How cold??

The prediction for tomorrow night is a low of 23 degrees below zero. How cold?? Minus 23. Start at the temperature at which water freezes and go down more 55 degrees. I can't even get my head around that number. I think the coldest it's been since I arrived is 13 below. Wow. I have no idea what to do except "hunker down" and wear my long coat. Oh, and they say don't count on your car battery working very well in those temps.


We'll see . . .

Home again home again jiggity jog

I had the chance to spend 6 days in Denver over this winter break. Well, it was supposed to be 6 . . . One of several really big snowstorms hit Boston the day before I was supposed to return. I called Southwest Airlines to say my schedule was flexible and I'd be happy to swap my ticket for a later date if they would do it at no extra charge. And they did. So I left 48 hours later than originally planned and had a delightful 2 extra days in Denver.

Now that Southwest flies out of Boston, I always double check fares out of both Boston and Manchester. When I fly out of Manchester, parking is $8 a day. When I fly out of Boston, if all goes well, I can take a bus out of Portland for $26 one way that takes me right up to the Southwest terminal and I can park my car at the Portland bus station for $3 a day. Even better is if I can take the bus out of Augusta which is 45 minutes of drive time instead of 2 hours and the parking is free, but so far that infrequent bus schedule hasn't suited my flight times. But on this trip, Boston (and all the accompanying expenses) was cheaper than Manchester and I do enjoy not having to drive those last 2 hours but instead sit on a bus with free wifi, electrical outlets on every row, and a movie on the little screens overhead. And on this last ride, they offered bottled water and pretzels. :-)

So the storm left Boston incapacitated on Wednesday and I wasn't scheduled to fly out until Thursday. But the idea of sitting around an airport uncertain of take off or landing and hanging out with people who'd been stranded in the airport for 24 hours with even greater uncertainty did not appeal to me. And I figured someone who couldn't fly out on Wednesday would be thrilled to have my seat on Thursday. I did double check the flight status: my scheduled flight left Denver 9 minutes late and arrived in Boston 7 minutes early, so I would've been fine in my travels. But the only reason I was heading back Thursday was to attend a meeting on Friday that didn't happen, so I could easily justify returning later.

I lucked out with the way the winds drifted the snow after the big storm and before I arrived. Here's my car in the parking lot in Portland. I don't think Portland received as much snow as Boston (probably only 1 foot compared to Boston's 2 feet), but it still could've been a problem. As you can see, I didn't even have to brush the snow off my car. And that pile of snow in the back of my car would have daunted me 4 years ago and I would've used the shovel that I keep in the trunk of my car to move that snow. But nowadays I'm less daunted and sure enough, I pulled right out of that spot over that little bank. There was a car parked in the fire lane behind me which made negotiating the departure a little tricky, but I even handled that like a pro and left the Portland bus station just as the new snow was falling for the next storm.

Wicked snowstorm

I'm actually not in Maine right now, but I've been hearing about and reading about a "wicked" snowstorm they're having while I'm gone. The Maine Office of Tourism posted this picture on their Facebook wall in honor of this storm. I think it's oh so appropriate.

Happy Anniversary

January 8th--an awesome day. Four years ago today, I moved to Maine. Of course, back then, I thought I was only coming for four months. Now it's been four years. How does that happen??!!

I have a ton of amazing memories amassed in this very short time. Thank you especially to MRM (My Room Mate) for the first 18 months. I doubt seriously I would've acclimated so well or enjoyed life in Maine so much without your support (both moral and physical) and good humor. You are a very special friend.

And here's a big thank you to all the amazing and wonderful people I've met in these last four years--both in the Farmington/Wilton community and at UMF. I definitely believe in the state motto: Maine--the way life should be.

Happy birthday to me

 

Stephanie is one of many UMF faculty and staff who is a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church with me. Today I looked out in the congregation and she was there with Margaret. Margaret is NOT a member of St. Joe's and in fact, is a deacon at her church. After mass, I scurried out to the congregation to say Howdy and see what the special occasion was. Margaret and Stephanie had had breakfast with Margaret's daughter who was in town and therefore Margaret had missed her church's morning service, so Stephanie brought her to ours. It was fabulous to have such a great guest at our church!

We chatted about everything and nothing the way that good friends do and Margaret said, "Let's have dinner tonight at my house." And we all agreed to do so. Patti, a fellow choir member, came up to join the conversation as she and Margaret are good friends and she, too, wanted to know what was the special occasion that brought Margaret to our church. In that conversation, Pattie revealed to Margaret and Stephanie that today was my birthday. Suddenly our planned dinner was now a birthday dinner. 

When I arrived at Margaret's, she had made a cake! That was not part of the original menu. I was honored. And the cake was delicious. And the meal shared with dear friends was indeed a special way to celebrate.

Homestead birthday

Andrea (music minister at St. Joe's who organizes our choir and plays keyboard and who teaches ESL and gifted students for the local school district) and Patti (guitarist and lead cantor for our choir who teaches science at the local high school) took me out for brunch at The Homestead for my birthday. :-)

Andrea and I go to The Homestead nearly every Sunday for brunch after church, but today was a special treat in honor of my special day. Paul joined us, which was a delightful treat. He's a lawyer in town but he must be the unofficial town historian. He knows everyone and everything in town. Ask him any question and get ready for a spellbinding story for an answer. Needless to say, the conversation at my birthday brunch was as special and as fun as the friends who created the event for me.

12/5/2010 Chester Greenwood Menu Items

Yesterday was Chester Greenwood Day (with parade et.al.) and today at The Homestead on the Daily Specials menu was this:

Nobody ordered any while we were there and I didn't feel like eating any of it, so I asked. Earmuff pancakes are poured to look like earmuffs--2 regular silver dollar pancakes and a connecting arch of pancake batter across the top. Pretty fun!

I used a great app, Genius Scan for iPhone, to turn my photo of the menu to this, which looks much better than the photo did.

12/2/10 Chester Greenwood Day . . . a little early

It's the first Saturday in December and it's Chester Greenwood Day. WAIT! I don't have to write about it, I can send you to my friend's blogpost about it (and about me):

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/12/04/happy-chester-greenwood-day-invention-creativity-maine/

Wes Fryer is a hero of mine. I listen to his podcasts whenever I can. He knows everything about technology integration, or at least all the stuff I wish I knew. So getting to spend all day Thursday with him was like having my own private professional development day. It was awesome! As we (his delightful daughter Sarah was here, too) toured Farmington, we found $5 Chester Greenwood Day long-sleeved t-shirts on sale at Black Bear Graphics. Very fun. See Wes's post for a photo.

11/26/10 Black Friday....

...is White Friday.

Look closely  . . . do you see the snowflakes coming down? :-) It was pretty Christmas card looking this morning. What a fun sight to wake up to.

We had a great dusting of snow on Halloween which I consider the first snow of the season, but I think we had enough today to be considered the first "real" snow of the season. I wonder how long it will stay. I believe this is the earliest snow (real or otherwise) of any winter so far for me.

9/1/2010 We've having a heatwave

From today's Portland Press Herald:

"On Tuesday, Portland’s high temperature of 94 degrees broke a record for Aug. 31 set in 1969.

"That also put the city in the midst of its first official heat wave since July 1999, according to Steve Capriola, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray.

"Capriola said a heat wave is defined as three consecutive days with highs of at least 90 degrees. Sunday’s high was 91 and Monday’s was 90."

retrieved from http://www.pressherald.com/news/after-3-days-were-in-a-_2010-09-01.html

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Yep. A heat wave is defined as three consecutive days with highs of at least 90 degrees. Is that regional or national? It can't be national or else Dallas would be in a perpetual heat wave! hmmmm I need to check this out.

5/24/2010 Interesting Weather

At 2:47pm today, weather in Farmington ME and Richardson TX are exactly the same: 89 degrees and 43% humidity. What we call "unseasonably hot" in Maine is "delightfully pleasant" for this time of year in Texas.

Texas Office

In honor of Dana, who was worried I was losing my ties to Texas, I am posting photos of my office at UMF which I believe will dispel her worries. You can take the woman out of Texas but you can't take Texas out of the woman (and be sure to notice the bumper sticker on the west wall).

I didn't put a picture of the north wall, which is all bookcases. But I do have a section of books about Texas on my bookcase along with plenty of good UNT publications. Also, on the south side I have a little table and it's filled with Texas knick knacks. Don't Mess with Texas!

West Wall: To the left is the door into the office. The bulletin board looks a little junky but you should've seen it before I cleaned it up! When I put in the filing cabinet, I had to rearrange the bulletin board because part of it got covered up and part of it gets knocked down when you open the top drawer.

But don't worry about that. On this board you can see a picture of bluebonnets (the state flower) taken by my major professor, Gerald Knezek (from Texas), a few Texas postcards, a love note from Randall with a Texas picture on the front of the card, and above the bulletin board is "The Texas Timeline of Awesome Achievements and Events". Their words, not mine.

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South Wall Left Side: UNT diploma and PhD tam (hat). On the right side of this picture is my "heirloom" birth certificate. It's a certified copy that is legal. When you get a copy of your certificate, you have a choice of a business copy (traditional, boring, 8.5" x 11") or an heirloom copy. This one was a 50th birthday gift from my mom and dad. How fun is that??!! I love it except for the fact that it's signed by my least favorite governor in the history of Texas. Oh well.

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South Wall Right Side: Two UMF awards, a counted cross stitch made by my sister, a Hollins pendant that was my mom's from when she went there. The cool education art work was made by Tracey, a student of mine. And there are two awards that I've earned while at UMF. I guess this half of the wall isn't too much Texas (except for the edge of my heirloom birth certificate).

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East Wall: There's a window on the right. So we've got the Texas flag quilt that my sister made and a pencil sketch of the Dallas skyline that Mary S. gave me before I left.

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And though this isn't a photo of the office, I thought it appropriate to put here to prove I haven't lost my "Texas-ness". On the UMF Web site are profiles of students. In a Q&A format, they transcribe the interview with the student and you get to know each student and a little about them and a lot about UMF in the process. This is a part of Joel H.'s profile page.

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These photos and descriptions were originally published on my Facebook photo page. But I can't really backup my photos and text from there in a way that is acceptable to me. So I'm copying and pasting the information to Blogger. It's still not as effective as I would like it to be, but for now, it's better than nothing.

8/30/09 The Summer of 2009

Summers in Maine are what Mainiacs live for. Some say you "earn" the privilege after surviving the winter. I'm so used to traveling in the summer. I never minded being away from Dallas in June, July, and August. Next summer maybe I'll start spending more time in Maine. This summer, not so much. I spent 51 days out of the state. I traveled to 9 states (VT, KS, MD, VA, OR, WA, TX, NM, NY), British Columbia, and Washington DC. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun and accomplishing so many things I didn't find time to blog about the travels. But when I do, you'll find the stories in my travel blog, not here. I did do a teeny bit of traveling in Maine. Those travels, whenever I can find time to blog, will be described here.

My other big project this summer was to unpack the living room. In December I had the last of my stuff shipped from Dallas. It was all that sentimental stuff that you don't need but have to keep. When I thought I was only going to be in Maine for 2 more years, I put the stuff in storage in Dallas. When I found out I was going to stay for a while in Maine, I had the stuff moved here. For 7 months, I just lived with the stuff stacked in my living room. It took up over 40 square feet of my 600 square foot apartment. In July, I finally started unpacking. Then I built shelves and then filled the shelves. There's still a lot of stuff here but at least I can get to it now. AND I have 20 square feet of apartment back. :-) Phase 2 is to do the same for the dining room.

I took photos along the way. I compiled them into this 2 minute slideshow. Enjoy! My friend Michael suggested I should've had a last slide of me "collapsed in organizational exhaustion in the comfy chair." Great idea. However, I'll have to let you picture that photo in your imagination. Meanwhile, enjoy the transformation.

8/14/2009 How do you define hot?

I was at the mall today. In most cities, when you say "the mall" someone will ask, "Which one?" I was at The Maine Mall in Portland, which is named that because at the time it was built, it was pretty much the only one in the state. (Does that make it the main Maine mall?) So here, when you say, "the mall," everyone assumes you're talking about that one.

But I digress. So at the mall, I was in the parking lot and needed to cross the lane of traffic. The oncoming car stopped and waved me across. Maine has strong pedestrian right-of-way laws, so that wasn't unusual. I waved a thank you as I crossed and when I got to the other side, the driver rolled down her window smiling at me and then said, "Honey, you're the one having to suffer in 86 degrees, I've got my AC on. Of course, I'll let you cross."

And to think I was enjoying how cool it was on an August day in the "heat" of the afternoon with the temperature being only 86 degrees.

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On another note, it's been a long time since I posted anything here. Sorry about that. It's been a busy busy summer which means I have plenty to blog about but no time to blog. I hope to get caught up soon.

And one more note . . . Look Dad! I'm not blogging about snow!

5/18/09 Frost Advisory?

w00t! Gotta love it. There's a frost advisory out for tonight. Cover your new seedlings and little plants.

Wait! It's May! It's almost June! And we're having a frost advisory? Well, they say not to plant anything in your vegetable garden in Maine until after Memorial Day. Gotta admit, I didn't believe it when I heard it.

Frost advisory tonight for most of state

Submitted by The Associated Press on Mon, 05/18/2009 - 09:13

• Central Maine Newspapers
• Portland Press Herald

The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning for northern Maine, while a frost advisory is in effect for most of the rest of the state.

The weather service said an unseasonably cold air mass combined with clear skies and calm winds will result in widespread frost from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday in northern areas, where temperatures are expected to fall below freezing.

Most other regions, including southern and coastal areas, are under a frost advisory in the overnight hours. Temperatures are projected to drop into the lower to mid-30s, but a hard freeze is not anticipated.

The weather service says potted plants that are normally left outdoors should be covered or brought inside away from the cold.

retrieved 5/18/09 from http://updates.mainetoday.com/updates/frost-advisory-tonight-for-most-of-state