well...you know...

stuff happens : ) 

my sister pointed out that it had been a long time since I had posted...I didn't realize how long! it has been since may! wow, how time flies...summer was too long, but too short.  my dad came to visit and we had a really good time.  we went to oak island and visited the light house http://www.oakislandlighthouse.org/ it is a really nice light and they give free tours (donations accepted, of course) with some advance notice and all wearing close-toed shoes.

this is the oak island light (not taken that day)

this is an "arty" photos with all the clouds and a bit of rain (taken that day)

 

dad with my umbrella (not grey skies to the north (left of dad) - we weren't sure we would be able to go up, but it stopped raining and there was no lightning - so we were able to go...

this is a colonial tunicate (some species are called "sea squirts").  it looks like a rotten orange, but it really is an animal, I swear! haha

this is what the inside of the lighthouse looked like : )

looking up

 

this is the inside of the lighthouse - looking down from the second level (there is an elevator, but it is for the use of light-maintenance only, not people!)...this is as far as *I* went - I just couldn't stand stopping on the stairs - it is "ship stairs" not a spiral stair...I decided that I had gone far enough (there is a total of 127 steps, I think. I forgot the real number)...dad bravely continued on : )

 

there was one other person who wimped out but we were both OK with doing so...better to say you should not go than to get to the top and say that you cannot get back down! haha



this is dad from two levels further on - peace-out dad! 

 

the view from the top, looking west (ocean to the left, sound to the right) (photo by dad-kleber)

the view to the east, the mouth of the cape fear river - looking at bald head island and out into the Atlantic ocean beyond (photo by dad-kleber)

and dad (from the ground) looking down : ) 

 

we really had a good time doing this and I can't wait for my sister and her son to come and let me try again : ) - I may still wimp-out, but I will try again!



 

 

OK - enough for now - more later : ) enjoy the pictures

 

peace.

tomorrow is the last day...

of the semester...sigh.  and I am still waiting to hear from 3 places about work in the fall - and I am assuming that no news is bad news for me...good news for someone else, but not for me.  I had such big hopes and it has been very frustrating doing this job-search thing for all the time I have been doing it.  I want it to end...but I guess I will continue to search. 

what do these people want? I have no clue as to what they are looking for.  do they want me to be more-better than I am? I can work on that.  I certainly hope that it is not that I am fat, though I understand that it might cause them some consternation of health-issues...but I am healthy, able-bodied and capable, my weight should make no difference, but I am afraid that the last place I interviewed it might have been an issue - I am not sure if the assumptions were because it was a rainy day or because they did not think I could walk the distance without having an issue.  I can and did walk around, up/down stairs, etc.  I didn't have a problem...except for the stupid sweat/hot-flash stuff...frustrating because I had no control over the sweating, even if I had been in an a/c bubble I would have been sweating - grrr...oh, well.  they will never tell me if that is the issue because they are supposed to be non-discriminatory (eye-roll)...oh well. 

ok - just needed to vent a bit...I know it will happen someday, but I wish it would happen more soon.

getting ready to quilt and craft and prep for fall at BCC...summer...

peace.

almost the end of the semester!

holy cow!  i can't believe that the semester is almost over...there are only about four weeks left...i have been applying to some more places - still aiming for teaching - i had two interviews at two different NY community colleges last week and an interview for a NC 4-year college next week.  we shall see what happens...if all else fails, i guess i still have my pt time...i expect to hear from the NY schools anytime, but who knows...

i have been really wound up with school and applying for jobs - so i have not been creative recently, but i have plans : )...fonda has gotten some new paper and i have plans for some fabric... i am trying to figure out if i am gonna do it all by hand or partially by machine (knowing some will have to be done by hand) - a variety of 5" blocks. 

we have many birds to the feeders (mostly sunflower seed and then some thistle and a block of suet) - cardinals, chickadee, tufted titmouse, some kind of sparrow (field?), goldfinches (only here in the winter!), mourning doves, red bellied woodpecker(s), juncos, i saw a piliated woodpecker (BIG!), i know there are some warblers around (like yellow rumped warbler)...there has been at least one opossum around - i had to re-install the squirrel guard to reduce the thieving by them.  i am sure there are more, but i have not remembered them now...we are going to have to buy more sunflower seed soon...

and we had to replace the lawn mower which stopped working in the middle of the last mowing of the season last year - i will have to start mowing soon (this weekend?) new-to-us = $60...we shall see how it works : )

and some random photos : )

me and wren march 2013

sera-toes march 2013

egret at school february 2013

moon-set photo from driveway march 2013

that is all about there has been recently - now for - Peace.

here we go...

so...i found out on thursday (i should not check my email in class, even if the students were working on their own to fill out the review for the exam...) that a friend of mine had died.  the husband-wife team (Rick and Lori) of my favorite quilt store, Rick died...i am so sad for lori and for the family...this was a surprise - she sent an email around 3 a.m. saying they are at the hospital and then second one at around 9 a.m. saying that he had died.  i am sad.  he was not old enough (is anyone old enough?)...he was in his 50s! tomorrow is the visitation...we are heading up to wilson, nc to see lori and be sad.  i wish there was something we could do to help her...suggestions welcome. 

on other points - i figured out that i have applied to at least 100 different places in the last year...i also figured out that one place i interviewed (but did not get offered the position) hired someone from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (read: TONS of experience and at an AWESOME school!) - i can't believe that i was in competition with someone with that kind of back ground...so i guess that there is something to that - i have the power, but i also have a lot of competition...

sigh.

peace

new year...(duh!)

well, it is a new year...and nothing much has changed.

gearing up for the next semester - starts on monday-next.  i have already done soem things on moodle, the web-based course communication tool that bcc uses...i need to try to catch up more now than at the last minute...need to make a saturday/sunday pledge to be sure that the next week is visable to students - i suppose i could make it all available, but i like to make changes...we shall see.

finally read stranger in a strange land and it was really good - i can't believe that i didn't read this quite some time ago...robert heinline is really a neat author, he has some good imagination...

gonna go and do more stuff - or not : )

peace.

thinking...

today was Mom's birthday...sigh...thinking about her off and on all day...

thrusday is the last day of the semester (!).  i have signed my contracts for next semester and i am looking forward to break and then starting thing all over again...i have got to ask how to make sure the semester don't run together and make me think i have talked about something that we have not covered yet...i am sure it is just as frustrating to the students as to me...wow.  there has to be a trick some where, huh?  i will ask around.

 i have been making pocket kitties (and a pocket puppy) from The Red Boot Quilt Company (http://www.redbootquilts.com ) she is AWESOME and has some really cute patterns - very heavy on the applique, but a lot of fun and really cute.  i can't wait to make more - so far i have been working with fake-fur and "minkie" fabric and they are really cute, but they were originally devloped for "flat" fabric and they are still cute...they have a built-in kickstand : )  their tails : )  i will make more and post photos as i take them...she has also posted a pattern for a cute bird (free!), so check out her blog at the above address and you can find a link to her store for patterns in paper and pdf format - the pdfs are pretty cheap...be aware that she is in Australia and therefore a WAY different time-zone than us here in North Carolina : )...she will contact you back ASAP... she is fun and nice and neat and she has a very dry sense of humor (based on email conversations and blog-reading)...hope she is really a nice person, she is very creative...

anyways - here are the photos of the first Kleber pocket kitty... front and side (showing kickstand) - they are only about 3 inches tall               =^..^=

ok...the end of the semester can't come fast enough, but is coming too soon...and then the crazyness of the holidays and all that jazz...wonder if we can go on a blackout of all the crazies? probably not, as some of them are our families (haha!). 

wishing that one of my students had not doused their study-guide with a blob of perfume of some kind - it is 3 feet away and in the middle of a stack of papers ~1.5 inches thick and i can still smell it!  wow!  thank you that i do not live with that student!

ok - enough for today.  missing mom, overwhelmed by the end of the semester, and a friend in the hospital for a reason we are not sure of yet (thoughts and love to her!), and then to add to that: all that i need/want to do...sigh...all i can do is keep breathing : )  and remember the what the white rectangle on the back of my care *used* to say "the only constant is change" (from Mom)...

peace.

hope springs II

well, i have an interview tomorrow afternoon (via Skype)...we shall see...i am not even sure i want the job, but it sure would be fun (in Maine, teaching a VERY small group of girls) and i know i would learn A LOT... 

at the same time, i am still applying for other jobs - in IL - who knows, it sounds like an awesome place to work (big community college) with tenure options...as well as NC, PA, etc.

who knows...

just a little up-date

and a cool sera-eye picture - i swear she was not crabby, she was on my lap : ) (taken with my iPad).

peace