Wild West
Check this out.

I don't even have words.

Mahler Madness
Last night while at the symphony my mom collapsed and was rushed to the emergency room. She's now in the hospital for more test and observations. Luckily they're ruled out the ugly stuff. The best guess is that she had a crazy migrane that just erupted with a lot of power.
Not fun.
The percussion section did bring her a barf bucket, though. So she has that going for her.
Anyway, it's been a really scary day for the whole family, but I am incredibly thankful that it looks like everything is going to be fine.

So I Should Be Reading About the Boston Tea Party . . .
but I'm looking at this instead. Best site ever.
Ok, now I'm really getting back to work, but I must say I'm reading the worst essay ever. A sample: "The ideological approach encouraged a dispassionate sympathy for those beyone one's ken; it invited scholars to look for structured meaning; and it moved American histiography beyond the filiopietistic evaluation of nation-building acts."

Squirreled Away
I spent most of the day tracking down census records and probate documents trying to identify people in the legation papers. It was a little tedious, but it reminded me how exciting the power of discovery can be.
A world awaits--that's the important part--the details are just that.

Humbling
I've had a humbling day at school and don't feel all that smart today. I want so badly to succeed at this, but I have a battle ahead of me. This is hard work and I've been out of academia for a long time. I need to cut myself some slack, but that's something I've never been good at.
tomorrow I'll work on fixing the problems, but for tonight I think I'm going to continue to sulk a little.

Pumpernickel
That's this week's bread experiment. What I didn't realize was how incredibly time consuming it is. After making the dough, you have to let it sit for 24 hours, and then you cook it over a water bath for almost 5 hours. This had better be the best bread ever. I am making it in honor of my class tonight. We read about a German community in St. Louis, so I felt pressured to do a German bread. Why I feel a need to bake for my class, I really don't know. Part of it is that they are mostly all living in small apartments and dorms and don't really have someone to make them nice meals. Plus I will use any excuse to work on my bread baking. I think it's my new niche.
Besides baking, life is quiet on the home front. I read, I write, I bake, I fill the days.
I am excited that this week marks the opening of the State Fair. It's my favorite time of year. I saw in the paper that they are offering replicas of Big Tex's shirt at the fair this year. Do you think E loves me enough to dress as Big Tex? He did, after all, dress as Magnum P.I. a few years ago. I have such a good man!
I need to get a run in before I head to class today. No rest for the researcher!

Fun 3--Productivity 0
I guiltily enjoyed my entire weekend even if it didn't mean reading several books. Instead I merely wrote a paper and read 100 pages of a book--total slacker. What I did do was try to suck every ounce of fun from the first sunny weekend in a long time.
On Friday E and I worked as volunteer bar tenders at a winery for Grapefest. While I don't think I'm going to give up my dreams of being a professor, I did enjoying the job. I got to meet some cool people and pour a lot of wine.
Saturday we did our usual weightlifting and then a huge walk. Our evening plans included Thai food, chocolate cake, wine, and a silly movie. Today we hit up Octoberfest in Addison. Any day I can chicken dance with the hubby, Cotton Eyed Joe with my sister and a friends, and watch weiner dogs race is a good day. I'm just saying.
The day would be better if the Cowboys were winning, but you can't have everything.

I think I've had a little change of heart. Usually when we are at family event I get a little sad, but this time I actually was happy because I felt that it truly could be us someday. Maybe I'm not done with hope yet.

This Week in Books
A quick recap of the week so far:
Sunday: St. Louis: The Evolution of the American Urban Landscape
Monday: Little Commonwealth, The Middle Ground
Tuesday: Nature's Metropolis, several journal articles
Wednesday: Power of Place, American Slavery/American Freedom

I still haven't finished the last one, but I'm reading feverishly. It's been a bizarre week shifting from Puritans and Indians to Tobacco planters and then to modern urban architecture as a way of creating social meaning.
I also logged 7 hours of Texas Legation research which I am really enjoying--I get a kick out of tracking down these men and figuring out their stories. I've been offered alittle window to look through and examine life in Texas in 1836.

I was about to type "in other news" but I realized that I spent 12 hours in the library today and I have no other news. I'll go put my thoroughly boring nose back i a book.

Morning Wisdom
Here's my horoscope for this morning: Sometimes life is hard. Get over it.

I love that! It's time to put on the big girl panties and move on! That being said, I really have precious little to complain about at the moment. I was just sitting downstairs finishing the paper and reflecting on how I was so blessed to be able to create my own schedule and to do what I truly love. That being said, I do have a 12 hour school day ahead of me. . .
Tonight I'm the discussion leader for my class, and I'm slightly terrified. I did, however, bake treats for the class. Even if I sound dumb, they will be too preoccupied with the fresh baked bread to notice. The bread was an interesting exercise. I decided to make it because the book talked about the commodification of nature and spent quite a bit of time discussing the grain industry. I thought at first that my making homemade bread would help people understand where their food comes from, that it is a process using natural ingredients. That was the theory anyway. In reality as I gathered my ingredients, I realized that they came from 2 countries and 6 states. Even more surprising, the southern style B'rer Molasses is from New Jersey, and the Quaker Oats hail from Chicago. Metrocenters have not only taken the products from their hinterlands but also their identities. The three flours I used came from California, Missouri, and Illinois, and the yeast hails from Canada. The simple act of making bread is the result of hundreds of transactions and thousands of miles. Reading Nature's Metropolis has really made me think a little more about the localvore movement. I don't think I'm going to be following it exclusively, but I find increasingly that I want to know where my food comes from.

I am spending my off hours training for the big Muddy Buddy event coming up next month. Sunday I ran 5 miles, and yesterday 3 and 1/2. Today I'm going to do some weight training to keep myself strong for the obstacle courses. Hardcore, no?

Last night I got to meet up with an old friend from high school whom I had not seen in years and years. It was cool to see her and her hubby. They really made me think because they just got back from being stationed in Japan, and now they are off to begin a new adventure living in Paris. I must say there is something very appealing in living that life less ordinary. Having grown up with parents who moved us about the globe, I can say it made me a more polished, interesting, and educated person. I hope to have that sort of opportunity for my own children, but I am not sure how to make it happen. I guess I need to focus on finishing the PhD, then I can plan my next adventure.

Life really is an adventure--that's why I invest in big girl panties! You just never know.

Open Letter to the Rain
I am so over you.
Sure, my ivy is perking up, but what have you done for me lately?
Snap out of it.
Love,
Me

Gooey Yoga
My yoga class this morning was so challenging that my entire body feels like quivering goo. . . in a good way. Iypically my mind churns, racing at millions of miles per hour, so it is impressive when I can find moments of complete peace and harmony, even more so when those moments of peace come when I am hanging upside down!

I had another test at the RE today, and he has told me that my system is in really good shape. On the one hand, I find that encouraging, but on the other hand I then don't know I am having so many problems. Perhaps it's mental?

School sucks up most of my attention. I've especially enjoyed spending time in the archives tracking down minute details and resurrecting long dead men and women through their letters and documents. It's also exciting to deal with papers that most people have never seen before--these legation papers had been lost for over 150 years! They don't really offer any bombshells, but they help to paint a picture of the situation in Texas at the time. Plus they use words like bugbear frequently.You have to love that.

A bat has moved into our backyard, or at least he likes to flit over the pool towards sunset. So, yes, we're officially batty.

Swollen Head
All the info swilling around in my head is threatening to break it. At the same time that I seem to be accumulating knowledge, though, I grow increasingly aware of my own ignorance and inadequacy. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I enjoy the learning process. I feel already that people are trying to peg me to get me to figure out what I want to devote my life to when I don't even know what I want for lunch tomorrow.
I think grad school also leaves me with a certain sense of not being good enough. I've grown complacent in my natural abilities, and having to stretch reminds me that those natural abilities do not mean very much without years of work to back them up. I read these amazing historical masterworks and feel wholly unprepared. I just want to be good enough to earn this amazing opportunity that has been given to me.
In other news, I am apparently in excellent health. All of my blood work came back looking great. I'm going in for another text on Thursday to look at the equipment, but at least all of the nasty endochrine issues are off the table for the moment. So I've got that going for me. . .
Tomorrow maybe I'll get some of my missing confidence back.

12
That's how many hours I was at the library today.
And I loved every minute of it.
I also met my advisor who is wonderful. Over tea we chatted about some of my research ideas, and I got a start on a project that I think will be neat. I'm looking at the perceptions of America from female British travelers in the 19th century. I am pouring through a bunch of old diaries and travel journals at the moment, getting excited.
I also read a few books on both urban and suburban history. I'm trying to trace some patterns of development there and the perceptions of that development.
I also got started on the Legation papers project which promises to be educational--perhaps I might go into public history, and this is fantastic training.
Finally, we discovered that it is feasible for Eric to drop me off and pick me up, so I got to spend extra time with the hubs today. Yay,hubs!
Clementine is trying her best to hijack the computer, so I need to fend off that silly beast. I shall live to read another day.