Public Service Announcement

Never use spray pledge to clean/shine your wooden kitchen cabinets. It makes the floors dangeroulsy slippery. Even for sneakers.

The new Ski's rock!!! I don't know why I put it off for so long. (I've been ski shopping three years in a row), but I always had this inexplicable connection to my old, old school skis. Maybe it was some aversion to growing up, some nostaglia of my youth...blah blah. Who knows, but when the boots really fell apart and I got jealous of Mark's shiny new skis I finally made the purchase. And they are wonderful. Boots are comfy, skis are really easy to maneuver and ah it was like skiing heaven!

Ok, so you're bored. I'm done talking about the slabs of wood that carry me through the woods.

from Krista...I'm tagging Paul (he probably doesn't even know I have a blog, but I know he does)
10 Random things about me:

1. I have a fingernail that grows crooked
2. I have a master's degree in electrical engineering
3. I hate washing dishes
4. I took gymnastics for 9 years... but only ever got good enough to knock over James Van Der Beek in a embarrassing back handspring incident. (his mom was my teacher)
5. I want to learn how to play the violin
6. I wish I could bake without exploding/burning/throwing/forgetting something
7. Glacier National Park was my favorite of all of the ones I've been too.
8. I have slept overnight in 40 states
9. I wear contacts
10. I have a laser....Well, technically I'm the only one who uses a university owned laser, but this year it's possible that I spent more time with it than I did my husband!

pretty random. Paul you're it

New Year's survived...barely

Well, hat's off to a new year, rung in like no other I can remember. Thanks to all of you who helped make our party big fun!

More importantly, welcome to the world Anna Sophia Deitz. You are well loved already and have a whole slew of aunts to make you fun things and plot torture to your father as soon as you're old enough to appreciate a good joke! Although your New Year's arrival was a good start all on your own.

Well, so starts the year I become a doctor *YIKES*, learn to knit real socks, and ??? I'm ready for whatever else life throws at me are you???

Christmas survived...almost

Well, I made all of my Christmas gift deadlines except for one. Dad got only one sock, but he seemed cool with it, on the plus side it was the best crocheted sock I've made yet. I thought the sock addiction would have worn off by now, but it has not. My goal for this year is to learn how to knit in the round so I can really get fancy!

I also didn't quite make my self imposed deadline to get another paper submitted by Christmas....well, the new year actually, but I still have two days right?

I have one complaint this morning, and that is this stinking rain. We were supposed to be cross country skiing in Vermont today...but alas I am home blogging because of the weather. Normally I would be cool with that, but this year I finally broke down and bought new skis. I've contemplated it for like the past 5 seasons and never did it. You see my skis were much too long for me, since we bought them when we thought I still had a little growing left in me, but...I stunted at the staggering height of 5'2" and still skied with the long skis....I got pretty good at it, they were really good skis and I did ok. But, now there is this new trend that all the skis are much shorter...and I mean much shorter, I convinced Mark to buy a set last year and his skis are 20 cm shorter then mine...that was until Tuesday, when I decided to take the plunge, and got my very own brand new skis, poles and junior size boots! (Yea, my feet stopped growing before I did). I'm going to plug a local business here: New England Ski and Scuba not only did they have a fairly decent selection, which in cross country terms means more than two styles of skis, decent prices, and nice help. They mounted and cut my poles right there...while I waited! Less than one hour start to finish (including my indecisive nature, trying on boots, measuring poles, etc) and my shiny new skis were in my car! And now they are in the mud room just begging to be used. The weather gods have foiled me again!

Anyways: skis, boots and poles all from alpina:

Added note: after posting I caught up on my blog reading and realized that Krista has tagged me. I will respond as soon as I figure out someone who a) has a blog to tag, b) might in the next 12 months read my blog!

Bad blogger

I've been a bad blogger. A whole month with nothing to post. Krista gave me the evil eye about it this morning so I decided to post.

Good News: I had a paper accepted to the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Well, technically it's a note, but it's the first in print thing out there under my name as the primary author, so I'm very very excited about it.

Other than that tidbit, nothing new. Dissertation is a whopping 20 pages so far. (there is a scarcastic tone to that statement since at 20 pages I've barely scratched the surface) I'm diligently writing and trying to publish a variety of data. The lidar is in semi-retirement until I finish my degree and I'm going to present at 3 conferences next summer so I'm keeping busy on the school front.

Outside of school I've mainly been crafting away to finish all of my Christmas presents by the rapidly approaching deadline. Two are already out, one is wrapped, one is blocking, one needs to be seamed, one needs an edging, one is halfway done and one isn't started, so I'm heading off to progress further on that now.

random link: futureme.org Send an email to your future self. Kind of like that school project when you were a kid, write a letter when you're 10, the school mails it when your 18. Personally I found my crush on a very dorky boy to be excessively amusing 8 years later...so think of it as giving yourself a surprise laugh later on!


Happy Holidays everyone!

Sock Swap Done!

Well, the sock swap is done and I received my package today. I got beautiful socks and very cozy slippers from CarrieAnne in Wisconsin! Thanks so much!

cozy slippers


blue socks!



fun socks!

on the road

we're back on the road tomorrow am. hope to be home by saturday!

Done

Fieldwork DONE!!!!

Dissertation here I come.

random stuff

New Mexico is too dusty.

Spam smells like catfood.

I am so mad at Microsoft

Ok. So, I've been a very good girl since I've been here. No TV, no internet, working like mad on my little laptop. This morning was just like any other. I got up. Took a shower. Got dressed. Chatted with Dr. M about my progress. Cooked some eggs. Dropped them all over the floor. (this should have been my first sign of things amiss). Ate what I didn't drop. Sat down to do some work. After a few hours of running programs and plotting data in excel, I was in the mood to do some writing. I'm working on a paper and a couple of abstracts that pull information from a variety of places. A lot of cutting and pasting. I'm working away. Make some changes, blah blah. Then I minimize my word document to copy something from another one. I click on it to maximize it again and POOF. Just like that word is closed. I think, I must of done something wrong. I open up, start again, and again, I try to access a document I have minimized and POOF. All my word documents closed. Word knows that it did something wrong because when I reopen it the autorecover information is there, but there is no indication of how or why. It's totally repeatable. I've now spent close to three hours, virus checking, adaware checking, windows updating, office updating, office repairing and anything else I can think of. I'm developing a severe hatred for Microsoft's blue progress bars and still. Minimize, maximize, POOF.

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

Anybody out there know how to fix this?

on the road

Sonora, Texas:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=sonora,+tx&spn=0.997605,2.630127&t=h&hl=en

think it's far enough from everywhere?

Pheww.

Nope, we didn't die on the road to College Staion, we made it safe and sound on Sunday and have been working like mad ever since, out the door at 7:30 and never back before 9. Oddly, my cell phone doesn't get reception at the hotel either, (How weird!) so no one be upset that I've been MIA. I'm pooped. But, I have spray data!

Off towards Las Cruces in the am.

Good night for now!

Texarkana...Again?

When Dad and I passed through here six years ago, I never thought I would be here again! But here I am in Texarkana. So far journey west #2 is going well. We have covered nearly 1500 miles in 3 days without incident...Well expect for Dr. Miller actually eating a Big Ugly and giving me horrible flashbacks to my Penn Stated days that is. One more day onto College Station and we bust out the lidar again.

my swift is here!

I'm 27 and going grey! But my wonderful hubby bought be a swift so he doesn't have to hold all my yarn while I wind it. It's beautiful and I'm going to wind away!

I should be working....

but this is by far one of the strangest things I've seen knitted in a while

Another pair of socks finished

I haven't been up to date on my posting but I've been working on my socks for the crochetville sock swap and I realized I never posted the pic of these that I finished a couple of weeks ago:

stitch markers!

They're all here! Sorry for the bad pics, my camera was misbehaving today:



happymollie


Antara


123Mama

I love them all and many are already in use. Thanks everyone!

random thought for the day

why are all musical orphan's red-headed?

Annie
Anne of Greene Gables
Pippi Longstocking
...

Does the red hair somehow make them prone to orphaning?
I think we need a study...

the corn is down

FINALLY. Third times the charm apparently. The corn is chopped and I'm done with my connecticut field work. There was a breif moment of fear when some type of bolt on the tractor sheared off, but Bill was amazing and fixed it right up. I still think the corn is cursed and quite honestly never ever want to watch any scary movie with corn fields in it again. But it's done!!!!!

need some stress relief

pop away!

online bubble wrap!