1-31-14

Last day of January. Working on a cable knitted scarf some lucky chap will get for Christmas next year.

1-30-14

 

These are the mittens I knitted for Aza. 

Today I had a meeting with my doc students and we worked on a paper.

1-29-14

It snowed yesterday. Not much, but it snowed. This caused Auburn to cancel classes yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Don't make fun of us... we just aren't prepared for ice and snow down here in the deep south. Meanwhile, I got a nice break.

1-28-14

It is

It is snowing and I know that there won't be class tonight. I'd planned to take these eggs with me but now they are mine to play with. Naked eggs. Naked eggsperiments.

Here you can see the dusting we got before sunset. This caused classes to be cancelled all day.

Dan accomplished a lot with his kits. He is selling a dozen or so this weekend and they are ready for delivery.

1-27-14

I don't know why there was a gigantic blown up baby on the field next to the stadium today.

1-26-14

This is me, my friend from high school Doug, and his sweetheart. Doug is a stained glass artist, and was just diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer. His wife died 10 years ago leaving him to raise a teenaged boy alone and put through college, and since then lost his job and became a "starving artist" and doesn't have health insurance. His bills have risen to almost $10,000. He had one chemo treatment two days before this photo was taken in my kitchen. If you are a regular reader of my blog, please consider making a donation of any amount to help him with living expenses and medical bills. He will have six weeks of chemo and radiation and during that time, and at some point, he will most likely not be able to work.  He has a feeding tube inserted into his stomach for the day when his throat is so raw from radiation that he cannot eat. He has a port in his chest for the chemo drugs. I've heard that throat cancer treatment is especially painful. You can visit the fundraising site that our high school classmates set up to read his story and make a contribution. Anything helps lift his spirits and his bank account. If you make a donation, please leave me a comment so I can thank you personally!

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/dgfP3

After Doug and Sweetheart left, my grad students came over for a training session on the new 3D printer. The workshop was lead by Squirt, who did a great job instructing us all.

1-25-14

I started an eggsperiment. Soaking eggs in vinegar causes the shells to react and dissolve. In a few days the eggs will be "naked." I will take them to class and we will do some osmosis experiments with them.

1-24-14

Dan and I took a walk this afternoon around 4:00 around the art museum. See the long shadows of winter? This a very interesting sculpture. I have no idea what it means. Isn't Alabama beautiful in its own way this time of year?

1-19-14

Woke up with headache. I bet I ate something in Blacksburg that contained a forbidden substance. I went to mom's for lunch but couldn't stay long because I felt so crappy. We ate quiche and fruit and bread and roasted vegetables.

 

This evening I finished a gift I've been working on for Aza. I'll mail it to her next week. I'll post a photo after she receives the gift because I don't want to give it away. I started working on it at the beginning of the month and it took SO many hours.

 

1-18-14

 

After breakfast at Panera we left B'burg. When we went through SC, we decided to check out Clemson. It's a nice campus, reminiscent of Auburn. We had lunch and my sandwich was fried green tomatoes with cheesy grits on the side. Decadent. 

Driving through the mountains  is always beautiful. We got home around dinner time and I collapsed into bed, where I am now, updating this blog after 10 days absence. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AZA!!!

26 years old today.

I love you THIS much!<-------------------------------------------------------------------> xxxooo

1-17-14

 

I don't want to talk about my workshop. Things just didn't work as planned. I forgot the squishy dough and had to convince someone to buy me stuff to make it in the small kitchen at the building on campus in a microwave. The battery activity did not work. No light. The capacitor activity did not work. The plates were all wrong.  By the time I got back to the hotel at dusk I was so spent, so so so very spent. I did some yoga on the floor, had coffee in the bar with a colleague, and then watched Downton Abbey episodes in bed while knitting. 

1-16-14

This morning we left Auburn for Blacksburg. I knew that Jes was getting her whole body scan at 9am Denver time and I was anxiously awaiting a call from her with some news. I knitted away...

She called at around 10:30 and said that they only needed one scan, which was very good. I held my breath and waited some more, and later she called and said that the doctor had called her to say that her scan was clear and that her blood tests were very good. Her thyroglobulin was .5 but it didn't go up after the thryrogen injections, which is a very good sign. She is still out of the woods. We just keep watching and expecting good news in the year to come! After next year's clear scan she will be considered "cured" and able to move on with her life not always thinking about having to undergo RAI again.

This glass of beet-carrot-apple-ginger juice at Gillies in Blacksburg, VA represents the end of a long trip today.  This is probably my last grant trip to Blacksburg and we always to to Gillies at least once while there. Tonight I had quesadillas for dinner and they were delish.

1-15-14

Yesterday I got my 3D printer! Squirt printed out some cool stuff and was still printing out cool stuff this morning. 

 

The new kit is finalized. I'm not sure about the baby oil containers, and I hope everything works well for my workshop on Friday.

1-14-14

My student  The Chicken Whisperer came by my office today. I hadn't seen her in several months and thought she had dropped out of the program. It was good to see her. I was getting ready to teach class. Then I noticed the moon outside and thought it beautiful. It was a good class, the first this semester.

1-13-14

I  took photographs of ferrets and created silhouettes of them on my Silhouette Studio software, printed them out, and got my grad student Kat to color them for me. Aren't they adorable? Monday, I spent most of the day at school in meetings.

1-12-14

Sunday evening after a long day, I noticed my reflection in the window of my office and took a self portrait. You can see the stones outside, and the floor inside. See me with the camera? Self portrait. This is where I spend a LOT of time working.

1-11-14

I was determined to make the houses on my demo town pretty so I colored them and decorated them. This is a photo for the curriculum. The houses all glow at night when the capacitor is switched on.

1-10-14

My workshop is getting closer. Today I wrote and played around with some house designs I printed out at school. I had a faculty meeting today.

1-9-14

These are capacitors. I've  been struggling to create a capacitor lesson with homemade caps. Squirt wanted to show me a dissected capacitor so he took one apart. It's what I expected, but way cooler to see in person.

1-8-14

1-7-14

 

This was my first day going to work. I had to do some paperwork, print some houses on my die cutter, and drop off my coffee creamer and some artwork Jes gave me.

Came home and Dan and I went for a walk in the Forest Preserve north of town. We walked 2 miles in the woods, saw a pond, lots of old buildings, a burned part of the forest, and had a good time in the brisk cold weather. I loved being in NATURE.

1-6-14

Our town was in a state of suspended animation until today. Everyone was waiting for the big game. I went shopping this afternoon at Kroger and got all sorts of goodies for the evening of TV watching. I made a potato/kale soup for dinner which was so amazingly good with garlic french bread. Then during the game I made cheese dip and the standard hot pepper jelly on cream cheese and crackers. A special treat was hot chocolate and marshmallows made with whole milk. Mmmmm...

Squirt had his friend whom I shall call Strawberry Jello over to watch the game, and her brother whom I shall call Hunter joined us too. My mom was also here, and the last few minutes of the game were too intense for her. She swears she will never watch another football game, since they are so ridden with anxiety. We lost the game, but it was a great season of football nevertheless.

1-5-14

See this? I made a battery from nickels and pennies and lit up an LED with it. It's part of my new curriculum. Today I messed with curriculum for a long time but generally had a relaxing Sunday.

1-4-13

 This evening was really exciting. I got to spend time with two good friends from high school. Blondie, in the middle, lives in Texas, and I only get to see her every couple of years. LACA, on the right, I don't see often enough either although she lives in town. We talked about everything from A-Z and had dinner at Mellow Mushroom.

1-3-13

Worked all day on curriculum again. Took photos of these two little paper houses.
We mailed out our newsletters today! Not bad...

1-2-13

Today I worked on my new curriculum all day. I had to make squishy conductive dough for a photo shoot.

This is the dough before I kneaded it.

Here is one circuit.

And another.

1-1-14

New Years Day. We worked on our annual newsletter today and then went to Mom's for black eyed peas etc. for good luck for 2014.

12-31-13

 

New Years Eve.

We spent the day waiting for Aza to safely arrive in Virginia, which she did.

We spent the evening with my mom and her friends. 

We celebrated midnight safely tucked in bed sleeping soundly.

It was a good year.

12-30-13

Jes got her boots repaired at the shoe repair shop in Opelika. We all three have boots. Today we went to Overall Company for coffee and a look at the new art exhibit. Jes left this afternoon. It was sad.

Aza has been a MOST Successful student of crochet. She picked it up like a fish to water. She made a baby blanket, a hat, and booties for a friend whose baby is due in a week.  It feels so good to teach my daughter to crochet. Aza leaves in the morning. We had chili and cornbread for supper. It will be quiet when she is gone too.

12-29-13

Squirt made beignets this morning. Which isn't helping my expanding waistline. But they sure were good.

Our living room with the tree and poinsettia.

Nana and her grands.

Today I got up early, worked on curriculum, went for a walk with the girls, did yoga with Jes, made a candle, took family photos, and not much else.

12-28-13

It rained all day. Seriously. Two inches of rain! I taught Aza how to crochet. She started making a baby blanket for a friend's newborn and then made a hat for the baby. But Lilly liked it too :)