November started out by rocking the vote. New Mexico has some of the most fair and open elections in the country and there are lots of ways to vote, but I went on to campus and voted in the student union building with the undergraduates. It was packed with students reading for class while standing in line and talking about the political issues. New Mexico only has 2.2 million people (not all of whom are old enough to vote) and something like 400,000 voted early and still the polls were packed. I was impressed.
One of our neighbors is going back to school and sometimes her husband works late, so this boy and his brother come and play with Hannah. This evening they had a robotics kit and they put it together all themselves and then tested it in the kitchen. That spawned a good joke in the neighborhood that if you take your kids to some people's houses, they watch TV or make cookies. But at our place, you do robotic engineering.
Then I was off to my 8th conference of the National Council of Teachers of English in 10 years. This year, Houston was the venue. The weather was lovely and the conference was good. Here I am in my red blazer just after the 3rd or 4th time of being mistaken for hotel management.
For Thanksgiving, I made turkey and pumpkin couscous. I also grilled sweet potatoes and red potatoes with spices in olive oil and made rolls. For dessert, there were two pies: chocolate and pumpkin. We are still eating the turkey. So far, I have made turkey citrus fajitas and white bean chili. I will do a soup and make a casserole and that should do it for the turkey.
Hannah is old enough to help me decorate where I don't have to go back and re-do things when she is done. The downstairs living areas and kitchen were appropriately autumnal and cheery this year.
The Christmas decor is up now. We switched it shortly after Thanksgiving. I have a goal to get all the major buying, wrapping, decorating, menu planning, and mailing done for Christmas by the first Monday in December. This year, I am going to make it. Only a few odds and ends left. I do this because the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter Break are awful if you are in the academy. Final tests and papers, managing publication manuscripts, last visits to research sites, end of semester meetings and reports, and even the socializing that people like to do this time of year take up time. It is so much more pleasant to just do the university stuff when the other pieces are all in place for the season. And besides I have a unicorn to help me.
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