Life Lately.

Hello, my three readers. It's been awhile since I've blogged. My absence is not due to lack of excitement [I just love the subjectivity involved in the definition of this word.], but more so out of lack of time, energy, and words. At least once a day I think to myself "I should blog about that" but then it seems that I never get around to it. All of this writing in my head is very similar to the process that I used throughout my entire stint in graduate school. For example, I literally sat down on a Saturday night to begin the process of typing my entire applied project and I finished it around midnight on Sunday night. Typically this kind of stuff should be completed over the course of a semester. My independent study last spring? I did it all in one weekend. My portfolio that was a summation of my entire 3.5 year program? Oh, I spent about 4 days on that one. What can I say other than I'm gifted? [And extremely humble.] All of this to say that maybe one day I'll just sit down and crank out like 30 posts all at once. Please, don't hold your breath.

Today though I bring you just a brief update of life in my little world so call the kids, grab the popcorn, pop the top of a Coke Zero, sit back, and enjoy.

Let's talk household expenses first. [Sweet mercy, I'm an old and boring lady, but I like to think that excitement over these things is a sign of maturity.] Y'all, last year my electricity bill for mid-December to mid-January was over. the. top. expensive. I live in a one bedroom shoebox. I was away from that one bedroom shoebox almost half of the month, yet my bill averaged $4.81 per day. I called the company to find out if maybe they accidentally sent me the bill for the people who live in the 2 story, 3 bedroom home complete with hot tub and sauna in the neighborhood across the street. No such luck. I got the statement a couple of weeks ago for the same billing period this year. Cut! In! Half! The average was $2.40 per day. Yes, the reduction is totally worth a frostbitten nose and blue fingers and toes. To celebrate, I became a Vegan.

Well, only for like an hour for a couple of weekends. Ladies and gentlemen (uh, dudes out there...why are you reading this instead of checking scores or something on espn.com?), I present to you vegan Grasshopper cake from The Grit. This is the stuff that elastic waistband pants and dreams are made of. The Grit is probably my favorite eating establishment in all of Athens. If loving a restaurant with an all vegetarian menu is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Seriously, come to Athens. I'll take you to The Grit for lunch and then you can enjoy some of my extra hearty crockpot chili for dinner.

It's good for me to be a vegetarian in moderation. I know a crockpot is a thing and I shouldn't place a high level of value in things, but here's the truth: I like this thing better than some people. There are some people in the world who complicate one's life. Crockpots? They simplify one's life. Need I say more? And by people, I certainly am not referring to these two...

This shot is of Mu and baby Lola at our annual Ladies' Tea Party that our family does each January. I look forward to this event each year because not only is the company fantastic, it's the one time a year that I eat chicken salad and drink hot tea in addition to lamenting over the fact that the circumference of my head is so stinking big that there's only one hat in the entire tea room that fits me. If I were Jackie Kennedy, I would have had to have all of my pillbox hats specially tailored.

After our tea party that day, I arrived home to find this waiting for me in my mailbox...

It's official. I really did graduate! Even though I walked across the stage back in December, I've spent the weeks that followed with my fingers and toes crossed and my breath held in the event that something went awry and I didn't actually graduate. It wouldn't have been all that surprising considering my habits as a student that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I only wish that the above picture came with audio because if you think I looked good, you should have heard how good I sounded that week. Well, good for an 87 year-old man who has been smoking since the age of 14 currently suffering from a case of pneumonia. I hate getting sick. Good thing that I don't very often.

In other news, I've decided that my new favorite Dorito is the taco flavored kind, my new favorite television shows are The Closer (because I've got mad detective skills like Brenda Lee Johnson) and Blue Bloods (because my childhood crushes are revisited: Donnie Wahlberg AND Tom Selleck in the same family!) and my favorite Pandora station is O.A.R. (it's not as lame as it sounds, trust me). And when I'm not at home eating taco flavored Doritos and watching cop dramas [Who am I? It's like I don't even know myself anymore.], I can be spotted out and about in the town that I am slowly growing to love with fun friends.

...as evidenced in the photo at the top of this post. Uploading and arranging pictures in Blogger is as much of an exercise in patience for me as standing in line at the local Wal-Mart is. Do you guys like my haircut in the picture? What? You can't tell that I had it cut because it's still so long that it falls behind my shoulders? Oh, well, yes...that's true. I however feel like I'm suffering from phantom limb because I had about 3.5 inches cut off on Friday. I decided that a haircut was easier than going through the process of legally changing my name to Rapunzel.

So, all of that ramble to say in short that Life [Lately] Is Good.