Ramble On

I am freezing. The weather is changing and I do not like it. My office still has AC running!

Of course I have a wool shawl with me, and if my hands were working (I haven't knitted in a week) I would be working on my Hue Shift over my lunch break instead of typing things.

Here is a photo of me sitting on the ground waiting for my husband to pick me up after work last Friday with my Hue Shift. I really love how it's working up. Maybe I'll take a better photo of it soon (you know I won't).

We had parent-teach conferences this week and I was shocked to learn that my children are "very quiet" in school. My kids? I'm glad they know how to act in public! Anyway, before the conferences we stopped at Lowes (which has all their Christmas decor out, I do not want to talk about it!) and saw this bird eating the bird seed off the floor inside the store so I took a photo. God bless smart phones!

Little bird in Lowes

My lunch is gross (just fat free yogurt and a little honey), and I want coffee. I might make that happen.

eta: I'm still trying to write about my NASA trip, I have a draft and everything, its just not quite right.

I love this video, it was produced over the summer. I know some (okay one) of the students in it fairly well. I wrote an article about her, and she is a genuinely nice person. I'm going to be sad when I don't work at this college anymore.

I'm interviewing for another position at the University but each unit inside the University is called a college...so we have the College of Liberal Arts etc. Right now I work at the Eberly College of Science - just some information for those not in the know- 

Things have sort of gone sideways. I'm okay. More soon.

It's freaking NASA!

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an event at NASA Langley. It was a huge deal to me because I have never been anywhere on my own before for a number of reasons, one reason being that my Crohn's disease makes me super nervous to travel. I had to go this time, because when NASA invites you somewhere, you go, you just do, it's freaking NASA!

I seriously loved this car!

I arrived on a Tuesday, a day early for the events, and thank goodness I did because my flights were delayed forever, but I arrived safely and picked up my adorable Nissan Juke rental car. Now this car was perfect for me, a person who doesn't really like to drive, because it was small and easy to maneuver. It would be completely impractical in my every day life because my dear husband and our children are all super tall, but for this trip, it was perfect. I got to my hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn at Coliseum Central, and pretty much went right to bed. Traveling made me so tired, I was also really missing my kids at this point an it hadn't even been 24 hours!

I slept until 11a.m and it was glorious! The first event didn't start until 3p.m. and that was meeting up with some of the NASAsocial attendees for dinner. We went to this really cute restaurant, The Surf Rider Grill in Hampton VA. I had crab (of course!) and there was this huge shark on the wall, which I took a photo of like the tourist that I was. Thankfully there were a few other people who were also in awe of the shark so we all stood there taking photos and I realized that I was going to be okay surrounded by this group of enthusiastic people who loved science, space, and taking photos just as much (if not more) than I did.

This is very hard to write. Christmas came and went, my grandfather spent the holiday in the hospital but came home a few days later. Then he got shingles and everything went down hill from there. He started having trouble breathing, and ultimately my grandfather passed away in January. Since then things have been crazy and haven't slowed down. Right after he passed I was finally able to sleep again. I feel like he gave me that gift.

The week after he passed I started working at another position in the college, this time in the marketing department. I had the privilege of working on the college's magazine, Science Journal. It was a lot of fun and very challenging for me. The first article I was given to write was about astrophysics, so you can imagine that I felt pretty overwhelmed, but it turned out fine in the end.

After the magazine came out I started training to take photographs and took over the social media for the college, which has kept me very busy, and now we are working on another issue of the magazine.

I think about my grandparents often. I know that I was very blessed to have them in my life as long as I did, but it does not make it any easier. My littlest daughter grew very close to my grandpa while he was living with us. They would sit together and eat Oreos, after he passed away she told me that she didn't know if she could eat Oreos anymore. We've caught her more than once in the weeks right after his death in the room he stayed in, sitting in his spot on the couch, having a snack and watching TV. She said that he'd want her to do that, and I think that he would.