Packing

I just pulled out our suitcases to start packing (we're leaving for Cache Valley tomorrow!) and Simone wriggled into one of them. She's going to be so disappointed to find out that she's not going with us . . .

Alma Mater in Roses

In case you hadn't heard, the Fighting Illini are playing in the Rose Bowl on January 1st against the USC Trojans. Illini fever has swept the campus. The most charming proof of Rose Bowl excitement is the Alma Mater statue (she is flanked by Labor and Learning) decorated with roses. Some art and design students adorned the Alma Mater with red, blue, and orange roses to celebrate the upcoming bowl game.

See more pictures of the bedecking here.

See the official "Tournament of Roses" website here.

School's out, snow, etc.

We got several inches of snow yesterday and last night. Here's the view from our front porch:

Today our church meetings were postponed until 11 a.m. so that hopefully people will be able to get there. For the last two weeks our church meetings have been canceled, so we're happy that we'll get to go today (but just for one hour instead of the usual three -- I know my little brothers are so jealous right now). Mike is outside shoveling the driveway as I write this.

I finished the last of my coursework for this semester on Friday and it feels great to be done. It's remarkable that I was able to finish my final paper under these working conditions. Simone was sleeping on the laptop!

Simone is my little helper

On Thursday we're leaving for Cache Valley and we're so excited! It will be a really long road trip, but we're checking out a bunch of audio books from the library, loading some podcasts on the iPod, and we're praying for good weather. Hopefully the roads will be good and we won't drive each other nuts cooped up in the car for ~20 hours together.

I hope that you are enjoying the run-up to Christmas and that you feel the joy of the season. I felt the Christmas spirit arrive the other night when we watched Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. At the end, the Grinch has a realization:

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

Isn't that true? It's easy to get caught up in all of the exciting gift-buying, gift-getting, decorating, going to parties, eating lots of food, etc. But that's not what the holiday is all about. I recently read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and was impressed with this quote:

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely. . .

Merry Christmas!

(You can see a video clip from the Grinch here or read about the making of the Grinch here. Both links are from NPR.)

The Presidential Politics Edition: The Good, the Bad, the Funny

Hello to our faithful blog readers. This is Mike, composing a few thoughts on the race for the White House. For those of you who know M & M, you know we're both interested in politics, so you had to see this one coming.

Let's start with the funny. By now, you may have seen the video of Chuck Norris stumping for Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. If you have seen it, come on, you know you want to watch it again! If you haven't seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure.


I don't want to dwell too much on the bad (there's plenty of that to go around when it comes to politics), but I'd have to say that the worst part of the presidential race, so far, has been the media coverage. How many times have we heard that Mitt Romney needs to make a "JFK-style speech" about his religious beliefs? The fact that reporters keep making the comparison between Romney and JFK without much analysis highlights the shallowness of media coverage of the campaigns so far. (I did hear some in-depth reporting on the Romney-JFK connection on NPR a couple of days ago, after Mitt made his long-awaited speech. Here's the link to the story I'm referring to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16981132.)

Like I said, I don't want to harp on this too much, but I've also been frustrated by the way the media uses the language of fist-fighting and boxing to describe candidates' disagreements, and I'm tired of the media's constantly emphasizing "top-tier" vs. "second-tier" candidates. Listening to, watching, or reading the news, you almost feel like it's a foregone conclusion that the general election will be between Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton. Sometimes it feels like reporters forget that it's up to voters to decide who will win their party's nomination.

Where's the good in all this? Allow me to quote Barack Obama. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes, "a polarized electorate isn't good enough. What's needed is a broad majority of Americans - Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill - who are reengaged in the project of national renewal, and who see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others" (40). Is it possible for citizens who are sharply divided along party lines to unite for the common good in some way? I hope so, and I'm very glad to see at least one candidate who is talking about cooperation and unity across party lines. Whoever wins in 2008, I'm hopeful that the "project of national renewal" Obama refers to will become a reality. Until then, enjoy the circus of Election 2008!

Happy Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that the holiday season is here. We're counting the weeks (4) until our Christmas trip to Cache Valley!

We had a really wonderful Thanksgiving. I baked pies and rolls and Mike cooked the apple and yam dish. It all turned out great! And I only called Mom twice on Thanksgiving morning to find out what to do with the rolls.


Mike carved up the turkey after we were done eating. We've got a ton of leftovers in the fridge, but we're sure enjoying them!

We had Thanksgiving dinner with the Holms, a sweet family from our branch. Kira and Steve Holm are a couple of years older than Mike and me and they've been living here (in St. Joseph -- about 15 miles from Chambana) for the last few years while Steve has been doing his residency in oral surgery at Carle Clinic. (His supervisor is extracting my wisdom tooth this coming Tuesday!) Kira and Steve have three kids: Maci (almost 4), Micah (2), and Caitlin (1). They are a high-energy herd.

This is Micah and Maci. We were playing while Kira and Steve finished getting dinner ready and I asked the kids if I could take their picture to show to my family. They suddenly got very awkward and Micah's hands went straight to his nose.

Micah likes to play rough sometimes. He enjoyed running and jumping onto my lap and Maci enjoyed running to the kitchen to tell her mom that Micah was being rough. Ahhh, big sisters.

Maci took this series of pictures of me, Micah, and Mike:
We missed being with our families very much, but I felt a lot of love from the Holm children. All day they were saying, "Sister Terry! Sister Terry!" and sharing stories with me. They gave me lots of hugs and kisses and made the holiday very happy. We hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.

St. Louis again

Last Saturday we went to St. Louis with our friends Heather and Devin. We went to the temple and then we went to the arch and to the Museum of Westward Expansion. The museum has a really interesting layout -- it's designed in concentric circles, beginning in the center with a statue of Thomas Jefferson and the year 1800 and then it moves out decade by decade. Wayfinding was a bit confusing at first and I felt that I was always going "backwards" since we started at the outside edges and moved towards the center. I didn't fully understand the layout until I got to the middle of the museum and saw the concentric circles unfolding around me. Then there was an "ah-hah!" moment when I saw what was going on.

By the way, I took the above picture and I call it "Arch in Autumn." When Devin saw me taking the photo he said, "You're getting the leaves in the photo!" And I told him that I wanted the leaves so that the season would be represented. But he's an engineer -- one can't really expect him to understand art. :)

Last week there was an article in the New Yorker about libraries. It starts with an anecdote about the New York Public Library, then discusses the Google Book Search project, which the University of Illinois is participating in. Google is scanning and digitizing millions of books from some of the most important libraries in the U.S. to create a digital library, accessible anywhere. Microsoft and Amazon are competing with their own projects, and there is also an Open Content Alliance that is working on a similar project, but it is a non-profit.

The article gives a brief but fascinating history of libraries, starting with the Alexandria library of Egypt and analyzes the possibility of a "universal library" -- but concludes that we will always need physical libraries, even if they turn out to be museum-like archives of very old books. See what you think -- read the article (it's short). and post any comments that you have here.

Allerton Park

What a beautiful fall day -- today was perfect for spending time outside. Michael and I went to Allerton Park, in Monticello (about 40 minutes from Chambana). Allerton Park is the estate of a very wealthy Illinoisan who donated the property to the University of Illinois in 1946. There's a working, diversified farm; many formal gardens with extensive statuary; a Georgian mansion built in 1900; and miles of hiking trails through woods and gardens. We spent a few hours there hiking the "yellow trail" and seeing what we could see.

Michael at the pillars at the end of the cross surrounding "Death of the Last Centaur" statue

Death of the Last Centaur

Collection of Foo Dogs, seen from upper-level of House of the Golden Buddhas

Melissa on the upper level of House of the Golden Buddhas

This is a hedge apple -- something we'd never heard of until today. They're gooey and heavy, and may have shattered that rear window in the picture. (Don't worry, that's not our car.)

Girl with Scarf. (This Allerton guy must have had a thing for boobs.)

The mansion, which is now used as a conference center.

Foo Dog!

Soup of the Day

This is Mike, making my debut as an official blogger on Adventures in the Midwest. I know you've all become great fans of Melissa's blogging style, so I hope I don't disappoint you, our faithful readers, this week. If you're interested in new and interesting food, I think you'll like what you're about to read.

Melissa and I love to try new recipes, and the soup recipe we attempted a few days ago turned out so well, we knew we needed to share the goodness. When I first tasted this soup, I immediately thought about my parents and brother, who are currently freezing their @*$es off in Alaska. Mom, Dad, Nick, and other culinary adventurers out there, I hope you like the "Easy Mulligatawny Soup" from our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup chopped apples (2 small)
1 cup chopped carrots (2 medium)
1 7 1/2-ounce can tomatoes, cut up (we used a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes)
1/2 cup chopped celery (1 stalk)
1/3 cup long grain rice (we'll probably use twice this amount of rice next time)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon snipped fresh parsley (dried works too)
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground mace or ground nutmeg (we used nutmeg)
1 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken or turkey

Instructions:
In a large saucepan combine chicken broth, apples, carrots, undrained tomatoes, celery, uncooked rice, onion, raisins, parsley, curry powder, lemon juice, pepper, mace or nutmeg, and 1 cup water. Bring to boil; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Stir in chicken or turkey; heat through. The recipe says it makes about 4 main-dish servings, but we found that it made closer to 6, probably because we added the extra tomatoes and a little bit more of a few other ingredients than what the recipe calls for.

If you like vegetable soup, apple cider, and chicken curry, you're bound to enjoy this invigorating combination. It's great for a cold autumn or winter day.

Bon appetit!

Tornado warning

Tornado: Violent, low-pressure storm, relatively small in diameter but with very rapidly rotating winds and an intense updraft near the centre.

The relatively low pressure at the centre of a tornado's funnel-like vortex causes cooling and condensation, making the storm visible as a revolving column of cloud, called the funnel. Tornadoes normally travel at 30–40 mph (50–65 kph). The winds around the vortex average nearly 300 mph (500 kph) and have been known to reach 500 mph (800 kph). Tornadoes often occur in groups. (Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise)

I don't know anything about tornadoes from experience, just stories that I keep hearing from others. I hear that the sky turns greenish, the air gets sort of thick, and as one librarian keeps telling me (in a very dramatic voice), "You can just feel something coming."

Thursday night I was working at the library and a tornado watch was in effect. The weather radio under the desk kept on going off, warning people in several Illinois and Indiana counties (including Champaign County) that a tornado may be coming our way. At about 6:45 the watch became a warning and we evacuated all library users to the "tunnel" -- an underground passage from the main library to the undergraduate library. It was crowded and hot down there, so I was glad that the warning expired after about twenty minutes and we were able to go about our business.

In other news, the Primary program today went really well. The kids performed their songs and spoken parts even better than I had hoped they would -- and all fourteen of them were there! I was so proud of them. They were adorable and earnest and very, very sweet. I'm trying to think of a favorite moment to share, but I'm afraid I can't. I just loved the whole program too much to pick a moment that stood out.

Franklin County is too, too small

Here's proof:

I was working at the library at the reference desk tonight and had forgotten to silence my cellphone. Since it was Dad calling, I answered: "Hi! I'm at work at the library!"

"I just have one question. I was sitting next to R.W. at county commissioner meeting today and he said congratulations on becoming a grandpa."

"What?! Are you kidding me?"

"He said his daughter read on your website that you're expecting, but I was just hoping that you'd tell us before you put it on a website."

"Well, of course I would tell you first! But don't expect any announcements! Don't expect anything!" (While logging on to Facebook and checking my blog for anything that might have been misconstrued . . . Also feeling some passing resentment towards persons who may have misread and misinformed . . .)

I got off the phone and told M., the librarian I was working with, what had just transpired. Laughed somewhat hysterically for a few minutes; resentment passed, disbelief set in.

In conclusion, in case anyone is wondering, I am certainly not "expecting." Thank you and good night.

How to talk to kids -- and how not to

I stole the above title from This American Life. Their show last week was all about how to talk to kids: how to entertain kids, how to answer questions about sex, how to instill fear into kids without using physical force. I'll admit that I was most interested in the final act, in which parents discussed why they yell at their kids and why it's an important disciplinary tool. One of my concerns about having children (not in the immediate future -- maybe 3 or 4 years down the road) is my lack of patience. It's a quality that I lack, to say the least. I've tried to work on it, but it seems to be just a part of my modus operandus to want things to happen really, really fast. I'm most impatient with myself. In fact, when I was in 5th grade (warning: this is a really pathetic story) if I wasn't the first kid done with my test or assignment, I'd get so angry at myself that I'd cry. It's a bit sick, I know. So one of my major concerns about childrearing is: What will I do with them when they don't do what I want them to do and/or they don't do it quickly enough? The answer: Probably scream like a banshee.

My current role at church is leading the children in their singing. Next week the kids are doing their yearly presentation to the whole congregation: they'll be speaking and singing for about 45 minutes. We practiced today and, although the practice went more smoothly than I expected, it was pretty exhausting. There are several older boys (9-12 range) who are a bit too cool to be up on the stand in front of everyone and they don't always pay attention when it's time to sing or to come to the microphone. There are three little three-year-old girls who also have a hard time paying attention. Do I scream at the kids? No. Because we're at church, I hold up a little stop sign on a popsicle stick and they know to stop whatever they're doing and look at me. Surprisingly, the stop sign on a popsicle stick works pretty well. But I can't help thinking that getting the kids' attention with volume might have a more lasting effect.

So, maybe the point is that I'm learning there is another way, besides yelling. But a good scream can be cathartic . . .

Food, Glorious Food

The new documentary The Hollywood Librarian was released last week to coincide with Banned Books Week. The film was released at libraries and library schools nationwide and Mike and I got to see it at GSLIS -- a fundraiser for the Library and Information Science Library at UIUC. The film juxtaposed images of librarians in movies (Party Girl, The Desk Set, It's a Wonderful Life, The Music Man, etc.) with real librarians talking about their work: what they do and why they do it. I really enjoyed the film -- it was more serious than I had expected and actually brought a couple of glistens to my eyes. The filmmaker spoke with very dedicated, very inspiring public librarians who work hard every day to keep their doors open to as many people as possible, to have storytime for children, to have literacy programs for prisoners, and more. It made me very proud to be a part of that community.


Before we went to the movie we tried a restaurant called Milo's that has been recommended to us several times, ever since we first visited town. It was magnificent. Really. If and when any of you come to visit us here, we'll take you to Milo's. I had apricot stuffed chicken breast and Michael had pan-seared scallops in a creamy pepper sauce -- so delicious.

I'm very pleased to report that I am once again a member of a knitting circle! A few library students decided to get together weekly on Saturday afternoons to knit and yesterday we were at Anna's house with a delicious quiche, apple bread, and a couple of hours of dedicated knitting. I'm working on a brown cabled cardigan for which I bought the yarn one year ago at a little-bitty store in Driggs, Idaho, where the yarn was on clearance. Now I'm just hoping that I have enough yarn to finish. If so, this will be a VERY cute sweater. :)

Speaking of knitting, I got the most exciting package in the mail this week. My dear sweet friend Wendy sent me a beautiful graduating/going away/getting married present that she made:

A lovely lacy pink wrap that I will wear as soon as it gets below 70 degrees. We're having unseasonably warm weather here and actually set a record this weekend with temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s. By mid-week, though, it's supposed to be "below normal temperatures" according to the guy on the morning radio. But what is normal?

We enjoyed staying home and watching General Conference this weekend. We were reminded and inspired to be a little kinder, more patient, and especially more grateful for all that we have.

The coming week should be calmer than last week was, for which I am grateful. On Friday I did a presentation in my reference class (on biographical resources) that went really well and tomorrow morning I'm doing a group presentation on research ethics. Now I don't have another really huge assignment due until November.

Still no sign of the handsome Dobler. I miss him very much.

Meet Me In St. Louis

We had a great day in St. Louis yesterday; we went to the temple for a session and then went to Forest Park and to the St. Louis zoo.


There were not many people at the temple at all. We couldn't even find anyone to take our photo!

Forest Park is a huge, lovely place with all kinds of (free) attractions. This is the Jewel Box, a giant greenhouse that was built in the 1930s:

The St. Louis Zoo is touted as America's #1 zoo. I don't know how they gathered their data, but I would rate the zoo pretty highly. We had a great time riding the train, seeing Big Cat Country, and just wandering around to see the different animals.

The ostriches

The tiger

On an entirely different topic, our old dryer gave up the ghost (it emitted sparks and a burning smell when operating for the last time) and we have a new dryer. Here's the old appliance, sitting out in our front yard in classic "white trash" fashion (it's been there for a whole week now):
And here's the new dryer:
And some sad news: Dobler has been missing since Tuesday morning. We've canvassed the neighborhood with his photo plus our phone number, but it seems that no one has seen him. We're sincerely hoping that he's just on a little kitty vacation and will be back soon. So if you're the praying type, please think of Dobler.

Mike took this picture of us last Sunday.

Autumn musings

It feels like an early autumn in Urbana now. Temperatures have been in the 70s during the day and the 40s at night. We're enjoying the cool temperatures and I've been using my bike more for transportation in addition to recreation. :)

We were very happy to have lunch this week with Mike's Grandma and Grandpa Brough. They were on their way from Washington, D.C. (where they've been on an LDS mission for the past 18 months) back home to St. George, Utah. We enjoyed chatting with them and only wish we could have spent more time with them. Don't roll your eyes at this and think that I've turned into one of those Mormon housewives who do all that self-sufficient stuff that M.H.'s do (I'm really not there yet), but I've started doing lots of baking on the weekends. We're eating nothing but homemade bread these days:


and I also make the granola that we eat for breakfast every morning. It's wonderfully therapeutic to not think about class and work for a few hours and make something delicious.

Me in our teeny-tiny kitchen

Classes are going well. I'm working on several projects that are all due in the first week of October. These projects are: redesigning a website for a public library (with a group), a group presentation and website on research ethics, a presentation on choosing biographical reference sources for a small academic library. It's sort of frustrating that all of these projects are due within the same week, but it will be nice to get it all done and not have to worry about it later in the semester. The project I'm most interested in is the biographical reference sources. There are lots of things to take into consideration, like scope, arrangement, cost, usability, and more. I'm finding that library science is theoretical and philosophical enough to satisfy my intellectual side and also practice-oriented enough that it satisfies my practical side in ways that the study of literature never did. So here's my love song to library science:

Library school
you satisfy me
in ways I've never
been satisfied before.
I love you for your
practicality
for your theoretical constructs
and for information theory.

Labor Day Weekend

Having a little cuddle with my Dobler.

We've had a relaxing Labor Day Weekend after a very busy week. The first week or two of school is always a bit stressful and very busy, but things should probably settle down in the near future.

On Friday night we had dinner and played games with our friends Heather and Devin. It was so fun! We played Rook, Clue, and Rummikub. (Don't worry -- I was a very good sport even though I didn't win at even one of the games.)

The weather was really nice over the whole weekend -- the temperature stayed below 90 and humidity was relatively low. Saturday morning Mike and I rode our bikes to the farmer's market in downtown Urbana, where we bought some lovely peaches and a squash. We're looking forward to some butternut squash lasagna this week.

Today we went to one of the county forest preserves: Lake of the Woods. We were pretty disappointed in what they call "hiking trails" out here. There were some gravel footpaths, but no real hiking. We did enjoy the botanical gardens and the historic one room school house.

We took a picnic lunch to the park, too!

Tonight we broke out the Whirly-Pop and made a delicious batch of caramel popcorn. Mike is very excited about the Whirly-Pop. He thinks it's a great kitchen toy.

Simone has been relaxing this weekend. Isn't she precious?

I just finished reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and really loved it. It's an interesting portrait of life in the U.S. in an immigrant family. Also fraught with identity crises, the difficulties of growing up, figuring out how to get along on your own, etc. A fantastic read. Next up: Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.

Sweet Corn and more

It's been a very eventful week. I started school on Wednesday and things are going great -- I really like my classes, professors, classmates, and my work at the reference desk is going well. (If you want to hear about my first few "real" reference questions, I'd be happy to talk your ear off about it. Call! Email!) I'm really, really interested so far in the stuff we're covering in my classes and I've been recapping it all to Michael, whether he wants to hear it or not. By the time I graduate HE'll be qualified to be a librarian, too! I'm so lucky to have a spouse who is an excellent listener. :)

Pretty corny, huh?

My spouse is also very cute as a corn cob. Yesterday was the Sweet Corn Festival in Urbana. It's kind of a strange thing -- not much sweet corn is grown around here. It's all feed corn. Also, you'd think this kind of festival might take place around harvest time, right? Well, they haven't harvested the corn yet. But it was a fun event, nonetheless. We saw a cool band that played covers of Michael Jackson, 38 Special, and Journey.

Last night we went to Hessel Park for a little "Shakespeare in the Park." A community theatre group did a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a pretty uneven performance, to put it nicely, and we left at intermission. But it was fun to be there for a while and observe the crowd, if nothing else.

Titania and the fairies

I think Dobler's got the right idea here. Just stretch out next to Michael. And relax.