Sunday

The main thing I accomplished today was submitting a 250-word abstract for a conference I'm applying to in Toronto this summer. Writing abstracts is, on the one hand, much easier than writing even a short paper, in that they are very few words; you can sort of make almost anything up; and if your abstract isn't accepted, you don't have to write the paper and then deliver it. On the other hand, it can be very challenging, because you're trying to describe, as concisely as possible (every word counts when you have a limit of 250) something that you probably haven't actually written; to make it fit the theme of the conference, if there is one; and, of course, to be accepted to the conference.

These days, writing even those two paragraphs feels like pulling teeth. Still, I got it done and submitted, and feel okay about it. Apparently it's one of those great big conferences that accepts a lot of people, so I'd say my chances of getting in are decent.

In happier news, we ate some seriously excellent food today. For brunch I made my sister's famous cherry peach bread pudding. At least, I think it was the same recipe she uses; weirdly enough, I found it online here, at our local paper's site. Then David made me enchiladas for dinner. They're seriously amazing. Instead of a lot of cheese, he fills them with refried beans and vegetables (red and yellow bell pepper, white and green onions, spinach), black olives, and cilantro. We had them with sweet corn tamales from the Global Market, where we headed for a walk when my brain was overheating from the abstract-writing.

Speaking of brain-overheating, I also posted over at the dream blog.