One!

Sorry for the unusual delay between posts, Readers Mine, but things have been hectic here at the Nest. The end of the semester is always rushbusyrush, but on top of that, I had the wonderful opportunity to present at the National Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference which was recently held in San Antonio, Texas. I maintain another blog for such professional activities (observations from my film class, writing projects - that sort of thing) and I was busily posting there about that conference and rather neglected things over here. I'm not going to recap here, but if you want to read details about that conference - which really was fabulous - click here then scroll down to April 2011. The pertinent entries are there, titled with imaginative monikers such as "Day One," "Day Two," and so on.

Today is May Day. As one of my friends has pointed out, the first of May is one of those "supernatural hotspot" dates - just about everybody attaches some significance to it. It's an important day for Celts, laborers, lawyers, communists, military leaders, spring lovers, Christians, and the Norse - and that's only naming a few! It also happens to be my and FryDaddy's anniversary of entering into the state of wedding bliss. It's been quite the first year and we look forward to many, many, many more.

Since he's a student, we celebrated yesterday rather than today. (He's on his way back to school for his final exam tomorrow. Latin. "Romance language," my foot!) It was a pleasant celebration, though. There was a spring festival here in town, so we went out to nose around craft stalls and exclaim over the work of artisans - jewelery, woodworking, painting, ceramics, textiles - all sorts of items were there, along with the first farmer's market of the season. (Strawberry bread. Who'd've thunk?) We had a fabulous candlelit dinner at home and exchanged gifts.

Now, among my people, the first anniversary gift is supposed to involve paper. We're both book people, so I figured that was the appropriate way to go and my gifts to FryDaddy were well-received. However, FryDaddy is a creative romantic. He worked with the minister who performed our ceremony and got his original hand-written notes on our wedding readings. This is what the minister used to craft his personalized wedding message to us. He took the readings, complete with gloss, to a framer and I think it's one of the most delightful, unique, and flat-out wonderful gifts ever! (Aside - it would seem that FryDaddy likes to make me cry on May 1. He's done it three years running now.)

So although we're not spending the whole actual anniversary day together, well, life is like that sometimes. He's off studying verbs and such and will be back tomorrow after the exam is finished. I, meanwhile, will still have stacks of end-of-semester grading to do for another week and a half. But I have those readings hanging by the door where I'll see them every time I leave this house we're busily working to turn into a home.

(stops typing to glance at the glossed readings)

Yeah. It's been a good year.

PS - For a great read about "gloss," click here.