i'm a winner!!!

so...i was nominated (by me) for the "Excellence in Teaching Award (Adjunct) for 2015."  This is a peer-elected award and there was a full-time and an adjunct award.  Voting was open to all the faculty and staff to vote.  long story short...i won the adjunct award!!!!

 what i didn't know was that it came with a monetary award as well! they gave me a check for $100.00!  yay me!  I am a lucky girl!

this is my school-bestie - zenda ^^ is a good egg : )  she was awarded the excellence in teaching award (adjunct) two years ago and she is the one who got the full-time biology position this spring...as i said, i am sad that i didn't get it, but i am glad *she* did : ) 

this is ben - he is with me as being an adjunct ^^ he is a history major and is struggling, too...we will persevere because we have grit!  (per the graduation speaker).  we had fun and i got to see so many of my students graduate and getting ready to head out into the next chapter of their lives...bitter-sweet : )

peace

photos that go with the last post

 the fringe tree - fringing - it is done now, alas, but we did see a juvenile anole on it today : ) - it was shedding and about half the size of an adult.

the new re-blooming lily, it is red with a yellow throat - more sometime soon

 the first bloom of coreopsis this year - this i one i bought to support the students at UNC-Pembrook last year (i think it is a "mouse ear")

this is the second and third coreopsis bloom, different plant - same origin, this is a native of NC. and the flower is about 3 feet tall.

 this is our second strawberry of the season with another one coming on next to it and a third one on the other side of the plant - taken yesterday

 the "Hawaii 5.0" plant it is very compact and much more blue than it looks in the photo - very sweet plant.


 

our garden on 4/27/14 just after planting the cherry tomato on the left

our garden today 5/4/14 with beans in the center and right, a single nasturtium on the center, left that you really can't see yet and carrots, on the right edge, spinach closest, right holes, and lettuce on the far edge...tomatoes at rear - the cherry on the right and the "regular" on the left.  The diagonal line is the shadow of an overhead line.

two and a half baby bean-plants : )  showing the "seed-leaves" or cotyledons (the part we eat when we eat the bean) : ) they will fall off soon because the true-leaves take over with photosynthesis...(the ones shown at the top of the photo, that look like bean-leaves)...

webster stood on my leg for quite a while to get these foot print impressions!

the sunset across the highway on friday, 5/2/14...pretty with the church steeple in the front.

franklynn taking a nap yesterday- if it fits, it ships : )  just kidding...we think it was a bit hot for him, but i am not 100% sure about that...

peace for now, enjoy the pictures : )

end of the semester

wow, this has been an amazing semester...from ice to really hot and some scary weather near-by (knock wood, not here)...and some beautiful flowers so far this spring.  the fringe tree (genus: Chionanthus) is fringing : )  we bought a new re-blooming daylily - it is red and very pretty and flowering as we speak.  I also acquired some cinder blocks from the property and then we bought some topsoil and mulch and now we have a garden that hopefully will be producing: carrots, beans, nasturtium, lettuce, spinach, and "big boy" and "super sweet" (cherry) tomatoes (yuck, but my sweety likes them, so...).  the neighbor has managed to acquire a new kitten : /  we are not happy, but we can do nothing but encourage her to get it neutered sooner rather than later.  we are not happy, because she does not seem to be concerned with them until she wants them and then if they can't be found, there is some, apparently minor, concern, but she made 0 arrangements for them over the winter, so we had 2 1/2-kitties for the winter...when the temps dropped below 32*F.  I guess we may be a bit over-protective, but I just can't stand the idea that we could help and didn't. the cats didn't choose to be outside-only cats...AND they are trying to eat my birds : /  I want to discourage that, but I am not sure how to do so, beyond keeping them inside.

photos will follow sometime after I replace the laptop that failed on sunday...it is now Tuesday, and I am *really* missing it...I am amazed at how dependent we become on technology.  oh, did I mention that I am teaching an online class?  yeah, that makes it really frustrating to try to communicate when there is limited access...I am currently typing from school and I have to go to work in a few minutes...I keep breathing, applying to jobs, and try to keep myself busy and off the streets : )

peace.

snow days

hello all, we had some "snow" here...in reality it was more like 2 days of ice - sleet and freezing rain, and now I know the difference (thank you fonda, for getting me to look it up)...


we ended up with campus closed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday...and Friday morning, but that was not really a big deal for me, as there are no lab classes on Friday.  on Monday afternoon, school was announced to be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday for the Early College High School students (all the K-12 schools in Brunswick County)...we were supposed to have a test on Tuesday - grrrr...oh, well.  so BCC ended up closed as well and then I went out to clean off the car on Wednesday - not too bad, but very cold, so...it took about 20 minutes to clear my car of all the ice - car on and me actively scraping the ice (about 1/2 - 3/4 inch with some "snow" between the layers).  it was thicker on the ground - and it was THICK! when I step on the ice and it doesn't even "think" about cracking, it was thick...and to add to that: it was COLD! especially for *here* but the cats were inside and we had enough propane and we took advantage of Monday to do our (regular, I swear!) grocery shopping.  so because the car was clear, it allowed me to go out on Saturday to the local coffee shop and get coffee and grade some labs that I had been procrastinating in grading...


the students were not happy to come back to the exam, but they (mostly) did OK, at least the ones that took it yesterday - we shall see about the ones that took it today...and I will post about that later. 


that being said, we may be heading up to ohio again soon, fonda's sister is not doing well and is currently in the hospital -  stage IV lung cancer.  we found out about it on NYEve, and didn't realize how far along she was in the illness...no one knew until she called cathy in the middle of the night and was "talking crazy" - apparently she is having some "sundowner" kind of dementia and wakes up not knowing where she is and is not cooperating/combative (in the hospital) and so she has been restrained and then not known why...it is not a good situation, and we are just having to wait and see....no fun...


enough for now - and the battery of my laptop is about 20%, so I need to finish up and power-down.  peace to you-all.

new quilt update...

 

this is the last picture to end the mystery quilt from new-years day : ) this is with borders and I think it complements the quilt nicely - I really like the "cheddar" or what fonda calls "orange" final size was 81.5" X 70" - a short twin-size : )

my most recent quilt-top

this was done through a mystery quilt challenge - apparently more then 1500 people did the quilt.

my chosen fabric... I chose to do it in a "scrappy" format...

I messed up with the cutting - cutting the "darks" in squares and the "lights" in rectangles, instead of the other way around : )

then I got to make some cool one-seam flying geese (too cool method that I am gonna keep in my repertoire)!  the only "bad" part was that there were 120 of these puppies and then I had to iron all of them : /   I then had to wait to get the next clue...I wasn't sure how it was going to go together

then the next clue, we had to put 4 together in sets - 30 sets : )

then the long-bits were put together...the blue-green bits were mom-fabric...the yellow is also called "cheddar" haha...

 

then...how were they put together? the double columns are put with the sets of flying geese, in alternate ways - 1/2 of the geese went up and half down - and then arranged as so:

of course, it ended up being 5 squares by 6 (there were 30 sets)...I really like it, I rearranged the light/dark bits of the columns because I mixed up in the original cutting as stated above...I think it would not be as striking if the blue was the ribbon and the yellow was the broken ribbon, but I am not sure - I think it would look good either way : )

I had a good time and it was neat to see other people's color-combos

this is the main thing I did over break...weird, I know...oh well...I had thought to have done more sewing...I did make blocks for another quilt, but it needs a bit more and I ran out of one of the colors - so now I need to find some dark calico fabric to make the missing blocks - I need about 1/2 yard to make it OK - I gotta ask fonda for some assistance in the color-choice.

there is another one that I have been working on for a while - but I am kinda stopped until I get some time to sit down with it and process with it a bit...it is a variety of 5.5" blocks that I am making...so far, I have ~30 blocks and my goal is ~100.  time will see - I have a "map" of blocks that I wanna do and these flying geese have given me an idea for how to do one of the blocks...we shall see : )

there is another one that is very small (baby-blanket-size) and now I need to figure out a backing for it...

enough for now...there are other things going on in our world, but I am not going to discuss them now...maybe later...for now - happy new year and...

peace

so...

here it is a few months later and I tried to go up the light with my sister and my nephew (they came in October for fall-break)...didn't happen, again.  but we had a great time playing around SE NC : ) 

thanksgiving was not as hard as in the past, but still...we hid at home and didn't answer the phone. I felt a little bad, but really didn't want to talk.  no one really knows what thanksgiving was like for us when mom was alive and the drifty-ness of not having that anymore.  we plan to arrange our own new traditions - similar to what we did with mom, but not yet.  we need to be more settled and less feeling like we are in a temporary situation.  *I* am not ready yet.

so now, classes are almost over for the semester...here it is December 2 and classes are over on the 16th...time flies

frustrated on the job search...but I will not give up.

on another note

 

 

we have a half-cat - he is really the neighbor's but she will not let her cats inside because of her leather couch.  he is a yellow-tabby kitten and he is very sweet, and we feel bad that he is outside on really cold nights...the neighbor knows that he sometimes hangs out in our house and has come looking for him on occasion.  don't know what we will do if he gets hit by a car or attacked by a another animal...been thinking about spending the $$ to get him checked out to be sure our kitties remain healthy, too.

 

ok, enough complaining for now...

 

peace.