Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

The Risk Family would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving. This year we are especially thankful for each other, our family and friends, our home, our health, and our freedom. We pray fro the safety of our troops and hoep to see them home soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Winding down

As the final semester of working on my bachelor's degree winds down, I am beginning to find myself a little lost. For the last six years I have thrown my entire self into my schoolwork and now that it will be over (at least until grad school), I am contemplating what I will do with my time.

OF COURSE, I will spend lots of time with Lori and James to make up for all the time I have lost with them studying, but I feel I will need to find a project for myself. I have several projects in mind and maybe, I can work on a few of them while I catch up on just relaxing. Here are my post graduation projects.

1. Continue building our family tree (currently 530 relatives, dating back to 1680s in 5 European countries).
2. Building a RELIABLE lighthouse file for my GPS. (See my posting dated 9-14-08.)
3. Clean out the house of anything we no longer use in preparation for next year's move to graduate school.
4. Catch up on some leisure reading.
5. Start writing poetry again.
6. Doing pre-graduate school research on my potential dissertation topic. (I want to make sure I don't lose drive and momentum.)

Friday, November 21, 2008

34 Shopping Days til Christmas!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is right around the corner. Where exactly did this year go? In just a few weeks, we will begin mailing out Christmas and Hanukkah cards and exchanging gifts with all of our friends. Every year it seems our Christmas card and gift giving list grows - family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. We certainly don't mind. We both enjoying giving gifts. It's the shopping we dislike. People are so rude at this time of year. It never ceases to amaze me at how hateful and rude people can be at a time when love and courteousness is suppose to fill the air. This is why you do your Christmas shopping on December 26th (or up to a week after Christmas)! Lori and I have actually done that for each other the past couple of years. It sure beats fighting the crowds.

Yesterday, however, Lori and I began our Christmas shopping for everyone else on our list and we actually did very well. We stayed within our budget (if you don't count sales tax), and we now have about 1/3 of our shopping complete.

Only 34 more days!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Old Man Winter

Old Man Winter has made his presence known at the Risk house. Although we had some flurries a couple of weeks ago, the real snow began falling yesterday and is scheduled to continue through tomorrow. We have about an inch on the ground already and are expecting up to six inches by the time the storm moves through.

Although, I have no problem with winter's arrival, I am disappointed at how short the autumn season has grown. It seems as though Spring and Fall both only last about three weeks anymore. We just had our Indian Summer last week and now we are shoveling snow.

Is this shortened season a product of moving to the mountains, or a product of global warming? I mean, when I lived in Indianapolis, we would have an occasional early winter, but fall and spring both seemed to last much longer.

Ah, well. At least we can look forward to snow days, hot chocolate, and the warmth of the holidays.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Ohio State University

Today I visited the last of my potential graduate schools when I met with the history department at Ohio State University. Lori had a conference in Columbus, OH this past weekend, so we tacked on the extra day so I could visit the campus. I did not get an opportunity to check out the bookstore or the library because the campus is so large and I had to get back to the hotel to pick up James and Lori before check out. What I saw of the campus I really liked. Both Lori and I like the Columbus, OH area. It reminds me a lot of Indianapolis, which as everyone knows, I miss quite a bit.

My meeting went well and I learned a lot about the university and the department. It would be a nice place to study, but due to my interests, I would be traveling for weeks at a time to do my research because the necessary archives are on the east coast. The geographic scope of my research will probably limit itself once I get started, but currently I am anticipating my research taking me from Maine to South Carolina.

Applications are due by December 1st. I have everything complete an ready to submit except for my personal mission statement. I plan to complete that this weekend. Then the waiting game begins. I have heard from Delaware and William & Mary that my application pakcets have been received. I know Pittsburgh's was received because I hand-delivered it when I met with the department last week. Most schools will send out admissions notifications near the end of March / beginning of April. I promise to keep everyone posted.