2 months and counting

To say it's been rather quiet here lately would be an understatement. Attentions have been elsewhere: a 7 week online blogging class, creative endeavors, fixing up my workspace, the annual trip to the egg market, Easter, guests, dog-sitting, editing projects, redesigning the class at the Uni, and so on. This past week in particular was such a total zoo that I'm convinced it, combined with some seasonal allergies, has caused me to lose my voice. Seriously.

After spending waaay too much time online with my blogging class (ok, it was a great experience, but I had some computer burnout after the class was over), we worked on organizing my workspace. We're still waiting for the doors to get back in stock before we close up the bottom half of everything, but it makes a huge difference in how I work and create. Big huge help, yay!

Easter was lovely with our friends Britton and Sarah coming up for the weekend with Madeline in tow. We had a nice visit and our neighbors let us use their backyard for an Easter egg hunt for Madeline. We had a really nice service on Easter Sunday and Stefan's mom came back to have a giant Easter lunch with us. Lunch made a massive mess unlike any this apartment has seen to date, however, good times were had by all and we topped it off with a chocolate cream torte made by Stefan's mother. Delish!

We've also been in the process of planning our great summer getaway. Dates still have to be nailed down and some wrinkles need to be ironed out, but we're really excited about our upcoming road trip around Scandinavia this summer. Stefan and I love a good roadtrip and have some of our best conversations on long car rides. The last roadtrip we did that was solely vacation was when we drove from MA to NC and back in 2006, so it's been a while. This year we're driving north, stopping in Copenhagen (Denmark), Stockholm (Sweden), Helsinki (Finland), Talinn (Estonia), and possibly Hamburg (Germany). Our longest stop will be in Finland when we visit old GCTS friends John and Karoliina and their crew. We're super excited!!

My class has started back up at the Uni with a new group of students in the new semester. We also have a new instructor on our team and she's really something else! Our last grammar specialist was, well, she was never around and didn't really help. The new woman is fantastic: she's punctual, prepared, tough as nails, but sweet as honey. She's a tiny old British lady who wears silk scarves and carries an old leather satchel. She makes you want to say "ma'am", but she's like a grandmother, so the students really like her and like trying to keep up with her, which is great! This batch of students seems a lot more motivated in general, so I'm really encouraged!

This past week also marked some strides in my freelance editing work. In addition to some cool new business cards, I've further developed the content on my website to be more user-friendly. I still have a few things I want to change this week, but I'm feeling really confident. This past weekend I discovered that my website is on the first page of Google search results if you type in "academic copy editor" - awesome! More internal tweaks in how I do things has me feeling more confident about the inner workings (and Stefan happier about the billing process), so that's good. I need to decide which certification steps to take next, but, again, I'm feeling good about it. Yay!

There's more to come, but that's it for now.