A game of tag.

KHC tagged me for this one. She is procrastinating on her Barbri studying, I do believe. If you are looking for blogging material and feel inspired, identify yourself and TAG! you're it.

Ten things for which I am grateful

1. My family (how cliche, right?)
2. Having close friends from all the stages of my life
3. The four seasons
4. Living in a time when I can travel as I have and see so many things
5. The internet. Without it, I would be watching a lot more TV...Hmmm...which is worse? Okay, it also, theoretically, makes it easier to stay in touch with people if you actually email them.
6. Summer produce. Yum.
7. My health. Seriously. I have had surgery and broken a bone, and managed to slice my hand open on glass in the trash. Even though I did not know it was not life threatening until after surgery, having my thyroid out did make me want to be more aware of what I eat and how active I am.
8. Knowing that if I ever need anything, the hardest part will be deciding who to ask for help because I know they would all say yes.
9. Knowing that I will be able to get a job when I finish grad school and that it won't be too far off.
10. Being able to cook and bake and enjoying it.

This is a lot harder to try to make meaningful. I felt a little cheesy writing 'my family', 'my friends', blah, blah, blah. But I am grateful for them and everything else on the list. I am also grateful for a lot of other stuff that I can not think of right now. Even what I listed has a lot behind it. Take cooking and baking for example. I can and enjoy doing it because my parents to and we were allowed to and I did some in 4-H. I do know that any of my friends or family would help me if I ask. KHC dropped her studying for an exam the next morning when I called one night. Living in a time when travel does not entail weeks on a ship? I would go crazy taking a ship to Australia, China, or Senegal and got to fly to all of those places.

Anyway. Like I said. If you feel inspired, you're it!

SO FUN.

The weekend spent in Maine celebrating my friends' wedding was amazing.

I met the bride in my old job. We were both technicians. When I left to go to grad school, she, her now husband and I shared an apartment with their two kitties.

They are great together and I love that I could be a part of their ceremony. Everything was great. There were many stories, but it is already much later than I wanted to go to bed. I can't believe I have to go to work tomorrow?!

I caught the bouquet...Well, sort of. The groom's sister knocked it to the floor and everyone was staring at it and I have been at a wedding where people just kept telling others to pick it up. So, I just picked it up so we could move on. :-)The bouquets were beautiful. This one was mine and I think it was the best. This is their kitty checking it out when I got back today.This rose between the two hyacinths (?) is my favorite part of the bouquet.

A break for real

This isn't so much a post as an announcement. I went to the conference for a week and posted a little adventure. Tomorrow I head to my friends' wedding for the weekend and I am not even going to pretend that I will post. This is a dry run for the first couple of weeks in August when I'll be traveling. Maybe I will take a special blog picture everyday. No promises though.

Peace out until Sunday!

Not really racist exactly

I had a regular car maintenance done yesterday, and I really love the place where I take it. I am pretty sure it is a Brazilian family, and they LOVE Volkswagens (which I have). So the guy calls to tell me my car is ready, that everything looked great, the car looks brand new (it has 50,000 miles), and that there was no major work they recommended doing. I told him that this was great to hear (?!), to which he replied, "Yeah, especially because I have four other volkwagens here and the owners are not going to be happy to hear they have a lot of work to do." It was obviously my lucky day.

So then I take the bus to go pick up my car and it starts raining the second I step into the shop. The guy reiterates that my car looks great, explains one common repair they made that is not my fault at all, and gives me a sheet with the next recommended maintenance (a big one). THEN he says, "Your car really looks great. My Dad said...Well, you know, I don't want you to think we are racist or anything, but my Dad said that for a woman's car, yours looks great."

Thanks? I want to know what woman are known for doing to their cars? I mean, I take it in for oil changes, I have the alignment done, I put dry gas in it, I check the tire pressure.

Besides, are woman really a different race? If you are male, don't answer that. :-)

Crazy weather

There is a New England (Boston?) joke that goes something like this: If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait 15 minutes and it will change.

It is usually unpredictable here, but not as unpredictable as it has been! The strangest thing is that every afternoon we seem to get a storm. After a day in Boston with the family doing and seeing crazy stuff like this...

A guy jumping over six people (of course wearing Celtics jerseys because they are the champions and all)...And balloon hats at lunch. My niece's had pink balloons and said 'Princess'. I am wearing my nephew's.
...we saw this after a downpour during dinner.
This is maybe the third time I have seen a good rainbow in the last month!

Today, there was a ridiculous downpour with small hail and wind. I managed to be inside during the worst of it, but it was at least the second time that it was sunny and then all of a sudden there were storm clouds and it was pouring today. I was just sitting here catching up on my email and trying to do some work and noticed how pretty the sky was as the sun was going down and the storm clouds are passing.Then I went out back and took a picture from the other side of the house.So basically, my point is that the weather has been crazy, but the sky has been pretty because of it! And I wanted to post some more pictures. :-)

Mmmm...beer. A mini-review.

Some of my favorite beers from the beer fest:

One Eared Monkey, a peach ale, from Papercity Brewery in Holyoke, MA.

A raspberry porter, Southern Tier Brewery, Lakewood, NY.

Jasmine Pale Ale, Rock Art Brewery, Morrisville, VT. I like jasmine tea and this had a slight hint of jasmine without being weird.

There is another beer fest I have been to with beers with odd ingredients (like beets, EWWW), and these three beers would fit in. I like trying the different ones that you can not get in the store at these festivals though!

Good-bye and Hello

I am getting over a cold that the Craft Beer fest did not help at all. Well, it did not make it worse, but it certainly did not help. That is my brother, father, and brother-in-law from left to right. Other good stories, but I need some rest...
My brother headed back to Oregon today and my friend arrived from Oregon (via a wedding in Virginia)...

Beer fest

I got this tattoo at a previous beer fest.
FYI, "Hooker" is a beer.

I also have a red t-shirt that says "Surly Girl" across the front. People always read it and laugh. On the back it says "Surly Brewing Company".

Who knows what today's beer fest will bring!

Things I will see today

With these people.
(That's my family from the back, except I think my brother is behind someone. The kids are in the stroller. This is Disney World a couple of years ago.)

Comin' around

Interactions with my advisor have been relatively positive lately. It is like she is coming around and has a new attitude. Crazy, huh?

A couple of weeks ago, the grad student who is a year ahead of me had a good conversation with her. Today I did. Maybe we are starting to gain respect by being proactive on our projects and careers?

Today I spoke with my advisor for an hour about post-docs. This is essentially the training equivalent of what medical doctors do during their residency. I will have a PhD but not enough training to go out on my own yet. I talked to her about some of the things I want to take out of a post-doc position, the locations I want to look, opportunities I have thought about. She gave me advice. For real.

Like she said she knows I like teaching, and that I will want to continue doing that because it is just a part of me. BUT, that does not have to be a part of my post-doc. Especially if I stay in this area, there are plenty of opportunities to teach at small colleges or to fill in for sabbaticals where I am now when I am gone on the side. Huh. Great to know!

She talked about the pros and cons of big and small labs. She says I have lots of experience in a small lab from my PhD and she would really like to see me somewhere a little bigger with a few post-docs, because they will be my colleagues as I go forward. Huh. Great point!

She even gave me a "homework" assignment to scope labs out, list reasons why I would be interested in working in particular labs, draft letters and meet with her again about contacting the heads of the labs. Wow. I really have to start thinking about what I will be doing a year from now.

Scary.

Sucked in

You know when you flip the TV on just to see what's on and then you start watching things that you never intended to watch? I had to tear myself away from Coyote Ugly tonight at my sister's so I could drive home and go to bed. Apparently she has it on DVD, so I could borrow it though!

Other things I can get sucked into watching: What Not to Wear, Trading Spaces, Extreme Home Makeover, Law and Order, Weekend at Bernie's (I don't know why because it's a HORRIBLE movie).

Luckily I do not have cable so I end up watching less TV that you may think.

Summer food

I tried to post this morning as I ate my breakfast, but to no avail. I was thinking how DELICIOUS my breakfast was and wanted to share. Does this look AMAZING or what?!That's right - handpicked strawberries from Saturday (my hamstrings are still killing me from bending over instead of crouching) and my grandma's biscuit recipe. The biscuits are by no stretch of the imagination healthy, but boy are they good!

(If you're interested: 2c flour, 2tsp baking powder, dash salt, dash sugar, 1/2 c vegetable shortening, cold milk to mix...bake 400 for ~20minutes.)

So then, as I was eating dinner and thinking about reposting it, I figured I needed to say more about this than, "Here's my breakfast. Aren't you jealous???" :-)

Then I had a mint Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich and OH BOY was it GOOOOOOD. Apparently one sandwich is only two points if you are doing Weight Watchers!

THEN I started thinking about all the great summer food. We had a garden growing up, and I would say a REAL summer dinner consisted of any combination of the following:

BL*T*
Tomato* sandwich (you like BLTs? You LOVE tomatoes? You should try just tomato and mayo sandwiches!)
Fried squash (sliced summer squash*, egged, floured, fried, yum.)
Corn*
Roasted green beans (green beans*, onion, garlic*, olive oil, roast, drizzle with balsamic vinegar)
Cucumbers* and sugar (just sprinkle a little on! This was usually something we were only allowed at our grandparents' house)
Strawberry shortcake (see above)
Grilled cheeseburgers (although "we", i.e. my Dad, grilled year round even though we live in New England)
Summer Squash* Enchiladas
Any mix of fresh veggies set out on the table to munch. Not in salad form, just in bowls.

That's all I can think of at the moment. If I come up with something else, I'll let you know!

*Homegrown, of course!

So busy

My friend is finishing her first year teaching, getting married in two weeks and apparently has started neurotically (her word, not mine) organized pieces of paper for every detail of her life that needs to be taken care of before the honeymoon. People were laughing at me when I was asking her to clarify her technique, but I seriously think I need a new way of keeping track of my life!

My brother just got in for a week-long visit and it is great to see him! My niece and nephew were ridiculously excited to see him. Apparently alllll day on Father's Day they were asking why their uncle couldn't come tooooodaaayyyyyy in the winiest voices ever. He is staying with my sister, so I will head to her house most nights this week. I love that the three of us get along and like to hang out. My parents do too. :-) They drive down Thursday night and we are all going to a beer fest together. Gotta love my fam.

We have a friend staying with us next week before the other friend's wedding.

We have the cat of the friend getting married to watch for 2 1/2 weeks.

I am moving into my own apartment August 1st. This may be as simple as moving into the apartment above mine now, but that is still to be put in writing. I may need to start looking. Having my own apartment will be great, but really I think all of my friendships will be all the better if I have my own space while I finish my dissertation so I do not feel like I am making a mess or getting in a roommate's way. This would of course be different if I shared the bed with a man with whom I would live, but that is not a remote possibility, so my own apartment it is!

In the meantime, I am trying to figure out how to organize and execute (in the sense of getting something done, not killing) the next year of my life. I had been told to start looking for post-docs about a year before finishing, but the conference last week made me realize that is realllly the case! I keep saying I want to start outlining/writing the intro to my dissertation this summer. Have I started thinking about it? No. I am accomplishing stuff in lab and trying to be as organized as possible. It is going okay, but I know I could be doing more.

I need to skip the gym in the morning and get an extra hour of sleep. Thinking about all this stuff and all the little details I am not writing down like my friend is doing on her neurotically organized pieces of paper is exhausting.

Eaten alive

Luckily it was only the black flies that ate me alive at the conference I just went to. The conference was actually just the thing I needed to renew my interest in science and continued to prove to me there is a better world out there. My research spans a couple of areas of research and was pretty much right in the topic of this conference. It was the first conference outside of my advisor's direct field of interest. It was the first time I felt like people were truly interested in what I had and what I am doing with the data and when they said, "Great job, keep it up," they REALLY meant it. There was a group of older scientists (my old boss being one of them) who have been in this controversial field since its early days. They are an amazing support to each other and talked about how they got to where they are and it was actually very inspirational. I met good connections for my research now and possibly for the next step in my career as well. Plus, with a lobster dinner the last night and a view like this from where we stayed, how could it be bad?There was a hike planned one afternoon. We were assured that anyone could do it, that it would take about 2 hours (4.5 miles), and that we would be back for the poster session (during which I was presenting my poster). SO, this is when I got absolutely eaten up by the black flies. My ears were swollen and nearly purple from all the bites, but are healing nicely now. (I highly recommend some combination of calamine lotion, AfterBite, and antibiotic ointment.) The hike definitely took me 2 1/2 hours (and I am much younger than some of the others who went and exercise regularly) and I definitely missed the first hour of my poster session. Oh, well. It was a gorgeous hike and I would do it again, I would just be prepared next time. It was so worth it for the views too. See?
I took this photo and someone commented that I found the only dead wood to take a picture of. I said that I was taking it with all the green and blue in the background though!
I found this crab spider when I picked up a clover flower to tell the people with whom I was walking that you can eat the flowers. I worked with crab spiders as an undergrad, so I was very excited. Look at how pretty she is (the males of this species are black with no pink stripes on their abdomen! They are colored such that they can blend in with the flowers they hunt on and then use their big front legs to grab prey.
And this is what I was REALLY excited about. Pink Lady Slippers! They are wild orchids that are basically endangered (I think Wikipedia says imperiled) and even growing up in New England, I do not remember having seen them blossom before. My sister says that our grandparents had them in the forest near their house. We saw white ones too, which are apparently more rare, but I did not get a picture of them. It was funny because I noticed these leaves and thought they looked like orchid leaves and a little further up the path were the first blossoms we saw These flowers were quite literally EVERYWHERE on the path. It was unbelievable.
I have to go type up my notes to prove to my advisor that this conference was totally worth it!

Whoops!

Hah, my first missed day was yesterday and I was even home! I was going to post about the conference I just got back from before a bachelorette night, but then the bachelorette and company showed up early. Good times were had by all....it was a nice group of eight with some grilled pizza (out, not here) and a dessert restaurant and night-time wear given to the bride by all. She said that we had done too much until she started opening the gifts and then really got into it. :-) Who can resist pajamas of all sorts?

Conference stories to come...

Honey I Shrunk the Kids Part 4: The final challenge

This sapling has grown nicely in the protection of the sections of wooden fence to the right. This is a section of the fence in the backyard that was taken down more than two years ago now that has been resting against the house ever since. Good place for squirrels to hide! Now the grill is holding that sapling up too. See, if you were shrunk and just made your ways across the whole jungle of a backyard, then you would just need to gather up the energy to climb right up that tree and park yourself on the grill's tray to get someone's attention.During Honey I Shrunk the Kids, there is a scene in which the older boy performs mouth to mouth on the sister. When the little brother asks where he learned it, the older boy says French class. I did not get the joke until the end of the movie, when the camera closes out then opens back up on the little brother and he says, "French class! I get it! French class!" Give me a break - I was only, maybe 10 at the time!

And it is Friday, so I will get home from the conference too!

Honey I Shrunk the Kids Part 3: The true jungle

Buttercups! [I think...they do not have the leaves I am used to...]
This is a good place mid-lawn to climb up and get a good view...you know, if you have been shrunk. If it has rained, I am sure these leaves would have some potable water collected on them too...you know, if you are shrunk and have no food or water. If your landlord does not mow, he certainly does not apply nasty chemicals you would not want to ingest.
Then we get to the clover. You can suck on the base of the flower and get sap (I guess it is sap). Did you know this? We used to do it with the big purple-y clover flowers when we were kids. With those, you can sometimes taste the sweetness. I guess that is what the bees like.
And there are mini-trees all over the lawn! How convenient - again, stronger stalks up which you can climb to figure out where you are. This one is pretty close to the cement near the house.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids Part 2: The far reaches of the backyard

I have failed to plant tomatoes in the corner this year, so it is a little barren. There are handy fences to tie plants up and everything. Even with expensive soil from Home Dee-pot, the tomatoes required more care than necessary: water, fertilize, water, fertilize. If I were a shrunken person, this part of the yard would be easy to get through.
The strawberries Roommate planted last summer came back up! Chances are, the same furry animal (the darn squirrel again or the area skunks??) that ate them last summer will do so again before we get any berries...Or maybe the landlord will mow, who knows?

Honey I Shrunk the Kids

Remember that movie in which Rick Moranis makes this machine that shrinks the kids and they go through this big adventure in the back yard?

The first summer Roommate and I lived in our apartment, our landlord came and mowed our lawn every week. Then he and his wife moved a little further away and he did not come so often. Last summer was the first summer during which they had a baby and he mowed every two weeks, if we were lucky, but more like every three weeks. I just found out that he and his wife had another baby last weekend. He has mowed our lawn ONCE this year so far. We had a week of rain, and now we have had lots of sun. Our lawn reminds me of that movie.

While I am at my conference this week, you will go on a tour of the jungle that is my backyard. This was my setup while I did some reading for the conference the day it was 94 degrees. Ick. I have my iced tea on my right and my papers right there by the chair. I even read them! Maybe it will be mowed when I get home, but I doubt it!

Not terribly exciting, but very green!

Caught red-pawed

REALLY?! Did the stupid squirrel think I would not see it there????? It totally froze when it heard movement in the house. I chased it or it's family member off the porch THREE times in a matter of 2 hours. I have seen two together this summer. It is only a matter of time before the juveniles appear just like last summer.

The landlord knows there are squirrels living in the house (roof to be specific), as one actually was IN the basement last summer, and has done nothing to get them out. I can see where the siding by the gutter near our porch is bent out and they always go in there. GRRRRR. Any one ever have success deterring squirrels?

My poor flowers.

Crime scene

I noticed some dirt on our porch the other day and thought maybe the hanging flowers had just been blown around in the wind recently. HAH, was I wrong?!

The evidence that was left behind:
The victims: These plants used to look so nice! I moved the other large one to the front of the house to try to keep it out of harm's way.So. One, I think I should add detective work to my list of Plan Bs if the grad school thing does not work out. Two, any guesses who the culprit is? It might not be too hard...The answer will be posted tomorrow.

First day of summer

We had some pretty steamy weather for about a day back in April. Today is the first day in week that starts off with 94 degrees predicted (tomorrow), Monday has a thermometer with heat waves coming out of it, and by Friday we're down to a cool 80 degrees. I am glad that it will be mid-70s by Tuesday where my conference is. This is when I wished I lived somewhere that just did not get hot in the summer.

[NOTE: the thermometer has gotten up to 94 today, and by shutting down the windows and blinds, the apartment has stayed a "cool" 78.]

Mini-"vacation"

Ahhhh...Nothing like leaving work and knowing you will not be back for a week! I leave for a conference Sunday and will likely be taking a break from the blog (unless I come up with something creative or whatever). What will I do on my mini-vacation/conference week? Meet well known people in a field in which I am interested, go hiking and kayaking if the weather permits. This conference schedule is not PACKED FULL like others I have been to. We have 2 1/2 hours of free time every afternoon. It is supposed to be 75 and overcast, which is fine with me because Boston will be 90 and sunny!

My goal for the week is to talk to scientists outside of the members of my old lab. There are actually a few people who work in a similar study system, so that is good. I have not been successful in finding people who necessarily do the techniques I do, but that is okay. There are a couple of scientist whose labs are in the Portland, OR area where I would consider moving. I am so excited! I should also practice my poster spiel. I also still have about 7 or 8 papers I want to read before the conference. I also have to pack and run errands. I also want to get to the gym. AHHH! I think I'll just get some sleep and get up and do work tomorrow like a regular work day, even if I am not at work. Why did I waste so much time this week?

[As a positive aside, my labmate apparently had a good mentor-mentee conversation with our advisor?! I guess she has her moments when she is not all wrapped up in other things. My labmate's comment was, "I guess better late than never, right?" Here's hopin'.]

I can't get enough of this place

Check out that butt and those thighs?!
Check out that face. :-)
I went to my third Red Sox game last night. As I was showing my sister pictures on my camera, she asked me why I had pictures of my shoes. I said it might be because I posted something about shoes on my blog...She knew I had one because my roommate outed me when we visited my parents. So, I gave her the web address. Hey Sis (if you actually decided to read). :-)

Bad 'tude

I totally have a bad attitude when speaking with my advisor. I do not think I go so far as being disrespectful. I do need to figure out how to deal with the fact that I do not exactly respect her while maintaining a respectful relationship. For example, I gave her a draft of the poster I am presenting at a conference next week. My recent data has a lot of variability, but only in the group that was treated with a chemical. Even though there is variability, it is apparent that the chemical has an effect. My advisor had not read through the poster yet, but noticed the variability. So she asked me why the error bars in the graphs were so large. I seriously was wondering why she was asking this and said, "Because there is a lot of variability in the data." She did call me a wise ass, but then explained herself. I probably should have asked in what sense was she asking. She was actually trying to figure out if the problems I was having with the technique were still problems, but I thought she was actually asking me why the error bars were so large with regards to how that actually can come to be so.

I also get frustrated because she is only in once or twice a week right now while she tries out some stuff in another lab. When she comes in and I am in the middle of something, all of a sudden she wants to know everything I have been doing and if there are new data. Um, could we have a meeting if you really want to go through all the experiments I have been running??

One of my problems is that she does not intimidate me, but I do recognize that she is in a position of power over me. I also really wish I could look up to her. She is tenured at a good university, for crying out loud. This is something I have always thought I have wanted! It is actually frustrating for me to not have my advisor be someone I truly look up to. I do remember a conversation in a 6-week ethics course about how you can have many mentors for many aspects of your life and your advisor is not necessarily your mentor and blah, blah, blah. There is a woman in my department who I want to be - tenured, respected, on top of her sh*&, a mom, a wife, strong, and straight forward. This woman does not lie. I get annoyed when my advisor lies. She tried saying how she had drawn out a mechanism for a fellow grad student's data a million and one ways (on paper, in powerpoint, in pencil, in pen, on transparencies so they could be stacked), but every time they meet our advisor does not contribute intellectually to the conversation and only asks questions. Maybe this is her way of leading us to answers, but I doubt it.

ANYWAY, how do you act with respect when you do not necessarily feel that way?

A couple of things.

A couple of things that have caught my eye recently.

I HAD to buy these sunflowers at the store.

I HAD to run and get my camera while I had a beer on my porch.

I am not sure this picture is really a good representation of what the sky looked like. It was cool though.

100 things: 58-70, Things I like

58. Cold pillows. I will even flip my pillow over to refresh the coldness.

59. That dark chocolate and red wine are both good for your health. What a great way to end an evening!

60. Sandy chips at the beach.

61. Making big curly ribbons and bows on gifts I give.

62. Yoga. My new semi-obsession.

63. Facebook and facebook games. My second new semi-obsession (making one whole obsession I suppose). Facebook has actually proven to be a great way to find out all about high school classmates!

64. Walking barefoot.

65. The smell of fresh cut grass.

66. Thunderstorms.

67. Sleeping in on a rainy day with the window open so you can hear it.

68. An excuse to get dressed up.

69. Traveling. I don't do nearly enough of it now that I am in grad school and I still have two continents to get to!

70. Living with seasons - I love snow; I love the leaves changing colors; I love the flowers in the spring (and we had a real spring here for a change?!); and for a day or two, I can deal with the heat of summer...as long as I am at the beach.

Chunky

I love my peanut butter chunky. My juice and smoothies not so much.

I am trying to have a smoothie most days with yogurt and fruit. I was making them in my blender, then pouring them into something I could take to work, then having to clean BOTH things.

Then, I found this. It is essentially the same thing as the Rocket that has been all over the infomercials in the past. The thing is great. You blend it right in the cup; you put the lid on and you take it with you! I highly recommend it.

Now maybe I do not blend things long enough. I thought my old blender was just getting worn out and leaving chunks, but this morning I made watermelon "juice" in my new smoothie blender thing and it had chunks. How hard is it to blend up a fruit that is mostly water with some minimal plant matter holding it all together??

[As an aside, you can actually put a standard blender bottom on a pint canning Bell jar and blend a smoothie right in there. I lost the one pint jar I had though.]

[My second aside, if you like watermelon, try blending it up with a dash of orange juice and drinking it. Yum!]