Self-Portrait by Emily

Emily took this picture with her new digital camera on her birthday. Beautiful!

Happy 15th, Emily!

Sister and Brother

Fun in the Heat

Animals

Ahhh!

More Dinosaur Valley

Dinosaur Valley

Avritt and Lego Ship

Drive-Thru Safari

Whoa

So much for posting every day of my week alone. Now that I can look back on the week, I guess my perspective is better. So I pretty much worked all week, due to a decision that a colleague at the college and I made to move a project up a week (math placement testing). Here are some things I managed to sneak in:
-Made grilled salmon with a ravigote sauce over couscous for some friends for lunch on Sunday
-Sat around a fire pit and shot the breeze with friends
-Went out to dinner with a friend from work and saw a movie (21 - it was pretty good)
-Spent an hour and a half walking around a bog with two little girls of some friends
-Had lunch at a friend's house (Tuna sauteed with a rice vinegar and soy sauce glaze served over a bed of julienned carrots and brocolli with some Asian seasoning and with a little rice vinegar, orange zest and peanuts splashed on top)
-Stayed at work until 10:30 pm working on the aforementioned project
-Stayed up until midnight that night grading and prepping for my classes
-Ate a lot of food grabbed from Panera
-Ran a review session and testing session for the math placement test
-Started physical therapy and found out my right foot had only 50% range of motion
-Spent three hours tutoring students one afternoon
-Held a review session with my stats students the day before their exam
-Attended an all-day conference at work on teaching large classes (over 40 students)
-Graded papers in a coffee house
-Had coffee with a friend at the coffee house

Whew...no wonder I was exhausted.

Day One

Well, at the end of the first day, I'm starting to think that this may not be too bad. Today I was able to catch a cat nap in the morning (in the window seat with both cats), go out to lunch with friends, plan meals for the week, go grocery shopping, sweep and mop the entryway, clean up the kitchen, clean up my bedroom, inventory a big pile of clothes to go to Goodwill, and clean the bathroom (including scrubbing the tub, which was horrible). I had a bunch of work, financial, and remodeling things on my to-do list, but I was unable to concentrate with the house not being in order. So now that I have that out of my system, I will move on. The grocery shopping is the thing that I was dreading the most because it makes my foot really hurt to walk around that much. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow (if the cats don't meow too loudly from the basement where they are safely shut for the night).

A Strange Seven Days

Mike and the kids left for Texas today. They will be returning next Saturday evening. I have mixed feelings about the week. I am glad to have a break from the crazy-busyness of my life of kids and two jobs. The only thing I have this week is the college job, which is in the afternoon, so other than the cats, nobody will wake me up in the morning. I have a list of things to get done, so I'm not going to just lay around all week. I think the weirdest thing will be dinner. I may go over to friends' houses, or invite people here. We'll see. I've started to wonder if I could go all week without going over to anyone's house or having anyone here...and part of me welcomes the solitude, but part of me dreads it.

One Health Issue to Celebrate

Perhaps because of the on-going struggle with my foot, receiving good news about my low cholesterol levels today from recent bloodwork done as part of a routine physcial was encouraging. Something is going right with my health. Here are the numbers:

Total cholesterol: 163 (under 200 rated desirable by the AHA)
HDL: 56 (50 to 60 is rated average)
LDL: 96 (less than 100 is rated optimal)
Triglycerides: 53 (anything under 150 is rated normal)

Here is a link that describes what the numbers mean.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=183