And we're in.

When it rains, it pours, non? This week has been crazy.

The fam, including my elderly-ish (see below) grandmother, two aunts, mom, and in-laws were up last weekend to help us move into the house. Hilariously ambitious because 1) many many things were not (and are still not) finished. List includes: trimwork, grouting of the entry, installation of interior closet doors 2) no clean water yet 3) it rained almost all weekend.

We moved our stuff anyway. It was our two year anniversary on Tuesday which had always been our "unofficial" move-in date. Sappy and completely impractical but dammit, I wanted it to happen. Since the clean water will only materialize tomorrow, we have been sleeping on an air mattress at the apartment, showering at the apartment but spending our time at the house (or, as it worked out, the lab). Romantic, I know. But. But. But. We moved nearly everything into the house over the last week (last night the cat came, which was interesting since he HATES his cat carrier) and cleaned up the apartment for the viewings. We ate dinner at the house (that we had cooked using bottled water) and slept in our own bed in our new bedroom. The living room is a disaster zone, littered with construction supplies and items from the apartment we did not pack properly (and are therefore strewn about haphazardly), and although the list dimishes, there are still many things to be done, including (importantly) the occupancy permit from the city. But we're in.





By far the most amusing part of the moving weekend was when my grandmother and crew checked into the hotel. We had worked all day and were grimy, so we were taking turns in the shower before going out for dinner. I don't think we were there five minutes before my grandmother opens her bag (a small carry-on style piece of luggage), hauls out a bottle of red wine AND A CORKSCREW, and then proceeds to unravel the four wine glasses she had carefully wrapped in her pajamas. Another five minutes, and the six of us were sipping wine, sitting on the hotel beds like a bunch of teenagers, rolling with laughing because my seventy year old grandmother still knows how to get the party started.

This is her, on hands and knees cleaning our floor, bless her heart.


Tonight, we have a meeting with the landscape design woman to discuss ideas for the yard, and the water purification people will be in to test the water, with the intent of supplying the water softener and UV system tomorrow. I've got more pictures of course:







The house has taken a back seat to work, as my data arrived and I've been scrambling to get the analysis done in time for my trip (I leave in five days). So far, so good but there have been many twelve hour days crammed into the last week. My back is starting to get sore from sitting in my cheap-o computer chair. And of course the sun decided this weekend would be nice to come out and play - while I've been locked away in the Tupper dungeon. Our windows don't open. Who thought THAT would be a nice touch??

The two days I volunteered last week went wonderfully. We had to pare down the grade six activity on Tuesday because the expensive kit I bought from WARD'S Science (A luminol detection kit for simulated blood splatter) was a total let-down. Fortunately, we tested it the day before we went to the school. Unfortunately, it didn't work, no matter what we tried (cotton, plastic, glass). We even followed the directions for substrate materials by spraying that shit all over the tile floor in the cafeteria downstairs and STILL it was a no-go. The grade eleven class on Wednesday was great, they really knew their stuff. I stayed longer than I had originally planned because the activities were fun, the students were fun to talk to, and the teacher was way more attractive than I had anticipated. Hence the necessary catch-up with the twelve hour days later in the week.

Grade six crime scene activity:



Grade eleven class learning about SDS PAGE gels, milling about the gel rigs, and then visualizing their agarose gels:






I may or may not post while I'm away in Europe, but I definitely will after I come back (with pictures).

Whirlwinds and Butterflies. Wee!