That last post was started on August 9th and ended on...September 4th. Whoops.

A brief, peaceful fall day. I woke up with a cat curled up near me. It was beautifully cool in the shade, warm in the sun. After a lovely McNair meeting followed by beautiful music, the twin and I went to the evil coffee corporation inside Barnes and Noble. I worked on my personal statement for the Rhodes (which I am procrastinating by blogging), and had a delicious pumpkin spice latte with soy. After taking the twin home I went for a drive around the city. The air was almost crisp and I was blasting Madonna's new CD (although I wish it had more actual Madonna on it, I am a BIT obsessed with 4 Minutes), and then I saw an enormous flock of geese take off and start flying south for the winter. It was beautiful.

This is exactly the kind of weekend I long for. I spent some time at home on Friday night, catching up on some recreational reading. If it weren't for the Rhodes I would have plenty of time to catch up on my homework. I slept in and on Saturday I did a little shopping. I stopped at Hobby Lobby (creepy!) to get an album for my scrapbooking and there was a ton of Halloween decorations out. I just love fall and Halloween and everything that comes with it. I also bought some tupperware to organize some of my desk supplies, a flash-drive (stupid crashing compu) and two shirts for back-to-school. One is an elbow-length black t-shirt with a cinched, heart-shaped bodice and broad neck. It accents my shoulders, and looks fabulous. I'm wearing it to the Theatre Department Picnic today, along with a set of long dangly earrings I haven't worn in a while. In fact, the last time I wore these I remember losing one in the middle of the intersection of South 4th Street and Marquette, and running back out on a stop light to find it. I also bought a light grey v-neck sweater with white and green argyle down the front.

Did I mention that I adopted a cat last week from the humane society? They called him Rooks, but I don't know what to name him yet. I was thinking Dr. Waterhouse (any Neal Stephenson fans?) but I don't think he's smart enough. He's more of a Brett Favre, but that's still a topic/name I won't touch with a ten-foot pole. Also, he has a very quiet meow, very ladylike. He's also got thumbs! I'll post a picture as soon as I figure out how, and you'll see what I mean. He's very cute and sweet, but at 1 am he likes to be petted while I am still asleep, so I might have to find some way to discourage him. He and the snake (Mitch) get along very well, if by very well you mean the cat tries to eat the snake but is thwarted by the glass, and the snake damn well knows it is safe and taunts the cat.

All in all a very domestic weekend. No working on the weekend (except for the house meeting tonight), and I kept to myself. If I finish this essay I think I will reward myself with time to paint the second part of a project I am working on.

I supposed I should enjoy myself while I can because I am officially booked all but three weekends between now and Thanksgiving, and those three promise to fill up fast. New weekend is the house canoe trip, the weekend after is the MCC Retreat, after that is the McNair Senior Retreat, then I think I have two free weekends in October, followed by the MCC Fall GMM, the McNair National Research Conference, and NASCO Institute (at which I am teaching this year...woohoo!), and then one more weekend before Thanksgiving. So yikes. If you want to make plans with me, let's set them up soon. I want to take sometime in the middle of October to visit an apple orchard, and definitely the corn maze again this year. That was a lot of fun last year.

Well, I'm off to enjoy my relaxation.