The Weekend

The weekend is almost over and I need at least two more days of weekend. I am NOT ready to start the work week. And to top it off tomorrow night is the chamber dinner so it's not even just a normal work day.

I needed some time away from the world this weekend and have largely had it. Greg has been around a lot, and we've been out to eat and such, but otherwise, I've been holed up in my house. I haven't even answered my phone this weekend. I needed time away from everyone.

It seems whenever my phone rings it's someone wanting something from me - my brain, my creativity, my energy, my time - something. Other than a few close friends and my family, it's rare someone calls just for my company - that would be a pleasant change of pace. I guess that's why I haven't answered the phone all weekend. I haven't even looked at it when it has rung. I just wanted to ignore it so I did. I figure I'm allowed every once inawhile. I can't help but notice that no one has been so concerned about me that they've shown up on my doorstep - a little something to remember for the future.

It's four minutes into the new work week and I already feel behind - that's a great way to start a Monday.

In the Floor

I'm sitting in the floor of my office writing this on the laptop with a wireless signal. You may be wondering if this is my normal blogging posture. No, it is not.

But, I have been moving things around in the office and cleaning various things - including the floor. When I say cleaning, I mean on my hands and knees with various cleaning products. Do I know how to spend a Saturday night or what? I guess, technically, it's Sunday morning, but you get the idea.

My office is a downstairs bedroom that is really too small for my office. But, it's the logical place for it. I would just LOVE to have about another 15 feet built onto the back of my house, expanding my office and kitchen. But there are so many more urgent things to do in the house and I don't happen to have an extra $20,000 lying around either.

I am trying to figure out how to get everything in here that I need in here and have it all organized. I know part of the solution is shelving. I am a person who needs a lot of table space and shelving in my house. Everything I like to do seems to require flat spaces to work on, and shelves to hold the things to do whatever that is - geneaology, sewing, art, collage, etc. - you get the general idea.

I have a stack of stuff to go to Salvation Army - in fact my sunporch is full of stuff that needs to go. When that is gone I can move a wardrobe I have in my office out there and use it for other purposes. That will free up some space.

I have moved the wardrobe twice today and my desk three times. They are both very heavy. I have those handy little mover things, but I have a feeling in the morning I may be hunting for some ibuprofen.

I've decided one of the things I need to have somewhere in my house at all times is a big trash can with a liner in it that is for donated items. I also need one in my closet - a place where I can just automatically put things that need to go to live with someone else. It seems I have been hauling things out of here for a year now, but there are still things that need to go.

Well, I need to rest so I can get up and do more of this exciting stuff tomorrow. Yes, I know, my life is one thrill after another.

Remembering Gordon Parks

Hutchinson is participating in "Kansas Reads," where the entire state is reading Gordon Parks' book, "The Learning Tree." There will be a number of activities related to it and today was one of them.

Dr. John E. Tidwell of the University of Kansas spoke this morning at HCC about Kansas native, Gordon Parks.

Parks had a career that stretched across multiple disciplines. He was a movie maker, a photographer, a writer and more. As Tidwell said today, Gordon Parks was a man of many "firsts."

He also showed a brief interview Parks gave when the University of Kansas gave him an honorary degree. It was wonderful to hear Parks himself to speak about his life. It's obvious his mother was critical in his development.

Gordon Parks has been a "fixture" since I've lived here, although I never met him. Years ago I attended the funeral of a local woman, Barbara Pierce, who was one of the people who started the Dillon Lecture Series. Parks had spoken at one of the first lectures and they had become friends.

Saddened by her death, Parks had written a poem to be read at her funeral. I remember thinking that we should all strive to live life in a way such that Gordon Parks writes a poem for your funeral. Of course, he's gone now, too, but the sentiment remains. It's a good goal - to live in a way that a person of that stature mourns your passing from this world.

Art of Gracious Living #60

Each of us has life lessons to learn. One of mine has been that people can only love you as they are capable of loving you, which may not be how you want to be loved.

In this episode I share some personal experiences of how this lesson has been taught to me repeatedly.

The blubrry player will open in another window and allow you to choose which episode you want to hear. The most recent will come up automatically.

Katie Couric Face Lift?

Has Katie Couric had a face lift? I just saw her for the first time in awhile and she suddenly has very arched eyebrows - on the outside edge. Didn't she used to have eyebrows that didn't have much arch at all? (OK, yes, I have a "thing" about eyebrows. I've been trying to get a nice arch to mine for years with a variety of tweezing/makeup options. Apparently all I really needed was a surgical procedure.)

That's usually a facelift look - the odd, permanently surprised look with the eyebrow arch in the wrong place. To top it off her forehead doesn't seem to move. Botox? Maybe this is just common knowledge and I'm the only one who hadn't noticed.

She's looking OLD on the evening news. Maybe that's intentional on their part to give her more gravity. I think part of that must be makeup because when we see pix of her elsewhere she seems her normal, perky self. But the eyebrow thing looks like the leftovers of a facelift.

The facelift look is so unattractive - far worse than a few wrinkles. Who wants to go through life looking forever surprised?

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Upgrades

I know from a long history with computer "upgrades" that it's generally a huge mistake. How many times it will take before I accept this I don't know, but I foolishly upgraded to the new blogger a couple of weeks ago. The result was that I was no longer able to post with a little tool I've been using for a couple of years - multi-blog - to post to all my blogs at one time.

Of course, none of this was clear until many, many, many emails were exchanged. Eventually I learned that blogger has changed how their system works, which means no third party tools will work any longer. So, they all have to be updated. And the guy who wrote multi-blog is not interested in doing that.

So I found a new third party tool, hoping the long road of upgrades was about to come to an end for this go 'round. Unfortunately, there's a teensy little problem - it doesn't work with blogger either, despite what it says on their website. Add to this that blogger was having some publishing problems for about a day, and it has been a huge mess, which is why my usual regular publishing has been sporadic.

I'm at an impasse. I want to keep all the blogs up to date, but I have to have a way to do that, and by hand through the blogger system is not it. That's way too time consuming and too clunky to deal with. But, it's through the magic of blogger that things show up on patsyterrell.com.

I'm hoping things are resolved shortly, but in the meantime things may be a bit off kilter here. Even when I thought I was publishing it sometimes wasn't showing up. However, livejournal is working fine so that blog will be up to date.

Whenever computer "improvements" occur, I generally spend a lot of time mopping up. This has been no exception.

Future Astronaut Training at Cosmosphere

Tonight was the Leadership Alumni Gathering. It was at the Cosmosphere and was really fun.

They had us gather up in the space camp area and let us test out the various simulators. Teresa, who was in my class last fall, was giving us a tour and also telling me they have about 40 different groups in the summer that go through the "Future Astronaut Training Program" at the Cosmosphere.




Many of their simulators are built to accurate size and specs so when the kids go to Johnson Space Center they recognize the things they see there.

There were quite a few people from my class there and it was good to reconnect with everyone. They've had a couple of gatherings but I haven't been able to go to either one.

I was surprised there weren't more people there, but it's never possible to get everyone together at any given time. And there was a good turnout.

Peggy and Gary were there, as was Trish, although I didn't get to visit with any of them very much.

Peggy was quite the trooper and crawled into one of the simulators, and then she and Curtis rode in the centrifuge that gives you the sensation of 4Gs.

It made me half sick just to watch it turn round and round, but both of them emerged with no ill effects. In fact, Peggy's first sentence after the ride was, "OK, now I need a beer!" People were advised to experience it prior to eating or drinking.




One of the things we played with quite a bit was the rescue ball. It's this widget you get in and it is then moved from one side of the room to the other and "docked." It's made to the actual size of the ones NASA uses. The idea is to train them how to get from one ship to another - obviously you can't just walk out into space to do that.

Connie was queen of the rescue ball. You have to fold yourself up inside of it. The best piece of advice Teresa had to offer was "butt first."



















The Cosmosphere is a very impressive facility. Few people get to see the Space Camp area, so it was fun to get a close up experience.