So I was probably a teenager before someone pointed out to me that the petals of poinsettias are really leaves surrounding a cluster of much less showy flowers. DAT however sat and stared at our poinsettia the other day then looked up and announced "it has pink leaves with lots of tiny flowers in the middle." Astute observation kiddo.

We survived Christmas with my family + sister's boyfriend. I was a bit worried that things would go poorly as sister + boyfriend pair have not been on my mother's good side recently. However, they managed to be quite civil to each other, and sometimes even appeared to be having a good time. My mom was delighted by their surprise arrival on ( Read more... )

DAT has the plague. Today is day #2 of my staying home with him. Yesterday, he was the sickest I think I've ever seen him. He had a fever of 103, vomited twice, and refused to eat or drink all morning and didn't eat until dinner time (which would probably just have resulted in more puke if he had eaten before then). He literally lay on the couch ( Read more... )

...and somewhere on the farm a frozen pipe is busted waiting to geyser when the pipes thaw out. *sigh ( Read more... )

Farm work + sinus infection = unhappy

I friend of mine occasionally accuses me of being a hobbit (due to my extremely boring and domestic life, I think). At any rate I think I get major hobbit points for these past few weeks ( Read more... )

(and anyone else who wants some biology nerd entertainment ( Read more... )

So....

I gave my exit seminar (and it went well), and I had my thesis defense (and I passed).

You may now call me Master.

No, I'm not done, I still have to make a final revision of my thesis, pin my reference collection, and clean up my junk in the lab.

Been there. Done that. Can I be done now?

No more ants, please.

11 days till Thesis defense...

*sigh*

Bees. Bees would be nice.

My talk tiled 'Habitat Complexity or Random Chance: What Affects the Distribution of Urban Ants' at the Entomological Society of America National Meeting went well. The only thing I wish went different was that I talked a bit more slowly, but I had a lot of information to cover in 10 min. so it worked out ok. I had lots of fun at the meeting ( Read more... )