January 13th, 2015 Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! As predicted, yesterday was not very productive. I read a little, I wrote a little, then I just vegged in front of the TV. I feel relatively human today, so I’m hoping I can get some quality writing done before I have to leave at one.

So, you know who Amy Poehler is, right? Actress, comedian, starred on Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation among other things, host of the Golden Globe Awards with Tina Fay. Well did you know she’s also the co-founder of this group called Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. It’s a website and an organization for young girls and women young at heart. Their motto is “Change the world by being yourself”.

This was my “shiny object” of the morning. I’m not a huge SNL fan, and Parks & Rec did not make the short list of TV shows I watch, so I really knew little of Amy Poehler other than she was a popular and talented comedian. I had gone online to wish those born today a happy birthday, like I try to do every morning, and when I was finished, I saw an old classmate of mine had posted this clip. I clicked on it, and was intrigued enough to look up her organization. Check it out for yourself. There are some interesting articles.

No old Victorian as a dorm this time
for Lys. Her room is in the basement
of this building.

I texted a little back and for the with Lys yesterday. She seems settled, and she is jumping back into campus life with both feet. She didn’t mention her knee, so I guess it’s feeling better. Before Lys left Champlain, she was on their events committee, and yesterday – her first full day back at Champlain – she attended a committee meeting and will be helping to coordinate the winter dance. Six classes, committee work, plus required volunteer work, yup, it’s going to be a busy semester.

Dani is back to 100%, well maybe 95%, she’s still a little tired. She was supposed to start with tutoring yesterday, but I haven’t heard back from the school. I’m going to give them a call later to find out what’s going on. Her teachers have been great about her not having to make up a lot of the month’s worth of work she missed, but she still needs to learn the skills she missed. That’s where the tutors were supposed to help. Dani did say some of her teachers were out sick, so more than likely, that’s what the holdup was.

Can I ask you something? Why are guys so dang pig headed about going to the doctor’s? I get a text from Alex Sunday night telling me my son was sick and he wouldn’t listen to her, or her mother, and go to the doctor. At one point he scared her so much, she was on the verge of calling 911 because he couldn’t breathe. Luckily, she had an inhaler on her from when she was sick at New Years, and she got him to use it.

I don’t know if it was Alex’s continued pestering, Alex’s mom calling and threatening to take him to the doctor herself, me calling and telling him he was being a butt and if he didn’t take care of it now, he’d end up in the hospital for a week, his father calling, or a combination of all of the above, but PJ finally went to the doctor. He has a horrible case of bronchitis, is on antibiotics, an inhaler, and steroids. If he had just gone to the doctors when he started feeling sick, it would never have gotten to this stage. ARGH…men! I’m just glad he did go, and now he’ll start feeling better.

Okay, here’s the science portion of the blog today. I don’t know if I have admitted this to you yet, but I’m a weather geek. I think, if I had had the chance to do it all over again, I would have pursued a career as a meteorologist. Clouds, storms, and weather anomalies fascinate me. I am a Weather Channel junkie. A few weeks back I was watching, and they had a piece on about ice spikes.

Ice spikes have a tendency of occurring in bird baths. They happen when the temperature drops quickly and water freezes from the outer edges of a container toward the center. As the edges freeze, the remaining liquid gets pushed to the center, and is left with nowhere to go but up, and it forms ice spikes.

Now, since there was no way in you-know-where you would find a bird bath on my property, I thought I would put water in a half-pan and put it on my back porch to see if I could get an ice spike to form. But, as it often happens with me, I never got around to doing it. We have a cooler outside, by our garage door, that has not yet found its way inside. The cooler has cup holder indents on its lid. Yesterday’s rain filled those indents with water. Last night the temperature dropped from 38° to 18° in a matter of hours. Here are the results. How cool are these??

Yeah, I realize you are probably not nearly as fascinated by these as I am. I’m a dork, I fully admit it. So, have you ever seen these before?

Alright, I’ve bothered you long enough today, and I really do want to get some writing done. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge is:

Make me cry…

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.