Just a quick one to catch up. I'll be going back home at the end of the week, and until then I'll be away from the internet. In some ways it's very relaxing being beyond the net, but I prefer to keep up with some essential things, especially my schoolwork. I never got that last assignment finished before I left, but it's done now, and within the due date.

Here's a picture of a place we went hiking last week. It's in the Grand Escalante Staircase National Monument. The best way I can describe it is the Narrows. That little stream looks tiny now, but in the spring, it fills up the narrows with water maybe twenty feet high or higher. We could see where rocks, sand, and logs had been swept up high in the cliffs. The narrows themselves were carved out of sandstone by that little stream. It was certainly awe-inspiring. I'll see if I can upload the rest of the pictures when I get home.

I've gone into Headless Chicken Mode this week in the rush up to our transcontinental visit. I have three assignments due while I'll be away so therefore I need to submit all three before we go on Friday. However, all of them are long, involved, wordy, researchy sorts of assignments, one for each class, and I'm not even due to begin studying some of the material until the end of the week. So I have to rush to get it all in and get everything else ready, which I will admit, I have procrastinated. The house is not clean. The ironing is not done. The dog is not walked. The dahlias are not dug up. And I wanted to finish a few projects in order to bring them with me.

The worst thing is, I've had an absolutely killer toothache which has kept me up for the last four nights. Attempting to study with a throbbing mouth (and jaw, ear, and neck) not to mention the five-hour-sleep shakes, well, let's just say it's difficult. I went to the dentist today and got some antibiotics and some different painkillers; I think my other ones were making me fall over. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep. Or maybe my infection affected my inner ear.



I don't have any new pictures really to show, but I just took a snapshot of a little bit of artwork I did last week for a friend. I have a built-in webcam in my new laptop and it takes itty bitty photos. My medium is crayon. I have a big box of 120 crayons with all sorts of neat-o colors like robin's egg blue and mauvelous and outer space. I like to draw and then color in my drawing. This friend and I have been working on a big picture and now it's almost done. This is my last addition to it, and it only needs one more addition from her. I hope I haven't spoiled her surprise with this posting...

In an ongoing epic struggle between the forces of motivation and sloth, one woman stands alone. Tirelessly, day in and day out, she fights for what she believes in, what she knows will make the world a better place. She is The Occupational Juggler. By morning, a dedicated housewife with a feather duster in her hand; by day, a hardworking employee in a busy restaurant; by night, a student with an insatiable thirst for homework. Can the Occupational Juggler save the planet, write a report about it, and still have time to make her husband a souffle?

Last time, on The Occupational Juggler, our fearless heroine was dangling from the precipice of Insane Overtime Gulch.

"I should have known this wasn't a good place to have a picnic," she exclaimed. With the remains of her lunch lost to the raging river below and her blood sugar in dangerously low levels, any other would have given up in despair. But not so the Occupational Juggler. In her trusty back pocket compartment, beneath her driving license and food-testing thermometer, lay her grappling hook and crossbow. In an astounding feat, she one handedly loaded, cocked, and fired this indispensible implement and in no time, climbed up the rope that had imbedded into a signpost. Brushing off her hands and smoothing back her hair, she read: "Warning: precipice ahead."

If only she had paid attention in the first place to the warning signs. "Next time I'll think ahead," she intoned, and whipped out a bean burrito from her emergency rations kit in her trusty back pocket compartment.

On her way back to finish up her dishes, she nearly stumbled over a pile of unpaired socks. Out of it jumped a vicious trigonometry-geometry mutant. With ears like the square root of 1/2 and a gaping mouth lined with acute-angled teeth, it had her cornered in an instant, with only three unmatched socks for protection.

Can our heroine remember the formula for solving quadratic equations? Will the Law of Sines distract the mutant long enough for her to make her escape? And will she make it back in time to save dinner? Find out next time on

The Occupational Juggler