Chinese Fortune

"Time flies. Suns rise and shadows fall. Let time go by. Love is forever over all."

This is perhaps the most beautiful fortune I've ever received in a fortune cookie! Since Ed has been out of town for a few days I haven't cooked or organized a meal. Lili's been gone most of the time and Phil's been busy working. I've been busy with work, doctoral work, and also took advantage of the "house quiet" to clean the kitchen and powder room, and am attempting to do a closet switchover from summer to winter wardobe. After 5 o'clock mass I stopped at Pat's Pizza for a chef salad, and next door to check out a new Chinese takeout next door to Pat's. I love Lo Mein noodles and thought it would be a nice addition to the chef salad. Enough dinner planning for this week!

September Beach Interlude

Yesterday I took time out of my day to just go sit on the beach for 30 minutes.

It was good to see people still enjoying the beach-- on these gorgeous days with temps in the 80's and in what is now the "off-season" beach-going is a joy! No crowds, parking available, and enough room to walk on the boardwalk and be able to see ahead! This used to be my favorite beach time when we lived in Virginia Beach years ago. With my small size order of Thrashers fries in hand, (yes I know, this was not so good for the diet, but can I beg forgiveness because it was the only one I've had all summer?)... and those noisy seagulls around me, I just watched the waves roll in. Doing nothing with the mind, not even thinking... but just being...is something we don't do enough of these days.

Things done infrequently are so easily forgotten! I had forgotten how much I love just sitting on the beach, and so I'm hoping for more warm weather days to just sneak out for short interludes to refresh the soul.

Tuesday Mornings

It's a slow Tuesday morning and I need my coffee and the newspaper, and check my email in peace before I can start the day.

It is the first half of the Fall semester, and because I teach at the Air Force base on Monday evenings, I always need a second cup of coffee before I can really get moving to start my day! I picked up a cannister of Pumpkin Spice coffee at Trader Joe's last Saturday (it's become my favorite Saturday shopping place!), and although I hadn't had this before, it's a nice cofee. Even Ed likes it-- which says a lot!

The house is quiet because Ed's off teaching his Tuesday morning class, Phil is off to his classes, and Lili is substitute teaching today. So now it's just the dog and I-- so peaceful! My brain is slowly starting to wake up and I must make a list of today's must-do's. First I have to take notes on what I promised my students last night on what to include in next week's lecture... this class is so much fun to teach! It's designed to explore the human response to disaster, and we watch disaster movies, correlate the human response with what happened in a corresponding real-life disaster, and then I introduce the principles of Emergency Management. Hopefully, society will gain a few more people who can be helpful and productive in helping others when either natural or technological disasters arise! Ok-- the dog has waited patiently, so now up and at'em to give Fawnie some quality time before I head off to work.

Coming Soon- Polar Bear Plunge!

Coming soon-- the fundraising will begin for my third Polar Bear Plunge in February 2013! This event benefits the Delaware Special Olympics. This will be my third time plunging into the frigid waters of the Atlantic. And would you believe? I am sooo looking forward to it :).

The Perfect Cup in Hockessin

The Perfect Cup Cafe is a hometown gathering for Hockessinites. On Sunday mornings it is the place where church-goers gather after mass to have breakfast or just a cup of The Perfect Cup's sugnature coffee Snickerdoodle. During the week you will see business meetings held there, mothers with toddlers, and retirees having coffee with friends. It's the place where Hockessinites gather to meet other Hockessinites. I have a love-hate relationship with this place! Why?

Because this place serves food cooked on small little hot plates with no venting. After walking out the door, don't be surprised if your clothes smell like food! I've had to either toss what I had been wearing in the wash or send it to the dry cleaners because the place has no ventilation in the food prep area. This morning after church we went there for breakfast, and I ordered the breakfast burrito pictured below.

I've had their breakfast burritos before, but this was the first one I had had with sausage patties, in the burrito. Sausage patties? Really? Come on... and when I asked about the cheese in the burrito, I was told that they put in one slice of cheese, "It's not a whole bunch" the cook told me. I counted perhaps 2-3 little pieces of pepper, the 3-4 pieces of onion, and the salsa was miniscule. I did taste a whole lot of egg, no sour cream-- so what was breakfast burrito about this breakfast burrito??? Not a whole lot. So my relationship with The Perfect Cup? Let's just say it's on a downward slide for now and I will be looking for options for Sunday mornings...

Review of Folly Beach

Another sweet little summer "beachy-type" novel I read during the summer was Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank.

Set in Folly Beach, (which is in Charleston, South Carolina for those wo don't know), this one was a story about remembering your roots, finding your way home, and thus discovering true happiness. This novel is a bit more interesting and imaginative than most summer beachy novels because it is a story within a story... the main story of Cate Cooper, whose wealthy husband hung himself above her piano. Cate's husband, a wealthy finance guy, apparently used this as his "way out" after he was discovered to have lost, embezzled, or otherwise invested poorly everyone's money to the point where he also lost everything and thus left Cate absolutely broke.

With the help of her sister and brother-in-law, Cate travels back to her roots, her aunt's house on Folly Beach. As luck would have it, she accidentally, bumps into another car at the grovery store and meets the handsome teacher at a local private school. Cate has aspirations to become a writer, and is enchanted by the story of previous tenants of the house in which she lives. Without giving too much of the story away, let me just say that is is a good story, and worthwhile reading. The characters are very like-able, and also have been developed with some depth to their characters. Frank has developed just enough of a twist to make you want to continue reading.

It's Lili's Birthday today! Hard to believe she's all grown up-- both of them really-- when they were little people always thought Phillip and Lili were twins! So here they are... all grown up, and we're celebrating Lili's birthday with dinner at Harvest Seasonal Grill in Glen Mills. Heartily recommend this place-- great menu with all foods purchased from local farms.

More About FANBOYS...

So what is a FANBOYS you ask? FANBOYS are those simple little words that can easily combine two independent thoughts, or 2 complete sentences, into one sentence. Each letter of the acronym F A N B O Y S stands for a short little word, and remembering them as the acronym is a whole lot easier thantrying to remember those pesky little words by themselves.

FANBOYS serve a wonderful function in that they can be used to combine two independent thoughts (or sentences) into one coherent whole. Without a FANBOYS, many short sentences in a row will make your writing soud choppy almost like a third grader wrote it). Learning to use FANBOYS will certainly help improve your writing!

The Bishop's Rules on Commas

Are you confused about commas? One summer during the 1990's I was studying for a certificate in Business & Technical Writing at UD. We had to do some kind of grammar project using computer software that wasn't too common at the time. So I chose to research commas. After researching many grammar books about comma usage in the University of Delaware library, some of which dated back to the late 1800's, I saw firsthand how comma usage changes over time.

I even conducted a short survey asking students when they used commas in a paper. Some of them answered "I spread them throughout sentences like confetti," or "Whenever I read what I've written and I need to take a breath." Even today, you may find slight changes in the rules for using commas from textbook to textbook. However, after recording and condensing comma use from hundreds of books, I developed 7 rules for commas that will get you through almost every occasion!

Women in Nuclear

I have a great group of friends and colleagues from Women in Nuclear (WIN), and Region 1 just had their annual conference up near Susquehanna this past Thurs- Fri. It was so great catching up with Michele and Denise again, along with Sharon from PPL and Joanne from NEIL, and getting to know Judy, Jaclyn, Maryann, and Susan among many others! However, we missed our dear Judy who's down in Georgia building a new nuke plant and couldn't be bothered to attend "boondoggles"! This was anything but-- we were inspired by stories of professional success as Louise Goeser spoke about her career ladder, and learned and listened as Tim Rausch spoke about Fukushima and how the industry is responding to the lessons learned from this event. Then we also heard from Joanne Raphael about communicating with external stakeholders. Additional prsentations about finance, and goal setting rounded out the program. Pun intended, for me, this is always an "energizing" experience! Love my Women in Nuclear! :)

Remembering 9/11

Remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice. If you have not yet been to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, it is a moving tribute to this day.