Thanks

Thanks everyone for your words of congratulations and support. To answer a few questions that have come up:
1. The internship is for class credit, not $$$
2. I will be remaining in AZ, everything is done online
3. I don't start until late August or early September.

And now the randomness begins -

A few more books were read.

42. Goodnight Nobody - Jennifer Weiner. I loved Good in Bed and really liked In Her Shoes. Adding a murder mystery to the formula didn't do a whole lot for me.

43. So Many Books, So Little Time - Sara Nelson. 52 books in 52 weeks, sound familiar? Good book, but oddly enough it didn't increase my reading list much at all.

So much free time...I'm getting woozy.

I've been killing myself over an indexing assignment that was due tomorrow. Notice the use of the past tense in that previous sentence. It's been pushed back a week due to "technical difficulties". Which means, once I got over being annoyed, that I can take this evening off with a clear conscious. Watch out Dunder Mifflen, here I come.

Why I don't dress the dog (usually).

My parents live in Amish country and for a few months after grad school (the first go-round) so did Lucy and I. Come wintertime, my mom got concerned that little Lucy (under a year old at this time) would get chilly. She immediately made plans for doggy sweater and parka creation but something needed to be done ASAP, can't you see how cold she looks?(short answer? no.)

An emergency trip to MallWart was undertaken. This was before my sister and I became adamantly anti-MallWart, we were just mostly anti-MallWart and pickings are slim in Lancaster County, especially if it's after 9 at night. Which it was. And all of this is completely tangential information.

Back on subject. Lucy was soon the proud owner of a red, girl's 6X sweatshirt with the collar and sleeves cut off, giving her a sort of adorable ragamuffin / Little Rascals look. And she wore it. A lot.

One brisk afternoon, with a decided snap in the air, my sister and I decide to take Lu for a little stroll. On went the sweatshirt as well as a mismatched assortment of hats, scarves and mittens for Pat and I (this was prior to my yarn habit). We too looked like ragamuffins, but who were we going to see out there except the cows?

We meandered past the cow field, once again managing to collect a single-file line of cows stalking us from the other side of the fence. Herd mentality, indeed. Then we headed even further out, no houses for ...tenths of miles.

So there we were. Ragamuffin central with fully clothed canine in the (relative) middle of nowhere.

And that's when the Amish buggy passed us.

To my dying day, I will never forget the bemused faces of the little Amish kids in the back. Or the big grin that crossed the Amish dad's face. You could just hear them thinking "Oh those crazy, mis-matching English, with the pretending the livestock is human. What will they think of next."

Yep, Lucy made the Amish crack up.

That was pretty much the last time Lucy wore any clothing for a period of time longer than 2 and a half minutes. Except for pattern construction and the occasional holiday themed t-shirt, she's been a clothing-optional kind of dog.

For you see, I succumbed to the Amish peer pressure.