Conflicted

I had two free tickets to the women's basketball game this afternoon.  Since Jonathan was out of school, I took him along, and we had a fun time.  Our team won by 30 points.  Yay team!

Women's basketball is pretty great.  We got to sit up near the very front where we could see everything, and still the seats all around us were empty.  Jonathan used the row of seats in front of us for a foot rest.

The part that is difficult for me, however, is the whole "team spirit" thing.

You see, I was an undergraduate at the university that is the arch-rival of the place that offered me a job.  So when I attend sporting events at the university that is the job, and they play the job fight song, I only know the impolite lyrics.  But when there are only 50 fans in the entire basketball arena, and our girls are doing so well, I feel I ought to cheer them on.

But if I sing *that* fight song, what does that make me?

My compromise is that I can cheer and applaud politely.  But I cannot rise and shout.  Still no.

Some stuff we did last month

In November, we took a trip to Antelope Island, on the Great Salt Lake.  

Tim decided to grow a mustache, as part of a fund raiser for work.  I think he looked really scary.  The mustache is gone now.

We purchased and put together a compost bin, as we've been wanting to make our own dirt for some time now.  Yay dirt.

One of the doorknobs broke going into the garage, so we replaced all three with shiny new ones that don't stick and actually use the same key.

I sewed mittens.  Here is the deal.  When you bike to work in the winter, it gets pretty chilly on the hands. I've figured out exactly what those chilly hands need.  First, they need a mitten, not a glove, so that the fingers can warm each other, rather than be insulated against each other.  Second, they need a warm fleece layer, to keep them snug.  Finally, they need a nylon windbreaker layer.  I've been looking all over for these mittens.  A couple of years ago I found something almost right in a boutique in Philadelphia.  However, the outer layer was knit wool rather than nylon, and the wind cuts right through them.  So finally I made my own.

Alas, I was inventing the pattern as I went along, and the outer nylon layer was a little too snug on my big bear hands.  So these mittens went to Jonathan, and I will try again.

We installed a new light in the bathroom.  When I say "we", I mean that I bought the light, read the instructions, watched someone else install a light on YouTube, brought in the ladder, pulled off the cover hiding the bare wires, and stared at the mass of colored wires in there.  On YouTube, they said I was supposed to expect one black and one white, and maybe a copper ground wire.  But we had four white, four black, a red, and a copper.

I consulted with Tim.  He pulled out our little wire tester to detect hot wires, had me run back and forth to the circuit breaker downstairs for about an hour, and finally figured out that the black and white wires should be left alone, the red wire was the one that would connect the light to the switch, but it needed to be reconnected at the switch....  Anyway, it was an interesting project.  But the result looks better than our camera makes it out to be.

That's all.

December oranges

There are things I don't like about December, such as the darkness and the grading of giant piles of final exams.

But there are more things that I do like about December, like classes ending and building wood fires and playing Christmas songs on the piano.

One of my favorite things about December is that oranges are in season.  On Saturday, we bought a 40 pound box of oranges, to eat amongst the three of us.  There are things I like about having 40 pounds of oranges sitting around the house.  Oranges!  Any time!  Eat all you want!  40 pounds of oranges is pretty much a never-ending supply of orange goodness.

There are also things I don't like about having 40 pounds of oranges sitting around the house.  When you eat all you want, really, your insides can't keep up.  And then that can get stinky.  Hypothetically speaking here.  I don't really post about stinkiness in public.

Post Thanksgiving Post

I think Thanksgiving is a good time to make New Year's resolutions.  You get those two extra days away from school and work, and you think you will spend just a teensy bit of time doing those little tasks that need doing.  But instead you end up stuffing yourself and being grumpy with the family and going back to Monday feeling round and fat. 

So this Thanksgiving, I hereby resolve not to be grumpy with the family any more.  Even when Tim does commandeer the television to shout at a bunch of fat guys in skinny suits jumping on top of each other.  Football.  I will not be grumpy anymore because of football.

I hereby resolve to exercise 60 minutes every day until the holidays end or I freeze to death outside in the frozen winter wasteland.  Whichever comes first.  And thereby I shall banish all the stress that fills my life and maybe tighten up the jelly that begins to fill my jeans.  Ah middle age.

I resolve to eat lots and lots of fiber, to scrape away all that extra Thanksgiving rich stuff that is clinging desperately to my insides.  It will not withstand an onslaught of broccoli and oatmeal.  And neither will my family. 

I resolve to finish the stupid paper that I resolved to finish last week, but that I only looked at for all of 15 minutes once on Friday while Tim was in front of the television anyway and I had nothing better to do.  Pacing around feeling grumpy is apparently preferable to getting the stupid paper finished. 

In short, I resolve to be kind, beautiful, and productive, from here on out.  And if I should fail, I will dig myself a hole and crawl into it and not come out until late June.  Take that, winter!

Mustache

So Tim is still growing a mustache for his company's Movember challenge.  I must say, I am not really a fan.  He looks pretty creepy.  And when I go to kiss him?  This mustache comes after me.

You know where it goes from here, right?  Once the mustache is established, we move onto the mullet.  Then the beer belly.  Then we buy a lot of guns and six packs and move into a trailer park.

Yup.  That's what the mustache does for Tim.

The following comic kind of sums it up for me.  (You will have to click on the link.)

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/18

Ten more days of mustache.  Then Tim will have to choose between the two of us.

November

Timothy is growing a moustache for Movember.  He shaved his beard, and is growing the hair back just on his upper lip, as part of a fund raising event his company is holding this month.  It is an interesting look for Tim.  Jonathan and I can't wait until December.

I stopped teaching Sunday school a month ago.  My new job is Relief Society pianist.  I didn't think I'd ever have that job again when we moved here.  I'm mostly happy to have it, because in theory, this is an easy job where I show up and play the well-known hymns the chorister has chosen.  But our chorister likes to choose tricky and/or unusual ones, which means I stumble around a lot.  And one of the reasons I thought I'd never get the pianist job again is that there are so many more talented pianists in this area -- more talented than me.  I envision a large group of women sitting at home, shaking their heads over the state of the Relief Society when their pianist can't keep up with the chorister.  Tut tut tut.  What is the world coming to?

The end of the semester is in sight -- so much so that I am contemplating the writing of final exams.  ... In addition to the writing of a couple of talks, a paper review, a journal article, and a bit of grading thrown in there for good measure.  Maybe the end isn't close enough.  Maybe it's too close for all that stuff.

Chemistry week

(I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but did not post, so now I shall post retroactively with the date it was written.)

Last night we got free tickets to a chemistry demonstration for National Chemistry Week.  The room in the science building was packed with kids, mostly under five, it seemed, and maybe a parent in every sixth chair (we, with two parents and a single child, do not come anywhere near matching the typical family demographic in this town).  You could barely hear the professor at the front of the room over the din of squirming children.  But the show was still fun, and Jonathan liked it, and has decided that when he grows up, he will do his own chemistry show.

The professor up in front mixed chemicals in large flasks, unlike anything you'll ever get to do in a real chemistry class (costs too much).  He made things change color, foam, burn, EXPLODE!  Jonathan's favorite was when the guy burned the balloon filled with methane.  It didn't explode like the hydrogen balloon, but the fireball burned longer and hotter.

And then this morning, we did morning math for kids.  If everyone in a room gives a high five to everyone else in the room, how many high fives is that total?  And there is a kids' play running, put on by university students in the drama department.  And the music and dance departments do shows for families.  And there are free museums, with animals (dead and stuffed), dinosaurs (dead and fossilized), art (nonliving), and even a planetarium, if you know where to look.

There are perks to living near a university.

Except right now, the traffic near our house is pretty horrendous as 65,000 people try to cram themselves into the nearby stadium for football.  Blah!