Connections and Freezing Fog

ALOHA! The 57th Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at the Palm Tree Pundit . Anne has put together some good reading about Connections for homeschoolers. Visit the carnival and make some connections .


Yesterday, after math and reading, N. came with me to my Neurobiology class because he had boy scouts soon after and I don't like to drive into town more than once. Gas is still pretty pricey and there's greenhouse gases to consider.


Here is a picture of N. relaxing in the new Domenici Medical Sciences Center before class. We went to the Medical-Legal Student Bookstore and found a really neat pen called the PenAgain. It is shaped so that you hold it correctly for neat writing and it reduces hand strain. They can't keep it in stock at the Medical School! Heh, heh.
I was going to buy one for N. and for me--we both have really messy handwriting--but unfortunately I left my purse in the truck. That was the first in a day of forgetting. After class, we went to Borders where we would meet DH and he would then take N. to Boy Scouts. But N. somehow left a bag with his scout uniform and book at Borders (or somewhere!) because by scouts he did not have it. GRRRRR!


Today N. is sick. A coughing, feverish, stuffed-up kind of sick and he has no energy to do anything. We are missing his science class at Explora! as I write. But I don't want to take him out. It is very cold here, and windy, and we have had a freezing fog over us all day.
I am having such a hard time getting us into a routine since the Bar Mitzvah and now that UNM has started up again. But if the kid is sick, he's sick! I will have to adjust and that's all!

I used the extra time today to clean up my office and get organized to study for a test next week in Neurobiology. The test will cover cellular organization of the brain, anatomy of the brain, membrane potentials, action potentials, electronus and propagation along axons, ion channels (in cell membranes), and sensory transduction. I have not taken a test like this in at least 10 years. I'm just a little nervous! I think the freezing fog has entered my brain!


I've got to go study and prepare for my Special Education Law class. I had to download a copy of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution and prepare a definition of justice. That class will not be too bad, although I can tell that I am starting with a different viewpoint about rights than are most of my classmates.

I wanted to close by showing a picture of one of our Juniper trees coated with freezing fog. We just don't get this kind of weather around here very often. This winter has been a bonus for us. And it is really beautiful! A fact of which I will remind myself as I scrape the truck to drive to class today.

Every day in winter during the Amidah (standing prayer), we praise G-d "who

causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall." If we change the word "rain" to "snow", we are getting exactly that. We are grateful for the El Nino and for the precipitation, even the freezing fog.