Catching Up

Hi everyone who reads this, sorry I've been away for a month. My old netbook was starting to take a dump on me, and my tablet isn't really good for lots of typing. And I've been too busy to sit down at my desktop and do nothing but blog. I've just gotten a new netbook though, so I'm back in business. It's an ASUS 1015e with windows 8. Windows 8 is kind of weird but the netbook is pretty cool.
It's been a very weird past month. Our lab manager announced two weeks before I went on vacation that he had gotten another job and was leaving. That leaves me as the only person working on the biorenewable chemicals projects. It also means that I had to take over the summer REU student and that I've become the de facto lab manager even though that's not really my job. Obviously this has made my stress and workload skyrocket. So far I'm doing alright managing everything, but I am definitely more mentally exhausted at the end of every day. I'm trying to go to bed earlier since I'm going into work at 8:30 now instead of 9-9:15ish. That is kind of working but I'm a night owl so it's hard to go to bed early sometimes. One of my labmates did get a Keurig coffeemaker from his mum and brought it into lab, so at least I can have a steady stream of coffee if I want it. That's pretty awesome.
At the end of June I went back to Michigan for a short vacation. I also visited my brother in Wisconsin. I'll make a separate post or two later with a bunch of photos. It was fun. I enjoyed being back home. I got to meet my parents' puppy Macduff. He's a collie and super adorable. We've never had a puppy before so it was neat to meet him. We also went to Belle Isle and visited their conservatory and the Michigan nature museum. They were both very cool and I'd never been to either even though they're both in downtown Detroit. It was nice to go somewhere new and to enjoy one of the nice parts of Detroit. Then on July 4th we set off fireworks. We only do the fountains that stay on the ground. I like doing those because nothing but sparklers are legal in Iowa, which is in my opinion pretty lame. Then my dad and I drove to Madison, WI where my brother lives. We hung out for a couple of days there. We went golfing at one of the municipal courses which was a lot of fun! I got a little sunburned but it was worth it. I wish I had someone to go golfing with in Iowa. I'm too self-conscious to go alone because I'm not very good. We also took a tour around Epic, where my brother works. It was a neat place. If I was a computer whiz it would be a decent place to work. Then it was back to Ames for me.
While work has been stressful, my garden has still been a source of relaxation. My tomatoes are growing; I'm hoping that they'll reach full size and start ripening soon. I'm really looking forward to fresh tomatoes. The basil and parsley are producing really well. I've put the chamomile outside to see if it prefers the warmer weather. I need it to flower because that's what you use for tea! I also started some lettuce seeds to grow inside. Some of the seeds have already sprouted! I'm really excited for lettuce too. I eat lettuce and tomato the most so if I could grow my own that would be awesome. Next year I might try green beans and strawberries too.

June 2

Last week the weather was pretty crappy. Lots of rain and thunderstorms. The rivers got really high here in Ames, and for a while it looked like it might flood. Luckily it didn't and the rivers are starting to come back down. Dan and I went hiking around Ames and saw the Skunk river at a bunch of different places, and it was pretty crazy. There were some spots that were supposed to be hiking trails that were completely covered in water. Hopefully it stays dry for a while and the rivers get back to normal. I'd also like it to be dry and warmer for my plants. I don't want their roots to rot.
I can't believe it's already June! I feel like the year is going by really quickly. At the end of this month I'll be going home for a week to visit my family. That will be really awesome because I haven't seen them since Christmas. I'll get to see the new puppy that my parents got in April too! He's so cute from the pictures I've seen and I'm looking forward to actually meeting him.
Lab work is going well so far. I think I'm making some good progress. We're going to start up a little collaboration too with another lab so there will be more work to do. That's good though so I have more data for my thesis. Hopefully in the next year I'll be writing my thesis and graduating. I really hope that's how it works out. I don't want to stay in school too much longer than that. I really do want to get going and get a real job soon. After all, my next goal is to buy a house of my own with a yard. Then I can have more room for gardening, and the kitties will have their own house to live in too. Then I could put up some permanent kitty perches for them in a couple of windows!

May 25th

It is cold and rainy today. It should not be in the 50s during the day when it's almost June, that is just ridiculous. The cool weather is making me a bit nervous about how much of a harvest I'm going to get out of my tomatoes. They really need some warmer temperatures. If it would stay in the 70s that would help a lot. Same thing for the basil, I can't even leave it out overnight yet. They're just too tender.
I did manage to find some small tomato cages today, so my tomatoes are caged now. That will help protect them from the wind and keep the branches from breaking when the tomatoes grow. It was harder than I expected to find cages for smaller tomato plants. Most of them were 5 feet tall, and my plants won't get taller than 2.5 feet. So I finally found some 3 foot cages which are good enough.
The only thing the cooler weather will be good for are the chives and carrots. I was surprised the carrots came up at all, and the chives are still pretty small. So maybe this will help them get a little stronger. They prefer cooler weather so maybe it's not all a lost cause.

Plants from the beginning of May

So here are my most recent plant acquisitions and updates on growth. The weather is finally getting warmer and I've been able to put more of the plants outside, so some of their growth has exploded. 

 These first pictures are of a new Aloe variety I bought called Aloe pinto. It's a flowering aloe, which is new to me as I've only had Aloe barbadensis before. The first is a photo of the flower stalk.

 Here's a closeup of the leaves. They are pink when exposed to a lot of sunlight.

 I brought it home and repotted it right away because it was extremely potbound. So far it's happy in its new pot.

 I bought a bromeliad on a lark from Lowe's. It was very pretty and I've never had a bromeliad before.

 It only stayed on this table for one day before the cats tried to eat it. I had to move it on top on the dresser.

 This is a Sedum hybrid called Burrito Sedum. It's really cool and when it gets large it will be a huge hanging plant. I had seen one online and then found it available at my local nursery, so I snatched one up.

 I planted some catnip and chamomile seeds and these are what the new seedlings looked like. I'll have to post a new photo soon since they've gotten larger and I need to transplant more of them!

 Two new houseplants. The one in the back is a ZZ plant. They're very hardy and will take a lot of abuse. The one in the front is a Dracaena marginata tricolor.

 Here's a closeup of the Dracaena leaves. They are green, white, and red. It's very pretty.

 This is an Echinocereus. Its common name is "rainbow cactus." I bought it because it looked pretty.

 This is an early photo of my indoor lighting setup. All of these plants are huge now! I only have one light so far but as I get better at this I'll probably get another.

 On the left is a Persian Shield and on the right is a Passiflora caerulea.

 The Passiflora is a perennial vine that makes very unique flowers. They also make Passionflower fruit although I think the variety I have doesn't make very yummy fruit.

 The Persian Shield I bought mostly for the foliage, but in the fall it will also make purple flowers. I just thought the leaves were so gorgeous.

 These were my tomato plants a couple of weeks ago. They live outside full time now and they've at least doubled in size! I found buds on one of them yesterday so hopefully I'll see flowers soon.

This is another pretty houseplants I bought. It's a variegated Wandering Jew. I kind of cringe everytime I say the name. But it's very nice. By the way, I bought almost of all of these plants at Holub Gardens and Greenhouse in Ames. They're a local nursery and they have a huge selection. All of their plants are very healthy too.

Plants from April

I finally got photos to upload here! I had to switch to Chrome to do it (Google, are you doing this on purpose so I'll use your browser?) but it finally works. So here are the plants I got in April. 

 This is an Adromischus rupicolus. It's a succulent and I bought it because I thought it was cool-looking.

 This is my first Tillandsia that was flowering! It has very pretty pink blooms. Unfortunately, it's now done flowering for the year, but hopefully it will bloom again next year.

 This is Echeveria lilacina. It's also a succulent and I got it because it's a light purple color. It's grown a lot since I bought it.

 This is a Euphorbia obesa! It's almost perfectly round. It's also a succulent.

 This is yet another succulent, a Haworthia reinwardtii. It's pretty small and grows very slowly.

 This is Kalanchoe tomentosa, or the Panda Plant. It's soft and fuzzy, which makes it nice to pet.

 These are Lithops, although I'm not sure which species. So far I've managed to keep them alive so hopefully I'll have better luck this time than with my first attempt.

 This is some kind of Sedum hybrid, although I don't know what kind. It's green with golden tips.

 I planted three of them in a container together to make a little succulent garden. I need to take a more recent photo since they've all grown quite a bit since then, especially the Echeveria.

Here's a close-up of the Tillandsia flower. I'm not sure which species of Tillandsia this is. 

So there we go, finally I've posted all my April plant acquisitions. Now I need to look and see what I have to post from May!

Well it's halfway through May

I still am having trouble posting pictures on Blogger. Eventually I'll figure it out and everyone will get to see my plants. In the meantime, I've been pretty busy. This week was the annual CBiRC site visit so I had to present a poster and then spend two days looking nice and trying to impress the government visitors. It went just fine but those meetings are always a huge drain on my energy. Thankfully there's only two of them every year so it's not too bad. I took Thursday afternoon off and was able to catch up some on my sleep at least.
Otherwise it's not been too crazy. My tomatoes live outside full time now that it's gotten warmer. I'm starting to harden off the basil too so that I'll be able to keep it outside all the time too. My carrots are coming up too! I thought they were a lost cause but it seems not. My catnip and chamomile are ready to get put into slightly larger containers. I wish I could get more plants all the time, but the cats keep trying to eat them! I do need another bookcase so maybe some of the plants can go on top of it and I'll have a bit more room. I wish I could get the cats to ignore the plants but they are very silly.

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.

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.

Memo and Leo being friends

Busted Elbow

I was walking into work this morning. There was less than half an inch of snow on the ground, and I'd had very few issues driving in. Well, the dumbasses at Iowa State hadn't bothered to salt the parking lot ahead of the snow, because there was a sheet of solid ice covering part of the lot. And I stepped onto it and went flying...and I landed directly on my right elbow.
Wow, it really hurt. My first thought as I was laying on the ground looking at the sky was that I had broken something. The pain was awful and shooting up and down my arm. I managed to get up and get inside with the help of two very nice people who had heard me groaning in pain. Thanks, two people whose names I didn't get. Anyway, I made it into lab and my arm was in agony. Of course we have no painkillers there. I clearly need to bring some in my bag next time. I sat for about an hour just trying to calm myself down--my body immediately reacted to being hurt by freaking out and I was feeling lightheaded and nauseated, just like when I get a blood draw. Eventually that feeling went away and I managed to get some lab work done, although I had to do all my pipetting left-handed. Trying to use my right hand made pain shoot up my arm.
By noon, the pain hadn't subsided and I was getting worried, so I called and made an appointment at the doctor. I got in, spent a long time waiting because it was really busy, and eventually got an exam and x-rays. The good news is that I didn't break my elbow. The bad news is that it's bruised to hell and back and retaining fluid. Unfortunately all I can do about it is take NSAIDs, ice, and gently wrap it and try to be nice to it. It could be a couple of weeks before it's completely back to normal.
The only good thing that came out of this is that I went home after the doctor's appointment and it's lucky that I did. The snow was so bad that I wouldn't have been able to get into my parking lot if I had stayed at work until 5 like usual. I had to get out and shovel just so that I could pull all the way into my parking spot.
That's the story of my busted elbow. Apparently my bones are freakishly strong, since I have escaped breaking a bone yet again.

Third Week of February

I had another frustrating week at work, and the snow storm that was supposed to be huge and give me a snow day was a total bust. I pretty much don't have more to say than that about work this week. Hopefully this week will be better.
However, I got a few plants this week and that made me happy! I got a Pink Splash, a Strawberry and Cream Rubber Tree, a Pink Blush Aloe, and a Tillandsia. Have a picture of the Pink Splash:

I'll put more pictures of the other ones up once I take them. The cats have been interested in them but they've been behaving so far with them. They're just stir crazy and run around and wrestle with each other a lot. I agree with them and wish it would warm up soon. I am so done with winter.

Medical Stuff

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday. The good news is that I'd lost a couple of pounds since I'd been there last month. Yay! That made me happy because I've been trying really hard to get into the weight loss groove and really eat better. It's been up and down but overall I've been doing a little bit better with eating less. I had a bunch of blood work done too, which is not fun. I always get faint. Thankfully, the ladies in the lab are really good and it didn't hurt too much. Plus they gave me an apple juice after I was done so that I felt better. They called today to give me the lab results. They're mailing the results too, so I didn't get any specific numbers. The good news is that my blood sugar and thyroid are totally normal. That's a relief because Type II diabetes runs in my family like crazy so I worry about that the most. The bad news is that my triglycerides are high. They didn't say how high, and I wasn't given a prescription, so probably not mega-high. They also mentioned a liver enzyme that was high, but I don't know which one or if that's related to the triglycerides or not. The way to deal with it is the same stuff I've been working on to lose weight-more exercise, less sugary foods, less trans fats. The other thing is more omega-3 fatty acids. I don't eat a lot of fish because it's so expensive, and fish oil capsules are huge and taste like butts. Today I was able to find krill oil capsules, which are smaller and don't taste awful. Hopefully those will also help.

Second Week of February

February is already halfway over, which seems strange. It feels like the time is going by very quickly. On the one hand, I'm glad for that because I'm looking forward to spring, but on the other hand I don't like the feeling of time flying by.
I've had a small success with one experiment at work, which makes me happy. On the other hand, the major experiment is still not working. My PI sent an email to two of the postdocs this week asking them to help me. I appreciate help, but I'd already talked to both of them about this experiment and him sending the email just kind of felt like he was going over my head. I'm trying not to be offended because I want to finish this stupid experiment and move on. Whatever. I think I could really use a week off just to stay at home and rest a little, get some chores done and feel relaxed. We might get another major snowstorm this week so maybe I'll get another snow day.
I ordered more houseplants! I'm still waiting on my first two, but the gardener contacted me and is waiting until he can safely ship them in the cold weather. He's in Massachusetts so it makes sense that he needed to wait since they had a load of snow. Anyway, I ordered some more plants via Amazon, they have some companies that sell through them. I ordered a Blush Pink Aloe, which has pink leaves in the summer. Then I got a pink Rubber Plant, and a Tillandsia. Tillandsia is an epiphyte which usually grows on tree branches, so it doesn't need soil. They're commonly called Air Plants. I'm looking forward to receiving them and expanding my houseplant collection. Once it's warm enough outside I'll start my patio garden. I really like plants and gardening so I'm getting going on this hobby. Maybe once I'm done with my graduate studies and have a home with a garden, I'll get my Master Gardener certification. I think it would be a cool thing to do and I do like learning.
Dan and I had a night in for Valentine's day so we didn't have to fight the crowds at restaurants. We had pizza and watched Godzilla vs. Megalon because Dan hadn't seen that one before. It was very funny and it was really good to spend the day with him. Our one year anniversary was on the 11th. Since we aren't at the mega-romantic stage yet we didn't do anything super special, but Dan did come over for a while and we enjoyed some time together. Today was his last day at Walmart and his new internship starts next week. I'm very excited for him.
I've played a lot of Harvest Moon this weekend. I think it's a way for me to escape a lot of stress because the premise is living such a simpler life. Sometimes I wish I could just walk away from the stress of graduate school and science and just become a farmer. I'm sure that has its own set of stresses but it seems like something I would enjoy.

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.

January Week 4

Another week is gone. I can't believe that there's only one more week left in January. The time is already flying by. This week was kind of frustrating at work because I'm still troubleshooting this one assay and it's just not working. I wish I could just be done with it but it has to get done. Hopefully this crap doesn't take too much longer. On a brighter note, Dan got an internship! It's paid and everything, and it sounds like it will be a really great opportunity for him. I'm thrilled and relieved because he needs it to graduate and I know he was nervous about finding one.
In other news, I tripped on the stairs while carrying laundry (good job, me) and thought I had pulled my left quad. Now I'm not sure it was the muscle at all, because the pain became that lovely tell-tale ache that means I messed up a ligament in my left knee. It's probably just a strain of some kind because taking acetaminophen and bracing it when it really hurts does seem to be helping. But if it's not feeling better by my next doctor's appointment in February I'll mention it and see what can be done. I hate having stupid joints.
It's been really cold this week, just ridiculously cold. Today it's warmer but there was freezing rain this morning so everything is coated in ice. Luckily it should melt because it's going to be above freezing for the next couple of days. Then it's going to get really cold again, of course. I wish the weather would decide because the constant up and down in temperature is just hell on my sinuses.

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.