12-14-11

Worked with my graduate student today on the wind turbine curriculum we are using at a school district in northern Kentucky. Cool stuff. We got an LED to come on.

12-13-11

I'm working with this red/salmon color of cotton yarn that is soft and delicious to work with. It matches my bed, so I think it would make a nice throw pillow or afghan too. I had another migraine today and had to cancel all my meetings. This is getting ridiculous. Too many migraines.

12-12-11

The reluctant hat model. I'm trying to make "guy hats" which are harder than "girl hats" so I often need a model to make sure the hats look ok on guys. I think this one was approved by the Squirt.

12-11-11

Long walk with Dan today across the arboretum, right on Cooper, back through some fancy neighborhoods off Tates Creek, and back.
Later went to the dean's holiday party. Came home, made a scrumptious guacamole and crocheted.
Photo of a hawk we spotted in a tree during epic walk.

12-10-11

First light

Ice

Fire

Gifts ready for giving...'Tis the season...

12-8-11

Today started off great. No migraine when I woke. Went to school and conducted a review session for the final I'm giving on Monday. Went out to lunch with four students. Then went to a REALLY COOL yarn shop up the street and bought four skeins of REALLY COOL yarn. Came home. Got a migraine. Got in bed. Pretty much stayed there all night, eventually venturing down to the kitchen to make a cup of hot chocolate and grab my camera to take this picture.

12-7-11

I'm working on my next engineering design curriculum which will focus on wind turbines and energy. Here is a prototype of the Lego kit I am assembling with my graduate student. Today I came home from school with a massive migraine and had to miss an afternoon of things I'd committed to. Spent the rest of the day and evening in bed. #ihatemigraines

12-6-11

Last day of class with my science methods students. Above is my elementary class, and below is my middle class. Poor Penny has the flu and cannot be with us on our last day. Today we built mystery tubes, did the fossil fragments lesson, and fossil footprints and evolution activities in the middle class. I will miss my biweekly dose of these people.

Dreary, rainy Kentucky. Just read in the paper yesterday that this is the second wettest year in recorded history, and if we get another 2 inches in December it will be the wettest. I am so sick of the gray skies and dreary weather. Please send some sun.

This pretty much sums up my mood today. Hanging on by a thread, alone.

12-5-11

Too busy to even get out my camera lately. However Dan convinced me to go for an hour long walk in the rain at night. Came back drenched and feeling refreshed.

12-1-11

Aza bought her first Apple computer and it arrived today! We are all mesmerized by the computer that talks to you.

11-30-11

I am trying something new with my Kombucha. I'm putting the container into a pond warmer. It's a device that you put in a pond during winter to keep a hole in the ice on top. It generates just enough warmth to keep my brew from getting too chilly in the wintertime.

Our new living room decor!!! Thanks to a lovely Christmas gift last year, we finally were able to find and purchase the chairs and couch we wanted for our living room. See the blue chair?

And see the red chair and the dark brown couch? Now we have seating for 7 in our living room.Let the party begin!

Happy Anniversary to Chrissy and Dan. We've been married 26 years today.

11-28-11

Today we went shopping for a couch and found one we liked. We also found this cute little lamp for the secretary. The living room is coming along!

11-26-11

We played outside this morning with Buddy and BeeBay and Frisbee. Squirt was stringing lights on Nana's tree. The game was almost underway and we were almost leaving to go back to Kentucky. It was a good morning playing with the kids. Wish I'd had a photo of me with them. We drove 8 hours to get home at around midnight. Auburn lost, which was sad but expected.

11-25-11

Black Friday. I ended up going to Sam's and Walmart with my mom for groceries. Long lines.

We went for a walk to see the tornado damage from last week here. Lots of big trees uprooted and smashed into roofs. The damage was right next to the high school.

In the evening we walked downtown to take in the frenzy of the eve before the Iron Bowl. We walked to the chapel where we were married 26 years ago and Aza took this not-so-great photo of us at the chapel.

11-24-11

Thanksgiving day. We started with a walk around campus then commenced to eat one meal after the other until bedtime. Twenty six years ago Dan and spent this day preparing for our wedding day weekend.
Still crazy after all these years!

 This is our good friend  whom I shall call Dr. Leonardo since he is such a Renaissance Man. He has known me since I was a little girl and is like a father to me. Artist, professor, gardener, writer, cook, he can do it all.

 And this is my momma's house. Pretty fancy, hu?

 Our Thanksgiving dinner table prior to the crowds descending.It was really a fun day, and when Jes called we passed the phone around like it was her so she could be part of the day.

11-23-11

We are at my mom's house. Here is my sister Sakura showing off lunch. Mom catered a luncheon for 200 then brought home leftovers galore. We kids in the catering business live for the leftovers!

11-20-11

Lazy Sunday morning and Dan asks me if I'd like to go to Ikea in Cincinnati to look for a chair. We go! We don't find a chair! We come home exhausted.

11-18-11

 I taught a workshop in northern Kentucky for teachers all day today. They did two kits: Save the Penguins and Save the Sea Birds. We used a different penguin ice cube mold. Here is one homeless penguin in the hot box.

 The afternoon was spent with motors, gears, solar cells, etc. Here is one setup testing a gear train. Not meshing too well, I see.

One creative group made their penguin house have some resale value. Creative use of materials!
I drove home exhausted that evening and went straight to bed with a headache that did not lift for 24 hours.

11-15-11

I have to grade all the notebooks in this crate this week. Procrastination in a photo.

11-13-11

This is what the new red chair looks like. I love it!
Today I made a butternut/acorn squash and sweet potato soup again.
Also... pumpkin pie.

11-12-11

Dan and I cleaned house today. Then we went for a long walk around Transylvania University. Afterwards, we went furniture shopping and bought a chair-- then went out to eat sushi at our favorite sushi place.

11-11-11

Today I worked on my writing and took some photos of some kids at a school for an article. This one was staged, and will not go in the magazine, but I thought it was funny.

11-9-11

Migraine today. I observed a student in the morning and came home in a terrible way. When I got home though, the beauty of the trees overwhelmed me and I took photos of the yard.

11-6-11

Trees are not people, but sometimes we sure do think of them that way. We get attached. We care for them. We receive their flowers and fruit. We rake their leaves and admire them for what they do for us. I love trees, if anyone does. So it was with a heavy heart and great deliberation that we decided to kill a tree. That sounds so cruel, so heartless. Who kills trees? Tree murderers!!!  We really did love our fig tree, but like adopting a lion kitten, we found out after a few years that we could not care for a lion adult in the small space inbetween our house and studio. It was too large to transplant- we consulted an expert about that. So, I closed my eyes while Dan did the difficult work (emotionally and physically) of removing the tree and her roots. I'm sad to even blog this. The space looks cleaner and brighter, and we will try to find an adoptive family for the japanese maple we intend to remove as well. It is smaller and should be transplantable.

So we celebrate fall with the golden sight of our large ginko mother who shelters the yard and sends down millions of potential offspring each year.

11-5-11

I learned the basket weave stitch today. Worked on my IRB forms. Cooked a fabulous potato soup with jack cheese, bacon, and broccoli. Mmmm!!! And really really enjoying my new bed.