Wind chill of...

...5 DEGREES!!!!

Yuuuup....that was my today...it. was. chill-Y!

Sooo....I realize I am way behind on the blogging-front, and for that I must apologize. But, I am running on pretty much empty these days. All is quite well, rest assured...I am just more than overwhelmed, a bit over-worked, completely spent, and beyond ready for semester one to come to a close. It's good - it's just a lot right now. BUT! Classes are almost over!! And the break will be fantastical :)

I must say that I really am loving it up here, though. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about my beloved Texas, and I canNOT wait to come back to all of your lovely faces and that Lone Star State - soon! My cohort is becoming quite the close-knit group and we are developing stellar relationships with members of the other cohorts, as well. Entomologists really are wonderful people, in general. I am so blessed to be a part of this scientific community that truly acts as a family.

Things are going very well with my two outstanding advisors. RH is has been wonderful in making sure I know that I can go to him at anytime with anything, especially since SW is unreachable a good bit of the time...that woman, she's just too good at too many things! RH has also discovered that I'm a sucker for Taco Bell...and once his recent PhD student/post-doc heads out to be an associate professor at her new school I've been told that I am taking over her spot as RH Taco Bell buddy...yay!! Haha. It's pretty fun, but I am nervous that he'll get me back into the habit of eating there multiple times throughout the week...sigh...

Another example of how awesome my advisors are: SW and RH both invited me to spend Thanksgiving with them and their families!! Unfortunately I cannot be in two places at once so I had to decline RH's invite, since SW asked first, but I assured him that I still have another two Thanksgivings here...at least, so he can nab me for at least one of them. He laughed and said he'll try to be first in line to invite me for next year. Haha. So, so great. I'm excited to go to SW for Thanksgiving - she even invited Jakers to come along!! He gets to make two more doggy friends! SW and her hubs have two pups of their own, so we're hoping the three of them get along...if not, we'll just separate them somehow. But how awesome is she for inviting my pup to come with?! I. am. blessed.

I'm still loving RH's illustration class - working in the digital medium has been an adjustment, but I'm starting to slowly get the hang of it, and I love how forgiving it is - you can erase for free!!!! BO-NUS! I'll have to scan in some of my illustrations for y'all at some point so you can see how we have progressed throughout the course of the semester. I can't wait to start doing this stuff for my thesis!! Yay, science + art!! =]

What else do y'all need to know before I head back to the studying... Hmm...hmmm...hmmm...

Oh! Some my ento gals and I started running together! It's been good to have people to do it with - there's no way I would do it myself. Meg and I actually "ran" inside tonight, since it was so cold...we resorted to the ellipticals...those machines are SO mean the way they change incline and resistance on you with nothing more than a beep's notice...punks. But...they do force a decent little workout if you really power through it. At the rec here they have the ellipticals and bikes set-up to face the racquetball/handball courts so we get some entertainment while run in place. It's prudy good!

Frenatae has been pretty busy this month. We had our honey-filling party for our honey sale a few weeks ago - that was a blast. And we had another Pig's Eye on Friday, following some grad student dodgeball (the Ento dorks vs the Evolution, Ecology, & Biology buffs). I didn't make it for dodgeball, but PE was a blast. We made it a game night. Catch phrase all night long with bug dorks = epic.

This weekend a bunch of us went out to the Mall of America to help Markster find a gifty for his wifey - it was way fun. I am so in love with these people!!

Ok, kids, I'm outty. Off I go to finish-up some reading for ecology.

Love and miss y'all!!
~MW

P.S. - I'll try to post some pictures here in the next few days - I don't have too many, but I do have a few that y'all might enjoy :)