Exciting Weekend

This past weekend, I drove three hours to Ann Arbor to celebrate Memorial with Rachel and family and my parents. We all went to some garage sales on Saturday, where I got this really cool trunk, a picture, and some quilting fabric. And then mom and I helped Rachel (and Ellis to a lesser extent) clean and organize some of her stuff downstairs. Then on Sunday (when Mom, Dad, and Trey were on their back from the hardware store) Lucy called to let us know that Vaughn was on his way, and only 11 days early!! He looks so cute in the pictures on her blog, but I want to know where are mother/baby pictures? So after hearing about my newest nephew and spending lots of time with Ellis and everyone else, I headed back to Ashland on Monday afternoon. The drive to Ann Arbor is not too long (and according to Rachel, I will be making this trip monthly). And now I can't wait to meet little Vaughn Charles!

BOBBY: I hope Grandpa treats the baby better than he treats you.
DIDI: Oh, he will, Bobby. Until the baby crosses him.

Movie Reviews

Last Saturday I went to the movies to see Iron Man, which I really enjoyed. I've just recently started to like Robert Downey Jr.'s movie, and he was really well cast in the role. But as much as I enjoyed that movie, it was not the best movie I have seen in the last week. That would be the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. The novel is about a woman who moves with her family from the agricultural south to the industrial north and gets involved in the struggle of the millworkers. I've read Wives and Daughters and really enjoyed the novel, so I figured I would like North and South and I was right. It was really well acted and the cinematography, especially the scenes in the mill, was really beautiful. Right after I finished the movie, I wanted to watch it all over again. And I wanted to start reading the book immediately. Even more, I am willing to try reading Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, which also takes place with the backdrop of a cotton mill. I took a class at Purdue all about the Bronte sisters and I read all the books except for Shirley. Try as I might, I just could not get through the last third of the novel (but that was probably due to the fact that I thought that the story had come to a successful conclusion but Charlotte did not a tacked one another 150 pages although I did learn the about Luddites, which is a reference I like to use from time to time). So next time I'm at the farm, I will have to remember to bring it back with me.

"Hank, this is hard. And Bill's not carrying my share of the load." - Dale

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers (and mothers to be) that I know and love (and there are a lot of them!). You all are amazing!

PEGGY: It is my day -- I should be able to do anything I want.
HANK: Not anything. You can't kill a man. Then you'd go to prison. And with that attitude, they'd put you in the hole.

HANK: Peggy's just not like you, I guess. You devoted your whole life to raising me, and let's be honest, you loved every second of it.
TILLY: Well, actually, I took odd jobs as often as I could, just to get out of the house. Don't you remember the year I drove a taxi?
HANK: No. Wait, I remember one year you had a yellow car.

Many apalogies

I know I haven't posted in a while, I really don't have a good excuse other than I am sick, but that is just this week. Last Thursday, I went to the This American Life event in Mansfield which was great. There were clips from the upcoming season of the TV show (on showtime) as well as outtakes from the first season and stories that never made it on the show and a question and answer session at the end of the show that was really interesting. But what I didn't except was that a girl from work was there. We both didn't except to see someone that we knew so that was a nice surprise. We chatted before the show started and we talked about how much we both like listening to NPR and podcasts (and she recommend this great podcast called RadioLab which I started to listen to today, and it was really good). Then on Friday after work, I drove home to the farm to celebrate Mother's Day a little early (with Rachel and family). I had a nice weekend at home, even though we worked the cows and Rachel and I mucked out the goat stall. And I got to spend lots of time with Ellis (and he was so tired, it was very easy for me to put him down for a nap/bed). On the downside, I think he gave me his cold. But I don't feel so bad now, earlier this week I had a sore throat and I felt really tired. Work is still going pretty well, it's a little more intense over the next few weeks because I have a lot of stuff due (and a few of the studies that I am writing up are a bit more interesting because the is some actual toxicity in the study unlike the previous studies I worked on).

"All his dreams from now on are gonna be about leaving. And then some high school guidance counsellor is gonna tell him to follow his dreams. Then how will he end up? A fruit pie salesman with a whoopie cushion living in Wichita Falls." - Hank

Extra points to who ever can identify the source of the title of this post!