Sunday's Snippets

READING:  Am still in my Paris/France/Turn-of-the-century mood, so I grabbed one of Barbara Tuchman's books that I hadn't read, The Proud Tower (deals with the years 1890-1914 just before WWI).  It first came out in 1966 or there about but is a very good read. I think in 1966 I was in my Dinny Gordon reading phase so I missed this Tuchman book first time around and probably barely even knew what WWI actually encompassed to any great extent.  11 year olds are like that even today.  Besides, Dinny Gordon was always dreaming about ancient Rome and Greece and the Mediterranean world and that was where my real historical interests have always been focused first and foremost...that and Dinny Gordon was a high school girl, so at 11, that was quite the thing to be reading about high school life!
SWIMMING NEWS:  Let's see...The Swimmer had a swim meet at Penn State and then another in Athens, Georgia since I last posted anything.  He brought home a new best time on the 50 Free from Georgia and had a couple of good relays but nothing else truly outstanding.  This is a typical freshman year: rebuilding, reworking some strokes for college, trying to fit into this new world of bigger, better, faster, stronger.  He's doing a good job.  Now they are focusing on finals for classes for the semester, he gets a week off for Christmas, and then back to Hooville for winter training, culminating in a dual meet at UofM in Ann Arbor in January and the start of the second semester.  
COOKING BYTES:  May try to catch up on some of the blogging events I missed these past weeks...it's a day by day thing here right now.  I took a little break hoping that would be a good thing, but found that I missed all the cooking assignments, and Mark missed eating new and different foods as I am a little more motivated when I know I am doing it for groups, so the thoughts of me closing up blogging shop at the end of the year are probably being put aside for now.
FAV NEW FIND:  Pandora music....Matt fixed me all up at Thanksgiving so now I can select certain kinds of music and just listen to my heart's content.  This week it has been mostly Christmas music as I am baking cookies and such to squirrel away in the freezer for upcoming events.   (I know, I know, you have all known about Pandora for years and years, but this is breaking news for me!)
FAV THIS PAST WEEK:  Okay...who reading this didn't think I was going to say that my favorite thing this week was that HUGE win last night of IU over Kentucky, who happened to be, at the time, the Number 1 NCAA  Basketball Team in the Nation?  Who thought I wasn't going to put that?  Show of hands?  Okay, no one...you all know me well. ;-)  The Glory Days are coming back to B-Town...oh, yeah.  We loyal fans (how many teams do you know that can sell out their arenas on years when they are bottom of the Big Ten and only win 3 Conference games all year, none of them on the road?) are so ready for that 6th Banner.  We dream big.  In case you missed it, here's your chance to see the last little bit, click here. 
And, photo is of Matt and his roommate Ian enjoying the win before, as Matt said, "The entire arena relocated to Kirkwood Avenue and there was a giant street party practically all night."  Indiana loves its basketball, no doubt about it.  A little extra Christmas cheer for all the Hoos down in Hooville with that win!
WEEK IN REVIEW:  Hoosiers starting out 9-0...looking forward to a great year of NCAA basketball! The rest of the week pales in comparison...it was a good week, but that IU win made it a GREAT week!  I can't for the life of me think of a single other thing that happened this week at this moment...lol. Just kidding, of course, but it was an average week of work and other bits and nothing too much to write about...other than that win! (Photo below is the storming of the basketball court after the buzzer and win. People were a bit excited.)

LOOKING FORWARD TO:  Checking out museum talk on Madonnas on Saturday (click here) at the IMA.  This is what's happening at the ISO this coming week: Yuletide Celebration, here is the calendar for it.  Two weeks until Christmas...I'm pretty sure I better get a move on preparations, hope you are all right on schedule for all that...we are seriously going to start working on it this week.