I’ve hit my first brick wall on my road to finishing my dissertation, the first of many such hits I’m sure and I bruise easily. Instead of taking a nap, which I sorely need, I’m taking this opportunity to write about writing. I finished my first dissertation chapter last night. My goal was to finish two chapters by mid-December, but I’ll have to settle for what I have accomplished, not what I haven’t. I’m close to finishing a second. I should probably leave them alone and move on, but I’m obsessed with checking them off the list of what will (probably) be seven chapters total.

The two chapters of my dissertation that I’m working on right now are about refugee resettlement, welfare, and volunteer organizations: their similarities and differences in terms of responsibilities, protocols, and identity – identity as organizations (state, private, or both?) and as individuals who are raced, classed, and gendered. I explain the history of refugee resettlement to Fargo and describe the “perfect storm” of resettlement to Fargo that culminated in 2001 and caused much uproar in and between these organizations. Fargo had the fourth highest resettlement rate (per capita) in the country at this time. I argue, among other things, that one of the reasons resettlement in Fargo faces so much critique is because it is the only organization (and really the only business) that brings diversity to the region: racial, cultural (and religion) diversity. Although there are immigrants in North Dakota, they do not come as part of a formal organization and if they did, then that organization would probably be critiqued too. There is a great deal of xenophobia – fear of strangers – in the upper Midwest region and organizations and individuals who challenge that, or call attention to the region’s homogeneity and cause people to question themselves, especially their race or religion, are not well liked by the majority of citizens. Of course there are noteworthy exceptions to these dominant types, tireless human rights activists who I also take note of. I have been working on these “organization chapters” since September and I will finish them once and for all (or at least draft versions) by the end of this week. Then I can finally move on to something new: Bosnian refugees and then Southern Sudanese. I am saving the Introduction, Methods and Setting, and Conclusion for last.

I have been working on more than just these chapters. My good friend Caroline and I wrote an article that was accepted for publication in a feminist scholarly journal (Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society). It’s an article about the Southern Sudanese women’s organization that I have written about on this blog: the South Sudan Women’s Empowerment Network. We write about the empowerment conference we attended in Juba in the summer of 2008 and what women’s rights and empowerment look like in the context of South Sudan, especially between Southern Sudanese women in the United States and in South Sudan. We had so much fun working on this article and we are very proud of our collaborative efforts (Caroline is a phenomenal geographer) because it’s actually quite a bit more work to co-author an article than it is to write solo, especially when you’re living on opposite sides of the county. I’m also still working on the research project on taxes, but barely since I’ve had to shift my priorities to my dissertation and away from these other projects. However, I am very excited to begin the collaborative writing work with those fine scholars, which commences ever so soon. Also, this morning I applied for my 29th job but still no interviews or requests for more information so now I apply and then forget about applying. I have little hope for a job this year so I’m getting used to the idea that I may not work in academia, not next year anyway, but there is still time and I feel okay about things today. Probably because I’m too tired to care and my adrenaline is pumping despite the job prospects.

On days like this, when I simply cannot work on the dissertation, I have several options: do mindless academic work like formatting and the bibliography (no thanks, plus it’s too soon for stunts like that), work on other research (don’t really have the mind for that either which is why I’m here), apply for jobs (check), go running (check), lift weights (check), cook (coming soon), clean (roommate already took care of that – thanks Emily!) and then go to bed early so that I can have a productive day tomorrow.

With that, I bid you adieu until I look to procrastinate/communicate again. Dissertating 202 will probably talk a bit more about the process of writing but I don’t have the mental energy to write about that today. I wish you (and you!) a very belated happy new year. 2010 will go down for me as the year of my dissertation. Ten years ago, on this day, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina working for Medica Infoteka, which is now two separate organizations, and that’s just the beginning of ten years of change. I can’t believe it has been ten years. I would love to know where you were ten years ago, what you do to procrastinate, and/or what 2010 will mean for you.

I just attended the annual American Anthropological Association conference in Philadelphia. It was my first time to this vibrant urban center and it energized me as cities usually do. I wish I could say that the meetings did the same but they had quite the opposite effect on me. I managed to experience a sunny afternoon of shopping in mid-60s weather and another afternoon of blowing snow in an Irish Pub fervently working on last minute changes to my paper. I organized a panel at the conference and we were given the distinguished time slot of Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m., the last day of the conference when most attendees are long gone. We had one audience member and he showed up late. Moreover, what once existed as a center for job interviews was, in 2009, a sad room of empty cubicles that interviewed the best and brightest (read top 10 programs) for the few jobs that exist in Anthropology this year. I managed (with help from one of my all time favorite professors) to network my way into a potential postdoc next year, but I have a lot more networking and work to do to make that happen. If all goes well, I will be living in St. Louis next year, but that is a big maybe. The meeting with a potentially new mentor was a highlight of the conference but the lack of jobs continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, as an activist anthropologist with deep ties to nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and abroad, I am trying to view the lack of jobs in academia as a blessing rather than a curse, a situation that will push me into the nonprofit sector again. The only problem is that I love teaching. This postdoc could be my ticket to both but I’m ever so cautiously optimistic because I don’t want my heart broken.

The lack of jobs has me (and many of my friends) questioning ourselves in ways that keep me up at night. After years of training and thousands (upon thousands) of dollars of student loan debt, I had hoped to find a job (in academia). I am currently being forced to face decisions I have made, and avoided, for eight years. Against the advice of many (good) professors, I chose to challenge older schools of anthropology that require study of “other” cultures, outside of one’s own (but only if you’re white and from the West) to work in the United States. Had I decided to continue my work in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I would have been given more research grant money, finished significantly sooner, and probably (??) could have found a job in academia before the economic crash. The thing is: I love the former Yugoslavia and could have enjoyed doing my dissertation research there, and furthermore, I think I could have conducted research there under activist auspices. The same goes for South Sudan and had I gone to Sudan, I could have learned another language! So, in short, rather than working day and night on my dissertation, I’m fretting about what could have been and plotting what comes next. I also obsess about finding a place to live that has a significant number of refugees and immigrants. I am loosing my Bosno-Serbo-Croatian skills by the day and I must live in a city that has those speakers, not to mention a vibrant, diverse community.

Tomorrow I re-enter what I call my “dissertation cave,” which is located in my cavernous mind. In preparation, I made a huge pot of soup which I will eat for lunch and dinner for the next week, and will give me energy to work and stay warm in this unseasonably chilly Oregon December weather. I won’t hibernate in the cave until January, but for now, I’ll take a nice two-week nap, until I return to the Midwest for my long-awaited visit to my family in Minnesota. I’m also going to bed early (11:00!). I think I’m still on East Coast time.

Thanks for reading me vent. I hope to be back soon.

Out of intellectual curiosity and as part of a research project I am involved with, since April, I have attended several tea parties and rallies against government (also known as socialism to them) or taxes or health care or illegal immigrants or Obama, which seem to be one and the same argument from the average Joes and Janes in these groups if not from their leaders. These conservative groups are not cookie cutter activist organizations but some of the ingredients of their cookies are the same. They have some overlapping interests, for example, that eerily harken towards a more (or rather differently) racist, colonial time. Some seem to have grown out of a disgust with economic policies, others with social policies. Together they have more voice but also more dissension. One woman told me that she had never been a racist before, but Obama was making her “a little bit racist” and she seemed very annoyed by this – a racist victim as opposed to a victim of racism? As an out liberal, I am approaching this with as much objectivity and least judgment as possible by trying to understand what, besides fear and anger, is driving the movements and the individuals who join them. I don’t have any deep analytical or revolutionary soundbites for you yet but I do have a lot of interesting stories.

I spoke with a man the other day who was explaining to me why he is a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Libertarian. As a good interviewer, I listened, nodded and asked probing questions but did not respond to his personal inquiries or provocative statements which, I think, he uttered in hopes of getting a rise out of me. He was also a little bit drunk. Fortunately the interview happened earlier than we planned. He asked if I would care to interview him during a “killer happy hour” at bar. Um, no thanks. He told me that I should be proud of my personal freedoms because I am “obviously a woman” (whatever that means) and if it were not for personal freedoms, I would not be able to vote, would not be interviewing him, or getting a PhD. In fact, he said, I would probably be mopping floors somewhere. Really? He also told me I was easy to talk to and touched my arm several times. It was not appropriate behavior for an interview. I wanted to ask if flirting was a personal freedom or a right? For him. I was annoyed but decided to pick a different battle this day and used the scenario to my advantage by getting information I might not have gotten had I been someone else.

This also points to the politics of research that include gender, race, and class. I’m certain this man would have responded differently to a man, or a person of color, or even to an older person. It’s interesting to work in a research team because we try to consider these identity, cultural, and political economic influences to our advantage when deciding who interviews who.

The last few chaotic months have finally reached the listless blogger buried deep in the caverns of my overworked brain. And also I’m procrastinating. I’m supposed to be on vacation, sort of, but I had hoped to use this week in between teaching gigs to finish transcribing the last of my English interviews from Fargo for my dissertation. I completed a couple, but I can’t seem to find the energy to finish the rest, and I’m seriously contemplating paying someone to do it for me. It takes a fast transcriber, like me, at least four hours to type a one-hour interview and that is if the interviewees speak clearly in a quiet room. Those interviews that I have left are the ones with loud, distracting background noises like coffee grinders, music, clinking dishes, and others’ nearby conversations and make for a frustrating listen. Transcription is an important part of my job as a cultural anthropologist. I love conducting interviews and speaking with people and the interviews provide rich insight, but transcribing is tedious and time-consuming but also very necessary in order to accurately capture what people are saying and thinking about topics. I recorded about 60 interviews while I was in Fargo and thanks to a lot of help from undergraduate students, I only have nine left in English and four in Bosnian to transcribe. It would take me at least 8 hours to type a one-hour interview in Bosnian so I have reached out to colleagues in other countries to help me find a native speakers to do those but it could be a while before I find a person, much less until he or she finishes typing those interviews. In the meantime, I listen to them for bits and pieces that I can use in my analysis.

Last week (or was it the week before?) classes ended, I finished entering my grades and spent last weekend cavorting with friends who graduated with their PhDs while daydreaming about this time next year when it will be me wearing the funny-looking gown and poofy hat, secretly and maybe even openly, loving the new Dr. title. But I have a lot to do before that happens, like write the dissertation, enter the increasingly competitive job market, and teach two 4-week summer classes: Gender in a Cross-Cultural Perspective and Gender, Folklore, Inequality. Fortunately, I have much fodder to use in those summer classes, like the murders of Dr. Tiller and at the Holocaust Museum not to mention so many other instances of violence that haven’t made front page news, all of which have so much to do with racism, sexism, classism, politics, economy and culture. For my second summer class, I have a unit on Iran where can discuss varying perspectives on why Iran’s electoral process seems to be running amok and the role of gender in that context. I taught a class both winter and spring terms too (Gender in a Cross-Cultural Perspective and Anthropology and Citizenship). More and more I feel teaching is my calling – or at least my profession of choice – so the shrunken academic job market worries me. Like the rest of my friends, I have plans A,B,C,D,E, and F but my first choice would be a university teaching job in a city with lot of diversity and a way for me to continue working with refugees not to mention a place to settle down and dig my feet into the community and feel at home for more than a few years.

In addition to teaching, about a month ago, I organized a talk by my friend Jen Marlowe, documentary filmmaker, author, and activist in Sudan and Israel/Palestine. Her latest film is Rebuilding Hope, a documentary about three Sudanese Lost Boys in their 20s who return to South Sudan for the first time since they fled the war as young boys. Jen gave a talk at the University of Oregon about her time in Darfur filming Darfur Diaries and in South Sudan and made the best, necessary connections I have seen between the two regions which are too often portrayed by Western media as separate entities. Thanks to professor friends who offered extra credit to students as incentive for coming to the talk, and the support of the local Lane County Darfur Coalition who also helped advertise, we had almost 100 people come to hear Jen speak and I raised $650 from various departments on campus which Jen is donating to her two projects. And I got to spend time with Jen and our friend Caroline, a PhD student in Human Geography, who drove with Jen from Seattle to Eugene. The last time we were together (and the first time I met Jen) was in South Sudan last summer so we had much to catch up on. Caroline and I are working on an article about women’s rights movements in South Sudan that we hope to submit to a feminist academic journal within the next few weeks, a project we have been working on for about a year. Weekends like these make me feel very lucky and appreciative to have the amazing kinds of friends that I do but also to be working in a setting, like a university, where feminist activist scholars can come together and discuss ways to best combat various forms of oppression. I love it!

Like my spring, my summer will not only be filled with teaching, researching, and writing but also hiking, camping, weddings, and BBQs galore. And I’m moving again! After all, it has been a year and thus time to change the scenery. This time, at the end of August, I”m moving out of my adorable, cavernous and expensive one-bedroom apartment in an attic into a to-be-determined home with a roommate who understands the dissertation-writing zone because she just finished hers and has promised to take care of me while I write mine. Did I mention how appreciative I am of my friends?

Happy Summer to all of you. I hope your weather is more indicative of summer than Eugene’s cool, breezy, cloudiness that is making me want to curl up with a cup of tea and good work of fiction and not get up until the sun does.

December 14, 1988
Last night I made 52 Ritz/PB/almond bark cookie crackers. Actually I made more, but that’s as much left as my family (and I) ate a couple. I also finished my homework at a decent time, practiced 1 1/2 hours of piano, cleaned my room, and got to bed by 10:20! Not bad for also having early BB practice. Tonight we don’t have practice but do have confirmation. I also want to shoot baskets in the gym while my parents walk after church. I can’t wait for Christmas vacation…I’ve been hoping to have a party New Year’s Eve, my dad’s all for it, but my mom says NO WAY. I hope my dad can overpower my mom this time. My only problem is the kid’s I don’t invite will find out. I’ll feel terrible, not to mention them…
Today in English we got our essay tests from Great Expectations, the first half and and I got 71 out of 90. Luckily we were graded on a curve and I got an A with the highest score!! I know I can’t believe it either!!! Unfortunately, we also got our History tests back. I got 54 of out 70!!! A C!!! History’s one of my better subjects. I always get As in there. Well almost always…
Tonight would you believe I have NO HOMEWORK. I don’t, but I guess that means practice, practice, practice!!! Piano and horn, horn, horn! I guess I hve a math/algebra test tomorrow but I studied last night. I better take Earth Science home because there’s test on Friday. Gotta go.

December 15, 1988
Today we have a basketball game in Pipestone at 4:15. I hope I don’t flub up!! I hope there’s a lot of Luvernians there to cheer us on. My dad’ coming but my mom’s not. Playing forward is a tough job, we don’t get enough credit!
I just got home from our game in Pipestone. Our A team lost 12 to 9 and B team lost too, but I don’t know what their score was. Ya know, forwards do NOT get enough recognition for their job. Rebounding and putting it back up is harder than people know. Especially when you’re guarding 51 or otherwise called “Moose.” It’s not fair.

Now that I think about it, looking back on Christmas as a child and how everyone believed in Santa. I remember one year, I must have been about a first grader or so and I was at my cousin’s house. Kurt, who’s A LOT older than me was talking to my dad, I overheard, about his trip to the North Pole. I asked him if he saw Santa Claus or his reindeer. He said no. I was SO disappointed!!! Wouldn’t that be great if there really was a Santa Claus just like in the movie “Santa Claus.” It’s too bad kids are thinking of technology things like satellites and Santa at the same time.

December 14, 1988

Last night I made 52 Ritz/Peanut Butter/Almond bark cookie crackers. Actually I made more but that’s left as my family (and I) ate a couple. I also finished my homework at a decent time, practiced 1 1/2 hours of piano, cleaned my room, and got to bed by 10:20! Not bad for also having early BB practice. Tonight we don’t have practice, but do have confirmation. I also want to shoot baskets in the gym while my parents walk after church. I can’t wait for Christmas vacation…I’ve been hoping to have a party New Year’s Eve. My dad’s all for it by my mom says NO WAY. I hope my dad can overpower my mom this time. My only problem is the kids I don’t invite will find out. I’ll feel terrible…

Today in English we got our essay tests from Great Expectations, the first half, and I got 71 out of 90. Luckily we were graded on a curve and I got an A with the highest score!!! I know. I can’t believe it either!!! Unfortunately we also got our History tests back. I got 54 out of 70!!! A C!!!! History’s one of my better subjects. I always get As in there. Well almost always…

Tonight would you believe I have NO HOMEWORK!!? I don’t, but I guess that means practice, practice, practice!!! Piano and horn, horn, horn! I guess I have a math/Algebra test tomorrow, but I studied last night. I better take Earth Science home because there’s a test on Fri. Gotta Go.

December 15, 1988
Today we have a basketball game in Pipestone at 4:15. I hope I don’t flub up!! I hope there’s a lot of Luvernians there to cheer us on…Playing forward is a tough job, we don’t get enough credit!

I just got home from our game in Pipestone. Our A team lost 22 to 9 and B team lost too, but I don’t know what their score was. Ya know, forwards do not get enough recognition for their job. Rebounding, and putting it back up is harder than people know. Especially when you’re guarding 51, or otherwise called “Moose.” It’s not fair.

[To the left of this entry is a Family Circus cartoon strip that reads: "How can Santa see us all the way from the North Pole...By satellite."] I saw this card in the paper and I had to cut it out…Some kids are so naive, including myself. Now that I think about it, looking back on Christmas as a child and how everyone believed in Santa. I remember one year, I must have been about a first grader or so, and I was at my cousin’s house. Kurt who’s A LOT older than me was talking to my dad. I overheard about his trip to the North Pole. I asked him if he saw Santa Claus or his reindeer. He said no. I was SO disappointed!! Wouldn’t that be great if there actually was a Santa Claus just like in the movie, “Santa Claus”? It’s too bad kids are thinking of technology things like satellites and Santa at the same time.

Rather than providing you a dry summation of the history of Memorial Day, which you can find here, and at risk for sounding blasé about this day of remembrance for those who have died in honor of the U.S.A. (presumably through military service), I decided that I should remember those who have been checking my blog for new posts only to find that I seemed to have disappeared. I sincerely think it’s important to acknowledge those who have served the nation but I would like to see the definition of “service” broadened beyond the military. For example, I would like to think that one of the many reasons for my lack of Internet communication is due to my own service to “the” nation as an activist/researcher/instructor. Questioning the motives behind the state and the nation (e.g. the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or Hurricane Katrina), even a willingness to die for such causes, doesn’t seem to be as honorable as taking up arms to protect that state. So this weekend I am remembering those who have served the nation in many capacities whether they wore the uniform or not.

When I was young, we celebrated Memorial Day by going either to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, my mom’s family’s country church in Northwest Iowa, or to Old Westbrook Lutheran Church, my dad’s family country church in Southwest Minnesota. We wore fake poppies, brought real flowers to plant graveside, and visited tombstones where many of the four to five generations of my Norwegian American ancestors are buried. In the church basements, we ate heavily buttered ham sandwiches, potato salad, and of course several varieties of jello and bars, and then went to relatives’ farms for fun family times. If it sounds like Normal Rockwell, it was, with plenty of behind-the-scenes drama a la Garrison Keillor to boot, not that I was aware of it most of the time. I remember these days as idyllic and it’s times like those that make me nostalgic for my rural Midwest roots. But times have changed for better and for worse. I haven’t been to either of those churches since my grandma died in 2001 and my understanding is that such churches and small communities are suffering in these difficult economic times. Today, I would question the homogeneity of the region but I think that is slowly changing too. In any case, I’m glad I remember.

In 2009, I’m not doing anything specific for the holiday. I have plans with friends, plans to work and go running and hiking, and to catch up on this blog. I have been trying to set aside time outside of my social and professional life to do things that, before grad school, I used to enjoy and had time for, like beading (I mostly make necklaces), reading the printed Sunday NY Times (I have about four months to catch up on), writing in my journal (I would much rather write in my journal than twitter!), and playing music (thanks to a friend who donated his casio to me). I have been working hard these last two terms: teaching classes, participating in several conferences, organizing talks, finally beginning to work on my dissertation, and writing grants. I got a nice grant (one of seven I applied for) so that beginning next fall, I will not have to teach and I can devote all of my time to my dissertation in addition to entering the terrifying academic job market (there are almost no jobs right now so I’ll be lucky to get a postdoc and may have to consider jobs outside of academia). Before that, however, I am preparing to teach two summer classes over the course of 8 weeks so no rest for the weary grad student anytime soon. I have also been doing more than my share of socializing with great friends and work has taken a back burner since last week when the picture-perfect Oregon spring weather arrived for good.

Speaking of which, I’m off to dinner with friends and to enjoy more of the weather.

What or who are you remembering this weekend?

I’m on my way to Santa Fe for the applied anthropology conference. It has been a long winter and even longer 10-week term but it’s over and I’m giddy with excitement for the trip and because I”m drinking my second Americano of the morning. I had very fun social weekend with BFFs from Alaska (Shayna, Kevin, and Boy Child), attending dissertation celebrations (congrats Courtney!!), and a 40th birthday party. And I managed to write a mostly new conference paper for Santa Fe and work out in between gigs. My spirits are high. When I return from Santa Fe I plan to spend a few days in Portland with friends, shopping at used clothes stores and of course book and music stores. I will also coffee a lot, in cool urban cafes where I can work on my class for spring term: the Anthropology of Citizenship. I hope to write more over the next two weeks, before the onslaught of spring term.

It’s week 10 of 10 in our winter term at the University of Oregon and today was my last lecture. We talked about resistance to multiple forms of oppression and domination. For 10 weeks we have been talking about culture, politics, economy, militarism, masculinity, femininity, family, and so on – the ways they inform our everyday lives in positive and negative ways. Sometimes the material can feel “depressing,” especially to those students (many of whom are privileged in various ways), who have not thought about such things before. I like to end on a positive note, make sure they understand that people do not passively accept conditions that attempt to keep them oppressed, and that we all have some power and agency not to blindly subscribe to or perpetuate oppression and to question boundaries that attempt to prevent us from resisting. There are as many countless examples of resistance as there are domination. I asked my students to bring examples and they brought some great art, music, alternative media, literature – one student even wrote a poem. I brought some music from Nina Simona because I think she is particularly poignant on the topic of art and music as resistance:

Four Women

Why [the King of Love is Dead]

P.S. I recently bought Nina Simone: Protest Anthology. I highly recommend it!

[Reminder: all spelling mistakes are in the .]

November 17, 1988
Today was band tryouts. I think I did good. I messed up the first four notes of the EM scale, but he let me start over and I did perfect. That probably counted as one mistake??? Otherwise I did everything “perfect.” Today’s Kristin’s b-day. I wished her a happy one. Kris and I’ve been friends for 8 years. I think we know each other pretty well now! She’ll probably get a couple of ESPIRIT sweaters…

I’ve been in SUCH A CHRISTMAS MOOD lately. Just the other night I put on “Christmas with Bing,” an x-mas tape, with a lot of good carols. I thought of a story idea or poem I’ll have to start on. By FAR my favorite time of year is x-mas. Not for the presents either. The feeling of joy and just the mood is WONDERFUL. I hope I never change when it comes to x-mas.
Now signing off…
Jen

Note: [I have changed. I no longer look at "x-mas" quite this way. Sigh. Also, any spelling errors are in the original.]

November 30, 1988
Over all I had a good Thanksgiving. School was let out Wed. We drove up to Minneapolis on Thursday, got there about 3:45, and ate our wonderful dinner at 4:00. We ate at JC’s. I love their house. It’s so Norweigonish. Alot of rosemauling (sp?), and just wonderful things from all over the world. They’ve been to Norway, Austria, Cz., Sweden, and more. On Thurs. night, we went to the Syville (our hotel) and swam with our cousins. We then went back, talked a while, ate some more and went back to the hotel. The next day we were all very tired except Mom and Jean. I wanted to shop. I wanted to shop, it’s just my feet didn’t. First we went to the South Dale mall. I was pooped by just that but we went back to the hotel, loaded our stuff, went out for lunch, and then to down town Dayton’s, my favorite store (maybe) but I was too tired to enjoy it. My dad, Lisa, Sonya, Bim, and I went to the car after about 2-2 1/2 hours but Mom and Jean stayed for about 45 minutes more. Then we went to Dan, Suzy, Sara, and Melanie’s. We had meatballs, mashed potatoes, and much much more. A 2nd Thanksgiving meal. We played pool and ping pong and got a tour of their “new” house. They’ve been in it for about a year but we haven’t seen it yet. It’s really nice, a lot of stairs but nice. They even have an intercom system. It’s fun to play with, but in our house I’d just yell anyway. I forgot to mention the seven of us all came in our 7 passenger van and suitcases and junk. I have never been so crowded in all my life, not to mention the cold I had. I used so much kleenex we had to stop at a gas station and get more and cough drops. The driving was horrendlessly exasperating but all in all a good weekend.

Let’s see the only current event I can really think of for this week is Thanksgiving and I already told about that…Have I mentioned all our Christmas decorations are up at our house? In my room, as always I have my cute little branch with lights and ornaments on it on top of the wicker stool and decorations and red and green and tinsel all over my room. Downstairs we finally got some stencil spray and in our bay window it looks like: [I drew a picture of "Merry Christmas"] – only much fancier. And the downstairs obviously has the normal, but not boring, wonderful x-mas decorations. Ahhh x-mas what a wonderful time of year. Signing off with a Merry X-mas,
Jennnnnnnnnnnnny