9-10-12

Remember this post?
http://www.chrissysphotoaday.blogspot.com/2012/05/5-31-12.html

I said that in three months my daughter would be mountain climbing again. Well guess what I saw on Jes's Facebook today?

I believe this picture was taken when she was three weeks post-op, right around the end of August. Exactly three months after my mountain-climbing prediction the day she was diagnosed. 

That's my girl.

9-9-12

Frisbee whippet.

Today was the first day it felt GREAT to live in Alabama. The air was cool and not humid. On this spot around noon I went outside and just lay on the concrete in the sun to soak up some rays. It felt GREAT. If only all days were this wonderful. I worked most of the day on job-related writing and reading... and finished Squirt's afghan present for Christmas.

I taught myself how to knit. This should be a fun diversion too.

9-8-12

After working all day we went to dinner in Opelika at the Irish pub. That was followed by grocery shopping-- not my ideal Saturday night date night. I came home exhausted and crawled in bed with knitting and books to lull me to sleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately- waking up at 4:30am regularly. Not good.

9-7-12

Inspired tonight by the new exhibit at the museum. We went to the opening, which was where the "who's who" of Auburn spent their evening. The paintings were stunning and it was just really fun to be there.

9-6-12

We put tape on the wall to try and envision where cabinets will go. We've owned the house for almost two weeks now and I'm ready to start seeing some things happen~ We are concerned about preserving the character of the house and have some difficult decisions to make.

9-5-12

Today I worked from home until mid afternoon when Dan asked if I wanted to work on the new house. I decided to remove the wallpaper from the kitchen. The first layer was easy. Then next layer was easy too, but messy.

This is a piece of the original wallpaper. I'm going to look online and see if I can find it. I see an apple or a cherry, George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, or a cowboy with an axe, and on a different spot I saw a dogwood flower and I cut it off the wall and saved it.

Four hours later...

9-4-12

I have the blues. This is the inside temperature and relative humidity. It's rainy and dreary and my energy is just plain low. I hate living in this house and just want to be moved in to my new house with all my stuff and artwork and things unpacked. The humidity outside is 75% and inside it's 70%. Try sleeping in this s$%@!

9-2-12

Sunday. I got out of the house this afternoon to do some shopping and realize just how terrible the shopping selections are here. There is one antique store. There are a couple of places that sell nice women's clothes. OK, there are two bike shops but they are small. And sales tax is 9% here because it supports the schools. So I bought a sweater, a makeup mirror, a bike helmet and lock, some toothpaste, and didn't get to buy yarn because the only craft store around is closed on Sundays.

For dinner we went to Mom's for shrimp stew over grits, corn salad, green salad, and bread. Plum cake and whipped cream for dessert. She invited over our good friends B&M and B's two cousins from Texas.

9-1-12

Saturday came and went fast.  We got the "all clear" yesterday from the bed bug inspector so I started to take things out of black plastic bags and bring them back into my bedroom. Clothes, pillows, blankets, towels... crochet supplies, curtains. I hung curtains and washed pillows and made beds look more cozy and hung a few more things in my closet. While doing that I worked on some lesson planning, and started learning how to use the data logging equipment I borrowed from school. I installed Logger Lite on my desktop and laptop, and hooked up all the equipment in order to measure the humidity in our house.Here is what I found:
Aza's room (where my desk is): 59 %
Dining room: 58%
Squirt's breath: 98%
Air coming out the dehumidifier: 29%
Air coming out the AC vent in the sunroom: 56%
Squirt's bedroom: 59%
The filter on the furnace intake: 51%
Outside: 60%

So... the humidity in the house is only slightly lower than the humidity outside. Squirt pointed out that we are contributing to the humidity by breathing. True, but the dehumidifier is supposed to at least counter that! No wonder it feels sticky and muggy in here. I'm looking forward to seeing how my mom's house measures. And our new house, once we can turn the AC back on!

8-31-12

The good thing about Fridays is leftovers from the museum cafe. This is tomatillo gazpacho with cucumber and avocado. Oh boy, was is good. A perfect appetizer.

Today I had three meetings and during my third meeting I got a call that I had another conflicting meeting and had to leave the third meeting for a different third meeting. it's hard to keep my calendar updated.

The house is coming along but we have some decisions to make. The openings may be too open and we might reduce them from 5' to 4' openings with transom windows above. Also, we need to decide on the appliances and then the counter and the floor. Plus there are still cabinet details to work out. We need a really good interior designer to help us. Doors? Do we replace the flat plain doors? Trim? Do we upgrade the teardrop trim?

Sushi tonight for dinner at a Korean/Japanese restaurant called Naruto. The Japanese "tea" tasted horrible. It tasted like boiled shoes. I kept trying to figure out the taste and eventually Googled Korean tea and looked through the list of 30 tea types until I recognized the flavor. Corn. It was corn tea. Roasted corn tea. Bleccchhhh.

8-30-12

Today Dan and the Storyteller demolished the opening from the kitchen to the dining room, and they removed the built-ins that separated the dining room from the living room. We are going to have transom windows above each opening, and I think that will look really special. It looked special before too, but it just didn't work with our stuff. I would like to find a way to re-purpose the built-in cabinets but am not sure it's going to work. We may give them away. So this new configuration gives us a wall for the piano, the secretary, both my corner cabinets, and the buffet. it makes a lot possible. With so many windows in the house, there just isn't much wall space.

Today I went to a country high school, very small, Title 1, poor but polite.

This is a small town. Really small. The connections are endless and grow each day. I say to the librarian that I bought a house. Oh where, she says? I tell her and she immediately knows who my mother is. The teacher I visited today rides bikes with my colleague at work. I ran into an old high school friend last night, and he is good friends with my department chair AND goes to church with my mom.

I like it here.

8-29-12

This is the middle school. I was here today for a meeting with a student teacher. My sisters went to middle school here but I did not. It was not a very pleasant building.

We went to dinner tonight at Mellow Mushroom and ran into some old friends. It felt good to have those kinds of interactions.

I got a new student today. He's going to apply to the PhD program to work with me, and I decided to do an independent study with him this semester. By spring I should have three PhD students working with me.

Tomorrow Dan and the Storyteller are going to open up the door from the kitchen to the dining room. I'll post pictures when I have them!

8-28-12

This is where I went to High School. I met with a student teacher here today in the 300 building. Afterwards I worked from home and then Squirt and I picked up BBQ to take to the new house where Dan and the Storyman were ripping out a wall. Here are some pictures of the progress made so far in the kitchen:

8-27-12

This is where I went to Junior High School. Today I visited a student teacher here. I was not impressed with the main building because the old character was covered up by paint and carpet. I could easily find my way to the cafeteria and remembered where my old Earth Science classroom was. Next time I want to explore the upstairs and find my old English homeroom.

It was a long day. I taught this evening and had many meetings throughout the day.

8-26-12

Worked most of the day then rode my bike to the new house to check in on Dan. He made great progress. Rode my bike back and we went to dinner at the Danish's house. Lasagne and carrot soup and bread and coffee ice cream. And entertaining conversation. Then came home and worked two more hours grading journals.

See the wood floor under where the cabinet was??? We are trying to decide whether or not to finish it and use it as our kitchen floor.

8-25-12

We spent all day at the new house. I pulled weeds until my hands had  blisters, and I was wearing gloves. This is a photo of a prevalent plant in the back yard. I can't remember what it's called.

Dan got to work removing cabinetry. He disassembled all the upper cabinets and even took out a lower one, which we re-purposed in his workshop. We even re-purposed the round nick-knack shelf.

Here is the wall with all the cabinets removed. Dan still needs to demolish that wallpapered header. See the pine subflooring? We are going to consider refinishing it as our kitchen floor. Maybe. See that electric stove? I'm going to post it on Freecycle right now. Hope to get a taker.

8-24-12

We bought a house today! Accomplishments were tearing out all the carpet in the hall and den, removing all the staples from the floor, removing all the nails from the walls, and pulling weeds.

8-23-12

Walk through today! The house is almost ready for closing tomorrow at 10am. See the kitchen? This scene will be very different in a few months' time. Dan's going to do a wonderful job.

I did my first meeting at my old high school today. What a STRANGE thing to be a university professor observing teachers at my old high school. Man. Cool and strange and familiar all at the same time. Happy feelings.

8-22-12

Today everything gelled for me. I felt like a university professor. I think at UK I still felt like a rookie but today I really felt like I knew something. Had something. Something akin to wisdom. The air was almost cool today and it hinted at fall around the corner. I had meetings all day - two different engineering professors came by to speak with me about possible collaborations. I'm writing a grant with one already. Late afternoon I met with my 5 student teachers (they call them interns here) and felt a sense of purpose and place and reason for being here.

8-19-12

 

I woke last night with a migraine that was really really bad. I think it was caused by whatever I ate at the restaurant last night. It was not a great restaurant, so I'm not surprised. Anyway, I took a Maxalt and stayed in bed until 10:30am. Putzed around all day on various things then went to my mom's house for dinner with some friends. Here she is preparing our appetizer. First she put down a peach sauce. Then she placed the round metal can thing on and put in it: peaches, lump crab meat, avocado. Then she removed the can thing to reveal the stack of delicious yumminess.

8-18-12

I got a new bike!!!! My former bike was an '85 Cannondale and my body just couldn't take the bent over posture. So we looked all over town (all two bike shops) and picked out this beauty for me. Shocks on the front and seat, girl style, big seat, twisty gear shifters, and an upright posture. I rode it home then cruised around the neighborhood. Boy was I tired! This is one reason I need a bike... The other reason has to do with parking at school.

8-17-12

Dinner tonight at the new place in Opelika with southern fare. I had a very productive evening working on my courses which start next week. I hope I know what I'm doing!

8-16-12

Breakfast at Panera with two wonderful high school girlfriends this morning. Little Coke (in the middle) was in town doing some work for her father, and LACA (on the right) lives here. Oh my, we enjoyed catching up. The rest of the day was spent meeting with graduate students that I'm advising. I felt like a professor. I really actually finally felt like a professor. It was a feel-good day all around. For dinner we went to the Museum for a "back to school" event. It was mostly students, but we saw some grown-ups we know, and met some new people as well. I LOVE small towns. I LOVE this small town and all the connections between people. I hate the house in which I'm living and the crap we have endured here for the past 6 weeks, but it's worth it.

8-15-12

I got to work and there was a sticky note on my office door from my college friend Joodie (that's not how it's spelled, but it sounds like that). She and her husband Reindeer (that's not his name, but it's similar) had just dropped off their son at college and hunted me down. I was not in. Upon seeing the note, I immediately sent her a text message saying, "come back!" and she did. We had a very nice chat catching up on 26 years. She caught the bouquet at my wedding in 1985 and got married to Reindeer the next year. Wow, that really made my day.

8-14-12

Yesterday was an all-day orientation for new faculty. Today I had meetings all day with the department. I got home around 5pm tired, and then realized that we had accepted an invitation to the President's for dinner. This is the house I used to babysit the president's grandchildren at many many years ago. Now, many presidents later I am attending a dinner there for new faculty members. We were not dressed as fancy as the other attendees. Note to self: Folks dress up in the South. But we sat next to the only other new faculty member from Kentucky. She was a new graduate of the library science program there.

8-12-12

We went to Lowes and Home Depot today to check out cabinets for our new kitchen. This is our favorite style.

Mom had us over for dinner: quiche, salad, broccoli, and blackberry cake for dessert.

Jes had a scare last night with a fever and headache and we thought she was developing an infection. Root had her eat a clove of garlic and made her juices... and her fever came down and she felt better today.

Tomorrow I have an ALL day meeting for new faculty.

8-11-12

We left Denver this morning and arrived in Auburn late afternoon. I miss Jes. She developed a fever and headache and her drain sites got red. I worried and she called the doctor and decided to eat garlic and drink juice and keep a close watch. I think she is getting better. Prayers for a restful night.

This cursed house we are renting smells like spoiled old dirt. The landlady's son tore out a moldy wall but now the house smells like sour nastiness. I am burning all my candles and cranking up the hepa filter. This is the lovely caulk job the son did outside the moldy wall. I can't move too soon from this place.

8-10-12

This is the scene I want to remember from today- Jes and her dad lounging together and comparing apps on their iPads. Today was big- Jes got the drains taken out of her chest. It hurt worse than anything this week, but it freed her from the tubes and bloody bulbs.

I cooked chicken étouffée (not as well as my mom) and made a salad with French bread. We went to Liks fora pint of S'mores ice cream.

We said our sweet goodbyes with kisses and hugs. I'm glad to leave with Jes feeling better and with a weekend ahead for Root to watch over her.

Oh, this morning at breakfast we sat with a couple from New York. The wife had thyroid cancer 18 years ago.

Yesterday morning at breakfast we sat with a couple in town for a bike race. The wife had thyroid cancer 20 years ago. What is this???

8-9-12

Today I spent all day helping Jes. I did all her laundry and gave her back rubs and combed her long hair and went shopping for her. It is such a good feeling to help her. Dan took her for a walk around the block and she is gaining stamina. Sakura sent her chocolate goodies today and Stay sent her these tulips. She got a huge stack of cards in the mail. Root did the grocery shopping and cooked a delicious almond crusted salmon dinner with veggie cous cous and broccoli and beet/orange/celery/parsley juice. Jes is very loved.

8-8-12

Jes went home from the hospital today. We got her home around noon and she got in her own bed and slept for hours. She showered and we took off the bandages and saw her incision for the first time together. It was like unwrapping a present, but with different feelings attached. Her drains are still in, and they are annoying and painful. I hope in a few days she can have them taken out but I think it will be next week after we leave. She will need someone to drive her to the doctor's office. I wish I could stay and help.

Root came over after work and I cooked dinner. Then Dan and I cleaned up and left for our B&B and a walk around Cheeseman Park. Root has the night shift, then we will take over in the morning when he goes to work.

Jes looks beautiful. She wants to hide her scar, but it is her badge of courage and her gold medal. She is beautiful and strong and determined and wise. I am honored to be her mother and honored to be helping her this week.

8-7-12

Too tired to blog. Photo of Jes in her second walk. With Root.