In Transition

BLUE MOON: We awoke to stunning photos from friends and pros from all over of last night's big lunar event.

Our 'lunar event' was a non event, as a thick blanket of clouds covered our skies. Sigh.

Here's a cool time lapse video of what it looked like over NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Ironically, my favorite moon photo of the day wasn't about the super blue moon or lunar eclipse. Rather, it was from NASA of the International Space Station transiting the moon. Such a cool shot!

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: It's been awhile since we've shared any news from that hard working Mars rover Curiosity. 

NASA shared a photo today that shows the rover on Vera Rubin Ridge, where it has been investigating for the past several months. 

Right behind the rover, you can see the start of a clay-rich slope scientists are eager to begin exploring. This week, Curiosity will begin to climb this slope. In the photo, north is on the left and west is on the right, and the rim of Gale Crater is on the horizon of both edges.

Poking up right behind Curiosity is Mount Sharp. In a press release, NASA noted "the mountain's base provides access to layers formed over millions of years. These layers formed in the presence of water -- likely due to a lake or lakes that sat at the bottom of the mountain, which sits inside Gale Crater."T

The image above is actually a mosaic, assembled from dozens of images taken by Curiosity's Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). They were all taken on Jan. 23, 2018, during Sol 1943.

HALFWAY:  This afternoon, Annabelle and I went to Queen Anne and picked up a donated bookcase, which we'll be filling with a bunch of great donated books, and then headed to the transitional house we're helping spruce up a bit.

There, we redecorated their big monthly calendar with a February header, and then turned our attention to a pay phone area where residents make their phone calls.  We recovered a bulletin board with some pretty paper and provided some custom thumbtacks we made out of tacks and cute buttons. We recovered the ugly simulated dark 1970s wood grain phone surround with pretty vinyl, sticky-backed paper with a print in weathered wood in pleasant colors. We used a teal washi tape on the edges, and installed a couple of cork boards for pinning up notes. It looked super cute when we were done! Sorry I don't have a good photo of it at the moment. I'll get one when we go back in a couple of days for the bookcase install.

CONFUZZLED: The kids and I 'attended' Khan Academy again today. We're using it for Algebra I, and on most days, really like it and have little trouble with what is presented.

However, today was not 'most days.' We really failed pretty miserably on our practice homework. We felt OK after watching the video, and we've certainly done conversions many a time but YIKES, the practice problems today threw us for a loop.


I told the kids not to panic. We've been a bit befuddled before and muddled through. We'll watch the video again tomorrow, take on some more practice problems, and figure it out (literally).