Where All the Grey Hairs Come From

As I'm typing this, I'm watching the Ida/Nor'easter pound the life out of all my favorite Maryland and Deleware Beaches. Some of them are already flooded. I've seen live shots from Virginia Beach, O.C., Rehobeth Beach and Cape May. Fifty years ago there were dunes and tidal marses to absorb these kinds of storm surges. Yesterday, at Nags Head, they were pumping sand during the storm to save an entire barrier island beach and its real estate from washing away. These resort towns need to seriously rethink development.

Life has been running tight lately, but I finally have two big projects under my belt and only 3 more to finish. One of my classmates is in two of my groups, in two different classes, and has been MIA for the last few team meetings and both classes. I'm starting to get nervous, but at least we can cut his content out of our wetland project and still have plenty of data, and I took some of my extra time off of work this week to research his part of our PSP Whidbey Acion Area project. Hopefully, one of my team-mates will be willing to use my notes to write his portion if needed.

Life at home has been busy, too. Tay has become active in her student government and yearbook, and baked goodies for her class fundraiser this week. I had my head buried in my laptop on Wednesday, so she took care of it all by herself. It's cool to watch your kids do responsible things out of choice, and come into their own.

The stepkid, on the other hand, has gone back to lying about homework and blood sugar checks, and had words with his mom last weekend. We're trying to back her up with things, but we have also been dealing with the ridiculous tantrums of, "why won't you drive me to town EVERY DAY so I can see my girlfriend?" The kid thinks he's justified in seeing the girl everyday, because his cousin has spent almost every day of the last 3 years with his girlfriend. However, the Hermit's nephew has also become ineligible for sports his Senior year, and may not graduate on time because of the girl he's been with since fifteen.

After watching that fiasco we decided the responsible, healthy thing to do for our kids, is not to let them spend every minute of every day together with their boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm not sure what's worse, though, the tantrums or the first break-up. Between what my siblings went through with nieces and nephews, to horror stories about my classmates' teenagers, I'm kind of scared.

And speaking of the Hermit, he let Tay cook a vegetarian meal on Monday, and was respectful in an argument I thought he would lose his head in. I was so happy with him. Last night, he even took the step of filling in on an ex-coworkers bowling team while I was at school. I was SO happy he got out of the house to do something fun. Not that Lowe's isn't fun, but it just leads to more work at home.

Tonight we're supposed to get the first snow of the season, along with a big windstorm. The mountains are thick, and white already, so ski season should be good this year. My awesome mom-in-law gave us four pairs of skis, and I've got decent snow gear now, so I really can't wait for winter break to try it all out!

Now that you've heard all my excuses for the last couple of weeks, I will get back to the Green Expressions, I swear. I did finish my report on Geoengineering, but it's so strange and new, I'd like to know more about it before I post anything publicly. Tomorrow I will post information about the danger of global Nitrogen saturation and why using Genetically Modified crops to help solve the situation is a bad solution.