It's been a while

I know, it's been a while since I've posted. But nothing has really been going on since until recently, it was winter. Also my job has become a lot more hectic since 2016 started and unfortunately shows no signs of letting up. But it is May, and spring is definitely here, so I have been able to start gardening again.

Here's the beginning of the outdoor garden! It's not even close to done. I have two kinds of basil, chamomile, sage, and calendula still indoors. But today there are two Black Chokeberry shrubs, wisteria, milkweed, lemon balm, bee balm, dill, ice plant, a bee attraction flower mix, and my Brugmansia outdoors. They will be joined by the others by next weekend, as it'll be warm enough. I also want to put my Madagascar Palm and my Plumeria outside too because I think they'll appreciate the warmer temperatures and sunshine.
I will be moving at the end of July, so this could get very complex, trying to move all of my plants!

Poppies

I grew a couple of kinds of poppies this year as nice ornamental spring flowers. I had seeds for Mother of Pearl poppies and seeds labeled Double Pink poppies that I had gotten from a seed trade.

 These are the Mother of Pearl poppies. They're supposed to come in a variety of pearlescent colors, but mine were all white for the most part. They are very pretty and delicate. The blooms don't stay super long, but the seeds are easy to collect.

These are the Double Pink poppies. I think they're more red than pink, personally, so I'll call them Double Reds from now on. They are double blooms and were very prolific. Their seeds are also super easy to collect so you can save seed every year.

April

Well, I kind of dropped the ball here during the month of April and haven't kept up to date. It's been a pretty busy month so maybe I have an excuse. I was going to upload a bunch of photos of my newest plants but the photo uploader is being a butt so I don't know when I'll be able to do that. Not cool! Anyway, most of April has been pretty crazy. I finally have made progress in lab-significant progress. Finally I have results from all of the crap I've been struggling with for the past five months! I swear I could have kissed the spectrophotometer today when I got my data. Anyway, I'm starting to feel better because I'm not stuck. I grumble a lot about grad school, and there are general things I wish could change, but now at least I feel like I'm moving forward and making progress toward my degree. The timing of this is doubly good because I have to submit a poster next Friday for a big meeting on May 15-16. So now I feel great because I have new data to show.
My weekends have been equally busy for the past month! It's been a Tessa party pretty much. The first weekend I spent helping Tessa pick her wedding dress, which was pretty cool. I really like the one she chose. I was happy and a little surprised that I didn't feel super jealous, which is good. It means that I'm generally more chill about when the whole marriage thing will happen for me :) The next weekend was our last Des Moines Symphony for the season. It was Carmina Burana and it was really cool. They printed all of the translated lyrics in the program, and I was surprised to find that most of them are dirty songs about sex, drinking, or gambling! It was hilarious. And then the weekend after that was the Glow Run! We did it as a 5K walk, which was fine with me because I'm not in running shape right now. It was really cool because we all had glow in the dark stuff on and there were black lights set up along the route to make it even more glowy! So this weekend is my only April weekend where I'm at home the whole time. I'm okay with that. I'm just planning on getting flowers and potting them so that it's nice and springy around my house.

First Week of February

It was a lot warmer this week, above freezing the whole time. The snow and ice are starting to melt! I hope it stays that way. I'm ready for spring. I'm getting a little stir-crazy having to be inside all the time. I want to go out and walk through the parks again, and I really want to start my patio garden. It's like I'm just trying to make it through every day until spring comes.
Since it's still too cold for me to start my patio garden, and I don't have the equipment to start seeds inside yet, I bought two more houseplants today. I ordered them from Pernell Gerver online. It's a store in Massachusetts and they look like they have a pretty big inventory. I ordered a Marble Queen Pothos in a 6" hanging basket and an Old Man Cactus. Pothos are supposed to be pretty easy to care for and the hanging hook in one of my rooms should be a great place for it. I got the Old Man Cactus because I haven't had a cactus in a while, and they're really cool-looking. They grow these big silver hairs and look like an old man's beard, hence the name. I'm looking forward to them arriving! I also moved my Hoya carnosa upstairs to my room. It suffered some damage last summer when I moved, but this week I noticed that it grew its first new leaf! So I moved it upstairs where there's more light every day and hopefully it'll start growing again like crazy. Hoya are pretty resilient so I'm optimistic.
Memo and Leo are going stir-crazy too. They've spent a lot of time at the doorwall watching birds and rabbits. They've been playing all kinds of weird kitty games and running through the house like crazy. It's pretty funny to watch.
I still haven't made a whole lot of progress on my problem at work. It's very frustrating. I've talked to my lab mates and they're pretty much as confused as I am. So I guess I just have to keep banging away at it and hopefully it works eventually. I'm waiting on some other stuff to come back from the DNA sequencing so hopefully that stuff is good and at least I could make progress on something. This is so frustrating because I have the deadline of wanting to graduate next year hanging over me and I get really worried about that.
As of next Monday, Dan and I will have been dating for a year! That seemed to go by really quickly. I'm glad he's in my life, he's really made it better. I don't know how we'll celebrate yet since Valentine's Day is the same week and of course it's his last week of working at Walmart so he's stuck with one more week of shift work. But I'm happy that we're together and I'm looking forward to the next year.

Last Week of January/First two days of February

It was cold as hell this week. On Friday the high was -2 degrees without the windchill. It was just awful and made it really hard to want to do anything except sit around under a bunch of blankets. On Wednesday we had about five inches of snow and as usual, my parking lot wasn't plowed until about 3pm, so I had a snow day. It was kind of nice to have a day off but it's so annoying that Ames seems to be incapable of plowing the streets properly. We got about an inch of snow last night and I haven't seen or heard a single plow. I know it's not a lot, but they still should get that snow off the road, especially since there's still snow on the roads from the previous snowstorm. It's obnoxious. At least later this week it's supposed to be warmer and above freezing, so I'm hoping a lot of this will melt.
Wow, I've never written so much about the weather! Unfortunately, that was the most exciting point of the week. My sinuses are bothering me a lot and so I've spent a lot of time this weekend just sitting around, playing games and watching old horror movies. That's not a bad way to spend time, but it's not much to write about.

Week 3 of January

I  made it through another week! Actually, this week was alright, although it felt like it went very slowly. I may have gotten an actual result at work, so there might be some progress instead of just beating my head against the wall. That's how biology tends to be, lots of crap and then suddenly results. So having a result is a relief. Tomorrow is MLK day and it's a university holiday so I have it off, and that's nice because it's good to have a holiday.
It was so warm and nice yesterday, and today we have a couple of inches of snow. I forced myself to drive to Hyvee to prove that I can drive in the snow. I was very anxious about it since during the last snow storm I got stuck twice and had to call the cops once for help. There were some slippery spots but I managed to get there and back. I'm glad I did it but I'm relieved that I can stay home for the rest of the day. I ordered some pizza and the cats are all curled up with me.
I haven't done a whole lot else. I played a lot of Harvest Moon this week. I wish running a farm and having a life was as easy as Harvest Moon sometimes, because I'm really good at that lol. Usually I spend my evenings watching TV and playing video games. It's a good way for me to unwind after a long day. Yesterday I did build a couple media towers for my games and DVDs. They're kind of small, not so towering, but they work, and they were only 20 bucks. If I can get another one soonish I will so I have room to grow.
In health news, I've lost a pound since I went to the doctor. I'm using my fitbit to track my steps and caloric burn. I set the food tracker to tell me how many calories I can eat based on losing 1/2 pound a week (it's a 250 calorie net loss a day). So far that's worked. It's been two weeks and 1 pound gone. Hopefully it keeps going! I'm trying to increase my protein intake too, since I eat a lot of carbs right now. My doctor wants me to lose 4 pounds by the time I see her in the middle of February. I should be able to get close to that as long as I keep following the calorie count.

Second week of January

Sorry about the lame post titles, but I'm not feeling particularly creative and I hate leaving something untitled. Anyway, this week was about the same as last week except that I was at work all week. I still haven't gotten any good results from either of my projects and it's getting frustrating, but there are a few things my PI suggested that I'm working on. Hopefully I get some data soon, because it's really obnoxious to have nothing work. It definitely makes it harder to be motivated to want to do anything.
I still haven't unpacked everything from my vacation, although it's mostly done. Oops. I guess I need to make that a priority for the upcoming week. I also want to buy another bookcase-I'll probably do it tomorrow-and put all my DVDs and games there since they are overflowing the two tiny ones I have in my living room right now. The two little ones will go upstairs and become Lego display cases. I've put all my Christmas Lego together and my Black Pearl one, and I want to get a bunch of them rebuilt. I just have to have somewhere to display them where the cats won't knock them over or steal pieces from them! I really enjoy building Lego; it's very zen and calming for some reason. Plus I have a bunch of Harry Potter ones that I want to put back together.
Other than that, I've been playing lots of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. Harvest Moon is one of my favorite game franchises. I've almost beaten the newest Paper Mario game too, but Bowser kicked my ass the last time I tried to beat him so I'll have to change my strategy.
I actually caught the cats cuddling last  night! They stopped as soon as I noticed them, but it actually happened. I knew they were friends but just didn't want to admit it. Right now they're sleeping on the bed, not touching, but almost!

Fall is slipping away!

Wow, Thanksgiving is this week. That happened really fast. I feel like I've been saying that a lot, but it really does seem like this year has gone by incredibly quickly. My parents warned me that this is what happens when you get old, so maybe I'm officially old now :)
Not a whole lot has been going on. I've just been doing the work and school thing. It's been going alright. I'm not in love with going to work and class every day, but I don't feel depressed or miserable, so that's good. It's hard to stay motivated in graduate school though. I still have almost two years to go and already I really want to be done. I don't think that's an uncommon feeling though, and as long as I keep going I'll be fine.
I just found this awesome program today to help me keep my life organized and on track. It's called LifeRPG and it's pretty cool! Basically you can make a list of all your things you need to do, daily or bigger projects, and as you complete them you get experience points and level up. It's a video game based way to organize your life. I hope it will help me out especially in terms of making myself go to the gym regularly and not overeat. It's so hard to stay on track with those things and any motivation I can get will help. Plus it's free and that's cheaper than a hardcore organizing system, although those look pretty cool.
I'm not going home for Thanksgiving this year, mostly because I only get two days off and that's not enough time to go to Detroit and back. It sucks because this will be my first Thanksgiving alone. Even in 2008 when I was in DC I had Thanksgiving with my ex and his roommates so I wasn't by myself. This will be the first time and it will be hard. I know I should be grateful that I have the day off, my boyfriend doesn't, but it will be hard to be alone. On Saturday my brother and I are going to meet up since he lives in Madison and that's not super far away, but it will be weird to just be by myself on Thursday.

October is almost over!

I feel like time is going by so quickly! How is it almost November already? It's not even like I've had lots and lots going on. Most of the month I've been just working and studying. It's been pretty productive. I should have some data soon from some of my experiments and that will be exciting. This past weekend was jam-packed with stuff! On Friday I went with my friends Tessa and Mike to AJ's on East Court for a Halloween party/drinking time. It was a lot of fun! I went as Dr. McCoy from Star Trek and got to wave a phaser around and be cranky. I didn't drink too much because the next morning I ran my first 5K!! It was the Susan G. Komen 5K, which isn't super competitive and has lots of people in it, and there are runners and walkers. I had to walk more than I wanted, but I finished which was the most important thing to me. I finished in 46:07, which is slow as hell, but I finished! I'm looking forward to getting healthier and more in shape so that the next time I run a 5K I have a better time! During the afternoon I helped Tessa decorate for a Halloween party. We made cupcakes that were delicious! Then in the evening we went to the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra. Our seats were actually pretty good for being eighteen bucks. They played the Sorcerer's Apprentice first, then something else I can't remember the name of lol, and then the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. It was awesome and it was the first time I've been to a live orchestra so that was cool. We have three more shows to go to so I'm looking forward to that!
The only bad thing that happened was that on Saturday my dad texted me and told me that our doggie, Mischief, had died. She was almost 13 and had been declining for a while, so it wasn't a surprise, but it was sad anyway. I was hoping she would make it until Christmas so that I could see her again. I hadn't seen her since last December. So it will be kind of weird to come home this Christmas because there will only be two cats, when last year there were three cats and a dog.

Iowa State Fair

 A couple of weekends ago, I went to the Iowa State Fair for the first time with Mike and Tessa! I had only been to the Michigan State Fair once when I was a kid, and all I remember is riding a roller coaster and getting free strawberry milk. So I was pretty much a state fair virgin. It was a lot of fun! So here are some pictures.

 This is a reconstruction of the first church built in Dubuque, IA. It cost $250 back in 1834? 18-something anyway. I am being devout in front of the sign.

 And here I am in an old-timey telephone booth. Sadly the other half of the telephone wasn't in there so I couldn't pretend to be calling someone. There's a telephone museum at the fair that is actually pretty cool.

 Chocolate dipped bacon on a stick. It was very good, but very drippy so that's why mine is in the tray.

 Mike and I next to the third biggest pumpkin entered in the fair. I honestly have no idea how they get this big! Other than magic, that is.

 This is in the State Fair museum. It's the exact same cookie cutter that my family has, and that I insist on using every Christmas. It's a gingerbread man in a tuc.

 We took the chair lift thing across the grounds at one point, which was cool because my feet hurt. It was neat to be able to see the grounds from the air.

 Mike and I in the old-timey one room schoolhouse. We failed pretty hard at the assignments on the blackboard. For the record, I'm pretty sure I was never that excited to go to real school. I sure am not now.

Tessa and I making biodiesel, LOL. It's extra funny since I work in biorenewable chemicals.

Countdown

Only three days until I move out! I'm almost done packing everything. I'm looking forward to moving into my new place a lot. Moving is just a pain so I'll be very happy to be done with it. I am glad that I hired people to move me because trying to do this alone would have been so difficult. But once I'm in my new place, I will be really happy. I'm on the end, so I'll only have neighbors on one side of me. I get a garage to put Alfred, my car. The neighborhood is single family homes and near an elementary school, so it's more families than undergraduates. No offense to undergrads, but I need to live somewhere quiet that's more grownup-oriented. Constant music and partying annoys the hell out of me. Part of it is just that the noise bothers me, but I'll admit that part of it is that I secretly wish school was still fun for me. Grad school is not fun that way. So my new place will be better for me. And I'll have a washer and dryer in unit so maybe laundry won't be such a pain in the ass. Laundry is one of my least favorite chores, and part of it is lugging it downstairs and spending so much money on it. First world problems, I know.
Anyway, I'm spending this weekend packing and cleaning and watching the Olympics!! I love it when the Olympics are on because I can watch a lot of cool sports that aren't usually on tv. I got to watch fencing today, how often is that ever on television? It's awesome. Right now I'm watching men's gymnastics. Those guys are crazy athletic. I have no idea how they manage to do any of that. I would fall on  my face.

Tubing!

Dan and I went tubing on the Skunk River! It was a lot of fun. We started up near Ada Hayden Heritage Park. We got out near Carr Park because it turned out that where we thought we would get out was on  a different fork of the river. Oops. We had to walk to that spot and I have a million blisters now on my feet, but the tubing part was a lot of fun. There weren't a lot of people on the river, and the water temperature was really nice. Some parts of the river were too shallow and we had to get up and wade, but for the most part we could float. I saw a bald eagle fly over the river, which was super cool, and Dan spotted a deer looking at us from the riverbank. There were lots of cool little birds around and we even saw a freshwater mussel while we were wading at one point. It was really neat, and it was so quiet. We were floating through places in Ames, but from the river you couldn't tell where you were. It was like we were in a completely different world. I had so much fun (even with the walking barefoot for more than a mile and getting blisters lol) and it was my first time tubing so that was doubly fun. Next time we know where the best place is to get out so we won't have the same issue again. And Dan was really sweet and brought over epsom salts and rubbing alcohol for me so I could lance some of these blisters and get them healing. Overall, it was really fun.

Nice Weekend

I actually had a pretty good weekend, which is refreshing after the stress of final exams and the general stress of switching programs. On Friday, Dan and I went down to Saylorville Lake. I had never been there before and he had only been there once, so it was new for both of us. It was really hot out and I was sweating like crazy, but otherwise it was a lot of fun. We went down to the spillway, where they release all the water into the river. It was really open and the water was really gushing out like crazy. There were two guys there fishing with bows, which I had never seen before. They had caught a couple of big carp so I guess it works as a fishing technique. Anyway, Dan and I walked along the river, and to some of the parts of the lake further back, and then we drove around to the boat launch area so we could walk out on the rock pier in the big part of the lake. It was really cool and it made me feel at home, being out on this rock outcrop in this big lake. It was really nice. Afterwards we went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I'm not a big wing person, but Dan likes them, and I had a cheeseburger which was actually really good. Then we went back to my place and watched a Godzilla movie. I had a great day and my only wish is that I could see Dan every single day, because I love being with him.
Saturday was a laid-back day for me, just hanging out, watching Ghost Adventures and playing video games. Today I went down to Mike and Tessa's for Mike's 40th birthday party. It was great to see them again because I hadn't seen them since February, which is way too long. Since Tessa is done with school and I'm essentially working full time this summer, hopefully we'll be able to hang out together some more. And I was happy to see the kitties Satine and D'Artagnan, because they are adorable kitties.
I just finished grocery shopping and I think I'm just in time because the weather is looking like it will storm again. It stormed like crazy this morning, so much that water actually leaked in one of my windows. It wasn't a lot, but it surprised me because it had never happened before. I'm going to relax for the rest of the day, and try to be calm about starting my rotation tomorrow. I start tomorrow at 10am, hopefully everything goes really well!

Orchids: Des Moines Botanical Center

Here are a bunch of pretty pictures of orchids at the botanical center. I've had a crappy Sunday so pretty pictures are here to make me feel better.

Des Moines Botanical Center: Koi

 There are lots of koi in the stream that goes through the botanical center. They're really pretty fish, even though they're related to carp, which are kind of ugly looking. Some of them are really big.

 Most of the koi in the pond were orange, but they did have some of the white varieties. They are my favorite.

While I was looking at the koi, I noticed this painted turtle! Painted turtles are from Michigan, so I had to take a picture of my Michigander turtle friend.

Des Moines Botanical Center: Palm

This is some kind of palm. I took a picture of it because of the leaves. You can see that some parts of the leaves are attached to each other near the stem, but as the leaves grow outward they are separated. This actually is because of apoptosis-programmed cell death. As the leaves grow, the cells that attach the leaves to each other undergo apoptosis and die, letting the leaves separate. How cool is that?

Bananas: Des Moines Botanical Center

 This is a baby banana tree. Look at how little and cute it is! I'd never seen a baby banana tree before.

And this is an adult banana tree making bananas. They grow up so fast...

Funky Cactus of the Day

This is a close up of this weird cactus at the Des Moines Botanical Center. It has a thick stem, these adorable little tiny leaves, and gigantic thorns! It looks pretty crazy but I bet it protects itself well from predators. I kind of want one because they look really neat but I would always be afraid that I would hurt myself on it.

Turtles at Des Moines Botanical Center

Yay turtles! There are a lot of turtles and koi in the stream that runs through the center. All of these turtles were lined up on the bank. Eventually they got bored and jumped back in the water, but it was cute while it lasted!

Tulips: Des Moines Botanical Center

These are some of the tulips growing inside at the Botanical Center. The outside tulips hadn't bloomed yet when I was there, although by now they might be. I really liked both the purple and the yellow and orange ones. Fun fact: the stripes in tulips are caused by a plant virus. People have been manipulating the infected tulips to create new varieties for years.