12-1-07

Moving day 2007-
That's what I've been calling this day since I was 10 years old and my friend Bert Francis moved away. Every day on December 1st something moves in my life. Today I got moving on my dissertation proposal. I officially started Chapter 3 and hope to have a good first draft done by the new year.

This picture was taken from the back deck looking in.

11-23-07

A day in Washington. We went to the Women in the Arts Museum, shopped at Macy's, walked around the Monument, the WWII Memorial, the WhiteHouse, etc. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear day- perfect for touring DC like tourists.

11-22-07

Thanksgiving with Dad and family. William was not to be found, so we took the picture without him. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed meeting Anita and Joanne, friends of the family.

11-21-07

The moon in the sky as I enter ACAC to run and work out. I stopped running for a couple months and am trying to get my groove back.

11-20-07

The grande finale of the "Save the Penguins" engineering teaching kit. It went well with the other class I taught. This would be a good dissertation kit.

11-17-07

Today we spent the day at Aza's school. It was band parents' weekend. Squirt tried on her tuba, she marched at half time and did a post-game show, and we got to see the colors of fall in the valley. A beautiful, cool, crisp day.

11-16-07

The top picture is of Jes and her new "Camera on a Stick" which her father and I designed and created this evening. She wants to take photos from a bird's view and we rigged up this contraption. It even includes dental floss to pull the shutter with. We had fun!

The other photos I took this afternoon of our street and house. I just love the way everything looks in the fall.

11-15-07

The view from my back deck. We live in a little forest!

11-14-07

Comfort food! Baked sweet potatoes are so good to eat on cool fall days.

11-13-07

Fall as seen from my front yard.

11-12-07

Fall has flung in central Virginia. This picture was taken on my way home from work today.

11-4-07

One day Dan and I will be making pictures like this with our grown children. Here's Dan with his parents and siblings. Three sibs are in their 40s, one is 30 something still...

Some days I get really sad thinking about the fourth child we lost. There's always an empty chair at the dining room table for what would have been a 3 year old this coming December. I still yearn for a baby I'll never have on this earth and wonder what might have been.

11-3-07

Yesterday we drove to New Jersey for Uncle Ed's birthday party. Here's a picture of the kids at the party. Jes had fun drinking legally at a family function from an open bar!

11-1-07

This morning I got up to watch the sun rise with my students. It was beautiful and silent. The only sound being the clicking of my camera. We headed home early this morning, as gale-force winds were expected later on in the day. I got home at 6pm, showered, ate dinner, packed up my computer, and headed out for school by 6:30pm. I was in class until 9:15 when I came home, exhausted from the day.

10-31-07

Halloween on an island in the middle of the Bay. It was a full day- picking up crab pots, having a feast, scavenger hunting for candy, and marsh mucking with rinsing off in the brackish Bay water.

10-30-07

Today I left early in the morning for an island in the Chesapeake Bay with 25 students and one other teacher. It was a long bus ride, then a long boat ride, but it was so cool to finally get there. We stayed in an old converted boat shed on Port Isobel, a marshy island east of Tangier.

10-24-07

Jes's bear and Aza's bunny on my office "couch" bed.

10-23-07

Fall is approaching but not quite here yet.

10-20-07

Squirt and Kels before the Homecoming Dance.
Got to the florists two minutes before closing
Got the last descent corsage
Picked out a tie for him at Belk with "black and blue" as my only clue
Washed and ironed his pants, his shirt
Packed his duffle bag for his overnight stay
Drove him to a friend's for meeting up---
Still a child, he is, in a tie with a pretty girlfriend.

10-16-07

My students presented their penguin houses and had the melt-off today. It was fun and a little chaotic.

10-16-07

I drove by V School today, the school that I started in 1995 and taught at until 2004. It looks different with the trees gone and I still miss being part of that community.

10-15-07

My students are getting ready for their penguin house competition tomorrow.

10-13-07

Today Dan and I went to the Garlic Festival. It was crowded but the weather was nice. We sat and listened to this Scotch-Irish band that was really good and we bought some German Red garlic.

10-9-07

My students are building little houses for the ice penguins to keep them from melting. I am teaching them heat transfer. Professor Goodling, you would be proud at what I can do with 6th graders.

10-8-07

Playing with the light. Shadows of me and Frisbee. The setting sun coming in and lighting up James (our piece of furniture that has a name.

10-8-07

I watered this thing last week and set it up to grow under my grow light, and Monday morning it had grass hair! The class thinks it's the coolest thing. It's our class pet. They all want to give it a haircut now.

10-7-07

Aza came home. Mittens is happy. See Mittens rubbing up against Aza as she reads? Her big sister is home and we are all happy.

P.S. Upon a closer look at this photo, I see that Mittens is actually licking the salt from inside the empty popcorn bowl. Oh well, it looked like she was adoring her big sister.

P.P.S. Upon yet another closer look, I see that Aza is not reading at all. She's trying to solve the Rubik's Cube!!!

10-6-07

I ordered these penguin ice cube trays for my students' Save the Penguins design project. I took this photo because of the phenomena where the ice forms a sharp peak sometimes as it freezes. The pressure of the molecules forming into their hexagonal crystal structure pushes the last bit to freeze upwards. Cool, hu?

10-5-07

Squirt can solve a Rubiks Cube in 1 minute 30 seconds.
He's a genius.

10-2-07

This is Mittens jumping down from my desk into my lap. She likes it in my lap. Does she like the warmth? Or me?

10-1-07

This morning I put all the clay tiles in a container to take to school. The tiles will be used for a construction project. It took me forever to cut up and bake all those tiles. I do too much for teaching-- really.

This evening Dan and I watched another two episodes of Gray's while the animals curled up on the couch with us. This was my view. Not a great photo and all... It was better in real life, seeing Mittens and Frisbee curled up with us. Nice. Now to get the dog from peeing on the kitchen floor and the cat from waking us up at 6am with a shreik of a meow that would raise the dead. Come home Aza, Mittens needs a head to sleep on.