I live in Texas.  It snows maybe once a year here.  So when I woke up last week and it was snowing outside, I leapt straight from my bed, grabbed my camera and whatever shoes and jacket were nearest the door and headed out to document this event.

It's a good thing I acted fast, too, because the snow didn't last too much longer and it certainly didn't stick.


( Cut for more snow pictures. )

The Guardian has posted a list of some of the worst books of the decade, which got me thinking about what I'd say the worst books of the decade were. Their list and the commenters' opinions are skewed heavily toward the kind of literary fiction I don't generally read, so I can't just use theirs.

So here are my suggestions for worst books of the decade (focusing on fiction):

1. Stephenie Meyer, all the Twilight books. Seriously. This should be a gimme.
2. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (as well as his other books, which are not substantially different from The Da Vinci Code).
3. Roberto Bolaño, 2666. Soul-killing, bloated, overrated.
4. Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted. Yuck.
5. Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters. Another yuck.
6. Darin Straus, Chang and Eng. Interesting premise, but thoroughly disappointing.
7. Christopher Paolini, Eragon. Derivative.
8. Connie Willis, Passage. Way too long and annoyingly hopeful in the end.

I was hoping to get to ten, but I seem to have hit a wall. Part of my problem in making this list is that most of the books I've read in the last few years have been older books that just don't count for this list, no matter how bad they were (I'm looking at you American Psycho, Stranger in a Strange Land, Almanac of the Dead, and Narnia), or have been, apparently, good books.

Or maybe I've just blocked out the other terrible books I've read recently.

Anybody have any other suggestions?

Since I finished my Project 365 a few weeks ago, I've been wanting to start a new (but not daily) project. I think I may have mentioned this before, but what I decided on was a pair of 52 Weeks projects, where I take a post a dedicated photo every week. I'm doing one on film and one with my digital camera. I started two weeks ago; it's just taken me a while to work through all the photos from that week and decide which ones to use for the project. The photos I chose to represent the first week (digital first and then film [taken on my Zeiss Ikon folding camera) are ones I've posted before, but I'll post them again for the sake of the project.

( Pictures behind the cut. )
I'll generally try to post the digital photos near the end of the week they represent, but the film ones will, since I don't develop them myself, always be late.

This is the final honeymoon post. I'm not actually thrilled with the Holga pictures. I should've used film with a higher ISO. These are too dark. And then ones that have decent light have more light leaks than past rolls.  I guess I need to tape it up a little more.  Oh well.  I'll remember that next time.

( The last of the honeymoon photos. )

Driving out of Hot Springs on Highway 7, you cross Lake DeGray.  When I lived out there, this is the lake we used to go to for fishing and swimming.  We stopped there for a while to look around and take pictures.  Because it was a cold and gray day (and a Monday), it was pretty much empty, though occasionally people would drive by very slowly and look at us.

( Loads more photos. Seriously. )
This concludes the digital photography portion of our honeymoon. I have just gotten the film photos back from the lab, though, so I'll be posting a few more honeymoon photos soon before it's all over.

On our way out of Hot Springs, we stopped near a house where I used to live. It's at the foot of a small mountain and so we--of course--decided to drive up to the top of the mountain and look around. Cory was a little nervous because it was a steep and windy drive and his car isn't really made for that, but we made it fine. We drove into some serious fog before we made it to the top, which compromised our view. Plus, the very top was fenced off and housed some kind of power exchange, but we got out and I took some pictures anyway.

( Lots more photos! )

At the time, I was a little sad that it was such a misty (and foggy) morning because I'd wanted to take some nice pictures of the two of us downtown in the morning sunlight (we only have one picture of teh two of us together, not counting the one from this trip where he's biting my head), but seeing these pictures now, I'm glad of the change in weather--and I'm glad it didn't happen until we were done hiking and on our way out of town.

After giving up on reaching the peak of the park, we hiked back to the car. On the way back, we noticed a nice lookout point on the path that we hadn't noticed at all on the initial walk through. I guess we were really wrapped up in our conversation at that point.

( More photos of the rest of the hike. )

Upon reaching the bottom, we rested for a while in the cute little park across the street before mustering the energy to get in the car and drive back to the motel. This bench was a welcome sight.

After our quick lunch, we headed out to hike the other side of the park. I really wanted us to make it to the highest point in the park, but exhaustion and the quickly setting autumn sun made that impossible. It was still a great hike, though.

( More pictures and silliness. )

Coming down from the tower on top of Hot Springs Mountain, we took Dead Chief Trail (I tried to find out why it was called that, but the informational sign lacked that piece of information). This portion of the trail is right at the edge of the park and backs up to some apparently abandoned buildings.

( There's more! )

Dissertation progress is slow. I have a solid prospectus and a solid start on chapter 1, but the actual writing is so much harder to keep up with than I'd anticipated. I had been developing a decent working routine, but then I got married and went on a honeymoon and had Thanksgiving and needed to read something for fun to keep from going nuts. So now I'm struggling to re-establish good writing habits and a sense of routine (and also facing a stack of papers to be graded for my writing class at the same time).

The good news is that I was awarded a dissertation fellowship for the spring semester that gives me a one-course teaching release. So instead of teaching one composition class and one literature class, I'll only be teaching the literature class, which should be fun. I waited for weeks and weeks to hear about the dissertation fellowship and was beginning to assume that it had been awarded to someone else and I just hadn't been notified, but I emailed the graduate advisor this morning to ask about it (nervously, worried that that might be some kind of breach of etiquette but unable to stand the not-knowing any more) and, apparently, the decision was made today.

Short version: writing is hard and fellowships are awesome.

On the way back from the far side of Hot Springs Mountain, we stopped at Hot Springs Tower and one of the nearby lookout points. We had a great view of downtown Hot Springs (and our little motel) and more of the landscape around the mountain, not to mention finding some interesting things on the tower itself.

( More!! )

As Cory and I continued our hike around and over Hot Springs Mountain, I found lots of small things to photograph, from berries and mushrooms to puffballs and lizards. The regular stops to squat and take pictures of something on the ground slowed our hiking speed considerably, but I think it was worth it.

( More photos! Of small things and the view! )

I wanted to post some younger pictures of Sophie in my earlier post about her, so I searched for, scanned, and uploaded some of her kitten and adolescent kitty photos.

The photo quality is lower than in more recent photos of her, but her supercuteness shines through.

( More pictures -- including a 10-year-old picture of me. )

We spent Saturday in Hot Springs hiking around the park. These photos represent the first leg of our hike up, over, and around Hot Springs Mountain.

( More pictures behind the cut. )

Sophie's been sick for the last few weeks, first with a respiratory infection and then with something mysterious that was causing all kinds of internal problems, primarily liver problems. She had major liver problems last year at about this time, too, which led to much medication and force feeding, though she seemed basically fine for most of the time between then and last month.

In the week before Cory and I got married, after another vet visit and an abdominal ultrasound, she was prescribed some medicine to hopefully help bring up her red blood cell count and improve her internal situation. I had to take her back to the vet for a recheck on Friday.

Things are not good.

The medicines didn't do what the vet had hoped they would and Sophie now has fluid building up in her abdomen (where it's not supposed to be). The vet believes that she has liver cancer and that she will be sick enough to require euthanasia sometime next month.


At this point, I really just hope that I can give her a good last few days or weeks. I don't want her to die, but even more I don't want her to hurt.

Here are some more photos from our first night in Hot Springs on our honeymoon. These are all taken around one of the hot water fountains downtown. It was lit up at night and I really liked the effect of the lights through the steam in the cold air.


( I also took some pictures of Cory. )

In which I list a few of the things I'm thankful for.

I am thankful for:

1. Cory - my husband. When I was a younger woman, I really didn't think I'd get married. I just couldn't imagine myself in the kinds of marriages I saw around me. But those people weren't like Cory. I love him so much and I am so happy to have had the chance to get to know him, love him, and start a life together with him.

2. That my kitty Sophie is doing better. She has a vet visit scheduled for tomorrow for more bloodwork, so hopefully we'll get some concrete information, but she's been taking medicine and she has gained weight (she was superskinny and underweight), her fur has gotten smoother and softer, and her attitude has returned to more of its usual bitchiness.

3. All of my friends - old friends I don't see very often as well as new friends.

4. That my dad and Trina (his significant other) are okay after their accident this past summer. He and my brother are the only biological family I have that I'm really close to any more and I want them around as long as possible.

5. Cory's family. They may be Christian and politically conservative where we're not, but they are good people and I am happy to have married into their family.

6. Progress on my dissertation. It's not going as quickly as I'd hoped this semester and I still haven't heard anything about the fellowship I applied for that would give me more time to write in the spring semester, but I feel good about what I've got and I can see how future dissertation work may go more quickly and smoothly after the work I've been doing recently.

7. The house we're renting. It's a flawed but awesome old house and I love it. Plus we're getting a great deal and it's so close to Cory's work it's ridiculous.

8. Photography. I miss singing. I miss being a part of Paradigm. But I am thankful that I have another creative outlet, one that I really enjoy and that I'm good at. I'm thankful I have the money to pursue it, the time to invest in improving myself, and the talent to make doing so worthwhile.

There's more, I'm sure, but I'll stop there. I am a very happy Christy at this point in my life.

This is the first installment of honeymoon photo posts from the trip Cory and I took to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We didn't think we'd have the money or the time off for a honeymoon anytime soon, so this trip was planned at the last minute, but we had a wonderful time.

We stayed at the Happy Hollow Motel. It was cheap, within walking distance of where we wanted to be, and wonderfully kitschy.



I took lots of pictures of lights the first night we there as we walked around downtown after dinner. (Don't worry, I took pictures of other things, too, and will post some later.)

( Pictures of lights! )

Who do you think of when you think of scientists (whether fictional or nonfictional)?