Baa Baa Black Sheep

Wauka Valley Farm Sheep Shearing

We went on a little adventure yesterday with friends Bev and Rich to see a sheep farm do their biannual sheep shearing. It's a little farm in North Georgia, between Dahlonaga and Cleveland, called Wauka Valley Farm. We had a great time despite the unexpected chilly weather watching the sheep get shorn in the shearing barn, seeing the wool wares from the sheep (they know which wool comes from which sheep!), visiting the llamas and alpacas, and of course, lots of petting the sheep dog and sheep kitty. The farm sends off the fleeces that are not sold during shearing weekend and get it cleaned and carded. When they get the cleaned wool back, they dye the roving and sell it for spinning or other crafts. The colors they had were really beautiful, and I bought 4 ounces of roving that was dyed a mix of spruce blue and teal for my friend Val for only $10! (It was a lot of wool for $10!) We had a great time and didn't smell too sheepy at the end, despite the mud and mist. Click on Daphne above to see more photos. Baa!

Criss Cross Elegance Bracelet

I took a class with B.J. Kahn this past weekend to make this beautiful beaded bracelet. I didn't get much done in the class itself (about half the flower and 1 inch of the herringbone weave of the cuff), but was able to get myself through the rest of the directions the next two nights. It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but the cuff actually splits in half and crosses itself underneath the flower and then rejoins into one band again. I think it turned out pretty well! This is was the model. I love going to Bead Bayou - it's such a cute little bead shop and everyone is so nice. Too bad it is so far away from my house - way up in Alpharetta, but then again, that's probably a good thing or else I might be broke!

PASS #6!

What better way to brighten a Monday than getting another "PASS" in my inbox! So Mechanical & Electrical Systems is in the history books - yay! Next up - General Structures on April 25th. I've already been brushing up on statics - I sort of forgot how much fun it was. Maybe having an excellent structures prof in school helped. (Thanks, Prof. Gentry!)

We had a great weekend, between attending a friend's 40th birthday, spending a lazy afternoon with friends, and SIL in town visiting yesterday through Tuesday. I made an excellent cake on Saturday (butter *DOES* make it better!), but forgot to take a photo. You can pretend that it looked like this, minus the raspberries.

March Madness

Ok, once again, I got sucked into the office pool. Due to tight economic times, I only entered one this year. My sister better cheer hard - I have her Heels winning the whole shebang, shindig, big dance, whatever you want to call it. Let the madness begin!

Do you know your U.S. History?

My coworker, Milvia, is taking her citizenship test tomorrow to become a naturalized citizen, and will hopefully be taking her oath of citizenship tomorrow afternoon! I am so excited for her! I guess my parents went through all of this in some form, either before I was born or very young, but it has been interesting to learn about the process through her. I've been helping her with her history questions for the citizenship test that she will be taking orally tomorrow morning - they will only ask 10 out of a possible 100 questions that they are to be prepared for. I remember most of this from school, but, admittedly, there were some I either didn't know or had long passed from memory so I could make room for other useless bits of trivia (like stuff for my AREs - haha!). Milvia is a champ - she's learned it all like the back of her hand, and I am confident she's going to do great. Take a look at the Civics Questions, and see how many you remember!

Ides of March

Today is the day DH and I celebrate Thoth's birthday - isn't the ides of March befitting to a black cat? Anyway, our beastie boy is about 7 years old now, 13 lbs. He spent the day napping, getting extra treats, and an outing outside to eat his favorite - fresh fescue. Here are some pics of my two boys out in the front yard. (And no, DH is *NOT* choking the kitty in the bottom left one!) If he were the cuddling type, he might have spent some time in front of the TV with me watching NCAA basketball today, but he chose instead to indulge in Kitty TV (aka the Window) getting in some good bird observation time. We had a good bit of rain this weekend, but the trees are budding and the birds are aflutter. Looking forward to Spring!

PASS #5!

I just got PASS #5 for Building Planning in my inbox - YAY! That means all of my graphics portions are DONE! According to my friend Brian, that makes me an ARCHI----!

ARE #7 scheduled!

General Structures has been scheduled for 4/25! This gives me time to make it through our anniversary, Easter, Tax Day (why did we decide to get married the week before taxes are due??), a project deadline at work, and *before* my birthday. It also gives me about 6 weeks to study, and since a lot of the Lateral Forces material is intertwined with GS, it allows me to get through all of the material (okay, ideally), and then schedule LF for a week or two after this one. Then all I will have left is Pre-Design! I'm still waiting on results from ARE #5 and #6 (which I just took, but I should be getting results in 2-4 weeks).

White and Gold Ribbon Day

It was a beautiful day for a Ribbon-Cutting! I was able to stop by today for the opening of the Georgia Tech Women's Softball Complex, Shirley Clements Mewborn Field. The sun was out and everyone was excited and complimentary about Rosser's work on the job. To top it off, the girls won the first game, 2-1! Go Jackets! (Photos complimentary of DH.) I'm looking forward to the new stadium celebration on March 28th!

Snow, Lit(eracy) and Flip

Okay, I'm having to play catch-up here. Let's start with the beginning of this week. We got snow in Atlanta on March 1st! (Happy Bday, Mom!) After a whole night and half a day of rain, fat flakes fell at our house from about 11:30 to 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We took Thoth out for a short adventure, but he did not like the big flakes landing on him and made a beeline back to the porch after walking out a few feet from the front door. Late afternoon, the snow slowed down and turned into sleet, and then the wind really picked up and melted/evaporated a lot away. The next morning, we only had a few patches left.

DH and I attended a free lecture Monday night sponsored by the GT Wesley Foundation as part of the Landiss Lecture Series, "Asking the Value Question in Science and Technology." The speaker was Dr. Stephen Prothero, professor at BU and author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't. He was a really easy speaker to follow and understand, and his topic was really relavant to the college campus and specifically to the mission of the Wesley Foundation, I thought. Without getting in to too much detail, his research boils down to the fact that although most Americans are "religious" in some form or fashion, they really don't have a lot of knowledge about religion, domestically, or in a world view (knowledge about world religions). He has a quiz that you can take testing you on your general knowledge of religion, and I found it to be a little challenging. I did buy the book and look forward to reading it, once I get these AREs out of the way. My summer reading list is becoming quite long...

After the lecture, we decided to join our friends Denise and Brandon, who are old Wesley friends that also attended the lecture, for a bite to eat. First attempt was Figo, but alas, they close at 9:30 and we just missed it. Just down the street is a new restaurant with gourmet, but affordable (except the Japanese Kobe burger at $47!), hamburgers, called Flip, which happened to be open until 10, so we just eeked in there. Denise and I had both been wanting to try it out, and usually they are packed out, so this was actually perfect. Between the four of us, we tried, the Flip Burger (D), brisket burger (B), cheese and bacon burger (mine - yum!), and chorizo burger (DH). All were quite tasty, from the reviews. We also tried two sides - the sweet potato tots (tasty) and tempura fried okra (cut lengthwise - good, but like Six Feet Under's better). The interior has a pretty cool red on white theme, with very sparse table settings (white on white) and brushed aluminum chairs and fixtures. We enjoyed it, and plan to try it again sometime.

And finally, I got through the week and took my 6th ARE this afternoon - Mechanical and Electrical Systems. It seemed to take me a little longer to answer these questions than the other M-P tests so far, but then there was problem-solving and calculations involved in order to answer the questions. All in all, it seemed about the same in difficulty as the others. So now I am waiting for 2 results to come in and 3 more to go! I'm looking forward to enjoying some fabulous sunshine outside for the rest of the weekend - the first warm one of the year - and dinner with friends at Scalini's tonight - yummy garlic rolls!