And Then It Was Wednesday

Hi again.

Are you tired? Because I am.

Last night I didn't sleep well. Actually, what with thunderstorms and fall weather that can't decide whether to be hot or cold, I've slept fitfully for the past few nights. Last night after we'd been in bed for a few hours, our microwave, in yet another moment of Faust-like soul-selling, spontaneously decided to heat something up for 30 seconds. Only I'm not sure what exactly it was trying to cook because it was most certainly empty. I think this is our microwave's way of telling us that he's broken and needs fixing, only I'm sure it's cheaper in our case to just invest in a new microwave rather than try to doctor this one up. Maybe we'll go small appliance shopping this weekend. Hmm...could be fun, I suppose.

Perhaps because we (and by "we," I'm sure I only mean "I") couldn't sleep well, or perhaps because of the fact that we (and this time, by "we," I most definitely mean me and Blake) both had places to go and people to see, we got up early. Too early. I had to leave for work at 6:30 (I had to go down to Indy, which I'll talk more about momentarily, so just sit tight or whatever), and Blake had to leave for campus shortly thereafter to make his final preparations for his thesis proposal.

Because my morning adventures were a little more boring than Blake's, I'll tell you about mine first -- get 'em over with -- so I can move onto the good stuff.

Twice a year our office does the behind-the-scenes work for a Grant Administrators Training offered by the State. Today was the first day of the training, so we went down to Indy first thing this morning to take registrations. And then we came back. Thrilling, don't you think?

Meanwhile, Blake was proposing his thesis. I'm most happy to report that he passed. Or, his thesis did anyway. He tried bribing them with donuts and orange juice, as well as a generous helping of his natural charm and talents for genius brilliance, and apparently it all worked because they loved him, and his proposal. And now he can start experimenting. His adviser's goal for Blake is to have all the participants run through and have data analyzed by Thanksgiving. Then he'll fiddle with the results and piece together what they actually mean. And if all goes according to plan, he'll have this thing defended by mid-March and bound by early April. And then it will be out of our hair, and we (read: I) won't ever have to think about Intentionality again!

Anyway, we're all proud of Blake over here. He may have only hurdled the proposal stage, but it's taken a lot of hard work to get to this point, and I think he deserves some recognition. So, cheers to you, Blake!

Other items of note:

1) Today my brother, Riley, turns 21. Happy Birthday! Which reminds me of a funny family story regarding his birth. Wanna hear it? Well, all right. On October 3, 1985, my mom and dad took my brother, Tyler, and I to see Follow That Bird in the theater. Tyler, who was sitting on my mother's nearly 9 months pregnant lap, was very excited and did a lot of jumping to prove it. Which apparently helped to speed the labor process along considerably because Riley was born the next day, about 3 weeks early.

2) Yesterday was my one-year anniversary of working at this job. My jobiversary, if you will. Though I can't honestly tell you this job is my favorite thing in the world, I must admit that it is decent and that I work with some great people.

3) Tonight is Activity Days. We're going to teach them how to use the scriptures we made tote bags for last time because apparently they don't know which way is up when it comes to using their scriptures. It'll be much more low-key than the last activity was, and that will be nice because after all...

...I'm tired.