a graduate, a birthday, and a busy day

You might remember my grandgirl Jade graduated from UT San Antonio last December. Thursday her twin, my grandgirl Autumn graduated from UT Austin with a major in Human Dimensions of Organizations and a minor in Pre-Med. Autumn spent the last spring semester studying abroad in Ecuador.

I know you're all scratching your heads about this degree. Here's what the University of Texas says about the program:

“The University of Texas at Austin is proud to offer Human Dimensions of Organizations, a first of its kind in the nation program. Drawing on an innovative combination of liberal arts, behavioral sciences, and social sciences, we created HDO to meet a need not addressed by existing education options: providing a deep understanding of people, the key components of any organization. To advance our mission of better understanding the people who drive today's global marketplace, we developed three types of innovative education opportunities: A 15-Month Executive Master's Degree, Professional Training Programs, and a multidisciplinary Bachelor's Degree.

Career paths from HDO include human resources, people management, nonprofit leadership, project management, and government service, among others. The Liberal Arts have always taught critical thinking skills and effective communication, which are crucial to success in organizations.”

Autumn's immediate plans are to continue working at her current job for the summer at the reservation/check-in desk at a hotel there in Austin while she researches job opportunities and applies to the Peace Corps.

Since this was the graduation of this degree program only, it was held in a small auditorium in the student center and she was only allowed to have four people attend, she invited her parents of course and Marc and I, but they live streamed it so her sisters and friends could see it where they were in the student center. After the ceremony we all went for a meal and then we headed home.

Friday was my daughter's birthday, my first baby. The night before she was born, Marc and I had gone out and when we got home I wanted to do the last thing to make the new nursery ready which was to vacuum the floor and while I was doing that at 10 PM, my water broke. I wasn't having any contractions but the doctor told us to go to the hospital anyway and it was another 12 hours before she finally made her appearance. She was so small, 5 pounds 4 ounces, she came out, gave a polite little wah and that was it. The nurses took her off to do what they do and they were just enchanted with her. She was born via natural childbirth, no drugs and she was alert and looking around while all the other babies were in a drugged sleep. They even tied a little ribbon in her hair. Twenty four hours later we were at home. She was a perfect little baby and as it turned out, born to be a mom taking on the mothering of her husband's newborn when she was 19. As her family grew she took in more than one of her kids' friends who needed help or a safe place. Now at 45, all her kids are adults and she's a grandmother. She and Mike live on 5 wild acres out here with dogs and cats and ducks and chickens and neighbors and neighbors' kids and their youngest that still lives at home.

Today is going to be full so I won't have time to work on either of the art projects, the box or the watercolor. I need to go to the farmer's market and see if the honey people are there and then to a lecture on cacti and succulents in the Earth Lab series at Hesed House (where I go to yoga on Thursday nights), then make a dish to share at a party this afternoon for a neighbor who is originally from Germany, a war bride, and celebrating 50 years in this country. This is our first neighborhood get together since covid, 2 1/2 years ago.