Semester 2, Week 1

The longer I go without posting, the harder it is to start a post. I have all the unwritten posts in my head that I've accumulated over the 'break', and I sit down to blog, and can't decide where to start--one of the unwritten posts (which one?) or just start with today and forget about the past.  Usually, I stare at the screen contemplating for 10-15 minutes, get frustrated that I've used half my blogging time and done nothing, can't decide, and move on to another activity.  Here I go again.

I started a new semester Monday, so this week has been a bit crazy.  It always takes me a couple of weeks to get my new schedule/routines down and get into the groove of the semester. The first two weeks of classes are equally exhausting and exciting. HALF of my Java programming students are women!  This is unprecedented, and I'm looking forward to seeing the class dynamic with an equal gender distribution.

We've had some deaths since the last post, all of them very difficult for us, all of them left sad/depressed friends and family, and all of them are missed tremendously.  We lost Hurley (cockatiel, Poppy's mom, Darwin's partner, Hazel's sister), Simran (parakeet, PZ & Dawkins' partner [it was a beautiful love triangle, and they all got along]), and Quince (rat, last of the original three brothers [Walter & Womble preceded him in death]). The rats have such gut-wrenchingly short lifespans! They have so much personality, and we get so attached, and then they're gone. :(

We've spent a lot of time and money trying to provide shelter and food for the poor outdoor critters through this horrifically cold winter.  We build some little insulated shelters to put outside and have been adding as many shelters and heaters as we can to try to give the poor animals some respite from this nastiness.  We stopped using our garage for the car, so we could fill it with animal shelters  and heated mats and heat lamps.  We have a big heated water dish (which is used all the time, no matter how cold it is), and put different kinds of food out for a variety of species several times a day. I've basically made it the equivalent of a part-time job, while I'm on my winter break. I am so distressed by the misery the outside animals are suffering that I have a hard time sleeping or thinking of anything else.  We will continue to add a variety of warming spots and shelters on our property until we run out of room or until spring arrives.  The heated mats don't provide quite as much heat as I had hoped, but the combination of everything together should help the poor frozen critters a bit.  It was a nice bonus to see that the heated mats are made in the U.S.

We had three pipes burst over the course of three days, two weeks ago. The first was the worst, leaving us with a ice-cold waterfall and three inches of water in our (finished) basement.  This photo shows the offending pipe. We are still in the process of clean up and repair, and our house/lives are fairly chaotic right now. The locus of the flood was right over my office, so our electronics (including the external hard drive containing our backups), all of our household paperwork (taxes, receipts, mortgage info, etc.), my craft supplies (lots of beautiful, unsalvageable paper and photo albums), etc., were complete losses.  We have been busy dealing with cleaning and contractors and haven't really replaced anything but the power strips yet, so we still have to find time to shop.

The fourth day (the first day we didn't start the day with a burst pipe), Dej called and said that they had a pipe burst in their wall. Fortunately, we have a GREAT plumber (Matt Magee, Magee Plumbing), who was awesome with squeezing us in, and squeezing Dej in. He was absolutely overwhelmed with work, as apparently everyone in the area was having the same problem from the extreme cold, yet repeatedly went out of his way to come get us fixed up, so we could at least turn our water back on.  M & I were incredibly stressed about the whole situation, and we agreed that it made a world of difference to have someone we know, trust, and like to guide us through the whole mess.  Until the repair work is done (it will be extensive and they can't start until early Feb.), we are down to one bathroom, which is rough.  Really rough. I feel really stupid and whiny complaining about it, because it's very much a first-world problem, but it has been quite a rude adjustment for us.

We are also fortunate to have a very good support network, which I appreciate more and more as I get older. I see so many people in the world who don't have a good support network, and my heart breaks for them.

M & I have both noticed that we are hyper vigilant since the flooding. We are on edge all the time, constantly jumping up to check things because we hear (or think we hear) something strange. We are both paranoid about every possible type of disaster in our home, and it's exhausting. We're hoping that goes away soon!

Our baby turned 14 this month (poor girl woke up with a nasty cold on her birthday)!  She will start her first college class tomorrow morning. She was supposed to start Tuesday morning, but it was cancelled due to the cold weather (As an aside, it's absurd to cancel college classes for cold weather, and I found it quite annoying!), so she was pretty disappointed. She was admitted as a special student to take a 3-credit art (painting) class.  She had to take her portfolio (photo is one of the digital images she included in her portfolio) and meet with the art professor, who assessed her skill and maturity level to make sure she would be a good fit for the class. Once she passed that hurdle, she had to meet with the admissions counselor for an hour to go over her transcript (I had to make that) and assess her general educational readiness and maturity level. She passed both assessments, and I'm so glad! Art is the one subject I can't really help her with, and she's reached a plateau with her painting and has been very frustrated. I'm excited to see what she will create this semester!  It will also be really nice for her to take a class from someone besides me for a change.

Most exciting, we started our weekly chemistry labs last week.  I found the coolest micro-chemistry kit, which contains everything needed for a one-year AP-level chemistry class. I am totally in love with this kit, and have restrained myself from jumping in and playing with it all at once. Fridays are our lab days, and I'm looking forward to a semester of fun Fridays.