Star Party, Perseid Meteors, and Grubfest

Photo scource

My uncle David told me years ago that the best time to go star gazing was on August 10-13th. I have never forgotten. When I woke up August first I was ssssooo excited because it is time for my annual stargazing tradition. And of course, there was the star party.

The Museum of Science in St. Louis has an awesome star party on the first Friday of each month (except for November and December). You go into the planetarium, pick out a mat, lay on the floor, and learn about the night sky. If the sky is clear, you can go out and look through telescopes furnished by members of the St. Louis Astronomical Society. I LOVE it.

Tonight I got to see Jupiter and the craters on the moon through a variety of telescopes.

Next week (August 14th) we are having our third annual Grubfest. This year the stars will start shooting at 9 pm. Normally you have to wait until after midnight to see much. The moon will be bright, so you may only see 30 or so per hour. That is a real bummer, but hey, not every year can be as great as the one where we gazed at the stars in a bull field.

The reason star gazing is so great in August is because of the Perseid meteor showers. That was something I learned tonight. I never knew the name, just the time of year. Happy stargazing to all, and to all a good night.

For Laura, Before and After Take Two

Laura pointed out that my before and after pictures from design hop were spread a little too far apart, so here is a close version of the before and after. For me, the before and after is even more drastic...but I have no pictures. The first time I came to this house, I ate lunch on a flimsy card table in the kitchen with a window curtain doubling as a table cloth. That was literally it, besides a stack of foul smelling furniture stacked in the corner of the living room waiting to be thrown out.

When I moved in I brought these two student-style couches and the rocking chair. (I covered one couch in this orange cover to protect it from Max.)

JT and Ben removed the old stack of furniture from the living room when they helped move me in. (Thank you both so much!! AND thanks to Jason, Liza, Ben Allen, and Karen.)




Then Bret single handedly helped move this furniture in from St. Vincent de Paul. Little Max moved the couch cushions in like an ant moving a disproportionately large leaf. Watching him made me laugh.

The Debate is Solved

http://rodneysmith.com/blog/

I fell in love with the photo above a month or so ago. It is so artistically perfect. But the writing intrigued/troubled me. The statement, though beautiful, did not resonate as true with me. It has been a long-standing debate between me and a friend whether it is better to have loved and lost, or never loved at all. And here, the picture claims it is better to be married and divorced than to never have been married at all. I have always wanted to believe this, but I don't. It is a romantic notion that doesn't square with my life experience. It is stressful and damaging to experience loss.

I read a study today that solved the internal debate for me.

"...in terms of health, it’s not better to have married and lost than never to have married at all. Middle-age people who never married have fewer chronic health problems than those who were divorced or widowed."

"New research shows that when married people become single again, whether by divorce or a spouse’s death, they experience much more than an emotional loss. Often they suffer a decline in physical health from which they never fully recover, even if they remarry."

However, the article does point out that "[t]he health benefits of marriage [are] documented by a wealth of research."

I also found this fascinating:

"In a series of experiments, scientists at Ohio State studied the relationship between marital strife and immune response, as measured by the time it takes for a wound to heal. The researchers recruited married couples who submitted to a small suction device that left eight tiny blisters on the arm. The couples then engaged in different types of discussions — sometimes positive and supportive, at other times focused on a topic of conflict.

After a marital conflict, the wounds took a full day longer to heal. Among couples who exhibited high levels of hostility, the wound healing took two days longer than with those who showed less animosity."

See here for NY Times Link.

A link to the University of Chicago Study is here.

[Take home message, choose careful whom you marry. When you marry don't have acrimonious fights. Guard carefully the health of your loved one....if not out of altruistic love for their health, than for the sake of your own health! :)]

Before and After; Thank You Design Hop

I live in a lovely house....



That just didn't seem quite complete.



So I called Dana the Designer. Dana runs the "Design Hop" Enrichment Group in my old Relief Society.

And come they did.



And painted...





And designed...



And sewed...



And organized....



And when it was done....





It looked lovely...

The curtains are especially great because they figured out the design and sewed the curtains while they were here.



As you can see from the before and after, they did an FANTASTIC job. They did all of this in just a few hours. Talk about synergy. Many great thanks.

Apparently, We Weren't the Only Ones Who Loved It

See here.

(As an aside, I LOVE the official google blog. Seriously, they are a brilliant company. Very innovative. They can track epidemics and the common flu based on the spikes in the volumes of searches people conduct. Before "talk like a pirate day" they noticed the ever growing annual spike in searches for 'pirate talk'. After the vice presidential debates, they posted entries about the trends of google searches for words such as "maverick" etc. They are constantly coming up with new programs like...exploring the moon...I am such a fan of constant innovation.)

Now This is How it Should Be Done

See here.

Snippets of My Life

I really enjoy following blogs. I follow many of people I have never met. Sometimes I am genuinely disappointed when they don't post...especially the blogs I really enjoy. It makes me wonder if there are people out there who love mine too. I doubt it, but just in case, I'd hate to disappoint.

Life here has been...busy. I've been up researching till almost midnight for a good portion of this past week. My roommate keeps telling me I need to find my balance. I haven't even been a lawyer for a year yet, so I am still trying to figure it out.

Life with Max is as fun as ever. This morning a little knock came at my bedroom door.

"Breakfast is ready." He told me excitedly.

"Do you want me to repeat it in Spanish?" He considerately asked as I slowly opened my eyes and groggily said yes. He then repeated the message in Spanish for me. (I am trying to learn Spanish, so I've asked him to repeat things in Spanish for me, which he doesn't really like to do, but did here just to be nice.) He is so cute!

Last night he was just adorable. He was so excited all day because my friend David was coming over for an early dinner. Well, this old house has plenty of quirks, one of which is that the metal door knob on the front door promptly falls off every time the door slams shut. My roommate and I just laugh every time it falls off, because we forget about it until the sound of the metal knob falling on brick steps reminds us that it is still there.

Well, David was kind enough to fix it and Max just had to help. Then David fixed the leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom, and again Max just had to help. He wiggled up between David and the sink so he could really get in on the action. I couldn't help but take pictures of them. Tell me this isn't adorable.