One week from today . . .

. . . we will probably be snoozing at Mum and Dad's house after our overnight plane trip. I've been counting this down for so long, it doesn't always seem real. One more week.

I got the rest of my UNF documents packed up yesterday. Steve popped them in the post this morning. I worked on my statement of purpose (aka letter of intent) for two days. I felt the original was too weak, and may have contributed to the no from UF, so I reworked the whole thing. I'm happy enough with it. I'm never completely happy with what I write, but this will do.

So now I have to get into trip mode, but Alicia's bridal shower is tomorrow, so I also need to be in bridesmaid mode. It makes for a hectic brain. I'm going to craft a to-do list, so I leave nothing unfinished before I leave.

One of my plans for England is a visit to the Lancashire Records Office in Preston. It's the county archive. I'm really excited about seeing what it has preserved. I did a lot of work on Steve's family tree a couple of years ago, and got about as far as I could from here. I'm hoping to get furthr at the LRO. Plus, I'm hoping to find inspiration for my master's thesis. I want to do something based in Preston.

All the LRO thoughts brought me back to the family tree early this morning when I couldn't sleep. I have software that does a nice job of presenting my research online, but it's not very user-friendly. And Steve never gets around to doing any of the website projects, so I'm stuck. The pages quit working right ages ago, so I've had them offline. I really want to get the info back up there, along with the plethora of older photos I possess. So I got to hunting for alternatives last night. I have found one I like, but I can't customize its appearance. But I think that will be okay. I won't be able to get it online before the trip. The data entry alone will take quite awhile, but I'm going to keep hunting to make sure nothing else out there works as well.

That's about it for now.

Grad School

I posted something on my MySpace blog and then completely forgot about this one. I received a reply from UF a couple of weeks ago. It was a very slim envelope, so I knew as I pulled it from the mailbox that it was not good news. Sure enough, it was a notice that I had not been selected for UF's history grad program. I was devastated. My professors were as stunned as I was.

I couldn't rest on my laurels, though. So I began the process of applying to UNF's master's degree program within days of the news. UNF is a smaller state university in Jacksonville. It doesn't offer a doctorate program, but it has a decent master's degree one. And while the opportunities UF offers are superior, I think UNF's program may be a better fit for my needs. For one thing, it has a more balanced approach, so I'll have an equal dose of American history to go with my European history focus. I like that.

Plus, shortly after starting my application process, I got an email from the graduate director of the history department. He said I was a very strong candidate for a teaching assistantship and urged me to apply. UNF's TA program actually teaches you how to teach, so if I can get into that, I'll be in good shape.

I don't anticipate being denied entrance to UNF. So I expect to be matriculating there come the fall. The big question is what do I do afteward? Will I get a good teaching job without a doctorate? I want a PhD, but I would have to go away to get it. I rather like being with my husband, so it's a difficult situation. Steve says I should just go to Oxford. Yeah, I wish . . . .

So that's the low-down on the school situation. It's not the news I wanted to post, but it's not all bad.

A Walk in the Park

We were having a quiet Easter Sunday, and Steve suggested we go to nearby Mike Roess Goldhead Branch State Park for a walk. We ended up hiking a little over two miles along one of the trails.

We took some photos:

the top of this dead tree stands like a lonely sentinal along the trail. Look at how gorgeous the sky is in this shot.



But what really makes the tree interesting is its bottom portion. It's amazing it still stands.



We had frost on the windshield the next morning, but the calendar says it's spring. Some of the plants are in bloom, like this Hawthorne. Or what I think is a Hawthorne. It's pretty, whatever it is.



This lizard looks evil. He's also pretty darn fat.



We encountered this fellow on our way from the trail to the car.



After our hike, we wandered over to the picnic and swimming areas. This is Big Lake Johnson. The lake is only a fraction of its former size. Development and drought have done a number on it and the other lakes in the area.



Here's a close-up of the warning sign. It really makes you want to go swimming, doesn't it?



We had a really nice time and hope to go hiking there more often. There are several more miles of trails we have yet to explore.

Paying the price

When Steve was working on the drive way, I told him to keep his shirt on his back. He recognized the wisdom of my words, but he really wanted some color before we go to England. He lives in Florida, after all, and would like to be a bit more tan than his English friends and relatives. Well, he really should have listened to me.



Remember the photo of Steve splattered with mud from working on the drive? Well, sunlight doesn't get through mud. The result was Steve had very strange coloring on his arms.




About a week after the sunburn, the inevitable began: Peeling.



The pain's all gone for Steve now. And he doesn't leave a cloud of dust in his wake when he moves. He also doesn't have a tan. And we'll be in England in nine days. C'est la vie.

Project Fill the Driveway

One of Steve's friends from work had a few dozen bags of cement that had gotten wet and hardened. After experiencing our driveway, he offered to give us the bags as a way to start filling in the larger holes. This past Wednesday, he and Steve brought the cement bags here after work. It took two trucks to haul the nearly three dozen bags. Today, Steve used them to patch the largest hole that sits near the top of our drive.

I took a lot of photos in between my own projects. Here is a photo diary of Steve's progress:


We figure each bag weighs about 100 pounds. Steve shifted 30 bags into the hole. That's 3000 pounds, or 1.5 tons. And this after he ran a mile this morning.


Four rows are done; the equivalent of a ton of concrete.


He may be a white-collar worker during the week, but this weekend, he's definitely a black-collar worker.


A large pine-tree root was in the middle of Steve's project area, so he used a pick ax to remove it. Guess this was the cheap pick ax. Look at what the root (pictured) did to the blade! Fortunately, we had another pick ax of better quality that cut through the root with no problem.


Steve found this root twisted into the letter D. I declined his invitation to keep it.


All the rows are now in place.


Now it's time to bury the blocks of cement.


The job is now complete. There's just one thing left to do . . .


Give it a test run. The repair held up quite well. None of the cement bags moved at all as Steve drove the Jeep across them.


The Jeep didn't sink much into the dirt at all as it drove across the repaired area.


This is a soft spot in another area of the drive. These are the tracks the Jeep made as Steve drove over it. This is quite different from the area supported by the cement. We're very happy with the improvement.


Steve pulls the Jeep back into the drive. The repair continues to hold up well.


This is the price Steve paid for not wearing his shirt. I told him not to do it.

The rains have gone

You saw the flooding in the previous blog. Well the rain got a lot worse. I mean a lot. I'm happy to report that the drainage ditch Dad dug back in September for us is doing the trick. Even though we had another 10 to 12 hours of fairly steady rain after I took those earlier photos, here's a couple of shots of the backyard taken just a few minutes ago. The rain stopped about 12 or 13 hours ago:




Our property is okay. Flooded, but draining well. The road is a slightly different matter. Bondarenko isn't in bad shape. But Trawick has issues.

I left yesterday afternoon and met Steve in Jacksonville. He decided that dinner out and some game time at Dave & Buster's was what I needed to cheer me up after my UF news. He was right. We had a lot of fun and came home with another giant teddy bear for my collection. We got home after dark and stupidly used the Saturn rather than the Jeep. The road was washed out in two spots where water was streaming across it. It was passable then, but we worried that if it kept up at the pace it was flowing, the washouts would be a lot deeper. We called my folks and Christa to cancel our plans for today, thinking we were stranded.

On the call to Dad, we actually came to a point in the road where the water was streaming across it at a white-water pace. The swath was probably about six feet wide. Steve was hesitant to try and cross it, but we went ahead and got through successfully. We feared the worse when we walked to it today. But the water's gone and the damage isn't that bad. It's about 6 to 8 inches deep. What kept it from getting deeper is a layer of rock extending from a nearby bridge. If it hadn't been for that rock, I'm sure this would be a lot worse than it is.



These next few shots were taken as we walked along Trawick. Fortunately, the home owners' association is doing a good job with road maintenance. They're keeping a decent crown along most of the road, which prevents the water from crossing over and cutting through the road. The washed-out areas are restricted to the sides. But they're still fairly large. In some spots, the road is restricted to a single lane. The two washed out areas we encountered last night have been flattened a great deal by traffic. The dirt was soft and mushed easily, so they're just a couple of ruts about 5 or 6 inches deep.








These next couple of photos were taken near the bridge I mentioned. It gives you a better idea of just how much water is being drained off the road. Look closely at the photo of Steve. His foot is buried up to the ankle in soft, waterlogged sand.




Here's Steve standing in one of the washed out areas. The water is up to his calf.



I thought the pattern of ripples under the water was interesting. It looks like an bivalve shell of some kind. The brown tint to the water isn't dirt. It's tannic acid. I'm guessing its leached into the ground by the pine trees in the area. Steve says the water in Scotland is like this from all the peat.



This last photo is of some horses that live along Trawick. When we first went by, we were videoing all the water damage. At that time, every horse watched us with fascination. By the time we came back, though, we must have been old news. Only a few cared that we were there.



So now the sun is brightly shining. There isn't a cloud in the sky. It's really windy, though. I can hear the sound of heavy machinery, so I'm guessing some repair work is already happening on the road. I also hear the booms from Camp Blanding. The National Guard has been doing some serious training over there the last week or so. I'm guessing they're getting ready to be deployed. Essentially, life is back to normal out here. Hopefully, the roads won't be too far behind.

Water, water everywhere

It's been raining . . . a lot. Our land is low (courtesy of the butcher clearing job), so it takes some time to dry out. We had finally gotten to the muddy stage and the sky opened up today. We're now on the other side of a hellacious thunderstorm. The rain was so heavy, it drowned out normal room sounds. It's finally down to a drizzle now, but it most definitely left its mark.

This is our parking area. Steve parked the Saturn along the edge of the circular (okay, oblong-ular) drive, so it wouldn't get stuck in the mud. Good thing, because it would be an island now.



Here's the pump house, which is also very island-like. Technically, peninsular, but what the hell. The point is that water is about six inches deep over there. And see what I mean about the pump house not being very pretty, anymore? (See Pump House blog if this means nothing to you).


This is our backyard. I had no idea we had waterfront property. The problem here is the property gently slopes back, so the water drains this way. Then it stops, because the bozos who cleared our land basically dug a basin. The water has no where to go. Both Dads, my Dad most recently, have dug drainage ditches to pull this water away from the yard and into the woods. There's just so much rain right now that it's backed up.


With a bit of clever close-up shooting, I can make it look like I have a deck overlooking a lake in my backyard!



Hopefully, the rain will stay away for awhile. But it is approaching spring. So I'm not holding my breath.

Is that the fiber?

I bought this box of Weight Watchers Flakes 'n Fiber cereal a few weeks back. I had one bowl of it, decided it tasted like stale cardboard (not that I actually know what that tastes like, but you get the idea) and put it in my cupboard. I decided to give it another go. Most weight-loss cereals taste like this, so I figured I'd grin and bear it. Besides, I paid over $4 for the stuff. I wasn't going to waste it.

I poured the bowl, grabbed a magazine, and began eating breakfast. I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing, because I'm reading. I'm just on auto pilot. Scoop cereal with spoon, insert into mouth. A couple of scoops into it, something stabs my lip. What the . . . ? I look at the spoon. There's a piece of wood on it!

Okay, I know the stuff's called Flakes 'n Fiber, but surely this isn't how they add fiber content?! I checked the ingredients (no, I wasn't looking for wood). I thought there might be something in there that would explain a piece of wood. You know, like a cinnamon stick or something. But there was nothing even remotely wood-shaped on the list. I looked at the wood closer. It was definitely a piece of a branch. There was still bark on the thing!

I've sent an email to the cereal company with a link to pictures I took of the wood. I told them I want my money back on that box of cereal. While I wait for a reply (with plans to follow-up with a posted letter and photographs), here are the photos of my breakfast experience for your enjoyment:

Scottish Fest

We went to the annual Scottish Festival and Games held at the Clay County fairground on the last Saturday of February. We've always wanted to go to the festival and were excited about it. But, it was a let down. It's very poorly organized and the vendors severely overpriced their wares. One vendor wanted $14 for a bottle of Ribena! Another was a little better, asking only $12. But that's still £6! Surely, Ribena does not cost that much back home?

The hot food was good, but the variety was limited. What proper Scottish place wouldn't offer macaroni pie? Steve had a Scotch egg that he quite enjoyed, but the sausage rolls were a joke. They were more like hot dogs in pastry. The curry chips were nice. Albeit pricey.

Other than the main arena, which had multiple sporting events happening at once with no apparent rhyme or reason, seating was minimal at all the show areas. Since we had had a heavy rain just the day before, we ended up dodging a lot of mud. The area with the Highland dance competiton was clogged with people trying to get a view. The poor girls didn't even have dressing rooms, so they were forced to change into their Highland dress with just a towel or parent shielding their modesty. It was outrageous!

We were sorely disappointed and will probably not go again.

Here are a few shots from the day:

A sheep herding demonstration drew a large crowd, but there was no microphone, so you couldn't hear a word being said. The dogs were pretty intent and the sheep just seemed annoyed they weren't allowed to eat more grass.





The highlight for me was seeing Highland cattle. I just think they're adorable with their thick fringe covering their eyes.



Here's one of the sporting events. The object is to use a pitchfork to throw a bale of hay over a bar. Both the flying hay and the bar are circled in pink.