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?
brought to you by Quizilla

i just want to take a second to direct you all to this story that ran in the Connecticut Post yesterday. this is my friend dan, who spent the greater part of the past year battling hodgkins lymphoma. through everything, he kept the biting sarcasm and sense of humor that make dan dan and make us all love him. i'm in awe of what he's gone through and how he's handled it all.

on october 15th, there's going to be an american cancer society relay for life event in windham, at the ECSU campus baseball facility. anyone who's interested in participating, please let me know--i'm looking to organize a team. you all have plenty of time to get the weekend free, so no excuses! i want the biggest, ass-kickingest, fundraisingest team they've ever seen! hoo-ah! who's with me?

i am a bad, bad blogger...for shame! i was being all good about posting, and then whammo! i drop out of sight. a recap of the past two weeks...

saw my friend dan last weekend, who i hadn't seen since last fall before he started his chemo (which he is now done with, yay hooray!). had some kick-ass sushi, told bad jokes, watched tombstone. it was good to see dan; it was the first time we'd hung out since mike and i broke up, and i'm am very happy to say that it wasn't awkward at all. yay for good friends...

my little baby brother graduated high school last night. graduated. high school. egad! when on earth did that happen?

official and concrete plans for dana's next visit! the ticket is bought, let the countdown begin ;) (uh, that'd be three weeks and five days). i can't wait!

i submitted an abstract for a wetlands conference in october, so if it gets accepted, i'll be doing a presentation on my research for a whole buttload of people. scary scary! but exciting, too...

okay, i'm beat. i don't know what's up with me the past few days, but i'm incredibly tired. so i'm going to bed. i promise i'll try to be better about the updates...

it is so. hot. and. humid. blargh.

yesterday was wednesday, which means last night was craft night with the ladies! had four people over, and we layed out a big blanket on the grass in the yard, and i grilled on my cute little ikea charcoal grill. we drank beer, ate burgers and pasta salad, knitted, and crocheted. (actually, i didn't knit or crochet a darn thing. i just plain didn't feel like it. but i *did* cook, so that ought to count for something).

this weekend i'm driving up to lake placid to visit with lisa and chad in their yurt :). should be fun; i've never been that far upstate before. but first, i have to mow up at the wetland tomorrow morning, which is a royal pain in my butt. :P

FYI: rob's band is playing the main stage at the webster in hartford on july 9th. they played at toad's place in new haven a few weeks ago, too...not bad venues for a band of high schoolers. rock on, little brother!

back from arizona...

what an incredible trip :). since the last update: friday afternoon, dana took me up to flagstaff where we had dinner at the flagstaff brewing company. then we drove up to the lowell observatory and looked at jupiter through the huge clark telescope. saturday morning, we got up early and drove up to the grand canyon, which was enormous and beautiful and breathtaking. dana covered my eyes and led me right up to the edge before he'd let me open them, which was an awesome way to see it for the first time. then we bbq'd with some of dana's friends saturday night, and i left bright and early sunday morning (boo!). you can see pictures here. (and yes, jim, there was a capybara at the the san diego zoo; i just didn't get a picture of it).