Relief

I have nothing to do today, and I don't really know what to do with myself. There are a few dishes yet to do, and quite a lot of laundry, but that sort of doesn't count, especially since I'll shove them in their respective machines, push a few buttons, and walk away. J may or may not be taking me out to a birthday party for one of his coworkers, but that's not for a long time yet, so for now, I have nothing to do. And I'm sort of uncomfortable with it.

The whole dissertation thing is over, and I'm told that it went well. And I'm glad that people are telling me because I honestly don't remember most of it. They say that in the public seminar I spoke incredibly calmly and confidently and explained my made-up stats clearly, which is a relief because in my head it was choppy and weird. In the closed door defense, I would have sworn that I answered with "I don't know" more frequently than with a real answer, but according to one of my committee members, that was not the case. I obviously have revisions, but none of them are particularly scary.

The celebration was most excellent. I was surprised to see how many people love me enough to go out on a Tuesday night. Things got a little out of hand, but not nearly so much as the celebration after my oral comps.

And then my parents got here. And the cooking started. We didn't celebrate Thanksgiving until Friday because of J's schedule. On Thursday, I baked bread, and Mom and I combined forces to can up a double batch of venison sausage chilli and make a batch of pot stickers for the freezer. And that was all before lunch. We took a break for a walk at the lab then made the pies (apple/strawberry/blueberry, pumpkin, and purple)and cranberry sauce (Mom's never made it from scratch before), and cut up the bread for the stuffing.

Friday morning, we stuck the gigantic bird in the oven, organized a few things,

then went outside to put up the Christmas lights.

(picture coming sometime after dark)