Bits and Pieces

Random things going on right now... 

Knitting: Leif (fiancé) is going to take knitting lessons with me starting this Tuesday! Think he's curious about the process. And in his own words he likes spending time with me. How sweet is that? Love Florilegium in Parkville Missouri. Absolutely beautiful shop with awesome owners. They're going to give us private free lessons! I've got my needles ready!

Family and Parkville, MO: Leif and I loved spending the day with his parents, Eric and Sharon, yesterday. We don't get to see them as often as we like with us being 40 minutes away. We showed them all around Parkville Missouri. The Farmers Market, English Landing Park, Parkville Coffee, lunch, and the many cute shops. Sharon finally had a chance to use her gift certificate at River's Bend Gallery we gave her a few years ago. Beautiful and perfect October day!

Astronomy: I manage our astronomy club's Facebook page and a new member posted this on our site. Very proud that our club has such a positive effect and encourages people to check out the night sky more. And stay up late! Right now Jupiter doesn't come out until after 1am and Comet ISON until after 3am!

On the lighter side of my life: My first designer bag! On consignment and on sale so less than one of my pooches physical therapy sessions. Never thought I would even want to own a Coach but it's so cute and love the periwinkle! Bold 'girly' move for me which is probably why it's kind of a big deal. I'm normally such a tomboy.

DNA Testing: Going to get my genome mapped out with 23andMe. Terribly curious. Nervous? Not really. Suspect it'll put my mind at ease and give a sense of more power over my future if they do find anything as I can then become more proactive through lifestyle and check ups. Huge step in owning my future health. Why am I telling you something so private? Because that's what blogging can be about - your most private parts of your life shared with the world. I can't promise you that I'll share all the results but will on some. I hope through sharing my own experience I can take away some of the fear of 'knowing'. Just because you have a specific gene doesn't mean you'll get the disease or cancer. It just indicates your chances. The company has an excellent reputation and a great promotion going on right now. https://www.23andme.com

A great blog entry on someone's experience with this: http://www.singularityweblog.com/23andme-dna-test-review-its-right-for-me-but-is-it-right-for-you/

Astronomy: Interactive map of the galaxy! "Thanks to the amazing powers of the internet (and super-creative developers), you can now travel through interstellar space without any fear of ending up like Sandra Bullock in Gravity. Click over to the 100,000 Stars interactive map of the galaxy, and fly through space from the safety of your own bedroom! Showing the location of 119,617 nearby stars, you can zoom right in, from the whole Milky Way, to our local star system, and solar system. Clicking on a star will give you more info about it, and there’s also a really interesting interactive tour to get you started."

Star map:

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/

More about the project:

http://www.geekosystem.com/galaxy-map/