And the Livin' is Easy

So I've been traveling a little bit this summer. Immediately after grading I dropped everything and headed off to Montreal for a week. It was relaxing and, well, at least there were two days of good weather! I saw lots of old movies and plasticized corpses and I ate really well (the advantages of dating someone with a newfound cooking obsession) and generally had a very nice time.

I returned to get everything in order here before going to London for two weeks. No fun- research only. I keep saying this again and again hoping that maybe it will come true and I'll actually get a lot of work done there instead of spending a lot of money I don't exactly have at the moment and pubbing it every evening . . . I'm really looking forward to it though. Haven't been to the UK in a year and a half and I miss the green and pleasant land terribly, along with all my friends there. I've also got a large number of academic pals who will be in London and Oxford whilst I'm there, including my closest colleague friend, who will actually be staying in the same B&B as me. No fun- research only. No fun- research only.

Then I'll return June 20 and begin packing and carting my things over to The New House. Once I'm settled there, I'll divide my time between planting lovely things in the garden (roses, rosemary, lavender, thyme); hunting for mid-century modern furniture, and cranking out my manuscript in my office on campus. Probably mostly cranking in the office, hopefully not sans manuscript and articles.

Yee-Haw

Done with grading. The summer awaits. Not thinking about the book and the articles. Not thinking about the book. Maybe thinking a little about the articles. Mostly thinking about sleep.

House Love

Yeah, you know you want it. You feel the love. Rooms you want to paint in Benjamin Moore "Evening Sky" and "Incense Stick." Arts and Crafts furniture you want to purchase and place in the rooms. Rose bushes you want to plant outside the bedroom window. Ooh, baby. Feel the house love.

I'm moving there in two months. I sometimes stay awake at night decorating and redecorating the rooms, adding a back patio rose garden and purchasing countless imaginary kilims for the back sunroom at imaginary Ottoman bazaars (don't forget to bring me back some from Turkey, M&D! Just because I can't go to the wedding there doesn't mean I don't deserve kilims!).

Here's an old picture of it from last summer before it was painted (now it's light green with white trim). The previous tenants were landscape designers who practiced in front and on the sides of the house. They ran a little stream through the front like a brook that is really a pump-fountain. I can turn it on if I like. The backyard is huge and hilly and unfinished. I wonder how much it would cost to cover it with daffodils. In the living room there is a working fireplace with the original iron "summer door" which will keep out the drafts and birds and also the cat. I can burn logs there in the winter and roast marshmallows even.

I can't wait.