Tuesday, October 12, 2010

School finished, new baby, and Canadian Thanksgiving

My degree is finally official! Or at least, unofficially official, as it shows up on my unofficial transcript. Yay! I'm very slowly working on rewriting a paper for publication, but it's taking awhile. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the freedom from the constant pressure of the PhD program. Yay! I think I'm going to start working on my herbarium collection and learning the plants in this area. I've always loved learning names of things, but I've been so caught up in my project that I haven't had time. Now I can finally get all those books I want, like "plants of the pacific northwest" and other quick-n-dirty ID books. I find it's easier to start ID-ing plants if you start with a picture book than if you have to work through one of those scientific keys. Then I'll start memorizing the aboriginal uses of the plants, wheee! It's been so long since I've been able to enjoy plants like this… and Q is off to Ottowa this week, so I get the car, so it'll be easier to get to a bookstore. Well, I do have to take the car in to get serviced, sigh… oh well. It'll work out.

New baby coming next April! I'm almost over the sick part, fingers crossed. Feeling more like myself, hooray.

Had a wonderful Canadian Thanksgiving with some friends. Q spruced up the house beautifully, and stayed up all night cooking and cleaning. I'm still recovering though, and have yet to finish washing all the dishes :). That'll be this morning's project.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Playing in Vancouver

The Graduate Office gave me some more small changes to make, which I did, and they asked for some more forms, which I sent in, and they also reminded me that I need to sign up for a credit in Summer. Ouch. Hopefully my arrangement-by-request form will be processed soon. There are always more hoops to jump, aren't there? Until I get that little paper in my little hands....

I've cleared several projects off my to-do list, so now I get to go back to editing my latest manuscript. Yay! Time to get that last chapter published. Then I have one more paper to write. Meanwhile, it's nice taking a break from insane scheduling. I kept TM home from day camps this week so we could do some playing, and it's been great.

Yesterday we went to Spanish Bank beach at low tide. It was marvelous! It's pretty frustrating not knowing the tidal species out there, though. What crawdad-like-thing was that? What was that worm-y thing? Not to mention all the shells and crabs. Sigh. But wow, the mud was beautiful, and it stretched on for something like 1/2 mile away from the shore. Mud, glorious mud! Of course it's home to teeming millions of animals, but we played around anyway.

The day before that, we meant to go to the aquarium, but I didn't have money for parking. So we went to the bank and deposited a check and got some change for parking and went back to the aquarium. By the time we got there, the line was out the door and starting to wrap around the parking lot. Not my cup-o-tea. So we went to a nearby aboriginal village instead. It was great! We got to see some dances by a tribe that lives near the area -- the dances were great! Then TM painted a rock, we ate some frybread, learned a dance, took a train ride through the forest with lots of Native American stuff displayed, and looked at some beautiful artwork and bent boxes. So much fun! It's great having a child to run around with.

We're getting used to living in a small apt, but I still have lots of organizing to do. Slow and steady, that's the way to go. No-one seems to mind the small space, which is nice. It'll be better after a year or so, which is usually how long it takes me to find homes for all of (or most of) our stuff.

Oh -- our LCD TV died. Great. Luckily we have a backup from years ago, and it works quite fine. We only watch movies, so there's no worry about converting to digital or anything like that. We're trying to stay away from big buys  unless they're necessary (like that blender we bought to replace our blender that died….that was expensive…).

Overall, we're loving it here. There are lots and lots of things to do, and there's plenty of beautiful scenery to keep my cabin fever at bay.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

I forgot to reference the song

My blog title is from one of my all-time favorite songs -- Marty Robins "Wagon wheels" as sung by The Smothers Brothers. "Waaaaaaguhn wheeeeels, caaaary mee... hoooooome."

First post-PhD post

I'm done! Mostly. Dissertation's turned in, my advisor has all the necessary forms, and now we wait for the Graduate Office to check my formatting and finalize everything. Hooray! So I'm closing the old blog, "Dissertation with Kid," and starting a New Blog.

TM and Q and I went with some friends to the Vancouver Aquarium yesterday -- it was so much fun! I got to touch some anemones, and watch the belugas, and generally have fun. I'm starting to like living so close to the city -- there are lots of parks in which TM can play, there are beaches galore, and ferry-rides and the aquarium and the science museum (that's still on the list) and lots of preschool-type fun programs. Lots of me-type programs, too, like pottery! I might tackle some pottery sometime, who knows. My dad took a class in Barstow and loved it. He also made some really neat bowls that I got to spirit away with me when we came to Vancouver. They're the best cereal bowls ever!