30 years ago – February 1991

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I couldn’t find any pictures we took in February 1991. As I looked back through my notes, I found references to us have bad colds/flu – daughter first (with an ear infection) and then me…my husband last. I was busy at work trying to write a proposal while I was sick. I was worried about my parents having trouble buying the house they wanted because of an easement issue, one of my sisters needing surgery, and the sister-in-law that I had never met/that my husband hadn’t seen in almost 20 years communicating sporadically while she was getting rounds of cancer treatment; it was all happening very far away from Maryland but the worries were always there while I did everything else.

On a happier note – we discovered that our 17-month-old daughter had picked up some counting skills (maybe Sesame Street or at day care). Her dad was playing with her one evening dropping disks into a can with a slot…he picked up several and counted…one, two, three, four…as he dropped disks into the slot. She picked up one and dropped it into the slot and said ‘five’…and another and said ‘six.’ We were both so surprised that there was a little pause before we celebrated her accomplishment!

It seems that I always find some nuggets when I look back at notes and pictures from 30 years ago There are events – like the counting skills surprise – that my notes indicate I thought would be something we would always remember…but I didn’t. I’m so glad I have the notes and can savor the surprise again!

Red-Shouldered Hawk

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Sometimes the more frequent handwashing results in a surprise observation through the window above my kitchen sink. After putting away some groceries last week…just as I was finishing up the soap and water routine, I glanced at the sycamore tree and saw a larger bird that I expected there. It was a red-shouldered hawk! I alerted my husband and he grabbed his camera to try to get a picture. I went upstairs to my office because all my cameras were there. I got three pictures from my office window before it flew down into the chaos garden at the base of the sycamore…not visible from my vantage point upstairs.

My husband got a picture too, but he groused that the window had too much glare.

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It was the most exciting minute of our day!

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There are two virtual birding festivals coming up this weekend…visual treats for the Valentines weekend:

The Niagara birding festival is free – Feb 12-14 - http://www.birdsontheniagara.org/ - 19 species of gulls….sometimes arctic species like snowy owls.

The Laredo birding festival is $25 – Feb 13 – this is the one we went to last year just as the pandemic was beginning – not sure how much will be virtual local field trips but that area is very unique with lots of tropical and subtropical birds…I got the best look ever of a great horned owl there….and road runners…and an Audubon’s oriole and white pelicans feeding together (like a ballet, all dipping their heads to feed in unison) https://riograndeinternationalstudycenter.formstack.com/forms/9th_virtual_laredo_birding_festival

I like the little surprise of seeing a bird I don’t expect to see in our backyard…gives a little serendipity to the day. It’s also a good feeling to realize that I am learning to recognize birds that I didn’t a few years ago. The pandemic has given us all a time out….and an extreme ‘learning experience.’ I am choosing to focus on the positive lessons.

The Coffee Toed Cat

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Descriptive naming is something we all learn. Often those names are temporary nick names. They have value beyond simple description…they are fun too. One example that I heard recently was my daughter saying her cat had coffee toes. Do you see them in the picture? And the coffee toes are symmetrical too!

When I first started working in the computer industry in the 1970s, I realized that creating names was a skill I needed to develop. Naming of variables, lines of control language, and file names required a huge uptick in that kind of thinking for me and many others as well. Some of the abbreviations we use today (like using 4 instead of FOR or 2 for TO/TOO/TWO) was one of the techniques I learned in the 1970s since many of the names then were limited to 8 characters and couldn’t have spaces or special characters. The numbers were a kind of punctuation as well as a ‘word!’

Unfortunately - there is a dark side to the naming skill - when it is derogatory or bullying. It would be great if the public discourse could reverse the uptick in that kind of naming over the past decade….develop a trend toward fun and descriptive names like ‘the coffee toed cat.’

Moon Set

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Late in January, we had some clear nights, and I noticed the light streaming in from the full moon when I first got up…well before sunrise. At first the moon was still high enough that it was clear of the treetops. I used the ‘night scene’ setting on my camera to get some reasonable handheld pictures.

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A bit later, the moon was down in the upper branches of the tulip poplars and the pines – depending on which window of the house I was photographing through.

The next morning, I photographed it again while the moon was still above the treetops. Look at the lower left of the orb…notice the edges are not smooth: the craters of the moon.

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The natural world is full of things to notice – even in the cold of winter through a window. Somehow starting off the day noticing something like the moon setting, the sun rising, the frost on the rooftops, a breeze moving a pine branch….fills me with joy in the moment and anticipation of the day to come.

Zentangle® – November 2020

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30 Days in November…such a challenge to pick just 30 from all the tiles I worked on in November! I am striving to do all the layers before I put the tile in the collection for the month….but have a pile of tiles I’ve made over the past few years that I took out from under the plastic tablecloth on the breakfast table when I put out the Christmas cards; I am still coloring and highlighting those old tiles….savoring them again.

There are 9 rectangular tiles (made from the separators in the cat food boxes). My favorite is the first one….reminiscent of fall bouquets.

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The square tiles are more numerous. My favorite is on the left; it looks a little like a ruffled headdress to me.

I didn’t take enough materials to keep me busy during the NCIS commercials….and used the cardboard backing of a pad of paper for a Zentangle tile – an irregular size. It reminds me of coiled snakes – or maybe pangolins.

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Another unusual shape for the month – triangular tiles. I didn’t quite get the 6 lined up perfectly for the scan but it was fun to make each gingko leaf tile….and then put them all together. I’ll be doing more of experiments…seeing how they look singularly and together.

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The time I spend making Zentangle tiles is enjoyable and rewarding. I am often pleasantly surprised by what I create by the time I finish. I never thought of myself as an artistic person, but maybe that was an assumption I made based on experiences in elementary school ‘art’ classes. Somehow the things we did in art class were not what I wanted to do!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

30 Years Ago – October 1990

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Looking back through pictures and notes from 30 years ago – it was a happy month…but full of big changes that my family handled better than we’d anticipated. I went back to work full time…straight into to proposal team that required full time in the office plus some work at home time. I had just set up an office of my own at home the month before…was still using the IBM PC AT that was over 5 years old. My daughter was already trying to help. Note that I didn’t have a rolling chair yet. We purchased two that month for my husband and I (evidently after the picture was taken) and we still have them!

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My planning wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough that we all felt like things were going well. I made pumpkin muffins several times during the month since they were tasty snacks (or mini-meals) that we all enjoyed. And made meal plans each week for my daughter’s lunches packed for day care and our dinners.

My husband and I were thrilled that she took her first steps with us rather than in day care late in September…and then she was off and climbing. Even though we thought we had baby-proofed the house…but we had typical calamities of her running into her indoor tree house face first, hitting her head on the foot board of the bed while climbing up, and almost tilting over the back of her little rocking chair.

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We all enjoyed the fall foliage day trip to Catoctin with her riding in the backpack more than walking around. When we got her out to walk around in the leaves, they were deep enough to be at least knee deep for her…and she didn’t want to move around in them!

I was busy making the rounds of yard sales to stock up on larger clothes for her and found some bargains. Most of her clothes were bought used but I couldn’t resist a new green velveteen dress with a big white color that she wore for several holiday pictures in the coming months…and it got handed down to her cousins after it got too small for her…and probably sold at a yard sale 10 years or so later.

30 years ago – September 1990

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30 years ago – in September 1990 – my daughter passed her 1-year mark and a few weeks later started to walk rather than cruise. The transition from taking few steps/walking while holding onto something to walking all the time happened on a single day and we took lots of pictures. She even started carrying things in her hands on that day (her favorite being a blanket). She also figured out a way to get on our bed without help – by using the foot board as a step up and then a leg up and over. She might have been motivated by the books that were in the headboard since the first thing she did once she was on the bed was to pull them all out to look at. The cat patiently supervised.

She was speaking in single words…mostly people or food. A day or so after she started walking, she kept repeating ‘book’ as we came into the house from her day care….and she insisted on going up to her bedroom….where she immediately went to the stack of books we had by our rocking chair and pulled out the book she wanted….sat down to look at it. She must have been thinking about it as we drove home.

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I had been gradually increasing my work hours during the month and had my full-time assignment that would start October 1. I was making plans for some family travel over Thanksgiving…but concerned that my new assignment had the potential to be in crunch mode at the same time. I was trying to not get too anxious but had not quite acclimated to the mom and career duality. The ‘Sally Forth’ comic strip was becoming my role model of the type relationship my daughter and I would have as she got older….maybe.  

My husband was being supportive…helping more with our daughter and setting up an office for me. This was the time that we went from 1 home computer to 2. I had the best room in the house for my office (a view of our front yard trees from the window).

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Haze at 30,000 feet. We are having hazy skies in Maryland from smoke created by the fires in California! Evidently the jet stream is carrying the smoke across the northern part of the US. By the time it gets here, it is a thin layer and high enough to not cause air quality issues. We can tell it’s a sunny day because there are shadows on our yard…but the sky is not blue.

Veggies into the Freezer

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The day before the pickup of the CSA share and the crispers are still relatively full….it’s time to do some freezing.

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The leafy greens (kale, lettuce, cabbage, arugula, spring greens) - I cut up coarsely and stuffed gallon Ziplocs. I can use them in smoothies or stir fries. They are easy to break into small pieces once they are frozen.

Fennel top was chopped and placed in a smaller bag. They might go in soup - or maybe a smoothy. They have a stronger flavor so I will use a little at a time.

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Garlic scapes are cut into pieces and in a plastic container. They will be easy to use in stir fries.

The summer squash is in chunks. They’ll be great in smoothies and stir fries….or thawed and processed into custards.

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On the plus side, I managed to use the beets (including the tops), the scallions, the snow peas, a small head of lettuce, the carrots (with tops), the broccoli, the cucumbers, and some of the summer squash. It’s not that I didn’t eat a lot of veggies….just that the CSA supplies an overwhelming amount of them this time of year! At least I don’t waste any of them….but my freezer is getting very full.

Unique for Yesterday:

Catching up on Fashion as Design course. I enjoyed the Fashion as Design Coursera Course back in April. I didn’t complete all the assignments, so I am still getting updates for the class; the instructors are adding to the course material. The latest offering included some zoom meetings about fashion related to news (specifically masks, the pandemic, Black Lives Matter) and a panel discussion on how designers have approached the pandemic crises and the nature of ‘emergency’ itself. And then some videos and a forum on makeup. I signed up for both meetings that will be held later in the week and watched the videos immediately.

A wedding with the bigger celebration being postponed to the 1st anniversary. There was a July wedding planned for a family member that lives in Texas which I had sent along a gift and regrets that I couldn’t attend. Now it’s been changed to be a dramatically reduced event with just bride, groom, and the 2 sets of parents….and then a big celebration planned for the 1st anniversary. A good plan! It’s something to look forward to in 2021.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/12/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Aargh! Brown-headed cowbirds. This is the first year I’ve noticed cowbirds coming regularly to our feeder. There is a pair that seems to be hanging around and I’m concerned that we’ll have baby cowbirds demanding food from the robins and sparrows and cardinals and maybe even the finches.

Making a new plan – then changing it. I had big plans for my front flower beds yesterday afternoon because it was so warm – mixing soil with compost and planting some seeds, placing the glass bird bath on its stand and filling it with water. Then I looked more carefully at the 10-day forecast and remembered that there had been ice in the birdbath cantilevered from our deck for the past 2 mornings. Planting seeds needs to wait until after danger cold temperatures…and I wasn’t keen on the glass bird bath having frozen water in it either. So - I picked up sticks that had fallen from several trees. The oak and sycamore always have small twigs around them after gusty days. But this spring I noticed our cherry does too. There are a couple of larger branches that aren’t getting leaves this year. I told my husband that he’d have to help me when I cut them – although I want to wait a little while to make sure they aren’t going to leaf out.

Photographing windfall. While I was making multiple trips to the brush pile with loads of twigs, I noted small bits of trees that had blown to the ground: a twig from a pine with very green needles still attached, groups of samaras blown from the red maple before they could fully ripen, and some seed pods formed last fall on the tulip poplar. I gathered up my treasures before going inside. Just after I put them on the kitchen table, I noticed that one of them had a hitchhiker.

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A tiny spider crawled around. I quickly tried to get a picture, but it was moving too fast and was very small. I decided to use the jeweler’s loupe to contain it…and get the picture with my cell phone The jewelers loupe is 22x magnification…it was a very small spider!

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I took a close look at the junction between the pine needles and the twig with the clip-on macro lens on my cell phone. The twig has wrinkles at the junction!

The samaras from the red maple have been a topic previously. They are drying out and losing their color…but still are quite beautiful with the green and muted pink.

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The pods from the tulip poplar are thoroughly dry. One still contained some seeds. I pulled a seed out to photograph. I’m always in awe that such a tiny seed grows to be such a big tree!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.  

I am opting to continue this series of blog post to emphasis how different this time is. This is the longest time I’ve stayed home that I can remember. While I am here, I am choosing things I enjoy doing and documenting some of them in this series….and following recommendations to keep myself and others healthy. Overall – the emotional roller coaster from the early days has become more subdued. Every day I become more confident that the way I am living now is sustainable for as long as it takes. My wish for everyone is to

Stay well and help others to be well too.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/26/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday – a beautiful sunny spring day:

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Noticing the first dandelion flowers while I took a walk in the neighborhood. I want to take advantage of every good spring day to either work in the yard or take a walk in the neighborhood. As it gets warmer – I’ll do it early…get a picture of the sunrise from a better vantage point that my front porch.

Celebrating a family birthday virtually. Sharing pictures and video…talking on the phone…there are ways to share the celebration other than being in the same place!

Assisting my daughter’s test of her virtual class delivery. My husband (on his iPad) and I (on my laptop) were the ‘students’ in my daughter’s test of the technology (Zoom) she will be using for her two classes beginning next week. The university is closed…all classes virtual. The professors are doing it from their homes. My daughter and son-in-law have the additional challenge of teaching classes in the same time slot. The bandwidth at their house might be an issue and so might the sound of them both lecturing at the same time!

Surprise – just as we were finishing the Zoom test with my daughter, an American Goldfinch (male) flew to our birdfeeder and I got a picture. It’s getting its summer plumage – the first I’d seen that was yellowing this season. It was the grand finale of the meeting for me.

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Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/24/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Receiving a flowering plant – virtually. My daughter sent a picture of her Persian violet in bloom. She was excited since it is a plant that requires a lot of sun….lots of grow lamps in her office in Missouri. She has it at home now since the university buildings are closed. And in all the turmoil….it’s blooming! She is getting ready to begin teaching her classes virtually next week.

Beginning the experiments with Dutch Chocolate protein powder. We ordered it at my daughter’s suggestion - protein with a longer shelf-life and doesn’t require refrigeration. Chocolate for me; vanilla for my husband. My first experiment was a red smoothie: 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 scoop protein powder, 1 heaping teaspoon beet root powder, banana, 1/4 cup walnuts – yummy and pretty too.

Making a list and checking it twice. My daughter encouraged me to stop going into the grocery store beginning this week. I made an online list for curb side pickup with my usual grocery store…reviewed it carefully with my husband to make sure it would be everything he wanted for the next week. And then – just before bedtime – I tried to submit it. I quickly discovered that there were no available times for curbside pickup! I went to bed extremely frustrated deciding to wait until the morning to look at other options. The saga continues tomorrow….

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23

30 Years Ago – March 1990

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30 years ago this month – my husband and I took our daughter on her first overnight trip. We went to Blackwater and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuges on the eastern shore of Maryland/Virginia. At Blackwater we saw our first Bald Eagle in the wild while the baby was working on a bottle (i.e. she was weaned from breast milk). We used our new umbrella stroller on some grassy paths at Chincoteague; by the end of the trip, it was somewhat scuffed…no longer ‘new’ looking.

I was making plans to go back to work in May…had sent a note off to my manager about wanting a part time assignment for 4 months and then would go back to full time after that.

My parents came from Texas for a visit – being with us for my Dad’s birthday. We bought some soft balls for our daughter to give to him for his birthday and I remember taking this picture. She has a pillow behind her because she wasn’t yet adept at sitting on her own. My dad’s arm is in the picture and the red ball he is getting ready to roll to her is in his hand. He moved it several times before he let it go…training her to keep her eye on the ball!

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Previous 30 years ago posts can be found here.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/22/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Trying macro photographs of spicebush and red maple. My original plan was to tromp through the backyard and into the woods…do the photography outdoors. But – it was colder and breezier than I anticipated so I cut a small spicebush branch and picked up a twig of red maple samaras that had blown off. The photography part of the project would be done inside.

I worked with the red maple samaras first. I used a jeweler’s loupe and my cell phone with the samara on my kitchen countertop…a small flash light supplementing the natural light coming from one side. I like the graceful ridges in the ‘wings.’

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Then I ‘got close’ with my Canon point-and-shoot camera….let its macro setting do it’s best. These are small immature samaras…about 1/4 inch.

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The spice bush flowers are small too. I put the branch in a vase (with the sycamore branch). I might get to see its leaves unfurl too…after the flowers are done. I noticed an ant on the branch as I put it in the water. Can ants be pollinators?

I tried several approaches to photographing the small flowers. The ones below were done with the clip-on macro lens on my phone. The challenge is the shallow depth of field. These flowers are small but not flat!

Then I tried putting my Canon bridge camera on a tripod across the kitchen and using the zoom. It blurs the background and provides more depth…but the color is gone. Maybe I’ll put more light on the flowers and try again. The sycamore buds might benefit from the same photographic strategy. My husband gets into the action too – helping me with the more complicated set ups.

Catching up on the Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari videos:

Completing the Jackson Pollock segment of the In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting Coursera course. I’ve been doing one ‘week’ of the course every day and enjoying all of them – particularly the part about learning how they were made.

Re-assessing our investment strategy…making some changes. At first, we thought that maybe the social distancing strategy would work, and the economy would blip but recover soon. Not enough people are following the guidance – it says something very sad about us as a nation – and means that the pandemic with be more overwhelming. From an economic standpoint, it is more than a blip and deteriorating further. So we made some investment changes to stabilize rather than free fall…..continuing our social distancing…and hoping that the tests of potential therapeutic drugs work well enough to save lives and shorten the time people are in the hospital to recover. Both my husband and I fell of the wagon of limiting time spent following the coronavirus stories and statistics yesterday…back to limiting that activity today – no one needs a constant pounding of repeating bad news.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/17/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

  • Picking earrings to wear that I haven’t worn in a long time. Yesterday I wore some from Orlando FL and today they are from Watkins Glen NY. Earrings are my favorite item to purchase when I travel…small keepsakes that I can wear! Both are over 10 years old, but I still remember where I got them.

  • Maintaining the compost pile and walking around the yard. I’m trying to get out of the house at least once a day….enjoy that it is springtime here!

  • Watching the second installment of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari (about Rico the Porcupine). They have established a website where all the videos will be available after they air live. I am watching the recorded version, so I don’t have to pay attention to the time to be online at 3 PM EDT!

  • Calling family far away, I had planned to be in Texas this past week…but I was already ‘staying at home as much as possible’ a few days before I was going to get on the airplane. Talking on the telephone is the next best thing for keeping in touch until it is not as risky to be out and about in larger groups of people.

  • Making a Zentangle® butterfly. I was straightening up my office and found a few extra butterfly tiles left from last summer’s experience with summer campers. I couldn’t resist using the tile…thinking that this would be a good activity for anyone needing a quiet calm time. If you want to learn a new pattern, checkout out https://tanglepatterns.com/ . Later in the afternoon. it was warm enough that I saw a real butterfly - a cabbage white.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Staying at Home as much as Possible

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The CDC guidance for people at risk for serious illness from COVID-19 has changed over the past week. A few days ago, the first bullet basically said ‘stay at home as much as possible.’ Now that advice is the last bullet and it is only if there is a COVID-19 outbreak in your community. There are some disconcerting cases near where I live (a rector at a church and at person at a large conference) that are not travel related; I guess we will know in 5 or so days how contagious the individuals were. There does not appear to be a lot of testing happening in my area yet so it’s hard to know if there is an outbreak of not.

So - I am trying to chart a middle course….

I am in the higher risk group because I am older although I rarely get sick, so my main concern is for others close to me that are also older and have chronic conditions. I don’t want to be a carrier of COVID-19! At this point I am:

  • Stocked up on supplies (food, household supplies)

  • Avoiding crowds (when I do need go for groceries, going in the early morning; not going to classes; thinking more about ‘social distancing’)

  • Not flying

  • Washing hands frequently and practicing not touching my face during times I am out and about.

This is a change from the norm for me….but one that I am enjoying so far. The sudden shift to being at home more has me savoring the place….noticing the red maple blooming as I look out my office window,  cleaning out the basement, pulling weeds/grass in flower beds and noticing the bulbs planted out in the yard by squirrels. I’m getting a lot done that I have been meaning to do but never seemed to have the time available. I’ll be posting more about my ‘living in COVID-19 times’ over the next few day

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30 Years Ago – February 1990

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30 years ago this month - Our household was beginning to make changes to sustain itself with a baby that was increasingly active. In February she became even more adept at rolling, got two baby teeth and began eating in the highchair (colorful food like carrots seemed to be favorites). About the time the first teeth came in, her tongue thrust became much less pronounced. She managed to hold things in her hands for longer periods….and we managed to capture the first picture of her with a book. She was awake and interacting much more during the day…and sleeping through the night most of the time.

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My husband and I were planning our first mini-vacation with the baby before family visits to our house started in March. It was going to be tacked onto a trip he needed to make for work. I was already beginning to wean the baby and plan what I needed to do before I started back to work part-time in May. I didn’t want her to associate weaning with me suddenly being gone.

At the same time, my husband and I were finally acknowledging the stress we both were experiencing after being a couple for over 15 years…and adding a baby in the mix. The transition was harder than we anticipated but it was beginning to improve by the end of February because we were finally acknowledged that we needed to actively work on it.

Previous 30 years ago posts can be found here.

Memorable Picture

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I took this picture back in November. It is the side of the Missouri State University stadium. What do you think the image between the two columns represents?

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My mother glanced at it – thought it was a spider….but the logo is actually of a bear! It a rectangular clip of a squarish logo that is obviously a bear. But I can see how it does look like a spider at first glance….and that’s what makes the picture memorable. It draws me back to a moment in time on a cold November day, walking between the building and our car, noticing the fierce whatever-it-is, laughing. I took the picture just after my mother’s comment and we all pilled into the car. A happy time.

Touch Tank – January 2020

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I enjoy the volunteer gig at the Robinson Nature Center Touch Tank….getting more experienced every time I spend an hour there. The Discovery Room, where the touch tank is located, is full of activities for pre-school through elementary school aged children with the Touch Tank being available when there is a volunteer to open it.

There are two kinds of sea urchins: the slate pencil with spines that look like slate pencils from the 1800s and pin cushion with spines that are more prickles. Both names are somewhat historical for young children. Some have never seen a pin cushion! Even the adults haven’t seen slate pencils that look like the sea urchin. Everyone enjoys seeing how the pin cushion urchins ‘hide’ by holding shells and little hats to themselves. The pin cushion urchins can also hang on well enough to hang upside down for a little while on my hand…always a surprise to the children.

Sometimes the sea urchins attach themselves to something else – a rock or a conch. Do you see the pin cushion urchin on the back of the milk conch in the pictures below? The conch was on the move with eye stalks extended and vacuuming up its food from the sand.

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There are three conchs in the tank. The largest is usually the most active.

And then there are the sea stars. I like to look at them through the glass of the tank…with their suction-cup feet out and hanging on. I pick them up for the children to touch – back and front – but I like them better through the glass.

Overall, I am getting more comfortable with the animals in the tank and better at controlling the flow of people (children) around the tank. An hour at the touch tank is always an hour well spent!

30 Years Ago – January 1990

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30 years ago this month – my daughter was 4 months old and I was still taking unpaid leave from my career at IBM. We visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the first day of the year. My husband took pictures of me and the baby near the elephant in the rotunda! She probably couldn’t really see the whole elephant clearly, but she was wide awake for most of the museum (napping in the car on and from).

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That January had enough snow and ice that we didn’t get out very much. I had a scary fall on an icy driveway early in the month. It was icy. I thought it was just wet when I headed out to get the mail. My feet slid forward; I fell backward and hit my head. I lay on the driveway for a few seconds assessing….then crawled back up/to the side to the grass…kept to the grass to get the mail before I went back inside.

The view from the front of our house shows a newly planted Bradford Pear near the street (still has stakes on both sides). The neighborhood had organized to plant the trees along the street, and we went along with the idea. Now Bradford Pears have become invasive in our area – coming up everywhere as Callery Pear. Aargh!

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In the back of the house we had some larger evergreens. One leaned way over the woodpile. We were using our fireplace more that January than before or since.

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Our one PC and keyboards were in the basement. We had a full house upstairs with a bedroom and sitting room for my mother-in-law, a room for the baby, and the master bedroom.

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There were two baby milestones during the month: she started eating baby cereals and rolling over. At the beginning of the month the rolling over was occasional and took a lot of extreme effort on her part. By the end of the month it was so easy for her that she rolled until something stopped her…and then figured out that she could roll away in the other direction.  

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My 2019 in Review - Travel

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The Space Coast of Florida….Providence, Rhode Island…Carrollton, Texas…Cape May, New Jersey…Springfield, Missouri… Smith Island, Maryland…Scottsburg, Virginia --- these were the places we traveled in 2019.

The Space Coast of Florida was for a birding festival held in January. I had quite a few blog posts about it. That road trip got the year off to a fast start for birding.

In late March/early April, I traveled to Providence, Rhode Island on the train to take the CZT class (Certified Zentangle Training). I posted about the experience of the trip and the training here.

The only plane trip of the year was in April – to Carrollton for a niece’s wedding. And it was perfect timing for the pocket prairie (posted about here).

In May, the Cape May Birding Festival…another road trip and lots of birding…blog posts.

There were multiple trips to Springfield, Missouri during the summer to help get my daughter and son-in-law moved from Pennsylvania to Missouri. It’s a 2-day road trip in each direction…often with very full carloads of fragile stuff.  And then I was back for Thanksgiving too! I did a little exploring – the botanical garden, the art museum, and the conservation nature center. The posts are here.

The first attempt at a boat trip to Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay was cancelled due to wind in April. The re-scheduled time was in October…and we enjoyed the trip. I posted about what we saw. The pelicans were the high point for me.

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Later in October, we were camping at Staunton River State Park near Scottsburg, Virginia for a star party. We’ve been going every year that the weather permits for the past several years. It’s always cold at night but we survive - enjoy ambience of a field of telescopes, tents, campers and cars. This year we took a short hike on one of the mornings.

Looking back – our travel was full of variety (places, activities, and seasons)…a good mix. I’m already primed for more adventures away from home in 2020!