July 30, 2016

So… it has been quite some time since I have shared what I have been up to. Life got busy over the past year and I have had trouble finding a moment to sit down and write up my activities.

The last 18 months have been filled with friends, family, travel, and work. We’ve been fortunate to have had a number of visitors come through Cincinnati, which has been a lot of fun. It’s great to host friends and family and to share this city with others. Please come see us. We have also been lucky enough to be able to spend time in California, Toronto, Colorado, Hawaii, Saint John, Michigan, and Germany. Each of these trips was special and memorable and I could spend pages describing the marvelous things we saw and did. But I won’t subject you to that. I am, of course, happy to share our adventures; just let me know if you want to hear more.

Cincinnati continues to treat us well, and Matt and I have enjoyed our exploration of the city and the surrounding region. Some of the more amazing things we have discovered include VentHaven, which holds the world’s largest display of ventriloquism dummies, Entertrainment Junction, which is a fantastic model train museum, and a couple of lovely parks that we can walk to. Also, I joined a German schuhplattler dance troupe in Cincinnati last fall, and have enjoyed performing at various events around the city. The group operates very much like a large family and it has been fun to be part of a community of folks that have been integrated with city events for decades.

Work has been demanding but fulfilling. I taught two large intro courses last spring, which was easily the hardest thing I have had to do to date as a professor, but I survived. I also took charge of revamping our Geology Department’s undergraduate curriculum, which proved to be more work than I expected but was also a rewarding experience; we are pleased with our final product and hope the undergraduate experience will be more enticing and balanced for our students in the future. I am also going up for tenure this year, which has required a lot of self-reflection and organization. It will be nice to have that milestone behind me.

On a sad note, we lost our parrotlet, Lou, in April and spent several rather empty months without him. However, we adopted a pair of bunnies in June. Hannah and Benjamin are a lot like soft little cows. They keep us entertained and have definitely raised our spirits. They are much quieter and destructive than a parrot but still get into mischief.

Summer has been filled with catching up on work, travel, and family. I had the opportunity to learn some family history with my mother and grandmother in rural Indiana in May and my father in Dayton in June. It really makes a difference to see places rather than just hear or read about them. Matt and I spent two weeks in Germany in July and had a marvelous time. Our trip happened to coincide with fresh mushroom (pfifferling) and cherry season, which was a pleasant surprise. We visited some really charming medieval towns, breweries that are older than the United States, and unique art installations (e.g., a basement of giant robotic monsters in Berlin called Monsterkabinett). I anticipate that we will be returning, hopefully soon.

So, that is my very generalized (but positive) overview of what I have been up to since Spring 2015. Next up is a road trip to the southwest. We’ll be able to visit my Dad in Colorado and will then attend a reunion for my lab from graduate school in Santa Fe. After that we’ll have a brief trip to Chicago for a conference. I will be sad to see summer coming to an end but at least it has been fulfilling. And Fall term will be much less stressful than last Spring. Also, Fall is beautiful in Cincinnati. I wish you a lovely fall as well. In September, we get to spend a week in North Carolina. We’ve rented a cottage on the beach in Nagshead. I haven’t been to the Outer Banks since I was a little girl, and I’m really excited to spend some time next to the sea. I wish you a lovely fall and I will endeavor to write more regularly in the future.