This and that

We actually got a little rain overnight, and it's misting this morning.

(And it's a LOT cooler out. I would like to have died on Tuesday in my office and lab, it was so warm AND SOMEONE TURNED OFF THE VENTILATION SYSTEM. But yesterday, it was actually kind of chilly out - not so good for the bug-catching lab, but a lot more pleasant to be in.)

It actually feels and looks a lot like fall today. I wouldn't mind it at all if we had a cool, damp summer (Not that I'm expecting that). Maybe not a repeat of 2007 with flooding, but if we had a number of what the Irish call "soft days" - where there's sort of a mist and we're getting rain without really feeling rained on - I wouldn't mind at all.

I'm looking forward to this summer. Tuesday, when my back was bothering me and I didn't feel up to doing the last soil samples (which will get processed today, actually, as soon as I get done here), I rewrote some of the research plan. I have a couple students who want to work with me and hopefully their schedules will be such that we won't have to restrict fieldwork to Fridays and Saturdays as in the past.

I plan to take at least one full day off each week this summer and do NOTHING. Or rather, not do NOTHING (because I'm bad at that) but stay home and quilt or knit or work in my garden or read or play the piano or more likely do all of those things.

I think one of the problems this past year (especially last summer, when I was teaching a real overload...and an overload that included a couple of people who had a personality conflict, never pleasant) is that my life has gotten a little unbalanced toward the work-end of things. And so thinking about a summer with long, empty days where I can decide what I want to do - rather than fit my schedule around a "forced" schedule - seems really appealing.

Even with the fieldwork: if it works out the way I hope it does, we'll be going out around 7 am and working until noon or so, and then taking off the hot part of the day...so I can go home, shower, eat a leisurely lunch, and then spend my afternoon doing something else.