finally!

this was what it looked like after i had run the sample through the seives (the copper things)...i think this is from a striped bass, but it could be a spot. i spent a lot of time running water through these things--what fun!
i have no idea what this is, but i have seen many of them in the guts of spot (a type of fish) and it is cool...i have called it a "itch ball" but i know i need to figure out what it really is...i have a vote for a sponge "spicule"--part of a sponge, but i am not sure...it is hard and fractures when you press it...they are kind'a large (relitively, visable to the naked eye [but not the clothed one]) too...

I have finally finished my guts (for now)!!! i hope to have all of it entered by the end of the week...maybe by wednesday or thursday. that would mean that i could start getting the data analysed next week and see if i have to do more guts (man, i hope not!) but if i do, i will (back of the hand to the forehead and heavy, dramatic sigh).

it snowed 2 weeks ago (slightly!) and that was when mom-cathy and gordon came to town again (it has been WAY TOO long since we saw them!). It was a treat to see them, but also sad, they came on the anniversary of mom's death, sigh...mom's birthday is the day after tomorrow, too. i was thinking about getting/making a small birthday cake in her memory, we shall see.

tomorrow will be a data-entry day, i am not sure if i will finish, it depends on if i stay home (cats, TV and fonda as distractions), or go out ($$) and work without the 3 previously named distractions, but the internet remains, no matter what...i love www.pandora.com--a part of the "music genome" project, it takes some suggestions and then comes up with other, related music then you can say +/- and it will change your preferences...it is fun, because there is NO commercials and if you don't want to hear christmas music, you do not have to! or country, regge, classic rock, what ever you don't like...mine started as a beatles station and has made some odd, but good variations...i am more likely to hit the "+" than the "-" but there are some times when i think "what the heck were they thinking?"

ok, i can't think of another thing at this point to talk about...it is late and i am tired. PEACE. K

the aftermath of TS hanna

well, we survived...the power didn't even go off...sigh. i guess we just have to wait for the next one, huh? i am not really sad...but it feels like a build-up to a big winter storm that should close school and put people into isolation...and then there is just a skin of snow on the ground in the morning. oh, well. sometimes it is better to be disappointed. : )

i woke up ~3:00am and heard the rain and saw some of the trees being wiped around, but nothing really bad! more like a thunder storm, but without the thunder and lightning...it was kind'a boring...but like i said, it is sometimes better to be disappointed. ok, more later.

here she comes...tropical storm/hurricane hanna

i have never been through a hurricane, this one is not supposed to be big, it may not even be a formal hurricane (74+ mph sustained winds)...we have already gotten some rain ~3/4 inch just in ~2-3 hours. they are predicting up to ~4 inches by tomorrow afternoon. tornado watch is also happening until ~5am ...peak of the storm "gusts 35-55 mph, rainfall 2-4 inches" what fun. and there is another one behind "her" ike may head to the gulf of mexico, but it could also take a right at the bahamas and head up here. that one has been a category 4 and is now a 3, but could get strong again (katrina was a 5) (5 is the maximum # they go to). the cars are in the back, the trash cans are laying down near the house and the glass-topped table is upside down near the house too. we are hoping that that is all we need to worry about.

i can't believe that almost all the bread and water and probably the milk is gone from the grocery stores! the other day, alot of bread was missing from the shelves, i thought that there was something wrong...this was WAY before hanna was a threat...i don't understand people. i understand that there is a chance that we might lose power and phone, but this is just weird. it is kind'a like in ohio when a huge snow is predicted! but this is different, too.

oh well. enough for now

time flies/boring life

damn, i didn't know it had been so long since i posted! i have been working on guts and today is a DE day. i have more than 20 to enter and it takes so long...it is really boring work. gotta get back to work soon.

but, until then, i have been having some problems with my hips and knees...think it is because i am fat...we shall see...have a dr. appt to check things out. don't know why it would hit kinda' "out of the blue" oh well.

i am teaching this semester...so far it has been fun, but draining! i expect it to continue in this vein for the whole semester...and maybe next semester too. we shall see...there is nothing happening in my life except guts, DE and teaching....boring!

sigh. another cute picture of steve is attached...he is doing so much better with the prozac--very small dose and it seems to be making him OK with his lot in life and he is not peeing outside the box now (yay!) ok more later. peace

time for a small change/newsey stuff

i finally finished one site, 3 more to go...i spent the last 2 days sorting and condensing. I have it down to ~9 boxes and ~500 guts...some of these are in excess, just to be sure that we have at least 5 full guts...sigh. today we had some kids (age8-10) into the lab to look at the stuff we do. we showed them fish, a conger eel, bowfin, etc. then we had some otaliths and scales and then a shark station with a spiny dogfish...way cool. then we also had an acoustic station that dr. joe tried to run, he didn't do a very good job...sigh. but we had fun and the kids had fun, poking fish, etc. the conger eel was way slimy and made me gag, yuck! but it is also a cool fish.

boss had surgery a few weeks ago (some sort of *plasty) that took the pain from his back. then 2 weeks ago, he went in for a disk-removal and spine fusing to help with some tingling/numbness in his feet...started the surgery and then stopped when he was having some heart problems. he had an angiogram on last monday...one of his arteries was ~99% blocked! the back surgery is on hold for a while...no use having a good back if your heart is not working, Huh? He was resolved and happy to have had the heart attack in the hospital where they could quickly ID it and give him good rx.

last i heard, he had to stay home until today (dr. at the hosp. said 8 weeks off) then his local dr. could make the next goal/or say OK, i guess. i haven't heard.

i made him a quilt, but it needs to be washed and then put somewhere where it won't start to smell like cigs again. i was worried about the quilting, but then got a hint from a woman who is going to teach me more-better about machine quilting...it worked like a charm...i will post a picture soon of this quilt. also i have been working on another quilt that is a challenge. thanks to f's color options, it looks great. i picked out 3 patterns--double friendship, ohio pride and north carolina star...they all have the same 3 colors, but one ended up being ~1.5" larger than the others (opps!) oh, well, again, f's choices helped and i made add-ons so they would be about the same size. it really is nice...more about this later, too.

really this is just newsy stuff...more and pictures later. peace

OMG!! IT IS HOT!

omg!!! i can't believe how hot it is here...we broke a record yesterday of 101 F! the old record was 99 F. our front porch thermometer recorded a temp of 105! (in the shade!). i went out this morning to water the garden (wow, i have never felt 85 F this hot!)--i was sweating within ~5 minutes! holy cow! i was surprised that the plants weren't wilting...the tomatoes look great and the cucumber is doing well too. the flowers are OK, but the new clematis is not growing, just surviving. the compost pile seems to be thriving too. i need to get some support around it and define it a bit more...maybe later, when the weather breaks.

working on guts...have a few to enter and "massage" (manipulate). these need to be re-organized to accommodate all that i need to do with the statistics...i have been arranging the data in 2 formats, what a pain.

hey! my sister just graduated Suma Cum Laude! it took her a long time to finally finish her education, but she did it with a bang! Congratulations to Elizabeth! she is the second kid to graduate with a bachelors degree! YAY! she is now thinking about going back for a MSW--she wants to work in hospice--better her than me, i don't think i could do that...too hard.

time to enter more guts and then go in tonight when it cools down. thank god for air conditioning! but i might be skinnier if there was none...nah, i hate to be hot.

smile. k

la, la, la

la, la, la...going through the guts...gonna' teach a group of people a pattern this friday and then i am helping at a wedding next friday and then teaching on saturday. i will be only teaching 1 person, at this point, but i am happy to do that too.

this past weekend fonda and i went to the John C. Campbell Folk School. what a crazy weekend. we went out on wednesday and stopped in greensboro then ashville and then to brasstown (near murphy, NC). we had a good time getting there. but the hotels were awful! the folk school was great, fun and the food was great! the problem was the craziness of a friday-sunday class. it was intense and crazy. i made a bear, i will show a photo later, once i find the $%^&# camera (smile). she is cute...everyone thinks she is a he, but i know better. she is the most expensive stuffed animal i have. she doesn't have a name yet, maybe soon. i hadn't thought about the cost, then i was talking to some of my cohorts and we talked about it and i didn't include the cost of the class and the room and board...you know.

learning how to make the bear was good, but the instructor left some things to be desired, as well as not including all the stuff needed, i could have saved $10+ by bringing some of the things she supplied and charged us for. i am pleased with the bear i made and i bought some more mohair too, so i could make a cat (i need to figure out how to make the tail and change the ears...anyways...

i miss mom...the folk school was a favorite place for her...no one i met knew her...sigh. oh, well.

more later...gotta think about the guts (smile).

free rice--or: your mom always told you about the "starving childern in (name a place)" now you can do something to help

hey, i just figured out that it takes 19,200 grains of rice to feed one person for one day...that's a lot of rice. check out the link to the right and increase your vocabulary and donate rice to people who need it. this is a UN function and it is easy to donate by playing a vocab game...test your smarts. the highest level i have been to is 45. the highest you can get is 60. they say that most people don't go above 50. i have been averaging somewhere in the mid to high 30s. let me know what your scores are (smile). help to reduce hunger in places that have high levels of starvation. i know your mom always told you about the starving childeren somewhere, so you could be guilted into cleaning you plate and being happy about it. now we know better, but we can also help others, without sending them our brussel sprouts and lima beans (smile). check it out and play as often as you need a distraction.

peace

one hoop down

another picture of the big-girl kitty (Sera) ON Webster. at least they are not in the clean laundry, like usual (stupid us)


i have officially become a candidate...all the papers are signed and stuff. i then had a friend point out that i am now "ABD" (All But Dissertation). well, shit! i obviously didn't think that through (smile). i guess it is kind'a fun to think that all i have left is my dissertation (and learning how to spell, i had to spell-check dissertation-hehe). that is what i have fonda around for, right? kidding, she is making me read stuff before she does...sigh; life used to be so easy, before she caught on that i was giving her my first draft...oh well. she loves me anyways (smile).

guts await...there are no fish retaining guts still, unless they were part of the larger fish's guts. i just have jars of guts in formalin...thank god for a REALLY GOOD fume hood! man, formalin stinks! the little guts are quick and easy, the larger ones are not so much so. so, i just have to slog through them...only one thousand, five hundred to go...but i need to not think in that way, as i said before,

time flies

another random picture of the cats--sera in a box, a big box.

time flies when you are doing other things...i haven't even put an entry in my regular journal...i have been going though fish guts and id-ing who is eating whom, but that gets old quickly. i have also been sewing...a bunch...i have been asked to demonstarate/teach a pattern i came up with, to two different sewing groups...as a class at the original place in june... www.cottonfieldsnc.com ...and in the rocky mount quilt guild in september! i can't believe it! i am so excited and a bit scared, but that is how my life goes.

one of my advisors has not given me a number grade, but 3/4 have passed me and so i will be getting a copy of the paper i need to have signed and get it signed to become a candidate. i will offically be a PhD Candidate after that occurs and then life will proceed in the manner it has been, but one hoop has been jumped and it leaves only a few (dozen) (not really) more. guts are the priority at the moment, i plan to teach next fall, so i need to get as many guts done in the next 4 months as possible, i think i have ~1,600 +/- left to do...no probem, right? well, i guess i need to give up doing anything else for a time, huh?

i have been reading a bunch of books on CD using my mp3 player, i love it--that is how i get through the guts, but my co-workers are constantly asking me questions and talking to me without getting my attention first and it frustrates the hell out of me and it pisses me off...who will learn first? i am not sure...i hope they do. i love listening to books. i need to get some books back to the library and also get some more...what fun!

the farmers market opened last saturday and i got the BEST strawberries-EVER-they are locally grown and yummy...got more on friday morning and we just need to get some more poundcake and then we are set...yummy! i didn't and still really don't like strawberries just plain, but these are really good and i will eat them all given the oppertunity, the ones at the grocery store are OK, but not as good...they are from CA, and maybe cheaper, but not as tasty...thinking about them makes my mouth water...i need to get/make some pound cake soon.

so, we have tons of goldfinches (boys and girls), brown-headed cow birds (boys and girls)(obligate parasites on other bird's nests, but they are preaty), nuthatches (?), morning doves (?), cardnals (boys and girls), some kind of sparrow, house finches (boys and girls), a wood pecker out front, a brown thrasher (way cool), the anole (lizard) chickadees, mocking birds (nest out front with 4 eggs) and bluebirds (nest box out back, also with 4 eggs)

got some plants too...some verbina (mint-like plant that will probably take over, but it is preaty with purple-white verigated flowers), carolina jasmin, creeping phlox (purple), and an aprocot-colored zinnia that the woman said i could dry the old flower-heads and plant them again next year--yea-- the wisteria was beautiful and huge this year, i think i will need to prune it back again, later. the azalias are huge and pink and the dianthis (simple, small carnations) came back this year and are growing like gangbusters and flowering all over the place (ok, just in 4 plants, but i am happy, i didn't think: a) they made it last year, and b) that they might be perenial). one of the fringe trees that fonda attempeted to kill (it was surrounded by weeds, so i can't fault her too much...) a few times in ohio, has seemed to survive the trip to NC and the transplant from one place to another...it seems to be off to a good leafy start at this point. i also planted a hydrangia last year, it is seems happy too, at least leaf-wise, so far. who knows what this year will bring in the plant department...the cactus and suculants managed to make it through the winter this time, i tried to kill some of the succulants last year...they are much more suseptible to drying than the cactus...surprise (not!)!

OK, enough for now...peace.

quote from a friend...how true...

SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES: NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING, BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

weird weather

(get over the spelling errors in this post, can't get the spell check to work)

this photo is of the anoles we have in the area...this was taken in june 2007, but they are the cutest lizards and this one was hanging out in the tree right outside the middle room of our house...what a cutie...we have some others that hang out on the front porch and a differnt kind with blue on them too, much faster than the anoles, too but they don't seem to climb as much either.

it has been really nice for the last few days...we even had the windows open on wednesday to get some stinks blowed out of the house. the birds are ravionous!! i do not know when it will end...we spend more on the birds than the cats, I think. but it is worth it...they are really neat to see...we have a RWBB (red-winged black bird) boy out there now, i have seen a RWBB girl too, but not today.

the land lord tore down his two barns across the street...and a bunch of trees...sigh...he said that he is going to "landscape"...I think that means that he is going to lay sod. he is also going to build a more modern barn to put his boat and trailer into...i guess he is not going to have livestock again. as they were taking down the trees and the barns, everything over here was ratteling, a little disconcerting, but we survived. it was amazing to see them pull down the first barn, it took about a week to get all the pieces down and removed to flat land, the other one was done with a big yellow machine...with a clasper-shovel thing and took 1 day! sigh...i wonder if they are going to take down the barn over here? if they do, i am going to request that we get a small shed to put some of our gardening stuff and the wagon into. we shall see what happens...i am not sure if that will happen or not, but once they get the new barn built, then their stuff in this barn is likely to head over there...why not remove this barn too?

OK...i have heard back from 3 profs re: my exams...2 up-thumbs (81 and 85%) and one down-thumb (from the meanie who i think is still trying to prove something) and one who has not yet read it...my main advisor!?! i am planning to print off a copy for him on monday, if he hasn't read it yet! what a pain. i don't know what the next step is and i don't know what he will think of it, anyways...sigh...well, there it is...i haven't been telling anyone because i haven't heard from all 4, of course the 1st i heard from was the down-thumb...what a ego-bruser. sigh.

almost time to do out an re-fill the feeders for the birds, and go get more cat food too. smile. i just filled it yesterday evening.

birds

we must be the only ones around feeding the birds...we have a TON of goldfinches (picture of winter-boy) hanging out at the thistle feeders and they are also eating at the other feeder, they must be eating the millet. we counted 7+ at each of the thistle feeders plus some waiting for a space, man.

i filled the feeder yesterday and then again today...they eat alot.

goldfinches are cool because they can hang upside down and eat from the feeders...and they are pretty. we also have a pair of cardnals and some birds called a yellow rumped warbler...my bird book says they are also called "butter butts" because they have yellow rumps...what a fun name...and they are cute.

OK, guess i have to get back to data-entry (fun! not)

peace.

done

i'm done-i'm done-i'm dun-n (singing)

finally life can go back to some what of a normal pace...monday starts guts...i love being a fish-girl sometimes.

now i just need to hang out and be cool and wait for them to make the decisions...sigh...

all that matters at this point is that i am done for now.

the photo was taken in 2006 when f and i went to greece--athens...what fun and how cool to see something that people built SO long ago!

OMG!!

first, the photo is of Spot helping me study...there was progression, this is the culmination...what helpful cats we have!

tomorrow is the first day of COMPS! i feel like i want to throw up...i am light headed and can't stuff anymore into my head...it reminds me of the far side where the kid with the small head asks to be excused because his brain is full...i can't figure out what to do.

i have everything ready for tomorrow--the geology part...Dr. R accidentally sent me the copy of the questions along with a spread sheet that is necessary for the test...i saw one question (or part of one) then quickly shut it down and asked if he meant to send that too...it was a HUGE temptation to look at the questions and prepare ahead of time for the test...i was a good girl.

let us see where that gets me? i hope not to throw up today or anytime this week and not to cry in front of anyone either, because i could see that happening too. i have been having problems getting to sleep because i can't turn my brain off enough and then i can't wake up because i am so tired and then tomorrow i have a specific time that i need to be up and showered and ready and i just hope i can do it...waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

keep breathing...i need to find that necklace the one that says "breathe" and wear it for the next few days...i think i know where it is...

i have also been working on a quilt of Mom Scraps...it is taking shape...f can't figure out how i can work on that when i have this HUGE test hanging over my head...i guess i have to tell her my brain is full and i need some Mom-time...i can't believe all the scraps she saved and also some of the colors/fabrics she was using...i think some of these fabrics are VERY old--like something that she got when she first started to sew or something...weird stuff, but i have been having fun...i have no idea how it will be quilted, but we shall see what it ends up like and how big...when do i stop? i guess i stop when i am done...i am having fun and i have squares from 3 other people in there and some squares that Mom did and some 1/2 finished squares too and i put together some pinwheels from some 1/2-square triangles that she had made, but didn't do anything with...we'll see.

gonna go and be stupid at National Geographic puzzle land--what fun!! enjoy the link...pick and choose--it can be overwhelming < href=>"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/yourshot/jigsaw-puzzle.html">

cut and paste if nothing else...so there!