Campbellsville Photos

Hi, everyone.  It's Matt.  I'll be posting from time to time with information about my new job and my own thoughts on our new home.  For today, I just wanted to post a few pictures that I took around campus when we visited back in July.  It was kind of gloomy that day, and I'm sure I could take some better ones now, but this will give you the general idea of where I'm working.

Here's Carter Hall, the building where the English Department is located:

Here's a closer view of the clock tower (lying on its side--sorry):

And here's a closer view of Carter Hall:

Here's their new chapel (in case you haven't been told, it's a Baptist school):

And finally, here's a historical landmark placard for you to read (the school's over 100 years old).  I might have more to post later, but this gives the general idea.

You call that a Penney's!?!

After my barbecue post, it will seem like I'm really disappointed with Campbellsville.  My problem is that I tend to have overly high expectations.  And the things that disappoint me are pretty trivial: restaurants and stores.

While Matt was at the movie theater yesterday, I checked out the long strip mall with a Maurice's, Cato's, J.C. Penney's, and a couple of shoe stores.  I figured that would keep me busy for a couple of hours.  I would have been right if the J.C. Penney's had not been pocket sized.  I estimate that I could walk from the front to the back of the store in 25 steps or less.  I could have tried on every item in the plus size section, one of every color not just every style, in about 15 minutes.  I remember going to the J.C. Penney's in Camden, Arkansas, when visiting my grandparents for Christmas and thinking, "This is smallest J.C. Penney's in the world."  I was soooo wrong.

Goody's opens Sept. 17, so I'm hoping it's bigger and better.  Otherwise, my clothing options are Walmart and Cato's or a trip to Elizabethtown (45 minutes away) or Louisville (1.5 hours away).  At least by working from home, I don't need as many clothes. I can wear sweat pants and t-shirts almost every day!

Smoke Pit Barbecue... it's better than Madison

There were some things I was hoping would be available now that I've moved south: Williams sausage, Pioneer baking mix, Coke Icee, pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, mayonnaise-based coleslaw.  We've had biscuits and gravy with our Williams sausage and Pioneer baking mix. Yum!  I have yet to find a Coke Icee.  The gas station we went to had fake Icees.  Kmart had Pepsi Icees.  Burger King's Icee machine broke only on the Coke side, not the cherry side.  The Coke Icee machine at the Madison Burger King was always broken.  I still hope to get a good Coke Icee, the kind that dances on your tongue.


We did accidentally find a couple of barbecue restaurants and tried one out Friday night.  The Smoke Pit is one of those great local restaurants that can't stay specialized.  They have all of the barbecue options and sides you'd expect, including a choice of vinegar or mayo-based dressing for your coleslaw, but they also have broccoli casserole and hashbrown casserole.  They also have an ice cream parlor and make pizza.  But what's important is the meat and the sauce.  To me good barbecue is a pulled pork sandwich with a sweet sauce.  The pulled pork at Smoke Pit had a good flavor, but it was wet like it had been at least partially cooked in a Crockpot. The sweet sauce was OK but a little thin.  It wasn't the barbecue fantasy I'd been hoping for, but it was better than anything I ate in Madison.  There's still at least one more barbecue restaurant to try.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Fajita Seasoning

Since I'm playing around with posts tonight, I thought I'd extol the excellence of fajita seasoning packets. They're like taco seasoning packets, but I think they taste better on chicken.  Fajita seasoning is more complex and citrusy than the typical chili powder and cumin taco packets. I use them to make chicken tacos and hoard a little of the meat for quesadillas a few nights later.  Yummmm... quesadillas with sour cream, salsa and guacamole.  I bought my latest packet at Kroger because our Walmart didn't have it, but I've seen them at other Walmarts (even the Great Value brand) as well as at Dollar Tree.  I highly recommend them.

Blogging is a family affair

My writing tonight is actually testing for Matt's blog idea for his composition classes.  I need to find out how blogging could work as a class project: who can read it, can you edit a post authored by someone else, are deadlines at all enforceable, etc.  I think RSS subscriptions could help the deadline enforcement, but that's what we're going to find out.  I don't think it worked. I'm trying an e-mail option to see if it's any better. That didn't work either.

Apparently, blogging is not the only family-wide activity since I'm pitching in with this composition teaching thing.  At UW I only got to pick up student papers when he was out of town.  Campbellsville is a definite step up for me!

My New Kentucky Home

I took some pictures of our new rental house shortly after we arrived in the early morning of Friday, August 14.  Our house is white, not pinkish.  That's the sunrise reflecting off the house. :)

We're across the street from the university tennis courts, which is kind of handy if you play tennis. We just occasionally try to play tennis and do it very badly. Unfortunately, the lights on the tennis court are very bright and nearly light the entire interior of our house with a warm fluorescent glow when they are on.

I don't have photos yet, but we have a back deck and a kind of trellis pagoda structure that we will try to put a temporary roof on so that we can store my bike and the lawn mower under it. I have grand plans for an airy white woven roof, but we'll see what I can find the materials and skill to pull off.

I took pictures of the inside, too.  But I'll wait to show those until after we've finished unpacking a little more so that I can share before and after photos - so Trading Spaces of me.