11-7-09

You may think this looks like a normal pumpkin pie, but it's not. Because the photo was taken with an iPhone camera, the color is not true. The pie is a freaking GREEN. It went in the oven orange and came out GREEN. Hey, but it tasted good, and I'm having leftovers tonight. We had green pie and gumbo tonight. Very good stuff with some new friends over to share it with us. At least I had WHITE whipped cream.

11-6-09

Got a call today about my camera. First the guy said it would cost $200 to fix. I talked him down to $160. Still. That's a lot of money. At least it will be fixed soon, and I'll have it back for Thanksgiving.

Today was a doozy. Faculty meeting, teleconference with faculty at Virginia Tech, working on my new idea: Save the Bats (see above), dinner with Izzy's Mom and grocery shopping at night- tired, headachy, etc.

Looking for peace....

11-5-09

Fig tree before bedding down for the winter. After taking this picture I used a rope to bend the branches and form as tight a circle as I could without breaking them. Tomorrow I will wrap the tree in burlap, circumscribe the tree with wire fencing, and fill the gap with leaves for insulation. Hopefully it will once again bear fruit next summer as it did this.

When we first saw this house, it was early spring and the tree was treated in this manner. Knowing that artists lived here, I took it to be a sculpture. An odd sculpture, but none the less. When we moved in and I saw the sculpture gone- and a fig tree in its place, I was quite surprised. Here. I'll post a picture of that "sculpture" as I first saw it. See the branches poking out from the burlap?

4-11-2009

'Twas a good day. I wrote today. And baked pumpkin cookies.
* Note 11/8/09 about those pumpkin cookies. Chrissy realized a couple days later why the cookies tasted remarkably like ginger snaps. She left out the pumpkin. She made ginger cookies. Doh...

11-4-09

I spent time with an old friend today- my Canon PowerShot G1. Found it in the attic, hadn't been touched since 2006 when I let Aza's friend borrow it for the year he spent working in a soup kitchen in DC. Got to see all his soup kitchen photos on it after I charged it up. Well, it's so old it took forever to find a driver for it. Once found and installed, it still took for-evvver to get this photo on my computer. See? I hung the second curtain this evening. No blood, no sweat, no tears.

Had a good day. The best part about the day: finding a photo on Facebook of Squirt and Bosnian Kaos from 2006. I didn't even recognize the kid. Here it is. It's as precious as can be! Which long haired Metallica fan is my then-15-year-old son?


Oh, and to be fair... here they are two years later with slightly shorter hair. Oh how I miss those boys. One is in England, one in Texas, one in Virginia and the Squirt is in Colorado. They grew up in our basement...



Rented "The Pianist" and we will watch it tonight.

11-3-09

Woke up at 6:15 this morning. It was nice to have some time before heading off to school. Here's Frisbee sad to see me go. Worked all day. Mailed a couple packages (one being my camera sent off to Atlanta for repair) and went to the store. After a dinner of BLATs and salad with toasted pumpkin seeds, feta, avodado and tomato, I started on the home improvement project of the day- putting up copper curtain rods in the study.

Sliced my finger on the copper tube cutter, couldn't drill the holes in the wall, cut the other pipe (other window) too short, and had to relocate the fitting due to a metal plate in the wall. Nothing is ever easy.

11-2-09

Happy Birthday Papa. I miss you so much...

2008

11-1-09

How to Replace an Old Light Fixture in Hallway

Step 1: Go to Home Depot and buy a new light fixture.
Step 2: Come home and rip out old light fixture. Make sure switch is off.
Step 3: Saw metal bracket so it fits in existing hole. Drill an extra hole you won't use. Use 6 drill bits. Almost start a fire in the garage.
Step 4: Mount metal bracket with wrong screws. Laugh at silliness and re-mount with correct ones.

Step 5: Strip insulation off wires and use wire nuts to connect white, black and ground wires.
Step 6: Put all wiring carefully into hole in ceiling and then secure the new light fixture thingy to the ceiling. Feel proud of yourself.

Step 7: Try and put round thing around light fixture thing and realize it had to go on first. Undo and then repeat steps 5 and 6.

Step 8: Start shaking and feeling faint as you hold light fixture in one hand and try to re-attach the wire nuts to the black, white and ground wires with the other hand while standing on kitchen chair. Make lots of noises as you feel yourself blacking out.

Step 9: Call your husband to finish the job while you sit with your head between your knees and then collapse on bed.

Ta da!

10-31-09

OK, so I was a banana for Halloween. The kids loved it- all 100+ of them who came to the door. It's a family heirloom costume, worn by generations of us S...... people thanks to the handiwork of Mom S who made it decades ago. I think another family member wants it for next year...

After the storm clouds passed, the setting sun set the ginko tree ablaze with light, but my camera couldn't capture it fully. I tried to get some creepy shots at night and this one turned out OK. I should have tried to capture the sunset- it was spectacular. I can't believe tomorrow is November.

10-30-09

Today I had a doc appointment then went to school to pick up some football tickets for Dan and his friend. Took the bus home then got out the camera. Here's the pumpkin we carved last night, and our house in the fall forest.

We have a Japanese maple out front that is beautifully colored, and when the wind was blowing - an unusually warm wind today- I got this richly colored photo of the leaves in motion. I'm taking these pictures with a 50mm Tamron lens, no zoom, all manual. I'm still at a loss for what to do about my camera. This lens is stuck on it and either I buy a new camera body for my three good lenses or I send this one it to get repaired and wait 2 months to get it back. Arg.

If I had a tripod this photo would have come in much clearer, but I kinda like the blurry creepy look. You say it's not creepy? Well, what's that inside the hollow tooth top front? One of a bazillion flies that came out of the thing when I lit it. Eeek! Gross!

Tonight we had ourselves a treat- Graeter's ice cream (Mocha chip) and a movie. The movie was not as good as expected but the ice cream sure was. My first ice cream in a month. We're expecting rain tonight then good weather for Halloween tomorrow. Yeah!

10-29-09

We carved our pumpkin sans enfants this year. I did the gookey hollowing out and drew the face while Dan did the carving. Then the neighbor dog got ahold of the top and chewed the stem down to a stub!

Today I did my first observations at a school here. A little kindergartener said to me, "What is your name?" I said, "Mrs. S...." and he replied, "I'm not supposed to say that word." :)

10-28-09

My walk to work today.

10-26-09

This tree really captured my attention while I was taking Frisbee out for a walk this afternoon. Such a bright yellow against the dark wood- I love it. And I fiddled with the f-stop of my old lens and got a cool shot of my rooster bell mounted on the wood shed.

10-25-09

My dissertations arrived in a box yesterday. This one is for me to keep. I cleverly removed my last name off the photo of it on the stairs in the light. Thought that was symbolic of something, not sure what. I worked most of the day then Dan and I went to a Green Expo and learned all about solar power installations and wind turbines.

10-24-09

Fall is here, mid October. Some trees have lost their leaves, others are in full color. These are scenes from my bedroom window. Photos taken with my real camera and the old 45mm lens stuck on it. I can use it in the manual mode, so I adjust f-stop and shutter speed and focus. Not bad for a lazy photographer.

And THIS is my Texas moss ball, carefully adopted in June and brought to Virginia then Kentucky. It was outside all summer but now lives on my kitchen window so I will remember to water it.

Dan and I went for a walk late this afternoon downtown and stumbled upon this neighborhood. It has that divided street thing I like so much.

10-23-09

This morning the STEM writing group met at my house. We had breakfast and shared notes on a piece I wrote, and discussed future work. I got a ride to school for my 1pm videoconference with VT then walked home. This is the sky on the way home as I passed the stadium on my left. See the water tower in the distance? That's in the arboretum. I have other photos of it on this blog.

10-22-09

Cleaned house today. Floors, bathrooms, stairs, baseboards, dusting,
and organizing. Even hung a painting. Now to keep it this way. Hrmph.

10-21-09

Traveled all day. Almost missed flight #1. Missed flight #2. Took a
taxi from Cincinnati to Lexington where luggage was waiting. Hard day.

10-20-09

Snuggled up on the couch with Buddy reading a book. He has the well-loved Wubbanub in his mouth and Lambie in his arms. Reminds me of Squirt so much....

Playing in the back yard with Buddy and my b-i-l. We had a good day.
It will be sad to leave tomorrow.

10-19-09

My nephew Buddy at a park today. Isn't he so cute? I am enjoying my
California vacation yet managed today to finish a paper I've been
writing for two months. During Buddy's afternoon nap I found two
precious hours needed to complete it. Now to polish it and get it
submitted to a journal.

10-18-09

My pregnant sister. Beautiful! We spent the day playing with Buddy,
her 15 month old. I enjoyed going to church with them this morning.
Had a great dinner with friends and in-law family.

10-17-09

After the workshop I took a train from San Diego to Van Nuys to visit
my sister Sakura and her family. OK, Sakura is not her real name. I
arrived around 8:30 pm. Here is a picture of the coast taken from the
train window.

10-15-09

Hartsfield International Airport (Atlanta) and I am waiting for my
flight to San Diego where I am giving a workshop tomorrow. The
workshop is to train teachers around the country to use the penguin
curriculum I developed.

10-14-09

Back from our tour of western Virginia. My "real" camera is broken and until I get it fixed, the iPhone camera will just have to do. I think it takes pretty sweet photos. This is a photo of the cold Kentucky rain we had today, viewed from inside my warm cozy house.