Lep Course, Final Update

A very late final Arizona update…  My apologies!  The Tundra is just so busy!! 

OK, so I left off on Thursday of last week.  I’m so sorry I didn’t update y’all right after we got back from collecting in the desert!!  Why??  Because, it. was. awesome!!!  We all got some really great moths for our collections among other things (I found a bristle tail!  Baller!!  I’ve never seen one in real life and those things are triiiicky to catch – so jumpy!).  I must say, that the highlight of my night, and nearly of the week, happened back at the station, though.

Once we got back to the station we all started processing some of the goodies we picked up in the desert and I decided to “just go check” and see what the station sheets brought in, since we had decided to let those run while we were in the desert.  As I was walking up the hill to check one of my favorite sites I started to realize something: “I’m an idiot!  There are mountain lions out here and I’m going by myself to look at a stupid sheet hung between two trees with a light to try to find some moths…I’ve lost my marbles, officially…”  So, upon that realization you would have thought I would have turned around, right?  One would think, but no I had already committed and was a little over halfway to the sheet so I just flashed my head lamp around a whole lot as I walked and quickened my pace a little bit…as did my heart rate  ;)  I felt much better once I got to the sheet, for some reason the light of the mercury vapor lamp was comforting and made me feel safe (don’t ask why…I was crazy that night…blame it on the lack of sleep??).  I started on the front side of the sheet and got a few cuties then moseyed around to the back side of the sheet and grabbed a few more goodies.  While I was checking out the back of the sheet I saw something rather large land on the front side – all I could see was its silhouette, and I had no idea what it could have been.  The only things we had been seeing of that size were sphinx moths and knew without a doubt that it was not a sphinx.  So…naturally, I walked around to the other side of the sheet to see the beast.  Y’all…again, I nearly peed my pants.  It was a Dysschema howardi!!!  This beauty is the largest tiger moth member in North America!  And it is goooorgeous.  Typically moths of this size (same goes for most sphinx moths and a few others) aren’t killed using a kill jar…it takes them too long to settle down and they end up shredding their wings and just beating themselves to death instead of passing out first like the little guys.  So, for the sake of the moth and the preservation of the specimen we inject them to speed up the process.  I, however, of course, did not have a syringe on me…neeeeat.  So, what did I do??  Well, I couldn’t just leave it there!  It was the only one we had seen the entire week and the only one anyone had seen the entire summer – it, at the very least, needed to be documented.  So I plucked that pretty off the sheet with my fingers, gathered up my kill jars, and ran (yes, ran) down the hill back to the labs to find someone with more knowledge who could help me decide what to do with my gem.

When I got to the bottom of the hill I ran passed a number of my favorite mothers chillaxing at one of the picnic tables – I so wanted to stop but I was on a mission and I had to take care of the moth first  :)  When I got inside the lab room I saw that Hugh was in there – excellent!  Hugh was our course curator and he, like all of the instructors, has a wealth of knowledge about preserving specimens.  I ran over to him, held out my hand and said, “Hugh!  Help!”  He looked up from his scope and just about fell out of his chair, looked at me with the biggest grin and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”  All I could do was shake my head in response.  He stands up and says, “To the lab!”  We ran down to his curation lab where he had all of his supplies stored and he did the deed for me, preserving my beauty in perfect condition.  Hugh injects with ammonia, instead of ethanol, because it works immediately (seriously, the thing was out in about half a second) and keeps the specimen pliable for longer – allowing for a smoother mounting and spreading process (mounting: placing the specimen on a pin; spreading: spreading the wings into a position that reveals the color patterns and morphological characters…also makes them pretty to look at).  **sigh**  My moth was taken care of and after asking Hugh if he needed her for the station’s synoptic collection and him assuring me that the male-female pair in the collection would suffice and that the moth was all mine and if anyone tried to take her away from that he would set them straight we marked back to the course labs and we showed her off to everyone.  It was pretty humorous…people started coming out from the woodwork it seemed!  From that moment on one of three things happened pre-collecting each night: (1) people threatened to hog-tie me so that I couldn’t get the good ones before them (there were a few other beauties I had in my possession that people were jealous of…), (2) people wanted to rub some of my luck onto them, (3) people wanted to make sure that I was at their sheet while we were collecting.  It was pretty funny.

OK, enough ogling over my moth collection…  ;)

The rest of the trip was just as incredible as the first half was.  It was such a blessing to be able to be in the presence of and build relationships with the lep gurus of today.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t star-struck the entire week.  I now have some remarkable friends and connections to help me along as I continue in the field…at least for the next two years.  Again, I’d be lying if I said that this last week didn’t make me want to reconsider the idea of finishing my master’s and moving forward to get a PhD in the field…I really do enjoy research.  And the collaboration that goes along with the community is so fun and allows for a broadening of knowledge that is priceless.  I think I’d be much happier in a museum position than I would be in a professorship, though.  But, I still have at least 2 years to figure out all of that, for now I am enjoying my time in the community and enjoying my project.  I got a lot of pointers and clues about my group while I was I AZ, as well.  Like I said, priceless.

Our last official night of the course (there was a scheduling faux pas and all of the instructors headed out a day before the students were told to leave…woops!) was an absolute blast (surprised, much?).  After dinner we all piled into vans and trucks and made our way over to New Mexico for some non-collecting fun at the Rodeo Tavern.  The instructors had been talking this place up all week, so by the time Saturday night arrived we were all beyond excited to finally make our way to the little hole-in-the-wall.

This place was a hoot!  We upped the customer count by about 5 times…and so probably doubled their weekly earnings!  It was fun watching the locals watch us – a few of those cowboys tried to play it smooth on the dance floor, too, it was too funny.  But those locals sure knew how to play pool!  I don’t think our people (and we actually had some really good players) won but one match against those cowboys.  We all took a couple turns around the dance floor – I even got out there a couple times.  I tried to tell Jim that just because I’m from Texas does not mean that I know how to two-step…he laughed and pulled me out onto the floor anyways.  We decided to blame my lack of dancing skills on the fact that I was wearing chacos – that’s right, two-stepping in chacos.  How’s that for a mental image??  Gotta love entomologists, am I right?  We closed the tavern down (at about midnight…who closes that early??) and headed back to the station to continue our final hoorah before a good chunk of people left the next day.  I think we finally called it a night around 2 or 3am…so just about right on time for most of us!

Sunday consisted of clean-up, packing, and farewells…talk about depressing.  It was like being at summer camp and leaving all those awesome new friends and counselors who had been your life for that last week.  Isn’t it amazing how quickly people can get to know each other and build relationships when you’re surrounded by each other 24-7?  I just love that about people.  Oh!  I almost forgot!  I got up extra early Sunday morning to hit the road with Hugh.  He had set up a few extra light traps out and about the desert and other areas Saturday night and I told him I would help him take them down.  So we headed out around 6am and started collecting traps.  We had a great time driving around on empty, gathering the traps, and chatting the early morning away.  We got back just in time to catch the tail-end of breakfast and then set to sorting the traps with everyone for one final moth search before we got the clean-up and farewells.  In those traps is where I found my second Euchaetes zella!!  It was my last once-over on a whim at one of the traps I hadn’t picked through yet and caught the corner of a wing out of the corner of my eye and thought, “No way that’s a zella…”  I picked it out from under a couple other moths, flipped it over and, sure enough, it was indeed a zella!  It was rather thrilling, to say the least.

Sigh…I still can’t believe that week is over and I’m back in the Tundra getting back to the old grind…  I so wanted to stay in that hidden-away oasis.  It was so refreshing to be unplugged for that week with some internet access here and there…when it decided to behave.  I never carried my phone on me…that never happens.  It’s practically glued to my pocket here.  I’m going to work on making it less of an appendage of my body.  I’ll still have it on and around, but I’m going to work on not having it a finger’s length away so much.  Aside from being unplugged that week in AZ was just what the doctor ordered for my mental and physical health.  It’s been a rather stressful summer on my front and I’m convinced that is why I’ve been feeling so poorly the last few months (headaches, body aches, migraines, etc…).  By the second day-in in those gorgeous mountains I was feeling so good, even though I wasn’t sleeping, that it was a no-brainer…stress = bad news bears!  Everyone needs to really stop and leave the stressors for some amount of time – even if it’s only a day or two.  I also need to be better about eating full meals…it didn’t matter how tired and run-down I was going into a meal at the station, by the time I left the mess hall I was feeling completely re-energized and ready to tackle some more moths!  Lesson learned…I need to rest and I need to eat (better). 

Well, now that I’m back home I’ve been processing my specimens from AZ (once they are all spread I'll show y'all the goods!) and trying to get back into the swing of life in the city.  The moving process has also begun.  We got most of Megan and Justin’s things moved yesterday and today we are taking the bulk of my stuff.  We can’t move into the house until Thursday, but we have access to the garage for now, so we’ve been piling as much into that as we can while we have access to Justin’s parents’ truck and trailer.

And, with that, dear ones, I’m off to get back to the packing!  Can’t wait to give y’all a “tour” of the new place once we are all settled in,

Praying your Sunday is a blessed one.

Lots of love,

~MW

Lep Course, Day 5

18 Aug 2011

Why helloooo, there!

Ummm…wow…I canNOT believe that it is already Thursday!!!  How did this happen?!?!  Time is so fleeting, per usual.

Mercy it’s been a long week, though.

So, remember that time we were supposed to have lectures and such until 2am?  Well, that plan changed a little bit, but not in my favor.  The lectures got moved around and so we were left to collecting circa midnight.  At this point, I decided that I was going to grab a couple hours of sleep and get up at 2am to go hunt down some moths for a couple hours and then head back to bed.  And, that my dear ones is exactly what I did…well, sort of…

I got up at 2am, sans alam clock even!  How that happened, I have no idea.  Anyways, I went off hunting and actually happened across a fair bit of stuff that I hadn’t seen/collected yet, so that was super exciting.  But…haha….here’s where my plan changed…I ended up staying out until 6am.  Yep…6am, folks.  Dedication?  Maybe…probably more insanity  ;)  I was looking super intensely for some of my moths, but, alas, I did not find a single one.  I found a member of one of my outgroups…but no Euchaetes.  Booo….   I was not happy.  Especially when I realized it was 6am and was just going to bed – yeah, breakfast is at 7:30, ha! 

Needless to say, that made yesterday an incredibly long day.  I had to duck out during one of our wetlabs (it was dissecting…I’m solid there, but seeing other techniques would have been nice, nonetheless) to catch a couple hours of sleep.  Even after that I was a total zombie. 

Overall yesterday was a good day – lots of talk about morphology (my favorite!) and all that jazz, so it was fun for me.  It was also nice to have a little bit of a leg up to help out some of the other people here who haven’t done dissections or gone through the morphology all that much yet.  Yay, teaching!

Collecting last night was slow, but OUTSTANDING!!

Y’all, I caught a Euchaetes!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just one, and it’s the only one I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been here (5 days already!), but it’s a Euchaetes!!  Euchaetes zella, to be exact.  It’s one of my favorite species in the genus.  It’s a little more petite than most and has the super distinctive whit darts on the forewings which are a dusty deep chocolatey-almost-black-brown (I know, I need to come up with a more solid color description…it’ll get there), and pale white-cream hindwings.  The abdomen on these critters is gorgeous – it’s a strikingly vivid orange-ish red with the tell-tale-Euchaetes black spots running down the midline and the sides of the abdomen.  Ahhh…I saw that beauty fly up to the sheet and I just about peed my pants!  It is now safely pinned and stored away in my insect box.  The only sad thing about this story is that zella is a species that I have a fair number of representatives of already, but, fresh material is always exciting and it proves, in real time, that my guys are here…it’s just a matter of finding them  :)  I stumbled across a number of other pretty little things last night as well.  So overall, the diversity was up, though the numbers were low.

We all called it a fairly early night and was thrilled to jump in bed at midnight clean and satisfied with a good night of collecting.

Today has been a pretty easy day.  We had a few lectures this morning and then went on a butterfly walk and I was lucky enough to come home with a couple beauties to add to my collection and family representation count (we’re supposed to have a minimum of 25 families in our collections by the end of the course, I’m up to about 18-20, almost there!).  More lectures took up the rest of the day and now it’s just about dinner time (yay, food!!!)  After dinner we are heading out to the desert for collecting and then might close the night at the Rodeo Bar that is near the site we are collecting at.

Here’s to another night of good collecting and finding more Euchaetes!!

Hope all is well in your realms!

‘Til next time,

~MW

Lep Course, Day 3

16 Aug 2011

Whew!  What a couple of days this has been!  The half day we had at the station on Sunday was pretty chill (and by pretty I mean extremely…) in comparison to Monday and today.  Heavens, all I want is sleep, but there simply isn’t time for that here.

We start our days bright and early.  Breakfast is at 7:30, so I’ve been getting up around 6 to look over some notes and things and mentally prepare for the bombardment of information that will accost my brain come 8am.  ***I’m going to have to start getting up earlier, though…I’ll need to start going around to the sheets and traps in the eeeearly, daaark mornings to hunt down the moths that don’t come out until later in the night.***  We have been doing a lecture or two in the mornings and then heading out for some good hours of field collecting (3-4hrs has been the norm thus far) outside of the research station grounds.  It’s been a lot of fun to drive even 20min and see an incredible difference in fauna and flora, not to mention terrain.  We eat lunch somewhere in there and then hit the lectures or field again.  Then there’s dinner and then maybe another lecture and, of course, the highlight of our day: major collecting!! 

Since the majority of Lepidoptera are nocturnal moths (though there are a number of diurnal or day-flying moths) the best collecting (unless you are hunting butterflies specifically) is at night at a light.  We use various different bulbs with white sheets set up behind them to help attract our moths…and of course anything else that sees our wondrous orbs and simply can’t stay away  ;)   There actually has been a fair bit of insect diversity which has been a lot of fun for those of us who don’t consider every order outside of Lepidoptera as “trash.”  I’ve seen a fair number of scarab beetles and tons of other beetle, ichneumonid wasps, caddisflies, mantid flies (!!), true flies, stink bugs and other hemiptera, leafhoppers and other homoptera/heteroptera, antlion adults (!!), and much, much more.  And, yes, I have most definitely snagged a few of those lovely specimens  :)  I even got a solifuge (I’ve never seen one alive – I totally let the cutie feed on a couple moths before I tossed it in some EtOH) and held a wicked awesome whip scorpion (this thing was as big as my hand – so sweet!)!!!  It’s been quite the exciting trip even outside of all of the lep awesomeness.  I’ve been able to collect a few members of my subfamily of moth, but none of my actual critters yet…it’s OK, I still have 4 more days after today to snatch some up!

We have been focusing more on caterpillars today which has been great fun – they’re such cuties.  It’s always remarkable to me how these creatures can often times go from a super showy caterpillar to a severely drab moth and vice-versa.  Not to mention the changes various caterpillars go through!  It’s like looking at a completely different animal at each instar (molt) for so many of these guys!  If any of y’all are interested in looking at some way pretty pictures of caterpillars check out Dave Wagner’s Caterpillars of Eastern North America.  It’s an incredible field guide…worth every penny.  And!  I now get to say that I have collected caterpillars with Dave Wagner (living the dream!!!)!!!  I feel super privileged to be able to say that.  He knows so much!  I’ve been blown away.

It’s been an intense day of lectures and collecting…and when I think about what else we have lined up for today I’m realizing that today (even though it’s 5:30pm here) is really just beginning.  After dinner, at 7:30, we go back to the drawing boards and embark on an all-nighter of lectures and collecting.  Meaning, we don’t even have the option of going to bed until 2am.  Yeeeeowzas!  Tomorrow is definitely going to be a loooong day, haha.  It’ll be worth it, but I’m definitely going to need to take a day or two to recover once I get back to the Tundra.  I’ve been crawling into bed between midnight and 1am the last two nights, but that extra hour of brain use pre-shower, pre-bed is going to be rough, y’all.  For knowledge!!  Haha.

Alrighty, kids, I’m off to snag a quick nap so I can study and begin processing the onslaught of info that has been the last 2.5 days before it’s rock’n’roll time again  :)

I’ll keep the updates coming as long as time and the internet allows.

Praying all is well!

Shalom,
~MW

Helloooooooo, AZ!!!

Hello, my happy readers  :)

Praying this Sunday finds you well and enjoying your weekend.

As you might remember from a previous post (I’m typing in the airport and internet access is lame…so links and such probably won’t be happening for this post.) I had a trip planned for this month - a trip to Arizona for field work and a course on Lepidoptera.  Well, I’m off!  Got the critters carted off to their respective caretakers (Thanks so much Amy & Tony; Matt and Judy & Dex!) for the week and I was carted off to the airport bright and early (Thanks Christine!). 

The first leg of the trip went without a hitch.  Flight was smooth and on time and now I’m sitting in DFW waiting for my 12:45p flight to Tucson.  Once I arrive in Tucson there’s supposed to be an airport pick-up waiting to take me, and anyone else arriving today, to the Southwestern Research Station in Portal.  Who I am supposed to be looking for, however, I have no clue.  It’ll be an adventure!

It’s pretty depressing being in DFW and not being able to walk out that exit door or catch a flight to somewhere else in TX…cruel…just plain cruel.  I’m hoping that the return trip on the 22^nd will afford me the opportunity to see some Texas loves who might make the trek to the airport to see me since I have a 3hr layover   =)   **hint, hint**

I’m not too certain as to what this trip will entail as we haven’t really received any info regarding what we will be doing…just a, “Don’t forget sunscreen” message.  So…we shall see!

I am excited to meet other people working on leps and make connections with them that might help me with my project or undertakings in the future – plus, it’s just fun to meet people you share some sort of interest with.

Things have been busy, busy, busy on the Tundra front, but all is definitely well.  It’s very bitter-sweet to start thinking about moving in a few weeks.  While I’m super excited about the new place and adventuring the year with my new roommates, I’m quite sad to leave my current abode.  I just love that it’s my space.  It’s all decorated the way I like things and it just feels like home.  I’ll miss routine there as well.  But!  All good things do come to an end, and generally something else steps up and fills their place just fine.  I am quite excited to build a new routine at the new house and to collaborate with Meg about decorating, etc…we highly doubt Justin will have anything to say about anything we do.  As long as he has his projector room he’ll be happy as a lark  :)   It will also be especially nice for Jake to have more space and not have to worry about running into other doggies in the play pen.  Plus, the place is simply beautiful…I mean really, really beautiful.  Yay newness!

OK, all, laptop is about to die and I don’t feel like packing everything up to go find an outlet…

Until Arizona!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have arrived!  Found the airport pick-up meeting place after using my resourcefulness and looking up the number for the research station to find out (Apparently an email went out with loooads of info…I never got it.  But!  At least my name was on the airport pickup list!) who/where we were supposed to meet.  Got the info and made it to the meeting place just fine.  From there we all piled into a 15-passeneger van and made the 2-2.5ish hour (Maybe more?  I was too busy oogling over the mountains and beautiful nature through my window) trek to the research station from Tucson.  We actually ended up passing through New Mexico for about 30min (ish?) since the shortcut road was all washed out from the rains.  4 states in one day (MN, TX, AZ, NM)!! 

The research station is beautiful.  I mean, beeeeautiful.  It doesn’t look or feel like anything I would ever imagine for Arizona, other than all of the rocky mountains.  Gah!  I so wish I had a camera!!!  Im hoping I can get some of the people here to share some of their snapshots with me so I can show all y’all eventually.

Once at the station I had a little time to unpack my gear and toss it all neatly into some under-the-bed drawers (it’s like being at summer camp!) and chatted with my bunkmates for a little bit.  I actually know two of the girls and they happen to be collaborators on the overarching project that my project is a part of.  They’re grad students of one of my committee members, JZ, over in Wisconsin.  It was nice to see some familiar faces.  I also got to visit with JZ for a good spell and then we went to set up a trap before dinner.  Dinner was pretty tasty – complete with brownie sundaes!  Deeelish.

We have a little bit of downtime now and then we’ll head off for a big info meeting type deal and from the sounds of it, collecting!!

Internet is pretty spotty here, so blog posts, answers to emails, etc. will be posted when possible.  There is absolutely NO cell reception however…so, if any of you beautiful people need me at all this week, your best bet will be to email/facebook/etc. me.

Happy Sunday, loves!

Shalom!
~MW

Ho-Hum...it's Monday...

Greetings, all.

So...as I am certain most of you have figured out...today is Monday.  Monday, Monday, Monday...you always come too quickly and last far too long.  Just sayin'.

Anywho, I have a ton of things I've been needing to blog about: the close of my second semester of grad school, summer, some things I've learned in the last year or so...the list goes on.  But, tonight, as it will most definitely be after 9 by the time I finish this post and I would like to get to bed a reasonable hour tonight, I think I'm just going to make this a short and sweet update.

Last week was hectic, but good.

Wrapping up the loose ends from BioBlitz, curating all of the specimens we collected in those 24hrs (with some help from the Chanimal - thanks, yo!), and undertaking the task of rearing moths after finding myself with a large amount of moth eggs on my hands kept me buuuusy! 

Aside from all of that I wrestled with Biota2 as I attempted the supposedly simple task of transferring my PC files to our lab MAC.  This used to be a simple, painless task...back in 2002...but, of course, the converter hasn't been updated since then and is no longer supported on Leopard or Snow Leopard.  Neat.  Thanks 4D for not staying on top of that...sigh.  So, after an ordeal of uninstalling and re-installing the software on my laptop (just in case something got messed up during the initial installation...it didn't), RW came to the realization that he had lost his license number for the program...awesome.  So, I called up the distributor to see if maybe, just maybe they could look it up for us - they could!  And they did!!  Whoop! 

They sent us the codes late Friday so I was able to get everything rolling again this morning.  But, I still have the issue of needing to take my database files between a PC and MAC.  So, first thing (OK, maybe 2nd or 3rd thing) tomorrow I'm calling them up again to see if there is a new way around this issue, if not...SW said she'd buy "me" a new MAC for the lab!!!  Holla!  Can I just stumble upon a ridiculously large amount of discarded cash so I can buy my own MAC???  Maybe?  Not likely?  Dang...worth a shot.  So, I'll let you know what happens there, because if the company says there's no solution SW said she'll purchase the new comp before the week is up.  {I kind of really want this latter option to happen...I know...I'm a terrible person.}

The caterpillars are...well...not fairing so well  :(  I walked in this morning to find large amounts of them...shriveled up and dead, dead, dead...depressing first thing on a Monday morning.  I talked to SW about it and she exclaimed in apology for not mentioning that they should have been transferred to a tupperware container to ensure that they didn't suffer from dessication.  Even though there were moist maple leaves and a damp paper towel in the net-cage...the air inside the building was still to dry.  Blast!  Ah well, learning experience.  There are a few survivors who are now nestled safely in a tupperware container...so we'll see how they look in the morning.  Fingers crossed!


Backing up a few days now.

Friday was the day I the majority of the fighting with Biota, but I was (pleasantly and humorously) interrupted from that battle by a text from SW that read something along the lines of:

I may need some salad

and photo board help. Do

you have time today? 

Headed home with the fixings 

and will call when I get there.

Thanks life preserver!

Haha...OK, so here's some background on that text.  Her oldest graduated from high school a week or two ago (it was actually a pretty fun graduation ceremony!!).  The graduation party was scheduled for Saturday the 18th.  SW was out of town through Wednesday of that week...talk about a brave mom!  Anywho, the 3 "men" of the house neglected to get any of the to-do list she had left from them to do for the week that she was gone so that she could focus on the actual party details once she came back in town.  Panic ensued on Thursday (I got a text that day saying she would see me Friday if she weren't jailed for killing offspring first!  Ha!  Gotta love it.).  I offered to help her with anything between Thursday and Saturday...and so came the text on Friday.  

After I got home from the lab I ran Jakers around for a bit and then packed up my crafting supplies and headed out to her place.  I had hardly made it through the door when her husband exclaimed, "Oh thank goodness you're here!  You're co-advisor is about to go insane!!!!!"  Hahahahaha...yes, I laughed outloud and saw the agreement mixed with furry in SW's eyes...poor woman - she was spent and still had dinner to make...for her family and 3 guests (they had two ornithologists (her hubs is an ornithologist) staying with them that night and then there was me).  I ushered her out of the kitchen and into the dinning room where there were mounds of photographs and poster board strewn about.  I told her as long as she gave me an idea of what she was going for I would do my best to finish the photo boards and then move on to whatever other task she needed done.  I thought she was going to cry out of sheer gratitude!  She set to making dinner and I put the photo boards together.  And then...we all sat down to a lovely dinner of grilled venison steaks with grilled veggies and potatoes...complete with a glass of wine - perfection.  Once dinner was over the boys all headed to the den and SW and I hung out in the kitchen and had girl time.  It was positively delightful.

Saturday was another full day!  It started with an egg roll making party at my place (Ummm...so awesome...and no...I didn't take any pictures.  I know!  I'm sorry!!!) which took a good part of the day and then we stuffed our faces with a ton of egg rolls.  We made somewhere in the range of 70-80...there were 12 left...There were about 8 of us altogether...ha.  After that ordeal came to a close a number of us made the trek over to SW's for the graduation party, complete with much more food....and....CAKE POPS!!!!  We all slept well that night.

Sunday was another day, but a blessed one at that.  I got to visit with Skate and talk to my pops and see all of my loves at church.  Win, win, win!

There's the latest and greatest...how's that for short?  Ha...I just kept remembering more and more things that I felt were blog worthy!!  

OK, for reals, I'm closing this post with a farewell and good night.

Praying blessings upon you.

Shalm,

~MW

JOYS!

Happy Sunday, lovelies.

"The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation"

Ps. 18:46

What a beautiful promise: The LORD lives.  How awesome is that?!  That right there is enough to make any day a joyful one.

It's a wonderfully dreary, drizzly, overcast day here in the Soggy Tundra.  That's right...it's finally beginning to melt, which makes for quite a soggy time right now.  But, I love it!  Momma, it feels more and more like I'm living in a Beatrix Potter story every day - and I absolutely love it!  I don't love the 5-10min it takes me to wipe down Jakers after we come in from a stroll outside, but I can deal with that  :)  I'm really enjoying the unveiling of spring here.  It's so refreshing and beautiful.  Don't get me wrong, we still have mountains of snow all over the place, but they are beginning to melt and there are patches of green grass and green mosses all over the place right now.  And, the chickadees...they are everywhere!  I've even heard a few gaggles of geese flying overhead the last week.  SPRING IS IN THE AIR!  Glory!

OK, clearly I love this season change and could talk about it forever, so I will digress  :)

How about some joys?  Sound like a plan?  Grood  :)


Monday, 7 March 2011 - RH lectured about Hymenoptera...seriously made my day.

Tuesday, 8 March 2011 - Free lunch for the grad students!!  Hooray! for guest seminar speakers  :)

Wednesday, 9 March 2011 - Had a hilarious conversations with the Markster all via email subject lines...seriously made my day...we are that kind of nerdy up here, haha.

Thursday, 10 March 2011 - One final go 'round with the Linnaean Games team before NCB...we always have a blast at our practices...man, I'm a nerd  ;)

Friday, 11 March 2011 - Took a nap!!  And it was glorious.

Saturday, 12 March 2011 - Spring cleaning!  Dusted, swept, mopped, cleaned windows, the whole shebang...always makes me happy as a lark. And, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARKSTER!

Sunday, 13 March 2011 - Day one of NCB!!  It was super fun to see some old, familiar faces and all the new ones filling up the conference center.  Even though we got totally served at the Linnaean Games that was still a blast, as well.

Monday, 14 March 2011 - Poster presentation? Check!  It went really well and I had a blast talking about my long lost wasps...you can think I'm crazy, it's fine  ;)

Tuesday, 15 March 2011 - UMN took home 5 awards at the awards ceremony!  Two for some 10min talks, and three for posters.  Represent!

Wednesday, 16 March 2011 - Phone date with Dr. Wharton.  He always brightens my day  :)

Thursday, 17 March 2011 - St. Paddy's Day!!!  Making meals with friends is always wonderful.

Friday, 18 March 2011 - Stroll through the woods with the pup and good friends.

Saturday, 19 March 2011 - Coffee date with Christine.  Oh how I do love my German  :)



And there you have it, lovelies.  Two weeks of joy!

What's been bringing joy to your life lately?

Be blessed in the Lord!
~MW

All that I know is I'm breathing....

  **Deeeeep breath**

What a crazy couple of months or so it has been up here in the FT.

Sometimes I feel like my life is moving so fast that I wake up some mornings and I can't remember the day before or what day it is or what I have on the docket for that day.

Sometimes I feel like I'm simply going through the motions and that I have forgotten why I am where I am, and why I'm doing what I am doing.

Sometimes I have so much to do, that I just can't sleep.  I can't turn off my brain.

Sometimes I just want to disappear into the North Woods and simply be and be with my God...I haven't been the best daughter of late.

Sometimes I think I forget to breathe...

But I do know that I am still breathing...and right now that's about all I feel that I can do.

This semester is proving to be busier than I could have ever imagined.  Courses are proving to be heavier than expected (by myself and SW...she's just as surprised as I am, thankfully); the to-do list regarding my research seems to be growing daily; I have loan specimens coming in from all over North America on just about a weekly basis - and, processing them is extremely time consuming; forming a committee is turning out to be quite trying; getting prepped for my first committee meeting means I have to have a bunch of stuff written up about myself, my research, etc.; the whole department is getting ready for the ESA-NCB meeting in March - which means we have to get our abstracts written and submitted by then end of this week, and then actually preparing our posters/talks, a number of us students are busy studying and practicing for the Linnaean Games (kind of like an ento quiz bowl), and then there's always the general prep that comes with hosting a meeting (yay...); we are about to be busy getting ready for the prospective student "Welcome Weekend" the end of March; there are number of outreach opportunities coming up that we students will be busy with; oh, and fellowship/grant applications are all due here in a couple of weeks; oh, and that thing called a social life...trying to keep that one going too; and church is getting busy in the best possible way (we start small groups this week!!).  Whew!  As a result of all of that, I feel like I have been a neglectful daughter, sister, student, friend, girlfriend, etc.  The days leave me so incredibly exhausted that all I want to do is fall into bed and sleep, but I simply do not have the time to do that, and even when I do finally let myself fall into that dreamy bed of mine I find no rest.  I'm tired.  I'm spent.  As Bilbo Baggins would put it, " I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread."  I'm ready for this semester to be over.  Even though I am so incredibly happy and blessed here - so incredibly blessed, I cannot even begin to explain.  I am simply ready for the "lazy" summer (haha...funny joke) to arrive so that I can go home for Mak and Wes's hitching day, play with my moths and actually get research done, make another trip home for when Jake and the Stones come home from Africa, head back up to the FT to do MORE research (!!!), go to Arizona to learn about collecting and prepping leps for a couple of weeks (!!!), help Panda get settled in (he's been accepted here at the U!!!) and hopefully do the same with Jake, maybe take a few museum trips with SW to look at type specimens, aaaand go camping and collecting (!!!) with RH and Frenatae amongst and between the other events of the summer.  I'm just ready to be done with classes, really.

But!  My God is not tired, He is not spent, and I can find rest, comfort, and peace in that promise.  He is never failing.  Even when I feel like I simply cannot keep moving, He carries me along.  How beautiful it is to know that being a daughter of the King means that even when I fall down (which is quite often) He is always there and ready to pick me back up again and help me dust off my hands and knees, pour peroxide and rub ointment on the scrapes, and bandage them up for me.

I love my God and I love that He loves me unconditionally...scrapes, bruises, scars, and all  :)

Speaking of scars, I've been dealing with some of those lately...old experiences/memories/heartaches have been floating above my head and lingering there.  It's frustrating at times, but forces me to stop and remember how much I have learned and grown through those experiences and how blessed I am to now have that wisdom and knowledge that I probably would not posses otherwise.

What funny things scars are.  I don't think you can really ever forget where one came from.  It's interesting to me how different scars are from bruises.  You can find a bruise and have no clue how it got there, but the deep wounds that result in scars are incredibly difficult to miss.  I find it funny, too, that scars don't have to be, necessarily, tied to a bad experience.  Some of my scars remind me of awesome runs on the mountain bike trails, or running around llama farms as a kid, or some of the best performances from my ballet days; while others remind me of running into things or wrestling with kittens at the vet clinic (kittens are eeeeevil!!!  Cute...but eeeeeevil!!!).  Now, those are all physical scars of the flesh, but I think the same can be true for emotional/spiritual scars.  I have scars from mission trips where I saw such unbelievable poverty that pieces of my heart were tugged away, but the experience was so beautiful in seeing people abandon themselves recklessly at the feet of Christ, and seeing myself and the other people on the trips with me grow in their faith and relationship with the Lord, that those scars remind of beautiful things along with the heartbreak.  And, of course, other scars are simply reminders of heartbreak.  Can't be helped.  But, I digress.

Things really have been exhaustingly (it's a word...promise...thank you, English language for being absurdly ridiculous so as to allow us to pretty much make any word we want into a "real word"!) wonderful here.  I had one of the best birthday weeks I have ever had - it's definitely going down in the record books as one of the best.  I was surprised by many of you with little cards and messages and gifts throughout all of that week (THANK YOU!!), and a few are still trickling in!  Y'all are awesome.  I received some of the most breathtakingly beautiful orchids from Jake...RH made me go pick them up from the office and bring them to class with me, haha...everyone was quite impressed.  And, I am very pleased to say, that they are still alive and well in their little vase in the Insect Museum - everyone gets to enjoy them on a daily basis.  I really want to try and sprout one or two of the spikes...I need to look into that or run by Linder's and talk to the plant people to get their thoughts and suggestions on that undertaking.  Anyways, I was also surprised by the Bug Dork crew up here with a fantastic dinner part at Chino-Latino!  I don't think that I have ever been so surprised before.  Megan did an awesome job of pulling it all together, and everyone here was amazing at keeping me totally and completely clueless, well done, kids, well done  :)  Once those pictures get forwarded to me I'll throw some up.  We had a blast...though we all paid for it a bit the next morning...it was definitely worth the mid-week late night.  That Saturday RH and a number of us Bug Dorks took on the frozen waters of Lake Owasso and went ICE FISHING!  We had a great time, despite not catching a thing.  So fun.  Really...haha.  And then, Sunday, of course, we had a rockin' Super Bowl party.  SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!  It was glorious.


This weekend everyone seems to be catching up from last weekend, haha.  We were all rather unproductive on the school/research front.

So things have been busy, stressful, crazy, but wonderful all at the same time.  I'll try to post some pictures later on, but for now I need to get back to work.  I have grant drafts and abstracts to finish by tomorrow.

Praying all is wonderfully with you, my lovelies.

Shalom!
~MW

P.S. - I promise I haven't forgotten about finishing the new blog layout...it was either work on the layout or write a post this weekend - I figured you would all rather have an update  :)  I'll get to it...eventually, promise!

P.P.S. - I almost forgot to share this little gem with y'all!  This little article about 20 Obsolete English Words that Should Make a Comeback is pretty amazing -  and, I vote we start using these words again  :)   Also, MY BIG BROTHER IS FAMOUS!  Check out this little article talking about his new band Shivaree (it talks about some other bands, as well, but Shivaree is the best...of course!).  Check out some of their songs - they are way fun...raw recordings, but still awesome  :)

I am in love.

Ok readers...don't fall over out of shock from reading my title yet. I'm not in love with someone but, I am in love with something.

What am I in love with??? Well, I need to address something first, so you will have to wait!! Hahaha! Please don't leave!!!!! Just bare with me for a few minutes here. Thanks, you're the best readers, ever!

OK, here is what I need to say: THANK YOU!!! My deepest and most sincere thanks to all of you who so encouragingly responded to my post yesterday. I seriously cannot imagine life without you all to continuously lift me up. God is SO SO good to me. He never stops reminding me how much He loves me through the people He has surrounded me with...even if we aren't near to each other physically. So, thank you all 100 times over for lifting me up - I can't even begin to explain to you how much it means to me to have you by my side.

OK...now for my love interest!! So, as most of you know, either from talking to me or from yesterday's post, I had the amazing opportunity to spend time with a Boy Scout troop last night, teaching them about the wonderful world of bugs. I had the time of my life, kids. The absolute time of my life! I have certainly found my calling. I am, without a doubt, a teacher. It's so funny, because all through my life I've had people tell me I should be a teacher, but I always thought they were crazy - like, certifiable! But, as most of you know, about two years ago I started falling in love with science outreach education...say, what?? Well, as much as I enjoyed my times with the kids in CS, I never lead something on my own - I was never the actual teacher. I've only ever been like, oh what would you call it...? An engager, maybe?? Basically, I did all the fun stuff - playing with the bugs with the kids, flipping through picture books with them, looking through microscopes with them, stuff like that. I never stood in front of them and actually taught a lesson.

Well, last night, that's what I did - ALL BY MYSELF!!! {And some wonderful advice and suggestions from KReddick, of course...not to mention prayers that I'm certain went up to the Lord for me, because I definitely felt His hand in it.} It went wonderfully well, I am very happy to say. It was definitely a task, putting together a presentation for the kids and coming up with something (on the fly...yeah, I didn't get to prepare an actual talk...yikes!) that would be interesting and engaging for the kids. Well, I'm going to go ahead and say that I did a decent job, because those kids had question after question, after question!! It was so great!! One thing I am going to have to figure out though, is how to get around answering some of those questions...maybe I should show them boring pictures of insects instead of cool ones...kidding! But, I had slides for a 20min, 30min tops, presentation...it took almost an hour!! They had soooo many questions! Even the parents were asking questions. They loved getting to look at the specimens I brought and Tevye and Little Bubba, my darling MHC (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches), were a big hit. Like I told my mom: there were 3 categories of reactions to my MHCs, 1) CAN I HOLD ONE?!?! Please?!?! 2) Uuuhh.....I want to touch it...but I'm reeeeally kinda nervous...ok, I'll at least pet it 3) I'm just going to peer over everyone, catch a glimpse and not get any closer, thanks. Haha, it was great. I couldn't get any of the parents to touch them...I was kind of bummed about that. Ah, I had so much fun!! I loved it. I was definitely born to do this. I cannot wait to do it again. This was definitely a "merry adventure."

Oh, I think at some point I'm going to go on a collecting trip with the Boy Scouts and maybe have a merit badge day were we work on some of the projects they have to do for their insect merit badge.

On a side note, last night gave me the confidence I was lacking for my first day of subbing coming up on Friday. I'm subbing at my high school...weird...for the art teacher. I was, and still am a little, really nervous about it, since I haven't ever been in that teacher/authority position. Now, I know, I know, subs get the short end of the stick a lot when it comes to respect and stuff like that, but after last night going so well, I'm much more confident and excited about Friday. Wish me luck! I'll take prayers too :)

Well, that's about all I have to report - I am definitely in much higher spirits than I was when I wrote my last post. Funny, how and hour, or less, of something joyful is sometimes all it takes to lift you out of your slump. I'm off to make myself presentable for the day and go galevanting around with The Mamma.

Blessings to all. Shalom!
~MW

Birthdays to Boy Scouts

Hello my happy readers. I trust you are all fairing well on this {for me} gloriously rainy Monday. I do apologize for having not updated in a while...it's just been one of those weeks...you know, the kind of week where you just don't want to do anything and so you don't and thus have nothing to report and your brain is kind of void of any form of coherent thought...yeah, it was one of those.

So, Tuesday was my birthday, and I must take a moment now to thank each and every one of you who took the time to call/txt/email/facebook me to send me your thoughts, wishes, and love - definitely made my not so thrilling day a blessed one. This was a very strange birthday for me. For as long as I can remember I've had friends around either day of, or shortly there after, to celebrate with me...and, for the first time in my 23yrs I didn't have any of my beloved friends with me. Don't get me wrong, being with my family was definitely nice, but this birthday made me really realize how dearly I love my friends, and that they have truly become my family, and I miss them all dearly. So, I have been in a bit of a funk about that... This is no tantrum about not having a party or something ridiculous like that, this is simply my heart-breaking realization that I miss my friends much more than I thought I did. Thinking about all of this and reflecting then lead me to a terrible realization: next year is going to be even worse!!! I don't know anyone in MN...oi, if I thought this year was bad, I won't even have my family with me next year. I'd better toughen up and put on my big girl pants now, eh?? Ugh...can I just stick all of my friends in my pocket or a tupperware container and take them with me??

Well, that said, I must admit that I've been a little off this week, due to all the above..err...dwellings, I suppose we could call them. But, my family was so great. The Mamma made me dutch pancakes like she used to do when I was in high school...I did have to get up at 6:45 to partake with the fam, but it was totally worth it. The Mamma and I proceeded to munch on the leftovers throughout the rest of the day - heavenly! And then...I spent a rather hefty part of my afternoon {J-Hump, please overt your eyes...} window shopping online with Miss Ricci...it was awesome...we had so much fun! My evening consisted of a Valentine's Dinner Prep Meeting, followed by Bible study, and finally, my ultimate birthday present: the Season Premier of LOST!!! The only thing that could have made that better would have been being with all my peeps at the LOST party down in CS...I was definitely there in spirit.

Probably one of the best things I did last week was dig my rickety, I mean lovely old bike out of the garage give it some TLC and take it on a nice little 3mi ride. Nothing, huge, I know, but it was beyond great to take it out for a spin and do some work on it...I also discovered, that much as I had suspected, I am severely, severely, out of shape...working on remedying this situation :)

I did finally get my new phone on Friday! Oh, I am so in love with it...I have named him Reuel. Can anyone guess where that comes from?? You get a gold star if you can figure it out. :D

Saturday was quite a full day: took Faja to the airport, had a morning visit with Gela, Alyssa, and Samantha - that was simply delightful, had a mid-day coffee date with Lu - also wonderful. And then, my dear ones...I did it...I - CLEANED - my room!!! I still hadn't unpacked everything from moving up here in December...awful, I know. But it is now done, and it is awesome. Have some pictures us, and everyone seems to be happy. Mid cleaning though, I stopped to have a spot of tea and lost it...the missing all of my friends and not seeing my here-friends very often and not having a job/outlet finally got to me and I broke down. I simply felt lonely even though I had seen a ton of people that day, that might have been enough to put me over the edge. I felt better after allowing myself to put a label on what I was feeling instead of just pushing it under the rug and pretending like nothing was wrong. This is hard...that's about all there is to it.

Anyways, congrats to the Saints on their Superbowl win - props, kids. Although, I must confess that I boycotted the game with KT and went to Borders instead. It was nice to visit and sympathize with each other about feeling lonely.

But, now a new week has begun and it's off to a crazy start! Tonight I will be undertaking the task of teaching the local Boy Scouts of America troop about....you guessed it, BUGS!! I'm really excited about this, but pretty nervous, this will be my first outreach education endeavor all on my own. I brainstormed with KReddick last night and got some awesome ideas on organizing it all and cuing in to how the kids are responding to the subject matter. So, for the rest of today I will be polishing that up and getting ready for the kiddos! I had intended on taking another bike ride today, but the forecast is for rain...all...day...long, which I love just not when I had planned to be active. Ah well, such is life.

Best wishes for the new week to you all!

Shalom,
MW

Unpleasantly awakened.

So....I failed to mention something in my last entry, which is a sort of preface for this one, so I'll fill you in: I found a baby roach in my kitchen last night!!! Ok, let me be clear: I found a baby American Roach, NOT a baby Madagascan Hissing Roach - that would have made for a completely different story. American roaches are naaaaastay! They pretty much turn me into this little whimpy school girl who wants to die if one touches her. Yes, me, the entomologist is totally and completely GROSSED OUT by American roaches. Seriously, peeps, these things are crawling with germs and sick things so I highly recommend killing them dead on sight! *shudders* Well, let me continue with my story.

Circa 6:30 this lovely morning I am awakened by BigBoy (my big fluffy kitty) pouncing around my room. Initially I think nothing of it and figure he just has some wild, early morning hair. But as I groggily and blindly (glasses were in the bathroom...perfect.) watch him run and jump around I think to myself, "my, it sure does seem like he is chasing something real...." My stomach immediately sank as I recalled my horrifying experience in the kitchen last night: what if it's a roach..!?!?!? "Oh, this can NOT be happening!!! I cannot be having roaches running around my home!!!" So, I try to shine my cell phone light to see what he is chasing - because, I sure wasn't going to get out of bed and walk over to the light switch to flip on the light. When that fails I flip on my bedside lamp....BigBoy was, at this point, patting all around my jeans from yesterday. I'm thinking, "Great one of the few times I throw my clothes on the floor and there's going to be a roach running around in them" **seriously shudders**
Well, my fears were realized when I saw those two nasty little antennae followed by that horribly oblong, brown, crinkly (you know what I'm talking about if you've ever had a roaches legs stuck to you - alive, or dead), slimy body. I seriously wanted to cry - no joke. I know, I know, I'm a terrible excuse for an entomologist, but they just seriously freak me out!!!! thankfully in my laziness last night I also dropped my flip-flops on the floor right by my bed. I stealthily snatch up one of my flip-flops and wait in horrible anticipation for my villain to scurry *gulp* into reach of my "long arm." At this point if that nasty thing had somehow managed to touch me I have no doubt that I would have screamed like a little girl and most likely would have started bawling. *sigh* Finally the little devil comes close enough for me to whack it! So I do with all the force I can muster whilst awkwardly leaning out of my bed. Success!!! And I made contact! I am now rolled back over onto my bed, breathing deeply trying to chilax myself out so I can tromp across the apartment to get some paper towels to dispose of the nastiness that is legs-up on my bedroom floor, right in front of my bed. I suck it up and leap over the roach and promptly flip on ALL lights in the apartment to send any other lurkers into hiding (at this point I just would rather not know...) and make my way, cautiously, to the kitchen.
I come back to my room armed with TWO paper towels and a plastic grocery bag - this thing is NOT coming back to life, like roaches are notorious for doing, and wrecking havoc on my apartment/sleep again!!! After dancing around pathetically for a few moments I go in for the final kill and wrap up the nasty in my paper towels, flip the plastic bag over the bundle (I was definitely wearing the plastic bag as a glove...wow, I'm such a sad excuse for a 22-yr-old.), throw that bundle inside yet another plastic bag and tie that bag off about 20 times. *sigh* The deed is done, now I can go back to sleep. Except that now I am awake and can't figure out how exactly I want to go about sanitizing my carpets....Ugh, lame.

Well, needless to say that first order of business today is to go to the store and pick up roach traps/killing agents/something! Anything! This cannot and will NOT keep happening - this you can be assured of. Oh my, what a start to the day. Hopefully this doesn't set the tone for the entirety of the day...that would not be a good thing.

I am going to try to snooze for a little bit longer before I head into work since I didn't get to bed until about 2. Hooray for the return of my insomnia! If this keeps up for a few more days it's meds time, baby!

Happy Tuesday to all - I hope your day is roach-free!!

~MW

Dying!!! {in a good way}

The ceviche was TO DIE FOR!!!!!!!!!! Ok, just got called away, so I'll finish this later, but I just had to say :)


Ok, so sorry about having to run out earlier. My dear friend Therese needed some assistance putting Det. labels on her leafhopper specimens, after about 3.5hrs, though, I had to call it quits.

So now for the fun stuff. The ceviche. The CEVICHE!!! Oh my goodness, it was just as I remembered it - AWESOME! Even with the fudging in the pepper department. I'm not gonna lie, I am pretty impressed with myself. Next I'll have to see if I can swing the same level of delish-ness with a fish that won't break my bank, because now that I know that I can make it, I'm going to want to make it ALL THE TIME!!!

The roasted red pepper Italian dressing marinated chicken was amazing as well - definitely going to have to keep that one in mind for when I make chicken packets in the future. Hooray for experiments going well!!!

Well, that is pretty much it, my dear ones. Now I think I am going to attempt to get some sleep...my sleep schedule is so whacked out right now. :( Hope everyone's Monday was a great one and I wish you all a terrific Tuesday!!

Cheers!
~MW

~*~ Adventures in the Kitchen ~*~

Well, after church today I came home and explored my fun new How to Know the Beetles book, courtesy of Josh and Ricci Humphrey. Super fun old-school beetle key, published in 1980!! Some of the family names and things have changed since this book was printed, but it's still amazing - another fun book to add to my ever-growing ento collection.

I then decided to take a little 30min snooze. Well, that 30min turned into 4hrs! I apparently needed sleep, but now it's 1am and I'm super awake...ah well, such is life.

When I finally woke up I decided to go run a few quick errands: Barnes & Noble then HEB.
I finished my sermon journal in church this morning and I had a B&N gift card so I decided to go pick up a new journal - got a cute "green" one that just so happens to be green...I like it.

Then I went to HEB, because, dear ones, I have been craving ceviche for about a year and I decided I was going to splurge a little and just go ahead and attempt making it myself. So, I picked up some red snapper (this was the splurge part...), a few limes & lemons, a red onion, Tabasco, and a pepper (it was supposed to be a serrano...but HEB was out and so I just grabbed a pretty green one that I thought might at least add some sort of flavor). I came home with my treasures in hand and a spirit of determination.


I don't have much experience working with fish...chicken, beef, pork I have pretty much down, fish is still a rather new realm to me - therein lie my adventure! I promptly got to work on the fish...this was interesting. I had 3 fillets to work with. The first one went horribly and the majority of the fish ended up shredded - not exactly the 1/2inch cubes that ceviche calls for. I was not giving up and I certainly was NOT throwing away that fish just because it didn't turn out all that pretty. Fillet #2 went a little better...the first half of it was about the same as #1, but then I got the brilliant idea to dice the fish into the cubes before I attempted to remove the fish from the skin!! That's the ticket, folks! I have no idea if that is the right way to work with snapper, but it worked for me and I got a ton more usable fish than I did from the 1st one. Fillet #3 was then a piece of cake. Ok, so my fish was taken care of, messy as it may have been. I then started slicing and dicing the veggies and such. All went smoothly from there on out. I added a bit of extra Tabasco since I was going to be missing the heat from the serrano - we'll see how that turns out. I threw everything together in the casserole pan and set it in the fridge to start marinating (it had to sit for an hour, then stir it up again, and throw it back in the fridge for several hours/overnight). I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow!! Can't wait.


Next I worked on some chicken I had - I just needed to decide what to do with it. So, since there was already an air of experimentation I decided to do just that! I first attempted some marinated chicken strips, using butter and an onion soup mix, then cooked it all up in a frying pan. Ummm...friggin delicious!!!


After that little experiment I used the remaining 3 chicken breasts and made my fail-free chicken packets: 2 standard lemon pepper packets with fresh lemon and tomato slices and one experimental roasted red pepper Italian dressing packet with fresh tomato slices....I haven't tasted that one yet - it will be dinner tomorrow, so I'll let you know how it turns out then.

After I finished all the "real food" adventures, I attempted to make some banana and date macaroons...that was interesting. Super easy and quick recipe, but I think I'm going to have to keep working on the perfect banana ripeness factor. I think my banana this go 'round was a little too ripe...made the mashing easy, but it tastes a little too much like banana bread for a macaroon. Flavor is still good, but I think a little less ripe will be better, and a greener banana might help hold everything together a little more nicely, as well. We shall see.



All in all, today was fairly productive...I didn't get to any plant potting, but that leaves me something fun to do when I get off work tomorrow. Now that it is nearly 1:30am, I am going to attempt to get some sleeeeep. I am tired, but my brain is awake.

Hope everyone's Monday goes smoothly and speedily!

~MW

P.S. - my hands STILL smell like fish...I've washed them a good 30-40times over the course of tonight *not joke* and they still smell!!! Gross, but funny, and evidence of my adventure in the kitchen :)