5-4-12

My girls!
Jes, tired from a long day of travel from Denver to here, arrived in time for dinner.
We had Derby Pie for dessert!

5-3-12

 

Aza got a huge surprise today. Dan asked her to come help him with a window that was broken, so she came downstairs and her grandparents popped out of the kitchen and surprised her! They've come to celebrate her graduation on Sunday. She's the first grandchild on both sides to earn a graduate degree. Yay Aza!

Today I received a special letter in the mail. I'll tell you about it later.
:)

5-1-12

Today was my last day working with the kids on their solar cars. I've yet to analyze the data, but I think it was a successful experience for them. It was fun being back in a classroom every day.

4-30-12

 

Jack and Iris
Last day of April... spent all morning at a middle school, then attended the last department meeting of the academic year, then started cleaning out old papers from my office.
Tomorrow is May 1st

4-29-12

This is the door to our basement. Today Dan took it off and glued/clamped it so it would hang right. I then washed, patched cracks, and painted it. Took all evening. Earlier today I sorted through ALL my clothes in the attic and filled up the entire back of my Honda Fit with boxes to donate to Goodwill. Drove down to Nicholasville and donated them. Cooked a really good dinner- peanut chicken with mushrooms, spring onions, lemon zest, coconut milk, peanut butter, and spinach. What else? Oh, I designed and made a cart for my Sea Birds curriculum. AND cleaned two ovens! Lord have mercy, you'd think I was fixin' to have company or something! Jes arrives on Friday for Aza's graduation and we are so excited to all be together for the weekend celebrating the first of our offspring to finish a graduate degree.

I drank a cup of coffee today. Perhaps that accounts for the enormous feats of accomplishment.

4-27-12

Today students worked on gears. This successful group created a simple gear train to lift their sea bird eggs. It's Friday. This weekend I need to finish up my grading and turn in semester grades, clean house, pull some weeds, and wind up the semester. Next weekend, Aza graduates with her masters degree in secondary education. She also has an interview next week at the high school she graduated from back in Virginia. Wouldn't THAT be interesting??!! Lots of changes in the works in Chrissy's family. Things will be very different come fall.

4-25-12

Today students tested solar cells in series and parallel. I took some pictures while they were at lunch of some reasonable voltages and current readings. The waxed paper is to simulate cloud cover... there is so much more I could do with these kids. I wish I had more than 6 days I could work with them.

4-24-12

All week I will be working with students at a local school testing out my Sea Birds curriculum. They are at lunch during this photo. So far it's a challenge to them. I hope they are successful in the end.

4-23-12

Working in my office on my Save the Bats curriculum... we got a student-made anemometer and a blow dryer to crank out some voltage. The gearing is tricky. I wish I had a lab for this stuff instead of the corner of my desk. Makes for a messy office.

4-22-12

Spread mulch today in the back garden.
I am very attached to my oasis, my little plot of land in the city.
I love my trees, peonies, lilies, primroses, wood poppies, and all the trees.

4-21-12

 

Irises are in bloom. I wanted blue irises in my wedding bouquet 27 years ago and didn't understand why they weren't available in November.

Difficult weekend full of contemplation.

4-17-12

 

 

Family Engineering Night!!! We had about 50 kids and parents, plus about 10 volunteers from my student chapter of NSTA help out at a local elementary school. It was a great success! Parents were really involved with their kids in the design activities. Lots of smiles all around the room for 90 minutes. I took about 100 photos but really can't post any here of the smiling children. But just imagine.

4-15-12

 

 

 

Cool nights and comfortable days, and the garden flowers are loving it. Today I spread about 400 pounds of mulch and need about 400 pounds more to cover the bare soil and keep the weeds down and moisture in. Maybe next weekend I will finish the job.

4-14-12

Dan is putting together 10 kits of my curriculum. He has orders for five of them and will surely sell the other five soon. What a job! 120 thermometers, 120 timers, 120 lamps, 120 plaster penguins, a bazillion cut up squares of felt and foam and paper and bubble wrap!

4-12-12

I love teaching! Tonight was my engineering class and my students brought their curriculum and materials to teach with. This was a lesson on anemometers. Boy, did we make the wind blow with a hair dryer! We had a great time and it filled me up with joy.

4-11-12

My new fun thing to do is play Draw Something with people on my iPad. I make a drawing and the other person has to guess my word. They they draw and I guess. Here is my drawing of Grandma. I don't think I ever saw either of my grandmothers knit in a rocking chair, but I plan to one day when it's my turn. So I guess this is me in about 15 years. I will need a front porch.

4-10-12

I'm helping a student with her physics class and today she came over to review acceleration with me. We were trying to figure out the acceleration of a lemon thrown up into the air. So I used my iPad to film the lemon and then used my Vernier app to analyze the motion. I held the lemon for 1.8 seconds then flipped it up. Cool, hu?

4-8-12

Easter Sunday.
After church Dan and I went out to brunch with my mom. It was very special. The weather was perfect and we were able to sit outside on the porch.

After brunch we packed up and headed back to our Kentucky home, arriving around 11pm pretty darned tired.

4-7-12

House up the street from mom is for sale. Dan and I were so curious we asked to have a tour of the mansion. Oh my.
We had a great day seeing old friends. Lots of laughter, stories told, politics debated, and food shared. It fills me up with good things to be here.

4-5-12

A new generation. Miss Carrie helped raise me, her daughter is my mom's partner in business, her granddaughter works for mom sometimes and now the 4th generation is coming over to visit. I loved holding him!

4-4-12

I caught a pair of doves at the bird bath. Sweet. Got my hair cut and colored. Nice. Packing for a trip to Auburn. Stressful.

4-2-13

We are the champions! The president of the university is holding the trophy. Pretty cool game to watch. Ok, I crocheted but I looked up every now and then! That counts!

4-1-12

Wanna buy a kit?
Dan has sold one of my curriculum kits and has a few more orders pending. I assembled everything today for a photo. We spent last night driving around to three Wal-Marts trying to find Sunbeam digital timers. Crazy! I made the play money... and the house... and the plaster penguins.

3-31-12

We came home today from the two conferences. It felt so good to get in my own bed.
My gardens really took off while we were gone. Here are some purpish blooms. Can't think of their name.

At the conference we visited the Wisconsin Fast Plant booth and made little necklaces with seeds in them. They sprouted!

3-29-12

I met up with my friend Deb from C'ville at the conference. She helped me present my session, we went out to lunch, and bummed around all day at the exposition hall.

Afterwards we decided to go for a walk over this bridge. This is looking back at my hotel, the big blue building.

It was a really cool path by the zoo with limestone walls. We got to a scary section, turned around, and headed back to the hotel. Almost to the hotel we were stopped by a security man on a scooter. He told us the gate was closed over the bridge and that we'd have to turn around and go the VERY LONG WAY back to the hotel through the scary section. It ended up being about a 2 hour walk.

3-27-12

 

View from the 26th floor. See the moon and Venus? If you look closely you can see Jupiter hanging below Venus too.
Here at the conference... all my science ed buddies have gone home so it's a bit strange but a new conference starts soon and more buddies will show up.

3-25-12

Me and Igor watching the UK basketball game at NARST!

3-24-12

Penguins marching!
Today I worked all day on my presentation for NSTA and pulled a half dozen buckets of weeds... and after dinner watched the movie, Water for Elephants.

It has cooled off some. Spring came at least two weeks early this year and it was quite warm all week with both neighbors running their AC units (I could hear them through the open windows) but tonight is great sleeping weather.

Tomorrow I get to see Igor! It's been a whole year, I think. 

3-23-12

Lilacs in bloom... but they don't smell nice yet.

I just love the way dogwood flowers look against the cedar planks of this privacy fence in our yard.

You know, after almost six years of photographing nature with my Nikon D50, I think I have a pretty sweet collection of some stunning works of "art." Really, the lens and the lighting and the natural world do all the work- I just have to focus and push the button. But sometimes I think it would be cool to frame a dozen or so of them and dedicate a wall in my house to nature photography.

Friday... was supposed to be my writing day, but I had a meeting at school and it threw me off course. So, Saturday will be spent writing. I pulled weeds this evening and am managing to keep my lily garden looking pretty good. Maintenance. Maintenance. Two buckets of weeds every two days is the goal. Plus, I transplanted things that were growing the the wrong places. Must do.

3-22-12

I have a baby bald cypress that is just leafing out ahead of its mother. I'm going to nurse this baby until it's ready to get moved to a better location.

Virginia bluebells  in the front garden next to the baby bald cypress

Ferns coming up all over the place....

and I just LOVE the colors of the red buds and dogwoods and the bright green little leaves juxtapositioned against the dark wood. Must paint this.

Harlequin lily

Cute unusual daffodils back by the compost bin.
Class tonight went really well. I love teaching!

3-20-12

First day of spring, 2012
Jeffersonia diphylla, also known as Twin Leaf is my favorite native wild flower. When I lived in Charlottesville, a student gave me one and I planted it by my front door step. It thrived. See http://chrissysphotoaday.blogspot.com/2007/04/3-26-07.html
 http://chrissysphotoaday.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-20-08.html
http://chrissysphotoaday.blogspot.com/2009/06/6-25-09.html

When we left Virginia three years ago I dug it up to bring it with me here. I put it in a pot and left it with a friend to water until I could retrieve it.
It died.
I was sad.
Very sad.
When we moved into this house in July of 2009, I spotted the twin leaves in one of the back gardens and asked the former owner if it was Twin Leaf and she said it was. However, so many things crowded out the garden back there, that I never saw the Twin Leaf plant again.
Today, I saw that I have FOUR plants! FOUR! I'm going to move them "out of the woods" so they can be enjoyed more, cherished more, and get a little more sunlight.

Now to find something in life that this symbolically represents on this first day of spring 2012. Hmmmm...Any ideas? What once was lost is now found... four fold?

Spent all morning giving a workshop for 50 teachers and tomorrow will be a repeat. It takes the wind out of me, for sure. I came home at 1pm dead tired, sick, dizzy, nauseous, and took to bed.