Weekly Claire: Oct 25th

I finished the second quilt block in the series from the place in town.  It was a little harder, and I'm not good at it so it turned a little off but not bad. 

Edgar being stupid cute. 

The city on my way to work.  

Look at this FALL picture, FAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL I love you

It was super foggy on my way to work this week.

These are outside the library and are just too pretty not to photograph.

My goodies from KnitPicks arrived.  Yarn, more cables and the thingy for my spun yarn.  

Its really pretty.  

The KAL of the October Breeze is coming along nicely.  

And Blocking mats! Because theres no carpet in this house.  

The Weekly Claire: Fall Harvest

The fall weather is just A-MAZE-ING here this week.  Crisp sunny days and cool clear nights.  No rain, but we had our share of wind.  Work is still work.  I don't get to do any science but they pay me money and I'm not at home, so theres that.  Its only for a short time and it gives me the needed GMP and GLP experience I need to get other better more science type jobs.

Sometimes at work I have to climb up really high on this old rolling platform.  The thing drives like crap and its good I did all that crossfit to move it around.

See WAAAAY up there.

I had to go a get cupcakes at work because we had a forgotten birthday, and I do not let birthday just go uncelebrated.  

Looking great in my sexy ass hair net.

When I'm at the warehouse I rock the flannel, to protect my clothes from the warehouse funk.  I look like a hipster its really bad.  

I bought a Jawbone up24 to wear around, so far I like it.  It needs a little understanding but so far so good, it also tracks my sleep. 

We out for fall harvesting today.  The city market in KC 

Our Farmers Market in town

Look at the lettuce!

Planter's Seed-Spice-Feed in KC for tons of great spices.  You can smell the shop from the street. 

Then a final stop at the Local Pig for meat and a late lunch.  This is the awesome metal fence they have.

AND BOOOM!

 The tree in the front yard just exploded with awesome. 

The Weekly Claire: Fall is Here

We're having some serious fall weather this week, and its really nice.  I don't have to fight the hot and I can wear the clothes I like the most.

The sky as I left work the other day.  SOOOOOO pretty.  

We had tons of rain this week.  

No thats not a colorized photo, thats the dyed blue fountain on the corner by work.  Go Royals!

And these are Jamberry Nail stickers I got as a sample for the awesome gal at the farmers market today.  I really excited to try them out.  She was wonderful too!! I can't paint my nails for work but I can do my toe nails!!!!!  I'll let you know how they work out.  

Craft-date 10/8/14

The rectangles for my next quilt attempt.  I might actually make this one into a fully formed blanket and not just the top.  Its a very satsifing use of the fat quarters in my stash.  

Yarn from my stash (which is much much smaller these days) to make the October Breeze shawl which one of the great ladies who I knit with here in KS/MO designed.  We're having a knit along with the newest yarn shop in the area called Mystic Knits.  

And finally a sweaters worth of yarn to make a sweater WHICH WILL ACTUALLY FIT OR SO HELP ME!!!!!!!  I bought it here in town at Momo's Yarn shop.  Its good old Cascade 220.  I had wanted to make this particular sweater in a nice dull grey but she didn't have enough so I went with this great pea color instead.  I'm trying very hard to visit and spend my money at local shops.  I find her shop nice but trying.  Yarn shops are a hard thing.  I love the idea that Church Mouse uses.  Simple yarn and lovely patterns but that works for their area.  Here its a mess so I can't figure out what a yarn shop would even want to stock.  Oh well, not my problem.  

The Weekly Claire: Gainfully Employed Edition

So now I have a job and a commute.  A 40 minutes one way commute.  So far its not too much of an issue however I get home much latter than I used to which cuts into my "doing stuff" time.  I'm just trying to use my weekend time wisely.  Saturday is all "house" stuff.  Grocery, cleaning, bills etc.  Sunday is crafty-pants type stuff.  So far its been working out.  I've been using my calendar to make sure I get everything squeezed in that needs to be and not to forget the super important bits.

My Lab coats enough their new home hanging by desk.  They're mostly there to just protect me from the product.  When I sample tanks (huge huge huge tanks) the stuff can move at an alarming rate and spray all over me.  So that my friends is why we wear lab coats.  Also because girl pants have stupidly small pockets and I need a lot of stuff when I'm on the floor.  

I get to eat my lunch at my desk, so I have an hour of quite.  I eat and read my backlog of comic books or a book.  Then knit at watch the lectures from my online Coursera class.  I have pretty dull lunches these days.  I got really tired of making sure we had leftovers or cooking a specific meal to last all week.  So gluten free sammies for me! (I have perioral dermatitis and they believe that wheat is trigger so NO WHEAT)

These are my super pretty and tasty breakfast sammies.  I cook the eggs in a whoopie pie tin (greased with bacon drippings) they only take like 10 minutes.  2 slices canadian bacon and a half a slice of cheese.  All on a gluten free bagel thin.  I put them all in the fridge and warm them up in the morning.  

The coffee maker is down, while I wait for the replacement tank.  Its been leaking and we don't want to buy a whole new one.  It just means I can put the french press to use.  It makes some pretty tasty coffee.  Sadly the replacement might not be here for weeks.  I might knit a little coozy.  

PUMPKINS!!!!!!! 5 of them.  I love love love love halloween and I love pretty pumpkins too.  The "normal" one and the 2 little ghosties came from the farmers market.  The green and dark orange from grocery store of all places.  I decorated to halloween yesterday, and have some lights to put up at work too.  Still haven't thought up a costume yet this year, but I'm thinking about being Tina.  

Bacteria Fun Time

So what does a microbiologist do when they miss their bacteria?  They grow some!!!! No I'm not making a lab in my basement, I'm making Kombucha.  I love the stuff, maybe its because I'm a microbiologist and all those happy bacteria make me happy or maybe because it just taste good.  Since no one sells it Leavenworth I would have to drive to KC to get it at 3.95 a bottle I wasn't going to "stock up" on it.  I followed a recipe on growing my own SCOBY from a bottle of the "plain" stuff.  Its not hard.  Don't buy the "clear" ones, or the "enlightened" flavored ones.  I got a bottle of plain old GT's and dumped the whole thing in.  It took a long while to get it growing, 4 weeks about.  I'm sure in that time I could have ordered one already grown and gotten a big batch already to go.  But I'm a freakin' microbiologist damn it, I'm growing it my damn self!

After 4 weeks of growing it up, I transferred it to a fresh round of tea, and let it go for about a week.  Then transferred that to pint lidded jars with a bit of fresh flavored tea, and let that go at room temp for a few days.  Then into the fridge.  In the mean time the SCOBY was growing again.  And then I repeated the process.  This time I tried some juice for the second fermentation.  I haven't tried those yet but they look good.  Round three is hanging out in my office (it stays quite warm up here so until winter hits hard this is the bacti lab too).

I have lost my mind

Its true, its a good thing I'm going back to work next week (hopefully).  On one hand I'm finding it not so bad to have no pressing matters at hand and to try my hand at random projects, but on the other my brain is bored.  So bored I got a book on learning Excel.  I've never been great at it, so I figured I should be better at it.  Plus everything is in crazy places now since the 2010 update.  Its been good learning.  The other thing I've jumped into is QUILTING!  I know I know.  I guess I've always kinda wanted to do it and a very good opportunity has arisen here in Leavenworth.  Our new quilt shop, Meadows Quilting and Sewing is doing a Quilt block a month thing.  I buy the first block for 5 bucks, if I finish the block (it comes with the fabric and the pattern instructions) in a month I bring it back and show them, and get the next block for free.  This goes on and on for 9 months and then we put it all together.  I'm giving it a go.  To get ready, and since the only quilts I ever made were hand sewn ones for my dolls I picked up a book.

I made this.

Hey nice feet.  This was picture I tried to take when I found out my phone had died.  

 Half way there

All pieced together

TA DA!!

Its not the best, but for a first try I'm not going to complain.  I might make a full sized one.  It wasn't exactly fun, but was satisfying.  

CRAP

I did it again! I slacked off.  I have no good excuse, seeing as I'm doing jack and squat.  So lets see what stuff I've been up to since last month.

Started using the Bullet Journal system to keep myself bust and actually keep on task, so I wasn't just spending my whole day cruising the internet and eating frosting. I actually started it on August 1, but I've kept up with it and really enjoy it.  I highly recommend it, if you're like me and still like to write things down.

Met some awesome folks at the InGear Career group, which is a military spouses network.

Got a call from a company which I had applied to before we had even moved.  This time they were looking for someone in their QC department.  Set up an interview with them.  Also set up an interview with KU on the same day (this would later be the first of two double header interview days I've done)

Went to a job fair and got picked up by a great recruiter, who found me a great job opportunity with one of the worlds largest suppliers of scientific good.

Learned how to weave on my Rigid Heddle Loom, that I got for christmas like 2 years ago.  I bought the Craftsy class.  So far, I really like the classes I've purchased.  I will buy more.

Went to St. Louis to see a friend- for like 24 hours.

Sooooo those 2 interviews, both went great but both made me wonder would I even want those jobs.  We'll get back to that.

Got an interview with the lab supply company.  It went great.  Then they dragged their feet.  And dragged and dragged.  The worst part was that they told my recruiter "I was still the number one choice" but they kept interview people because they didn't want to hire me.  Finally fate stepped in.  Slowly I realized that sometimes you don't get the job you want, but the job you need.

In the mean time I had another interview with a drug trial company, but it was awwwwwwaaaay too far away from not enough money and a jerk boss.  This was my second 2 interview day.  I would be gone all day and in the end it paid off.

On Friday I was offered and accept the job QA/QC technician job with a small probiotics company in downtown Kansas City.  I will learn a bunch of new things, and keep a bunch of guys in-line.  I guess culturing kombucha in your spare bedroom is a good thing to talk about in an interview.

Went to see the King Tut exhibit at Union Station, it was beautiful.

Celebrated our 10 year anniversary.  I got Ross a new Benchmade pocket knife (his Kershaw didn't had a clip and had gone through the wash a number of time which caused the rubber cover to come off).  He got me a boxed set of Doctor Who figures, all 11 of them.  They're stupidly cute and each have their own sonic screwdrivers.

We had dinner at a lovely Restaurant called BlueStem.  It has a James Beard Award (at first I worried a bit, I didn't want to go to the restaurant that Sepia had lost to, but they aren't in the same area so its okay) The food was lovely!

Got myself a library card after not having on since I left Clarksville.  The library is great here.

Have boldly decided to try my hand at quilting.  I know I'm crazy.  I picked up a book at the library and am making a small squares quilt.  This is conjunction with our local quilt shops $5 quilt project.  You buy the fabric for the first block for $5 and then in you finish it and return the next month with it, you get the block for free.  So on and so on for 9 months.  They'll be offering a quilting package at the end to purchase, where they put it all together for you and quilt it their nifty long arm machine.  I see this as a way to burn up some of my randomly stashed fabric and get some sewing done without making another ill-fitting item.

On sunday I finished a phone call to my parents and put my phone down.  When I went to snap a picture of my quilt block lay out (yep modern technology folks) the screen was black.  Nothing could bring it back.  The phone was till there, Siri still asked if I needed her and the vibrate still worked.  So I had to get a new phone, just weeks before the 5s goes on mega sale and 6 comes out.  Screw you! So now I have an iPhone 5s and its so shinny and skinny.  I tried plugging my old 4s to see if it had figured itself out and its toast.  I think the battery cooked something inside, it was a refurbished replacement anyway.

So there! Thats basically all the news that fit to print.

St. Louis

As seen in Down Town Lawrence home of KU

Finished Weaving

Business Claire

Dung Beetle I drew at lunch after we went to the King Tut exhibit 

Finished Shawl

Hub's gift

Tiny David!!!

The Weekly Claire: Officially Bored Edition

Officially, I'm bored.  Bored out of my skull.  Studying for the GRE makes me wonder who the sadistic bastards are who write that cluster-fuck of a test (SERIOUSLY! You don't need to know that shit to get a masters in early childhood development and the math and science I need for a science MS is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.  So why is there a shit tastic blanket test that seem to only be able to test my ability to do 10th grade math and unfuck their poorly worded questions.  Maybe its really just testing my skills at understanding my PI)

I can only knit so much before my butt goes numb or my wrist cries UNCLE.  So I've trying to find other fun things to do.  While getting ready on Tuesday, I was going to go to Yoga, I noticed that one of the artist I follow on Tumblr had spent the night at the Great Wolf Lodge and had hidden a drawing here....... 

The Elk at Cabelas.  SO I busted by butt down there and well it was gone.  I don't know if someone had already found the picture of if the grumpy staff and found it and thrown it away.  I was there at 9:30am and he left it about 8! It was still fun.  I went to Target and also walked around the Cabelas. 

On Wednesday I went to Olathe and the K-state extension.  Which is AN AMAZING building.  I talked the Microbiologist there and I might have a few part time jobs.  The key there is MIGHT.  In a few months.  They asked me what I wanted to do, I just wanted to yell "SCIENCE".  We'll see.  

I made kinda gross French Macarons.  My next batch will be better I hope.  I will also fill them with something other than Buttercream.  

I AM GROOT!  I kinda love Groot so I drew him on the white board in the kitchen. 

These bloomed! They have a slight fragrance and they're so lovely.  They're over a foot and half tall and stick straight up, I thought they were fake.