Third Week of March

I seem to be getting a little behind on my posts! Last week was a little different and weird so I'm still trying to remember what day of the week it is. The first three days were work days and my PI was home from sabbatical. He was in lab helping me and one of the postdocs with an assay we've been struggling with. I think everything is sorted now and it was helpful, but when he's working with you there's no sitting down! I didn't even have time for lunch those days, just enough time to run to the bathroom and shove a granola bar down my throat. I made the mistake of wearing cute shoes on Monday and my feet were in agony by the end of the day. At least it seems like everything is fixed and progress can be made on my project now. That's worth a bit of foot pain.
Then I took Thursday and Friday off. It was Spring Break anyway and I needed a couple of days off just to relax and get some chores done that I'd been putting off. I went to Holub Garden and Greenhouse in Ames and got a couple more plants! I got an orange Lithops and a Euphorbia obesa. I'll post pictures once I put them on my computer. I also up-potted my Rubber Tree because it was really root-bound and getting a little sad. My seedlings are still going and alive, which is good, and some of them are starting to get their leaves and grow a lot. Hopefully they'll make it and get to go outside in May.

Newest plants from Seed!

Last weekend, Tessa and I went to Seed. It's an awesome little store in the East Village in Des Moines. They have plants, seeds, pots, and all kinds of gardening supplies. I bought plants!!!

 This is an Echeveria. It's a kind of succulent. I'm not sure which species of Echeveria it is but it's pretty cool.

 This is an Astrophytum myriostigma. It's a cactus, but there's no spines. It feels almost like a baseball.

 This is a Tillandsia, not sure which species. It's curly and sits in a little ball.

This is another Tillandsia. It's pretty big too. Right now it sits in an old candle holder.

First Week of March

I think this post should be for the first week of March. I'm all discombobulated with time and Daylight Savings going into effect last Saturday. The most exciting thing that happened last week was that I got all of my seeds sown! I went to Earl May on Saturday to get seed starting supplies. It was raining and gross so I decided to come back for the actual pots and soil I'll use when my plants go outside. For the moment, I bought some seed starting mix, trays to start in, a nice plastic top that keeps it humid over the trays, and a heating mat for the seeds. Then I planted everything. Today I noticed the basil has sprouted! I have four different kinds of basil coming up and I'm excited that they're germinating already. It means I did it right at least, so hopefully everything else will germinate in the next couple of weeks. I also planted some houseplants but I sowed those straight into the pots they'll grow in. They're a little harder to keep wet enough but I think they'll work out. So far everything seems to be doing okay without a grow light but I can always go get one if I need it.

Last week of February

Memo is sitting here helping me write this post. Actually he's just staring at the screen. Maybe he's proofreading for me. Anyway, not much has happened since my last entry where I busted my elbow. That was the most exciting part of the week. We had a load of snow Tuesday night and I was sick and stayed home Wednesday. We're supposed to get more snow starting tonight. I'm really hoping that's the end of it, because I am so sick of winter.
Yesterday, Dan and I went to visit Furry Friends, where I adopted Leo. We like going and petting all the cats. They had three hairless cats there! So we got to pet them. I'd never touched a hairless cat before. They were very sweet cats, although they looked like gremlins. They were kind of weird to pet because there was no fur at all, but they were really warm. There were lots of people interested in them and at least one went home while we were there, so I think they'll get adopted pretty fast.
I'm still babying my stupid elbow and hoping it'll get better soon. It's bruised pretty badly so I don't know how long this will take to heal completely. I've accidentally bumped it a couple of times and it feels like someone's setting my arm on fire when I do that. It sucks massively. I should count my blessings though and be happy that it isn't broken, because that would have meant surgery with pins in my arm and a sling and all that crap.