Frozen Tundra

Bags packed. Arrive at airport. Pass through security. Board plane 1. Taxi to the runway. Take off. Land in Cleveland. Run up and down stair for some exercise. Find next terminal. Board plane 2. Wait in line at runway. Make small talk with chatty business man. Grab book and ipod. Take off. Land in Milwaukee. Find baggage pickup. Call Jason and Dad. Direct them to pick up area. Stand outside. FREEZE. Go back inside and wait. Get a call from Jason. Go back outside. Wave them down. Run into road. Shove my bags in car. Take off for Dad's House. Winter jacket and heat on high. Pull in garage. Let Annie out of her kennel. Jason hold onto Annie. I come out of car. Annie goes crazy. Annie tackle Megan. Welcome back to the frozen tundra.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that woman can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts her, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is her dog. A woman's dog stands by her in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. She will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only she may be near her master's side. She will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; she will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. She guards the sleep of her pauper master is if she where a princess. When all other friends desert, she remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, she is as constant in her love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. -Senator George Vest (1870)

Dogs are our link to paradise. -Milan Kudera

 Gma has made me breakfast twice already :)  I'm pretty sure I could have her breakfast every single morning but I'd have to run and climb like there's no tomorrow. But hey, it's worth it. The Monday after I came back, I went to Madison to visit those peeps and relieve them from studying too hard for finals. I went climbing with Aaron at Boulder's Climbing Gym, went out for dinner at a really good Thai place, watched a movie or two, drank some Spotted Cow (yum yum), got made pancakes for breakfast and then got out of everyone's hair so they could go back to the harsh reality of finals week. Then Wednesday, I made cookies and bread with Gma, ran a few errands for mother, and went to see Catching Fire. Friday, I went to work with mother to help purge files and archived old paperwork. Just for that, I got free lunch at Funky Bean :)

I miss my southern friends sooooooo much!! It's just not the same without Megan and Emma and all my climbing friends :/  Also, when we got that nice winter storm of 7 inches, Raleigh was in the high 70s. WHY?!

If at all there is any conversion, 
it should be from misery to happiness, 
from defilement to purity, 
from bondage to liberation, 
from ignorance to enlightenment. 

~ S. N. Goenka ~

By the way, Anna will be here in 

5 and 6 hours!!!

Wisconsin Here I Come!

Well do you do folks? This chica is now 1/4 of the way done with her graduate career!! That is, for this degree anyways :)  Can't really complain - exams were easy peasy, classes a joke, and research messing up my sleep schedule! Haha, just kidding - I love my research so I will gladly wake up at odd hours to drive Highway 64 for 116 miles!!  BEST NEWS EVER!! I finally finished collecting this year's data. After running 172 aflatoxin and fumonisin toxin assays, running a few more because of my fabulous human error, and making more dilutions than I wanted...I have a beautiful excel spread sheet.

Tomorrow at 2:30 I will no longer be in NC. I will be on my way to Wisconsin. Dad and Kiddo will be at Milwaukee to pick me up! As I already told Kiddo - you better have my real winter jacket and the truck like a sauna because we all know it's not bitterly cold in Raleigh! Oh, and they better bring Annie along because I miss my dog more than anything. So now comes the fun part, figuring out what I need to bring with me to Wisconsin...yay!

Tonight I'm going climbing again and by climbing I mean doing one or two climbs and then belaying because my hands are torn to bits. I went climbing for the past three days, have been working on some cool traverse bouldering problems, a few overhangs, and that darn 5.11 I'm still projecting!!  Tonight, my dear ones, is the night I send that 5.11 and put that one behind me!

So yup, that's that. I'm going to go into research and make sure everything looks how it should before I start the fabulous chore of packing!! Bye for now.

Well That Went Well

Hey hey y'all! I survived my first semester as a graduate student - well mostly. Two finals and this PlantPath Girl is one semester closer to graduation! So yeah, there's that. What else? QuickTox is the best invention ever because I can run like 100 samples in a day! I only have 60 more plots to QuickTox and then comes the fun part: analyzing data.

Take a seat. Relax your feet. Just watch the Sun. A job well done.

So y'all know that I went to Gaffney, South Carolina with my dear friend Megan Sexton for Thanksgiving. Her family is just the sweetest. Her daddy is a good cook too :)  Have no fear, there was plenty of vegetarian options available for me. Her momma took great care of me, I loved playing with all the pooches, and even read the first Hunger Games book! We did some Christmas shopping with her momma and decorated their home. Then we went to her sister Lauren's house and watched the terrible Badger game and the Clemson vs Carolina game (big rivalry) with Lauren and her husband. We had dinner at Red Bowl - loved the veggie and fried rice so much I devoured the whole thing. Megan's dog, Drake, was even a sweet little guy and slept on my lap for part of the way home. So precious!

Breathe in. Breathe out. Beauty in. Badness out.

Oh by the way, I saw the world's biggest butt. Have a picture.

Just kidding! It's a peach watertower in Gaffney, SC.

Let's see...nothing else really cracking over here. Just waiting to get lunch at Jasmin and then probably finish reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Besides that I've just been climbing away. My flight home is in 9 days and Anna will be here in 24 more days. Excitement all around!!

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." -Thich Nhat Hanh