My February

This dormant liquid amber caught my attention recently. It makes me think of an ornament-laden tree from some crazy Ted Burton Film (The Nightmare Before Christmas?)This tree also caught my attention. I have no idea what kind it is, but these weird pods are popping open.February is always kind of a schizophrenic mix of fall and spring out here.The above three pictures were taken at work, as was the pod tree as are the following 4 pictures. I get kind of excited working at a place that has so much history, and then I am reminded that the western US really only goes back so far! The following always catches my attention. The tree that you can see the base of was planted on our campus back when there was "THE" world war - hadn't been 2 of them yet.I LOVE ROOTS! We had family events - good, bad and regular.
My brother celebrated his 40th birthday party.I just noticed that the above is quite a male-dominated picture!
Anthony got hit by a truck - thankfully just grazed him arm - driver didn't even stop - argh!We faithfully, as always, took care of our mice. Here are Hugin and Munin, hanging out in their "holding facility" while we cleaned their home.Valentine's Day showed up on schedule, and my sweetie gave me these lovely roses.My children have grown up a lot. I can't believe Anthony can create and consume such a thing as you see below!Then there's Jacob who's taller than his older brother AND taller than I am! And, of course Caleb who turned 12 this week and was featured in these posts (here and here).I am able to put so much time into a post today because I TURNED IN MY FIRST FULL DRAFT OF MY THESIS!!!! Now it is in the hands of my advisor to revise, and I CAN'T work on it this weekend! It has been hanging over me for so long. Last week I even moved out of the house and moved in with my brother so as not to be disturbed while I worked. Here it is:I have been doing pretty much nothing else other than work on my thesis. As a result, notice the health of the weeds in my yard:I almost pulled this one, but it has been living and growing so long and is so lush - think of all the soil, water and sun that went into it - all the photosynthesis - that I didn't have the heart to pull it and took a picture instead!Yes, I do have some "legitimate" flowers in my yard too (but "who says purple is a weed and pink and white is posies?"). I do love my lilies!Here are some stones from a trip to the beach last fall that are in a flower pot in our yard. We haven't decided what to do with them yet, but I think they're pretty even here.I even had time to go for a walk today and enjoyed the cloudy sky and the season continuing to transition from fall to spring. Soon enough I'll get my thesis back and have my nose to the grindstone making revisions. Today I wanted to spend my time reflecting on life a bit, so here it is; this was my life this month.

Today I also got to cheer Anthony on in his Science Bowl competition and go to Fun Works with the fam for a little more celebrating with Caleb - good times!!