Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

I bought an egg kit for dyeing eggs this year, but I also bought some wooden eggs that had been painted white. Hannah and I sat in the kitchen and painted them with Sharpie makers. This worked extremely well. The best part is that I can keep them for another year until I get tired of them. I like to keep the Easter baskets in good condition and so I put them up on the cupboards in the kitchen and I don't let her play with them, except for the one that I think needs to be deaccessioned. When we were done with the eggs, Hannah gathered them in her basket and she has been hauling them around. We also made cookies. Hannah wanted to make sugar cookies, but she was disappointed that we had to chill the dough for two hours. She dealt with this by watching television. She is a big fan of rolling out the dough and cutting the cookies. I am the kind of person who likes all the cookies to be neat and pretty, but if I insist on this, then the experience is pretty miserable. I have fou...

Last Saturday we went to Olive Garden (my friend had sent us a gift card) to celebrate my comprehensive exams. Hannah ordered a pepperoni pizza and she really liked the breadsticks.  Mother-daughter selfie at the restaurant.  Neither of us is very good at looking at the camera.  On Monday I read stories to Hannah before going to work (as is typical). Then I came home and ate lunch with Brian and Hannah. I came home early and took Hannah to the craft store to let her pick out some projects and then we stopped to get an ice cream cone on the way home.  On Tuesday we went to the Lawrence St. Patrick's Day Parade after lunch. I wasn't sure how long Hannah would last, but she made it a good 40 minutes before she was asking to go. It was hard for her because she wanted to get down and run around and told her she had to be holding my hand or in my arms. There was just too many people and I didn't want to lose her and have to go around looking. ...

On Tuesday I took my oral comprehensive exams. In my department we have to do written and oral ones. Some people only have to do one or the other. Anyway, I was grilled for almost two hours and I passed. Actually people asked me really good questions and I was glad for their help in thinking, but to be sure, my five committee members were not easy on me. Brian and Hannah waited for me in the building where I was being tested. When I was done, we went to eat lunch at a sandwich shop and then I went to work and told my boss and my colleague that I had passed. Then I went back to the building I had been tested in for class. However class had been cancelled for group consultations so my research partner and I went downstairs to go out into the sunshine when we met up with other colleagues that congratulated me. I am not much of a celebrator for events like these, but my research partner insisted that I do something so he and another doctoral candidate and I took a ride around campus i...

On Wednesday after one of my classes, I went to the airport and flew to Utah. My master's thesis adviser won the Benjamin Cluff, Jr. Award for Educational Research and I wanted to support her. The ceremony was on Thursday with a special luncheon and then I did some homework. In the evening I went to visit a student in Springville who had just returned from the Ukraine. His brother was also recently returned from a sojourn to South America. After our visit I was able to go and see another student and play with his baby before meeting some friends at Denny's for a 10p.m. dinner. The next day I flew home. My plane landed at 5 p.m. and then I met my research partner at 6:30p.m. to write a paper for a class we are taking together. Finally, I met Brian and Hannah for dinner around 8:30p.m. While I was gone, Hannah wrote me this letter.   This letter says "Dear Mommy, you have to come home so that we can get ice cream and so that we can go eat. Please come home. Thank you...

Hannah has been talking a lot lately about what we have in common. I will see her doing something that I used to do and I will tell her "hey, I used to do that when I was little girl." And then she will see me doing something and say "hey, I used to that when I was a mommy." It's only fair, I guess. She has also been coming up to me lately and telling me that "we have the same eyes." Actually, we don't. Hannah's eyes are true blue. She has two blue-eyed grandfathers. Brian's eyes are brown so she probably says our eyes are the same because they are closer to being so than her and Brian. I have never known what color eyes I have. When people used to ask, I would say "not quite blue, not quite green." A few weeks ago I was looking up stuff about eye color on the Internet and I discovered that people in my predicament are considered to have gray eyes. Unfortunately gray eyes are not very exciting. Not very many people have them. ...