Thursday, August 25, 2005

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 :)

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

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...

Sunday, August 21, 2005

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...

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

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 ;)]

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

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.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

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.

Sunday, July 31, 2005



What is your weird quotient? Click to find out!


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! ;)

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

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...

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

~*~*~*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.

Monday, July 18, 2005

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...

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Friday, July 15, 2005

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.

Thursday, July 14, 2005


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...

Monday, July 11, 2005

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 ;)

Sunday, July 10, 2005

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*

Thursday, July 07, 2005

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