Diep goes fishing

A few months ago, I asked each of the girls that I mentor to tell me some of their dreams. Diep is an exchange student, a super senior, from Vietnam who recently moved into our home. She had some ideas of activities that she wanted to try while still in the Pacific Northwest. She wanted to collect eggs from under hens, gallop on a horse, and try wind surfing and golfing. A few days after she moved into our home, we went to a friend's home for dinner. As we drove in, twenty-four hens greeted us! I did not even know that they were raising chickens! Thank you Lord! Diep collected the eggs and nervously reached under “Sylvia,” the only hen with a soft topknot of feathers gracing her head. Sylvia was not inclined to give up her eggs easily and let Diep know that she was setting on them. Although not on her list, Diep agreed to try fishing. She had never caught a fish. Here’s one of her eight catches from last Sunday afternoon!

Party Gifts!

Have you ever wondered what to take to a party? My sister challenged all of the guests who celebrated with me last Friday to bring 50 of something. Some chose useful gifts and some chose for the laughter.

50 tea lights
50 pennies
50 petals (on a zinnia)
50 smarties
50 dum dums
50 plants in my planter (yah it’s packed!)
50 cupcakes
50 lottery tickets
50 colorful pencils
50 high performance mint flavored “flossers”
50 colored markers
50 coffee beans and a whole bag of more!
50 stick-on fish
50 seeds for my victory garden
50 jelly beans
50 smooth rocks surrounding three peaceful candles

The pennies came in handy for the lottery tickets and the cupcakes were delicious and we all devoured most of them. Diep, our exchange student, learned about smarties, dum dums, and lottery tickets! What great fun! I just want to know who is going to plant, weed and harvest my victory garden?

50!

Today, I am turning 50 years young! Wahoo!! It is so fun to see how creative my friends are! It's only 8:30 in the morning and already I have roses, a strobe card, a caricature, e-cards and a fun necklace (from Vietnam). I am looking forward to a day full of surprises. I am going to start with doing community service/school service with a young boy = weeding for a couple of hours at our school! Tonight we are having a party at the house! Lots of family and friends will be arriving!

Sixth Year

But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.
Psalms 73:28


The nine of us had a great time together this weekend. It was our sixth year of retreating to catch up on each other's lives and kids, study God's word and pray together. And did I mention eat and snack. We did walk and shop, played some games and lots of sleeping for tired moms in a very busy season of their life.

Published

At-Harvest Prediction of Gray Mould Risk in Pear Fruit in Long -Term Cold Storage

"Crop Protection," an international scientific journal, chose to publish our paper. I am one of nine authors on this work and did get to travel to New Zealand twice to do some of the research in the pear orchards and in the labs at Nelson Research Station and Lincoln University. Surprising, I am sure for you, I was not the brains behind this paper, just technical assistance. Some of my high level techniques included:

Picking boxes and boxes of pears in six sunny New Zealand orchards.
Punching holes in a nice little pattern on perfectly good fruit.
Cutting pears stems in half and then into little pieces with a scalpel.
Sonicating & shaking to death perfectly good fruit to get the mould spores to drop off.
Holding petri dishes up to the light and counting different colonies of spore growth.
Handing the "first author," R.A. Spotts, well, whatever he needed for whatever task he was accomplishing.
Reading & editing drafts of the paper.

Enough of my work . . . what does this model do for you? Well, orchardists can use the use this information to predict which of their fruit will spoil in cold storage and must be sold to you soon after harvest and which of their fruit will last well in cold storage and can be sold to you later. More good fruit for us all to enjoy in the middle of winter!

Stairs ~ They trip me up!

I have a love/hate relationship with stairs.

They are certainly good exercise! I can remember running up and down the three flights of stairs in our high school for basketball conditioning. I remember falling down cement stairs at a restaurant a couple years ago which resulted in a broken ankle. Just as it was getting better, I overused it and strained other parts of my foot. That led to tarsal tunnel foot surgery a year ago. I have tripped on our steps--fallen to the bottom only a couple of times. I usually catch myself because I have learned that I MUST hang on to the bannister. The whole Christmas season is rough because we decorate the banisters with lighted greenery and I then must hang onto the spindles. I have not broken a spindle yet.

Tuesday I received my new glasses! Yahoo!! I don't have to look over the top of my reading glasses anymore. I now have progressives! Clear on the top ~ middle section for computer work ~ and the bottom for reading! I was warned that it takes two weeks to get used to them and be careful with depth perception-especially on stairs. I have clung to our bannister for these two days and have not stumbled or tripped.

Yesterday, I threw caution to the wind (OK, I just forgot) and started walking swiftly down the bleachers at the school. Can you picture what happens next? I looked down and the steps got all fuzzy, but my momentum was moving forward and down! And so although I could not see where the next step was, my body kept moving in that forward, down motion. I grabbed for the railing and held much of my body weight off of the ankle turning at a funny angle under me and managed to get the other midair foot onto a flat surface.

I am really quite well for such a feat! My neck and right shoulder hurt a bit from the wrenching they received and the front of the foot that was turned under me is a bit sore. A few other sore spots from strain or stretching, but all in all, great disaster averted! Thank you Lord!

When I got home I had a phone message from a friend who fell down 13 steps at her home yesterday, broke her ankle in three places and is having surgery this morning. I am even more thankful. That could have been me! My ibuprofen size pain is nothing compared to her surgery recovery! (Feel free to pray for Janice as you read this!)

Snow, snow, snow

Another two inches came down overnight and blanketed our street and the golf course greens!
We took off snow shoe-ing. Did you know it is hard to run in snowshoes, turn and smile before the self timer runs down? Any guesses on how many "takes" we had?

Fun framing with downed trees and snow covered branches.