busy cleaning.

james and i cleaning right now. yes. as you can tell, i am hard at work sitting on the couch typing away while james is cleaning/straightening up/throwing out. that a boy. :]

"we" are working downstairs right now... getting the family room/mini kitchen area [i think it's called a wet bar, right?] all cleared out for his use. but "we" are almost done down here at which point, he will make me go upstairs and actually work.

oh! when we were in carson on saturday, we found the table i've been wanting to check out. they have a new pier one out there, and it's pretty big and nice. i found a lot of cool stuff in there, but i only bought the project table. i was thinking i wanted black, but then again... white seemed like a good option as well. lucky for indecisive amy, they were sold out of black, and since it was on clearance [!!!] i went with the white. and it wasn't like a target clearance [i love target, but come on... $14.99 marked down to $14.09 hardly counts as a "clearance".] it was nearly 50% off. such a lucky find. :]

that night, james' parents came back to reno with us, and we all went to dinner with my parents. it was the first time they had all met. it was fun, and now that the ice has been broken, maybe we can do more dinners and things. i'm thinking maybe james and i will have a joint graduation party here at the house, since it will be nice and clean and tidy by then. ha. :]

i have to say... james is seriously so good at moving and actually unpacking things. he only has one more box of stuff that's not unpacked. he started moving in on saturday afternoon and finished yesterday, and he's basically settled in. meanwhile, i still have boxes upstairs from when i moved out of my apartment almost 3 years ago. bad. bad. bad.

so yeah. so far, so good. the only problem is that helix is having a hard time realizing this is his new home. he feels out of his element i think, and he's been barking quite a bit at my parents and anyone else who comes in the house. i'm really hoping that it will improve within a few days.

ok. i just got the "ames... i little help please?" comment, so i guess i better go get to work. :]

a good day.

yep. it was a nice day. i actually woke up around 10am and felt ready to get out of bed. that never happens... it's always a struggle to get up, especially since it's spring break. i wish i could be more a morning person, but i have a feeling i'll always be a night owl.

since i was able to start my day at a decent hour, james and i went to lunch and a movie. we need to go to matinees more often... it's *so* much cheaper than night time movies. anyway, 21 was a great movie. i have this thing about movies that are based on true stories... i just think it makes the movies so much better. [well in most cases anyway.] i know i wouldn't have liked the bank job so much if it hadn't been based on a true story. but yeah. 21 did not disappoint me by any means. plus it had great music throughout, which is always a plus. i mean really, any movie that opens with mgmt is bound to be good, right? [i love their website... when you move the mouse it kind of draws a picture... how cool. ha.] i'll probably watch it again if some friends want to go see it. :] here's a little clip...


tonight, james and i got dressed up to have dinner with my family at montreux. i'm sad that i didn't manage to get a photo of the two of us dressed up, but that just means we'll have to do it again. i finally wore the dress that he bought me for my birthday last year. :] it's always a nice dinner up there, and tonight was no different.

when we got back home, i held a small fiskars training session. i have five more to train, and i got three done tonight. now i just have two more ladies to train on sunday night after work, and i'll have my 20. :]

tomorrow night i have to remember to do this. i recently started recycling, and i'm going to jump on the canvas shopping bag bandwagon too. it just seems like a simple way to do a good thing, right?

nail biter.

yes. i have recently become a nail biter again, which is a sign that i am anxious. i guess i have a few big things going on right now that i am indeed anxious about... numero uno probably being james moving in this weekend. :]

here's a little conversation from last night after i got home from las vegas:
me: "babe. i gained weight while i was gone."
james: "it's ok."
me: "no. seriously. like 5 pounds."
james: "well. i doubt you can even tell."
me: "well. i bet you can actually."
james: "it's ok. when i move in, i will make you go running with me."

i later realized that the only problem with that plan is that i am ridiculously out of shape. i think we're going to have to start off with a few walks and definitely some hikes. since the day we moved into this house, i've been wanting to go explore all the trails around here that go up into the mountains behind my house. i just didn't so much want to go alone [and what i mean by that is that i didn't so much *have the motivation* to go alone. ha.]

i need to go clean. i set a small goal of cleaning off the couch [again.] by tonight. so while james and his friends are moving boxes, i will hopefully make some progress. then i think i'll try going to carson with him this weekend so that i can finally visit pier one and see if they have the desk i want, which should provide more motivation for operation clean up.

oh yeah! i am so super excited for the movie 21 to come out. james and i already planned a date night to go see it. :]

p.s. it really is cold enough here to the point where i am wearing my hood. i feel like i was spoiled by the warm vegas weather the past few days. ack!

live from las vegas.

i have to say... this city is not as much fun without james or another friend.
i love my parents and i love hanging out with victoria... but now that it's night time, i've found myself using the wireless internet in the vip lounge. thank goodness my dad has this little perk, huh? but yeah. there's really no fun vegas nightlife when you don't have anyone to go out with.

i don't have much to update about. it's been a super low key trip. on monday, my mom and i spent the day over at paul's, and i became an aunt. ha. yes. i was a bit overwhelmed. victoria gets the hiccups pretty bad, and the first time i held her, she had them. i wasn't quite sure what in the world to do. i felt so bad for her... i just wanted them to go away. that night, we went out to eat at mimi's, and victoria slept the whole time. :] then my mom and i met up with my dad [who drove down here] at the hotel and had some yummy crepes.

monday, my mom and i did a little bit of shopping, but nothing too much. mostly, we just had fun finding cute girlie stuff for victoria. like this cute little dress. gotta love giraffes. we had lunch by the pool here with my dad, and it was so nice outside. i know in another few weeks it will be too hot here, but right now the weather seems so nice. we went to dinner with paul and amanda and the baby at lucille's. probably one of my most favorite places to eat. i make it a requirement every time we come to vegas. mmm. :] once again, victoria slept through the whole meal. such a doll. i'm glad she was able to enjoy lucille's as much as i did. :]

today, we went over to paul's again. since victoria has her days and nights mixed up and is quite the little sleeper during the day, my mom and i took a little trip to a scrapbook store that is about 2 miles from where my brother lives. they had all of the new heidi grace, could nine, and kimberly poloson stuff. i mean all of it. it was so cool to see. the stores in reno pick and choose what they bring in, so it's rare to see *all* of the papers and *all* of the embellishments together.
i couldn't resist getting some of the chipboards and stickers to go with the papers that i found in reno. :] i probably would have picked up more paper, but i was worried about that surviving the trip home. i just might have to break down and place an order online.

tonight, we all went to eat at this place called sweet tomatoes. it's like a big soup & salad bar... my dad loves places like that. once again, victoria was a doll during dinner. she was stirring a little bit, but never woke up entirely. she's just so stinking cute. i can stare at her forever. makes it kind of hard to want to eat my dinner. ha. :]

yep. so that's about it so far.
my room has a nice view of the fountains [i took this photo before i came down to the lounge], so i think i'll head back up there and watch the last couple shows of the night. plus, there are these guys sitting in here talking really loudly about politics. ha. i've had about all i can handle. i like a good discussion about politics, but these guys are a little out of control and acting way too know-it-all and macho. it was funny for a while, but i'm over it now.

i hope everyone is having a good week. :]

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!

finally.

yes. if you can read backwards, it does indeed say "sew fun" on the cover of that 3 inch notebook.


tomorrow i'm going to learn how to use my sewing machine. :]
i had to print out the 198 page "guide book" and prepare a notebook for it.
and really... some printed out cover page just didn't seem right.
so at 2:30 in the morning i snipped the corner off two of the fabrics i couldn't pass by several months ago [but are still sitting on the floor by my scrap desk], cut out a little hambly, grabbed some ribbon... and... i finally made something creative for the first time in way way way too long.

i realize it's not the most advanced scrappy project on the planet, but i had fun creating it & it makes me happy. that's bascially all that matters. :]

i should be back tomorrow with a better update. when i got home tonight, someone had egged my mom's car in the driveway, so somehow in my half asleep state of mind, i went out and scrubbed it off. grr. plus i had an insane week of lab work. all in all, i'm just too tired to type much more, but i wanted to share this because i'm pretty excited that i finally made something just for fun.

goodnight. :]

hello.

my name is amy, and i do believe that i am addicted to checking my email.
yes.
sometimes i motivate myself to get out of bed by thinking "if you just get up already then you can go check your email".
it is also probably one of my favorite procrastination techniques. because even if there aren't any new messages, there are always messages in the inbox that need to be sorted into various folders.

obviously, i am well aware that the iPhone would be mean big trouble for me. i don't own one & it's probably a good thing because i've already found myself wasting time on mike's iPhone. yes! it's that bad. at breakfast the other day... "hey mike, i need to check my email, can i use your iPhone?" ha. i don't know what i'll do when the second generation comes out because i've been using that as my excuse not to go ahead and get one.

but email really isn't something that you can limit, is it? i mean... it just wouldn't be right to set some type of rule like "you can only check your email 3x a day." seriously... it just wouldn't be right.

bottom line: i need my email. i don't really know what to do about it. ha. maybe i should leave my computer at home when i go to vegas. [which, by the way, i am so super excited about.]

ok. i'm going to eat a mochi and get to work on all my homework. eek.

p.s. happy birthday to james today! we didn't do anything to celebrate, but i think maybe this weekend after our crazy busy week of school is over. :]

p.s.s. i know every one has heard this song, but it's too pretty not to post. plus. the way she paints on the photos is pretty amazing. inspiring, no?

a big move.

well. after some debate, it's been approved that james and helix will be moving into my sister's room at the end of the month. his lease is up at his apartment and we graduate in less than 2 months at that point, so he was stressing about having to sign another lease since he doesn't know how long he'll be in reno after graduation. in addition, i've been complaining almost daily about how i hate living alone in this big house. i get so scared when i am here alone. and my fears have really been on the rise lately since they haven't caught the murder of brianna. i get scared to walk downstairs every single night. i have to walk past some windows, and i can feel my heart racing every time. i literally run into my room and lock the door. [as if the door locks are so hard to pop open, but still.] so i'm pretty excited to have a roomie. ha.

james came over for dinner tonight and when we went to scope out my sister's room, he was talking about cleaning up the downstairs living room... he actually asked me if it would be ok to clean things up. ha. i told him that's one of the advantages to having him around more... he needs to keep me on track with my cleaning and just make me keep things straightened up. i'm also hoping he will help me complete the upstairs living room to craft area renovation. seriously. i really admire his ability to keep things neat. i'm such a messy person [although i love organizational items] and i hate it.

the other bonus... his cooking! seriously. that needs to rub off on me too. i was so happy about getting two cookbooks for christmas, but neither one of them has been opened. now that there will generally be at least two people for dinner every night, the cooking at home should be on the rise. :] i'm excited for my mom to get to try his cooking too. ha.

when we asked my dad, we sort of neglected to bring up the helix factor. my parents are so NOT into having a pet [other than a fish] in the house. finally today, i think my dad must have been talking to my mom when they realized that helix would be coming along too because i got a call from my dad saying "so. what about helix?" ha. but he stays in his kennel when we are not around to keep an eye on him, so really it won't be that bad. plus, i'm excited that helix will have a yard to run around in again. i don't think he's a fan of apartment living because he has to be on his leash outside. and. he will definitely let me know if anyone is going to bust through those windows that i am so afraid to walk past because he's a pretty good watchdog.

so basically, i'm pretty excited about all the changes that will happen at the end of march. not only do i get to meet my niece, but i don't have to live alone anymore! i'm a happy girl. :]

i'll close with a conversation from tonight...
me: hey. do you like the sweater that i'm wearing?
james: yeah. is it new?
me: no. but do you really like it?
james: yeah. it looks like you.
me: really? my grandma gave it to me for christmas.
james: yeah. i bet your grandma would wear that sweater too.
me: well. yeah. i think she did a good job.

[he likes to point out that i dress like a grandma. ha. gotta love it. i set him up perfectly for that one.]