Holidays and a New Year

Well the past month has just flown by!  I headed to Marion on Christmas Eve Eve to meet Justin and spend time with his family.  We had Christmas dinner Saturday and opened presents at Alice's.  Christmas morning was spent at Scott & Louise's house with presents and snackies.  Justin and I drove to Raleigh that afternoon and had dinner and presents with my mom and dad.  I got a few little things here and there and my big present was my very own TRX.  I'm pretty excited to have my own!  Justin and I spent a very lazy, relaxing week in Raleigh which was exactly what my stressed out brain needed.  I got to ride Ivan twice during the week, which was great.  I enjoyed spending time with Justin and the orange kitties, cooking meals, going out to eat with friends, and just doing nothing.  We went and ordered our wedding bands, which was very exciting!  Mine is the matching band to my engagement ring.  It was fun watching him pick out what he liked, as he has rarely ever worn jewelry.  He ended up with a very nice white gold band with a few stripes of brushed and non-brushed gold.  They should come in around the beginning of February.  Turns out, we bought wedding bands 2 years to the day from the day he bought my engagment ring.  That was not planned, but pretty cool!  We went and saw War Horse, which was pretty good.  It had a happy ending, was very predictable, and portrayed some of the sad realities of war.

Justin making peanut butter balls

Opening Presents

Scott & Louise's Christmas Tree

The boys being lazy :)

Ivan loves hay fluffies...

Punk and Baxter playing

 

We headed back to Knoxville on New Year's Eve day.  We stopped by Granite Falls to visit my grandmother on the way.  She was in the hospital, but was better than I've seen her in months!  She looked and sounded strong.  She is currently in a rehab center where she is gaining her strength back a little bit each day.  I talk to her on the phone occasionally and she sounds better each time!  We continued on our trek to TN, stopping at Dead End BBQ for dinner (aka best BBQ in the world).  We came home to my attention-starved kitty who had made a complete mess of the carpet.  Poor guy had some intestinal problems, so we rented a RugDoctor the next day and cleaned up the carpet.  New Year's Eve consisted of us sitting on the couch, drinking sparkling red grape juice, and watching the ball drop. 

Justin stayed with me in TN for a week, helping me with my sample collection on Tuesday and Thursday.  I hated that he had to come with me to the slaughterhouse in the FREEZING cold super early and staying all day...but it was extremely helpful having him with me!  While in town, we did a little shopping, went and saw We Bought A Zoo (awesome movie, everyone should go see it!), ate some local favorites, had a chili night with my friend Milly, and just enjoyed our time together.  We enjoyed our small glimpse of what awaits when I come home for good, which made it very difficult on Sunday when he had to go back home.  It's amazing how much more enjoyable "doing nothing" is when he is here versus when I'm alone and have nothing to do.  We both have really busy semesters coming up, so hopefully the next 4.5 months will FLY and we can get married ASAP! 

Asher wanted to sip some sparkling red grape juice on New Years Eve

He loves his daddy :)

We ate the last piece of my birthday cake together.  The next time we eat this cake, it will be on our wedding day!

Soft kitty, warm kitty...

My semester started this past Wednesday.  I am only taking a once-a-week seminar class, so I do not have any courses to worry about attending or studying for.  I am a TA for the Repro class I TA'd last year, except now I am the one in charge.  Megan Goodwin, who was an undergraduate worker in the lab until this week which officially made her Dr. Edwards' new graduate student, is the up-and-coming TA who will be in charge of the course next year.  I am teaching her everything that goes on behind the scenes so she will be able to meet the extremely high demands of Dr. Edwards next year.  We have another grad student TA, which is very helpful!  It is great having another set of hands!  I will be finishing my experiment, running statistics, writing a thesis, and defending it this semester (hopefully by May so I don't have to worry about defending after the wedding).  So it will be very busy, very stressful, and very crazy.  I am just ready to have all of these big hurdles behind me so I can head back to Raleigh and start "the real world" with Justin.  I'm ready to be out of research and to find a job that I enjoy where I can help people.  I'm very thankful for the TA opportunities I have, which give me the one-on-one interaction and teaching role that is so rewarding.  Who knows where we'll be or what I'll be doing in the future.  I'm prepared to take life as it comes to me, learning along the way, and enjoying the experiences I encounter as much as possible.

Wedding planning updates:
- Wedding bands have been purchased
- My shoes should come in any day now so I can get my dress hemmed
- Mom is working on the invitations
- Save The Dates are out
- My bridesmaids have an appointment to go pick out their dress in 2 weeks
- We booked our honeymoon - Grand Cayman
- We have 2 wedding showers the first Saturday in February
- We have a meeting to go over music for the ceremony the same day as the showers
- We are at t-minus ~4.5 months!!!!

Christmas already?!?

Well once again I have failed to keep my blog updated frequently.  The past month has been...you guessed it...insanely busy.  I haven't had time to much of anything besides research and finishing up classes.  My workouts have slacked off completely (it's been 4 weeks...EEEEK!) and I had to do 21 days worth of laundry last weekend...  So, things have been a bit crazy.  I finished up my classes a few weeks ago which took the load of studying off my shoulders, so that was nice.  I have been occupying my days (and a good number of evenings) in the lab doing my research.  I am having a bit of a problem finding cows that are fat enough to take samples from, so cross your fingers that I can get 4-6 more cows worth of samples soon!  I've been learning how to do Western Blots, which is a method of testing to see if a specific protein is present in a sample.  The protocol takes about a day and a half, but I get to use the developer in the dark room which comes with a Harry Potter-like rotating black-out door.  Every time I go in there I feel like I should say "Diagon Ally." 

Research, for those of you who aren't involved in it, begins with "re" for a reason.  It's a lot of do-overs with tweaking and manipulating.  Things never work right the first time and take about 4 times longer than you think they will.  This typically leads to long days, repeated efforts, and a lot of "hmmmmms."  I guess I've experienced all of these things so much that they don't bother me anymore.  When I was first beginning, I got really torn up when things absolutely didn't work.  It was frustrating and could turn a day sour in an instant.  I've come to learn that research is just like that.  You can have a protocol so down pat that you could do it in your sleep and it might decide to not work at all one day.  That is one part of research that I am not fond of.  I don't like going around and trying to figure out the answers to questions that have no answers.  My mind just doesn't work that way.  I am not a questioning thinker.  I don't look at something and say, "Hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I changed this."  I am much more of a "give me the facts, let me understand them and master them, then let me teach them to someone else" kind of person.  I guess that's one thing (of MANY) that grad school has taught me.

In other news, I have really gotten into the Christmas spirit lately.  I went to a concert at Harold's church where he played trumpet and it was great!  I have been listening to Christmas music, baking ginger snaps, and feeling festive.  I wish Justin was with me to share in the holiday cheer, but I'll be seeing him in a little less than a week! 

Today we had our 2nd annual gingerbread house party.  It was at Louisa's house and we all had a blast!  Megan, Leah, Becca, Philip, Jason, Louisa, Damon, Louisa's friend Nancy from her pottery class, and Louisa's sister-in-law Diane all came.  We made and decorated houses and snacked on spinach dip with bread and veggies, sausage balls, and cookies.  I had fun this year with my decorating.  I used the same roofing material as last year, but did a checkerboard pattern this year.  This year's house was much cleaner and neater.  I was pretty proud of my work, especially my snowman family and my fence :)

This week shouldn't be too stressful and then I get to spend a week with families.  This will be a much needed break!! 

OH!  If you need a new addiction...let me know and I'll invite you to join Pinterest.  Love it!

My thoughts on flowers

So I'm in the lab intently focusing on making 10 microliter aliquots of DNase when out of nowhere I hear "Megan" whispered. I look up to find Damon in the door (Louisa's husband) with a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand asking where she was. Of course my immediate reaction is "awwwwww", but I then proceeded to tell him where she was. This moment was only slightly ruined by the fact that Louisa told him he had to bring her flowers because it was the 12th anniversary of their first date.


So this got me thinking about flowers.  I guess I have enough to say about it that I decided to write it down.  Some would ask "why would you get flowers when they just die in a week?"  I can see that point.  They might rather spend their money on something that will last forever (or at least a long time).  But I don't know many females out there who don't light up when they receive flowers.  Now this doesn't have to be the $60 dozen red roses.  You can go by the grocery store and buy a bouquet of colorful flowers for $5 any day, any time.  Ok, so it's nice to get flowers, even though they eventually die. 

Now for the other part.  Timing.  I heard a girl at a wedding recently say that she only wants "just because" flowers.  I slightly agree with her.  It is my opinion that flowers "just because" or at a random time are much more meaningful than flowers on Valentine's day or on anniversaries (though I'm not saying I don't want flowers on either of those days...).  When flowers are given on a holiday, they are more or less expected.  I think it is infinitely sweeter and more meaningful when a guy decides to give his girl flowers because he was thinking about her and wanted to do something special to show her he loves her.  And it doesn't have to be flowers either.  It could be a card, a note, some kind of food or candy, anything.  When a guy goes out of his way to think about something his girl might like, goes and gets it, and gives it to her, that's when it's special. 

Well, there's my two cents worth...enjoy the day!!

Catching WAY up

Wow.  I'm sorry it has taken me this long to update.  Needless to say I am becoming increasingly busier and busier and busier.  (I don't really have the time to be doing this right now, but am in dire need of a mental break)  I am constantly studying for my two courses, one of which is the fastest-paced course I've ever taken, but is one of my favorites so far.  I am also very busy with being a TA for the advanced repro class, getting supplies together each week for the labs, helping during labs, sending out emails, printing and proctoring exams, writing up procedures for next year's TA to follow, etc.  I've also already been doing a lot of work towards TAing the normal repro class this coming spring.  I spent my entire Fall Break at slaughterhouses collecting cow and bull reproductive tracts.  One of those days was spent on the kill floor collecting while the other was spent driving down to Gaffney, SC to pick up the tracts.  Both days ended in cleaning, trimming, and freezing the tracts.  Research is going incredibly slowly as I haven't really started collecting my data on which my thesis will be written.  I am starting some protein work this week which is one step in the right direction, so that's good.  I imagine I'll be hitting research HARD towards the end of November and definitely once classes end.  In my busyness, I have not had hardly any time at all to go see Essau.  I make it out there once a week (if I'm lucky) to brush him, check his supplements, and give him a cookie.  He'll be going home in a few weeks, so that will be good for him and I won't feel so bad about neglecting him.



So I have done some fun things since my last post.  I went on a weekend-long scrapbooking retreat with Dr. Edwards up at Camp Ba Yo Ca in Sevierville, TN.  I expected a fun, productive weekend with fellow scrapbookers, but was introduced to an entirely different world.  There are people who do this so intensely that it made the supplies I had look like you took me off the street.  My measly bag of stickers, container of paper, cup of pens, and some odds and ends was nothing compared to these people (including Dr. Edwards) who bring their own scrapbooking chairs, printers, computers, die-cutting machines (which I now have purchased), tubs of paper, stamps, stickers, glitter, paper punchers, and hundreds of tools you never knew existed.  I was instantly hooked on the Cricut machines which cut out just about anything you have the cartridge for on any kind of paper in any size.  It dramatically improved the quality of my pages and that's why I decided to snatch one off eBay.  The retreat was great.  The ladies are all super fun and we ate like champions.  Besides the wonderful meals cooked by the camp staff, we had two heaping tables of snacks.  One table included drinks, grapes, peaches, and other healthy things while the other was piled high with chips, cookies, brownies, chess squares (new favorite...I probably ate about 1/3 of the 9x13 pan...), candy, and sausage balls.  Needless to say I stuffed my face all weekend (we all did) and felt like a fatted pig.  There's another retreat in March that the ladies have told Dr. Edwards she has to allow us to attend.  That will be peak writing for me, but hopefully she'll lay off for 3 days so we can go back!

Dr. Edwards's stuff

My stuff

Some other random highlights in the past month include taking pictures of the Habitat house our church is building with another church.  Our goal is to have the family in by Christmas.  It's coming along nicely.  I've never seen a house being built, so it's pretty cool to watch it progress.  I have seen Kim twice for brunch at her old house.  The first was a few weeks ago and it was mostly her Barbie crew (her roommate and other friend look like pristine Barbie dolls, as do most of their friends).  She came in town again this past weekend for the game and it was mostly her friends from Delaware.  It's really nice to get to see her as I miss her greatly...

I made chili and some more bread and had Leah over to help me eat some.  She is one of the undergraduates working in the lab and will hopefully be coming to grad school under Edwards next Fall. 


A few Saturdays ago, I watched Tyler and Laney (Edwards's kids) all day long while she and Schrick went to an alumni event and the UT game.  I took them to their soccer games around noon and got to experience the soccer world.  It made me wonder if our kids are going to be soccer lovers (making me a soccer mom?!?).  I then took them to lunch at Subway (their choice, I was surprised), and then out to the barn to see Essau.  They thought he was huge and enjoyed petting and brushing him.  I then took them back home where we kicked a ball around for a while until I locked my keys in the trunk of my car for the first time.  I called a locksmith out who unlocked my door in 20 seconds, I kid you not.  $50 later, I had my keys back and we watched Shrek 2.  They then wanted grilled cheese (which is the only thing they ever ask me to cook them because apparently I made them WAAAAY better than their mom or dad).  We rounded out the evening watching 5 minute segments of about 15 different Disney channel shows.  I forget how short attention spans are at that age.  They would watch a show until the commercial and then flip to another show.  The cycle repeated endlessly so you never really got a complete plot. 


Two weekends ago, I went to NC to be in Jeannie's wedding.  She's my maid (now matron) of honor, so it was great to be involved in her wedding.  I drove down Thursday night, getting in around 11:00 ish and crashed to sleep.  Friday, I woke up, worked out, and met Justin for lunch at Applebees.  He was at work with USDA, so he took a long lunch to come see me.  I then went out to the barn to see my boy and anyone else who happened to be out there.  It was so good to see Ivan.  He is getting so white and I was happy to see he still remembers me.  I brushed him and chatted with Kara, Jordan, and Tam for a while before driving down to Pinehurst.  The rehearsal was that evening, followed by the rehearsal dinner.  The bridal party was huge.  9 girls and 9 guys.  I knew just about all the girls as most went to NCSU with me and enjoyed hanging out with them and catching up.  The food was amazing and we all stayed to decorate the Fair Barn for the next day.  We spent the night at a lake house about 30 minutes from the wedding venue and after not quite enough sleep made it to the hair salon to get ready for the day.  I told the lady to to whatever she wanted to my hair and she knocked my socks off.  She put more curls in my hair than I've ever seen in just about anyone's.  It must have been the spray-on cement and her magic touch with the, get this, flat iron.  Yes, you heard me right.  She made every single one of those curls with a skinny flat iron.  Miracle-worker. 

Once everyone was dolled up, we headed back to the Fair Barn to get dressed and take pictures before the wedding started at 4:30.  All-in-all it was a great wedding.  The food was pretty good and we danced A LOT.  Justin came down for the wedding, so it was great to spend time with him.  We danced the night away and then headed back to Raleigh.  I went to church Sunday morning and am pretty sure I've never been that tired in my life.  I could hardly keep my eyes open during the service and had zero energy.  There was no way I was going to drive home like that, so I went and took a pretty long nap before eating a quick lunch at Backyard Bistro and heading back to Knoxville.  It was really sad to leave Justin (for a better idea, you can go read his blog entry "Two lives? Four lives?").

This past week, I went to Crossville, TN with the 420 class and preg-checked Angus heifers all day.  We had a chatty group of girls and I'm fairly certain there was not a minute during the day where we had silence.  I think we talked Dr. Hopkins's ears off, poor guy.  It was a good time.  Last Friday, the grad students had a Halloween party which I attended.  I dressed as a goth chick and enjoyed watching them play Circle of Death.  Sunday was great, because I got to see Adam and Jeannie.  They honeymooned for a few days at Disney, then came to Gatlinburg to stay in a cabin the rest of the week.  Their flight out of Knoxville wasn't until 6:45 so I met them at my favorite BBQ place for a late lunch and then entertained them at my apartment until it was time for them to leave. 

So, as you can see, it has been insane around here.  I have never been so busy in my life and it's just getting started...

Brainermush - to quote a cool kid

Well the physiology test is behind me now, thank God.  It was very hard.  I'm not sure I have had to think that hard in a very long time, or perhaps ever.  After the test, I felt like I had been sent through the wringer.  Luckily we're on to endocrinology, which is right up my alley.  I enjoy learning about hormones because 1) I know a good bit about them already and 2) my project deals with hormones.  The new professor is great!  He's an older man from Chile with an awesome accent.  He has a really easy-going demeaner and teaches as if he is talking to you.  It is not the kind of soft-spoken that puts you to sleep.  It is more like soothing.  Don't get me wrong, the professor who taught us the first section is a GENIOUS.  He certainly knows his stuff on skeletal muscle, nervous system, synapses, receptors, body fluids, homeostasis, and nerve impulses.  The difference is that the first professor teaches way above your head, occasionally reaching down to your level with an awesome analogy.  Our new professor teaches at eye-level so you immediately understand things right when he says them.  Hopefully this next test will go a little better since it is only on one large topic instead of 10. 

In other news, I rode Essau today for the first time at the new place.  The arena is grass and is right by the road.  I didn't know if the passing cars would affect him, but he didn't bat an eye.  I rode him bareback and he seemed really, really happy!  The arena is actually a perfect size.  It is big enough that I can do whatever I need to do without feeling cramped, but small enough that he can't pick up too much speed going down the long sides (this applies to cantering which is when he likes to GO).  I think he was just happy to be out and about.  While the new place is working out nicely, the drive to and from is getting old FAST.  I'm adding an extra 30+ minutes to my day just driving which pushes back dinner, studying, etc and sucks up a lot more gas.  He will only be there 2 more months, so hopefully I can keep up with everything and still get out there to work him a few times a week.

Eventful Day

After a very late and incredibly unproductive night, I woke up this morning and went for a 3 mile run on the Greenway by my apartment in a misty 55 degrees.  It was very refreshing and a nice start to what I hoped would be a very productive day.

I didn't get much done between my run and when I left to meet Megan and Leah (undergrads who work in our lab) so we could go to the TN Valley Fair!  We headed over to the ghetto, where the fairgrounds are, and got a super close parking spot.  We walked by all the food first to get a feel for our options before actually eating anything.  The day's delights included:

Chicken and Pork Kabobs

Fried Green Tomatoes

Deep Fried Milky Way

Sweet Potato Fries

and Deep Fried Snickers



We watched a few Junior Dairy classes where we saw adorable little heifers. 

We also visited the rabbit barn where we saw lots of different kinds, colors, sizes, and shapes. 

We ended the fair experience with the petting zoo.

 I almost played my favorite fair game (pick up the duck) but it cost FIVE DOLLARS, so I resisted.  While this wasn't the NC State Fair...it filled my deep fried snickers quota for the year and was a lot of fun.  Two new food items I had never seen before were deep fried KoolAid and a red velvet funnel cake.  I think I had enough grease for the day and didn't try either.

After the fair, I did some studying for my big test Monday and then went out to the barn to move Essau to the new farm.  The barn is relocating to Maryville (about 12 minutes more down the road from the current barn) and today was Essau's day to go.  The new barn has a much better turnout situation and Essau is a happy boy living next to his "girlfriend," Mia.  They also get to go out together and were enjoying running around in the big field this afternoon.  They are also pretty excited about grass! 

New stall

Pasture buddies

Run Big Man!

Love :)

Another exciting adventure of late is my first bread-making experience.  Louisa, from the lab, makes this bread often and let me copy the recipe from the book she uses, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day . It turned out AMAZING.  Probably the best bread I've ever tasted...and I have enough dough to make 3 more loaves!  I'm going to make one for my friends the Erwins and then will figure out something to do with the other two :)  They go very nicely with oil...especially fresh out of the oven!

Bread Making

Resting Loaf

Baking!!

My first loaf!!!



Class, Teach, Lab, Repeat...

As you can tell by the large delay in updating...things have been very busy around here!  After Kim finished up her defense, things started to change pretty quickly.  She turned everything in and "checked out," leaving one lonely grad student in JARTU...me.  I did move into a real office with a locking door, so that is very exciting, but things are definitely different around JARTU without fellow grad students.  I enjoy the privacy and peacefulness of my own office, but I miss having Kim and Jessy to talk to and to decide on random ice cream runs. 

I started my classes mid-August and they are going well so far.  I have a nutrition course, which is basically a review of my biochemistry class from undergrad.  We've already had our first exam in there (one every 3 weeks) and it wasn't bad at all.  My other course is animal physiology which is INTENSE, but I love it.  It is what the first year vet students take in two semesters, crammed down into one semester.  We leave out the pathophysiology parts (how normal processes are altered by disease states) because we're not pursuing vet school and just need to know how things work.  I really enjoy learning about "How It's Made" and how things work in the body.  I find myself going ah-ha a lot in my head during class as I learn things I've always heard about but never understood.  Our first exam is in a week. 

I have also been busy being a TA for Dr. Schrick's advanced reproduction class.  I'm really enjoying it, especially being in charge of getting everything together for labs and helping students with their questions.  I'm also helping Dr. Edwards and a co-teacher Dr. Stewart manage the Blackboard site (the online interface where students get assignments, announcements, etc) for their Research Ethics course.  All of the new animal science graduate students are in that course, so it's nice that I have that time to interact with them since my office is across the river and I rarely see them otherwise. 

Outside of school, I met Scott, Louise, Erica, Jay, Kelsey, Makayla, and Bryson in Pigeon Forge, TN for dinner one Sunday because they were taking a vacation around there.  It was great to see everyone and catch up!  I also had an out-of-body experience at a Keith Urban concert.  My good friend Milly went on tour with Keith Urban for a year a while back and is great friends with Keith's guitar tech (the one who hands him a new guitar every song).  She called him up and asked him if he could get us tickets for the Knoxville concert and he did!  Not only were we 3rd row, we got to go back stage!  Keith Urban and Jake Owen both walked right by me!  AHH!  The concert was incredible and I will never experience something that special probably ever. 

Other happenings include our -80 freezer crashing, a trip to Clemson for the day to collect and freeze bull semen, many trips to Bean Station, putting up flyers for Essau, babysitting Tyler and Laney (Schrick and Edwards's kids), a fellowship dinner with a group of people from First Baptist Knoxville, and a trip to Granite Falls to get my car back! 

Exciting news: Kim accepted an embryologist job at a human IVF clinic in Charlottesville, VA, moved up there this weekend, and starts tomorrow!  She is very excited to start, but is a bit lonely living by herself in a brand new city. 

Wedding updates:  We are now less than 9 months away from the big day!!!!!  Can you believe we have finally gotten down to single digit months!?!?!  I have added Kim to the bridesmaid group, so I now have 5.  Justin is almost done with getting his 5 together, so that is very exciting!  I have been adding things to my registries and thinking about timing for when the girls will get their dresses and when other things need to get done.  I feel pretty accomplished already, having the photographer, DJ, cake, florist, venue, music, dress, and bridal party sorted out.  Things left to do: finish invitations/stationary, send out save-the-dates, bridesmaid dresses, decide on flowers, figure out honeymoon details, rent suits, and any other little details along the way :)