![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
such a beautiful night!
Feb. 20th, 2013 12:02 amI have been working from home recently, as I find I am actually more productive when I do, but some things I simply can't do from home. We don't have a rock saw, nor do I really want one, since they are messy things. Therefore, after eating lunch today I went in to uni and spent all afternoon cutting chunks off of the 79 rock samples I collected on my last trip to Boliden. I will keep these bits (each appropriately labeled, so I know which one is which, of course), and some of them will later be turned into thin sections for detailed analysis of the minerals present. The rest of the samples will be crushed and sent off to the lab to find out what % of which elements make up the composition of the rock.
I managed to finish up that in good time to make it to choir practice. I have always loved singing, but this semester our choir has been particularly fun. Last term the total number of our choir members had been dwindling, so that on some occasions we had only two tenors, one bas, three sopranos, and a handful of alts. But due to a combination random chance + some good recruitment we are back up to 5 to 7 people per voice, and the group has a really good energy to it. We have a small performance coming up on Saturday (at the celebration of the orchestra's 35 anniversary), and even though one of the two songs we are doing is new this semester (and it is one of those songs which changes time signature every bar or three), we are ready for it, and it will be fun. We have planned to get together one more time this week for an extra practice, and I am looking forward to that too.
After choir I went grocery shopping, since I had put it off long enough that the downstairs freezer was completely out of frozen veg, and the upstairs freezer was getting quite low. I opted to drive out to the larger grocery store, as it has a better selection of everything than the little store across the street from uni--largely because I wanted to get more edamame, and they don't carry that at the little store at all. Sadly, the big store was out of edamame, so I had to content myself with just stocking up on other frozen veg and fresh fruit and veg.
By the time I got home from that it was well after 21:00, and I probably should have done yoga straight away, but it was such a beautiful evening I couldn't resist going out for a walk--the sky is a rich velvety black, studded with bright stars--the more than half full moon was bright enough that the trees cast sharp shadows on the snow, and the snow sparkled. At first I thought to walk just down the road to where it crosses the lake, but everything was so pretty I couldn't resist turning left and walking out on the snowmachine tracks on the lake. When I got to the part of the lake directly below our house I decided to try breaking a path to the house, since I was wearing my good winter boots and snow pants (in addition to everything else--it is -10 C out).
Looking at the Runkeeper web page, it turns out that going from the house, down the road to the lake, and walking on the lake to just below the house is 1.1 km. Walking up to the house from the lake is 0.3 km. However, by coincidence, both segments of the journey took 14 minutes, despite their very different lengths. Once again I found myself choosing to crawl for the parts with deeper snow, as it is easier going that way. I suspect that if I make time to take that trail again before the next time it snows it will go faster.
After the walk I chatted on G+ video hangout with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar, and our friend L in France, while I did yoga. They have both sensibly gone to sleep, and I should do the same now that I have typed this. However, I am tempted to tune the other half of my hammer dulcimer--I managed to get it half way done (for the first time since moving in!) last night, but stopped at the half way point to take a video call, and didn't pick it up again afterwards, as it was very much bedtime then.
I managed to finish up that in good time to make it to choir practice. I have always loved singing, but this semester our choir has been particularly fun. Last term the total number of our choir members had been dwindling, so that on some occasions we had only two tenors, one bas, three sopranos, and a handful of alts. But due to a combination random chance + some good recruitment we are back up to 5 to 7 people per voice, and the group has a really good energy to it. We have a small performance coming up on Saturday (at the celebration of the orchestra's 35 anniversary), and even though one of the two songs we are doing is new this semester (and it is one of those songs which changes time signature every bar or three), we are ready for it, and it will be fun. We have planned to get together one more time this week for an extra practice, and I am looking forward to that too.
After choir I went grocery shopping, since I had put it off long enough that the downstairs freezer was completely out of frozen veg, and the upstairs freezer was getting quite low. I opted to drive out to the larger grocery store, as it has a better selection of everything than the little store across the street from uni--largely because I wanted to get more edamame, and they don't carry that at the little store at all. Sadly, the big store was out of edamame, so I had to content myself with just stocking up on other frozen veg and fresh fruit and veg.
By the time I got home from that it was well after 21:00, and I probably should have done yoga straight away, but it was such a beautiful evening I couldn't resist going out for a walk--the sky is a rich velvety black, studded with bright stars--the more than half full moon was bright enough that the trees cast sharp shadows on the snow, and the snow sparkled. At first I thought to walk just down the road to where it crosses the lake, but everything was so pretty I couldn't resist turning left and walking out on the snowmachine tracks on the lake. When I got to the part of the lake directly below our house I decided to try breaking a path to the house, since I was wearing my good winter boots and snow pants (in addition to everything else--it is -10 C out).
Looking at the Runkeeper web page, it turns out that going from the house, down the road to the lake, and walking on the lake to just below the house is 1.1 km. Walking up to the house from the lake is 0.3 km. However, by coincidence, both segments of the journey took 14 minutes, despite their very different lengths. Once again I found myself choosing to crawl for the parts with deeper snow, as it is easier going that way. I suspect that if I make time to take that trail again before the next time it snows it will go faster.
After the walk I chatted on G+ video hangout with
lord_kjar, and our friend L in France, while I did yoga. They have both sensibly gone to sleep, and I should do the same now that I have typed this. However, I am tempted to tune the other half of my hammer dulcimer--I managed to get it half way done (for the first time since moving in!) last night, but stopped at the half way point to take a video call, and didn't pick it up again afterwards, as it was very much bedtime then.