Friday, January 18, 2008

Ahhhhh!!!

My sister is having her baby!

I am keeping them all in my thoughts and prayers, please do the same.

WOW!

Orchid Care

So, as you may (or may not...I don't know how closely anyone other than myself actually looks at my blog...) have noticed, the picture of the orchid on the top right over there has had some changes to the notes on it. I thought, in retrospect, that it may be nice to explain a bit for those who may have no f-ing clue what I mean by some of those terms. Orchids are an obsession, often leading one to learn Latin and certain Asian words and such...but I digress.

The orchid pictured on the right here is a Phalaenopsis type orchid. They have a low profile and wide, flat leaves and very thick roots which often perform photosynthesis. This is quite helpful to the plant, and is also rather unusual in the plant world. It normally (if it weren't a greenhouse-bred fancy hybrid) would have found itself a nice spot on the upper section of a tree somewhere in Southeast Asia. This particular orchid was purchased in flower at the King of Prussia Orchid Show in February 2006.

About two months ago it developed crown rot. This is an infection of the plant by which water remaining in the crown (the bit where all the leaves join together) carried an organism which caused the plant to die from the center out. I have never heard of a plant being rescued from this. ALL the leaves died, and we were left with only a group of very healthy roots.

STM decided, as an experiment, to see what would happen if we just kept watering it. Since one orchid more or less in the bathtub doesn't really make that much difference when you have about 40 of them (I told you it was an obsession!) I didn't mind. Also, since it was most likely me that caused the crown rot (orchids usually only get it when there is too much water on them, especially late in the day or at night. The organism that causes it is most active at night. This is why responsible orchid growers will usually water in the morning, to allow the plant's upper bits to dry completely before nightfall.) I felt a bit guilty.

About a week and a half ago we were spritzing the orchids, which we do almost every morning, when I noticed a new growth on the roots (!!). I immediately called STM over to see, and we both could tell it was growing a keiki!!!! A keiki is a baby orchid which normally grows from a fully mature orchid which, for reasons of it's own, chooses to reproduce by cloning rather than through seeds. Phals have this tendency, but I've never seen one keiki off of the roots. I have another keiki which grew off of another plant in the usual way - the plant put out a flower spike with no buds and then the baby grew at the end.

So now we have a new baby orchid, but one with an adult, mature root system. This is a major advantage, since many keikis die from lack of water when they have an immature root system (once they are detached from the parent plant)

I'm really interested to see where this goes next. And by now you are probably thoroughly sick of orchid talk.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Tea and Sleep.

So this morning STM and I were slowly awakening. This is pretty normal, as is the fact that NPR was what was interrupting our morning snooze time. There was a piece this morning that made it even harder to get out of bed, and explains a bit why I have such trouble sleeping earlier in the evening, especially recently.

Sigh.

Modern society does not respect sleep. This is a terrible thing.

So, as with a usual day, my chronic sleep deprivation hit me in the middle of the afternoon. I'm eschewing coffee (again) because in addition to being too much caffeine it's tough on my stomach.

My sister's tea saved me. One of the teas she gifted me for Christmas is called 'grapefruit.' it's black tea with some bits of grapefruit in it and it smells divine. Also, as you may guess from the description, it's quite the picker-upper.

Thank you CGB!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Historic Markers, Update

So, my sister pointed out that we may have seen that "Pile of Rocks" historical marker in New York State while on vacation many years back. I therefore have checked the NYS historical marker catalog, but didn't find it there either.

It is entirely possible that the marker got pulled simply due to complaints over its inherent silliness. On the other hand, considering some of the markers I DID find, it speaks more of a clever commentary on the silliness of many historical markers.

This is the link to the website, where you can find such markers as 'Old Indian Path.' I'm not kidding. The Pile of Rocks one was at least imaginative.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Historic Markers

For those who may not have noticed or not be US-based, there are historic markers all over the US countryside. They exist in other countries as well, (Facebook link, may not work if you don't have an account. Let me know and I'll find another way to post that one.) but they are truly prolific in the US, especially near sites from the Revolutionary or Civil Wars. For certain readers, those wars can often be referred to by other names including the War of Independence or the War of Northern Aggression, etc.

In any case....how do such markers get placed? It turns out that in the US, such markers are placed on a state-by-state basis. In Pennsylvania, for example, there is a commission assigned to placing these signs. Apparently there is more oversight now, but in the past they placed them based on petitions from the general public and had the right to place a sign anywhere. ANYWHERE in Pennsylvania, be it public or private property. Thus you get signs from the savvy (and silly) types such as historic marker placed on a pile of rocks by a group of Penn State students some time back. Since there was indeed a pile of rocks at the given location, the marker was deemed valid and placed, at the cost of who knows how much state funding.

Sigh.

Now, since I can't locate it on the site they may have removed this marker or it may be an urban legend. If someone has more information on this you are welcome to post it in the comments.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

May the strike soon end!

Or we may see more silliness like this.

Although I did nearly bust a gut trying not to laugh out loud at work in response to that.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Christmas!!!

Okay, so I didn't write about the holidays at all in the midst of my dental issues.

Christmas we spent with my family, except for my very pregnant sister and her husband who can't travel right now. I hope they had a wonderful holiday!!
We went to STM's family party as it was on the day of mom's family's party and we'd spen the actual holiday with my family.

All in all they were both really lovely and everyone seemed truly happy to see one another and spend some time together - which is the real spirit of the holiday as far as I'm concerned, so all is good :)

My sister gave me a lovely assortment of teas, which I now have at my desk at work. It's kind of like having a mini tea shop - whenever I need tea (which is often...) I get to browse. My other sister, who has apparently decided to enable my burgeoning fiber habit, found more of this one amazing type of the softest merino roving you've probably ever felt - she got me enough to possibly make enough yarn for a sweater. Which is a lot of yarn. My third sister gave us Quelf, that oh so amusing board game we were considering purchasing - very nice :) It will get broken in when we go to Maine to go skiing with my good friend later this month. My parents gave me a gorgeous box in which to keep mementos from our wedding this past summer, and some really pretty tree ornaments. We got ornaments from several folks, in fact. I LOVE the ornaments, they make the tree look so much more 'family' and less 'hotel-lobby' lol.

Speaking of trees...I heard that my sister, the one who is expecting, had some trouble finding a tree. I hope they have better luck next year! We also waited until the weekend before Christmas to get our tree, but luckily the weather has been quite mild in the DC area, and though it rained heavily that day we were able to find an open tree farm. Since it wasn't too far away and we needed to stop by to pick up some gifts anyway we went to Lost Creek first. Rose, the events and tasting bar manager, fed us wine (whenever we go up there she always gives us wine), let us stay until the rain ebbed a bit, and then we went over to the tree farm. We almost got lost in the Loudon county back roads, but the drive is so pretty that we weren't worried about that :) We made it to the tree farm with time to spare and were directed first to the pre-cut trees. Seeing no reason to cut one if we could find a nice pre-cut tree, STM and I searched through, and sure enough we found a little 4' tree in the precut section that suited us just fine! Best part - it was a whole $10. They claimed it had probably been cut a week or more earlier, but we've had it for almost three weeks now and it's not even dropping needles. I'm very impressed. When I get home I will try to remember to post some pics of it!

Antibiotics

I usually try to avoid taking antibiotics, especially since I was on so many as a child that my immune system doesn't handle them well. Since I got my wisdom teeth out, however, I felt it prudent to fill the prescription this time - last thing I need is a massive infection that close to my brain :) One of the reasons I try to avoid antibiotics is that I, like many women, often get yeast infections when I take them.

Not this time. Huh. I did some research - apparently that taking of multivitamins thing can actually help prevent yeast infections too, just by balancing the overall health of the body.

Everybody, take your vitamins, they're good for you! And watch out for mercury if you take fish oil supplements!

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The thing about wisdom teeth....

MAN! Did that hurt. But it's starting to not hurt anymore, which is good. At this point I'm mainly down to avoiding chewing with my back teeth for another two weeks or so and getting tension headaches from only chewing with my front teeth. I've lost about 10 lbs. so far, and I'm still mainly on soft/liquid foods, so I anticipate that I'll lose more weight before I'm able to eat normally again. I'm very happy that I had the forethought (or something) to start taking vitamins again about a month ago or I'd probably be much worse off. The goal now is to keep losing weight - to really be a healthy weight I need to lose about 20-30 more lbs. - and to eat properly and exercise so it doesn't come creeping back. I was a size 8 when I came back from Russia, and I felt really good as a size 8. I'm currently a size 12-14, and I feel like a ton of bricks whenever I try to climb stairs. Not good. I don't need to be a stick, and Super Thin Man would DEFINITELY object if I tried to become one, but it's long since time I spent more time on keeping myself in shape and eating well. The truth of being Jack Sprat's wife is that he LIKES curvy women. That's part of why he likes me. This is nice, since I don't even think anorexia would get me back to a size 4 like I was in high school, and I like food way too much to stop eating it anyway.

I know I'm rambling, but I don't care. It's that sort of morning. So I'm going to ramble a bit more - warning, this bit will be somewhat sappy, so if you don't care for it don't read it.

I like my husband. He's a really nice guy. I feel like I hit the jackpot in a big way when I had the good sense (or something) to go out with him that first time. He's smart, funny, and he kind of looks like George Harrison (with the goatee especially). He's slender, and will probably not develop much of a gut (if his grandpa is anything to go by...) and cares about keeping himself healthy. He's brilliant at all the things that frustrate me, like anything involving more than googling or pointing and clicking where computers are involved or playing instruments. I can sing, and some say I do it well, but i don't have much talent for playing an instrument. He's quiet, gentle and kind, but strong. He has amazing eyes. Did I mention that I think he's really good looking? Because I do. He's got much better hair than I do, and since I'm married to him I get to run my fingers through it whenever I want. He's a good driver, and has the good fortune to have found a solid, respectable job that he LIKES. And is really GOOD at. Which is more than I've found thus far, but there's hope :). But I think one of the most unique and wonderful things about him is that he manages to live with me, and enjoy it. All of you who know me understand this, but for those who don't, I'm kind of a handful. Very willful, and a bit crazy to boot, but he helps keep me centered. So. I think that may be enough for now, though I could easily keep going...