So Long, For Now - Brady, Kelly, and Amy

So, obviously, we haven't been great at keeping this blog updated. Part of that is because we each have our own individual blogs and there are only so many hours a day you can spend online!

For the foreseeable future, why don't you keep up with us on those sites...we update them much more frequently.

You can get to Amy's personal blog by clicking here.

You can get to Kelly's personal blog by clicking here.

And you get to Brady's personal blog by clicking here.

Thanks for reading, everybody!

St. Lucia's Day - Brady

Hello there!

I'm sorry I don't post as often these days. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but babies are SUPER time consuming!

One thing I always looked forward to when I was pregnant was starting holiday traditions as a family. And I knew right away I'd want to celebrate St. Lucia's Day. My family has Swedish roots (at this point, it's pretty diffuse, but we still do a semi authentic Swedish Christmas Eve). However I really didn't hear about this holiday until, of all things, I got a Kirsten doll from American Girl when I was 8. St. Lucia's Day celebrates the end of the darkest days of the year and the return of the light (they were working from an old calendar - we now know the darkest days of the year don't happen for another week). My mom and grandma indulged my obsession one year, and my sisters and I woke up, dressed ourselves in white gowns and head wreathes with fake candles, and served buns to our family, just like (we read) they do in Sweden. Kevin and I have also attended a St. Lucia's Day service at a church in Andersonville, the Swedish neighborhood in Chicago.

Although the oldest girl in every family plays the biggest role in St. Lucia's Day celebrations - wearing the white gown and the candle wreath and waking their families up with coffee and rolls - I learned that there is a part for little boys to play, too, as Lucia's attendants. They wear big white hats with stars on them (they look a lot like dunce caps) and carry a wand with a star on the end and are called "starboys."

So yesterday morning, on St. Lucia's Day, Andy and I woke up, baked cinnamon rolls, made coffee, got him into his special outfit, and woke Kevin up. We were lucky enough to have my mom here with us, too, so she also joined in the celebration! It was a little hard to get pictures of Andy in his outfit - especially once Molly stole his wand - but here are a few shots from the day.

Andre Clark - Brady

Hey, guess what?

I had a baby!

On October 3rd I went to my doctor for a check-up because I'd felt decreased fetal movement all day, and at 12:18 the next morning, October 4th, I delivered a little boy by emergency c section. It was a wild and scary experience, made all the scarier because he spent the next 7 days in the NICU, but we are home, happy, and healthy now.

Andy is named for Andrea Sununu. She is a professor at DePauw, and Kevin and I met in her class. We've stayed in close contact with her over the years and think there's no one else who more highly deserves to have a child named after her. Clark is for Clark Street in Chicago. We have lived on or near the street the entire time we've been here, and it's where our first apartment together was.

Here are some pictures of my guy, who's now one month old!

Just a few days old, in the hospital. 

With Dad at our newborn photo shoot.

Today, at one month.

We love this little guy to pieces!

Want to see some pictures of our nursery? - Brady

Here it is!

On the daybed in the corner you can see one of my favorite things about the nursery - three stuffed rabbits. One is "Rabbi" (pronounced Rabby...I'm not sure why, as a child, I spelled it with an "i"). My grandma gave me Rabbi the day I was born and he was my number one favorite toy throughout my childhood. I couldn't sleep without him for years. One is "Bunnit," a doll my bridesmaids got me when Kevin and I got married so Rabbi could get married too. And the smallest one is also from my Grandma. She sent Rabbi a baby when she found out I was pregnant so our child will have a Rabbi of his/her own. 

Babies are EXPENSIVE. So we got as much stuff as we could secondhand. Kevin's parents generously donated the rocker and the shelf/changing table. The paper lamp in the background has been in our room for years. 

We bought the sheep mobile from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, one of our favorite museums. The picture behind it is from a trip to Banff, Canada. 

That quilt is from an antique shop in Nappanee, Indiana, and the weird looking stuffed animal is a "sleepy mouse" from Quebec City. 

On the shelf above the changing table is some diaper rash creme, a picture of me as a newborn, owl decorations from our baby shower, a picture of Kevin as a baby, and a picture of me on my first day at DePauw - the day we met. 

All of the pictures above the daybed are from places we've traveled: Chicago, Phoenix, Costa Rica, and Indianapolis. I actually did the painting on the far right at a wine + painting class. The orange star was a gift from a student in one of my Spanish classes.

Our hospital bags are packed and ready to go! 

And here's a shot of my belly at 37 weeks! Any day/week now! 

A very hard deadline and my job search story - Brady

Yesterday I reach 37 weeks of pregnancy - full term! Here are my latest belly shots:

What I really want to talk about today, though, is this MASSIVE JOB SEARCH I'm doing. That's right. My five/six years of grad school are ending, and soon, and I've got to find something to do with myself when I finish up this spring/early summer. 

I always suspected I would want to look for jobs only in Chicago, and that's remained mostly true. I did apply for a couple of positions down in Bloomington at Indiana University because it would be an easy career transition for Kevin and because we have family down there (and because Bloomington is amazing), but everything else has been here, in the city. I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how many academic positions have come open in the area. I think I have about 13 jobs, total, I plan to apply for. 

Here's my story, for those who are interested: 

Right now I'm ONLY looking at traditional, tenure track, academic jobs. (The exception is a grant I'm applying for that would keep me at Northwestern for 2 more years as a post-doc on a really cool project.) I'm doing this because (a) being a professor is my top job choice and (b) academic job deadlines come around much earlier than "industry" job deadlines. Works out well for me. It also works out well that all of the tenure track deadlines are in October or early November. When I'm on maternity leave, the job market goes into a bit of a dormant period when colleges are reading your applications and deciding whether to interview you or not. 

There's a VERY good chance I won't get any of these jobs. There's a pretty good chance I won't even get an interview, anywhere. The academic job market is really tough, there are tons of applicants for each position, and I'm definitely limiting myself by applying only in one geographic area. I'm totally okay with this. I've decided being where I want to be location-wise is more important to me than getting my number one top choice job. There are PLENTY of jobs out there I'd be happy to do, and I can always try for a tenure track position later. 

If I don't get any of these jobs, I'll keep an eye on new openings during my maternity leave and certainly in the winter and spring when I'm back at school/work. Most postings at that point would be for post-docs (kind of like a fellowship for a few years where you're suspended somewhere between grad student and professor...the idea is that if I got one of these I'd go back on the tenure track job market as the post-doc was finishing up). Or the postings would be for "industry" jobs - research positions at big education policy firms or organizations like Teach for America, One Goal, Ounce of Prevention, etc. I would be completely fine doing any of these things. In fact, some people think getting a post-doc before a regular job is better for your career in the long run because you can publish a bunch of stuff before your "tenure clock" starts ticking. 

It's going pretty well so far! Now that I have good drafts of a cover letter, research statement, teaching statement, etc. drafted, it takes me about a day to apply for each job. I've sent in 8 applications and have 4 to go. 

I had an especially nice moment this morning. I woke up, made myself coffee, and sat down in front of my computer to focus on kind of a hard application. It's an instructional position at University of Chicago, and they ask you to pick a classic text in the social sciences and write about how you would teach it. After struggling for a bit, I narrowed in on one book (Emile or On Education) and finally figured out what I think will be a cool way of teaching it (I won't go into boring details, but it involves pairing it with the movie An Education). It got me really excited about the possibility of working with college kids. I also remembered and felt again that surge of excitement from teaching high school when I would come up with a creative way of explaining a concept. And it felt good to be so productive on a Sunday morning. 

So that's my life these days! I fill out job applications. I walk Molly. I take some time to watch my stomach bop around as this baby kicks me. I spend some quality time with Kevin (we've been trying to do one "moderately priced date night" per week - last night we had veggie brats at this cool bar/restaurant called Northdown Tap and saw a movie musical called God Help the Girl at the quirky Musicbox Theater). I do yoga. Life is simple and good and I think we're just about ready, house-wise, career-wise, relationship-wise (give us just a few more weeks!) for our son or daughter to come into the world and shake it all up. 

Gratitude Challenge, Make-Up Edition- Amy

I was challenged to do 5 days of gratitude on facebook.  I did the first two days, then got busy and distracted and forgot to do it.  Rather than flood everyone's news feed with multiple things I'm grateful for,  I decided this was the best reason yet to get back into the blog world.

So people, here we go.  My undefined number of things I'm feeling grateful for in this very moment:

1) Chips Ahoy cookies.  Considering I just ate 6 and had to grab another one before writing number 1, this seems like only a logical place to start.  Let's face it, they're delicious.

2) My Grandma.  Eating chocolate chip cookies always does one thing- makes me think of the amazing Charlotte Jones.  This lady is incredible.    You will never leave her house hungry or without a hug, and if you don't have anywhere to go she would ask me to give you her address.

She is the person who showed me the power of actually listening to a kid when they are upset.  So often adults brush off childhood concerns as nothing more than a phase or something that will pass, but the way that she approached my "phases" taught me that acknowledging someone else's concerns (regardless of age or opinion about what they're going through) and meeting them where they are is crucial for communication.  This has helped me immensely in education.

3) My Nonny (Grandma Sherman).  Nonny was an example of an incredibly loyal and confident person.  I think my favorite thing about my Nonny is the relationship that I saw her have with my Papa.  I can hear her yelling, "Max!" from the kitchen when she needed my Papa to do something, and I can also still see them dancing in the kitchen to the CD player all alone after they thought we had all gone to sleep (I was up for some water).  I wish she was still here to make her famous spaghetti or tickle my feet until I fall asleep. I miss my Nonny all the time, and I hope I can someday be as quietly confident as she was.  I'm so grateful for the 21 years I had with her.

4) The "Sherman" part of me.  I've always been known as "Jonesy" because I am incredibly similar to my Dad in a lot of ways.  I'm so proud of that, but I'm also so proud of the pieces of my Mom and her family I was lucky enough to get.  I get my taste buds, love for home and all things familiar, loyalty, blonde hair, empathy, work-ethic, and "Sherman-kindness" from my mom  Thank you, Mom, for giving me so much and also for putting up with me.

5) Rog.  I could write a whole blog about how grateful I am for this one.  I met him when I was an impressionable, irrational 16 year old.  He took care of me then and he takes care of me now.  We may have disagreements, but he is the definition of a best friend.  He's with me when it's tough, when it's fun, and when I'm just plain difficult to deal with.  He's a good egg.  Love that kid.

6) My new niece or nephew to be! I can't wait to see what my sister's little boy or girl looks like, sounds like, acts like, etc.  It's so exciting to be part of a new life.  This little person is making my parents grandparents and my sister a mom. This kid is a game-changer, and I'm so excited to see this new phase of life.

We went from Chips Ahoy to deep stuff pretty quickly, but all of these things I am feeling grateful for tonight.  Oh, and a new episode of Teen Mom 2.  Yep- told you I was difficult sometimes...


Find something to be grateful for today. You won't regret it.

Making Good - Brady

I've been making perfect coffee lately. Mostly decaf, a little bit of regular hazelnut, and a ton of cream.





And I've been making the best of a broken down car which equals lots of public transit which equals lots of time to read The Goldfinch. So good.






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