Saturday Science

This video from the American Museum of Natural History is truly awesome.



Thanks to the NASA picture a day (APOD) website for sharing it with me. Their images are amazing, and I can lose hours marveling at pictures from earth and in space:



I'm so enamored with NASA's Earth Observatory site that I get email updates from them. Anything noteworthy happening on planet earth is usually uplinked from satellite data within hours. These are amazing times, my friends. Here are a few of my recent favorites:
The most recent east coast snowstorm.

The Gulf of Mexico

Waters off the Bahamas

Lovely, yes?

Good Things

Thanks to Bethany over at Bloom, I'm having a grateful moment here in the frigid midwest. She reminded me of the new bulbs I planted that will bloom in a few months. Here are a few of my favorites from last Spring:






In less than 2 months, they will be back, this time with new tulips and alliums!

Here's another good thing, in a sideways and silly kind of way. Yesterday morning we had a rare earthquake in IL and I live 8 miles from the epicenter. Nothing cracked, nothing broken, just a few of my tinies fell off their shelves and luckily none broken. I've been collecting these since I was about 7 years old. They are my version of treasure:


See the tiny clay critters on the right? The horse and vulture both fell off the shelf but did not break. Those I bought in high school about a million years ago. I always thought I'd get crafty and make such things, but have not yet.

But feeling the earth move beneath you - it's mighty humbling and makes for some serious gratitude. Especially when it sounds like an explosion or bomb happening out your window. I live in a lucky time and place, and I am grateful.

Here's something that's good for me, but sucks for people I love. I'm not here:


Kinda funny, except they got an unprecedented 22 inches of rain last year following the worst drought in ages the year before that, with just under 9 inches. The weather is wreaking havoc on my homeland. Southern or slower Delaware doesn't get much snow, so they weren't prepared to handle the almost 2 feet they got, let alone the 2 inches of sleet on top of that. The news is awful, roofs are collapsing all over the place: Walmarts, Big Lots, churches, schools and over 50 chicken houses so far. Growing chickens is the economic mainstay in the area, besides farming. It is devastating. But my family is safe, and warm, and their roofs are holding, and the weather is letting up, thankfully, so they can begin to dig out.

So hooray for good things, and especially for sunshine and blue skies.



OK, one more good thing. Music. Music!! I'm not named Melody for nothing. I'm happy my music player at the bottom of this page pops out and can hang out with me all morning. Go ahead, help yourself. The little square on the top right pops it out so you can listen too, there's something in there for everyone. I've been enjoying the heck out of some other bloggers' music. Future post fodder.

Sunday Sunset 1/30/2010

It started like any ordinary sunset, but very quickly became extraordinary.

Very Sparkly....

Saturday morning I awoke to a sunny 22 degrees, which felt pleasant after the latest artic blast. A light breeze floated sparkling snowflakes to the ground through the morning sunshine.
Amazing. Enchanting. Magical. Joyful.


Click on any photo to enlarge and see the detail.

With the help of this Snowflake Chart I know that the temperature was about 15 degrees when the snow fell. I was eager to catch any of it with the camera, and ran around outside with the dog in my slippers and bathrobe. I don't even care who sees me anymore, honestly. Of course, the dog was oblivious to the magic snowflakes, he just wanted to play.

Now I remember why I voted for him....

I love that my President communicates with me through twitter. I love that he's pissed about the Supreme Court ruling expanding the lobbying power of corporations.
I wish Democracy were easier to navigate.