Kitty Toes

I know it has been a while since I blogged, but I have been super busy. Moving, starting a new job, being separated from my husband and (trying and failing) to write my dissertation has kept me pretty much strapped. I did snap this photo of my kitty Mesha's toes. I just wanted to share them and say "I am still alive!"



Oh, and if anyone knows of anyone who can help me dread my hair in the Cincinnati area please let me know!

Excuses Excuses

I just wanted to tell everyone out there in cyber land why I haven’t been posting all that much lately. The reason for that is like 17^6 fold.

First off I am trying to finish my master’s degree in zoology. It has been quite the bumpy ride, and I don’t expect anything less for the finish. I am spending long hours in the lab trying to finish up my research while trying desperately to write my thesis up at the same time. Let me just say, my experience with my master’s degree has not inspired me to (at least any time soon) pursue any other higher degrees. While it would be nice to be called Doctor, I don’t need that to feel fulfilled in life. I am, in fact, writing this blog entry as I am sectioning with a microtome in the basement of a drab looking university building on the weekend. I would love to be home with my husband right now in my pj’s watching a movie and eating junk, but I can’t. I have to be sequestered away from the world in a windowless hole so I can finish, maybe on time.

Secondly, I have been trying to find a job, so that once I get said degree, I can be gainfully employed. About once every two weeks for the past two months (really long than that) I have sat down and devoted hours to searching up good jobs in my field. I will let you know, that gets old really quick. There aren’t many widely publicized positions for microscopists. I have, how ever, found a few places interested in me. That leads me to my third reason…

Thirdly, I have found a job! I am currently waiting for them to send me my official offer letter (UPS tracking is useless). I have had two offers, but I waiting for the second one to come in to make my actual final decision. This job will be awesome, and a welcome change in both venue and revenue! Since the job is in another state, my husband and I have been spending long hours contemplating where to live, how to get there, and in what order to do things. I even worry about how to safely and sanely transport my kitties for the long move. Well, longer than I have ever moved with pets before. This also takes a large chunk of time, neither of which either of us have much of. I, of course, have to focus on school while my husbands is starting this week to work extra long hours as his work. A coworker of his is going in for surgery and he has to train his replacement and take over her job. Fun. Oh, and guess what. This coworkers is scheduled to come back to work the same day I am scheduled to start my new job!

I have been contemplating putting my etsy shop on vacation mode so I don’t have to worry about that. I was thinking of having a “Moving Sale” but I don’t have time to devote to the higher possible work load that might generate. Oh, I also had my first canceled sale today. That was great pick me up.

So, there you have it. I have been extremely busy and it wont stop any time soon. I wish I could keep up with everything, but it takes too much time and, even worse, it distracts me from what I really need to be doing right now.

Stuff Like This Makes Me Happy!

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Originally uploaded by fuzzy_izmit

I know no one will know what this scanning electron micrograph is... including myself, but it made me dance and sing around the lab today! This is the reason I love science... because no one has ever seen this particular thing before! Whoo hoo! I finally feel like I am accomplishing something!

Giving Mood...

I got a call from my mom the other day and it started me down this road to create this necklace. My mom is on the board for my old middle school, Stepping Stone. Every year they hold a auction to raise money for stuff the school needs. She asked me if I wouldnt mind donating some of my jewelry to the cause. I figure it will be really nice to not only give back to a school that has given me so much, plus I could get some exposure. I figured I could make some stuff easy enough, plus it will be tax deductible! I sat down the other night to create. The last piece I figured I would make a big and bold necklace. I had it finished when things started to go wrong...I wont name them all but lets just say that at about 12 midnight I ended up with a broken necklace, a work table full of beads and my crimp beads were knocked over. I was so frustrated! I decided to take some time off, just leave it all there and come back later. After an hour on tooling around Etsy, I found some sterling silver medallions that I use for my rosaries and decided to put them away. As I sat down I to put them away and started to clean up the crimp beads. Then I saw the messy pile of beads that used to be a beautiful necklace. I just couldnt let that sit over night. Must be bad mojo or something. So I went through and restrung the whole thing and made everything stronger. I want to make a few pairs of earrings to or something, but that will be another day! Let me know what you think of the necklace! That cross is 2 1/3 inches long, just to give you an idea of scale!

Science Break and a Little Update

I know that this blog is mostly about crafting, but as the school year starts back up I will probably be commenting more on school etc. This is one of those times :) If you want to skip the science type stuff, just scroll down to the next paragraph. Without getting in to much details, my research is on land snails and slugs, specifically how carnivores and herbivores smell the world differently (at least that is what I think I will find). I am examining the olfaction equipment on a whole mess of snails and slugs in a bunch of different ways. Right now I am mainly using transmission electron microscopy (using electrons instead of light in a microscope to see really tiny things). Anyway, I have found a structure that I have no idea what it is. I expected to see one thing, but now I see this. The task at hand now is to search (more) in the literature out there and see if anything I can find looks remotely like what I have found. These unknown structures are about 1 to 2 micrometers in diameter and, in my sections so far, are nearly always perfectly circular with alternating light and dark rings. All of the structures inside these things are aligned radially to the center of the circles. They are not artifacts, but part of the labial palp structure (the area around the mouth) in groups or lines. There isnt a lot of work in the ultrastructure of snail skin/chemoreception so I dont know if I will find anything out there...or even in different organisms. My best guess is that it is some kind of mechanoreceptor, but I need to find something to back that up. I really wish I would have found some definite chemoreceptors though...oh well!
As for crafts, I banged out a neat bracelet last night. It is a bangle type bracelet on a cha-cha steel "frame", and I think it looks nice. Not my favorite colors, but very neat combo, if I may say so myself. I think I am going to call it something along the lines of "Iced Honeysuckle" or "Ice and Honeydew". It took a while to make, used a lot of beads and my hands cramped up pretty bad while I was making it. I will try to get pictures of it tonight, but my wonderful kitty finally broke my light box, so I need to fix it up before I can take decent enough pictures of it.