Susan Wise Bauer's Blog, page 17

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-05-01

Discount Easter candy!! #
Just finished listening to Gordon Wood, Jim Lehrer, and Sandra Day O'Connor talk about civic engagement at Kimball Theatre in Williamsburg. #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-24

Baby chicks arrived at the post office this morning at 7:45. They're now unloaded from their cardboard box and in the brooder. #
I have a whole lot of email to catch up on. Sounds like my laptop, the Star Trek reboot, and a glass of Ghost Pines cabernet is in order. #
This morning's agenda: toast, coffee, and the Borgias. #
Admirable support of a necessary reform. But where's their willingness to pay higher tuition to fund it? http://bit.ly/eajVeC #

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It's that time of year: the baby chicks arrive

We're restocking our flock of layers this year, and the baby chicks arrived in the mail this morning. They were hatched on Friday in Iowa, packed into a cardboard box on Saturday morning, and arrived at the post office at 8 AM today, happy and cheeping loudly.

My mother, who was raised by chicken farmers, is the resident chicken guru. She helped the kids set up the brooder on the screen porch, where the chicks will stay until they're closer to pullet-size and we can move them into the pullet pen.

Here's the reason why the brooder is on the screen porch: the intensely interested shepherd and border collie.

Even more than kittens, baby chicks morph from adorable into hideous into a remarkably short time. But for the time being, adorable dominates.

The one yellow chick is our bonus chick, supposed to be an exotic rooster. (I don't know what that means. We'll see.) The black chicks are bred to be good layers; the brown and blacks are Araucanas, which lay naturally colored eggs: turquoise, blue, green, olive. We've been wanting to experiment with these for a while.

Theoretically, the eggs turn out something like this:

Will be sure to post pictures of the first eggs they lay.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-17

Eating frosted chocolate cake and Havarti cheese for lunch. A sort of culinary stress marker, that is. #
DS14 went to ballgame right after church, neglected to free enormous German shepherd from kennel. Shepherd, freed by DS17, now in my lap. #
Did I mention enormous? #
And smelly? And needy? #
And once again my budding Seafarers of Catan empire has been rudely smashed by the local land-grasping tyrant (aka Pete). #
DD10 thinks Christopher Paolini is the greatest writer ever. Buying the audio of Brsinger because it is her greatest desire. It…hurts… #
Signs of spring and incipient heart failure: Enormous black snake, curled up in front of my office door. #
Finally cleaned out my office…because my assistant refused to take "Spring Cleaning" off my calendar and also bribed me with food & drink. #
Writers, want guidance? Watch Syfy Original Movies. Protagonist! Conflict! Outside complication! Crisis! Decision! Romantic Complication! #
Pollen. Argghhh. #
Just dropped DS17 off to spend weekend w/DS19 at college. Watched them charge up the dorm steps together and had a serious Old Lady moment. #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-10

Conference is over: coffee and fruit in bed with fluffy pillows, a good book, and sunshine outside the window. #
Happy to be back in Virginia. Would be even happier if United would actually find my bags. Yeah, and give them to me, even. #
Education conferences always make me want to come home & do something artsy & inefficient: write freeform poetry, bake petits fours, emote. #
Had to convert my personal Facebook page to a Public Figure page today. This is some sort of Life Milestone, right? #
Heading to NYC for Norton sales conference this morning. LOVE hearing gale-force winds howling around house as I pack for a commuter flight. #
My, the TSA guys at RIC are in an excellent mood this morning! (Checking to see if I forgot to put on an item of clothing–) #
Yesterday was a cold, rainy, blustery day in New York. Sun's out this morning. Amazing how that changes…everything. #
Heading to the NYPL to write about the seventeenth century. Wish me luck. #
The windows are open; the mourning doves are calling in the woods. #

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Really, this is some sort of Life Moment

So yesterday I had to convert my personal Facebook page into a Public Figure page.

This means SOMETHING. I must meditate on the deeper implications.

But the really shallow, immediate, fun implication is that you can all hit "Like" and I can see the number of people who "like" me increase! It's like junior high! With a counter!

You should all do it. Now.

They like me! They really like me!

It might take me a while to get around to sorting out the deeper implications…

Mini-dispatch from Cincinnati

Normally I try to take a lot of pictures at conventions, but I talked so nonstop to so many people that I fell down on the job. I only managed to snag two photos of oneof my workshop rooms…the left hand side

and the right hand side.

This was my third conference in six weeks…and now I get to stay home and write.

Update on THAT coming soon.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-04-03

Sleet! #
Let me try this one more time: READ something FIRST. REVIEW it SECOND. #
SNOW! #
Making creme brulee. Because I haven't gotten to use a blowtorch in way too long. #
Heading out for a very long run, not unrelated to last night's creme brulee. #
It turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse. #
In my office this morning. Wearing the fingerless gloves to type AGAIN. Oh, spring, what have we done to offend you? #
Only click if you're interested in kerfluffle: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/publishers-statement-olive-branch-books-and-telling-gods-story #
Oh, yeah, right, I'm a writer. Today, I am writing. #
Leaving on a jet plane…aka teensy commuter plane that will get tossed around like a Ping-pong ball by the elements. Fun stuff. #
Talked all day w/educators, parents, & students at Midwest Education Convention. Packed workshop rooms, full exhibit hall, not enough food. #

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Charles City, Virginia, on March 27: It's snowing on the forsythia

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-03-27

Slept 14 hours after convention ended. Not that it wasn't a good time. #SouthEastHS #
Today will be a day of itty bitty planes. #
Itty bitty planes were accompanied by itty bitty customer service. #
I am home. With a glass of red wine, making homemade pasta filled w/cheese, surrounded by children and dogs, watching a disaster movie. Ahh. #
Time to face down my Priority A email box like a woman. #
My daughter has hung a rainbow-maker in the kitchen window, and my kitchen is filled with gliding squares of color. (But no unicorns.) #
Hyperactive border collie really wants to drink red wine marinating liquid from tonight's flatiron steaks. I kind of want to give it to her. #
My Stress-Relief Body Lotion promises to Calm and Relax as it Moisturizes. Suspect it may be past its sell-by date. #
Soothing ylang ylang candles not doing the trick either. What's ylang ylang? #
Wow. I am learning all sorts of new facts about ylang ylang. #
Today, my nothing-but-writing day: Renaissance-era African cities, teaching fifth graders to write biographical sketches, dependent clauses, #
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." #
I'm trying to write today, honest, but I'm distracted because I keep waiting to see Rod Serling appear from behind a tree. #
I just discovered the island of Mauritius! (Well, technically, the Dutch discovered it in 1598, but now I know where it is too.) #
Carbohydrates are natural tranquilizers (she says, heading for the cookie jar). #
New post up at the Well-Trained Mind blog: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/reflections-on-education/a-golden-oldie/ #
Winner of this year's Diagram Prize for the year's oddest book title: Managing a Dental Practice The Genghis Khan Way, by Michael R. Young. #
Just taught DS14 how to make meatloaf. Had a little trouble convincing him that "loaf" means "don't sculpt the meat into intriguing shapes." #
DS17 working on college application essay: Write Page 87 of your autobiography and show where you think you'd be. I might write one myself. #
So far, I have overslept, missed morning run, broken some dishes, forgotten an appointment. Anne of Green Gables would call it a Jonah day. #

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