Sweet Summer Time

I can't wait to have kids so that I can make one of these with them:

Courtesy of whatever...

I came across this beauty a few weeks ago in my perusings and fell in love with it.  While I haven't drawn up my own summer list, I have had quite the summer thus far:

- Trip to Tejas for a wedding, complete with lots of visits with my Texas loves, and LOTS of Tex-Mex!
- Cirque du Soliel - Ovo
- Went to a high school graduation and helped with the graduation party (all for SW's oldest kiddo who now works in the insect museum with me!)
- Helped run a successful, though chilly, BioBlitz
- Hosted an eggroll making party (AWESOME fun!)
- Played a departmental game of kickball, complete with bbq!!
- Big bday bbq bash for all of our June bday peoples, complete with fire!!!
- Went to a comedy club - haven't laughed that hard in a long time
- Canoed around the lake with my McQueen's and Meg...Jakers had a blast doggy-paddling around...it took him some getting used to, though  ;)
- 4th of July parade and picnic!!!  It was very Pollyana  :)
- Rockin' 4th of July bbq over in Uptown and got to watch all of the fireworks shows all around town, sooo amazing
- Went on a canoe trip over in Wisconsin.  Saw so many bald eagles!!  It was incredible.
- Lab bbq at RH's awesome home...I could sit in that backyard forever, I'm pretty sure
- Strolled around one evening with one of my sweet friends and her sweet baby
- Made my way a little ways west to hang over at Kreutter's grandma's place on the lake.  Had an absolute blast hanging out with her fam and Jakers looooved swimming and playing outside all day
- Have so loved hitting up the farmers market each week with Callie and anyone else who can make it

And, the summer isn't quite over yet!!  Woohoo!

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Sunday was way fun, because Kreutter spent the day with me and I got to introduce her to a few of my FT bugdorks.  Everyone met up over at my place bright and early and we made our way downtown for some breakfast at a sweet little place just down from the market.  Check out what was hanging from the ceiling!!!

 

That's right...that's totally a griffon skeleton!!!  Baller.

 The gang - they so make me happy :)

I love the market...it makes me incredibly happy and the produce is outstanding.  Here's a little (un-edited) taste of what one visit will give you in the way of fresh, local, organic produce+ for just $10:

Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Lettuce ($2)! Half of a $5 bouquet! Decorative cabbage 

(from the $5 bouquet) in a globe bowl! The other half of the $5 bouquet! 

$1 worth of basil plants! A dozen golden potatoes ($2) that I baked up 

with olive oil, pepper, cumin, and Parmesan cheese - yum!

Ahhh, the farmers market...I just love it  :)

Ahem...for an example of just how much joy it gives me....I am going to allow you feast your eyes on this....as I cover my eyes in shame...I just get so excited!!

OK, so, in my defense...there was another picture being taken from above at this 

point in time...  See?  Look at Mark, sitting next to me, he's making a goofy 

face, too!  ;)  We were all sitting on the horse-drawn wagon riding back to 

the parking lot.  How much more fun could a trip to the market get?!

I have another treat for y'all!

A video of Jakers out at the lake!!

All-in-all, we had an absolute blast this weekend  :)

And, this upcoming weekend should be just as stellar - Saints game tailgate party!

And then, the weekend after that Elaine comes to visit!!!!  

This summer, while it's had its low points, for sure, just keeps getting better and better and I can't wait to see how the rest of it turns out.

Alrighty kids, I'm outty for now.

Lots of love!

Shalom,

~MW

What weekend...?

Happy Sunday, lovely readers.

Praying the Lord has blessed you on His day and that your weekend has been filled to the brim with R&R and maybe some productivity...maybe?  ;)

My weekend has been...looong...but good!

Friday
Friday got off to an early start as I finished my 3rd (and hopefully final) prelim exam for my program.  Once that bad boy was finished it was time to kick it into hyperdrive to finish getting everything ready for BioBlitz which kicked off at 5pm that night.

All of my gear, before heading up to campus to get the

nets, kill jars, etc...  {minus my magazine basket, of course...}

What on earth is BioBlitz?!  

BioBlitz is a 24hr survey of the biodiversity of a given area.  It's something I got involved with at A&M and I was very pleased to discover that SW is one of the big participants here in the Frozen Tundra - win!  Aside from trying to document all the different plants, fungi, birds, toads/lizzards/snakes, insects, mammals, etc...BioBlitz aims to involve the community in discovering and learning about the natural history of the area.  <-- This is one of my favorite parts of BioBlitz - the community outreach.  Love it!

A bunch of us packed up and headed on out to the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (try saying that one 10 times fast!) to get light traps and overnight traps set-up before taking to the woods and fields to try to collect any insects we came across while it was still daylight/dusk.  Sadly, we had a cold front blow through this weekend, and Friday night proved to be pretty poor collecting conditions...the pickins were slim, to say the least.  We DID, however, find a gorgeous mating pair of Spilosoma virginica (a tiger moth - arctiid) and closed the night around 11pm with the capture (With my bare hand! I'd already packed up my gear for the night!) of a handsome male Ctenucha virginica (another type of tiger moth) - such a gorgeous guy.  It was very exciting and made getting drenched while collecting in the rain well worth it  :)

Saturday
Started the day with another early morning and headed back out to the Ordway Area.  We had much more success collecting insects on Saturday than we did on Friday.  This was great, except that we had to spend a good portion of our day collecting so we didn't have as much time to ID and curate...made for a bit of a time crunch as 5pm approached quickly.  STRESS!  And, since I still haven't recovered from the trip to TX (no time to sleep!) my body was fading fast...and I quickly lose nearly all patience when I'm tired...no bueno, friends, no bueno.  Fortunately, Corey the Dynamo was there to help keep me sane  :)

There were a few kiddos who came out and wanted to know lots of things about bugs and wanted to show us all of the insects they had collected.  So great!  There was one little boy who was probably about 4 and he kept bringing me all these little rocks and mosses along with insects...it was so fun.  Another little girl, maybe 8 or 9, brought a lady beetle (ladybug) and a mirid (plant bug) and wanted us to ID them for her.  The bug was one we hadn't collected yet so she let us keep it.  I showed her how we put the insects in our special jars (kill jars...glass jars with plaster paris in the base that is charged with ethyl acetate...basically euthanizes them) that put them to sleep and then they die so that we can put them on pins...if we put them on pins when they are still awake it doesn't feel very nice and their little legs will move all around.  So I walked her through that process and she was so excited to see the art of insect pinning and thought her little bug looked very nice on its new pin, all set to go into the collection.  Before she left she surprised me with the biggest hug...I nearly died.  It was just what I needed - I was starving at that point and wanted nothing more than to go home, eat, shower, and sleep...she granted me a pleasant distraction from ID'ing and pinning at record speeds to teach...and blessed me with a hug.  So precious!

The rest of the day was non-stop pinning and ID'ing and....databasing...my faaaaavorite thing eeeeeever....not.  But, we got it done, with about 105 morphospecies to report!  Which was good, considering the weather conditions!

After cleaning everything up and loading up the cars and trucks and things everyone cleared out and my crew and I embarked on our "roadtrip" back home (OK, so it was only a 30min drive...) so we could drop everything back off at campus and actually go home.  (We found out a little secret about our building, too!! BONUS!)

I ran by the Rainbow and grabbed some essentials...yes, cut flowers are essential from time to time  =)  Popped by RedBox, grabbed True Grit and headed home to settle in for the evening.

Dynamo and CashSmock came over and joined me for the rest of True Grit and Corey had fun riling Jakers up every time he had settled down...he thought it was fun  ;)  Then it was BED TIME.

Sunday
Woke up with quite the migraine that I've been fighting all day...I reckon that's a testament to my exhaustion and need to stop.  If you won't find the time to stop when you need to...your body will force you to stop.  OK, body, OK.  So I took today easy and didn't do much of anything - it was nice and much needed.

Finally decided I should make a real meal of sorts around dinner time...but since I only picked up the bare essentials from Rainbow I had to use my throbbing noggin to figure something out.  So, what did I come up with??

Chickpeas + diced tomatoes + onions + a bunch of spices 

+ a side of rice = quite a tasty dish 

(and pretty good for you, too!)

I tossed my onions in the pan first with some sesame oil, once they went translucent I added in my tomatoes, chickpeas, spices, and covered it in water and set it to boil.  Then I simmered it all until the liquid evaporated off some and thickened some.
For spices I used ground cumin, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, chili powder, ground red pepper, and salt and black pepper.
Spooned some of the chickpea mixture and sauce over a bowl of rice and voila! you have a cheap, easy, tasty (filling!) dinner.

I was hoping that eating something substantial would help kick the headache, but no such luck  :-/  It's starting to dull now, though.

So, my dears, with that, I am going to leave you and am calling it a night.

Blessings upon you as you tackle another Monday!!

Shalom,
~MW

P.S. - GO MAVS!!!

My First 10 on 10!

So, a few of y'all might have found your way over to my lovely blogger-friend and sister in Christ, Katy. I've mentioned her and linked up with her a few times before. And she is way more blog savvy than I am, just sayin' - so love you, Katy! Anywho, she's does all these fun bloggery things and then I jump on her bandwagons...mmhmm, I am that person. Maybe someday I'll have enough time to be as awesome of a blogger as Katy is :)

So, Katy is a big participant in this neat little thing called "10 on 10" where you take a picture every hour for 10hrs on the 10th of each month. FUN? I. THINK. YES!! So, here goes my first 10 on 10! (I'll be honest, I missed a few hours here and there, so there's a touch of a gap in some of my pictures...TIGS, need I say more?)

So, here's my first 10 on 10 - December!

9 AM

This is what I wake up to every morning - MOM! FEEEEED MEEEEE!

10 AM

Coffee + Gihrardelli Peppermint Bark in 

Christmas mug = most legit homemade peppermint mocha EVER!

11 AM

Decided to wear earrings for the first time in about 2 months.

12 AM

Walkin' into Hodson...sorry for the mitten in the picture...they're kind of fluffy.

1 PM

Worked on my cerambycid illustration for a bit

2 PM

Took a break from the bug and worked on some manuscript stuff for the Wharton.

3 PM

ENTO vs EEB dodge ball - pretty epic.

6 PM

Went home to take Jakers out before heading back out

7 PM

Decided to lite the tree for Jakers before I left.

1 AM

Called it a night after hangin' with the bugdorks in celebration of 

being done with Insect Ecology!!!!

***Sorry for the major lags: dodge ball lasted forever and then my phone memory filled up after I left the house for the evening...


I'm going to try and remember to do it again next month - anyone care to join in??

Shalom!
~MW

Saturdays :)

Oh Saturday, how I love you, but how fleeting you can be...

Well, initially today wasn't going to be all that exciting, other than swim time with the lovely Alyssa...but then...haha, you have to wait 'til I get to it!

So, I went to work for a bit and got some specimens a bit farther along in the curating process for miss Mika. Ugh, I had to do it without using a chemical hood, though (shhhh, don't tell the health & safety inspectors!!) and it was AWFUL!!! I'm pretty sure I burned the top layer skin off of my throat and nose...and my eyes burned sooo bad! Builds character, right?? Right!

Well, after that Alyssa came over and we swam around and attempted to catch some rays, of course as soon as we started to lay out the biggest clouds in the history of the earth (ok, so maybe not quite in the entire history of the earth, but they were huge!) decided it would be a fun time to come out and completely cover up the sun. The temperature was nice outside, though (what, nice temps in August, in C.S.?!?! It's true...) so we stayed out anyways. Well, and here comes the exciting part, we finally decided to head inside but much to our dismay found my front door locked!!! What?! Oi vey. Lindsey had come home and left again, locking the door behind her. We got ahold of her and she said she and David would be back from Wal-Mart in about 30min...more like and hour, but it's whatev. So, we decided to go back to Alyssa's apartment (she had taken her purse out to the pool with her - smart gal) for the time being. There we ventured through mylifeisaverage.com and got in some good laughs while waiting for me to be let back into my little apartment.

Lindsey left again and I took it easy. LeeAnn and Mel came over for a bit later on and we just chillaxed - they brought me food!!

All-in-all it was a pretty good day, I suppose. Really enjoyed my time with Alyssa.

Oh! So, for your viewing pleasure, here is a snapshot of my lovely new couch cover!!!


It's so pretty :)

Well, kids, I'm off to read for a bit and then I'm going to try to get to bed early - I think my insomnia is on its way to being cured again!!

Blessings!
~MW