I PASSED!

i've got some revisions to do, but you may all start calling me by my proper and offical title: krista leigh 0sterberg, master of science.

:D

my defense is in THREE DAYS. really, more like two, because it's sunday evening now, and my defense is wednesday morning. i'm so excited and nervous. i'm thrilled to finally be done, but to be honest, i mostly just feel ill over the thought of being closed off in a room with my committee and questioned for two hours after i give my presentation. i've worked so hard for this, and i know it'll all be alright in the end (though i certainly expect that i'll have some revisions to make)...but i can't help but be nervous.

i got rid of my couch yesterday, and i've packed a few boxes. this whole moving thing is suddenly becoming very real. we're not sure where we'll be living yet, but we're looking...and i have a pretty good job prospect, which i'll go into more detail on in the next few days hopefully. three weeks. that's crazy. time is flying by so incredibly quickly...

okay. enough of that. i need to practice my presentation, and study for the question session. off to make those open channel flow hydraulics equations nice and fresh in my brain...

i've started up a flickr photo set of lukin pictures. because i am becoming That Dog Owner. well, not quite...i'm not going to dress him up in sweaters or anything. and he's got a tough act to follow (chester, my supremely well behaved kitty cat). but i'm pretty sure he might be the cutest puppy ever.

:)

lukin2

lukin2
Originally uploaded by kristaleigh.

meet my new puppy :)

his name is lukin, and he's a 6 (almost 7) month old welsh pembroke corgi. he's so incredibly sweet and adorable and smart, and when i call him he comes running and his big corgi ears flop all over the place. seriously, you could pass out from that much cute.

i can't have a puppy in my apartment, so he's going to be living at the breeder's until i leave. luckily, that's only a few minutes away, and i can go and pick him up whenever. my plan is to have him days and bring him back in the evenings, but i might try keeping him here overnight. he's not much of a barker, so i might be able to get away with it. we shall see.

i feel like maybe this wasn't worth the effort...

i got a CALL about a JOB!!!!

and it's a really interesting-sounding job!!!

okay, no more. i don't want to jinx anything. nothing's definite yet...

...but i got a CALL about a JOB!!!

things i learned this weekend:
~cd's look really neat when you heat them up in the microwave
~lightbulbs look even cooler. then they explode.
~it is possible to kill a microwave by cooking a lot of things inside of it that, according to generally accepted protocols, should not be cooked in a microwave.
~it is possible to drive a jeep on top of a microwave and have said microwave support its weight.
~rhode island's highest elevation is its landfill
~you can fit four people, two twelve packs, a saws-all, and various other miscellaneous tools in a mini cooper, all at the same time.
~a "coney island dog" has beef and onions on it, but no cheese.

...that's all i can think of right now. it was an interesting weekend :).

three reasons today is good:

the second draft of my thesis is done!

i bought my cap and gown yesterday and got my graduation tickets (and i only had to pay for half of the total regalia price, b/c i had a $25 gift certificate from speaking at a career services event)!

hanging out with dan and eating yummy indian food*

*not until next weekend...i lost my wallet and couldn't drive down to new haven. but i've got it back now.

my advisor left me a voicemail this evening telling me that he's bringing me a pigeon feces-covered piece of linoleum tomorrow.

i just thought that might make someone laugh out of context...

i woke up to snow this morning. what the heck? look, weather, if you know what's good for you... *shakes fist threateningly*.

i think they put crack in diet coke. for real. i don't even *like* soda.

i find out in a week and a half or so if i'm getting my dog!

i got my first issue of "southwest hydrology" in the mail the other day. i'm excited. you're probably not.

thesis is coming along...what with the new pigeon related data, it's going to be changing condsiderably (because hey, why not tack on extra analysis with three weeks to go?), but i'm doing what i can with what i've got right now.

i am going to need SO MUCH BEER when this is over. and a really good backrub. and a pony. and maybe a cookie.

check him out! i made this little octopus for a friend's baby. he took about half a skein of lion brand thick and quick (a little less maybe). i stitched on the eyes and mouth with some wool ease scraps. he was inspired by an octopus that april was making a while ago, but i didn't have a pattern, so i just made him up as i went along. it was a nice, fairly quick "i-can't-stand-my-thesis-anymore" project.
fairly low-key weekend...went out and saw stand play for jim's birthday, got to meet his girlfriend (finally!), and found out that they're playing three more times before i leave (i thought it was going to be my last show). spent yesterday in the office, last night had dinner with the family then stayed over erika and rich's, and i'm back in the office today. hoping to get the first round of thesis edits all tidied up by wednesday...so i probably ought to get back to that. later gators...

i went running in the park this afternoon. i love running, but between years and years of horseback riding, several occasions of over-abuse, and probably genetics, i have cranky knees and a really hard time running on pavement. subsequently, i'm always looking for new places to run that won't wreak havok on my joints. i was looking at a trail map of a park by my apartment and noticed that there was a nice 3.5 mile loop, most of which is on the blue-blazed hiking trail system and, blessedly, unpaved.
so anyway...i'm running through the woods, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and listening to my ipod, and i notice a very persistant buzzing/humming sound over my music. so i took my earbuds out, and realized that it was frogs...spring peepers and bullfrogs. a lot of them. so off the path i go, pushing through the underbrush, trying to get closer. the closer i got, the louder it got, until i finally came across a large vernal pool FULL of frogs. i could see their shiny little heads poking out of the water, and they were all peeping and croaking and making an enormous commotion. it was awesome. it's one of my favorite sounds in the world, and i'm going to miss it when i move...growing up near water, it's a sound i've always associated with home.
on the rest of my run, i spent a lot of time thinking about the little things like that that i'll miss. but then i started thinking about all of the new sounds and sights and little things that i'll notice when i get to arizona, and how they'll be associated with new memories. how now i associate spring peepers with the coming of warmer weather, but in arizona, there will a new sight or sound or smell that i'll associate with spring...maybe geckos running around on the side of the house, or a certain type of flower. i don't know what those signs will be yet, but i'm excited to find out. it's part of taking a new place and turning it into a new home...

(click to enlarge)

how many bands can you find represented in this picture? leave the ones you find in the comments. I'll start off:
1. scissor sisters

new bangs! well, they're actually a few weeks old; i just got around to taking a picture of them. is it a "dramatic" haircut? well, no. but the last haircut i got that wasn't abbie trimming my hair in my kitchen with my fabric scissors (which, btw, she does a WONDERFUL job of) was roughly 3 years ago. so, baby steps. you can't see it in that picture, but my t-shirt says "Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!". It's marvelous.

my jeep is leaking coolant. this makes me cranky. i can see where it's leaking from, but i can't get at it (believe me, i was under there trying). grrr. and, i sliced my knuckle on a tin can. it's a pretty deep cut...i can't bend my finger all the way, and when i try, it starts bleeding again. no fun. okay, i'm done complaining now.

take the gun, leave the canolis. oh, and don't forget to arrange the pillows when you make the bed...

i just looked at a calendar.

see, i knew that time was flying by. i really did. and i knew that i was going to be graduating soon. but i just looked at the calendar, and my defense date is in six weeks, people. six weeks. the good news is, i handed in my first draft of my thesis on friday. this week, i'm preparing for a presentation i'm giving on friday, doing some job hunting, getting graduation paperwork done...i just sent out some quote requests for movers, and i want to start weeding through my clothes this weekend and set aside bags for donation. and mark my words, there will be bagS.

now if i can just fend off all the vultures who want my couches... ;)

because i needed to do something that didn't require me to think very much...
i tag april!

A - Available: nope.
A - Age: 25
A - Annoyance: people who always have to one-up you, slow drivers, being crowded by people.

B - Best Friends: brooke, lisa, abbie, april
B - Bar: bidwell, the half door, willimantic brew pub
B - Birthday: september 8th

C - Crush: haven't got one
C - Car: jeep wrangler
C - Cat: chester

D - Dead Pets Name: pippa mouse, oscar, nicodemus, archimedes
D - Dads Name: robert, but he goes by bob
D - Dog: soon, i hope!

E - Easiest person to talk to: april
E - Eggs: scrambled with cheese
E - Email: gmail, yahoo, school/work, website

F - Favorite color? blue. no, green. bluish green.
F - Food: depends on my mood. i like food a lot, it’s hard to pick a favorite.
F - Foreign Slang: schiesse, shite

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: worms. but really, gummy anything.
G - God: …
G - Good Time: being outside, exploring, hanging out with friends and loved ones

H - Hair Color: dark blonde
H - Height: 5'7”
H - Happy: when my thesis is done

I - Ice Cream: ben and jerry’s dublin mudslide
I - Instrument: kazoo
I - Idol: “a representation or symbol of an object of worship”

J - Jewelry: ears: diamond studs, silver hoops with little blue beads, my cartilage ring. and the ring dana gave me.
J - Job: looking for a real one…
J - Joke: how many ears did davy crockett have?

K - Kids: someday
K - Karate: i took a semester of jukido, but i only remember a few moves now
K - Kite: never was good at flying them…

L - Longest Car Ride: to montana and back with ray and matt
L - Longest Relationship: just shy of four years
L - Last Person you spoke to on the Phone: ray

M - Milk Flavor: i like milk flavored milk. ooh, and chocolate soy milk.
M - Mothers Name: lisa
M - Movie Last Watched: harry potter 4 (bought it last week)

N - Number of Siblings: 2
N - Northern or Southern: northern. but southwestern soon!
N - Name: krista

O - ONE Wish: less stress
O - One Phobia: not being good enough
O - One Goal: master of science!

P - Parents, are they married or divorced: married
P - Part of your appearance you like best: i like my toes; i don’t care if they’re short :P
P - Part of your personality you like best: if it needs to be done, i’ll find a way to do it

Q - Quote: ‘those who dance are called insane by those who don’t hear the music’
Q - What is your quest? i seek the holy grail.
Q - Quick or Slow?: depends on what the adjective is modifying

R - Reason to smile: my cat thinks i’m the greatest thing, like, ever.
R - Reality TV Show: ugh.
R - Right or Left: right

S - Song Last Heard: ‘happily ever after’ – the gufs
S - Season: all of them. i love the transition between seasons.
S - Sex: female. dirty birds, what did you think i was going to say?

T - Time you woke up: which time? 1:25 am, 3:30 am, 4:07am, etc…
T - Time Now: 8:54pm
T - Time for bed: it varies. always too late, though.

U - Unknown Facts about me: if i told you, they wouldn’t be unknown.
U - Unicorns?: make me think of a girl i knew in middle school who used to say she could see invisible unicorns in her yard. crazy loon.
U - U are a......?: person who hates when people spell words with one letter. u know who u r.

V - Vegetable you hate: olives. are those vegetables?
V - Vegetable you love: spinach
V - View on politics: i work in the environmental sciences. draw your own conclusions.

W- Worst Habits: putting things off, setting unrealistic expectations for myself, being insecure.
W- What do you wanna be when you grow up: happy
W- Where are you traveling to next?: arizona!

X - X-Rays: taken a billion, never had one.
X - X-Rated Porn: isn’t all porn x-rated? isn’t that why it’s porn?
X - X-Marks your spot: right now, that would be on my couch.

Y - Year you were born: 1980
Y - Year it is now: 2006
Y - Yellow: the color of my yarn bag

Z - Zoo Animal: i want a hippopotamus for christmas…
Z - Zodiac: virgo
Z - Zest:fully clean.

i'm starting to actually feel like this thesis is going to get written after all. the end of my college career and my impending move keep becoming more and more official. i've got two people interested in moving into my apartment when i leave, which makes leaving seem all the more real suddenly. i just realized that the next time i go see my favorite local band play at the end of march is the last time i'm going to get to see them play (hopefully not ever, but definitely for a long time). it's suddenly the middle of march, and i've only got a month and a half to tie up pretty much all of my loose ends. that's nothing, especially when time flies as quickly as it has been...

yikes. okay. back to the thesis.

you thought i fell off the face of the earth, didn't you?

well, i may as well have. it's crunch time, people. that thesis isn't going to write itself, after all. i took advantage of this past weekend as being the last weekend that i could feasibly devote to something other than thesis writing, and spent it up in saranac lake with lisa and chad. now it's back to the tables and figures and data and pages and pages and pages of notes and calculations and semi-formed thoughts that need to be turned into a cohesive and intelligent sounding masters thesis. egad. the next two weeks are going to be HELL. really, the next two and a half months are going to be hell, but i need to have my draft completed within the next two weeks, so they win the short term competition of abject suckiness. suckitude. sucktasticness. whathaveyou.

fyi:

you can now download a free (free!) mp3 of pearl jam's next single, "world wide suicide", from tenclub.net.

you can download lots of free (free!) live music from archive.org. i recommend this recording of a concert by the weepies.

my cat is friggin' adorable.

there are 72 days until i leave for arizona. holy crap.

okay, back to the thesis. later gators.

the second coming of christ...

apparently, a hardware store in manchester (right down the street from my old apartment, actually) has become a mecca for those interested in seeing the image of jesus in a piece of sheet metal. and if you're feeling particularly inspired by the whole thing, you can even make a bid for it on ebay (but you might want to hurry up; bidding is already over $500).

i don't even know what to say, aside from the observation that if jesus has time to be sending signs in the form of sheet metal to a connecticut hardware store, then perhaps he's got his priorities a bit mixed up.

i was a guest speaker at a wetlands-related meeting today, and presented my research to a room full of people who i was certain would immediately recognize me as a fraud and run me out onto the streets, possibly lashing me with phragmites stalks on the way out the door.

instead, i got two job offers. muahahaha, i've fooled them all!

in other news...

this is brilliant. who wants to share a pint?

clean water and flood retention: unconstitutional. who knew?

the supreme court is hearing a case by a michigan developer who claims that the clean water act is unconstitutional. you need to click the "listen" button to get the real meat of the story (my favorite part is where he tries to make the environmental consultant rip up the report stating that he needs to apply for permitting). at first i was surprised that the supreme court even agreed to hear the case; however, the more i think about it, the more i'm betting that it's based on the nebulous terms that define the clean water act itself. the wording of the act states that it applies to "navigable waters of the united states." traditionally, this is interpreted as all waters of the united states, which extends the coverage to wetlands. intuitively, this makes sense: though many wetlands are not 'navigable', if you dump chemical waste into a wetland, you can't act all surprised when it shows up in the nearest river. so wetlands are covered by the clean water act, and based on that, our friend the developer was told that he had to apply for permitting before he could bulldoze his (at least partially) wetland-classified parcel of land. truth be told, the vast majority of wetland-related permit applications are granted either entirely or conditionally. but did this guy bother to apply? nope, he just started bulldozing. brilliant.

my worry here is that somehow, someway, the supreme court will rule in this guy's favor. if that happens, wetland protection is going to be in big, big trouble. ugh.

look at that...weeks without a substantial entry, and then i go and get all political and topical on you. i wonder if this will be a hot topic at the meeting i'm speaking at on thursday...

states i've been to...i'll be able to add oklahoma and new mexico after i drive through them this spring!
create your own visited states map

from the livejournal ladies...
Four jobs I've had:
* exercise rider at a horse farm
* vet tech
* shelver at the university library
* teaching assistant
Four movies I can watch over and over:
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
* Guys and Dolls
* The Professional
* the Lord of the Rings movies
Four places I've lived:
* Oxford, CT
* Willimantic, CT
* Manchester,CT
* North Windham, CT
(wow, that's boring...)
Four TV shows I love:
* Grey's Anatomy
*any nature documentary
*that's all I've got for this one...
Four places I've vacationed:
* Arizona :)
* Chilean Patagonia
* Colorado
* Montana
Four sites I visit daily:
* gmail.com
* students.uconn.edu
* treehugger.com
* lifehacker.com
Four places I would rather be right now:
* in arizona
* at my graduation three months from now
* on vacation
* asleep

back to the same ol' daily grind :P. had a great weekend; dana came on friday night and was supposed to leave on sunday morning, but ended up staying until tuesday morning because of the blizzard that we had here. but now he's gone, and i'm back to focusing on the work i need to get done for my thesis and the presentation that i have to give next week. boo. time's a-flying, though, and i'll be out there before i know it.

today i:

woke up early
went to an environmental policy meeting
read about dry depostion of nitrogen
gave blood
ate chicken tacos
made a johari window

not my most productive day ever, but it'll do.

yaaaaaaaaaay! i can wear contacts again! i've been wearing my glasses since november (scratched corneas :P ), but i got a clean bill of eye health today. woo hoo!

also woo-hoo:


oh yeah. i pre-ordered that. why? because i'm addicted. and sunday's episode ROCKED my SOCKS off (fyi, as of 7:30pm on tuesday, that's an abbreviated recap. the full one should be up in the next few days). okay, the socks stayed on, but holy edge of my seat, batman! i can't wait to see the conclusion this weekend. but what i can't wait for even MORE is for dana to be here! he's only coming friday night to sunday morning (so basically, a day), but it's better than nothing and we haven't seen each other since christmas. so yeah. that's the biggest 'yay' of the week :). which is nice. i haven't had a yay-filled week in a while. it was starting to feel a little past due...

finally! some progress with the data! i'm finally starting to feel like i'll be able to get this thesis written. time is passing by so quickly...and, i've got an official time frame for moving out to arizona (end of may). not exactly sure how i'm getting my stuff out there (psh, u-haul, not renting trailers to vehicles with soft tops), but i'm working on it. baby steps. apparently before i go, i'm going to hike mount washington with ray (and abbie and adam? yes?), so that should be fun. exhausting, and cold (mid may, most likely), but fun. and a nice farewell to the northeast, even if it is only temporary. the job market out in arizona is starting to perk up a little too, which is encouraging. i can't speak for the job market in general, but ones in my field were sadly lacking for a while there. and no cracks about "well duh, there's no water in arizona." i assure you, there is, in fact, water in arizona. they just hide it really well ;). found a job listing for a water quality specialist right in the town we'll probably be living in, but it's almost entirely lab work. i can do lab work, but i find it repetitive and boring, so while the pay is decent and i'm certainly qualified, it's not at the top of my list. there are a few that look interesting, though. i know there's always consulting jobs, but i'm gunning for something in a federal (or at least state) program so that it will be easier for me to transfer jobs later on. i'm not ruling out consulting entirely, though...it's certainly not going to hurt my resume to have two years of consulting work under my belt later in the game.

this is a boring entry, but i wanted to write something because i've been slightly less than prolific as of late, and this is the stuff that's been on my mind lately. so that's what you get. tough noogies.

almost 1 am, eh? to bed with me, i guess...

those of you who know me well know that really random things can crack me up. a good example of this would be the monkey joke. or the davey crockett joke. or the pirate joke. or my complete inability to get through a single one of those jokes without dissolving into giggles before i get to the punchline. i apologize about making references to things that most of you won't get; next time you see me/when/if you meet me, ask me and i'll tell you all three. anyhow. another example of something completely random that's making me laugh: almost naked animals. my favorites are trout (likes: rumpus rooms, a good cry, fancy dishes. dislikes: winter boots, cronyism, narrow streets), rooster (likes: interrupting, aquariums, bazookas. dislikes: selfishness, team sports, mandolins), and squirrel (likes: traveling, chili dogs, jazz music. dislikes: gobal warming, minivans, green olives). really can't argue with the squirrel.

robotic conscientious objectors coming in 2008

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kristaleigh!

1. There are now more than 4000 satellites orbiting kristaleigh!
2. It is impossible to fold kristaleigh more than seven times.
3. Only twelve people have ever set foot on kristaleigh!
4. All gondolas in Venice must be painted black unless they belong to kristaleigh.
5. Kristaleighomancy is the art of telling the future with kristaleigh.
6. Kristaleigh has a memory span of three seconds!
7. Kristaleigh cannot be detected by infrared cameras!
8. It's bad luck for a flag to touch kristaleigh.
9. In the kingdom of Bhutan, all citizens officially become kristaleigh on New Year's Day.
10. Kristaleigh can't drink - she absorbs water from her surroundings by osmosis.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

that's right. you all best be painting your gondolas black.

edited to add that i think april's is even better :)

i have found my next crochet project.

if you don't get it, go here and scroll down to read the letter. brilliant.

now i just need to find someone who will wear it...any volunteers?

blargh. that is what i have to say about my data right now. i will not bore you all with details the way i did with poor dana earlier today, but suffice it to say that it is being uncooperative. so yeah. blargh.

tomorrow is the official start of the spring semester, which is the first semester in eight years in which i will not be taking any classes. that is not a typo. believe me, i wish that it were. so on one hand, this is very exciting. i don't have to take any classes! no more boring lectures! wheee! however...this is a very drastic change in the routine that has been my life since 1998. and really, i suppose, since i was five if you want to get *really* technical. but i'm just talking college here. so it's very surreal to think that the semester is starting, but that it really doesn't mean anything to me at all aside from TA-ing. which is no small potatoes, because you certainly don't want to be the one reading and grading the 15 page papers. although, it is fun to write comments with my little red pen such as "a tureen is something you serve soup in. i believe the word you are looking for is terrain. please proofread your work--just because it's a word doesn't mean it's the right word." that makes me sound like the editing nazi, but i'm really not. if you'd been editing that paper, you'd have been cranky by the time you got to the 'tureen' incident as well. i really want to write things like "you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means," but i think they're too young to get the reference.

but i digress. what i was getting at before i went off on my little tangent was that holy crap i'm almost done with college. which i've said before, and i promise you i will say again, and you're just going to have to bear with me because that's kind of the biggest thing in my life day-to-day right now.

moving on. new neat-o website: http://liveplasma.com. in a similar vein to pandora, which i posted about the other day, you type in a band you like (or a movie, director, or actor, unlike pandora), and it gives you a sort of flow chart of related bands/directors/movies/actors that you might like. you can click on any of the bands that come up, and it will re-expand further, which is nice for when you already know that you like all or most of the bands that it comes up with. also unlike pandora, it doesn't actually play music for you or link you to a resource; it's just a flow chart. but it's neat and visually appealing. and i'm a packaging whore, so visually appealing goes a long way with me. click on the image below to see the chart it gave me when i typed the band Spoon in the search box:

pretty accurate; of the other bands shown, i own (and like) music by eleven of them.

okay, that was a wicked long post. i'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball.

guess who got asked to speak at the state wetland scientists' annual meeting?

(pssst...it's me!)

so, yeah...a little nervous, as usual with the whole public speaking thing, but it will be a good preparation for my (*gasp*) defense. my defense, which is tentatively scheduled for may 1st. i have to make sure that date works for everyone on my committee before it becomes definite. so i've been analyzing data and making graphs and tables--not much writing yet at this point, although i've started a little bit. i have to get all of the numbers crunched before i can write about them, but i'll be starting that phase in the next couple of weeks, and my first draft of my thesis is due on march 13th. my thesis. holy crap, people. where on earth did grad school *go*?

maybe i *won't* be poor forever: check out number 10!

thanks april :)

bk3

i'm not sure where these pictures originated (i got them here), but they're cracking me up. because as i have posted before, the burger king kinda freaks me out. and yet cracks me up at the same time.

nikes

*sigh*

i think i have officially out-run my running shoes.

i guess i shouldn't be surprised, because i've had them for about a year now and i've certainly gotten a lot of good use out of them, but i'm bummed because even though they are space-agey and kinda ugly, they are a) incredibly comfortable, which is hard for me and my super duper crazy high arches to find, and b) expensive. not ridiculously so for running shoes i guess, but more than i'm willing (or able) to drop at the moment. the problem is, now i'm spoiled. example: my sneaks have no tongue--the boot of the sneaker is all one piece. this is great for me, because due to aforementioned crazy high arches, most sneaker tongues dig into the tops of my feet if the shoes are tightly laced. and up until this point, i've had no foot pain associated with these shoes whatsoever. and i have to admit that i really enjoyed being able to personalize them, from picking colors to having my initials embroidered on the heels. rockin'. i can't really justify buying shoes that are going to hurt my feet when for ~$40 more, i know i can get shoes that work really well for me, and that i can personalize myself. so i'm trying to suck it up and squeak a few more weeks out of this pair until i get my next paycheck, but damn...running in bad shoes sucks. i think i'm going to pick new colors this time around though...maybe red and a punchy looking orange. you know, keep my feet happy and motivated while i'm running ;).

i saw this in a print ad the other day:

"no, gravitational physics makes the world go 'round."

which made me laugh. because i'm a nerd.

yarn1

new yarn! april and i went to the yarn store on friday, and i got yarn to re-make rob's hat, and a neat book on felting, and the pictured yarn that i'm going to use to make myself a felted bag (probably something similar to the bag i made for erika, only maybe with a flap...). rock on. i have already professed my love of the noro kureyon yarn, but i was good and only got a few skeins of it. the two pinks and the green were much more reasonably priced, and complemented the noro well i thought. i'm excited to have a project to work on that i'll actually get to keep! but course, it's back burner...i've got to make rob a new hat first, and fix the guitar strap i made for george with the other noro. but i'm excited anyway :)

there are now three reasons that today is a date of note.

1)duh. it's january 1st.
2)it's my parents' anniversary (happy 31st!)
3)mike and sandra had their baby!!! welcome to the world, anna! yay for more cute babies!

if you had asked me on this date a year ago where i'd be in a year's time--not geographically, but it terms of my personal life and my future plans--i would have made a 100% inaccurate prediction. so here's to the unexpected, and the silver lining, and having an open mind. i guess i've learned better than to make predictions, but i know that the coming year is going to be full of change and excitement and i'm looking forward to it. i hope you all are, too.

happy new year!
-krista

i am the music queen. between my iPod (and the rockin' grand total of $175--that is not a typo--worth of iTunes gift certificates that i got for christmas) and the sirius radio that dana got me, i will be oozing commercial free musical happiness from my very pores. and that's just in the car. i can also listen to my iPod inside now, thanks to the speaker dock that my parents got me, and once i get the in-home kit for my sirius (which i ordered today and should get here by friday), i will be able to listen to *that* inside as well. which was a little more tricky, because i do not have a stereo system. also not a typo. at least, i didn't until today, because i went out and bought an inexpensive but really neat-o looking cd player with rca hookups so i can use it for the sirius. this seems to be how i always come into new electronic equipment, a la the time i bought a brand new computer because the one i had was too old to run the iPod software. so all in all, i will never be without music again. and on another music related note, if you haven't yet, check out pandora.com. you tell it a band you like, and it plays you a sampling of songs that you might like based on that. nothing to download; the player runs right off the website and it's free. you can mark songs you like as favorites, and follow links straight from the player to iTunes or Amazon to buy the music for yourself. really great way to get exposed to new artists that you might not hear about otherwise.

okay, that's all for now. i'm going to go revel in the musicfulness (new word!) of my apartment.

Happy Holidays, everybody! I'll be back after Christmas...

so it turns out that my eyes produce less than half of the moisture than they ought to for someone my age. after two and a half years of going to the eye doctor for issues with my eyes/contact lenses, i *finally* found a doc who actually did more than a brief eye/vision exam and found the problem. my corneas are scratched from the dryness, and i have special drops to use and a no-contacts order for three weeks, then i go back for a recheck. i'm just so relieved that i finally found a doctor who didn't either assume that a) i'd been wearing my contacts for too long and lying about it or b) that i must have some strange, resilient strain of pink eye. i've been walking around with scratched corneas! no friggin' wonder my eyes hurt all the time! crikey!

catie tagged me on this a while back only i'm really slow and just noticed...

10 random things about myself...

1. i can not whip egg whites into stiff peaks. i just can't do it.
2. my hair is getting ridiculously long (as ridiculously long as catie's yet? ;) )
3. my toes (with the exception of my big toe) are all almost exactly the same length.
4. i have a freckle on my upper lip.
5. i'm scared to death that i won't be able to find a job in arizona.
6. i don't know how to ski, although people always assume that i'm a skiier.
7. there are six pillows on my bed right now.
8. i generally have very bizarre dreams.
9. i am in a state of awe that my house plants are still alive.
10. i have six different types of cheese in my refrigerator.

there. that was pretty random.

april, you're it!

lean cuisine teriyaki steak bowls are not good. don't eat them. i think they might be fibbing about that whole "steak" thing. meh.

random comment: i can tell by his little kitty glare that chester really resents being called "fuzzy mcfluffypants."

oh yeah...and i changed stuff. but you probably noticed that. i'll probably be changing the main site eventually, too. this is mainly fueled by the fact that i've been stealing that turtle picture all this time; i don't know where it came from or who it belongs to, but it's not mine and i really shouldn't be using it. anywho...lemme know what you think, if you even care enough to have an opinion ;).

i got an A- in aquatic plant bio :). i didn't get my fluvial geomorphology grade yet, but i know i got an A on the paper i wrote (the only graded assignment) and i participated in discussion, so i already know i got an A in that.

*rocking on with my bad self*

okay, i'm done now :)

so...done with classes! forever and ever and always! i have taken a grand total of 16 semesters worth of classes racking up a whopping 191 credits (197 if you count the 6 credits i'll get next semester just for still being a research assistant). and i've decided that despite the fact that i still have a whole world of hurt ahead of me (read: statistical analysis of data, which means math, which means migraines; and then of course writing my thesis. oh yeah, and then presenting and defending it. yikes.), i'm going to take it a little easy until after christmas. sort of a mini-break. not that i won't be doing *any* work, but i'm not going to kill myself. i'm going to get reasonable nights of sleep, and eat breakfast, and go to the gym, and read something other than a journal article. and for four days (well, two whole days and two partial days), i'm going to do nothing but enjoy having dana here, because i don't know when i'm going to get to see him again :P.

right now, i'm going to go make myself a mug of cocoa and snuggle up on my couch and watch my show. tra la.

last. exam. EVER.

kureyon

hello, my name is krista, and i'm addicted to yarn.

it started out innocently enough. buy a few inexpensive skeins of acrylic Red Heart to practice with here and there...then it progressed to wool yarn, and there were just so many colors...*sigh*. i've got two large baskets full of skeins of yarn in my living room, plus two other decent size metal tubs. it's a disease; a disease, i tell you. i can't stop. and i don't want to. because now i've found this. noro kureyon wool yarn. i've been picking up skeins in yarn stores and putting them back down for months because at nearly $9 a skein, it's hard for me to justify buying just to play with. but i found three skeins for $20 on ebay and snapped them up, and i just started working with them tonight. i LOVE this yarn. it crochets so nicely, and the colors are beautiful (the skeins i have are color 128 on that link, but i love 088 and 147, too). unfortunately, i think the project i'm working on right now (a christmas present for someone) is going to use up all three skeins, putting me back in the original predicament.

i blame april for this.

well, now we know...

as of the end of today, i will have three aquatic plant biology presentations down, and one aquatic plant biology paper, one aquatic plant lab exam, one aquatic plant lecture final, and one advanced fluvial geomorphology paper to go until the work for this semester is done.

i just have to keep telling myself: it's almost over. it's almost over.

i hope their neighbors aren't epileptic...

yay hooray! the computer, she is fixed! after a few late nights and lots of grumbling and file transfering and blue screens of death and registry errors and drivers not wanting to load, i am finally up and running again. and i am a very happy camper. all i need now is ms office so i can write my darn papers...so i'll be spending a large chunk of my weekend in my office @ school, it looks like. oh well. the end is in sight.

in other news, i almost lit myself on fire today after trying to fix a home-made propane heater. because, you know, doing research means you have to be part electrician, part carpenter, part handyman, part landscaper, part whatever needs to be done. and today, getting the propane heater to not leak propane was what needed to be done. 'cept it was apparently still leaking propane when i was done 'fixing' it, because whoosh!, big scary flames! i am happy to report, however, that my eyebrows are still intact. thank god for small favors.

dear computer:

you suck. rot in hell.

not your friend,
krista

me and my honey :)

kd2
Originally uploaded by kristaleigh.

i'm baa-aack :)

back from a wonderful wonderful wonderful 10 days with my honey in arizona. and now i'm sitting on my couch typing on a borrowed laptop because my el stupido computer has a corrupted operating system (boo! hiss!).
good things:
-i set up my christmas tree, and even though it's fake (cringe), it's looking pretty cute all loaded up with ornaments.
-next week is the last week of classes.
-there are only about five and a half months until i'm done with school.
not so good things:
-i'm missing dana big time.
-i have a LOT OF WORK to do before next week. a lot. i won't even go into how much, b/c you'll say "you'll never get all that done!", and i'll get depressed and freak out, b/c i have to get it done.
-there are five and a half horrible stressful months until i'm done with school.

blargh. off to get some work done.

burgerking

the burger king kinda freaks me out. but in a humerous way. well played, burger king. well played.

28 days...and 10 of those days will be in AZ with my honey for thanksgiving. sixteen semesters of coursework, and it's done (god willing) on december 9th. then...i write.

a lot.

weekends go by so fast...

friday = wretched. i won't go into it b/c it's wetland research/chemical analysis related and will bore you all to tears (and for good reason), but suffice it to say that i ran around like a crazy person all day and i have to do it all over again on monday b/c my nutrient analyzer HATES ME.

saturday = very good. woke up early, did laundry, had a lovely breakfast bagel. dan came over and we had lunch and watched fight club. then i went to the stand show in hartford with erika and jim, and erika spent the night.

sunday(today) = also good. erika and i went out for lunch, rich came up to get her and we hung out for a bit, and my show is on tonight. *sigh*--it's come to this. i'm one of those people that doesn't want to go out on a given night because "their show" is on. oh well.

aquatic plant bio exam this week (again) and lots and lots of reading and paper writing. so don't expect another update until the weekend, unless something super duper exciting happens. which in my life, is not all that often. blah. it's okay, though. i have plenty of time for excitment...right now, i just need to graduate...

i'm back! the conference went really well; i presented my data without passing out or falling flat on my face (hooray!), and i met a lot of reall cool people. *and*, surprisingly enough, i was able to make a few arizona-related connections regarding constructed wetlands projects, whcih i really wasn't expecting considering the conference participants were largely from eastern seaboard states. and i got to spend a waaaay too short few days with dana, which is always wonderful. here are some pictures from the halloween party he had on saturday. i'm the fairy, and dana's indiana jones (sexy!). now i'm at home, trying to catch up on some reading for my fluvial geomorphology class, baking pumpkin pie, and spending quality time with my cat who missed me more than i was aware that a cat could miss someone. cutie patootie.

so...what was everyone for halloween?

it's 7:15am on sunday, and i am all packed and ready to head out to my conference. eek. dana's mom is going to bring me to the train station, and i'll be in atlantic city by 5 this evening. then i get to sit in my hotel room and freak the hell out because tomorrow i give my presentation to a room full of wetland scientists. but i'm not hyperventilating. noooo. (hmmm...probably ought to pack my inhaler now that i'm thinking about it). four days of conference fun, then on thursday night i pick up my rental car and drive back from atlantic city, and friday morning i hop on a plane out of hartford to go see dana for a few days. i have a very interesting suitcase packed (clothes for both temperature extremes, and a halloween costume!).

oh, and dear atlantic city airport: maybe it would behoove you to have more than, oh, i don't know, two flights out of your lousy airport so that it didn't cost a bajillion and two dollars to fly anywhere from there, causing me to have to drive back to CT just to get on a plane. i'm just sayin'.

dana, i love you and i will see you in FIVE DAYS!! :) everyone else, i'll be back in a week...wish me luck!

first, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the American Cancer Society. the Relay went well last weekend, the rain stopped, the sun came out, all was well. big round of applause for my dad, who walked roughly 7 hours, which is way more than he thought he'd be able to do. my mom, dad, and i walked throughout the day; jim showed up and walked with me from about 7pm saturday to about 6 am sunday, and april and mark walked with us from ~12:30 am sunday to ~ 6 am. i set out to do the whole 24, but my body said a big Hell No after hour 18. but, i did manage 11 am saturday to ~6 am sunday.

for my efforts, i got a big ol' nasty case of SICK. to be fair, i was already tossing my cookies the night before the Relay, but it's now wednesday night and i'm still not 100%. and that's sucky. especially since i leave for my conference on sunday (!!!!!). god, am i getting nervous about that. yikes. think of me on monday afternoon; that's when i present my data. and on monday night, i consume copious amounts of beer. well, maybe not copious amounts. maybe 3. whatever.

one week and one day until i get to see dana... :)

from helloflamingo:
go to google, type in "(your name) needs", and post 10 results.

1. Krista needs to practice her wise-girl accent with someone, we'll bring the pizza.
2. Krista Needs Help With Her Sunscreen
3. Krista needs to have someone tell her to straighten her act out or she'll be 30 and replaced by the 8,000 other, younger, better boob jobs in town. (hahahahahahaha!)
4. Krista needs a place, too!
5. Krista needs to give up tv (i elected to leave out the second part of this...)
6. Krista needs to know *everything* that goes on in Corey's life (it's true, i do.)
7. Krista needs to speak with potential speakers, facility options and determine a reasonable date based on others availability
8. Krista needs mainly to polish up her leaps and aim for greater amplitude on her straddle jumps to maximize scoring potential. (good to know)
9. Krista needs a POSITIVE banner.
10. Krista needs your fax number, or your name and phone number so that she can contact you.

and what have i learned from this exercise? that my name is apparently quite popular in a particular industry which shall remain nameless. yikes.

my inner former FFA member cries at this. the rest of me is laughing my ass off.

hey all! just wanted to put out one more reminder about the American Cancer Society Relay for Life that i'm participating in oct 15th-16th. thank you to everyone who donated money...every single dollar helps, and your donations mean a lot. last year i managed 17 hours of the total 24; this year i'm going to skip on the running and attempt to do the entire 24 at a walk.

i have to hand in all cash and check donations by this coming tuesday (the 11th), but i'm pretty sure online donations can be made right up until the relay. if anyone would like make an online donation, you can do so here.

thanks again to everyone for their support--it is hugely appreciated.

happy birthday erika!!

busy busy busy! the semester is humming along full-tilt, as always seems to happen. i've got my conference coming up in a few weeks which i'm working on my presentation for (eek! presenting my data!), then i get to spend a weekend with dana, then it's november, then it's thanksgiving (and i get to see dana again!! hi dana! i love you!), and once thanksgiving break is over, there's only 2 weeks left in the semester. and that means that, hopefully, i am DONE WITH CLASSES. i cannot convey to you how happy that prospect makes me. and, i stop collecting my data in december and start working on my thesis...which means i am almost done with school. good grief.

i got in the mail yesterday my copy of dan's book, and i'm *loving* it. i would highly highly recommend it. i think at the rate i'm going i'll be done with it by friday, so i'll post a better review then, but for now, i can say that it's very well written and engaging and creative. so be a cool kid and buy it. :D

alrighty...back to work. just wanted to get an update in here.

yesterday, jim and i saw a unicorn cow.

no, really.

went to the big e, ate a lot of food (though less than normal, admittedly...we got a late start), then went and saw a kick-ass "half plugged" Stand show in wilbraham mass. i attempted to work this morning, then pretty much said "eh...no." and putzed around all day. we had a great fall weekend...today was cloudy but nice and cool, and yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. i'm hoping we keep with the cooled-down trend, i'm ready to bust out the autumn clothes.

nothing much to say, so i won't blather on...

i handed in my lit review today! granted, it was only a rough draft, and i'm sure it'll get edited to within an inch of its life and i'll be pretty much starting from scratch come monday, but for the weekend...it's handed in, and i don't have to think about it. huzzah!

it was an eventful week in world of klutz girl! on wednesday, i slipped on a rock and fell into a lake (luckily my elbow broke my fall...), garnering myself a lovely ground beef-esque elbow, and big ol' bruise on my hip, and some back pain. then today, i got sucked up to my calf in a bog and almost lost my shoe. then i horrified the shoppers of the north windham walmart by going to buy bandaids (for my ground beef elbow) *covered* in bog mud. covered. my feet were black. i got several disgusted looks. (hey! i needed bandaids! and i didn't go near the food....for pete's sake).

tomorrow jim and i are going to the big e, then going to see stand (again). will my international contingency PLEASE assure me that you know what wetlands are? because when i tried to explain to these fine irish lads what i do, i got "what's a wetland?". and i was sad. i think i'm going to have to make some sort of "this is what i do" page to refer people to...anyway, should be a fun weekend. hope you all enjoy(ed) yours as well.

oh my god. you can get old school oregon trail online. i am so disproportionately excited about this it's not even funny.

ahoy, mateys! 'tis national talk like a pirate day!

arrrr!

yesterday was the girls' trip the the yarn store. i got ~$80 worth of really, REALLY nice yarn for $50. I am a happy, happy camper. christmas presents, here i come! i'm so excited about all of the fun things i'm going to make, and i can't blab about them b/c i don't want to ruin any surprises. but...wheeee! dana already knows that i'm going to make him these fabulous mittens, so i don't have to worry about ruining that surprise ;).

had sushi with abbie and adam and lisa last night, then we all went to bidwell for beer and dairy queen for blizzards (sushi, beer, blizzards...we are a very cultured lot). fyi: the key lime blizzard rates an "eh" on a scale of "blech!" to "yum!", which is somewhere in the middle. not necessarily worth repeating. lisa spent the night and we went to breakfast at nita's which was very very tastey (thank you dana for introducing me to that place, we split a crepe and it was fantastic). and now i'm home and i think i'm going to go play with my new yarn. later gators.

i am completely hopped up on coffee right now. as in, bouncing on my exercise ball-slash-desk chair, humming loudly to myself, talking to the cat as though he might answer me. but damnit, i WILL have a draft of my lit review done by friday!

*bounce bounce bounce*

pictures from erin and enoch's wedding.

i am such a useless human being right after dana leaves.

today was absolutely gorgeous, and the only time i stepped outside at all was to bring dana to the airport at 5 am. then i came back home, got back in bed, and slept until ten. then i sat on my arse all day working on Christmas Project #1 and reading the cool new book that jim got me for my birthday (thanks jim!) and trying to figure out crochet patterns. i should have gotten outside, and i definitely should have worked on my lit review, but i was just too bummed out to get off the couch. blah.

had a wonderful last few days...dana surprised me with a dozen red roses and an incredibly beautiful sapphire and diamond bracelet while we were at the rehearsal dinner for enoch and erin's wedding at this really nice restaurant, and friday was the wedding itself which was lovely. got to meet a lot of dana's friends that i hadn't met yet, which was great and they were all very nice people. and my man was hands down the most handsome guy to ever put on a tux. so there ;). aside from my feet being in incredible pain from wearing super high stiletto heels two nights in a row, i'd say it all went well. and now i'm tired and i have to go back to the real world tomorrow, so i'm going to shower and go to bed. g'night all.

pictures from offroading with justin, and also some shots from the labor day picnic (complete with go-carts!).

you can get free, legal live music downloads at archive.org. they're recordings of concerts, so sound quality is not necessarily guarenteed, but there are reviews to help you decipher that information. i've had really good luck so far, and am happily listening to a recording of a guster show in RI on june 25th. thanks to the guy whose name i don't know who recommended this site to justin and i while we were off-roading yesterday.

now that's some funny sh*t.

and happy birthday, ray. you're old. and in five days...you'll still be five days older than me. ha ha!

yeah, yeah, i know. i'm sorry. *hides head*

still working on my lit review, which seems so impossible and cumbersome and just ugh that i'm fairly certain that it is killing my brain. slowly. otherwise, classes seem like they're going to be interesting, which is always helpful in making the semester slightly less suck-like.

glorious long weekend coming up, which is even more glorious because it only really occurred to me at around 4:30 this afternoon that not only is it a long weekend, but that today was, in fact, friday. don't ask. it just seemed kinda mondayish. tomorrow i'm the fabulous pinch-hitting vet tech, after which i will come home and make buckets and loads of potato salad, and maybe some cookies. maybe a lot of cookies. who knows. which reminds me that i forgot to re-borrow april's ginormous le crueset, and it will take me roughly forever to boil five pounds of potatoes. but that's okay. i will perservere. then on sunday i'm going 4-wheeling with justin. whee! (check out his jeep pictures...we're going *real* 4-wheeling!). then crashing at april and mark's most likely, and back to justin's for a picnic on monday (after april and i go into the office for a while and work like diligent little grad students of course...and stop by col's to feed bootsy rodent slayer). hooray for long weekends!

and double hooray for dana being here on wednesday! only for a few days, and they're all pretty much booked solid (again), but that's okay. and he'll be here on my birthday, so that's even better. *and* i get to see him in a tux at the wedding we're going to, which is even more better (*fans self*). the wedding for which i purchased an $80 dress for $12.49. that's right. $12.49. too bad i hate shopping, b/c apparently i'm pretty good at it. and i was still out of the mall in under 45 minutes, so that's not too bad i'd say.

so, recap: classes good, weekend good, hottie boyfriend in a tux good, and i'm a mad bargain speed shopper. i think this ridiculously long post makes up for my recent shoddy posting habits. so there.

(as a post script...i had the intention of writing about the hurricane, but i just can't do it. it makes me cry, and nothing i have to say seems relevant or meaningful. this site and this site are two good places to go if you want to donate money to the victims. it seems like so little, but i just don't know what else to do. if any of you are looking for loved ones in the stricken areas, wiki has some good links and tips for finding people. my heart goes out to all of you...)

tomorrow, the freshmen come back.

this means that summer is officially over. not on the calendar, i know, but in my world. on one hand, i am not happy about this. on the other hand, i can't wait for classes to start because it means that time is progressing, and every day i am moving closer and closer to the day when i am done with grad school.

i started a new project at craft night last night; it occurred to me that i'm going to be more broke for christmas this year than i've been in a really long time, and that i'm going to have to make christmas gifts for pretty much everyone. so i can't go into details on the new project, other than to say that it's a christmas gift for somebody and even though i still have a lot more to do on it, i got myself off to a decent start. which is good.

off to go running...it is BEAUTIFUL today :)

yay! i get my new tires today! i'll be very glad to be rid of my sissy highway tires. next step--doing something about that lame-o fake diamond plate the last owner slapped on the sides...

not a heck of a lot of free time lately...

i've been spending a lot of time reading articles for and starting the writing on my literature review for my thesis. the original goal was to have this done by the end of the summer, and that's definitely not happening. but hopefully by mid september it'll be set. there's very little left of summer now--classes start a week from tomorrow. this semester, i'm taking advanced fluvial geomorphology and aquatic plant biology, presenting my data at a conference in atlantic city, and wrapping up my research. next semester, i'm TA-ing and writing my thesis (and possibly taking one more class, but i'm hoping not). then...i'm done. done with college. three degrees later...

i have a feeling that these past two weeks are a harbinger of what my blogging frequency is going to be for a while. i'm going to try my best to have that not be the case. maybe i'll start adopting april's "w.i.p. wednesday", to keep myself on the ball...

anyone who would like to donate money to the american cancer society for the relay for life that i'm participating in in october, click here. my goal is to walk for as much of the 24 hours as i possibly can (i managed 17 last year...going to try to beat that without the unfortunate side effect of blowing out my knee this year). Every little bit helps, so please consider donating. visit this site to learn about how to organize a relay for life team in your neck of the woods.

stealing this idea from CTG over at pinkrunningshoes [who just had a baby! aieeeee! congratulations (again)!]...

identify yourselves! i know who some of you are that read this, but others have me flummoxed (yes, flummoxed!). you know enough about me...who *are* you people? ;)

[edited to add that as of 6pm on 8/11, 23 different people have been here since i put up this post. fine, poo on all of you ;)]

happy birthday to my mom!

this is going to be short, because i hurt my wrists pretty badly today trying to obliterate a large patch of phragmites and they are KILLING me, but i haven't updated lately and i probably won't get a chance again this week. i have a LOT of stuff to do.

so...last weekend was a rock-on kind of weekend! friday night i crashed at ray's, and we got up at 3 am and drove to new hampshire to go hiking. we hiked roughly 17 miles and did two mountains (zealand mountain and mount guyot), and even though it was probably the most challenging hike i've ever done, i had a blast. ray's a good hiking buddy, even if he is a friggin' mountain goat. he makes me challenge myself more than i probably would if i were alone. so yeah...got up at 3am, drove the 4 hours there, hiked 8 am until about 4:30 pm, then drove back home. then sunday, i went to the beach with april and mark, and april's sister shelly and her fiance rich. then we met up with justin in manchester and meandered around a car show (i love car shows!!). after that we all met up with another friend of theirs and had pizza and beer and alarmingly tastey fried pickles, and saw the dukes of hazzard movie (pure and utter cheese, but good car chases!). THEN, justin helped me get the doors off my jeep. ROCK. ON. all in all, a very good weekend.

okay, i'm in pain now. a lot. youch.

added pictures of the second bracelet to the page with the jewelry i made for my mom's birthday...

today was mutual of omaha wild kingdom day at the wetland. mice *and* groundhogs running all over the place. usually i just see sign that they've been there, but they were ballsy little vermints today. the mice i can deal with, they're easy to seal out. but the groundhogs have far, far, far overstayed their welcome. at first, i was sympathetic to the groundhog plight. i was hospitable. i figured, as long as they stay away from my monitoring equipment, i don't so much mind the giant, cavernous, swallow-up-your-leg-and-snap-it-off-at-the-hip holes in the hillside. but they took advantage of my hospitality. first, they chewed a hole in my wetland liner. and i was grumpy, but i patched it up and all was well. next, they dug a hole right through a spot where some of my underground wires run through. They didn't damage the wires, but you can actually see them in the hole, and that was a little too close for comfort for me. now, they've dug holes below *both* of my monitoring stations, which is way too close to the wiring for my samplers, datalogger, and rain gauge for me to be okay with. groundhogs, i have been patient with you. i defended your right to live on the cozy little hillside. but so help me god, if you damage my wiring and make me lose data resulting in my having to prolong my life as a graduate student...*runs finger across throat*.

groundhog stew, mark my words.

from both squirrel and eck...

holy busy week, batman! and the one coming up isn't much better. i found out last week that an abstract that i submitted to a wetlands-related conference got accepted, and so i will be presenting my research at a conference this fall! exciting and scary, too.

i started working on my mom's birthday present...i'm making her jewelry, because she always says that she likes mine, and was coveting one bracelet in particular. i haven't gotten in the beads yet for that piece, but i did make another bracelet and a pair of earrings that you can see over in the crafty section of everygrainofsand.org.

gearing up for the next semester to start, and buckling down to get at least a chunk taken out of my lit review before classes start. i'm taking fluvial geomorphology and aquatic plant biology, and while i was really, really, REALLY looking forward to being done with classes come december, it looks like i'll be taking one more come spring. which is a long story, but it's not because i need the credits. anywho.

tomorrow is august. that means summer is almost over. so i hope you're all out there enjoying every speck of summerness that you can.

oh yes, and CONGRATULATIONS to my stud of a boyfriend for winning his poker tournament last night! you rock, dana! ;)

crazy busy day at work, but i just wanted to quickly post the link to the pictures from dana's visit. i know the image links to the larger versions of the images aren't working properly right now; i'll fix that tonight when i get home probably...

on hiatus 'til 7/26...

...'cuz my man's in town :D!!

~*~*~*my brother's band's website!!*~*~*~

pimp/

go buy a cd! they're only $5.00, and they rock!

/pimp

dana's coming tomorrow!!!! :D

i am enormously excited. hugely. astronomically! hopefully the humidity breaks tonight (there's a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for tonight, with "brief street flooding rain and or damaging wind gusts". and lotsa lightening. fun!). it's in the low 90's and nastily humid right now. as matt might say, this weather is "the suck".

i've discovered how the wasps are getting in my apartment. i just don't know what to do about it, other than shut the offending window, which in this weather (did i mention i don't have ac?) is a huge sacrifice to make. but i did it, because there's a wasp crawling around on my screen right now--brought to my attention by my super bee-slaying cat, chester. he's the bomb-diggity. yes, i just said "bomb-diggity." shush.

aieeeeee!!!!

it is currently 8:16 pm. that means that dana will be here in roughly 51 hours :D (and dana! by the time you read this it will be even less!). i'm pretty much worthless in terms of getting work done. i've got my field work tomorrow, then i might leave campus a little early so i can drive to manchester and sort out a tax thing that needs sorting. and wednesday i'm leaving around 3pm (uh...at the latest ;) ) to help dana's mom bring her cat (which is *so* ending up in the house by the end of the winter!) to the vet. i spent today searching for journal articles about ammonia levels in pigeon and european starling excrement. yes, this somehow relates to my thesis. don't ask. i have a feeling that's about as much desk work as i'm going to be good for this week...

80's song lyric test, sent to me by brooke...i got a 149.5!

here are my answers...no cheating!

today i:
-mowed my wetland with my badass field and brush mower
-hid from a very large bee in my office (no, really. hid.)
-did pilates
-gave blood
-ate scallops and steak
-got hesitant permission to refer to large fish as "pigs" from my boyfriend. i think he's only allowing this because he loves me.
-played with a midget cat
-had a long phone conversation with brookie
not a bad friday, overall.

tah dah!

i have completed my first crocheted sock!! i started the second one at craft night yesterday, but i've only got the cuff done so far. i'm pretty happy with how the first one turned out...it's a bit, uh, 'quirky' (see other pics here and here), but it's okay and it fits. i figure if the second one is loads better, i'll rip out the first one and make a better one for the pair.
it feels like a friday and it's not. and that's just wrong. here i am, all excited that it's sunny out and it's the weekend and i don't really have any concrete plans for saturday...and it's not. it's thursday. bleh. but you can't really blame me for trying to get the week to go by faster, because dana's flying in on wednesday and i haven't seen him since the beginning of june (is it odd that i write about you in third person when i know you're reading this anyway? ;) ). we're going camping in upstate ny, and i'm going to learn how to fly fish (oooh, can i say "i'm gonna go catch a pig!"?) and we're going to hang with lisa and chad, and i can't wait. i think i might go set up my tent in my living room under the premise of "airing it out", when really, i just like to sit in it ;). maybe chester and i can 'camp out' tonight...

i'm going to teach you all something neat. mostly i'm going to teach it to you because i'm fairly certain that knowing it makes me a dork, and if you all know it, too, you can't make fun of me. i let this little skill slip to april recently, and now she makes me do it at random times. if you all know how to do it yourselves, there's no need to make me do it for you. so here you go:

The Skill: singing the quadratic formula to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasle

*clears throat*

"X equals negative B
plus or minus square root
B squared minus 4 A C
all over 2 A"

Or...

x = [-b + SQRT(b^2 - 4(a*c))] / (2*a)
x = [-b - SQRT(b^2 - 4(a*c))] / (2*a)

get your geek on, impress your friends ;)

i went through this thing a few months ago where i was exhausted all the time. had bloodwork done, it all came back normal, and eventually i seemed to work myself out of it. well, whatever it is, it's back. no matter how much i sleep, it doesn't feel like enough. i'm tired all the time, even after sleeping *more* than enough the night before. it's not a matter of feeling sleepy; my entire body feels flat-out exhausted. and i don't like it.

*grumble grumble*

the baby brigade

deanna and georges are having a baby!!!!! they're due october 2nd. i wish they weren't living in switzerland so i could feel all the little baby kicks! aieeee!!

this makes three people (that i know directly, anyway) who are pregnant right now. sandra, nikky, and dee. not to mention all the friends of friends who are pregnant. so i'm saying right now: y'all keep your baby dust far away. far, far away. you can bring me your bellys to pat and your babies to squeeze, but you keep that baby dust to yourselves.

now i have more baby crafts to make :D

the sock

so, april's teaching me how to crochet socks. sock attempt numero uno is going alright, i suppose, though the yarn i'm using is a bit too bulky for optimum sockness (but so pretty!), and my intense dislike for following the rules (and thereby counting my stitches) makes reducing a wee bit trickier than it ought to be. BUT: it fits on my foot, and with a little fixer-upper-ing at the ankle ribbing, i think it'll make a pretty cozy pair of slippers/extremely cold weather socks. here's a few pictures, courtesy of ms. april...

(yes, those are my toes. and yes, i'm a fairly tall girl. and no, i don't find it hard to balance. and yes, someone actually asked me that once.)

this website has come to my attention from multiple sources recently, and after checking it out, i understand why. the premise: people send in anonymous postcards with their deepest, darkest secrets. some are funny, some are relatable, most are...heartbreaking. it's an incredible view at the monsters under everyone's beds, the secret lives that the people you pass on the street every day are living. very thought provoking and touching and sad.

i feel like doing this has automatically solidified my craft geekiness. thanks a lot, april ;)


You are Mohair.
You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with
others, doing your share without being too
weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely
refuse to change your position once it is set,
but that's okay since you are good at covering
up your mistakes.


What kind of yarn are you?
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