Zounds!

I made it!  I completed the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  It was a lot of fun overall, meeting new people via the blogosphere and reading lots of interesting posts.  The fact that I have any followers at all amazes me.

I fell behind in both work and household tasks this month, given the time I spent writing instead of attending to other responsibilities.  I enjoyed the structure of the alphabet letters driving the title and topic of the post.  I admire those of you who were able to work the alphabet across a given theme all month long; I was grateful to be using any available topic to meet the daily challenge.

Some of the posts I wrote a few days in advance just in case my life got too busy and that strategy did pay off on more than one day.  Other lettered posts came to me as I was going through my day.  I knew it would be a stretch to write something intelligible and get online and post it every day, and I’m feeling good that I did it.

I don’t know exactly what will happen to Musings With Dot in the coming months but I am sure that I’ll participate in the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  Thanks to my sister for encouraging me to join in the fun; thanks to all who participated, and thank you to those of you who left comments to let me know you visited.  Blog on!

Yikes!

I had arrived at the hotel, tired after arising early to post my letter for the day and get to the airport for an early flight to my destination.  The staff meeting didn’t start until 5:30 so I laid down for a nap around 3 PM.

I awoke to the sound of a message being left on my cell phone.  I looked at the room clock and saw it read 4:15 PM so I thought, “great, I have plenty of time to get ready for the meeting”.  I lazily reached over to the phone to see the message and to my horror the notification read:  1 message, 5:15 PM.  Holy smokes, the hotel room clock was an hour off and I hadn’t noticed.  I realized I had less than 10 minutes to make myself presentable and get over to the staff meeting.  Of course I arrived late—about 10 minutes.  The meeting had already started and everyone turned to look at me when I entered the room.  To add to the disruption, there were no more chairs available so I had to go find one before I could settle into the meeting….and I have no idea what information I missed.

I hate when this kind of thing happens—being jolted into action from a deep sleep, and knowing I’m going to be late. I end up not feeling rested at all, despite the nap.  I am pretty compulsive about being punctual.  When I was a kid I was grounded a day for every minute I was late with my curfew, so it didn’t take long to make arriving on time a priority.

Here’s hoping those “yikes!” moments are few and far between!

X-linked Inheritance

Everybody has a paired combination of X and Y chromosomes, with women being XX and men being XY.  Moms can only contribute an X chromosome, while dads can contribute either an X or Y, resulting in a girl or boy baby respectively.

The X chromosome can have dominant and recessive genes, and those manifest themselves in different ways between males and females.  A recessive gene (a) will manifest its characteristics in men since they have just one copy of the X chromosome.  Depending on whether a woman’s other X chromosome has a dominant or recessive version of that gene, the result is the woman is either a carrier of the characteristic (Aa combo) or manifests that characteristic (aa combo).

Dominant genes from a mom will manifest themselves in either her sons or daughters.  The boys will manifest the characteristic since there’s only one X chromosome in their genome.  Women will show the characteristic even if her accompanying chromosome has a recessive version of the gene since the dominant gene will ‘overrule’ the recessive gene…a woman would have either an AA or Aa gene combination, both of which will result in the appearance of the characteristic. 

There are lots of nuances with how strongly a recessive or dominant gene will influence the physical outcome, along with the complexities of blending with the dad’s version of the gene, so please forgive this simplified explanation of genetic inheritance for the purposes of this post.

X was a hard letter!

What Did You Think?

As the A-Z Challenge winds down, I want to thank all who visited my blog and left comments.  Your reactions and encouragement were so very much appreciated!  It was through your comments that I found your blogs, and have been enjoying reading yours, too.  I’ve bookmarked and/or am following many of them and intend to check in even after the Challenge ends.

I’m in the midst of deciding what I’ll do with my blog after the Challenge ends.  Given that I’m a newbie to this and didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t select a particular theme to my posts, although there were some common threads that ran throughout.  I’m wondering whether to keep the topics varied, or to give my blog more focus.

 Towards that end, I’d welcome your feedback.  What posts did you enjoy the most?  The least?  What did you like / not like about the blog?  Once I’ve reached my decision about what to do, I’ll leave a post to let you know.

Thanks again for visiting.  8-)

Violence Into Victory

One of our stops on our road trip to the Mid-West last year was to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.  What an amazing remembrance of the people who were killed in the April 19, 1995 bombing at the hands of a domestic terrorist, and a documentation of the activities that took place in the weeks and months afterwards.  If your travel plans take you anywhere close to Oklahoma, the Memorial and Museum are completely worth the drive and time.

There are too many poignant aspects to the memorial to list them all here.  The symbolism of the Memorial is haunting, with the field of empty chairs intentionally placed to show where people were when the bomb went off.  The gates at both ends of the reflecting pool are etched with 9:01 and 9:03 respectively, marking the transition from innocence to evil on that particular day. 

My most vivid memory from my visit was the room that was dedicated to those who lost their lives that day.  It’s set up so each of them has a 8x10 photo of themselves mounted on the wall with a small shelf in front of the picture.  Family members were contacted and asked to provide something that represented a part of their lost loved one to be placed on the shelf.  Some of the shelves were filled with memorabilia of lives filled with activity and accomplishments, other shelves summed up the person’s life with a simple object.  There was the shelf that contained just a small can of hair spray and as you looked at the photo you saw a young woman with really big hair.  On another shelf there was simply a baby’s pacifier for the months-old infant who died in the child care center, too young to have had a chance to develop an inventory of objects to choose from.  Perhaps saddest of all were the empty shelves, where family members either were too traumatized to participate, or perhaps no longer exist.  Amazing Grace plays softly as you walk your way around the room.

I didn’t want to title this post “Victims”, although by one definition of the word they were.  What the Memorial and Museum represents to me is the respectful remembrance of those who were killed that day and the documentation of the courage of survivors and first responders on that scene, even including stories of the dogs that assisted in the search.  The descriptions of how the community and beyond rallied to support survivors and family members of lost ones truly represents a victory over the violence of that terrible day.

Ukulele Music

I enjoy the music of many instruments, and one of my favorites is the ukulele.  It has such a bright and happy sound I just can’t help but smile when I hear it.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to visit Hawaii and enjoy ukulele music played live, and it never fails to brighten my mood.  My motivation to actually learn how to play the ukulele came while I was in Guitar Center, browsing while Ivan was looking at equipment.  I saw a songbook entitled “Christmas Carols for the Ukulele”, and since I enjoy Christmas music I thought that would be fun to do.  I bought the book and signed up for ukulele lessons offered by a local music store.

It was a lot harder to learn than I thought, despite my experience with a variety of other musical instruments.  I needed to learn how to strum as well as the fingering on the strings which are tuned differently than the violin, the other stringed instrument I used to hold in my hand and play.  I’m not proficient by any means but I can do a pretty decent version of “You Are My Sunshine”, “O Holy Night”, and “King of the Road”.   Even without lessons, Ivan is a much better player than I.

Locally, there’s an annual Ukulele Festival that provides inspiration to keep with my quest to learn the instrument.  It’s a day dedicated to celebrating the music of the islands, with many performers rotating through their opportunity to strum and sing on stage.  I sit in the audience, singing along softly to the songs I know and listening to the ones I don’t, all with a big smile on my face.

That Was Fun!

I had an excellent time at my stitching class yesterday!  The workshop was held at an EGA chapter member’s home, and she lives in a quiet cul-de-sac in the semi-rural part of town by a sizeable lake.  Bald eagles were nesting in the nearby trees, and we watched a floating island drift across the lake while we sat eating our lunch.

We needed the break!  Seven of us were learning the embroidery technique of Or Nue.  It’s not conceptually difficult but it sure is technically difficult.  Or Nue is pretty much created by laying rows of metallic thread covered up short upright stitches of silk, strategically placed to create the design.  To accomplish that, you work row by row, and for this project you’re carrying 8 separate needles with their respective threads as you move across each row.  Thread management is what is most challenging to me with the technique and I dealt with tangled threads and stubborn knots throughout the day.

The promise of camaraderie was fulfilled as we each struggled with some aspect of the class project and made small talk while working away.  We shared our “oops” and offered suggestions of how to resolve them.  We talked of our excitement of the upcoming regional stitching seminar.  We talked about current events.  The time flew by.

So here’s the progress I made so far.  I’m pleased with the results so far; I really like how this embroidery style looks.  I wonder if I could figure out the design of a dog breed profile in Or Nue…..