It's DNA Day!

On February 28, 1953, Frances Crick announced to the patrons of the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, “We have discovered the secret of life." Crick and his collaborator James Watson believed they had finally worked out the structure of DNA.



The article outlining their proposed structure was published two months later in the scientific journal Nature. Of course we now know that they borrowed rather heavily, and without giving credit, to several other scientists. Most notably, Rosalind Franklin had developed an x-ray crytallography image of the DNA molecule, and this was a tremendous help to Watson and Crick in postulating the double helix structure.





Ummm, yeah sure, I can see that! Why, anybody could tell that's a double helix right?

Well, I freely admit I would not have come up with the structure myself, but I am oh so grateful for this discovery for eventually leading to the very cool job that I have! I'm much more into applications than basic research anyway lol. And I just couldn't let this auspicious date pass by without giving it proper due.

And here's a teaser: Watch this space tomorrow for an exciting announcement--it has absolutely nothing at all to do with DNA but I think you'll like it!

WIP Wednesday! February 23rd

Hello all! Well it's been over a week since I did a post here, finding time to blog isn't as easy as one would think, is it? But my hooks have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, so here's a little sampler:

Shamrocks!

I like my Valentine's heart bunting on my desk so much I went searching for the perfect shamrock pattern to make another bunting for St. Pat's day. Initially I liked this one alot:



But then I found this 4-leaf clover pattern and it's going to make great bunting!



Cute, aren't they? Here's a link to buy the pattern on Ravelry if you'd like to make some for yourself!

I've also been making some squares for Knit-a-Square:



I'm also felting some wool sweaters I bought at Goodwill to cut into more squares. And I've started a new prayer shawl, but no pix of that one yet.

Over the weekend I started frogging an afghan to reuse the yarn--what fun! I bought this wool afghan at Goodwill (LOVE that place, can you tell?) a few months ago:



That's a whole lot of wool yarn for only $10! I've frogged a few small things before but never something this size. So far I've pulled out the border and one section of each color, wound them into hanks, then wet them and hung them up to pull the kinks out of the yarn:



All ready to be wound into balls and crocheted into something new! And I still have about 3/4 of the afghan left. A fair bit of work but so worth it for the yarn.

I've also been playing around with a couple of new crochet techniques, but I'll save those for another post. It's so nice to be so busy with hooks and yarn!

Have a fabulous week!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you have had a good day today! Man of the House and I went out for Thai food Saturday night for our V-day celebration, good stuff. Today felt like spring outside! The high was around 60 degrees, oh I could just hug that groundhog for not seeing his shadow! Maybe I should have sent him a Valentine.

And befitting of the Feast of Saint Valentine, I decked out my cubicle at work with a little heart-y cheer:



I crocheted most of the hearts last week during a long boring meeting at work--sometimes I wish I had more of those meetings! The pattern is on Julia Crossland's blog, here. It was so easy, I'm thinking of making several seasonal versions--shamrocks, colored eggs, pumpkins, I could keep my desk festive all year round.

Have a wonderful day!

Another week flies by.

It's been a busy one. But then aren't they all? This week was full of most of the usual stuff--work and volunteering and school and speech therapy yada yada yada. I didn't have anything new and exciting to show for WIP Wednesday last week, but I do have something new and exciting now! Some-ONE new and exciting that is.

Meet Jet:



Jet is a super pretty, super sweet little lady who was up for adoption at a local cat rescue place. She came home with us yesterday! She's getting used to us and her new surroundings, we've been keeping her isolated in one room but going in to see her frequently. She likes hiding under the desk but she comes out alot to snuggle and be petted. So far she seems like quite the little love bug. This afternoon we put our old cat in Jet's room and let Jet explore the rest of the house. She's seems a bit freaked out by all the space and stuff and people. Right now I would like to get her back in her own room but she is hiding under my bed and showing NO inclination to come out! I hope she isn't settling in for a long winter's nap.

Christopher, our current feline occupant, hasn't seen Jet yet, but he knows something is up by smelling her on us. We haven't seen any sort of reaction from him yet, but when they finally get face to face it may be another matter entirely.

So that's the new member of the family! It's nice to have a new kitty, especially after we were all set to adopt Bobby but it fell through. Hopefully the adjustment will be smooth and our current cat won't cause too much trouble. Jet had other kitties where she lived before so she's used to sharing. I know she's happy to be out of the cage where she's been for the last few weeks!

A week into February--already?

I just realized that we are almost a week into February and I have not reported on my goals for January. Good thing my goal wasn’t to do things in a more timely fashion, eh? Well, let's take them in order:

1. Physical well-being: I got on the treadmill this month--several times! The weather around here has mostly been cold or snowy or icy or any combination thereof. I may have walked outside twice. Today is actually in the 40's so Man of the House and I went for a walk, but dodging piles of stuff that's still frozen and wading through small lakes of what is melting made it a bit interesting. I can’t wait for better weather!

2. Spiritual well-being: I've listened every day to the DailyAudioBible.com podcasts. It's working really nicely to put it on my MP3 and listen on the way to work. Before all the distractions of the day kick in, know what I mean? It’s a little harder to find a quiet place for it on the weekends, but I have kept up every day. I think I would not keep up with this if I was having to find 15 or 20 minutes of quiet reading time, so the podcasts are making this work for me!

So my short-term January goal was to start working with the school on what we want in place for our autistic daughter when she goes to middle school in the fall. Made a load of progress on this one! Early in the month I contacted the educational advocate who was recommended to us. A couple of days later we got notice that the annual review of Miss G’s educational plan would be on the 27th. Good thing we got moving! Thanks to a couple of snow days, we had that meeting this past Thursday, and the advocate had been able to observe Grace in the classroom prior to the meeting. I think we got a lot of our concerns out and have a good agenda in place of what needs to be done in the next couple of months to plan this transition. I’d say I did pretty well on my January resolution.

So I guess I need a mini-resolution for February. Very mini in fact, since it’s already the 6th and there are only 28 days this month. I think there are a couple of places in my house I need to tackle before they make me crazy! Like the spice cabinet in the kitchen--every time I open the cupboard, something falls out on me! And speaking of things to do in the kitchen, we are in SUCH a rut menu-wise. It doesn't help that Miss G has about 4 things she'll eat for dinner and that's it. But even for the rest of us, I seem to make the same meals over and over and it's BORING.

That settles it--in February I will clean out my spice cabinet AND make 3 new meals for dinner! Any help you can give me in meal ideas would be oh so appreciated. What's your favorite thing to cook for dinner?

WIP Wednesday and Groundhog Day

Wow, 2 huge celebrations on the same day! Can you stand the excitement? And reportedly Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow today, thus predicting an early spring. I'll take it! In fact, it feels a bit spring-like outside today, which is perfectly MARVELOUS. We've had some of everything falling out of the sky in the past week: snow, sleet, freezing rain, possibly frogs and locusts. Joking aside, there have been a lot of trees damaged and power lines down due to ice and heavy snow. Very lucky here at our house, just some branches down but no major damage. Some pretty scenery with everything coated in snow and ice. My favorite shot was this one of our bird bottle. A bit hard to see, but a clump of snow is perched on the dowel right where a bird usually sits in summer.



So--WIP Wednesday on Wednesday AGAIN! Will wonders never cease. I do not in fact have any crocheted groundhogs to show you, but I have been prepping for that other major February holiday--you know, President's Day! What do you think, George Washington in amigurumi? Or maybe a tapestry crochet rendition of Mount Rushmore. Sure, easy as pie.

How about we settle for some hearts in honor of Valentine's Day? I've done a couple of them so far:



On the left is a Granny Square heart, The Royal Sisters blog has a fabulous tutorial for this one. The one on the right is this adorable Teeny Tiny Crochet Heart Bunting at Julia Crossland's blog. I love the bunting, so I'm going to make several more of this hearts to bedeck my cubicle at work. They already know I'm crochet crazy, so this won't surprise them a bit.

And I've got a couple of other heart projects on the hook, so check this space again next week!