Its a beautiful day today

I'm currently chilling on he southern side of an all glass building on campus. The south facing windows are allowing me to keep comfy warm.

High today is 30 F low of 0 F. And the city is celebrating the warmth. And the artic winter games that are in town. I got to see the snow boarding competition. There were some really crazy moves! The city is packed. Traffic is terrible.

I am wearing yoga pants and my new five-finger toe shoes, and comfortably using the campus wifi to relax after work in the museum. The back of which is pictured there. Also visible from my perch.

 

I was setting up for a program I am running tomorrow for children and adults alike. This event is called "Birds of Prey." It's fun to run these activities and interact with people, answer some questions and hunt with them for new answers. 

I pulled out all of our raptor stuffed birds. I have an entire table to great horned owls. I have two complete stuffed specimens, three wings, three feet with talons, a head and two tails. Its really cool. We have about 15 different species represented. The best part about all of this - its all hands on. All of the birds and bird parts can be handled and touched by the children - and adults- to really explore and discover.
We also have a bunch of owl pellets for dissection - for those who need an activity. We also have a really nice microscope - the table top to computer screen kind for the viewing of the specimens. I pulled out a bunch of vole, mice, and shrew skeletons so they can compare their owl pellet bones to the skeletons. I'm hoping they can get excited about which bone is which and is where, and how it is on humans too. Last time I did this at the museum with kids I had just taken my comparative anatomy of vertebrates exam on the skeleton. It was really cool to share that knowledge I had just gained.

Wife Points

I would like to make mention a great blog post I read about wife points. I don't remember exactly what it was called or who it was by. It was about a wife who was feeling like she wasn't accomplishing any throughout the day (she was a stay at home mom). So she started giving herself "wife points." I took this concept and started to give myself "wife points" when I did accomplished something home-making-y.
An example of this is Saturday night. I decided to get on the day-light savings shin-dig by resetting my alarm clock and other clocks. Wife points! I remembered that in spring I loose an hour of sleep. So I set the clocks back and went to bed. I awoke as I expected to my alarm saying the correct time. All was perfect. Wife points! Until I looked at Gordon's phone that updates the time automatically. I was off by two hours. Making the time we were waking up, already after church had started. Gordon was teaching gospel principles (Sunday school after sacrament or mass). We very quickly showered to get out the door. Only we were out of shampoo. I hollered to Gordon to grab some ( I was already in the shower when I noticed) and instead of waiting for it I started washing my face.
- Now I must have a side note here: I am easily distracted, and so I have routines for important things so I cannot forget them. Other wise I miss things really bad, and here is a great example. - I always wash my hair first, then my face and last body. Always. When I don't I end up with what I did on Sunday. -
As I'm waiting for Gordon to grab the shampoo (it turns out the general direction of "it's in the box" isn't specific enough) I wash my face. And then proceed to wash my body. Around this time Gordon returns with the shampoo. I then put shampoo in my hair. And somehow wash my body again. It isn't until we are breathlessly arriving just in time for the class that I ran my fingers through my half blow dried/sorta brushed hair that I realize I still have shampoo in it.
For those who are keeping track I am two hours behind with my body washed twice and shampoo still in my hair. so much for wife points.

I did regain some wife points by making a really great scalloped potato dish.

Gordon did a really great job teaching his lesson on charity. He focused not only giving it, but allowing ourselves to receive it. He got the class involved. Which is impressing with a group of ~25 people and more than half shared insightful comments.

Also I forgot to plug my phone in all weekend, so it died this morning. Luckily a classmate had a phone charger on him (well he uses it for his tablet) And I only forgot about it twice; once while plugged into an outlet in the hall and the second time the outlet in my lab where I had it recharging. I only had to run down a couple flights of stairs to catch the charger donater before he left (technically he had already left the building).
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to not be so blonde.

Currently I'm procrastinating doing a final editing on three papers due tonight by midnight.

I took a video on the walk to work on Friday. I'll try to upload that. Also I took some videos of campus riding around on the shuttle. I'll probably post those later.

What a Week!

Late last week I got a test back for my calculus based statistics class. I had failed it. I'd been holding out on dropping the class hoping against all odds that although I've missed to many lectures and so many hours of studying due to my home burning down that I could still pull this class off. I'd been putting all of my efforts into my other classes which I am proud to say I've been getting A's and B's in those classes. I just couldn't do both in my limited time. So now I am so sorrowful to say I am officially failing a class. And with no way to pass (I did the math, to pass the class I would need 110% on all other tests). I am currently emailing with my adviser - who honestly is not that great of an adviser - to withdraw from the class so a big ol' F doesn't mark my transcript. It is a very sad thing for me.

On a funnier note, I walked into the wrong class today. I tried to play it off. I don't think many people noticed. It was a big lecture hall with the doors in the back of he classroom. I just walked in one door, an kept walking out the other like I had meant to do that. Oops!

Gordon and I have both been sick. We think either a stomach bug or food poisoning. Maybe salmonella from some raw cookie dough we ate. We don't know. We didn't particularly want to pay a doctor to examine our stools. That took us out for a bit. Gordon got well in no time flat. I was up puking my guts out for quite longer. Luckily its past now, and after a few good meals, I should feel back to my self again.

I will admit that between the stresses of everything and being sick I've lost a good 15 pounds since Christmas. That may also be due to the holiday food splurging.

Gordon has also lost a lot of weight. He wont step on a scale for me though. That's the main reason why we're going back to the gym. Gordon doesn't like how little muscle mass he has left. He wants those bulging muscles back. And to be honest I want them back on him too.
Gordon is regrowing out his beard. Its currently at that really prickly state where he's more of a hedgehog. The hairs aren't quite long enough for gravity to start taking effect. We are noticing that the beard appears more red as it's growing in this time.

It snowed again today here in Fairbanks. Its been very nice here. Its been getting up into the 30s in the sunshine. There is a lot more sun here. The sun is up when I get up at 7, and is only going down now at 6:45pm.

Did I ever tell you guys about the moose? It wasn't very exciting, one lives in the neighborhood. We saw it while we were driving. We decided not to risk getting to close, so we didn't. We reversed and changed our plans.

Sorry about not having any pictures again. My camera on my phone is really bad, and therefore don't have anything handy for capturing these moments. Maybe my next big purchase will be for a little camera that I can carry in my purse.

My best wishes to all of you!