What a Good Night!

Tonight has been a a really good night. This has been a very difficult school year for our family for several reasons but I think we are finally getting things in order. Tonight Brad and I got home at a decent time. We ate dinner as a family with Maxwell and Zara. They played outside and had wild and crazy time inside too. I snuggled with them while Brad read Narnia. (We are currently on A Horse and His Boy.) Brad even played a little guitar after Narnia. The kids are now both sound asleep before 10pm. Zara was asleep before I even made it upstairs to tuck her in.

I even have the time and energy to blog. Brad is cleaning up in the kitchen after beer making while listening to Spotify. After blogging I'm going to analyse some data. I feel like a whole person. That is happening more and more lately. I also had a good day in lab. My PI and I edited a figure I made for a review article and he liked it so much that he added it to a grant he's writing. This is the first publication worthy figured I've made.

Here's to more good days!

Making the Most of Adobe Illustrator - Reference Guide and How to

This blog post is designed to be a reference for useful links to other posts about Adobe illustrator as well as short How tos for things i have figured out. It will be updated as I find cool new sites and learn new things. I will only link to posts that have worked for me. Feedback welcome.

Making a color pallete

http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/build-awesome-color-palettes-effortlessly-in-illustrator/

Vanderbilt color palletes

Primary Identification Colors http://www.vanderbilt.edu/publicaffairs/cs/graphicstandards/page5a.html

Secondary Identification Colors http://www.vanderbilt.edu/publicaffairs/cs/graphicstandards/page5b.html

How to make Pie Charts

http://modernl.com/article/howto-make-pretty-pie-charts

How to make a table (2013-05-03)

If you have Adobe Illustrator, chances are you have Adobe Indesign (ID) as well. I had never used Indesign before but I used it today to make a table. It is very easy. Open a new document in ID. Locate the T on the left side and select it. Click and drag to draw a text box in your document. Make the text box bigger than you think your table will be. Go to Table at the top and then Insert Table. Choose your table dimensions and then fill the table. Resize the text box to fit the table dimensions. The table and contents are vector graphics. Copy and Paste your new table into Illustrator. You can continue to edit it in Illustrator but changes made in Illustrator will not be reflected in ID.

Maxwell's Hoverboard Corporation

"I can't wait any longer to grow up."- Maxwell, age 9

My nine year old son is planning out a hoverboard making corporation with his seven year old sister, Zara. Yes, he has seen all three Back to the Future movies. He's planning out all the details. A hoverboard will cost $1000, Zara's kids will get free hoverboards, and Maxwell will be called "Uncle Max".

He is so excited about his future company; he updates me everyday. The plan is to make the hoverboards magnetic and they will work on magnetic surfaces of the same pole. The newest ideas tonight are hoverboard camp and hover shoes. Kids will come to hoverboard camp to learn how to use their hoverboards.

I think Maxwell's original idea came from wanting to develop a clean car to cut down on air pollution. Brad told him that even Maglev trains used fuel so his idea shifted toward a human powered hoverboard.

The best thing about making hoverboards real?

Maxwell and Zara will be the most famous people in the whole world.

The only things that might slow them down are "gravity, money, and government." He's very concerned about getting the president's permission, which he may very well need since he's planning to tear up all the roads in the US.

15 and in College

I have realized that my blog is very lopsided and that there are many blog worthy things in my life that I never mention. For starters, my identical twin daughters skipped high school and went straight to college instead. This post is prompted by the fact that they are home for spring break. They are in their second semester of college and loving it. They are attending a small women's liberal arts school in Virginia. They live in special dorm for young gifted girls, so all the girls in the dorm are around the same age and all are super smart. Imagine the drama of a never ending teenage girl sleepover with classes and studying thrown in. They love it! Both of my girls have blogs too and are much better about posting new content than I am. Check out their blogs for insight into college life at only 15 years old:

Alora http://letterstotheparents.blogspot.com/

Brittan http://firefliesonmytabletop.blogspot.com/

I am super excited to have them home for the week. I picked them up from the airport at 3am in the snow so we are all laying around and hanging out. I don't think anyone has gotten dressed for the day. Brittan has already cleaned the kitchen and thrown a snowball in my bed at her father. Alora has been playing Minecraft with her little brother all day. Britt is currently playing Wii with her little sister. This week will contain vegging, homework, orthodontics evaluations, shopping, driving practice, McKay's, meatloaf, and french toast. Life is good.

Death, Guilt, and Selfishness in Grief

I came home from work sick with a cold this evening, put the kids in the shower, laid down on my bed, and started crying. In the past week, a childhood friend's father died and my great aunt died. I cried when I heard about both deaths but I'm not sure why. I don't know if I even have any room for empathy right now because I'm so self absorbed in my own grief and maybe hearing about death is just a trigger for crying, or maybe I'm overwhelmed with empathy because I can relate so much to the pain their loved ones are going through. Or maybe I cry because I knew both of these people and they were wonderful people and death isn't fair. It is cruel and merciless. Or maybe it's because they both knew my mom. They knew her before I even existed. That means they knew things about her that I don't know. A little bit more of my mom is lost with every person that dies that knew her. I can't handle anymore death right now.

I've recently discovered that I feel guilty about my mother's death. I urged her to stop her chemo treatment and do a clinical trial that she qualified for. I was sure it was the answer and that it would give her more time with us. The cancer went to the lining of her brain not too long after she started the trial and she died shortly thereafter. Maybe the treatment change didn't change anything but I still wonder if it's my fault that we didn't have her around for longer.

Why do I write these depressing blogs? It's a good outlet for me and I hope that others who are going through similar situations and emotions will read them and know that they are not alone.

It's okay to cry and breakdown and be angry. I'm sorry I can't be there more for others right now. I am barely here for myself and my family. 

(Most days I hold it together pretty well and I am pretty good at compartmentalizing. I didn't cry at work at all this week except for a little tiny bit.)