What's happening

I've been very busy lately, as well has been Matthew. Thanksgiving was great and relaxing here in Austin. We had dinner with Dick and Karol and our friends, Seyma and Tayfun, came over to eat and play dominoes with us. Food was great, company was great! God is good!

On black Friday we did go shopping but not until the afternoon. We went to Macy's. Matthew needs to throw away some clothing that he has had for too long and replace some things! So we've been slowly updating his clothes with things more comfortable, better quality and fashionable. I'm very excited about his new clothes. We had to leave our items there because we purchased them on a sale price that wasn't going to happen on that day. I am going to stop by Macy's tonight to pick them up. I bought three pretty dresses and I might take one back but it was worth it to buy it at the discount price and decide later to return.

We have been busy thinking about our Christmas plans and I have been working on my Christmas gift-list. I am happy that I have something in mind for all who I am shopping for and I will be able to stay within my budget.

Our engagement party is just around the corner so I am making my checklist for that! We are very excited to be engaged and are happy that so many friends and loved ones want to celebrate with us. I have the cutest dress to wear!

We are going to be gone for awhile over Christmas. We are leaving Monday, December 21st and won't return until Saturday, January 9th. A lot of wedding planning will be done while we are at home. We need to meet with Msgr. Neuhaus, Father Ed, Fred the photographer, Marylin the baker, the caterer, musicians, and a host of other things. I'm looking forward to visiting with family and friends. I look forward to the cold weather but I hope travel is easy.

We watched Therese, Fulton and Gianna last night and had a fabulous time. The kids love to be read to and play games. Putting them to bed is always the end of the fun, children never like to brush their teeth or say goodnight but we managed without too much difficulty. I can't imagine what it would be like to watch other children who don't have the charitable hearts and innocence that the Gretencord clan have. The worst we get when a child is angry is, "I don't like you," "I wish you weren't here," or "No, I won't put my pajamas on." I would be horrified to hear them say anything harsh. Sharon and Adam are marvelous mentors on raising children. We have learned so much.

Matthew has decided on his game plan for graduate school and it coincides pretty nicely with my education. I'm really happy that he is happy and that it so far seems like a challenge but within reach. The more we learn about homeschooling the more desirable it is to us. Since I will be the one in charge of the education then it is important for Matthew's career goals to take precedence. My own goals include working for us to have the extra income to save for the future and buy a house. We might decide later that some schooling outside the home is a better idea than us doing all of it so it is important that I complete my degree so that I can return to work later and be qualified.

Anyway, that's what's been going on with us lately. I hope to have some time to write more later.

I've added the daily readings to the blog more for my benefit than for others. We have been going to daily Mass together every day and it would be nice if I read the readings the day before. Sometimes I have trouble following by just listening. I know we are supposed to "listen" to the Word of the Lord and I try but following along helps me focus and retain. If I was asked what I just heard I would, more often than not, not have an answer. I know that I am a bad listener, I have spent years working on it and I do care about what people say.

Anyway, Peace in Christ be with you all!

Happy Saint Paddy's Day!

We have had two floods in the building in the past couple of weeks.  First, my friend Joe ran a reaction under reflux with a condenser all day and it didn't leak.  He came back to work at 10:30pm to check on it and it wasn't leaking.  But sometime between 10:30pm and 8am it sprung a leak and the water went through the floor and dripped down into a lab on the third floor.  The prof down there was a little pissed and came up to tell us so.  It could have been worse.  As my boss says, "We could have burned the building down".  Way to look on the bright side.

Then a few days later someone upstairs tried to neutralize a reaction in a separatory funnel which is made of glass and the solution was ether.  So as the acid/base reaction took place and generated a bit of heat the ether expanded......and exploded the sep funnel.  The students had to pull the shower to be safe.  And the shower up there has a shower head that is about ten times larger than your standard shower head.  The water drained down into my boss' office and he put a big trash can under the flow, covered everything with plastic and took off.  hahahahaha

In both of these cases there is no drain system in the floors.  What are people thinking?  How hard could that be to include in building plans?  Especially under a shower, no drain???  I can only imagine the vast expanse of my ignorance over why there must not be a drain present.

And yesterday I tried to use our lab PC to see how our website looks on another computer http://jones.cm.utexas.edu and I couldn't get the computer to turn on and it kept beeping at me.  I love my Mac.  So Joe tells me this morning that someone stole the RAM out of it.  What the hell?  We try to keep our doors locked when no one is in there so how did that happen?  The amusing thing is that it was only $20 worth of RAM and there are lots of other things much more worthy of stealing over there.  People are nuts.

What is next????  Somehow that reminds me that I need to back up my computer.  The last thing I need is to come to work and find it gone and everything that I haven't backed up gone as well.