August 28, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
A couple of weeks ago, I was at Texas Seestor and Trainwreck’s home. Older niece (M) had just gotten a set of legos the night before. So, on Saturday night, we all trekked to the family room to hang out and play legos with M.
Of course this also meant that Scoochie (S) went with us, and Texas Seestor and I had to strategically stretch our legs out to prevent her from getting to the legos. I was mostly in charge of making the barrier and Texas Seestor was in charge of watching her like a hawk to make sure that S didn’t get into anything. S is VERY curious and loves to explore.
S decided that since she couldn’t get to the legos, the next best thing would be the wooden puzzle. It was perfect for lifting and chewing, evidently.
I think that is it for now. I’m still sort of half asleep. It was a challenging week. But good.
August 23, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
Saturday, instead of my going up to my sister and brother-in-law’s home, they all drove down to see me for a few hours!
Take home message of this post: It was really, really great!
Some details:
The 50 min drive here apparently went well. My older niece (M) was apparently playing with my younger niece (S) by doing raspberries for about 20 minutes.
When they arrived, I heard something slam (must’ve been front doors of their vehicle), and I peeked out my window and saw that they had really arrived! I went outside, and when M saw me, she RAN at me with this HUGE smile on her face! I squatted down and she lunged into my arms; right before I lost my balance, I was able to put a hand on the ground behind me to keep from toppling over. It was really terrific. S also smiled at me with a big grin when she noticed me.
When we got to the pool at my apartment complex, we realized there was no one else there! Perfect!
A couple of sort of funny things about my pool are 1) I’d actually never been swimming in it and 2) once we were in it, it seemed a lot bigger than it did when I had just walked around it on an earlier visit.
We realized pretty quickly that M LOVES this pool. There is a ledge that goes all around one side of it that is a perfect height for her to bounce around on. S also LOVES the zero entry section. She crawled around with this huge smile on her face. She also had this huge grin when Texas Seestor carried her around in the water. The challenge with S is that she is so adventurous and curious that she leans forward suddenly and dumps her face into the water. Which is a bit of an eek moment! Oddly, she seems to know to hold her breath already.
So we all swam around, splashed, played with squirt toys, and dunked ourselves in the waterfall.
It was a whole lot of good, Texas, hot weather fun.
We went out to supper to a tex-mex restaurant that had yummy, homemade, puffy tortillas. During supper, M kept asking if we’d be going back to my apartment. We were wanting to make sure that they didn’t leave much later than 7:00ish so that they could get home in time for her bedtime, so we kept telling her “yes, for a little while.” She seemed okay with that. Once we realized there would be enough time, I told her that we could play playdough for a while too. I was feeling rather uncreative without the usual set of cookie cutters that we use at their house when playing playdough; I guess I’m going to have to get some cookie cutters! M didn’t care if I was creative or not creative, and we had a lot of fun.
I don’t have any pictures I can share with you for this visit, but I’ve got some others that I’ll post later from last weekend.
bye for now!
August 21, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
From the title of this post, you might think that I have another dreaded shopping experience to relate. For those of you who have been reading for some time, you will recall the various posts about this.
But I have happy news to relate this time! I went shopping after work yesterday from about 6:30-8:00 pm. Yes, it really did take me an hour and a half, but that is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better than my usual 3-4 hour experience trying to find pants (and sometimes still coming up empty-handed).
I found a pair of pants – dressy & black – that are a) appropriate for professorial-atire and b) probably the best fitting of all time! woooot wooot!
Where did I find these magic pants? Once again, they are from Dress Barn.
Having pants to wear on days when I’m in the lab is a much, much better option than wearing a medium-length skirt and trying to find closed-toed shoes that don’t look completely dorky with a skirt. I will continue to plan a shopping trip to find decent clog-like or some other super comfy style of shoes for wearing with a skirt for when the lab isn’t using anything spillable. Honestly, I feel much safer wearing pants in the lab when working with solutions.
But get this, pretty soon I’ll have my very first lab coat that has my name and degree on it! I’ve never had this before, and it is very exciting!
I also get a) business cards – which is another first for me and b) a permanent (engraved) magnetic name tag to wear at school functions – another first. Well, that is if you don’t count the name tag that I wore as a teenager when I worked after school and during summers at Hardees. 
Anyway, I suppose to some, these are sort of frivolous things. But I really like these kinds of indicators of permanence.
I’ve had so much stuff going on this week that I don’t even where to begin. Suffice to say that it is exciting to have everyone reporting back to school, but the work load has also increased dramatically. I will have to fall back into my “old ways” by working on stuff for school for most of the weekend. That means that for the first time in about 3 months, I’m not going to spend the weekend with Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, Munchie, and Skoochie.
Munchie (M) has been asking all week about when I am coming back to their home. And for most of the week, I had planned to be there from Friday night (after M’s bedtime) to Sunday morning when I leave for church. So Texas Seestor and Trainwreck have been telling her Saturday. I guess each day, she also says something like, “Today is Saturday!” And then they have to tell her something like “noooooooooooo, today is Tuesday.”
But as of Thursday night, I realized that there is just no way I can swing a visit up there and still get all of my stuff done. Texas Seestor and Trainwreck had to break it to her yesterday (Friday) morning and I guess she was very, very upset and insistent that I was still coming to visit. Thus ensued Trainwreck and Texas Seestor to brainstorm a solution, and they have decided to drive the 50 minutes down to my apartment after naptime to go swimming at my complex, and then go out to supper. We are all hoping that this will help smooth over the change in plans. It just breaks my heart to hear how she has been asking all week about me and then to hear how upset she got.
I’m also looking forward to seeing them. To be quite honest, it is really hard for ME to not see them this weekend too. I had really wanted to get to see them most weekends. But this week has been rather unusual in that my entire day has been booked with meetings from start to finish. So, I’m hopeful that I can go back to seeing them for one day each weekend. Or at the very least, for part of the weekend.
And with that, I need to buckle down and fly through my prep for the coming week’s lectures! See you on the flip side!
August 4, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
Hi there,
I still have every intention of posting my “Fun Outings with Mom and Dad – part 2″ to follow-up on the part 1. But currently I’m uploading HD video to Flickr which is sucking up all of my bandwidth and my patience for navigating around the internet. Thus, it will have to wait.
Now, WHY am I uploading video to Flickr, you may ask?
Well, as it turns out, today is my Dad’s 65th birthday! Yes, this is the milestone that is allowing him to retire in a couple of weeks! wooooooooooooo hooooooooooooo for Dad!
And it won’t be long until Mom and Dad live here and I see them quite regularly; or at least, I hope to see them regularly.
Happy 65th Birthday, Dad!!
======
In other news, the kinds of things that are going on with me:
1) I’m trying to compile all of my research needs (i.e. supplies and equipment). Right now, I have an excel file with at least 6 sheets, and the total is at $45,000 spread out over 3 years. To give you a point of reference, some schools will offer $25k to $75k as start-up money for a new faculty member’s research without even knowing what you want to buy. Instead, I’m not getting any start-up money, and I’m writing this up so that our development office can go out and ask private donors for money.
After talking to a mentor of mine at school who has been around the school for quite some time (and received the no-strings-attached start-up money) he suggested I go ahead and ask for new versions of some of the ancient stuff that we already have. This would be things like a new -80C freezer (around $12k) and a new microcentrifuge.
When I was looking for a refrigerated microcentrifuge for spinning down small tubes in the 1.5 ml range. I found this woooooooooooooooooooonderful new centrifuge by Eppendorf which can do small tubes, as expected, but can also, surprisingly do 6, 15 ml or 50 ml tubes. And with alternate rotors, can spin down microplates, PCR plates, PCR strips and just on and on! It is intended to be an economical alternative to buying two separate centrifuges; usually, a lab has to have one centrifuge for big tubes and one for small tubes/plates etc.
OMG. I really, really want that centrifuge.
How many bake sales would it take to buy this centrifuge, I wonder? hmmmm…. probably too many.
My mentor’s suggestion is that the worse they can do is say no and that I might as well ask.
2) Now I have to write a cover letter/case statement for why I need this stuff. It is nothing like writing a real grant, but it is still time consuming. Once I write it, my mentor suggests that I get input from everyone in the dept (all 5 people). Which, again, is easy, since it is only 5 people. But that will also require at least 5 meetings during a time when most people are on vacation.
3) In the meantime, I’m feeling the pressure that I ought to be working on my syllabi and first days of lecture. Classes don’t start until the 24th, so really, I have quite a bit of time. Last year, I went on vacation to Port Aransas just prior to the start of classes. Consequently, I wrote my syllabus 3 days before classes started; it turned out fine. So, I’m trying to console myself with that.
4) I have exciting news on the music front! In a few weeks, I am going to join a really awesome Praise Band at my newly-found church! Joining this band has been a bit tougher than what it would be if I’d gone to one of the other churches that I’ve found down here. Other churches have sort of been desperate for vocalists. The church that I’m going to be singing at has really high standards and more than just me who wants to join it. So, I had to prove to the director that my voice is good enough, my spirit is in the right place (so to speak), I’m better than the other people, and I’m responsible enough to be in the band. He has gotten burned in the past by someone who wouldn’t show up for church every now and then when she was scheduled; thus, my being dedicated is a significant part of his willingness to let me join. Well, that and my voice, of course.
I’ll sing solos every now and then, maybe duets, but I’ll mostly be doing back-up harmonies. Since I looooooooooooooove singing harmonies, I think that this will be a perfect fit.
And, better yet, the pastor is awesome, awesome, awesome. AND it is UCC (United Church of Christ).
I grew up Disciples of Christ which merged with the UCC quite some time ago. Anytime I’ve moved, I’ve always hoped to find a UCC church that has good music and good sermons, but it has been a bit hit or miss. I’ve ended up at at a Methodist church and, most recently, a Lutheran church, instead.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the UCC, it is pretty much the most liberal Protestant denomination out there. They were the first to ordain female ministers, the first to allow openly homosexual ministers to be ordained, and they have always been at the forefront of ways to be accepting of all people (hence the “united” part of the name). This fits with how I view what Jesus was trying to accomplish in his own ministry when he was here on Earth; so it is a better fit for me than any other denomination.
Well, I think that is enough for now. I ought to get ready to go into school and work on this cover letter/case statement. And maybe I’ll work on my syllabus when I need a “break” from it.
Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!
July 28, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
I mentioned previously that I had some fun things going on last week that I would share with you, and here they are.
Last week, Mom and Dad were here in TX. They drove some things down (and across) from IN on Saturday that can’t be moved by the movers. They also wanted to use the week to make a decision about tile and carpet for a large percentage of their new house here in TX. And to top it off, there was the possibility that some of it could actually be installed that very same week!
On Monday, they chose tile and carpet, and I worked on a manuscript for some of my research. oodles of fun, that.
On Tuesday, they came down to my apartment so that Dad could see it for the first time in person and so that Mom could see the latest stage. I had hoped to get the last two boxes of decorative things unpacked before they arrived, because I had visions of them helping me hang framed art that day. However, it just took me too long to do the manuscript on Monday and other unpacking/cleaning on Tuesday morning.
Consequently, we used our Tuesday to go out to a fabulous, fabulous German lunch and go site-seeing. Lunch was just amazing. I had three kinds of sausages, sauerkraut, red cabbage, and what they called “German potatoes.” Turns out German potatoes are fried/sauteed potatoes cooked with baaaaaaaaaaaaaacon that have baaaaaaaaaaaaaaacon bits on them. OMG were they ever good. The sausages were fabulous.
Did I say the food was amazing?
Anyway, on the way to shopping in the historic part of town, I drove them past a couple of things that my town is known for. And we happened to go past the library.
Note that these were taken on one of my prior visits to the library; we did not go inside on this trip.
I love the high ceiling, natural light, and light fixtures inside.
And this library is the one that has the Starbucks machine inside; that is very funny to me, since I didn’t even know they existed.
Here is one of the landscaping features you see as you walk to the front door of the library.
And on my way to the parking lot, I spotted this sign.
That sign for the reading garden intrigued me, so I decided to venture to the back of the library
Turns out, it was just a very open space with benches and minimal landscaping. But I did see a lovely crepe myrtle that was in bloom.
And then we headed to the historic and tourist-y shopping district in town.
I hadn’t taken my camera with me, which was a shame, because there were some lovely places that were really photo-worthy, but that just means that I’ll have to go back!
We had a really fun time there. We were mostly just browsing, but we did keep an eye out for a breezy gardening hat for Mom. We saw a LOT of various decorative things for inside and outside. In fact, Mom found a great wrought iron, glass, bead and bell hanging piece; I guess it could be considered a windchime. She was hesitant to buy it, but the price was so low, that Dad and I went back to buy it for her.
I found this really interesting stone that is in the shape of a smooth egg that changes color inside (very subtly) depending on the angle from which you view it. And I scoped out clogs. I have been debating with myself about buying a pair of clogs for school. Not being able to wear open-toed shoes in labs means that I have to think a bit differently about what kinds of shoes are wearable for work.
And then, pretty soon it was time for us to end our day of site-seeing. But we made plans for another outing for Wednesday.
- to be continued in part 2 -
July 24, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
Last week, HB and I finalized our decisions about our divorce decree agreement. Consequently, on Monday, I printed it out, proofed it one more time, signed it in front of a notary, and sent it by 2-day FedEx letter to him.
He received it, looked it over one more time, signed it in front of a notary, and filed it with our county court yesterday (Friday, 23rd) in MN.
At the end of that sentence, I sighed inadvertently.
Now, we wait for the judge to get around to making a decision on it. Could be 2 weeks, could be 3-6 weeks.
Once he signs it, we will be officially divorced.
I, as you might imagine, have mixed feelings about being at this stage. Part of me is glad to have everything almost finalized; part of me is still sad about the breakdown of our relationship. My feelings sort of ebb and flow; I say that, because it doesn’t feel quite right to refer to it as a rollercoaster or some sort of up and down analogy.
So, there you have it. The latest update on our process.
I have had happy stuff going on this week, and I’ll write about it more soon.
July 21, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 10 Comments
Last week, I was at Port Aransas, TX, near Corpus Christi on the eastern coast of TX, for vacation. I was with Texas Seestor (TS), Trainwreck (Tr), older niece (M) and younger niece (YN).
I had an exceptionally great time. Floating around, swimming, bouncing around, and playing in the pool for pretty much all day from 8:00am to 4 pm was just fantastic.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I am definitely a “water” when it comes to the whole water, air, earth, fire personality types. My dreams are usually water dreams, and I just love the feel of being in the water. I never dream about earth. If fire or air is in my dreams, it is usually a nightmare of some sort.
Anyway, mornings were usually a time when I sort of took care of M, because she and I both wake up early (6:00ish). Most mornings, I was only able to occupy here and allow TS and Tr to “sleep in” until 6:30, maybe closer to 7:00 if we were all lucky.
One morning after she woke me up at 5:00am, I really wanted to go out to the water and take photos of the sunrise. You might recall that last year, I was able to take sunrise photos every morning from our condo’s patio and I wrote a blog post this spring with a few of my best shots.
This year, due to the location of our room, I actually had to take more time to do it, because I had to take the boardwalk out to the beach to get shots.
But I love the boardwalk, because it allowed me to experience this interesting transition from condo and building to ocean. And on the way, I was walking past the dunes which were actually still green this year and not all dried out; I guess all of the rain they got a couple of weeks ago due to hurricane Andrew was actually helpful.
Here is the end of the boardwalk before I got onto the sand.
And then just as I was setting up my tripod at the bottom of the steps, this group of about 8 (or so) teenage girls dressed in white gauzy dresses start walking past me onto the beach. Right into the sunrise area.
ugh.
But the adult who was with them, with the big fancy camera, stopped and talked to me about how it was their last morning here and how the sunset the previous night didn’t work out. How she had to get them all up and ready by 6:00 am, blah, blah, blah. I was sort of sympathetic, but I also knew this might be my only morning to get out and take photos. She ended up saying that she’d try to keep them down the beach and out of my line of images. They were only partly successful. Thus, some of my photos do not have the sun actually centered. *sigh*
But, I caught the first glimmer of the sun over the clouds.
And one of my favorite parts is the sound of the seagulls calling out to each other over the background sound of the ocean waves.
Once the sun rose a little more, I decided to try to capture my joy in being out there. This required me to use the self-timer on my camera and to sort of guess where I needed to be in the photo.
For the first one, I only had the timer set at 10 seconds, because I didn’t check it ahead of time, and when I got out there, I realized that I’d left my shoes on. As I was trying to pull off my shoes, the camera snapped the shot.
oops.
setting it for 20 seconds worked out a bit better.
of course, when I ran back to the camera, there was that girl in the photo again.
it isn’t perfect, but it is all that I had energy for.
I realized it is quite difficult holding ones balance with ones arms raised in joy while not knowing when the waves were going to come in. Once a wave comes in and the water sucks back out, it is rather hard to keep ones balance.
Then attempts with the sun shining on me.
oops.
try again.
then back to the ocean and the birds and some close ups.
After some photos of the seaweed, I headed back.
It was a beautiful way to start the day. It made up for waking up at 5:00 am.
And then, after breakfast, it was back to the pool with M. We had it all to ourselves for about an hour.
It was really wonderful.
July 8, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
One of my favorite parts of MSNBC MSN online news is their category called “Animal Tracks.”
I don’t go to the MSNBC site everyday, so I often miss it, because they only have it every few weeks or so. But the good thing is that once you are on it, if you keep clicking previous, it will keep taking you back to older ones.
I was looking at it today, and some of the photos were reminding me of my family.
My older niece, M, usually bonks some part of her body at least once a day – I think she may average around 3 a day right now.
Texas Seestor is usually the one who consequently holds her and kisses it to make it better. So this photo reminded me of them.
Please don’t think that the appearance of either of them remotely resembles the orangutans!
Then I saw these photos, which reminds me of my younger niece (YN) when she is eating her mushy foods by spoon in her highchair.
Thank goodness there is just one of her! Can you imagine feeding triplets? or more?
This next one reminds me of playing blocks, playdough, or cartons with M. She just loves to make towers.
And this final one reminds me of my parents’ new home in TX.
There are a LOT of deer in their neighborhood. And when I say a LOT, I mean that the house right next to them had 3 deer in it the other week eating the grass. And one of the homes down the road had a whole herd of about 10! TEN deer!
crazy.
And since they live on a golf course, I wonder how many times the golfers end up seeing deer run across the course?
And did you notice those pants on that golfer???
too funny!
July 5, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
Yesterday, we did the sort of thing that Americans do on the 4th of July when they live in a warm weather state.
We went to the pool!
This pool is far nicer than most, because it is at a friends’ home.
Here we are headed down to the pool.
But this photo also serves another purpose, because you can see the little awning covered area that is next to the pool. This is where we did the other Key American Event on the 4th of July: we grilled. (We being the male half of the couple that owns the home.)
Of course, to put a true Texas spin on the holiday, we grilled meat for fajitas.
But believe me, the fajitas were really fantastic, and a real treat, as compared to burgers and hot dogs.
And we finished the meal off with another Key Food on the 4th of July: apple pie with vanilla ice cream on the side.
yuuuuuuuuum.
it was a lot of fun! 
July 3, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
Those of you who look at Flickr regularly may have already noticed the plethora of photos taken and captioned as being at my mom and dad’s house here in TX.
The basic story is that since they have not moved here yet, but they have closed on their house, Texas Seestor or I go once a week to check on it.
Last weekend, we needed to deliver a piece of furniture to Mom and Dad’s house. And while we were at it, we figured we’d look at the sprinkler system and try to figure out how to make it water more in the sunny backyard and less in the shady frontyard.
We were afraid to tell M (older niece) where we were going for fear of confusing her. We didn’t think that we could tell her we were going to Bam-ma and Bop-pop’s house without her thinking that they were actually going to be there. Instead, we just told her we were going on “an adventure to a special house!” She seemed to think that was explanation enough for a car trip.
When we got there and we could show her the empty house (and lack of Bam-ma and Bop-pop), it was easier to explain the concept that this is where they would live…
…. sooooooooooon.
First, she just wanted to check out the outside by looking through the windows.
She was a bit hesitant to go outside while her younger sister (YN) was hanging out inside.
But when I pointed out the swing in the backyard and told her I was going out there, she was ready to go!
I don’t have a pic of the two of us swinging, but I got that one of Trainwreck carrying YN out to that part of the yard.
Here are some additional shots of their backyard.
This one is from underneath the arbor. You can see the swing again just to the left of the upright.
Here is another shot taken from under the arbor.
Lest you think all of that green grass is their backyard, I should explain that their backyard backs up against a golf course. The golf course starts around where those double trees are located; the closest part of the shadow that they are casting is about where it switches from their yard to the golf course.
It is really peaceful.
I’m sure that you will see more photos of us out there over the years.
I’m looking forward to their moving here this fall!