Ahhh...

A long, lovely weekend. I actually slept until nearly 10 this morning - that is very, very rare. And it was lovely. Ever have a dream in which you are so tired you quite literally can't get your eyes open? In the dream? Very weird, but they are usually a sign that I need more sleep. So even as I'm sleeping, I'm thinking 'damn, it's one of those dreams....'

But the whole day has been quite nice. Semi-productive: laundry done, enough food to last the week prepared, changed the bed linens, got some serious and more light reading done, played with the dogs and birds, snuggled same plus cat, got one side of the kitchen granite treated. The last requires that I clear the counters of all stuff - which normally takes a lot longer than the sealing/treatment itself. Of course, doing all that means that my sparkling clean house & kitchen is now cluttered until I can get the kitchen put back together. But the counter looks lovely. And that's got its own satisfactions.

Food. Oh, do I love food. Today I took care of some leftover fresh veggies by making two cheese/tomato thingies. One in a ready-bake crust: layered mozzarella, eggplant, tomato and feta with herbs and a drizzle of olive oil. Bake until done: lovely! The other was a variation on that (lots of eggplant that needed to be used): diced tomato, eggplant, more dt, top with mozzarella and feta (and lots of herbs). Bake until done. Voila! Food for the week. And it's all healthy food.

And best of all, only two weeks of classes left! This is the last week of class-class - next week is all final presentations, and then I'm done. Done! Done! Done!! No exams to grade, four whole papers (and while those are going to be painful, we've workshopped them once and may do so again). Then I get a whole four weeks off - during which I have lots of reading to get done. This Friday my faculty research group is (hopefully and terrifyingly) workshopping a paper for me. I've never done that before, and yeah, I'm bloody terrified. No amount of rationalization seems to be effective - it's all emotion for me on this.

Have a good week y'all. Remember to be thankful for the small things in life as well as the big!