Life is Grand
Life has been especially pleasant the past week. Nothing major has happened, but just lots of small joys.
Here are a few that are forefront in my mind
1) Spring has arrived in force here. The lilac bush in my front yard has provided fresh blooms to take to my office. They smell great. The flowers I planted in my yard are coming up - the gladiolus and sunflowers are doing especially well. Yesterday I planted more flowers - including foxglove, lily of the valley and violas.
2) The garden is making enormous progress. This week we planted so many things - greens, beets, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green peppers, sweet potatoes tomatoes and basil. The potatoes we planted last week are coming up already. We still have squash, melons and hot peppers to plant, just waiting to finish digging and weeding the third bed. Hopefully I'll have some pictures soon.
3) I've made some great friends here in Ames. The book club, stained glass class, Ames Women's Meetup group, my neighborhood and workplace have all put my in contact with some wonderful people.
4) Work is going very well. Without the need to prepare for class lectures, I have been able to devote more time to setting up my lab and working on proposals. I have one project that a local company is interested in funding. And my collaborator and I will be submitting a proposal on another project next month. The students working in my lab this summer are wonderful - one of them managed to repair an old incubator this week. His work saved me the $1000 to TRY and repair the darn thing or the $2000 required to replace it. And there are two more students arriving in a few weeks. Both are participants in an REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) program, which means they are good students and I do not need to pay them! And my teaching evaluations came in from the spring semester - it was good to get overwhelmingly positive comments from my students.
Here are a few that are forefront in my mind
1) Spring has arrived in force here. The lilac bush in my front yard has provided fresh blooms to take to my office. They smell great. The flowers I planted in my yard are coming up - the gladiolus and sunflowers are doing especially well. Yesterday I planted more flowers - including foxglove, lily of the valley and violas.
2) The garden is making enormous progress. This week we planted so many things - greens, beets, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green peppers, sweet potatoes tomatoes and basil. The potatoes we planted last week are coming up already. We still have squash, melons and hot peppers to plant, just waiting to finish digging and weeding the third bed. Hopefully I'll have some pictures soon.
3) I've made some great friends here in Ames. The book club, stained glass class, Ames Women's Meetup group, my neighborhood and workplace have all put my in contact with some wonderful people.
4) Work is going very well. Without the need to prepare for class lectures, I have been able to devote more time to setting up my lab and working on proposals. I have one project that a local company is interested in funding. And my collaborator and I will be submitting a proposal on another project next month. The students working in my lab this summer are wonderful - one of them managed to repair an old incubator this week. His work saved me the $1000 to TRY and repair the darn thing or the $2000 required to replace it. And there are two more students arriving in a few weeks. Both are participants in an REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) program, which means they are good students and I do not need to pay them! And my teaching evaluations came in from the spring semester - it was good to get overwhelmingly positive comments from my students.
posted by Laura at 9:49 PM
2 Comments:
You have many accomplishments to be proud of and we are proud of you!
awesome!! sounds like things are going great. i am happy for you!
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