the rest of it

Well, I must do a gratitude note on Thanksgiving day, mustn't I? This is my only celebration of the holiday this year. I'll try to give my US family a call in a bit, but it was just too much to think about planning a big meal or a social occasion during this very full-on university term.  Here are some this-week things I'm grateful for: For Dom the decorator and the great work he did on a tricky job. (For Ali recommending him years ago.) For the wallpaper choices that we're happy with and the family agreement on those wallpapers. The amount of wallpaper choice in the world is overwhelming—there are so many beautiful things out there. Having to have three people agree on something cuts down the choices quite a bit! For a lovely feminist night out with five lovely women to eat some Greek food and see Caroline Criado Perez speak—especially since it meant spending some time with interesting people who I don't get to see much! For positive feedback on our essay feedback ...

Today I got to live my natural timetable. (Well, almost. I still had to get up at 7 in the morning, which is not natural.) Phil had bought us tickets to a play I didn't care much about, so I arranged for a friend of Grover's to go in my place. Great choice. I ate my lunch at 3:30. I worked at the office till 9. I came home and had yogurt and blueberries for my dinner. And since then I've been knitting and listening to podcasts and music—because when you work till 9 and have your dinner around 9:40, there's no need to work a second shift after dinner. It was one day of living my old pre-child schedule. That said, I have lots of abandoning-my-family-almost-every-evening-this-week guilt. So, I was grateful for that today and I've also been grateful for some small and big and medium-sized things: Dinner out with a friend last night. Oh my goodness, that was nice! The first years turning up for their tutorials.  >> This Aveda oil, which I bought when I lived in Tex...

I keep meaning to write a gratitude post. Since the last one I posted, I have, in fact, written one that I haven't shared because its gratitude is not pure enough. It is griping and worry and finger-pointing posing as gratitude. But I've saved it for myself as a record of my gripes and worries and some related actual gratitude.  Anyhow, here are some things I am grateful for, mixed in with some things to be proud of: For instructions on the internet. (Here comes the pride:) I have created my first MS-Word macros. (I've only been using Word for DECADES.) They give me keyboard shortcut for swapping the proofing language to US English (CMD-$) or UK English (CMD-£), which is fantastic for editing/marking since it's a real faff to change language within the comments area (on other people's work) so that it STICKS. So many people whose work I need to comment on are using Word with system settings in another language. (They've set their document to English, but comment...