Happy Halloween!

Not a particularly informative post, but hey!  I feel like celebrating!!  We've got trick-or-treaters for the first time since....well...many years.  We never had any out in Crozet (including before hubby and I moved in together) so I was tickled!  Lots of cute kids, hilarious costumes and even football players.  Not much more to say, so here are some pictures -

Boo!

Our doorway with decorations....well, pumpkins and a ghost.  We didn't exactly go wild, but at least made clear we had candy.

Uh, my treat.  Being an adult has its perks, including having a beer with one's chocolate.

Waste not want not!  Pumpkin seeds roasting.

Now back to being a grad student and reading papers.  Hope everybody had a fun Halloween!

Where have I been?

Obviously not on the blog.

I'm sorry dear readers.  Sincerely sorry, but sometimes it's hard to figure out what to say.  I'm not going to harp on an on about my lengthy absence, but instead move forward and hopefully make up for it in posts!

Sooo...what brings about the sudden return?  Other than the massive guilt trips?? (you know who you are....)  How about some down time due to "snowpocalypse" hitting the east coast?  Yes, even though I'm plenty far from the coast, the mountains of Virginia are getting a nice dusting of snow courtesy of H. Sandy.  It's not that bad in my immediate area largely due to the fact it's been balmy up until two days ago and what is hitting the ground is melting.  We'll see what happens tonight when the temp dips further!

In the interest of brevity (and keeping this from turning into a novel) here's what's been going on since we last chatted:

1. Spring semester ends with a...bang?  My dad had a major health scare, prompting me to head north to smack him upside his head in person for scaring me, but in the midst of my finals.  My professors were incredibly understanding and let me post-pone my assignments and exams.  My dad stabilized and was discharged from the hospital and I headed back.  That meant that after a week of brain-melting anxiety I was stuck tackling grant writing/papers/finals....it was painful, my profs were patient, and we all survived.  THANK GOD it's over.  My dad has totally recovered and is doing GREAT!  Moving on...

2. We buy a house.   Immediately after finishing my makeup finals hubby and I dove into the exciting realm of home ownership.  That's really a story for another post, but it's a great place that didn't need any significant work to be totally livable, but has tons of potential for upgrades/updates.  Perfect kind of investment place for two people who have limited resources but lots of tools and know-how (well, at least hubby has the know-how.  I know how to hand him tools.  Many years of training with my father :-) Huge yard, lots of light, much more space.  All the furries are happy as are we!

3. We move out of the appartment and storage unit into the new house, then turn around and drive to Michigan again.   Yeah, not my best idea, I'll admit.  We spent 10 crazy days traveling, helping my dad catch up on stuff that his health had kept him from, had lots of emotional time with family at the memorial for my uncle who passed away, spent quality time with my two nephews, dealt with a 90* heat wave with no A/C, dealt with Haley getting a staph infection due to heat then throwing up in the truck due to meds on the way home, staying in the SKETCHIEST hotel and deciding leaving at 5am was better than catching something from the room, and finding out that Va got hit with a crazy-ass wind storm (a derecho) while we were gone and our house/cat sitter found the doors of our new house blown wide open for who knows how long (nothing was taken, neither cat ran away).
Whew!  Makes me exhausted just to type it all.  As for the move itself, we were prepared, we were organized, and we had some awesome friends to help us so it went as smoothly as we could ask.  Except for Haley discovering a bunny nest in the front yard, eating a baby bunny, then regurgitating it onto the linoleum of our new kitchen.  In front of our friends.  Ah, pets.


Bed is calling, and with the crazy weather I think I'm fighting something off, so this is TO BE CONTINUED SOON.  I promise!

A post in pictures

I've managed to accumulate some pics, and thought I'd do a post using the pics as update prompts!

April showers bring....Well, technically that's a late March shower, as viewed from the front step of the apartment.  We've had an up and down spring so far, with some pretty good thunderstorms rolling through.  During house hunting drama we had an entire weekend of rain, then back to cool days and frosty nights, but now were back to sun and heat!

Warm weather earlier in March along with rains brought on spring blooms in a HUGE way around here.  Can't deny it, Blacksburg is BEAUTIFUL in spring!!

(This is right outside my lab building :-)

We're well beyond cherry blossoms and daffodils now.  The trees are really starting to leaf out - you can watch the line of green creeping up the side of the mountains just outside of town.  It's pretty cool, and something I always loved to watch happen on the Blue Ridge back in Crozet.

With the return of warm weather the last two days (as in 80* +  weather) another spring tradition played out:

"The Great Hair Removal Day"

The pictures never do it justice!  Especially on the pups...although the most dramatic effect on them

is a tactile one.  Before clipping, petting them is just like petting a soft, fluffy dog (duh...metaphor fail).  After clipping, petting them is like rubbing a marine's head!  They've been nicknamed the "crew-cut pups" post-clipping.  Both are very happy and were extra-romping on our walk this evening.  Haley has gotten so used to the clipping that she just lays down in the grass now, and I have to drag her around to do each side.  If anyone else has read the Hunger Games (or seen the movie) then you'll know what I mean when I say I feel like her personal prep-team!  Zack is nervous about it like he's nervous about car rides and baths - thinks he's going to die the entire time then is jumping out of his skin with happiness when he realizes he survived.  Sammy took his butchering in stride...not exactly thrilled, but not caring much either as long as we still pet him.  His Pop-eye forearms always crack me up!

And finally, we've got some help on the home front:

Meet the "Happy Home Buddha".  He was sent to me by my wonderful Godmother to "help us find a happy home."  How sweet is that??  It's also a bit hilarious due to the nature of my relationship with my Godmother.  Her purpose as godmother, according to my parents, was to instill in me a love of Sugar Island (the island I grew up on) and....to teach me to drink beer.  I think I'm remembering that second one right.  Yeah, my family isn't so big on religion or spirituality.  Definitely big on family parties and beer.  (Side note- It's no wonder I married a home-brewing man, and that my family loves him!)

 So it tickled my funnybone that at the age of 31, I am receiving the first spiritual guidance from my Godmother in the form of a garage-sale lucky buddha statue.  This is why I love her!!  And to give her full credit, she also listened to me rant for at least 1hr about the house hunting drama explained in the last post.  

Maybe she actually is part saint!!

More updates soon :-)

Yes, still alive

But not exactly happy.

I've dropped off the blogosphere once again, but house shopping had a lot to do with it.  As in, any free time I had on my computer was devoted to searching Trulia, Zillow, MLS, for sale by owner....you get the idea.

I won't bore you with the unexciting process of identifying a house, but the punch line is hubby and I found a great place!  A 2bed, 2 bath modern-ish, efficient green house!  That we can afford!  That we can bike to work from!!  It's actually an earth-bermed home, meaning it's built into a hillside.  Imagine a house with a full walk-out basement, then chop off the top floor and make the front of the house 1/5 stories tall with floor to ceiling windows.  Nice, eh?

Decision made, we made and offer, came to a reasonable agreement, got a ratified contract and applied for a loan.  So far, so good!

Until the "unique" house didn't qualify for the loan.

Seriously, not me and hubby - we're super qualified.  The house didn't qualify, because being so different, it was impossible to find similar comparable properties to determine an accurate market appraisal.  There are specific guidelines laid out by Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac about comparables/appraisal stuff, and if the house doesn't meet them, then you basically can't get any USDA, FHA, etc. mortgage.  There may be other loan types that could still work, but they are way more expensive (as in, like 1.5% higher interest rate).

So we had to cancel the contract today.

We're starting the hunt again and not giving up, but I'm starting to feel like karma is catching up with me.  I've been so lucky with finding nice, unique, affordable places to rent with great landlords.  It's like payback now that we can't manage to snag a nice, unique, affordable place to buy.  Ugh.  I'm totally depressed about it - this place was by far the coolest we'd found.  I honestly don't feel like looking for some place else, but the cramped apartment living is pretty good motivation.

This probably isn't the most exciting update, but I thought you guys deserved something. Off to bed so I'll be bright-eyed for 8am class tomorrow.

And another reason to stay active...

Wow. It was recently discovered that exercise changes gene expression in muscles:

http://www.nature.com/news/a-trip-to-the-gym-alters-dna-1.10176

Summary is that the more we exercise, the more metabolism-boosting genes get expressed.

It's just remarkable how we keep finding more evidence of how our environment and behavior can alter something as fundamental as our DNA.  In some cases those changes can actually be passed to offspring!  I'm talking about epigenetic inheritance, or the phenomenon of inheriting gene expression patterns that are defined beyond the the actual sequence of the DNA.  Bear with me while I attempt to explain this for my non-sciencey readers: a child inherits two copies of a single gene, lets say a gene for eye color.  One copy is from mom, the other copy from dad.  The two copies, if sequenced in a lab, have the exact same code, say for brown eye color.  So one would assume this kid would have brown eyes.  BUT for some environmental reason, dad's copy of the brown eye gene is actually turned off by epigenetic modifications.  That's a big fancy word for basically scrunching up the DNA so tightly that it never gets transcribed into RNA or translated into protein.  silent gene = no protein = no eye color from dad's gene.  So our hypothetical child might not have brown eyes (maybe hazel), even tho he/she inherited two genes for brown eyes.

Before someone blasts me for scientific inaccuracy, I know this is a gross over generalization and I honestly don't know how eye color is inherited - I just used that as an easy-to-visualize example.

But seriously - how cool is that?!??  We actually have some control over how our genes behave.  Now I just need to figure out how to turn off my chocolate-craving genes....

And we have our first fail....

Ok, so I'm a bit back-logged on posts.

So what is the glamorous life of a grad student in March?  Using spring break week as a chance to catch up on lab loose ends while there aren't any classes to mess up the day!  Weeee!

Did a quick visit to C'ville to catch up with friends this past weekend - it was wonderful to see folks and catch up, particularly because two of them are expecting.  It was a talk and food filled weekend, with some beautiful weather on Saturday.  The maples are budding out, crocuses and daffodils in full bloom...oh yes, and hubby snuffling with allergies.  Ah, spring!

Then we came back to Blacksburg:

The weather has been so spastic!  Freezing cold with snow, and 48hrs later it's going to be 63*.  I know it normally bounces around in the spring, but this seems pretty extreme.  I know it's hard on Dax.  She started shedding a few weeks ago, but we've had two bouts of cold snowy weather interspersed with 70* since then.  The good part about her new barn is that she's got lots more shelter and shade options than the previous one.  That combined with quality hay means she's as well equipped as possible to handle the crazy weather, short of putting her in and out of a stall (although she actually has access to one of those too!).

Not a whole lot of exciting stuff going on at the moment, except that....drum roll please...

WE'RE HOUSE SHOPPING AGAIN!!  AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Brace yourselves!

The Vicious cycle

I'd like to wax philosophical for a moment about how frustrating the cyclical nature of stress/exercise/mood is.

I should probably establish that I always feel best when I've done something physical - I know that sounds desperately cheesy, but even hubby notices it - whether it be a long hike, a bike ride, a horse ride, exercise class, whatever, I'm always happy when I get home.  I know it's not rocket science.  Runner's high, whatever you call it, the body-wide and mood altering effects of exercise are WELL documented.

The problem arises when I get busy.  Busy = less time to play.  Oh, and less time to exercise.  However, busy also = stress.  If life were fair at all, stress would = desire to go jogging, because that's what I really need.  That's what would help me sleep better, maintain my focus in class better, have more energy to better make it through long days.  Yeah, if life were fair.

But it's not.  So for me....

Stress = CHOCOLATE
Stress = LAY ON THE COUCH
Stress = ORDER PIZZA
Stress = WANTS FOOT MASSAGES

Why is that??!?  Why is it that the thing (exercise) that would actually help me relieve stress the most is the thing I least want to do??  How does this make any biological sense?!?!

WHY ARE WE WIRED SO BASSACKWARDS???

*sigh*

On an entirely different note, here are photos of Cato finally.  You can see she's not bald, so no worries that she's freezing.

She always balls up like that!  Even when she had all her hair! 

We also go LOTS of snow out of the storm that hit yesterday - it was beeeee-utiful! (I was born in Michigan - love of snow is in my DNA).  It was also the perfect kind of snow b/c even though we got over 8 inches, it's been so warm that once the plows went through, the roads melted in no time!  Being a student, you might think I would be hoping for a snow day out of a storm like that, but I'm too familiar with the academic system.  Big universities will only shut down for the worst of the worst...it's too costly and difficult to shut down an entire 30,000+ machine for some measly 8" of snow.  Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it any less!  Will try to get some pics of the snow up soon.

2012 Goals

This is kind of funny.

The only goal I've been able to come up without thinking too hard is to blog at least once a week.  Ha!  Well, part of the purpose of this post is to get me thinking a bit more carefully about this upcoming year, and about things I want to accomplish.  Perhaps having some discrete goals will snap me out of the mild funk I've been in since December.   So here goes (not in any particular order):

1. Post once a week on the blog, even if I don't have any major epiphanies to share...I can always come up with a funny animal picture :-)

2. Continue piano lessons to the point that I can play an entire Tori Amos OR Sarah McLachlan song.

3. Wow my committee with LOTS of exciting experimental results.

4. Find a place and make it home - either house rental, buying a house, what ever.  Just get settled in! And no longer have muddy bikes sitting in my living room.

5. Write more letters and be better about keeping in touch with family and friends - even short notes!

6. Exercise three times a week...no excuses like exams, tired, etc. unless I'm really sick.  Includes, hiking, running with dogs, gym trips, bike rides, yoga, horseback riding etc.

7. Less whining - more doing.  I think this is a repeat from last year, but still applies.

I really wish there were something horsey to add, but there isn't.  Haven't had luck finding other riding opportunities, and while Dax is OK to truck my butt around occasionally, I am very cautious of causing her more pain.  Also sitting on my horse while she just saunters around doesn't really count as "riding".

Well, I may come up with more brilliant goals to add, but this is a start.  Any goal suggestions?  Feel free to leave them in the comments.

'Bout time to get 2012 started....

Hello there....I have no particularly good excuse for neglecting you.  Sometimes I just can't figure out what to say, or don't have the energy to say anything at all.

With that, I'm just going to dive into some updates:

1. The furries are fine.  Zack, Haley, Sam and Cato continue to be the lowest maintenance "kids" and cheapest entertainment possible.  The only major changes are that A) it has become shedding season and B) we shaved Cato again...all over.  She was beginning to get mats again, and would beat the crap out of me when I tried to comb her (it's hard to gently comb out mats).  So I thought we'd try clipping again, only this time with some horse clippers which have a blade designed for pet fur.  Unfortunately, these clippers are also very loud, but much to my surprise she was pretty calm about the whole thing (remember, Cato is our feral-stock kitty!).  I really believe she thought it was just a big, loud, pet-fest.  She definitely prefers clipping over combing, and I'm not going to argue with that!  The job is far from perfect, but it's way better than the last one.  Plus she doesn't have knots and won't be contributing to the usual spring hair-tumble-weeds around the house.  Speaking of hair, Zack and Haley got baths this weekend and decided it was a good time to start blowing their coats.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, "blowing" a coat means the dog is basically shedding out chunks of hair.  We combed them before the baths, then collected tons of hair in the tub, then combed them again three hours later when they were dry, and they're still loosing hair in small chunks.  I don't know how they aren't balding, but they do this every year.  I mean, cattle dogs are neither big nor long-haired....you can see in the pictures on the right....but they are double-coated (meaning they have an outer guard-hair layer and a downy under-layer for insulation).  I wish I could show you the handfuls of fluff that comes of these guys....they made the entire living room carpet black.  Put our german vacuum to the test!  Yes, we have a german-engineer vacuum that is more valuable than my husband's truck....days like that remind me it was worth every cent.  And yes, I am the type of person who would buy a german vacuum but never spend the money on a german car.  I hate cleaning, so anything that makes it easier or even remotely fun - count me in.  Hating cleaning is a poor life choice when one has two hairy dogs, and two long-haired cats, and a dirty mt. biking hubby, and a dirty, hairy horse addiction, and...well, you get the idea.  Speaking of the dirty, hairy horse...

2. Dax is ensconced in her new farm and doing wonderfully.  I found a smaller, family owned and run place about 20 mins outside of town.  It's simple, the pastures are smaller and at least one is flatter (I have acknowledged that being in Blacksburg means there just isn't anywhere that's totally flat).  It's also much cheaper than the previous barn.  To be very blunt, the pastures have rocks, the grass is eaten down, there's a mix of fencing, the back pasture is half scrubby woods, the herd is a mix of mares and geldings with 8 total....and it's perfect for Dax.  She integrated into the herd with practically no squealing or bravado posturing, she's dropped a few extra pounds that she NEEDED to loose, and she's been listening to me a bit better - there's a couple more dominant mares that are reminding her that she isn't queen bee.  The woods also provide her with more shelter than she had before.  All around, she's in a better place to just be a happy horse.  The previous barn was perfect for a busy student who wanted to continue to ride regularly and have their horse cared for as an athlete....but fate decided to hand Dax and I different cards.  After getting her settled with hubby's help, we both agreed that this was making the best of a really shitty situation for Dax and for us financially.      

3. Went to California for a week in Jan - hubby was sent to a conference and I made it a good excuse to visit family and friends in sunny, 70* SoCal while it was snowing in Blacksburg.  It was rough.  I sat around and just absorbed time with my sis and her crazy family, my dear friend and cousins I hadn't seen in years.  It was so wonderful and all too brief - I want to ship them all to Blacksburg!!!

4. My lab made the move to the new building and I LOVE IT!!!  Clean, organized, well lit, no stinkbugs...did I mention the stinkbug problem in the old lab?  Anyway...it's awesome and I'm doing much less running around now that I'm located centrally on the vetmed campus.  After additional unexpected delays (biosafety hoods not certified so we couldn't do any work) I have cells growing and am planning exps for the end of this week, assuming the cells cooperate and grow quickly.  However, it is lonely...we're the only lab in the building for now and I don't think that's going to change much for months.  Well, it's not like I had a bunch of collaborators in the previous building, but there were other students that I'd had class with that I was at least on speaking terms with.  Yeah...I can't say the social scene has exactly brightened up. Still the same problem -  people are super nice, but they are not inclusive and they don't reach out.  I know, it's just up to me to start reaching out, making plans, inviting people to go hiking, etc.  I just kinda chafe at the idea because first, I'm the freakin' new person!  That's their damn job!  Secondly, I never know if, when someone says they can't do something, they actually want to and just have a conflict or if they're really not interested and just trying to be nice to the pitiful, lonely new girl.  Ugh.  Over-think much?

5. Classes are much simpler this semester...a decent bit of review, and, well...kinda boring.  I know they're going to pick up, and for now I'm enjoying having the mental free-time to focus on organizing our departmental seminar series!!  I was gently handed the simple task from the previous student and promptly came up with about 10 brilliant ideas for how to make it soooooo much better and, well, yeah.  I'm probably coming off as all kinds of pushy but c'mon! I'm trying to improve the academic environment of my department!  Oh never mind, even that sounded pushy.

More on classes soon, and I'll try to snap some pics of Cato, if nothing else than for comic relief.  Side note: someone sent me a Crozet calendar....I have no idea who.  It just arrived in the mail with no message, but was addressed to my new address so it wasn't random.  So if someone happens to read this and knows who it was...tell me!  I have it up on the wall next to my bench, and this month's image is an amazing sunset over the Blue Ridge right in Crozet *sniff*

Still alive...I swear!

Ok ok, I know I've been bad an I don't blame any readers who have just quit on the blog.

I've had a lot of stuff roiling around in my head, and nothing is really coming up as a coherent post.  Plus I'm kind of in a mid-winter funk, which always freezes up my writing brain cells.  Please be patient, and I will do my best to get some updates out.

I just need to get back on Virginia time after being on California time for a week....

In Memoriam

Once again, I need to apologize for neglecting the blog.

There's a lot to update, and thoughts that I want to share about my first semester in grad school, but for now a list of the significant events will help bring everybody up to speed.

1. Classes finally wrapped up, all assignments were turned in and exams done.  I ran into a problem with attendance in one class and after about 50 ba-zillion emails and negotiations it was cleared up.  I'm happy to say I accomplished the goal of completing all of my classes in excellent standing.
2. The committee meeting happened, it was successful and I got a proverbial thumbs up from everyone.  I think my advisor is very happy with me, so all in all a great end to the semester.
3. I finished the grant I was hoping to submit to an F32, but never submitted it because I didn't qualify as an applicant.  However I have gotten input back from some profs that it is a solid grant, and I plan to try to submit it to something else next year (as long as I don't get scooped!).
4. Holidays were spent making the rounds to Virginia family with dogs in tow.  The cats were left to their own devices with plenty of food and water in the apt.  Everybody survived and made it back home *whew!*  Hubby promptly caught a cold as soon as we got home, poor guy :-(
5. Dax was moved to a new barn on the 31st.  More on that later!

The week before Christmas, my uncle who had been in cancer remission fell suddenly ill and was admitted to the hospital.  He passed away a few days later, surrounded by his family.  I wanted to be there, but they are all in Michigan and I'm in Virginia, so it's not exactly easy to just pop up on short notice (not including the question of what hubby does or what we do with the dogs, and what about our previous holiday commitments, etc.)  My uncle was a kind, if reserved, man and I fondly remember dancing with him on my wedding day, in addition to so many other gatherings and visits.  My whole family is heart-broken, and the holidays were difficult in the face of such a loss.  I'm glad his three daughters, wife of 50 years and siblings were able to say their good-byes, and he passed away peacefully and comfortably.  Philosophically he had a good, fairly long life and yes, death is a part of life, but that doesn't make anyone miss him less.  Time will hopefully replace the sadness with happier memories.

2011 wasn't the best year, and it really ended on a low note with my uncle's passing.  However, it's a new year and I have hopes for a better one!  We're already planning on visiting all the Michigan family this summer, when we can hopefully have a big get together and tell funny Uncle Gil stories.

Here's hoping to a fresh start and a wonderful 2012 for all of you!