Blue Skies...Dead Ficus

Blue skies for Project Spectrum! We've had a lot of blue skies here recently... and before that, some very cold weather (for Arizona, anyhow). Hence, the dead ficus in the foreground.

A thursday in the life of thursday...

Elisa described her "day in a life" a couple of weeks ago - and it sounded like fun to me. What *do* I actually do? I waste a lot of time, that's for sure!
6:30 am - Chester wakes me up with an obnoxious meow (or four). Currently it's still an acceptable time, but when the sun starts coming up super-early, the Chester gets up earlier. *sigh*
6:45 am - have now fed and watered all four cats (I think I did it correctly, but who knows - I'm pre-coffee)
7:00 am - Chester wants more food. This is ok, because I should really be getting up anyhow. My routine is rather boring - I feed the cats (again), put away the dishes from dinner (from the drying rack, I don't have a dishwasher), set up the coffee maker, and put water in a pot for my oatmeal and set it on the stove. And yes, I do the same thing every morning. Makes it easier to get up - routine, you know?
7:15 am - shower, etc.
8:00 am - turn on the stove to make the oatmeal
8:30 am - what was I doing? No idea, but the water has been boiling for at least twenty minutes.
8:45 am - eat breakfast and drink coffee. Yum. My favorite part of the day - often marred by cats trying to get attention by scratching the books on the mantle, attacking one another, etc.
9:00 am - wash dishes and put some food out for black fuzzy and the long-haired calico.

9:30 am - Leave for work. I walk to work, which is great. Um, this time of year, anyhow. Summer is not so fun here. I am getting a bit tired of looking at the same garbage everyday - there has been a black plastic comb in the same place for a month.

9:45 am - Arrive at work. I am extremely inconsistent. Luckily, nobody at work seems to care much. Some days I don't arrive until 11 am. This is a good day!

10:00 am - actually start working. I usually stop and say hello to people before actually doing anything worthwhile. Haha. As if the stuff I do for work is always worthwhile.
So this is my desk area. Yup. I'm a bit messy. But, I know where everything is. ;) But, you can see I have some file folders up on the "wall." And this is how it looked all day - not much changed!
I work in a lab, so behind my desk is a gas line - we burn up samples and collect the carbon for radiocarbon dating. Essentially. And I know it isn't that interesting. So that's what that mess of glass and stuff is. Those silvery containers are "dewars" that hold liquid nitrogen or isopropanol and dry ice. I've got some fun stickers on mine (Save Tibet - very colorful).
6 pm - Leave work. Well, this is what sometimes happens. Usually I am fooling around with non-work stuff before I leave. But, this was a good day. It was actually February 8th when I was documenting my day! And it's taken two whole weeks to upload the photos and type it up!
7 pm - 2 or 3 mile walk with my husband. We try to walk everyday. Sometimes the walk gets pushed to 10pm and we do the slightly shorter walk down to the university (well-lit and lots of people are around late).
8:15 pm - Dinner. My husband cooks and I "help." Some nights I have actually been cooking (!) lately - he bought me a cookbook for Christmas (a hint, perhaps?).
9:15 - coffee and a bit of knitting and chatting with my husband. Usually coffee this late is decaf. But, yes, I can drink coffee as late as 10pm and still go to sleep soon after. Crazy, huh?
11 pm - Hmm... Time for bed! Usually getting ready for the next morning and for bed takes the next half hour...and I get way-laid often. Bed time is often past midnight. Now you can see why Chester waking me up at 6 am is a bit of a problem. I think I need more sleep than 6 hours!

Musings on travel...

Yes it's been a while since posting. My husband has a job interview in the midwest, starting tomorrow. He is currently driving the length of Indiana because his connecting flight was canceled. Not only that, but he nearly missed his original flight due to shuttle stupidity! I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Of course, I should've checked how many complaints had been filed to begin with - but the only other shuttle was booked at the right time. Next time, fly out of the closer airport; next time, drive yourself to the airport. I hope it doesn't snow much on the four hour drive through Indiana. I'm exhausted from spending the weekend searching for cold-weather wear in a place where it's currently in the 70's (Ok, 60's right now). People looked at me as if I were nuts - "thermal underwear?" I'm ashamed to say that I had to buy some sort of ear-warming device - including a non-hand-knit hat!

So, I'm off to nap and maybe do some knitting...it might help calm me down.

Project Spectrum Begins Today...

I know, it's not too exciting. My current knitting project is not blue, white, or grey. But, the sky this morning was blue, white, and grey! I am aware there are other colors in this photo - my photo ops are limited by the size of my backyard and the number of power lines overhead. Tonight I'll have to think about what sorts of projects I can do this month that will be more exciting than this here photo.
In other news... here's a great photo of black fuzzy guy up close and personal! My husband managed to get fairly close to him the other day. He can only get close when the little guy is up on the wall, though - you can't get within 12 feet of him while he's on the ground. The calico kittens won't get near people at all. Not even for food. Father tuxedo cat was watching all this from the neighbor's rooftop!