Filling our freezer

I love early summer! We're enjoying all sorts of fruits, and stocking the freezer for later, and the best part of it is how much of this we're doing for free!

First were the strawberries from our own garden. We ate berries each evening when they came in, and then cut up however many didn't get eaten and put them in the freezer. I think we ended up with about a quart there. Not anywhere near the quantity that we typically use in our smoothies over the course of the year. Darn those slugs!

James found a plum tree at work that no one seemed interested in. . . so home came those free plums to be pitted and frozen. The final count there-three tubbies of 1 1/2 quarts each. Those go into smoothies because they're a bit too tart to eat plain.

Peaches showed up at the farmers' market last weekend, and when we asked for a bushel we were told we had to wait until early August when the freestone peaches come in. But then he offered us seconds at two quarts for $5, rather than $7 a quart for the pretty ones. Some of the seconds were bruised, some just had spots on the skin. We only ended up with three that were too bruised to salvage the majority of them. Final count-over 18 lbs of pieces to freeze for $15. Those are primarily for smoothies, but will also be used in cobblers during the winter. We'll continue collecting and processing seconds through the season. It's much easier to do the smaller batches than it was to do the whole bushel+ we did over three days last summer.

Best of all, the wine berries (wild raspberries) are ripe. We made the twins join us to pick them before they went over to their dad's house weekend before last, and brought home a quart and a half. James and I picked another three quarts on Sunday, and James had done another picking trip one evening while I was at kung fu. It looks like something in the neighborhood of five quarts in the freezer, not including all the ones eaten fresh. There's nothing quite like berries that make it from branch to belly in ten seconds! We haven't taken bowls to pick berries on our walks since Sunday, but have each picked and eaten almost a cup each evening. Life is good!

Next up. . .blackberries! (We found the first dozen or so ripe ones last night, so I'm sure James is going to be out picking those while I'm at my sisters. He's the real blackberry fan in the house, but Samuel gives him some good competition for the berries.)

Kung fu

Samuel figures he's safely too far ahead of me in kung fu for me to catch up with him before he graduates, so I started this spring. I found that I had too much on my plate and skipped April, but was ready to test for my yellow sash in June. This is me doing my form at testing.

Samuel looks much better doing his forms, but he should. His final test (of 6!) to earn his black sash (after four & a half years) will be the 26th of this month. I love watching him! He moves with such grace and style.

Catching up-school stuff. . .

After two months without blogging, I guess I’d better do a bit of catching up. This post is about my school stuff. I’ll do another one about the garden and a third about the kids.

School is going well, but keeping me very busy. I really set myself up for a challenge this semester when I carried a research project over from last semester, and then just kept complicating my life- with a trip to Hawaii and then taking an extra class- but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who knows me.

The research project was for my Sociology of Mental Health class, and I thought it would be interesting and relevant to research the long-term mental health consequences for children whose parents divorce. Interesting? Maybe. But definitely NOT fun, and way too close to home. As the original due date approached, I thought I’d change topics, but then I couldn’t get timely access to materials for my alternate topic (the University of Maryland doesn’t do much with Appalachia), and just before school resumed in January I admitted I’d be better off going back to my original topic, even if things with Kyle seemed to “blow up” every time I got into my research. I did finally finish that paper over Spring Break. The good news is that the vast majority of children whose parents divorce end up in the “normal” range as young adults (up to about age 30 is as far as the research goes), with about 10% moving from a low normal range to display clinical-level depression at some point in their twenties. Much of that seems to be related to their exposure to continuing parental conflict, or loss of relationship with the non-custodial parent (hence the personal relevance particularly with Kyle’s absence).

While post-divorce parenting questions were my motivation for returning to school, I won’t be following that path unless I can find a team to work with on relevant issues. It’s just “too close to home” at this point in my life. I joked about studying sex, since it’s much more fun, but I think I’ll be doing more with education or work-life balance issues, and probably involving the military. We have a fabulous Military Sociology program here at UMCP, and the advisors are tremendously helpful. It’s also the community with the most “older” students, and I’m quite comfortable there. I realized the other week that I’ve carried a dependent’s ID card for all but 8 years of my life!

Which leads me to another factor that complicated this semester: taking an extra class. The program pays for 10 credits/semester- three courses and a seminar that meets once/week or every other week & has minimal homework. My courses this semester are: second semester Statistics (Multiple Regression Analysis), the core course for Gender, Work & Family (only taught in alternate years), and the new Survey of Research Methods course that is designed to introduce us to various research methodologies and to help us prepare our proposal for the Second-Year Paper (Master’s Thesis equivalent but designed to be just about ready for submission to a journal for publication). Typically students also take Contemporary Theory Spring semester of their first year, but I couldn’t fit it in and it’s offered every year so that got postponed. I also had to postpone taking the Military Families course that I’d wanted to help with my research for next year.

. . . I asked Mady Segal for some guidance on foundational readings for my research on the impact of parental military service on children’s educational attainment. She first suggested that I scan the course syllabus, and then talk to some students who’d taken her course in the past. Then she thought I’d be better off if I audited the course this semester- do all the readings and attend seminar, but save the papers for some later time and get credit for it through Independent Study credits at that time.

The official “seminar” this semester for our cohort was a statistical analysis programming workshop (STATA). “Unofficially” I’m also in the Military Sociology seminar that all of the MilSoc folks attend, whether or not we’re registered, AND the Works-in-Progress seminar that meets every other week to discuss individual student research projects.

So, I’ve ended up doing most of the work for four classes, and that after taking a ten-day trip to Hawaii for most of the first two weeks of the semester! No wonder I’ve felt a bit busy.

Fortunately I’m figuring out how to play the grad school game more comfortably. The reading is easier now that I’ve learned the jargon and format of the articles. I am having fun.

It looks like I’ll be teaching my own class next Fall. I’ve tried to talk my way into a research position, but keep hearing that they have me in mind to teach. . . So this summer I’ll be preparing for that, plus creating my own mini-research experiences. One of the profs in our department is working on a Community Greens project in Baltimore and needs interviewers, so I jumped on that. And I’ll probably be helping with coding and analysis of another qualitative research project over in the Family Studies Department. Then trips to Colorado to help Becky with her yard, Boston for the American Sociological Association annual meeting in August, and Baltimore Yearly Meeting the week after that. No time to get bored here!

On top of school, but life around the edges . . .

I know I haven't been posting in ages. . . Oh, well. I'm still figuring out how to keep up with the game. We're in the final stretch of the semester and it's looking do-able. I am having a blast! I'll try to get a kid update up sometime over the long weekend (in between grading 60 student research projects, writing a 20-page paper, and reading a book or three!).

Just wanted to get a quick post up to celebrate the gorgeous colors on my drive in this morning. I'm reminded of an impressionist painting with the golds and reds and rusts and oranges showing between the evergreens and the few deciduous trees that are still green.

Also, today is my nephew Evan's last brain surgery, so we're keeping him in our thoughts and prayers.