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,