2010

Well 2010 is off to a good start. I'm having a productive time writing this week, I've been back on weight watchers for a while now and have lost about five pounds. I'm excited about teaching Greek Philosophy for the first time in three years. Having tons of fun playing with Milo and hanging out with Jeff. Recent highlights include a trip to Houston for Boxing Day, a lovely bottle of wine New Year's Eve and a great dinner at Asti last weekend.

I also had six people in my Satuday morning class on inversions. Since I'm traveling a good bit for yoga and philosophy this semester, I decided to run my ongoing class with specific themes for the weeks that I'm there. So the first four weeks in January - Inversions,

Then I'll be gone doing yoga or philosophy or the studio has a workshop until Feb 26 then I'll do six weeks of backward bending. Then more travel/ workshops and I'll do a two week learn the ropes focus April 30 and May 7

and then a three week Forward Bends and Twists the last two weeks of May first week of June, that's about as far in advance as I can plan.

Christmas Eve Eve

Well, here it is Christmas Eve Eve. I taught for Gillian early this morning, wrote a bit in the Castle Hill Cafe, Took CT's yoga class. Now I'm at home, working and paying bills and doing laundry. I'm getting ready to brave the crowds at the grocery store, then I'm going to pick Milo up from Puppy School and take him for a walk on the green belt. Then I'll come home, shower, go to CT's yoga class and then out to dinner with Jeff.

Fun day all in all. Here are some pictures of Milo's trip to the Greenbelt yesterday. Yesterday, was the first day he fetched two sticks at the same time. He had one of them and swam to shore then swam back out to get the other one. Pretty impressive. You can see he's quite proud of the sticks in the first picture. The pictures are in reverse order of action.

Thanksgiving Week

This year marks my fifteen year anniversary of my yoga practice. Mom and Dad were visiting me in Waco for Thanksgiving and mom spotted a sign at the mall about yoga classes and she said, "Anne, I think you would really like yoga." She was right!

I went to my first class the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. How nice that Walter did not cancel his classes for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, the John Schumacher workshop was fabulous. The only downside of the trip is that Milo got kennel cough while he was being boarded so he's had to take medicine and be on a low activity regime for the past week. He is better now. He has completely stopped coughing! Yippee.

Last weekend, Jeff and I went to Fino for a lovely brunch and then to Mayfield park to look at the peacocks. It was a truly lovely day.

I had a busy Tuesday up in Waco and am spending most of today getting ready to go visit Jeff's family in Houston for Thanksgiving. We are going to see Carolyn Wonderland tonight at Antone's. that should be fun.

Off to Dallas

Hello Blog world,

I'm sitting in my house, drinking a cherry, grape, blackberry smoothie. I'm getting ready to head up to Waco to teach my class and meet with a few students. Then Jeff and I are going to Dallas. I've got a philosophy conference and as luck would have it, there's also a John Schumacher workshop the same weekend. I'm looking forward to it a great deal.

We'll also get to take a class with Randy and George Purvis. Yippee!

The weather has been totally fabulous lately. Milo and I have gone on two walks every day for the past week or so. Above is a picture of three poodles we encountered yesterday

and here's a picture of the rest area on the way to Waco. Jeff pointed out that it looks sort of like the Death Star

Then there was October

Wow, It has been awhile since I updated this blog. October was a whirl of activity.

This past weekend Jeff and I went out to Becker Vineyards for a Cabernet tasting. It was a truly gorgeous day and we had a fabulous time. The wines were great. The weather sparkly and bright. Then we had dinner with Mom and Dad and I used the lovely serving tray that Gabrielle and Tony gave us for an engagement gift. It was nice to spend some time with them this weekend. We also all went to the doggie park on saturday and tonight we are all going for Mexican Food at Matt's El Rancho.

Thursday and Friday I spent up in Waco. Highlights there: Amy defended her dissertation. Yippe.

The weekend before last, Lenore and Henry had a lovely engagement party for us up in Waco. Henry's toast was just perfect. He noted that Jeff and I both believe in transformational activities. wine and beer making, yoga, philosophy and that they were happy to welcome jeff into the family, that everyone there considers me family even though I've run away to Austin. It really captured the moment and the overall situation so well.

The week before that Jeff and I went to New York City for the Society of Ancient Greek Philosophy. We had a great time. My paper went well and I got some good feedback about how to restructure a small part of the Republic chapter which is what I'm procrastinating doing right now. It was fun to see Natalie and James. The weather was less than stellar, but it is just great to hang out in that city, regardless.

The week before that I had another conference in Alabama. I went a day early so I could meet George's wife and baby girl. George is the brother of my best friend from high school. We had a really nice time ate thai food and talked about academia. I also got to spend some time with my good friends Rasma and Gunnars. They seem to have settled into Alabama quite well and Gunnar defended his dissertation a couple days after that visit. Gabrielle came along on that trip right after her own dissertation defense. This has definitely been the month for people I know to finish their dissertations.

Bi Weekly Update

Well let's see, it has been an eventful past couple weeks.

Last weekend, I took Jeff to Chapel Hill for my 25th year high school reunion. I really love Chapel Hill and was excited that Jeff got a chance to see it and to meet some of my very oldest friends. Friday night we started the dining extravaganza at A Southern Season.
We drove by my old house which has a very modernistic renovation and looks fabulous. My house edged up on the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. Then we had dinner at Lantern with Susan and Laura, then went to Tyler's Taproom for reunion event # 1. Tyler's is owned by a former classmate of mine.
Our excellent limo driver dropped us off at Time Out and Jeff survived his first Time Out experience.

Saturday we went to the reunion picnic for a little while, toured the high school (Jeff is not actually smoking in this picture, but he is paying homage to the Wall.

and the site of the giant column of rain, More on that another time...

went to Carolina Brewery

and University Mall to buy an umbrella, then Crooks Corner for dinner with Susan, Laura, Treeby, Molly, (pictured above) and Lisa Johnson, and assorted significant others (not pictured). Most people got Shrimp and Grits.



Then the final reunion event at a nightclub downtown. The place was decorated with all sorts of memorabililia from high school, musicals, sports events. Very cool. Anyway, it was a great experience all in all. It rained all weekend, but that was actually a nice change from the ongoing Texas sun. I was struck by how much things look exactly the same in the midst of a lot of change and growth.

The weekend before that Jeff and I had an engagement party. (If you are on Flickr, Ari Stiles took some lovely photo's of the event. It was really a lot of fun. Jeff's parents offered to do a great deal of the cooking and they really made it super easy to have a party. My parents arrived a few days before the party, purchased a house about a mile up the road and in general got a nice preview of their life in texas. Perhaps they will start their own blog, AP1 and AP2 in Austin.

The weekend before that Jeff and I went to the Desiree Rumbaugh workshop. Lots of fun there.


In the professional domain, I'm really enjoying teaching Social World. We just finished up the Republic and will turn next to Aristotle's Ethics. Also, I continue to find the TR schedule much more conducive to writing. I've had two good writing days in a row this week.

Tomorrow, I'm heading upto Waco. I've got a busy day Thursday. I invited several of my female friends over for a ladies night potluck. I'm looking forward to that. Then I'm guest teaching a class on the topic of yoga in America tomorrow morning. That should be fun as well.

In all, life is good. Off to reorganize a bookshelf, take a shower and go to Christina's yoga class.

An update of Life in Austin

Hello Gentle Readers,

I've really been more in the mode of living life than blogging about it. I guess I'm in a more Nietzschean mode than a Socratic one of late. Above is a photo of the painting I bought from Caroline Wright and a picture of my feet on the way to the dog park.

School started back. I'm teaching Social World on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This week and last week, I've just driven there and back each day. It is a bit tiring, but the upside, is falling asleep very easily. I've never really been a Tuesday Thursday person. I didn't like TR as a student and taught MWF for most of my teaching career, once I got off of a 4/4 load... I have to say I'm enjoying the new pace of it. Each class is a bit more intense... more on that on the teaching blog and on teaching Plato in an interdisciplinary context.

Mostly life in Austin is hanging out with Jeff, playing with Milo and Q, going to yoga classes, practicing, writing and enjoying all the fun that Austin has to offer.

This weekend, we went to the Desiree Rumbaugh workshop, so we didn't do much else. We did go to BJ's brewhouse with CT and Kelly Sunday night and took Milo to the doggie park Sunday afternoon. The weather has just been glorious.

This morning we went to check out a wedding venue, the Allan House. I worked out, came home and wrote for a while, checked out some caterers, took a shower and went to Peggy's class. A pretty typical Monday.

Here is Milo and a doggie toy.