Spring Break!

Yay! Spring break! It's so nice and quiet here with the students gone. I could bring in my knitting and work on it, but there are SOME people who think I should work at work. Well, OK, most people think I should work at work.
DH is home with pneumonia, DS has lost his voice (which is good considering the argument we had yesterday)and has an earache (and I hope it was from me yelling at him).

It's sugaring season again, and I've been spending loads of time out in the woods showing kids and parents how to tap trees. The weather has been a bit rough. Really cold one day, rain, thunderstorm and hail the next, the 60 and sunny the next. It's very spring-y here.

No trip to New Mexico this spring. DS is in college and I don't want him to miss classes, and I can't leave until my college spring break, and, of course, those breaks are different weeks. I'm planning to go to New Mex for Thanksgiving, and to go to a stitching retreat. Don't know what DS will do with himself for a couple days while I'm stitching. At this point, I don't really care. Ds managed to get himself fired after three weeks at his new job. He said he was kidding around and something got taken out of context about him saying he was "going to slap somebody." Well, I think there was probably more than that, but he's not talking. Jobs aren't just laying around for hte taking. He needs to keep one if he wants to make payments on his new car, which I cosigned for. **sigh**

Well, back to work. Time to spend some money.

Just a few minutes while I'm on my lunch break. My head's killing me and I think I had a great huge hot flash this morning. Small price to pay for no more periods. Well there are those wild chin witch hairs that grow about a inch overnight, but other than additional plucking, that's livable too.

I still have no energy for classwork, which I what I should be doing now. I think it's just grad school burnout. Of course if I listen to those drug ads I'm probably ready for a collapse- "Are you tired? Do you have thoughts of inadequacy? Does it feel like you just can't get everything done? Then here- Have a pill!" Jeez! And the pill will make me gain weight, lose weight, my hair will fall out, I may commit suicide, have a heart attack, weakness in the knees, get leukemia, scurvy or Beri Beri.

I did get a lot done last week: I wrote a grant for an Urban Bird event, I did 3 telenet conferences working on a state wide Master Naturalists program, I got recertified as a deputy voter registrar, I subbed three classes, I took a couple hours off, and I finished my reading for my class yeasterday.

Whoa- EMTs with a stretcher just went by my office. Wonder what's up?

Knitting- working on a pair of cashmere socks in chocolate brown. I don't have enough yarn to finish them (stinking lying patterns!) and the place I got it at is out. Will try again later in the week. Got some chunky yarn to make some boot socks with.

Stitching- will have one challenge piece done shortly- The Green Earth

all that's left is the big green swoosh at the bottom.

My second challenge is this Teec Nos Pos piece. I've got some of the upper left corner done. Just started, really.

Well, back to work!

2009????

So what happened to 2009? Last thing I remember was coming home from New Mexico for thanksgiving.

I've been knitting. YAWN very exciting, right? Well, I'm hooked on socks. I've made about 5 pairs now. My first pair was a real disaster, second a bit better and they are looking pretty good now. Other than that- back to school for my last semester. Grad school couldn't be over soon enough for me. I'm so burned out! I'm still excited about my field (Environmental Studies) and love teaching when I can get it, but I just want to get on with life.
Big day yesterday- The Inauguration. WOW! What a great speech, so hopeful, positive and what a great honesty. Very refreshing since the evil empire has been overturned. And I see today that all "questioning" at GITMO has stopped. Why not move all of the "prisoners" to W's ranch in Crawford? They are his guests, let him deal with them.

this year:
--I've bought my carbon offsets- I'm carbon neutral for the year.
--I've been taking the bus and leaving the car at home. I moved my car into an empty driveway across the street and DH panicked and thought my car had been stolen. tee hee.
--The kitten is now a year old and bigger than the older three year old kitty. Pictures to follow if I can get them to quit fighting. It starts as play then he gets rowdy and she whaps him.
--My stitching challenge was completed last year and I have two new pieces to finish this year.
--I'm turning... well, less than 50. How did I ever get so old, and even more bizarre.. how do I have a kid almost 30 and a husband that can eat off the senior menu?

back from the void

Wow! It's been months, but I have about 30 minutes right now with vary little to do, so now that I've wasted 5 of them getting my password out of google, I can catch up.

August- nothing much- started my second to last semester with a data analysis class. I'm not excited about it, but the instructor is good and I can manage to get through it. Why is is that I either get a great instructor in a subject I'm diffident about at best, or a crap instructor in a subject I'm excited about? I did get lucky and have a great instructor in a great class a couple semesters ago and I just loved teh class. Water Pollution...sigh... those were the good old days.
Speaking of the good old days- I had my 30th high school class reunion. The drunks in school haven't sobered yet and the cliques are as strong as ever. Blah- there was a choice of beer and water to drink, and some little finger foods. I got that (wow) and a can koozie for my $20.

September-I trained to become a certified interpretive guide. now I can point to trees properly, get kids lost in the woods with authority, and say, "why yes you are the best group I've ever taken out" with total sincerity. With that, school, teaching and life- no time for anything.

October- took another trip to Buffalo with my BFF. Two hours after we got there her mom collapsed and we spent the week around hospitals, pacemaker surgery, infections, an ankle sprained while trying to use the bedpan, oh the usual vacation stories. I came home and BFF stayed for the rest of the month.

November- Ahhhh... All caught up. So I'm planning an excursion to New Mexico in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. DS is now laid off with a brand new car and brand new car payment. (Oh joy) I was an election judge for a very busy election, and have become used to taking 4 week vacation every year to recover from my life.

I've started taking public transit and BFF suggested I do a Bus Blog. I have a notebook I carry with me on the bus and I should have time eventually to get it in here. Now it's off to check on my new snake- a gorgeous little fox snake named Buddy. He's living in my classroom, loves to be held, and has a baby mouse sized bulge from his weekly feeding this morning. He's just a cutie!

Cheers!

July 14th

Well time flies when you are busy doing nothing, I guess. This summer has mostly been teaching, reading, stitching and relaxing. I'm teaching two classes during the summer, and have been subbing a lot, so teaching seems to take the lions share of my time. I really like summer school, and, of course, my students are the most insightful and brilliant. All due to my teaching (ahem!) no doubt.

I haven't been travelling much this summer, but I want to make a trip to Iowa (when it dries out) and I need to plan another trip to New Mexico around Thanksgiving. I want to get to Detroit one weekend, but my Sis who lives there is off on vacation right now in Wisconsin, so there's not much point.

The new kitten got neutered last week, and he came home with fleas. DH was picking them off with tweezers and we ended up giving both cats a bath. That was quite an adventure. It was only the kitten's second bath ever. I just wash the cats in the bathroom sink, and DH was trying to help. Well, the bathroom is very small, hot, and not really big enough for two people and a wet howling kitten. DH got scratched just watching! I was fine. I'm tough and can hold a cat with one hand and wash with the other. Big Sister cat didn't make a peep when she got her bath. She's my kitty, and is much better behaved. Little Brother cat--- well, he's a terrorist dressed in fur.

Completely different topic- why do people talk on their cell phone about personal things in public places in LOUD voices? I'm sitting here in my office and down the hall about 50 feet is a lobby where students can hang out between classes. I can hear every word about this woman's divorce settlement, because she's talking to her soon to be Ex, complaining about how their original agreement won't work now because she's $1000 a month short on bills, and it's his fault she's behind on her bills, and she borrowed $1500 from her parents for her lawyer (which I guess he's supposed to pay) and ..... She's practically yelling into her phone. Now I've heard many, many phone conversations from students in the hall, and most of them start with "What are you doing?" "I'm waiting for class to start." "Well call me back later." you know- earth shattering intense, totally mind numbing conversations.

But about once a day I'm treated to a breakup (The best was the woman who said "You let that STANKY thing in my bed when I was at work!" to her EX who apparently was seeing someone else in his free time- someone "stanky"- and she yelled at him for about 15 minutes before she yelled "What do you mean we never talk! We are talking NOW!") or a make up (gag! "You know I love you snookums!") or a hookup ("I got your number from Steve at the bar. I think you are so hot!") Bathroom conversations are the worst. I'm sorry, but sitting in there, minding my own business and in the next stall you hear "so how's it going?" and you wonder- do I answer? Why should they care how I'm doing in here? Then they continue their conversation on the phone, and you are so glad you didn't answer because even in a stall, you don't want to look like an idiot. Then you have to do the timing thing to either wait until they are gone, or try to beat them done and get out before they appear, so they might know there was an idiot, but they won't know which idiot.

On another topic- movies:
I watched "Shopgirl" last night with Steve Martin. What crap! First of all there's Steve doing voice overs because obviously we (the viewers) are too stupid to figure stuff out. ("She decided that *this guy* gave her what she most needed, real love, while I never would." or some such bull. Okay- I can figure out her motivations- they were these- She didn't stay with the rich guy (who paid off her $36,000 student loan for her, but said he didn't love her and didn't want a serious relationship) because not only did he cheat on her with some old friend of his (who seduced him with a nasty line about how he could just lay there and do nothing during sex, "just like in Thailand" where apparently he had had the same experience with a professional) but he wrote her a letter about the cheating incident and then sat there next to her while she read it. That makes him 1- a coward, 2- a self centered bastard and 3-so out of touch with her that he didn't care. Why tell her about a one night stand unless he wanted to trash the whole non-relationship thing they had going (he said he wanted something casual but then called her all the time, flew three hours in a private jet just to see her, bought her expensive gifts, and then there's the whole student loan thing) or deliberately hurt her because if he was really sorry, he would have bought her a nice bit of jewelry, never told her and NEVER done it again. (guys- we don't want to know about these things. We want you to learn from it, and suffer in silence about the filthy horrid thing you did.) All together this move was a waste of time, and I'm glad I Netflixed it because if I had paid to see this in a theater, I'd have been extremely pissed.

Summer is here!

I can tell, because I get really busy. Here it is Saturday, and I'm sitting in at work (better web connection) registering books and blogging instead of enjoying the great outdoors.

so- I'm going to go home and sit out on the deck and read a bit. I gave blood today, so no heavy lifting. I'll probably garden tomorrow and do some housework, maybe take a bike ride, but today- relax, relax, relax......

Just a quick note

As if I can just do something quick....

Well, back from another trip, this time to lovely Niagara Falls. Trip highlights:

• Niagara Falls- Oh my! this time I went on the US side. We walked out onto islands in the river right above the falls! Very cool! Photos to come.
• Meeting Morsecode- it's nice to "know" someone, but it's fun to meet them in person. Morsie and I have known each other for quite awhile, and it was great fun to acually meet.
• Roycroft- this is an area where they do loads of Arts & Crafts style pottery from the Art Deco period. I saw some beautiful work, and of course could afford none of it, or want to risk it coming back on the train. I did get a very neat pair of glass earrings with gold leaves on them.
• Shopping! There are loads of great independent shops that have been around for generations- Chocolate, used books, knick knacks all very fun. I got a smiley ball for my antenna that says "Buffalo- Where it helps to have a sense of humor"
• Eating! Tim Horton's of course (where I really confused the counter girl by asking for a half dozen of TimBits chocolate and a half dozen of TimBits in Honey Dipped- I ended up with about 20 in all!) and all sorts of great food.
• Meeting new people- I went with a friend from Buffalo, and met her aunts, uncles and cousins and several of her friends there. Her Mom was our hostess, and I was very spoiled. I had to be very stern to pick up a check now and again.

It was a great trip- another Amtrak Adventure. No pillows again, and there was a way too friendly guy across the aisle who was either chatting us up or snoring like a buzz saw. (My friend said he was also farting all night, but as I was further away, I didn't get that bit of excitement.)

Next grand adventure!

So I'm already planning the next adventure. I friend and I are going to take the train to Buffalo to visit her Mom. I'm hoping to meet up with some BookObsessed members, and get away from work for another week.

I really do love my job, but since I can't roll over any more vacation, and I'm being forced to take it, well, I guess I've learned to like it!

I'm also managing to avoid writing a paper due in three days. Cap and Trade carbon reductions and senate bill 2191. Yes, it's as interesting as it sounds. Which is why I just can't get into it. I have two more classes and my project to be done with grad school and I have NO enthusiasm for finishing. I'm going to slog thru and finish. I just want to get it over and move on with my life. I'll work on my paper tomorrow, maybe tonight. At night I just want to spend time with my DH. I don't get to see him often because I'm usually off doing something else. I emailed the groups I'm working with in a town about an hour away, and told them not to expect to see me for at least two months. I was driving there two time a week average, and just can't take the time away from my paying job for my volunteer work at the moment. I hope they are fine with it. If they aren't, well, life goes on. They can't drag me 60 miles.

So- reading has become secondary in my life, but I'm reading the first in a series- Diana Gabaldon's Lord John series. I loved the Outlanders, and these are much smaller and faster reads.

Ignoring my paper also meant that I paid more attention to my needlework, and I finished a 4 year project. (Well, I started it before grad school, so shouldn't I finish it first? Sure! Perfect reason to ignore the paper.) The pattern is here but mine looks a bit washed out compared to this. Over 46,000 stitches-56 colors, most of them shades of gray.

I also finished a Hardanger piece, very pretty blue on blue. I'll try to post a photo later.
Now I'm working on a Navajo rug pattern I got in New Mexico, and a HUGE bellpull with loads of blackwork, that is also an older project I want to finish this year. After seeing the Navajo women weaving, I want to take it up again, but I have NO room for a loom, and just can't justify another hobby.

more photos

In the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque- This is the view from the top of those spiral stairs in my last blog, down to the path below. Under the stairs was nothing. My sister, in the stairs photo, had to close her eyes to climb up and down. She was very brave to offer to go back up the stairs for the photo.



This is a Navajo artist (left) with my son, who painted a wonderful painting of five Kokopellis on a piece of limestone. It's just gorgeous, and Matt bought it for an amazing $25. This was taken at White House ruins in Canyon De Chelly.



The "two owls" near First Ruins in Canyon De Chelly.



Me, on a rock, at Antelope House, Canyon De Muerte. You can just barely see the antelope paintings over my head.



At the bottom, where the canyons meet. (De Chelly and Muerte) This is close to where we got stuck in our 4-wheeler. Another tour pulled us out.





All in all, our vacation was wonderful. The train ride down was a bit noisy, with kids out on spring break, but there was a room on the first level of the train that for some reason had all the seats removed, so the kids used it as a playroom, and us non-parents enjoyed them playing elsewhere. We saw a heard of elk and antelope, and a huge fllock of wild turkeys. I was on the lookout for a roadrunner, but I never saw one, even when we were told "Ohm they are all over the place." Right. All over except where I was. We walked along a canal my nephew likes to fish in and saw gunea fowl and quail, loads of ravens, and heard some red-winged blackbirds.





In the morning we hiked up to the 10,000 year old burial cave, and then went to santa FE for lunch and serious jewelry shopping. Serious as in from the Navajo, on blankets, around the town square. I got DH two decorated guitar picks, one from a guy who claimed he made them for Steve Miller. I beleive him. If he would have said Bruce Springsteen, I might not have, but Steve Miller is beleivable. I got several pairs of earrings, and Matt got two sand paintings. He's started collecting tiles, and these go very nicely. Below is a photo of his two sand paintings and the Kokopelli rock from the artist above.








At Canyon De Chelly we stayed at Thunderbird Lodge, which was once an old trading post. The rooms were nice, but the bathrooms were NOISY! Just flushing could be heard from both sides, and if someone was in the shower, you had to close the door or it could easily wake someone up, like me, who was exhasuted from all the hiking and spending.

We played rummy that night, and I lost miserably. Must have been the altitude. Yeah, that's the reason.

The 4-wheel tour of the canyons was a bit expensive, $200 for the six of us, but it was totally worth it. There were other tours, but this one got us all in one car, with no strangers. Our guide was excellent, even getting stuck didn't bother him. Without a guide, you can't go into the canyons, and without going into them, you can't see anything. The second day there we drove around the top rim and got photos looking down. We stopped at the Hubble Traing Post on the way home, and, of course, did some more shopping. (There was shopping IN the canyons too, where there were more Navajo selling jewelry and art.) I saw the most beautiful pot, all hand carved, and I just didn't have the money to get it, and I would have had to carry it home on the train. But I'll probably always wish I had bought it.

We were trying to get to Acoma Pueblo on the way home, but it was just too far of a drive to make it before it closed. Well, that's for next time. We managed a short trip to Old Town Albuquerque before we jumped on the train for home. My nephew loves trains, so he got to come aboard and look around. Still more shopping from, you guessed it, Navajos at the train station. All in all, I got 7 pairs of earrings, two pairs of socks, three T-shirts, several magnets, bookmarks, a pen and a keychain for me, and some gifts for family and friends.

The next great adventure? A trip to Buffalo, NY by train with my good friend, and hopefully a large meetup with the BOs.

Today? Back to work, slogging thru emails, realizing I only have two weeks to write a 10 page paper draft on cap-and-trade carbon credits, and several pages of revisions I promised to do on the watershed plan by wednesday. Oh yeah. Back to the grind.

Back from New Mexico!

OK- So we went to Arizona, too. This is Canyon De Chelly in Arizona. We took a tour with a Navajo guide and got to see Anazasi ruins and cave paintings. It was truly breath taking!

I can heartily recommend De Chelly Tours if you go. The owner, Des Yazzie, grew up in the canyon and explored the ruins as a kid.

We also hiked up the Sandia Monutains to a cave where a 10,000 year old burial was found. We had to climb a spiral staircase to get to the cave that just kind of hung over the cliff. This is my sister on the stairs and my nephew Tanner and me in the cave.

We were well sunburned, totally broke, but we had such a great time!