9-30-14

Last day of September. This morning I went and had coffee with my friend Drunken Waffle, and a student came by to chat also. I guess I was holding court from the coffee shop. It was enough just to hobble into the coffee shop and back to my car. My student encouraged me to see a doctor. So I went. And, I got two amazing practitioners who diagnosed me with a sprained mid-foot. They put me in this brace, and it really has helped me walk today without the severe pain I'd had since Saturday night. It fits in my shoe too... so it was a good decision to stop by the clinic. I like having a medical clinic on campus for stuff like this!

9-29-14

I've fallen and I can't get up!

Seriously. This happened.

Saturday night I hurt my foot while walking. Yes, just walking. It was dark in the house, and late, so I must have stepped wrong. Today, after spending a day as an invalid yesterday, I had to be at school for ELEVEN hours so I brought a bag for ice and wrapped it up a bandage. My student loaned me her mother's cane. I bent down in the hallway after class and FELL and landed my butt on the cane. 

I'm laughing in this picture.

And I asked my student to take this photo for my blog, so I would remember this day

and 

never take walking for granted again.

9-27-14

It's been a while since I crocheted anything, but I decided to crochet this thing to make it go faster. It's a device for my curriculum designed to keep a soda can cold. 

The top flap folds in. Now to find a soda can to test it with.

9-24-14

I was determined to teach my young students how to make knitting needles today despite the past week being full of daily migraines. It was successful.

9-20-14

My sister Sta sent these to me. That was the sweetest thing ever- and it makes me realize how easy it is to show love. Send flowers. These were to congratulate me on my tenure. Don't they look lovely in my dining room? Today I was in bed all day with the migraine that started yesterday. Not Fun. I did take a Maxalt and a Tylenol/Codeine this morning and felt pretty good for a few hours. 

9-19-14

Today Vicki visited campus and taught science to some preschool kids on campus. She also talked with colleagues in my department. I started to get a migraine and had to skip dinner.

9-18-14

Today was my promotion and tenure reception. Vicki came, and here is a snapshot taken by the photographer there. Vicki looks great, but what in the world am I doing? Gazing longingly at the florescent ceiling lights? Invoking the holy spirit? I look like a very strange person.

9-16-14

I've been meeting an old high school friend for coffee every Tuesday morning and it feels so good to have a regular social activity in my week. Tuesday evening is the knitting club meeting, so it's a good social sandwich.

Today I taught my knitting class. This is a hat one of the students made.

9-15-14

I was really crabby today. Woke crabby, stayed crabby. Gave a pop quiz at the beginning of class because kids were skipping... then came home and got on the couch to knit and watch The Wire episodes and the crabbiness faded away. 

9-14-14

Sunday dinner at Mom's. Shrimp cakes over a pepper/garlic sauce and rosemary+thyme biscuits.

9-13-14

Woke and said, "Today is going to be a great day!"
I worked on my evaluation report all morning until it was time for a late lunch, then worked on this hat for my knitting class. It's the project I'm teaching them next.

9-12-14

Today I woke up and was cured of the migraine I'd had for most of three days. I went to work, met with some of the folks I had to cancel on yesterday, got a letter with my raise for the year (!), and then Dan and I went to dinner at the best restaurant in town, Acre. It was really good. Afterwards we picked up ice cream and went to my mom's to have ice cream with her. She gave me my birthday present- this lamp with bugs on it. I love it!!!

9-11-14

I spent this, my 51st birthday, in bed with a migraine. I cancelled all my meetings and just hung out in bed checking Facebook on my phone for birthday wishes. This was my view:

I'm working on a fingerless mitten pattern called Prickly. It uses two colors of wool, and looks neat. It's slow going, that that's OK today.

9-9-14

I invited to students from a local high school to visit for the day. We worked on designing wind turbines, we took a tour around campus, had lunch with some of my graduate students, and had a great time. We even found some time for knitting!

9-8-14

I invited a guest speaker to my class tonight. She is currently in ninth grade student at the local junior high school. She spoke as well as any professor at this university, and my students were completely enthralled with the things she had to say, and the perspective she brought to us as a student in the system they are preparing to teach in. It was a great class. 

9-7-14

Mom had some experiments she had to run on us. Bean salad? Potato salad? Foccacia recipe? Pork stew? Meatballs? Everything was delicious. Especially the onion and bacon jam. 

Lemon potato salad

Foccacia with grapes

9-6-14

Dan took me to a game. I wore earplugs the whole time, and actually enjoyed myself watching the pageantry. We had to leave after a quarter because the lights were blinding me.

9-3-14

Getting needles ready for knitting at NHS!

9-2-14

Today I scored big. Next week I start teaching a knitting class at a local, poor, rural high school. I asked on Facebook if anyone had any extra yarn or needles and two friends here in town donated all this wonderful stuff. I will still need more worsted weight yarn (some of the donated stuff isn't great for beginners), and eventually I'll need double pointed needles and circulars, but I'll cross that path later. But this morning I got to have coffee with an old high school friend who brought some goodies, and this evening I went to the local yarn shop for the weekly knitting circle and got the rest of this amazing pile of goodies. If any of my blog followers want to donate to the cause, let me know! I'm hoping that knitting promotes spatial thinking, and that spatial thinking promotes science and math and engineering design thinking. This is just a preliminary investigation, so if I get some good results, more will follow! What fun it is to combine my job with my hobby.

9-1-14

My favorite month, day 1.

Today I washed and peeled paint off a door so Dan could paint it.

Worked on my evaluation report.

Did some research on knitting and spatial thinking.

My head has hurt a bit on and off today. I'm worried I'm on the verge of a migraine.

8-31-14

 

On this last day of August, which is hard to believe, I post photos of four projects I did this summer that I mailed last week to my niece and nephews in NJ. I had taken the boys shopping for yarn, and with that yarn I made to order, these slippers and scarf.

Today I worked on interview data and correlated it to the numbers I crunched yesterday. Good times, good times. Dan and I went out for BBQ.

8-30-14

I finished these today. Yarn bought in Maine, my first pair of socks made with self striping sock yarn. I'm pretty proud of them, and they were fun to make on these tiny double pointed needles. 

I worked on data today- running t-tests and making graphs, trying to tell a story with numbers about the summer camp I'm evaluating. It felt good to be number crunching. 

Tonight I made an awesome salad for dinner with smoked salmon on it. Everybody loved it.

The game was today, and Squirt went with Strawberry but they came home during the 4th quarter when the lightning and thunder started. 

8-29-14

This week was pretty slow. Compared to one year ago, man, what a difference. Last year I was assuming all kinds of new responsibilities, running two grant projects, preparing for accreditation, going up for tenure, writing grants, the whole 9 yards. This year has started off nice and easy, with one class and enough help to keep things reasonable. 

Today I went out to NHS to visit with the girls who won the essay contest, and ended up volunteering to teach a knitting class. I'm so excited! I think I'll turn it into a study to see if knitting improves spacial reasoning, an essential component of engineering design thinking.

Tonight Mom invited us over for crab salad. She had gone to M'gom'ry yesterday and went to a seafood place and got this fresh jumbo lump. It had lime and cilantro in the mix...and avocados... and ripe summer tomatoes. We actually had a really good time, just the three of us, laughing and just chatting away. 

8-26-14

Today was pretty darned remarkable.

Today I found a loophole in a rule and got two high school students invited to the president's house for dinner. We are going on September 9th.

I also voted and my candidate won.

When I was told I couldn't bring these two students to the dinner by all the top brass, I refused to accept the ruling. I had a will and found a way.

8-24-14

Finished my poncho finally! It took two months. 

8-23-14

Apple cheesecake tart

Eggplant and grilled tomato and smoked mozzarella salad

Dinner at my mom's!

Today I gave a comprehensive exam to three students then spent the evening with Squirt, Strawberry, Dan, Mom, and The Hollands eating and laughing and enjoying the camaraderie. 

8-21-14

I'm sorry I have neglected this blog. It's probably the beginning-of-school stuff, plus the very real fact that my life is not as interesting as it was during the trip to Nova Scotia and back. But I'm looking for events to capture to mark my life.

It's hot here. Very hot. I was out watering the herb garden this morning and I saw this poor little caterpillar on the parsley. I didn't know what kind it was, so I looked it up. Black Swallowtail Butterfly!

http://cafejohnsonia.com/2008/06/whats-eating-my-parsley.html

I will keep an eye out for the chrysalis and the emerging butterfly. 

Strawberry had a picnic to go to. Squirt did not want to go with her, and we tried to coax, convince, threaten, and bribe him to go. He got dressed, on this very hot day, in a "Banana Power" t-shirt that is two sizes too small, a wooly sweater, and a zip up hoodie. Oh, and wool striped socks to go with his flip flops. Strawberry said that she didn't care how he dressed, she just simply wanted his company. He got on her bike and pretended to get ready to attend the picnic. We did not comment on his attire and were simply glad he was willing to go. He rode around on her bike in circles before telling her he was not going. That squirt. Well, at least I got this awesome photo of him.

8-13-14

And we are home. We drove from Charlotte to Auburn today- not bad- and got invited to Mom's for a steak dinner!

8-12-14

We spent the night in Charlotte, NC with my high school friend Sweet Bean. She is such a dear friend whom I've known for almost 40 years. Her mom was my high school English teacher, and I taught her cousins science for four years each in Virginia!

8-11-14

We went and saw Walden Pond today. This is a reconstruction of Thoreau's house.

This is the pond-

And then we headed for Pennsylvania. Along the way we stopped to see my cousin VC,

And then spent the night with two guys, three dogs, two indoor birds, several cats, a peacock, a dozen chickens, and two roosters.

8-10-14

After a day of driving, we find ourselves in Concord, Massachusetts. This evening after dinner, we took a walk around the old cemetery to try to find some cool old gravesites. We didn't find the grave sites we were looking for, but I did manage to capture a photograph of the full moon rising. 

Tomorrow we will probably drive for 10 hours or so, spend the night somewhere along the road, and then make it home Tuesday. It is sad that our vacation is coming to a close.