Balloons

A trip to Publix is a weekly event in our household. Sometimes, it becomes biweekly; other times, it is triweekly; you get the picture. Luke is a good helper as we shop, pointing out "grapes", "flags" (yes, they do have a flag inside the store), and, most importantly, "balloons". Our son LOVES balloons, a feeling that was compounded around his birthday as he was surrounded by colored balloons that he could chase! Publix, being the wonderful store that it is, kindly gives children free balloons and cookies (we try to skip the latter)! Now Luke knows that the balloons are found at the end of the produce section, so he starts asking "please" somewhere around the bananas and flowers. This green balloon spent the afternoon following Luke around everywhere. Unfortunately, they only last a day before the helium escapes and the balloon drifts to the floor. Then, they aren't nearly as interesting. :)

Pancakes

This post is quite delayed, since pancakes are a Saturday ritual in the Morris household. Thus, the pictures are from last Saturday. These are not any common box-mix pancakes...these are the Swedish pancake box-mix pancakes! Chris grew up with his mother making them and introduced them to me when we first were married. I do not generally like pancakes, but these are so thin and small that I love them. Particularly, I like to roll them up rather like tortillas and dip them in syrup. Mmmmm.... Luke adores them as well, as evidenced by the pictures. The box mix is only available at our local Fresh Market, so we have to make regular trips to stock up, which also provides Chris with the visual reminder that fresh roses win high marks with his wife. :) He has become such an expert at Swedish pancakes that I prefer his above all other pancakes I've tasted! Luke and I are looking forward to this Saturday! :)

First Fig

For those of you who are literary types, Edna St. Vincent Millay was an amazing poet. She lived around WWII and was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry! I LOVE literature and poetry; I first read her poems in high school American lit. What does this have to do with figs, you may ask.

We ate the first fig off of our transplanted fig tree last summer, and wondered what would happen this summer. With all of the wonderful rain across the Southeast, our two "fig sticks" turned into the beginnings of a proper fig tree. We're actually going to have to move it away from the house before it starts tapping on the window! Not only did more shoots emerge, but we also ate more than six figs straight from our tree this year!

Last year, when we ate the first fig, I recalled Millay's poem of the same name (First Fig):

My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night.
But, ah, my foes and, oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light.

Her poem, Second Fig, is also intriguing but with questionable morality:

High upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand.
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand.

How amazing to be able to eat fruit straight from a tree in your own yard, and a fruit that is constantly mentioned in God's Word! Till next summer, and another display of God's provision...through simple figs.

Packing

I have not yet introduced the remaining two members of our little family - two more boys, Benny and Nick. No, they are not twins, nor are they human. They are our first "children" - the two cats that Chris and I adopted when we were first married. They are amazing cats, both affectionate and independent. We swiftly realized that they have many methods of communicating displeasure. To the left is their favorite way of boycotting any upcoming trips. I write this because we just made a quick trip to see Chris' brother and sister-in-law. Nick (the gray cat) slept under/on the suitcase the whole day before! He has found multiple other strange places to sleep, including a decorative bowl that we had on our coffee table before the coffee table became Luke's play table! They certainly keep us on our toes and make us laugh loudly. Luke loves them as well - we really think his first true word was "dat". :)

Bread

Ah...bread. The ideal food to extol for any foodie or microbiologist. Seeing as Chris is one (I lovingly tease him about being a "food snob") and I am the other, we decided to attempt our own foray into the world of yeast-based baking. Chris adores sourdough bread (I prefer seedier versions...wait that didn't come out right...), and he found detailed instructions, interspersed with ravings about the purity of sourdough, on a website. Within minutes he is culturing airborne yeast and other microbes using a concoction of flour, water, and...other stuff. He could tell you. We begin talking about "hooch" and "the sniff test". Unfortunately, the instructions weren't so thorough, so the bread turned out flat, after a VERY late night for Chris. I so wish we had pictures...next time! Because the yeast culture lived on after being divided to make the bread, we named it Sullivan. Today, Sullivan's life ended with a short trip down the drain. He had been sadly neglected by Chris and I and was stinking up the fridge.

Next time...pictures and instant yeast packets!

Swabbing the Rover

Ahhh, how times have changed! My husband and I continually praise God for His many blessings at this stage in our lives, and try to grow in our trust and faith knowing that more difficult times may be ahead. For instance, about two and a half years ago I was starting this blog as an outlet for the frustration and impotence I felt with my pharmaceutical job. Not two months later, I'm actually working for a NASA contractor doing some very interesting technology development.

I basically write proposals for a living, along with scientific journal articles. I design scientific posters and review laboratory data also, but by far one of the coolest things I have yet done was field testing this past week at Johnson Space Center in Houston. I and three colleagues collected cotton swabs of surfaces of the new lunar rover mock-up - surfaces that we had pre-cleaned with ethanol or isopropanol. We then waited until their field ops were complete and swabbed the same surfaces. So very interesting, exciting, and thrilling to see that piece of equipment in operation! The data worked out all right also. :)

Drawing Near Another End

Well, so much for keeping the blog updated with tidbits from work! It's been almost six months of silence...primarily due to the hectic schedule of the spring season. In the government, many financial and budgetary decisions are due in order to determine funding levels for projects for the next year. Right after my last post, I became deeply mired in all these financial type decisions, which was quite interesting but a little tedious. I did long to be back in the lab...or at least interacting with those in the lab.

Not long after the crazy financial schedule came two back-to-back proposal writing sessions! For those of you unfamiliar with proposal writing - it is engrossing, absorbing, and all-consuming. Imagine your high school research paper...no, that's not even remotely close, never mind! Suffice it to say, I was very grateful to be in my second trimester when all this was going on - plenty of energy, feeling great, etc.

In March, Chris and I took a trip to the Cape to see the launch of STS-123 (Endevour) as part of the Marshall Space Flight Center Director's group of guests! While down there, we went on a private tour of many buildings with one of Chris' friends who was down there for a few months working on the solid rocket boosters. When we went to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF - NASA acronyms remember), we actually got to go INSIDE the orbiter Discovery that they were preparing for launch in May!! VERY few people actually get to do this! I and little one even got to sit in the commander's chair in the cockpit of Discovery! It was so memorable...a story I can tell little one in years to come...

As I write this, I'm only about 2 1/2 weeks away from little one's arrival! I just started my maternity leave and Chris and I think that it would be so cool for me to go into labor when Discovery launches tomorrow! :) Actually, anytime that Discovery is in orbit would be pretty cool to me! Check out some pictures of me and Chris and the Cape and me sporting the baby bump. More soon...