How to work from home. A list of tips and tricks.

The class diamond was shown to us somewhere around the mid-semester mark.

Where you are, Did you see the flowers bloom? The deep pinks of the plums… The lightest, Brightest shades of ume blossoms. The crisp and ...

The color of sunlit tropical water, Quietly waiting as limestone forms. In the hard-edged clear of glacial ice, On a cloudy day. The liqu...

I had never seen so many shades of green…. It had only been a slight detour: I had gotten abruptly tired of tripping over the group I was...

Slightly bafflingly, there are three birthstones for December. Turquoise, zircon and tanzanite. A conundrum when I am trying to write abo...

Natural topaz comes in many colors but mostly shades of yellow or clear. That’s probably why it is grouped with citrine as the birthston...

“There aren’t any sapphires around Yellowstone. No, we aren’t going that way.” “…And to our east is Montana! Sorry, there are no sapphi...

Sunset Crater was too hot! There were no trees (or bushes, or grass), too much dust and I had a rock in my shoe. I was walking around th...

Mokume, or “wood grain” shibori is very similar to karamatsu shibori. Both are space filling techniques that create a ripple effect thro...

Karamatsu, or “larch” patterns are so named for their symmetrical ripple pattern that looks very much like wood grain. It is a cute spac...

Last weekend was Convergence, a biannual meeting of spinners and weavers in North America! The meeting location alternates between the E...

I have a confession to make. As a geologist, some part of my psyche mandates that I love rocks. ALL rocks, ALL minerals. In kindergart...

I had heard that Ueno Park could get crowded, but “crowded” didn’t begin to describe it. It strongly resembled a state fair, complete wi...

On every trip there are always travel days: those days where you stare moodily out the window of the airport terminal wondering why small...

There are actually three birthstones for June! (Lucky June people.) Pearls, moonstone and alexandrite. I’ll probably get to all three ...

I’ve been watching the CNN live feed of the lava fountain at Kilauea on and off all day and I noticed that the black rock on the edge kee...

There is something otherworldly and un-nerving about the Black Canyon. It is so named because the bottom of the narrow chasm gets so lit...

I will be the first to admit that I am not that fashionable, but I do know how to pack for trips that involve a lot of walking and explor...

We crossed the bridge every day that week. It was an old stone bridge going over the moat next to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo with a gr...