Happy Day!!!

My great-nephew that was just born is home from the hospital!!! He was born at 36 weeks, so had to stay in the NICU for a while (and Kristen can correct me if I have that wrong), but he's HOME now. Yay!!!

And his name is Zack. There was this whole thing about his name, a blog poll and everything, and I just kept telling them that his name was Zachery Cole. they only half believed me--his name is Zachery Miles, but that's ok. So great!

As for me, I've been doing my normal work, choir rehearsal, church, tv stuff. Last weekend I did go to the Dog Show--oh, excuse me, Pet Expo--at the Dulles Expo center with my friend. There was one booth with a Cat rescue, one booth with rabbits, maybe 2-3 with fish, and the rest was dogs. We like dogs, but my friend and I both have cats. So no new cat toys for our little furry friends. I did find a couple cute hair bows. I guess officially they're for dogs, but since my hair is really fine and doesn't take well to heavy hair bows, they're just right for me. I picked up one for my niece as well.

Church last weekend consisted of Stake Conference. We had the broadcast from Salt Lake this time, which is good because we got to hear from Pres Packer and a couple other GA's. And Sis Thompson, who's my current favorite in the General RS Presidency as she is single too. I like their current trend of having at least one of the three be a single woman. I don't know if they're doing that on purpose, or if the Lord is stepping in to make that happen (which could also be the case), but I like it. A lot. Oh, and Stk Conf was good too. And we got out a half hour early!!! YES!!

Then came the MCW's first Easter Performance at the Seneca Stake Center. Hm, I should put their website on my page too, huh? Well, our big performance at the Temple Visitor's Center is this coming Sunday--conveniently placed so I cannot attend the dedication of our new ward building in Clarksville. Nice, huh? Oh well. A couple or three more months and then I will be finished with this choir. At work we start Integration and Test of our two spacecraft in September, and while my schedule should still be fairly normal, there will be times that I won't be able to leave work, and it will be at the last minute that I find out. Coupled with the hour and a half drive to get to rehearsals (though it's only 45 minutes home afterwards), I'm thinking it's time to put the choir on hold. Or just sign off. It hasn't been a lot of fun--all my friends are over in the Soprano section, and the women I have to sit by due to my height are snippy, rude creatures with a highly developed sense of their own importance. After our last song in our performance last Sunday they immediately--not waiting for the closing prayer or anything--started carping about how bad that number went. I told them (and I did wait until after the prayer) that next time they should at least wait until after the closing prayer before they started complaining. I don't need this stress in my life. Especially with the stress at work increasing--good stress, since it means we'll be doing something more than just writing documents all the time, but still stress.

At work the Health Improvement Committee has started a jogging class--teaching us and our bodies how to run. It's a 10-week course that, by the end of it, if I'm good, I should be able to run for 20 minutes straight. Easily. I know, first rock-climbing and now jogging. What is happening to me??? Well, running is a way to get a lot of activity points in a short amount of time (remember I'm in Weight Watchers). I've been praying for a change of heart, so that I no longer have the desire to overeat, particularly in the evenings when I'm so tired, can't think, and watch tv for 5 hours straight. So maybe this will help me turn off the tv and go running. Too bad my cat can't come with me. Not that she'd want to, of course, unless it was her idea.

Moonwater: who'd a thunk it?

So after years, decades, even eons of being told there's no water on the moon, guess what? There's water on the moon.

Moonwater article

Personally, my mind is screaming with possibilities. They mention rocket fuel in the article, but I'm thinking drinking water. If we don't have to cart water to the moon, then wouldn't a moon base be far more realistic? Not to mention all the other things we use water for. It would have to be rationed carefully, you wouldn't want to run out or we would be carting water from the earth to the moon. It would have to be reclaimed somehow as well, but we have that technology (the space station astronauts just started using a water reclamator that does indeed use what you might think it would).

So, we can mine iron and other minerals on the moon, we now have found water there, I'm thinking it's time to put in my bid for a room on the Lunar Base sometime soon!

Ides of March are fast approaching...

Well, I figured there would be at least one more major storm before winter gave way to spring, but now it looks like it will be rain rather than snow. Works for me. My dandelions have started to poke their leaves above the soil--I think they grew three inches overnight! I'm actually looking forward to the time change this Sunday--I can spend at least an hour after dinner in the yard at least once a week, and that will keep it up just fine. I managed to tear the canvas top of my porch swing while shoveling snow off of it in January (don't say anything! I can hear you!), but since JoAnns was really nice about all the cupons they sent out for this week I was able to get some pretty outdoor canvas to replace it with. And enough for matching pillows (you know me and matching, right? I love matching)

K inspired me in her blog about cleaning and de-cluttering, so I'm going to work on that as well. This has been a project for a while, but I got sidelined from it over the winter, not exactly sure why. I'm hoping with the renewal of spring I'll get motivated again. Oh, it just occured to me, I had another project that I deemed more important than cleaning house--watching all 5 previous seasons of LOST. :::shakes head at self::: Here's hoping K was able to keep up, I fear I left her behind :(

Work has been fairly normal. I was in a training class for three days this week to learn the new software we'll be using to control the satellites. It's a pretty powerful tool, very versatile, and I'm thinking way better than what I used on FUSE. I haven't had 10 years with the old software APL was using, so I'm in a little better shape than other people at the lab who only know the old stuff and are a little annoyed that the new stuff doesn't work the same way. Sillies!

Church is pretty much the same--lead the music in Sacrament Meeting, go to Nursery and play for a couple hours, then go home. I do have a new visiting teaching companion, though, so I look forward to getting to know her.

Other than my projects and making time to go see my friends on the weekends (which is why I really can't do yardwork on the weekends, I'm never home), I still manage to watch too much tv. Stay up too late. Read for an hour before turning over and going to sleep. I was in a book group a few years ago (technically I'm still in it, but after a bad experience with one of the members haven't actually shown up), and it got me reading again. I love to read. Just finished the 11th book in the Harry Dresden series (he's a wizard, doing PI work in Chicago), got to go back to Brisngr (the third in the Eragon series). Not really enjoying Briningr like I did the first two. Maybe I'm in a different place in my head now?

Kitty is doing well--still attacking me when I pray, but this morning I managed to grab her and hold her until I finished. She didn't like that, but then, I don't like getting attacked when I'm trying to pray! She had all day yesterday outside, the weather was lovely, and I've been out a lot this week, so maybe she's just trying to assert her dominance over me again. I'm supposed to stay home and take care of *her*! yeah, in a perfect world. Or a snowy one--I'm pretty sure she got tired of me hanging around, though, the week we were snowed in.

Ok, time to go. Happy March craziness, everyone! Don't get soaked!

March Madness

Whoa, it's been almost a month! Let's see, what happened since I last wrote...

*It SNOWED. A lot. My power went out, for 18 hours. My friend let me stay the night at her house where it was warm.

*It SNOWED again, about 3 days later. My work was cancelled for three days (unheard of). My kitty and I got tired of staring at each other. I got several projects finished.

*The snow over that weekend was record-breaking. Over 3 feet of snow in most places. Yay for Maryland!

*I went to the movies with my friends. See Percy Jackson review on the sidebar

*I went to California to greet my niece as she returned from her mission to Utica New York. We both agreed that the weather in California was wonderful (60 degrees! Everyone else was freezing, though).

* Visited my Uncle Bill while in CA, with my niece, and got some more family history stuff. Dad told a cute story of how my two oldest siblings were taken to an amusement park when they were little and got to ride the kiddy roller coaster. At first my parents thought they were laughing, but then realized that my brother and sister were crying. They had to be comforted upon getting off the roller coaster. There, now archived for all eternity!

* Went to Dairy Queen with my nieces and nephews in California. I have the best nieces and nephews in the world, I tell you. They come in all different sizes, from 2 to 29, and the adult ones are so much fun to hang out with. The child-sized ones are so fun to play with. I'm the luckiest aunt in the world.

*Caught up on LOST. Well, almost. My goal was to re-watch all four seasons before the next season started. Except that there are FIVE seasons. Ooops. I only have one more disk to go, and then I can start watching the new season that I've been faithfully recording since it started 5 weeks ago. Arggh!!

*Went to rehearsal--yup, still in the Mormon Choir of Washington, DC. Still threatening to stop. May not have a choice after summer hiatus, as my work will be picking up then and who knows what kind of schedule I may have. Not sure I want to balance the stress of being in the choir with the stress from work, would rather just go home and crash. Now if I really enjoyed it, that would be a different story.

*Completed a Major Review at work. The reviewers were all suitably impressed. We did get Action Items, but mostly we know the answers to them and there's only one or two that need actual work done to close them out.

*Got an iPhone!!! It is so fun!! I have games and apps and all sorts of fun things, including the AT&T navigator. She's really nice, tells me how to get places. I'm finding new ways of getting to old places. Very fun.

*Read several books (see my goodreads page--I'll put a link to it on my sidebar if I haven't already).

*Started going to church in the New Building in Clarksville. It's the same size as the Laurel Building, one of those 3-ward (but not a Stake Center) sized buildings. No baptismal fount, though. 's ok, though. It does have actual coat closets. They say there's more parking, but we'll have to wait until the snow melts to see if that's true or not.

*Still love serving in Nursery. Not enjoying quite so much the ward chorister position. Can you say, "Been there, done that"? Still suspect they may make me Ward SA rep again. Which would be fine, but they would have to release me from one of the other two positions. I refuse (and they know this) to have more than two callings at a time any more. I just can't do it (I had 5 callings at once the last time the wards were split, so that's how I know). Technically I have 3 callings if you include VT, which I often need to or it doesn't get done.

*Started playing more with my cat. Helps that I got new batteries for her laser toy. She loves that thing. She can't figure out how to catch it. But it does mean that she doesn't attack me as much.

'nuff said?