Ancestry Composition

While I've been a member of 23andMe for some time, it was a post at Your Genetic Genealogist that alerted me to their great biogeographical ancestry tool. Here's their speculative (highest detail, but lowest confidence) analysis of my roots:

I'm not holding out much hope that I'm related to my Japanese-American husband, and I expected a slightly larger African contribution from the part of my family tree that's mostly French-American. But all in all, it seems like a reasonable analysis of my spoonful of the American melting pot.

Knitters to the rescue!

While catching up with Annie's blog at www.wattsolak.com, I was reminded of how often I have saved the day with a bit of yarn. Allow me to elaborate...

• Taping directional signs to signposts does not work in wet weather. On more than one occasion at YMCA of the Rockies, retreat attendees have found their way to their lodges during heavy spring snowstorms thanks to a ball of Sugar 'n Cream cotton.
• Ditto for hanging heavy banners at conventions - hooray for string!
• After a trip to the body shop due to an unfortunate altercation with a concrete wall in a dark parking garage, a trim piece on my Subaru became disconnected and was dragging along the street. But was my teenage daughter flummoxed? Oh, no! "Surely Mom has some yarn in this car somewhere..."

In addition to our nail clippers and our towels, perhaps we should all be sure to pack a bit of yarn! 

DIY Comet

In this week's astronomy class, Dr. K. decided we should all experience the making of our very own comets. We combined dry ice, water, dirt, ammonia, and complex organic molecules (i.e., pancake syrup). Using our ski gloves and oven mitts, we compressed all this stuff inside a garbage bag and...voila! Comets!