Happpy Thanksgiving!

We got a nice dusting of snow last night, and woke to a bright, sunny day with blue sky and snow-covered trees. It is glorious! All that brush in the background is what we call "snow bush" and is some sort of manzanita. Eventually it lays flat under the weight of the snow on top of it for the winter. My dad loves to shovel, and made sure to take care of the deck before the snow melted it away.

Then Curious Dad drove over our place to see how well the driveway heating worked. It didn't. He and Tim are over there now, working on it. It had been hooked up and was "all done" a week ago. It came on fine with overnight frost, but never turned off. At $4/hour for electricity, we prefer not to have it stay on indefinitely. Tim got the electrician out yesterday (finally) and he said that his guy mixed some wires during the final hook up. He fixed it and said that now we were good to go. But apparently not. And he has no "guy" to blame this time.

My pirate Sea Captain step-brother managed to get some time off and came out to California to grace us with his company for the holiday. No foolin', he is a Coast Guard certified Captain, who operates a sport fishing boat in Jupiter (near Palm Beach), Florida. And a heck of a lotta fun, too.

Meet Captain Lumberjack

superfund site

I promised to blog on the trees in my next post, but I don't have the pictures yet. I guess I lied. Sorry.

Yesterday I met our GC, Slater. He's great and we are lucky to have him. We talked about some things we could do, and he told us to go ahead and do some more demolition to get an idea of what we have to work with. Today we went over to the house to do our demo. We wanted to open up a few walls in some weird closets to see how much space we could get for a laundry room. After removing the paneling, we found a whole little ecosytem. Here are some examples of what we found:




I can't wait to culture these guys and identify them. Then I'll figure out if they are the toxic sort and whether or not to do some serious clean up. Hopefully the dreaded "Toxic Black Mold" is not a member of our little ecosystem. I will try to clean it up as well as I can, to minimize allergic reaction, but The ID of the bugs will determine how crazy I get with nasty ingredients. Obviously there has been some water in this area. You don't get this amount of mold in such a dry mountain environment without lots of water participation. I didn't get a picture of the worst part, which is the wall on the outside of the bathroom. Basically the shower was flowing through the area, we think. So, now we are going to redo bathroom #3. And we are also going to have the stairs completely re-framed. I'll try to get some pictures and see if I can explain the problem with them in a coherent fashion. If so, maybe I'll blog on it.

At Home in Tahoe

Sorry I have, once again, neglected this blog. I've been very busy in lab, trying to make up for the time when I was sick and unproductive. I also have had some trouble with my new (Intel Core Duo) Macbook Pro. I totally screwed it up by using it for a while, and then migrating everything from my older powerbook. It destroyed my keychain, and the ability to have one, which really messed with my email. I ended up starting fresh, erasing the harddrive and re-installing OS X followed by an immediate migratiion of everything from the old computer. It works just fine now, thank goodness!

Saturday, I drove from Seattle to Lake Tahoe. I got a later start then I wanted, because I had been in lab until 10pm Friday night, and hadn't gotten as much done at home as I needed to. It was a nice drive, because there was no rain. I had dry roads the whole way. And I didn't have the monsters dogs with me. That meant no stops where I wrestle with them, trying to control both at the same time, or take one out, then the other. So, that helped. As soon as I got to I80, north of Sacramento, I went on auto pilot, feeling like I was almost home, and then I really was. At 2:30 am. I love it here no matter what the time, but I was very glad not to find the house invaded by a bear. That would have been a bit too much for me at 2:30am after driving 800+ miles. I awoke about 6:30am, and for some reason went to look out the window. I guess I just wanted to see my home in the daylight. It was on fire! The sky was anyway. Sunrise. So I went downstairs and out to the deck and took a picture so I could share it with you.

This is at my family's cabin, which doesn't have the lake view of our future home. I thought (for maybe a fraction of a picosecond) that I should walk the block down the hill to the lake and that I would get an amaizing shot. Instead, I went back to sleep.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that this is a standard sunrise around here, but I have enjoyed some really beautiful sunrises over The Lake. Seeing as I have always lived on the West Shore, we are prone to beautiful sunrises over the mountains rimming the east shore.

Note the owl on the corner of the deck. He (she?)is protecting the the house from woodpeckers. It hasn't done an outstanding job over the years. I think my dad keeps it as a tribute to his eternal struggle with the "peckers". It makes me smile as I think of the funny stories that come with his War on Peckers.

Today, we went to our house and looked around, talked about our plans, and walked the perimeter discussing the trees. I got to meet the neighbors across the street, and next door. Tim cut some trees down, but I will explain more about that in my next post. I need to snap some pictures.

Tim has scheduled me to meet with our general contractor tomorrow morning and again on Tuesday. He also wants me to meet with the mason and the civil engineer. I might also meet with the window guy, if the timing works out. Tim suggested I drive down to the the "Rock Garden" to look at all their stone products, and get closer to a design for the fireplace. That is in Truckee, a half hour away. On Tuesday, My family will be coming up for the Holiday. I'll see if there is any rest scheduled in there somewhere.

SODs in Progress

Yeah! I found the person, Jaci, in sockwars that I should knit for! From her blog, I learned that she had tried to find her assassin but had given up. We're a perfect match! The gal who had been knitting for her (the target of the gal I killed 2 weeks back) hasn't gotten very far and says that it is "not very well done at all". Well, I say that my new target deserves a better death than that! Ok fine, I admit it, I also wanted to get started asap, and knit with nice soft yarn. Sockwars is over in 14 days and I want to send off another pair of socks first! So I started a fresh pair last night in Jaeger Extra Fine Merino. I love the stuff, it is so soft and wonderful to knit with! The Fiberphiles gave me great feedback on the pair I knit for my first target, Juliana in the same yarn (different color). Plus it is stash busting. I emailed Jaci some color options, then Emily came over to borrow my swift and ballwinder. I really wanted to get started last night, so I consulted with Emily and we decided on the turquoise. Then Jaci responded that she would like the turquoise! I love it when a plan comes together!

I must point out that Jaci has been very responsive, which has not always been the case in sockwars. I had not given her much time to respond. I just was being impatient. "No," you say, "that's not like Daisy!" teehee.
Well, better get knitting!

Sock Wars update

I'm still alive! In Sock Wars, that is. Apparently there are people keeping excellent track of all this, and according to their spread sheet, I have survived to the last 13%! I am trying to get my next pair of SIPs (socks in progress) but have not heard back from the current target of the gal I killed over a week ago. I want to finish off another pair of socks. Those were so fast and easy, compared to the pair I'm working on now!

Meanwhile I have two projects on the needles (OTN).
1. Socks (on 2 circular needles) of KnitPicks Memories superwash merino. Colorway is Prairie something-or-other. These have nothing to do with sockwars, but I did begin them during the end of "Socktoberfest". Who knew there are so many events and things to keep up on in the world of knitting?




















2. Bell Cloche Hat from Monday,April 25, 2005 knitting calendar in Manos. I haven't got a clue of the colorway, if it even has a name. Notice that it is posing on our house plans from the civil engineer, which Tim brought home today. That happens to be the first level, about half of which is crawl space.

























I have finally finished the everlasting pomotomous socks. I'll have to take a picture and post. I also have several UFOs (un-finished projects) that I plan to wrap up in the near future. I'll keep ya'll updated.

Chicken Moment: By the way, the driveway heating is done, Tim has assured me. However, it doesn't work yet, because the electrical is not hooked up yet. Does that seem done to you? Tim seems to be getting used to "Tahoe Time" and much more relaxed about things taking longer than they should. Or maybe all his running around hecticly, paid off by getting things done before the snow comes. By the way, I looked it up and hecticly is a word.

The headache returned today, but I was really careful to head home ASAP (when my autoclave run was over) and take care of myself. I'm gonna beat this thing! Hmmm... well, not literally, that's my head were talking about! Anyway, it is feeling better now.

Better

Yippee! I actually feel well. It started on Sunday, and continues. What a relief. I had a few false starts, days where I felt well, and then I overdid something, or drove down a bumpy road, and the head pain and fever would return. I may have truly turned the corner this time, but I'll be very careful, so that I don't undo this! I lasted all day at lab today, and I only have a very slight headache. I've been sick for a while, and it is really great to put it behind me. I'm fortunate that I'm not used to having headaches, and it has really been wearing me down. It has also made it hard to get things done, like science.

The Light Bulb and "The Plan"

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned anything on the PhD front lately. That is because I was too stressed out about the whole thing to think or write about. This PhD has been very hard on me and the closer I get to finishing, the worse it gets. My advisor and I are not working very well together. He adds a huge amount to my stress level. My husband's desire for me to get finished also adds to the weight on my shoulders. The more stress I feel the less I seem to get done. It is not that I don't try, only that I am less effective. My mind seems to work more slowly, my concentration is crummy and I just seem to lose efficiency. Which makes me more stressed. I had an idea before the Mexico trip, but was advised to think on it. I knew, as soon as the light bulb went on, that it was the way to go, and the only way to preserve whatever sanity I may actually have. My advisor has been pressuring me to finish up by the end of the quarter (December 13) while adding additional things for me to do first. I was getting more and more overwhelmed with the idea of fitting all that work in to such a short time and knowing that I couldn't do it. But my advisor has a reason: the lab is full and he has another lab member joining the lab in January, He can't afford to keep paying me and needs the space. "Why doesn't he stop adding stuff for me to do," you might ask (I often do!). He seems to be incapable. Meanwhile, Tim is we are working on a remodel of a beautiful house for the future, and I am not even there to be included. I have only seen our wonderful house a few times! I saw it for a few hours on the day I flew down there to look at it and make an offer, and then for the 4 days I was in town with the architects in August. I feel so left out, but I am so overwhelmed with everything, that I can't let myself get distracted by it. I am in a terrible position! It was taking it's toll on me in from late September through October and I knew that I had reached my limit. I was in a really bad place and had to do something to get out. I was so stressed out that I didn't even want to go to Mexico! I couldn't even identify with any joy at the thought of going and that disturbed me. Intellectually, I knew that was not good or normal. Emotionally, the numbness felt like relief. I knew I was in a bad place mentally, but felt trapped there, separated from part of myself -from my joy and happiness.

Somehow I realized what I needed to do (I thank God for that, you can see it however you wish). Here is my plan: I am going to take a leave of absence from graduate school. I will take next quarter off, maybe two quarters. I will move to Tahoe with Tim, Jack, and Denver. I will write my paper and my dissertation down there. This quarter ends on Dec 13, so whatever science still needs to be done on the paper, my advisor will have to do, or have the technician do it. To be fair, she (tech) is doing stuff now, to help. I will commute up here to Seattle regularly to work with my advisor and committee, but I will get some peace and quite, too. I will be in the mountains I love, skiing frequently, being involved in our house remodel, writing and living with my husband. I'm not sure if I've ever explained it, but Tim works in the Tahoe area. He works for one week, then gets a week off. He has been commuting for about 3 years for this job. He has also had a couple of jobs that were 2 weeks on/2 weeks off. We have only lived together full time for about 11 months of our marriage (6+ years). Yes, of course, that adds to my stress level. So now I'll be the one commuting. This may sound a little wimpy, like I'm running away from a tough situation, but I see it differently. I like to see this change as simply taking care of myself. I have had support from lab members, who agree that I am not treated well. One labmate suggested that I should do what ever I can to get myself out of there, for my sake. Part of the problem is that I actually try to stand up to my advisor, where as it seems that most others just let him bully them. So, he picks on me, trying to break me down. There is the concern (admit it, you're thinking this) that I may never come back and finish. Those who know me, know that I am stubborn. So try to see it this way: I am too stubborn not to get credit for this huge amount of really great research I have done! My committee felt that I had more than enough data to earn a PhD by the summer of 2005. I deserve this; I earned it. I want it!

I will be moving myself and the dogs down to Tahoe in early January! That has helped me immensely, to know that there really is an end in sight.

In the middle of a remodel? Fat chance!