sewing, scrapbooking, and science.

well. my sewing venture didn't work out so well today. the teacher got sick about 15 minutes into the class, but i was able to figure a few things out on my own... like winding the bobbin and threading the machine, etc. it's really not that hard, i just needed something [like a class] to make me get started. now i just need to practice. :]

when i got done way way early at the sewing store, i decided to check out the scrapbook cottage to see if they had anything new. i was just about to leave when i found a rack that had somehow been hiding from me with lots of new heidi grace papers. i was so excited to see them. they are still sitting in the bag, but i think when i'm finished writing this i'm going to try my luck again tonight with my creativity. i have the new love, elsie stuff and some sassafrass lass stuff just waiting to be played with as well. so hopefully i will find some good photos to play with tonight. i'm super tired, so i'm not sure that anything will come of my efforts, but we'll see. :]

[eta: here's what i came up with. when i saw this paper i knew that i wanted to cut it like this... of course, it didn't turn out quite like it looked in my mind, which was more clustered towards the center instead of all the way to the edges. i think that's because i randomly decided to go 8.5x11 instead of 12x12. i also couldn't decide on a good alphabet for the title, but i think this one works. yes. my most overused alphabet, but i can't help it. ha. for now, i'm calling this one done, but you never really know... it could get a little more work once i get back. i also have to add that while i was writing this journaling, i realized this is a bad time to not be scrapbooking. i am missing out on documenting a lot of my feelings about graduation and all the other crazy big changes that are going on right now. i guess that's why it's a good thing i have this blog, huh?]

i told my professor that i could finish up my big gene expression study before spring break because he was hoping to use my data in his presentation at a conference that he is attending. my work was hopefully going to give some clues into how bark beetle pheromone production arose. [we hypothesize that it was the result of the need to detoxify all the nasty stuff the beetles ingest living in trees.] well. our -80 freezer quit working this week, so everything in there had to be randomly placed into other labs' freezers if they had room. needless to say, it was a real adventure going to various labs and various freezers in the "freezer farm" trying to find all my stuff. but i got it done! i was seriously so stressed out and then instantly so happy when i took my real time pcr plates to be run. unfortunately, we didn't really find what we were looking for, so it put a little damper on the excitement of getting it finished. we were hoping that environmental myrcene would upregulate expression of one of the P450s in the pathway we study, but there was no difference in expression levels between the myrcene and control environments. that's research for you though. things are never as simple as they seem... i know all about the principle of parsimony, but it just never seems to be all that simple.


anyway. thursday night i judged the science fair again. i can't believe it's been 5 years. seriously... it's just crazy to me. this year, my professor from lab, liz, and deepa all joined in a judged too. i think they all had fun. we had a couple of fairly decent projects this year for the high school division, so that was exciting to see. one of the teams that i really rooted for two years ago that ended up going to ISEF came back this year with a pretty cool project about nitrogen fixation in snap beans. they ended up being the top team again, so they are heading to isef in atlanta. pretty awesome.

well. less than 10 hours now until i get to meet baby victoria! eek. i have a feeling i'm not going to want to leave vegas once i see her. but when i get back from vegas, my sister will be here visiting... so that will be nice too. it's not really the spring break that i imagined, but it's going to be a great week.

happy easter everyone!