Beginnings and endings

• I ran for Faculty Senate in a special election to replace an at-large representative who declined the position, and ended up in a run-off with a former Faculty Senate president from the College of Liberal Arts. Although the faculty who do not have designated representatives on the Senate -- library, those who teach transitional courses, residential colleges, and the Honors College -- voted as a bloc for me, the other guy won. Not that I really wanted to take on the responsibilities of Faculty Senate, but the fact that these faculty are considered "unaffiliated" (that is, with one of the six colleges who are represented) and are considered by some faculty a problem to be solved due to our position outside those disciplinary boundaries makes me want to get in there and stick up for our unique and indispensable missions. Better luck next time, I guess.


• On the plus side, I was either not hated enough or not loved enough, depending on your point of view, to win (lose?) the donation jar competition at our Family Day today. The prize? Getting a pie in the face. Now I volunteered to get a pie in the face last year. This year I was ready for somebody else to take the hit, and I wasn't above stuffing money in that other person's jar to keep the whipped cream out of my hair. (I came in second.) You have no idea how exhilerating it is to be pie-free at the conclusion of a pie-in-the-face contest. It's like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk.


• What we knitters affectionately call my LYS (local yarn store) is closing. The owner has a sick family member that has kept her from keeping the store open much at all since spring, and now she says it's time to sell and devote herself to personal matters. I went by almost as soon as I got the news and picked up seven skeins of silk blend and three balls of sparkly carry-along yarn to use for my very first knitted sweater, the Simple Knitted Bodice. Come November 1, it's time to cast on for National Knit a Sweater Month. As you may recall, it was a similar "hey I don't want to write a novel so what other workaholic challenge can I take on in November?" group that led to my dailyblogging in the first place. I don't expect to be knitting a sweater every day for the rest of my life (the way I expect to be writing), but I'm hoping this will get me off the sidelines and into the garment game.


• Yesterday was our 11th wedding anniversary (traditional present: steel!). How could I have known on that beautiful day in 1996, at Elsworth-by-the-Sea on St. Simons Island, that I would have this job, these children, these students, this home, these passions and hobbies and pleasures and dreams? None of it would have happened without Noel and the person he's made me. Happy anniversary, darling -- I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.


• A couple of nights ago, tucking Archer into bed:

Archer: Mom, there are moon and stars up in the sky!
Me: That's right, there are.
Archer: The world outside is full of light.