Picture This

Hi everybody!  The first week back from vacation has gone quickly.  I don't have a lot to say, really, but I wanted to share a few pictures with you from the week.

Oscar was giving me the evil eye for about 48 hours after we returned from vacation, but I pouted until he forgave me.

I've been eating well-- Billy and I went to the Melting Pot to celebrate our anniversary (thanks for all your various well-wishes through the blog, email, facebook, snail mail, and texts!), and then somehow, I managed to get through an entire meal at the Cheesecake Factory the next evening with Katie and Anne-Marie, my good friends and collaborators over at Scholar Style Guide.

The most exciting part of my week, outside spending time with Billy, Oscar, and the girls has been the MAIL!  Look what came first!

Now I not only have my Master's Degree, I also have my Master's Diploma!  I know there are people who might say this is "just a piece of paper," and yes-- the things I've learned and the way these two years of education have changed my life mean more to me than having the degree or the "honors, rights, and privileges" that go along with it.  But I worked my ass off for this piece of paper, and so many people have made sacrifices to help me to earn it that I was giddy when it arrived!

And THEN!  My birthday came a few weeks early when our Legg Mason tickets arrived!

As you can tell, Billy and I will again be spreading out my birthday celebration for the entire first week of August.  I'm excited that Kelsey's upcoming visit will coincide with the beginning of the tournament and that I'll get to take in matches with Billy and Danielle, plus I'm hoping Katie and Anne-Marie will join us for one or two sessions, as well.  I'm kind of bummed that Juan Martin del Potro won't be able to defend his title this year, but the list of players is still pretty exciting.  Aside from Andy, I'm most looking forward to seeing Robin Soderling, who entered last year's tournament but went out with an injury before I was able to see him play.  Word on the street is that he hits the ball harder than anyone on tour, and I can't wait to see that up close.  We'll also get to see Isner, Querrey, Berdych, Cilic, Hewitt, Baghdatis, Wawrinka, Fish, and Ginepri.  Plus, you better believe I'll be shooting eye daggers at Yen-Hsun Lu!  (And they printed the full price on the tickets instead of the discounted price we paid, but they retracted our access to the Courtside Clubhouse.  What gives?!)

I hope you all had a good week, as well, and that you're able to enjoy a restful and restorative weekend!  I have to practice a one mile sprint for my race next weekend and get ready for my German class to start up on Monday, but we're also planning on catching a Baysox game with Danielle.

(Picture This is a really bizarre novel by Joseph Heller.  I've never had an occasion to read it, but it's on my radar because of his experimentation with temporality and his tweaking of the genre of historical fiction.)