Exams, round 1.

So here's the rundown:

I did better on the Organic Chemistry exam than I expected (a lot better, actually).

I did worse on the Ecology exam than I expected (only a little bit worse, it was only by a few points). He drops the lowest exam grade, so as long as I do better on the next two, I'll be fine.

I took two exams yesterday - Music (it was super-easy) and Physics 2 (also super-easy).

Round one: finished.

Round two: bring it on!


What else is going on? This weekend I get to hike Mt. Mansfield to collect soil samples and measure the diameter of trees. As long as it's nice it'll be a good day. On the other hand, I haven't been hiking in about 8 years so attacking VT's highest peak is going to nearly kill me. I have to work at 11pm that night. I can only imagine how much pain I'll be in on Sunday after all of this is done.

Chugging away,
Ms. V

Always wear a padded bra to an Ecology lab

You never know when you'll be messing around in a river or trudging through a forest that's 15 degrees colder than the rest of the area.

Now that I've gotten that little tip out of the way, I have to share something with you. It's yet another reason why I LOVE LOVE LOVE Vermont. I stopped at a farm stand on the way home from lab today and bought 2 HUGE pumpkins, 4 medium ones (they're striped - how cool!), two small orange ones, two small white ones, a bag of yellow string beans, 3 Macintosh apples, 3 ears of corn, and a lovely acorn squash. It only cost $19 total, it's home-grown, organic, and I handed my money directly to the woman who picked all of this stuff from her garden. Wonderful. :)

Yesterday I stopped at one of the farmer's markets and bought some potatoes and cucumbers, straight from the garden. When I saw the strawberry-rhubarb jam (homemade, also from their own crop) I couldn't resist. I have a thing for anything that's strawberry-rhubarb.

Yum.
Ms. V

"Baby did a bad, bad thing..."

Well, right now it's just a bad thing. I assure you though, by Saturday morning it'll be a bad, bad thing.

What is it that I did? I bought a home-made strawberry rhubarb pie today. On the whole, that may seem completely harmless, and even pleasant to some of you. In this house, however, a strawberry rhubarb pie doesn't stand a chance, particularly if it's home-made. I learned long ago that I simply *can't* have my favorite foods in the house. Not if I want to fit back into my jeans by winter. Well, strawberry rhubarb pie, as you may have guessed, is one of my favorite foods. It's certainly my favorite kind of pie. I'll probably eat nothing else for the next two days.

I guess I should get my fat clothes ready for the wedding Hub and I are going to on Saturday...

Buying my pie and eating it, too,
Ms. V

There's a pattern for everyone, I guess.

The Knit Kitty Knit blogger has a fabulous entry about hideous knitting patterns. She recently posted this little beauty. I think it takes the cake. It is truly the most atrocious thing I have ever seen yarn used for. Honestly. My eyes hurt.

It's one of the free patterns offered on Berroco's site.





Ms. V

Pro's and Con's, Con's and Pro's

Pro: I got a little bit ahead on my school-work
Con: I start another course tomorrow so I'll fall behind soon enough

Con: Three of my courses also have labs (well, I AM a biology major, that's to be expected).
Pro: The lab I had on Friday was spent sitting on a lake (in a rowboat) in the sunshine.

Pro: I'll be done in only 3 more semesters
Con: I'll have to work my ass off until then

Con: I haven't even started my research yet
Pro: What I hope/plan to do should be really interesting


Honestly, I have my homework done and I'm already a bit ahead, so I'm just killing some time. :)

xo,
Ms. V

Now I want to ride my bicycle even more...

There are certain things people shouldn't have to do in life. Paying $28 for 8.5 gallons of gas is one of them.

:sigh: At least we still have better gas prices than most other countries...


Ready to hoof-it,
Ms. V

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...

Hub and I finally took the plunge and purchased two beautiful new bikes. It's the first time I've owned a "proper" bike from an actual bike-shop since the early 1980's (before my grandfather passed away and his bike shop closed).

Riding my new Trek is like gliding on air! It's a heck of a lot more comfortable than my old bike. My butt doesn't hurt at the end of the ride. Yay.

The best part is that it's a pretty color combination of red and charcoal and even matches my motorcycle!

Crazy-excited about bike riding again,
Ms. V

Wow, I've been super-lazy with blogging lately

I'd like to apologize to all of my adoring fans. I've been busy preparing for the semester, cleaning the house, painting the house, working, and of course, reading Harry Potter. :)

Sooo.... I just thought I'd post something for y'all to read.

I'm also in a really good mood because champagne grapes are finally in-season and they're fabulous. You can only buy them for about a week out of the year up here.

xo,
Ms. V

Sorry it's been quiet lately...

My obsession with Harry Potter (and anything remotely related to it) has risen to a frightening height. That's the main reason the blog-in-ator has been quiet lately.

The other reason is that I'm just plain lazy and couldn't think of anything to say.

Let's see... Hub leaves for MA on Sunday night. I'll probably do some practice MCAT's, paint the entire downstairs, and devote my time to Harry Potter once again.

xo,
Ms. V

Good thoughts for the people of Florida

To all readers:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep the good people of Florida in your thoughts. Hurrican Dennis is about to touch down and do a quite a job. I have some good friends and ex-coworkers down there. The area hasn't even fully recovered from last year's hurricane season yet so if everyone out there could say an extra blessing, prayer, spell, wish, or whatever it is that you like to do, it would be much appreciated.

be well,
Ms. V

"School's out for summer!"

I'll only have a few days of luxury before I have to get back to work. Hub and I have a movie date tonight and then we're spending the day in Stowe tomorrow to celebrate our anniversary (two days early, but whatever). Sunday will involve a lot of housecleaning and on Tuesday I'll start taking one MCAT practice exam after another. I'm going to aim for 1 full exam each week. Wish me luck!

Actually, don't wish me luck yet. Save it for when I have to take the real thing.

My "fun time" will involve a lot of reading. Aside from finishing "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (again), I have another 10 books lined up. :)

Studiously your's,
Ms. V

Sometimes it's fun to be superstitious

Well, I've just found the 9th lady bug in only a week and a half. They're all somehow able to make it inside and then hide in the oddest of places. Supposedly lady-bugs give you good luck when you find them. Since I'm a good little lady-bug lover, I gently put them back outside. It's the only kind of bug that I actually like. Any other insect in this house promptly gets squashed (the squashing is most often preceded by a lot of "Ewwww!!! Gross!! I hate god-damn bugs!")

I've also been finding a lot of pennies lying on the ground and even found a dime yesterday. I haven't been picking them up because I figure that with all of the lady-bugs I've been rescuing, I can let the good luck from the pennies pass on to other people. Actually, it's mostly because I already have enough change jingling around in my pocket.


In other news, I only have one day left of my class then I'm off for 7 long, beautiful weeks. They'll be spent studying for the MCAT and getting ahead for the fall semester. It occurred to me yesterday that in the spring, I'll have a full course load, the MCAT, a job, and my senior thesis to complete. Gee. I can't wait. (Please note the sarcasm).

Ms. V

Popular people today.

Hub and I are quite popular with delivery personnel today. We received four packages. Four. Cool, huh?

Actually, Fed Ex wouldn't drop their's off so we only technically got 3. The fourth is sitting at the Fed Ex building. The others were from UPS and the Post Office.

I love packages.

This is what I got. The other 2 were for Hub and I have no idea who the Fed Ex one was for.

:)
Ms. V

Happy Retirement

Happy Retirement to Justice O'Connor.

I hope she enjoys it to the fullest. I also hope Bush doesn't go overboard with his nomination.

Ms. V

A visitor...

This beautiful little lass decided to pay me a visit while I did homework on the back deck. She was even kind enough to stay put until I could grab the camera.

Close up:




Regular pic:




:)
Ms. V

:wimper:

I found yet another fabulous tarot deck that I *must* have. Must. Yes, it's a necessity. Unfortunately, it isn't published yet.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/tarot-of-dreams/

It looks super-easy to read. The artwork is OK. Not really my style, but there's still something about it that attracts me.

:sigh: If only I were rich...
Ms. V

"Summertime, the living's easy"

Name the band that sings a song with that line in it and I'll tell everyone that you're wicked cool.

On another note, I'm just tickled out of my skin. Healthy Living (favorite local grocery store) has fresh, organic lychee. I'm in lychee heaven. I just peeled and pitted some, then stuffed them in the freezer to chill (I prefer them super-cold). Yum. The wonderful people at Healthy Living also make up cute little organic fruit-salads with strawberries and mangos (among other things). How can you possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, getting back to my usual "not so healthy" eating, I bought a piece of their homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie tonight and scarfed it down for dinner. It's my favorite. I was powerless when I saw it in their cafe. I swear it was begging to be sliced and devoured.

On a food-high tonight,
Ms. V

Holy hanna. The countdown is *really* on

Just one month from today, I will have in my possession "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." Holy hanna. I'm counting the minutes. I think I'm going to read 1-5 again, too.

Never have I actually read a book more than once. In fact, I judge my taste for the material based on whether I WANT to read it again. Every book in the Harry Potter series *will* be. There are others that have come close, but my memory for the fine details is freakishly good. Reading a book more than once gets kind of boring, no matter how fabulous it was. Harry Potter, on the other hand, deserves to be reviewed several times. Besides, it'll give me some good momentum going into book #6. I heard from a lot of people that they thought #5 was a bit slow in the beginning. I disagreed - mainly because I had just finished #4, so I was on a pretty good roll with the storyline.

Holy crap. I can't wait. Now I'm 5 minutes closer to having it in my hot little hands.

Shaking with anticipation,
Ms. V

Stupid crap that I do for fun

Tonight I decided to calculate the approximate number of air molecules in our house.

Guess what I came up with?

1.067 x 10^28 (scientific notation). For those who hate scientific notation, the fully typed out number is: 10,670,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Holy hanna. These little buggers are making 10 billion collions per second and traveling at a rate of about 1152 miles per hour (this calculation is based off 515 meters per second... I converted it to miles per hour since we seem to like the English system so much and "miles per hour" is just plain fun).

This is one crazy place. I'm glad I can't see what's going on.


Get to know your neighbor, be a gas molecule-
Ms. V

An oddity and a fun new game

First, the oddity:
Hub and I went to Bruegger's for lunch today and spotted a man with a Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a Quizno's sub - consuming both of them in Brueggers. Odd.

Second, the fun new game:
Hub and I have a tiny air conditioner in our bedroom, but the VT heat and humidity has propelled us to put "The Beast" in the kitchen window downstairs, to cool the rest of the house. "The Beast" is a 12,000 BTU monster given to us by Hub's dad. He probably bought it in the 1980's. We were barely able to get it down the stairs without dropping it and crushing ourselves. Now that we have two ac's in, our fun new game is to go outside and watch our electric meter spin like wild. Whoever gets dizzy first is the loser.

Back to homework,
Ms. V