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For those of you not in-the-know, we have a new blog going while we're in Thailand: http://thailandt.blogspot.com. Come on over and have a look!

We bid a temporary farewell to Texas.

We left sunny, warm-ish Texas Sunday late afternoon and - after an overnight stop in Wichita, KS - arrived in the cloudy, frigid North late Monday evening. We'll be spending about a week with our families before we fly out of MSP next Monday morning.

All of our household belongings are in a 4x10 storage unit in Denton. Our house sale will close on March 25th. We're taking a total of 3 suitcases of stuff with us to Thailand, and one of those suitcases is full of books and materials for me to use in the classroom over there. Traveling light is the only way to travel.

It was strange driving away from Texas, and it was stranger still (and oddly comforting) to hear the southern "y'all"s gradually turn into the northern "you guys". :) However, though the Texan accent terrifies me, I like living in Texas and look forward to returning there next January.

Betrayal

Just when the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and the birds begin to nest, THIS is what Texas dumps on us. Traitor.

Snowy front yard

Snowy hammock

Snowy trees

Snowy bushes

These pictures were taken about 12 hours after the snow stopped falling, and some of the snow has melted already. I think we officially got 5" of snow yesterday. And actually, when this is (as the locals claim) a once-every-25-years event, it's kind of fun! I couldn't believe how many snowmen sprang into existence within 1 hour of when the snow began to fall!

It'll all be gone in a day or two, but for today, UNT is closed and I have vacation. As they say down here, yee-haw!

Time's a-wastin'

We have plane tickets and visas for Thailand, a condo there has been rented for us (by my boss' boss' boss), and we have a buyer for our house!

Packing is proceeding apace. Gus has been working hard to cull our belongings into a manageable pile. The Spring I term is now finished at work, so I (Angela) have some time to actually help get us ready to leave - and we leave balmy Texas on Sunday afternoon, March 9th. We'll spend about a week up in the frigid North before we fly to blazing hot Thailand.

Must go pack....

Briefest of Updates:

We've been given the green light for Thailand. It looks like we'll be leaving in about six weeks.

My Thai?

There's an 80% chance that I (Angela) will be sent to northern Thailand in March for at least 2 months to start, head up, and teach English at a new branch of our department. I would, of course, be taking Gus with me. :)

At this point, it looks like I would be the only teacher being sent this first term while we're getting the program going! If it works as planned, then other classes and teachers would most likely be added beginning with the summer term. I have the option (read: they would really like it if I would) to stay for up to a year. Gus and I both think it would be very fun.

The city we would be in is Chiang Mai. It's in northern Thailand and it's the second largest city, after Bangkok. However, Bangkok is 45x the size of Chiang Mai! :D Chiang Mai has about 200,000 people and is - according to a friend of ours who has family in Chiang Mai - a modern city with everything we might need, including broadband internet!

Chiang Mai is located at the base of a mountain range and has a river running through it. There are, of course, lots of local Buddhist temples, a number of large universities in the city (the largest one has 25,000+ students; the one I'd be at has around 10,000), and lots of shopping, including a very cool and very large night market!

Now we just need to learn Thai! :)

Favorite pictures

I recently decided to print out some of my digital pictures, since I'd love to have them in 8x10 format on our walls and not just in JPEG format on my computer. Just for kicks, here are a few of the pictures I'm printing! (All pictures were taken by me, Angela.)

The Shambles
York, England
March 2007

Skipton Castle
Skipton, England
March 2007

Groundskeeper's cottage and groundskeeper

Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England
March 2007

Mount Evans, Colorado
September 2005

Mount Evans, Colorado
September 2005

The Atlantic Ocean as viewed from our beach-front cottage
Vieques, Puerto Rico
February 2004

Floored

The cement has been poured, the French Drain has been completed, and now the sheetrock needs to be fixed! Here's a look at the progress:

Sunroom floor!


More sunroom floor! (Note: The door is once again in place.)
The floor actually is level - I just wasn't holding the camera straight.


The exterior, with its new gravel-topped French drain. We tested out the French drain by running water on it for about 10 minutes (from the garden hose). None of the water pooled on top of the gravel, and a few minutes after we started, water was pouring out the far end of the drain, which empties onto the street in front of the house. It works!

Here's what the French drain looked like before the gravel was added.

Sunroom update

Here's what they did today:

Dirt and rebar

Rebar and dirt

High-tech external support system

Yes, folks, it's an update!

Well, it's certainly been a while since the last update! Here's what's going on down here in the land of huge belt buckles, cowboy hats, and people spouting out "y'all"s with wild abandon:

The August trip up north was good. Probably anyone reading this was a part of our time up there, so there's no need for details. Right? :)

Our spider (see two posts below this one) has passed on. We realized that her substantial girth was due to her impending motherhood. After she spun and filled TWO egg sacs (sacs bigger than her), she met an untimely, Gus-induced death. Her evil, cute little spawn will not carry on her legacy, either. RIP spider(s).

On October 17th Gus and I celebrated our 9th (!) wedding anniversary! The years have flown by, in a good, very happy way!

Halloween was great. We carved jack-o-lanterns! We bought a metric ton of candy! And then, on Halloween evening, we turned out all the lights, locked the door, watched a movie, and ate the candy ourselves. :D

Angela's pumpkin

Angela's pumpkin, lit from within!

Gus' pumpkin. Spooooky, eh?

In other news, we are having our sunroom worked on. The foundation was cracked. Actually, "cracked" is too mild a word. Perhaps "torn asunder" would be more accurate. The house had originally had a small (maybe 4' x 8') patio off the back. The previous owners built the sunroom (12' x 20'?) up around it, but neglected to do proper foundation work. They basically just poured concrete up to and around the original patio slab, not tying the two pieces together in any way, trusting - naiively - in the two concretes to meld. Over the years, with the odd Texas tradition of houses shifting with the seasons, the two slabs pulled away from each other, with the newer one more or less drifting away from the house.

Since this made the sunroom pretty much useless, we hired a foundation repair company to come in and fix things. So far they have done this:

Obviously, a vast improvement. :P To reach this stage, they first removed all the sun-blocking bushes that were growing along the outside of the sunroom. Then they dug eight deep holes (10' deep, I believe) at intervals along the sunroom walls. Then they filled these holes with concrete and gave it a week to cure. Meanwhile, they jack-hammered the foundation and removed (almost) all traces of it. Today they came in, placed support pipes in each of the holes, and jacked up the sunroom to lift it off the remaining foundation.

Exhibit A: A pipe in a concrete-filled hole, holding up the sunroom wall

Next, they plan to remove the rest of the concrete, dig some big ditch along the outer edge of the wall, and pour an all-new concrete foundation.

At this point, the sunroom door to the outside won't fully close:

Exhibit B: Sunroom door sitting at a jaunty angle

But that's just fine. Soon it will all be fixed, the room will be as good as new (better than it's ever been, actually), and it will be habitable once more. We just need to figure out if we're going to carpet the new floor, tile it, stain it...so many choices!

For Mom: Header/footer dilemma in Microsoft Word

To create separate headers in document sections:

When you create a header or footer in a Microsoft Word document, and then create a section break, the first section's header/footer settings will be duplicated in the subsequent sections.

(click image to enlarge)

As you can see in the picture above, there is a button called "Same as Previous" in the Header and Footer toolbar (the button with two pages side-by-side, with a little arrow connecting the two). It is automatically engaged when you create a new section. When it is engaged, the words "Same as Previous" appear directly above the footer's borders, on the right.

In order to work on the headers/footers in one section independently of the headers/footers in the previous section, you need to remove this link between them. To do so, in the second (or following) section - the section in which you want a different header/footer - you need to click that "Same as Previous" button to disengage it. When you do, the words "Same as Previous" disappear [see below]; you can now work on the subsequent headers/footers with no impact to the previous headers/footers.

(click image to enlarge)

Just remember: Each time you create a new section break, you will have to disengage that "Same as Previous" button, if you want that new section's headers/footers to function independently.

Hope that helps!

To find the "Same as Previous" button:

On your Header and Footer toolbar, at the far, upper right, is a small down-arrow that allows you to change your toolbar options.

(click image to enlarge)

If you click that aroow, it will expand to display the words, "Add or Remove Buttons."

(click image to enlarge)

As you hover over that text, it will expand further to the right, displaying "Header and Footer," and then - finally - a complete list of buttons available to this toolbar, including today's favorite, "Link to Previous."

(click image to enlarge)

Click the buttons you'd like to have available to you on this toolbar.

There you go! Easy-peasy. :)

Our new guard dog

We just got back from a long trip (more on that in the next post) and upon our return, what did we find living in a huge web alongside our house? This:

(click for a bigger picture)

According to an entomology site I found, this is a yellow garden spider. The site says they "can reach a length of one inch or more".... Yeah. This one's body is at least 2.5 inches long. No kidding. She's HUGE. And now that I know she can't kill me, I like her. :)

Name that plant

We have a number of flowering plants around our yard, all planted by previous owners. I don't know what any of them are, so here are some pictures. If you know what they are, feel free to enlighten me!

Mystery Plant #1:


Mystery Plant #2:



Mystery Plant #3:

(this flower smells like heaven!)

Any ideas?

A brief update

Vacation is here. The term ended on Friday with many of my former students graduating from IELI! I had taught many of those students last summer or fall, when they were in level 3 or 4 (of 6). It was nice to see them succeed and move on to the next big thing in their lives. For some of them, this means returning home. For others, this means beginning an advanced degree at UNT.

For those who are interested, here's a link to a web album of photos from our trip to England in March: http://picasaweb.google.com/ajlandt/England200702

Next weekend is ReaperCon. Gus's brother and a couple friends from Ohio will be staying here for the duration of the Con. Gus and I will be spending the next few days furiously painting up minis to enter into the competition. :)

There's not much else to report!

Ah, spring!

Thanks to previous owners of our home, we are surrounded by flowers this spring!

Apparently this ...

(Late February)

... becomes this!

(This evening)

(It smells like grape kool-aid!)

In front of our garage, we have a gorgeous rosebush, which smells even prettier than it looks:


There is another rosebush alongside the house, with light pink blossoms, but it only has two buds on it right now, so it wasn't worthy of a photo. :)

I love spring!

Jolly old...

Yes, it's true, we went to England for spring break. And here's some photographic proof!

Helmsley Castle

Rievaulx Abbey in the snow

Gus at Rievaulx

A lamb!

Skipton Castle

We'll post more pictures later.

Neighbors

I found this guy in our back yard today. :)


Here he is sunning on a rock, before rushing off to his job at Geico.

And so it began...

Hearken back with me to the days of yore:

Location: Compuware headquarters, Farmington Hills (Detroit), MI
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 1998
Time: Just before 9:30am
Scene: A few of the new recruits are standing around before the first class, introducing themselves to each other and making small talk.

~~~ fade into scene ~~~

Him: Hi. I'm Gus.

Her: I'm Angela. Nice to meet you.

~~~ fade out ~~~

And the rest is history! :D

RIP Hilton, 1996 (?) - 2007

Mid-October, Hilton started peeing in our sunroom. Since our sunroom can be closed off from the rest of the house (preventing the stench from migrating), we just dealt with it, cleaning up cat pee 3 - 4 times/day.

We took him to the vet to rule out any physical problems, and she said he was probably just marking his territory, since we had seen strays wandering through our backyard. Thinking maybe he would use another litter box if it were nearby, we put an extra box in the sunroom, in the corner where he'd been peeing. He did start using the box, but that didn't reduce his amount of "thinking outside the box."

The vet then suggested we try a pheremone spray, which is supposed to tell cats "I don't pee here!" It's effective in 90% of cases, but after a month it had made no difference in Hilton.

We went back to the vet, who gave us hormone treatment pills for Hilton. The hormones are supposed to relax the cat, so he won't feel anxious or scared or territorially aggressive. The pills are immediately effective in 80% of cases, but after 10 days had made no difference in Hilton.

The vet then said we should give Hilton complete, unlimited access to our backyard. Since he loved being outside, the vet thought that he would expand his territory to include the yard and pee out there, instead of inside. Well, he spent time outside and then just came back in the house to pee on our walls and carpet.

After three months of losing this battle, we decided we'd just have to live with it, since the sunroom isn't a vital room. Then, Hilton started peeing in the living room. He didn't pee near a window or door, which would have made sense. After all, from a window or door he might be able to see the evil strays, compelling him to pee toward them. There was no logical reason for him to pee in a place that wasn't next to a window or door. Yet, he did, repeatedly, in the far, dark corner of the living room, as far from a window or door as he could possibly get.

At that point, from what the vet told us, we came to the realization that Hilton wasn't just being territorial; he was scared. After three months of living here, it seemed that he was getting more scared every day. This wasn't a physical problem, it was mental.

Our vet's last resort was to make him exclusively an outdoor cat, but knowing what a scaredy-cat he was, there was no way we could banish him from the house. For him, that would be hell. (He's always been a fearful cat, timid around anyone or anything that he wasn't completely familiar with. And even though he loved being outside, he spent all his time outdoors tight up against the side of the house, slinking along on high alert, jumping at the slightest noise. He was scared, but he loved eating the grass so much, he still wanted to go out.)

During all of this, we noticed that Hilton pretty much stopped bathing. He had always been such a fastidious bather, but in the last few months the extent of his bathing would be to wash his face after eating. Occasionally he would begin bathing the rest of his body, but after a few moments, he'd give up. His beautiful fur was becoming matted, and we had to regularly cut out matted hairballs. In the last few weeks, however, he was even neglecting to wash his face.

Over the past several months, we've asked all of our co-workers, friends, and acquaintances if they had any suggestions. We asked if they or anyone they knew would take him. Unfortunately, no one had any ideas that we hadn’t already tried, and no one would offer him a new home. We even talked to the no-kill animal shelters in the area, but none of them would take him, saying he was too old.

Since he was getting old, the peeing problem wasn't fixable (it was getting worse), he’d stopped bathing, we couldn't find another home for him, and - most significantly - he was living in fear, we felt the only thing we could do was have him put to sleep. At least then he wouldn't be scared all the time.

So, on January 20th we took him to the shelter, and they put him down. It was the hardest thing we've ever had to do. We miss that cat so much - he was an ever-present ball of fuzz in our lives for 10 years. He slept on top of me (Angela) every night for the last 8 years. Everywhere we look in the house we keep expecting to see him: curled up in the living room chairs, sprawled out on the floor (who knew a cat could take up so much room!), whining for treats every time we walk into the kitchen, snuggling up to us while we watch a movie on the couch, the volume of his purring competing with the soundtrack.

Life is different without him, and we will always miss him.

...and that's why they call them icicle lights!

This week is winter here in Texas. Next week we'll be back to spring. :)