Better Post

Yesterdays post was a snoozer so to make up for it here is a great picture of Molly helping Eric with the kitchen faucet. I apologize for the quality - I only had my camera phone handy.
Have a great weekend!

Financial Advice

I don't really have anything exciting to post this week. Life has just been too busy to think about much other than conference papers, dissertation, and research results. I think if I tried to post any of that I would lose all 2 of my readers (thanks Mom and Dad!), so instead I'll post something that made me re-evaluate our finances. A couple of weeks ago I attended a Women's Conference at school and the keynote speaker tried to motivate the audience of women college students to TAKE CHARGE of their personal finances and plan for the future. It was an interesting talk but two statistics stuck out:
1. Over 50% of single women in the US over 65 are living on $12,000 or LESS a year. Wow. Vanessa's advice: have a retirement plan and invest early - let compounding do its magic.
2. Funds in a savings account are LOSING money to inflation. The average inflation rate is 3 to 4% a year. I checked and my "premier" savings account earns a whopping 0.6% annually. Vanessa's advice: move emergency savings to a CD and change from regular saving account to a money market account.

Sun


We had an amazing day on Saturday and I was able to spend time outside planting bulbs, weeding, and pruning. I thought I should share some of the sun and Spring with you. I gave our willow tree a serious hair cut and grabbed some tree sealant from the store to cover up the larger cuts. When I got home from the store I noticed that the same tree seal also seals planters, gutters, and asphalt. Now that is mult-tasking! But was is in this stuff? Hmmm... Anyone know of other options for sealing tree cuts?

Time

I need more time! Time to do taxes, finish knitting hats, organize the boxes I took out of a closet last night, write more blogs, send a letter to Irmgard, and a million other things that are on my mind right now. But most of all I need time to finish my research before graduation. I learned this week that one of the companies I work with has pushed their schedule back 3 months. This means that I will not get data from that site until April and I will not be able to meet the deadlines to walk in commencement. I'm really bummed but trying to stay motivated to finish by June.

Eric needs more time as well. I'm trying to get him to blog - he has been building a single-speed bike and I am not as excited about talking about it as he is. So hopefully the next post will be pictures and notes on the newest love of his life. In the meantime, here is a great photo of our nephew teething on a cold one. We finally got to meet him for cousin Jeremy's wedding at the end of January.

Crowded Campus

Dixon (campus gym) was really crowded this morning. It may be partially due to the fact that we were there an hour later than usual. (I had an little incident this morning that involved my house keys, cell phone, and everything else I had with me locked in the idleing truck while Eric waited at Firestone.) But I think students were getting back into a New Year's resolution schedule after a snow week. It made me remember how great campus is when the students are gone. Is that horrible? I guess with a husband set on working in academia I better get used to this.

Crazy Weather

We have had some unusually cold and snowy weather the last two weeks. While I laughed at the school (and town!) closures for 3 inches of snow last week, today's freezing rain was not funny. Altogether, this weather has caused some difficultities for my research. I have postponed a trip to my coastal site in Tillamook twice now and I'm worried that I'm not going to meet deadlines.

On a brighter note the cold weather has brought loads of beautiful, dare I say DRY, snow to the Cascades. To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Eric and I went cross-country skiing with friends Amy and Brett and their dogs Rosco and MJ. The snow was great and the trail was fun. I managed to cause two pile-ups. The first was a complete train wreck, domino style. The second was more controlled and Eric even had the wherewithal to document it. Here I have crashed and Brett trying to help me out ended up straddling the tree. It really was steep- you just can't tell from the picture. Amy fell down trying to take a picture of us and the dogs came to the rescue. Molly is somewhere in the picture but she is camouflage in the snow.

More Music
Eric and I and our friend Beatriz drove to Salt Lake City over the weekend of New Year's Eve so that Eric and I could be at the wedding of my friend Lori and Bea could check out BYU. Lori's family lived 2 houses down from mine (until they moved into another house in the neighborhood, twice) and was one of my best friends as a child. We took piano lessons together starting in our pre-teens until Lori graduated from High School. We had a lot of fun and managed to learn some really great four-hand piano pieces.
At the wedding luncheon we ran into our piano teacher Diana! I had't seen Diana for almost 10 years but she hasn't changed much. Although I didn't check to see if she was wearing Birkenstocks with toe socks. Diana was very influential in my life and I appreciate the lessons she gave me (not just piano) more and more as I get older and am not required to practice piano every day.
Lately I've been interested in every instrument I hear. I want to play them all! We went to a concert in Salt Lake and one of the songs included a recorder solo. When we got back to Corvallis I went to a local music store with Christmas money and found a cool looking one and some music. I serenaded Eric on the car ride home. He told me to join a 2nd grader recorder band.
When Eric and I met we owned 3 guitars, a flute, and a piccolo. We have now added a piano (Diana is soo proud), banjo, ukulele, and recorder. I hope our instrument family continues to grow! Next on the list... cello?

A New Year
Well- we created a website last fall as a way of sharing pictures and thoughts and planned on sending the web address out with our Christmas cards but it didn't happen... Mostly because Nov and Dec were so crazy and updating the site didn't happen.
However, it is a new year with new goals and one of mine is doing a better job of keeping in touch with family and friends. I hope blogging will help serve this function!
Please add comments as you like and if you have a web site or blog and wouldn't mind sharing, send me the address and I'll add you to my "links" list and visit you on a more regular basis.
Yay! I'm excited for this year and keeping in touch!