Nerdy April

And just like that ISS Increment 58, and my stint as the ADCO Increment Lead, is in the rear view mirror.

I have had a couple weeks to decompress and get back to "normal" work, whatever that means - a week of technical meetings with my Russian colleagues, a few days of cleaning up Flight Rules and giving checkouts, then a seven night stretch of working overnight in Mission Control doing the real work of flying the International Space Station.

So, how do I feel, now, post-increment?

Lots of things actually - relieved, fired up, nostalgic. I'm a mixed bag of "thank goodness I have time to work out again" and "oh my gosh I want to fix all the things, right now!"

But, during the course of 85 days as Increment Lead I couldn't help but grow as a person, an engineer, and a space enthusiast! 

And to put a perfectly nerdy ribbon on this whole experience I want to share with you a tiny moment that occurred on my last full day of Expedition 58. As it turns …

I'm working on a few posts for you guys, but in the meantime I just wanted to hop on and say "Hi!" After 3 months of facing my NASA world head on I'm definitely in a bit of a recluse mode. I just want to wear jeans and garden in the sunlight and play my piano and make goofy faces in the mirror with my kids - all of the non-technical things I missed out on during my time as ADCO Increment Lead. It's funny how even little things like cooking and working out seem like nuggets of treasure - time when I can focus on my family and myself without feeling work-guilt or the what-ifs creeping in. Don't get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE my job - I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, but these moments with my family and hobbies are what fill my soul back up when work has drained me. What is your soul food? Tell me about your season in life!

Disclaimer: Abbott Global provided me a FreeStyle Libre system with 2 accompanying 14-day sensors for free. While I appreciate the opportunity to test out Diabetes equipment without money involved, I intend to provide you, my readers, with my honest opinions. Don't worry I have opinions about the rocket equation and momentum components too, but I'll save those for another blog post ;-)

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What were my expectations going in?
I will be honest, after 6 years of integrating a CGM into my T1 Diabetes routine, I expected the Freestyle Libre system to simply be a find/replace option. A few hours into the experiment, I realized how wrong my thought process was. Even though it is often lumped together with true CGM systems (Dexcom, Medtronic, etc), this system is NOT a CGM. The Abbott website calls it a "Flash Glucose Monitoring System" which is a much more accurate description.

But I'm not even crazy about including the…

Wow.

This weekend was...historical. ISS has received her first crew Dragon (with crew of 1 anthropomorphic test device, ie "dummy" and 1 "lil Earth" plush). As many of you know, I'm quite the hopeless nostalgic type - especially when it comes to rockets and launchpads and gahhhh, feelings!



As I walked out of the special ISS Mission Management Team meeting Saturday evening, I couldn't help but look upon my work at NASA with fresh eyes. All my life I have dreamed of a job working with rockets and astronauts and peace - advancing human exploration with science and striving for peace through international teamwork. I can't say all of my jobs fulfilled these yearnings - a couple were quite the opposite. Which makes me even more thankful to get to work in this medium, with amazing humans, technologically rich equipment and common goals.

I took a mental picture of these moments, of these decisions, of my surroundings, of these feelings. I tried to soak in the g…

It's a dreary day here in Houston. And somehow the dreariness has spread and infected my sweet little Zara with a virus - this morning she had a fever and just wasn't her normal, extremely perky self. Chris graciously offered to stay home with her since this is a busy week at NASA for me. 
Around 10:30 Chris called and gave me the update post-doctor visit - just a virus, no pink eye, get rest, etc. (thank goodness!). And then he said, "we're on our way to come get you - Zara has been talking non stop about 'seeing a rocket' since you left this morning." 
"What?!" I said, a little surprised - apparently Zara's inner rocket scientist comes out when she's sick. "Ok, let me know when you're close," I replied. 
My next meeting started at 11:30, so I had just a few minutes to jump in the car and head down the road to "Rocket Park". Maybe she knew I needed this tiny mental break, and that hearing her squeaky three year o…

Hi world!

I'm peeking my head above the waves today - its been a busy couple weeks at work. Which means I only get a couple precious hours at home with those adorbs babeez of mine, which also means this blog gets 0% of said, limited time.

But I'm here - at least for the next 10 minutes as I type out a few words on life lately.

I'm over halfway done with my stint as ADCO Increment 58 Lead - only about 3 weeks left if the next Soyuz launches as planned. Honestly, even though it's busy, the experience is second to none. I have been able to spread my wings and learn more about the International Space Station as a whole system instead of just the bits and pieces that relate to the attitude control portion. My eyes have been opened to the jobs that sound simple on the surface but start to get really complicated when you dive into the nuts and bolts. For instance, scheduling the astronaut's days is an immense task, coordinating the stowage location of spare equipment for …