close!

3 council seats and the mayoral seat are up. Therefore, this is an important election for Blacksburg.

Don't know who to vote for? Information and links to candidate webpages are at the Citizens Frist webpage.
Don't know where to vote? That too is on the Citizens First webpage.