Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

Well I am smack-dab in the middle of my 30s as of yesterday. I have a lot of things to look forward to this coming year. I have a book I edited coming out in the fall. My dissertation should be done in the spring. The other day I got an official acceptance on another article I co-wrote. Hannah is almost 4 and doing well. Travel is coming my way too. At the end of this week I am headed out to visit my sister in Indiana. In November I am going to give a presentation in Minneapolis and then I am making my way to Washington DC in the spring, with other potential trips in the works. I have been sick and I had to go to the doctor yesterday but it was still a good day. Hannah found some cupcakes at the grocery store last week and saved them for my birthday. She even blew the candle out in my behalf. She also got me some good gifts and helped me by opening them. I have a feeling birthdays are going to be fun indeed with her looking out to make sure they go well.

Hannah is a big fan of Peppa Pig. She has adopted a lot of her favorite activities and uses British expressions. For example, she calls a shopping cart "a trolley" and a stroller is a "push chair."  Hannah, just like Peppa, likes to go and splash in muddy puddles so I take her out and let her and then we clean up and dry off. I won't let her wallow though.  Here is a particularly good splash. We have matching rain boots. I found them online. Our neighbors like them too. On the show, Mommy Pig goes out to splash too. When Hannah isn't splashing she is running a repair shop in the garage while I exercise in the mornings. Here she is fixing up her bike. Sometimes she is riding it and she "runs out of petrol" and so she has to go the station and fill up. This morning we were watching and Peppa talked her mother into making pancakes. We couldn't resist. Just like Peppa and Mommy Pig we used flour (ours had blueberrie...

I have worked every summer since I have been in graduate school. In the past I worked three long days and then had the the rest of the week and weekend off. This year, I had to work four days, usually five, for shorter periods of time to keep various projects going. Some days are full of meetings and working at research sites and some days I just have to go and write so I dress more casually.  Here is Hannah and I before work on a casual day wearing our Wonder Woman shirts. My sister gave Hannah hers and then Hannah located one to match in a store so I bought it.  Hannah likes to get stuff in the mail. So I set it up so that she gets a small inexpensive book every week during the summer. When there is a package, the postal employee leaves a key in our smaller box to a bigger one at the bottom of the rows of boxes for our street. She goes out to look for a key every day. Sometimes I find other fun stuff too, like these great minion goggles and yellow beanie. I thin...