Must . . . blog . . . more

Well, it's February, so maybe that's already sucking less? I mean, we're that much closer to spring. And spring break. And warm temperatures.

I am pining for the land of oleander and lantana, hedges of geraniums and rosemary, golden hills and gentle weather. I'm in the part of the country that got somewhere close to two feet of snow this past week. The storm kept me on campus for two nights. The good news was that Sir John had done all the necessary shoveling by the time I got home, and though I enter the house between 4-foot piles of snow, entrance is possible. Mail delivery has resumed. No pipes have frozen. Power stayed on the whole time. I have nothing to complain about, except that this is my 24th winter and I have had enough. How long till I can retire? And should I start teaching summer school so I can afford to retire in the land of lantana? Such calculations take up far too much of my brain, which I should be applying to research, service, and teaching tasks.

I've finished corrections on an accepted Thing and sent it off. I am back to working on the now very overdue R&R, and I have two acceptable opening pages and a lot of material that can be worked in when I figure out where it goes. I have written the quiz I was to have given on what turned into a snow day this week, and it will be ready to administer when my class meets again. I have to figure out how to juggle the syllabus a little to accommodate the snow day in other ways, and prepare for the possibility of another lost day, just in case. But I can't seem to work up any posts with actual content, as opposed to whinges about weather and so on.