One more week...

Hello everyone... sorry about the delay in blogging. I guess I slacked off a bit! So first off, I think that I need to have more pictures in here. I realized that I write a LOT... and it gets a little boring to look at my page with all of this writing and no pictures! I'll see if I can work on that. :)

The next major news is that this is my last week in lab! YAY!!! That makes me VERY happy. :)

But more on that in a bit... So a recap of the weekend (although those of you who also read Mark's blog have already heard about most of these things!). Mark and I went to a Sox game on Saturday as part of a company-sponsored event for him. It was fun and it was great to see a couple of his co-workers in particular (okay, I really was happy to get to chat with the co-workers' girlfriends!!) We had some good Iowa representation there, which always makes me happy.

So yeah... good times. And it was free... so you can't beat that. But I will say this... if anyone ever offers you a chance to go to the patio for all you can eat food and drinks at US Cellular... unless the ticket is free, don't waste your time. Honestly, I was really not THAT impressed. You can't actually see the game from the patio... so you have to eat quickly before the game (after standing in a bunch of lines) and then run out to get to your seat. And once you're out there, you have to pay for any food you may consume because you can't get back in to the patio!! That was a bit annoying. I would have rather had them give me the $40 they spent on my patio ticket and just give me the cash so that I could buy whatever food I wanted at the park and eat it at my seat during the game! Because inevitably, after shoving my face full of food at 5pm, I was hungry again by 8. LOL Of course, that isn't necessarily their fault... but rather my own voracious appetite. Otherwise, it was a good time... the Sox won. I was hoping to see Buehrle pitch just cause I like him... but no such luck.

Just as well... had I seen him pitch on Sunday I would have watched him get quite a beating.

What else? Oh... it was SOOO nice to be back at church this weekend. I definitely had missed it. And it was great to see all of my friends there too. So I finally got caught up on all of the news, which was good. I got to chat with Rachelle, the pastor's wife, a bit more about Iowa (she did her undergrad there and was actively involved in 24/7 so we know a lot of the same people)... so it was all good. We then had our typical Panera outing and then I was at the softball game. (Got a decent tan on my back... now I just need to work on the front!!) LOL The game itself wasn't pretty... but it happens. We were way short-handed, so I guess we shouldn't complain. And that's the non-competitive league anyway... the REAL games are on Monday and Wednesday nights. That's when the boys get REALLY mad if things don't go their way!! But yeah... it was good times.

I think I basically just bummed around for the rest of the weekend. I have to say that it was SOO nice to not go anywhere this weekend. After flying for the last two weekends (and being seriously delayed on almost every single flight) it was really nice to just stay home.

I went to the softball game last night to watch the boys play. And to have social hour with all of the girlfriends/wives. I got to meet Patty, the new girl in Tim's life. I can see why they are dating and she's cute and short (she's shorter than me!!!) So we had a little short chick convention there! LOL The boys won both games by slaughter rule, so they were all in a good mood... which is always good (and it makes the games go faster!!). I got to talk to Alissa (sp?), Peter's gf. I love her... she's so cute. And we only really see each other at softball games, so it's basically been a year since I last saw her! LOL I'm always impressed with the Wright boys (and the Wright family in general!!). Alissa congratulated me on getting my PhD and I was just like... wow, word certainly travels!! And she had told me that Peter had told her about it. I just thought that was sweet... since Lord knows that I don't think I should rank THAT high in their normal conversations! They're just cute. :)

What else?? I have to do an experiment in lab tomorrow... blah. Kind of annoyed by that, but whatever. Just after I backed up everything on my computer and handed all of my notebooks over to Dawn, she gave me an experiment to do! Basically, she doesn't want to learn how to do this experiment, so she's going to have me do it at the last minute. Of course, because she doesn't do this experiment, she apparently doesn't realize that it will have to be repeated multiple times. So why she's in this big rush to have me do it tomorrow when I won't be able to repeat it is beyond me. But whatever. They are basically grasping at straws to try and see some mechanism/function for two proteins that we study in the lab. Honestly, I don't think that they actually interact in any way and that what we have seen so far is completely correlative and nothing more. But hey... my opinion doesn't matter at this point. And both of the PI's on this project NEED a grant in a bad way... so they're grasping. Oh well... what can you do?

In other news... I have basically cleaned off my desk. I have one more load to bring home today that didn't fit in my bag yesterday. And then my desk will be officially cleared off of my stuff. I also have to get rid of the hundreds of papers that I have filed away. I think Dawn wants to have them, which is fine. I had toyed with the idea of keeping some of them and moving them to my filing cabinet in my future office. But then I realized that I only read a select few of these papers in my entire 4 years of graduate school and got my 4 papers anyway. So seriously... if I didn't read them in grad school, what makes me think I'm going to read them when I'm teaching?? So yeah... that was the deciding factor. The papers stay with Dawn. I must say that it's quite cathartic to clean off my desk... it looks weird... it's no longer my desk. But it's definitely a bit of closure.

So in case I don't write later this week... I'm stamping this weekend!! I'm excited because it's going to be me, Lynne, and Lara at Ange's house. This is basically my most favorite stamping group... so it's going to be good times! I think that Mark will be hanging out with the boys during this time... getting a good hit of testosterone and such. :) I won't subject him to the estrogen fest known as stamping! LOL But yeah... I'm way excited. Those of you who know my crafty habits understand this. (By the way... can I just mention that I am DREADING having to pack all of my craft stuff. UGH!! NOT fun!!! I'll need to start early on that one!! Blah!!)

Finally... I know that Mark wrote about this in his blog... but I must put a note in here. NIU will be playing Iowa this year at Iowa City... and while that is exciting... what is even MORE exciting is that they will be playing next year on Labor Day weekend at Soldier Field!!!!!

I really hope that we can get tickets in Iowa City so that Mark can go to a Big 10 game at Kinnick stadium...


especially now that it will be new and improved...

but I have a feeling they will sell out before they go on sale to the general public. :( But let me tell you... we WILL get tickets to see Iowa in Soldier Field!! And Mark thinks that I might not be AS excited and crazy as I was for the Iowa/Florida game. Obviously he doesn't understand my passion for Iowa football... he will learn. :) The only reason I won't get overly excited is if the game becomes a blowout (assuming that Iowa is the team blowing out NIU!). Otherwise, I will be screaming. It was pretty typical for me to not have much of a voice after an Iowa football game. I don't expect that to change. LOL

Anyway, I think that is the excitement of my life right now... I know you guys can barely control yourselves!! I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and that it made my blog more colorful and enjoyable!! I guess I should get back to work now... have a great day!! I hope that all is well with you... have a great week!!!