DC

I'm in Washington, DC this week for meetings related to next year's adventure in Zagreb. Spike accompanied me for a little tourism.

The US Supreme Court

The Capitol, from atop the steps at the US Supreme Court.

Well, yeah.

Meeting the Pres.

Getting ready for our trip.

Caterpillar

Knatolee has posted some lovely bug pictures lately, and look what I found munching on my tomatillo plant this evening. I think it's a sphinx moth caterpillar of some kind. It's about 3 inches long.

It has very impressive teeth!

Look! I did something crafty!

When is the last time I knitted? Forever ago, sadly. But I recently acquired a Kindle and decided to put my minimal sewing skills to use making a cover for it. The pattern is here. I owned the fabric and other supplies already, so my cost was zilch. The results?

This is one side of the cover when it's closed. It's less than an inch thick even with the Kindle inside.

Here's the other side. Pink is normally not my thing, but I really love this fabric.

And here it is open. You can fold it flat or prop it like an easel. Spike and Angel approve, I think, as does John Steinbeck.

The first one is hysterical, isn't it?

Thank you

I really appreciate all the kind words. We just came back from a trip to Hawaii, and the house is so empty without Ruthie. This is my first time petless since 1985! No plans for another pet now, though, especially because Thing1 and I will be in Croatia for 6 months next year.

Thank you

Thank you so much to all of you for the very kind words. Your thoughts mean a lot to me.

Ruthie

We had to put Ruthie to sleep this morning. She could hardly walk, she was pretty much blind, and she just wasn't happy. It was the right decision. She was 11 1/2, a good age for a Saint. She was the sweetest dog in the whole wide world.

I'm alive!

Long time no hear, huh?

So, all my books are currently in print. I'm trying out this new Amazon thingy; the links should be in this post. I'm about to begin work on co-writing another textbook as well. So no, haven't done any knitting in a long time.

My other big news is I was granted a Fulbright scholarship to Croatia. I'll be spending Spring 2011 in Zagreb, and DD1 will be going with (DH and DD2 will visit). I'm pretty excited about it, to say the least. I hope to get in as much travel around Europe as I can while we're there, so if anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them.I just ordered some Croatian language CDs; we'll see if we can pick up a little of the labguage before we get there!

Book complete

This is the textbook my co-authors and I have been working on for an eternity. Finally, the 1st Edition is in print. Hooray!!

The 2nd edition of my hate crimes text will be out this spring as well. I'm just in a publishing frenzy, aren't I?

Amazon's discounting my book, Stasis, to $10.08 right now. My royalties remain the same, and I'm donating 100% of the royalties to Doctors without Borders. So now's a good time to buy. :-)

Back from the dead?

I haven't posted here for months and months. One thing I did in that time was write a novel during NaNoWriMo. And I self-published it so now you can buy it at Amazon or CreateSpace. All my royalties go to Doctors without Borders.

Hummer

Thanks for the comments on my new tattoo! :-) I'm very happy with it.

We're back home now.

See this little guy? He (she?) has decided that this particular spot on the tomato cage is where he wants to spend most of his day. He periodically flits over to snack on the California fuschia you can see in the background, but then he always flies back, and he perches there a long time. Sometimes another hummer comes along and dive-bombs him, bu he chases it off. It's nifty because he either can't see us through the window or doesn't care, so I can get within about 3 feet of him. I love hummingbirds.

Not sure what variety this is. Possibly a female or juvenile Anna's humminbird. or possibly not. :-)

Still Alive!

We're on vacation. Spent last week in Vancouver (which we liked a lot) and this week is in Portland. The kids and Spike came with us, and today I got a new tattoo. :-)

Summer

Thing1 flew all by herself to Oregon, for visits with relatives and then camp. See how grown-up she looks, in this pic I took at the airport?

Meanwhile, T2 celebrated Crazy Hair Day at school.

I am stuck with book revisions and emergency budget meetings. Bleh!!

I'm alive!

Okay, so I haven't posted in a really really long time. Not too much exciting going on here, really. But Thing 2 is now somewhere in the middle of the 4th Harry Potter book, which is pretty impressive for a kid who hasn't yet started 1st grade. Here she is posing with the book and no teeth.

Thing 2 is finishing up the series for the second time. She's off to camp on Saturday, where she'll be for 3 weeks. It's going to be very quiet around here.

Here's T1 and Spike enjoying lunch at Red Lobster to celebrate a good report card (for T1, that is. Spike didn't get one). T1 has a thing for eating shrimp.

Student Video

Want to see a video some of the students in my Hate Crimes class made? Here it is. They did a nice job. There's even a blooper reel at the end.

Last night was the last ceramics class until fall. I had two things to bring home. A spider tile:

I like it because I actually drew the spider, which is the limit of my drawing ability. And a sun:

Four of the rays had fallen off by the time it was bisque fired. So I glazed them separately, knowing I could glue them on later. And even though I used the same glaze on everything, as you can see, 3 of the rays turned out a totally different color. I guess they were in different spot in the kiln. In any case, I really like the the end result anyway, so it was a happy accident.

I plan to sign up again in the fall.

Garden

Thing 2 is very happy with the cherry tomato plant she planted in the Topsy Turvy thing. At least it'll give the snails a challenge to find it.

Ceramics FOs

Haven't had any pottery things to show in a while, so here's an odd little collection of ceramics projects. First there's this happy little guy. I'd meant him as a wall hanging, and he has holes in his head for nails, but he actually turned out to be a good size and shape ro become a cheese plate. But maybe I'm the only one who'd like to eat cheese off a skull:

I was thinking knitting needle holder when I made this, though it could be a vase, too. I think it looks kinda like a tree stump:

Here they are together, for scale:

Finally, I made a bowl I really like, but I can't seem to get a decent picture of it: