2-13-10

Happy Birthday Squirt! I can't believe my baby is 19 years old. We had a little "afternoon tea party" with Squirt and our neighbors where we served homemade breads, cucumber spread, homemade cinnamon buns, mint tea and Earl Grey tea. A good time was had by all... evening spent watching the Olympics. I can't believe they are having to keep the snow from melting in Canada with tubes of dry ice. Freaky freaky weather. Yesterday 49 states had snow- now that's a satellite image I'd like to see.

2-12-10

The College Snowperson. After my morning breakfast writing group, I had a luncheon at school. After the lunch I was walking back to my office when I spied two employees making a little snowperson outside Dickey Hall. Couldn't resist taking an iPhone picture of the blind dude.

Tonight Dan took me out to dinner to celebrate the successful submission of a 1.2 million dollar grant proposal I've been working on for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, we decided to try a local German restaurant and it was not good. I spent the rest of the evening in bed, but managed to get up to watch most of the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics. Gave up around midnight when the flame had still not been lit. Argh!

2-11-10

Walking home from school/work as the sun is setting, I find warm baked bread waiting for me. This is Dan's rye bread.

2-9-10

I haven't seen the ground in days. This evening I took some freaky photos from inside the house while holding the camera still against the window panes. In the lower picture you can see the reflection from the kitchen and my husband's head. Strange. The snow closed down the public schools so I didn't get to do the student teacher observation I had planned. Annoying. Instead I worked on grant writing.

2-8-10

Aza sent me a picture of the huge icesicles outside her apartment window so I took this photo to show her our tiny ones. While she and the rest of Virginia have been buried in multiple feet of snow, we have had mere inches. Today Squirt started his new internship at the university. He had a good day and I'm hopeful that he will get a lot out of his experience. Meanwhile I went to observe a new student teacher and got lost and missed the class. Bummer.

2-7-10

Today I painted and graded papers. Top photo courtesy of Dan. We painted the den, laundry area, and mud room. One color is Powell Buff and the other is Library Pewter.

You can see below that one wall is pewter and the other walls are Powell Buff. It's the same in the laundry area and back entrance/mud room.

Tonight while we are at a Super Bowl party, Squirt (above) is going to paint the rafters in the den Library Pewter. Photos to follow....

2-6-10

The little house next to ours went on the market today. It is so tiny- only 1100 sq. ft. and they want $239,900 for it. Crazy. Well at least that will keep prospective buyers away until the price comes down. It would make a nice little cottage for our "Plantation." Jes, wanna move to town and live next door? Aza? Mom???? Miss March???

2-5-10

Friday. My day starts early and wet and gloomy. I have an 8am meeting with people from the college of ed and the college of engineering. A good group- lots of synergistic ideas. Cry off and own at work at times, worried about Squirt, feeling depression sneaking in my brain. He has come down with a cold of some sort and didn't eat his dinner last night. I think maybe he feels too sick to run away this weekend and am relieved..

Had a meeting with colleagues- January, March, Mags, and the WIC (Woman in Charge) and got a pink heart cookie from January. They are all so sweet to me. They invite me and Dan out for dinner. We go. Squirt calls me while I'm waiting for my burger... he has been offered an internship at the college of ed and accepts the offer. He starts Monday. Something about video games for high school kids to get them motivated to learn. I'm not sure but it sounds like something wonderful to me. I eat a Dove Bar for dessert. It doesn't get much better than this.

2-3-10

Wednesday. Not a happy day. Squirt seems to have given up looking for a job. He is thinking he will leave this weekend for an extended stay in the wilderness. I am very very very sad and worried about him and just want him to be happy so much. I love him SO much. It's so hard being a parent to an adult child who is struggling to find his way in the world. He has to find his own way. I have to let him.

2-2-10

Tuesday. The day I've been waiting for! Oh, I've been waiting for this day for a long long time... it's the first episode in the last season of LOST. The whole evening was a LOST evening. It was a long day starting with a review session for students at 8am, a lesson on Smartboards in the afternoon... but the evening was bliss.

2-1-10

Monday. Showed up for work and found this book and a Seed Saver's calender as a gift on my office door. A good friend in the college who knows I want to start a food garden with heriloom seeds this spring gifted me with these two special treats. Taught a lesson on STEM this afternoon which went ok.

1-31-10

Felt better this morning- walked to church and back home again in the snow. This is our street. After church I started on my project for the day- painting the first floor bathroom in the main house. Here it is with the mirror down and the tape up. I finished around 8:30pm and it took a full day.

And here is is afterwards.... scene from the door and scene from inside the room. The color is Kentucky Haze, a Sherwin Williams color. I think it's pretty. Dan painted the laundry/mud room area yesterday one of the colors we are going to use (Benjamin Moore's Library Pewter) and the other color (S.W. Powell Buff) goes on different walls. Will upload photos when it's done. It's amazing what paint can do.

1-30-10

Snow. We got 4 inches or so... I love snow. Perhaps winter is my favorite season after all what with how excited I get every time it snows.

I felt sick this evening, it was very strange. At first I was nauseous and faint and thought I had a fever so I took off my sweater and lay down on the bed to cool off. No fever. Then I got SO cold, I got under two blankets and piled all the pillows on top of me and was still cold. Squirt brought me my nighttime meds and some water and I just stayed like that and slept through the night.

1-29-10

Today was supposed to be a writing day. It wasn't. I created an assignment, did some emailing and planning for next week, went out to lunch with a friend, did the grocery shopping, cooked dinner, then curled up by the fire on the floor and went to sleep.

At some point in the afternoon Dan came in the house saying, "Get out your telephoto lens, there's something that looks like burnt tar on the roof of the studio!" So, I had a look and sure enough it looked like burned tar. I checked out a photo of the roof from before we bought the place and there was no spot there.

So.... Dan went and had a look. See, doesn't it look yucky? Turned out it was ICE. Yes, ice. You see, the products of combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor. Apparently water was condensing on the cap of the stove pipe and dripping off onto a stalagmite of ice on the roof. Dan scraped it off, and as he was climbing down I saw a drip fall. Wierd.

I hope I have more spunk tomorrow. Must walk.

1-28-10

Taught today- it went well. The pedagogy lesson was about inquiry and the science was heat transfer. I walked home and took a tour of the yard to see what might be coming up. Above you see Lenten Rose sometimes called Christmas Rose blooming. Below are some bulbs pushing their way up through the leaf litter.

This is an interesting shot of the fish pond... reflection of the bare trees above the rippling water, and below that a water lily still alive in the pond as seen through a thin sheet of ice on top.

We are expecting snow tomorrow.

1-27-10

Woke up early and saw the sun rising... so held my camera steady and took a picture. That's my neighbor's house. The sky was beautiful. Today I judged a science fair at a local private school. It was an interesting morning- and a colleague was there judging too so that made it more fun. The school brought in a bunch of birds to put on display in the gym during the science fair. Here's a photo I took with my iPhone of an owl that hooted all during the fair. The most special part of the day was an hour long massage which was a gift from Dan. Oh, so very nice.

1-26-10

Tuesday. Walked to school, had a meeting, worked all afternoon, then got picked up by Dan. We went out to dinner then came home and watched the last disk of the Big Love season. We'll have to wait another year to rent the current season. Anybody have HBO???!!!

1-25-10

Worked at school today then walked home with miniature hail pummeling
me. Ok maybe it was hard snow. Made preppy potatoes for dinner.

1-23-10

Saturday, blue, I went on a long walk and got annoyed at the trash and at the state of disrepair of the houses I saw. Worked in the yard for a couple hours which was satisfying-- saw bulbs coming up EVERYWHERE which is exciting. Cooked a delicious dinner copied from my brother in law JL (roasted vegetables over whole wheat pasta). Watched "The Great Escape" on DVD and found the music annoying. Oh, and I photographed a bunch of things to give away and posted them all on Freecycle. Including this light which had no takers.

1-22-10

I love my house. I love my yard and all the many various plants in it. I love each room, every moment I spend here. I love my neighborhood, my neighbors, and the arboretum a short block away. Today I noticed that some bulbs are coming up in the front- different kinds in different sections all over. What will this one be? What a joy it will be to discover all the plants here just waiting to spring forth. This weekend I should do some yard preparation for spring- make room for the bulbs and remove the wilted foliage all around.

I keep on having dreams that we have to move. It's happened three times now and each time it's a terrible dream. The rooms are empty, the house has no soul. We have to say good bye and each time, we move somewhere I'm not happy. Not sure what it all means but I think I really need to carve out some time to paint, some time to garden, and some time to nest here.