I'm officially a Dr!

Well, the defense is over and I officially passed, so I have my PhD! The seminar was good, and the defense itself only lasted about 40 minutes, which was awesome. :) Then we celebrated back in the elevator lobby outside the lab with champagne (and yes, I did make a mark in the ceiling with the cork!), lots of food, and family, friends, and colleagues. Then it was off to the CC for drink and more celebrating (after turning in the form that says I passed - the boss said I had to turn it in before heading to the CC so that I wouldn't lose it - evidently that has happened before!). I don't have most of the pictures on my camera, so I'm sure I'll be posting more as they come in.

Our new roof!

We just had our roof re-shingled. The roofing company came on Thursday, worked from 7:30am to almost 9pm, then came back on Friday for 3 hours to finish up. It was noisy and disruptive, but we're very thankful it's done! Check out the before and after pictures - unfortunately, the before picture is from when we first moved into the house in 2005, so the roof doesn't look as bad as it actually did this spring, but you'll get an idea of how much better the new shingles look!

6 days and counting...

Not sure what to do with myself this week - I feel like there is something more I could be doing to prepare for my defense, but I've already given it to the lab (since my boss will be out of town for the remainder of this week) and I'm planning on practicing twice more (once for my hubby and once for one of my soon-to-be bosses). Other than that, what more can I do? I ordered coffee from Starbucks for the defense this morning, I'm making monster cookies this weekend (the dough is all ready to go, it just has to be thawed), and I plan on picking up some more 'breakfast appropriate' goodies on my way in to the defense. So, here I am, just killing time (blogging) while I wait to get this show on the road!

Grad School Commencement

Getting "hooded."



Kristi, the flying nun.



Laura, Adam, and Petra came to watch!



Kristi and I.



The family.



Me and my sexy hubby, and yes, I did coordinate his shirt to match my hood!



Beautiful flowers from my great aunt and uncle were on my doorstep when I got home!

I know it's been awhile, but...

You would think I would have more to say as I wrap up my graduate career - but between getting ready for the defense, dealing with commencement coming up this Friday, and organizing my post-doc, I've been busy. Granted, it's a weird type of busy, in which I have periods of craziness and stress, but also lots of downtime, since I'm not doing too much in the lab these days. Mostly, I just been doing a LOT of reading - after writing my thesis I ordered the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris and quickly devoured one after another. Yesterday, the 9th book in the series came out and I've already finished it. Seriously, I think I may be addicted. I (half-seriously) joked to David tonight that I may just start them all over again, and I think he came very close to freaking out.

But, in the past couple of weeks, I've come across multiple things that I probably could have posted on, including:

1) The swine flu hysteria. Ridiculous. I bought a rack of pork ribs and a roast the other day for dirt cheap, because of course with all of the hysteria the pork prices are plummeting. So David and I made our first rack of ribs - and I have to say - they were delicious!
2) Our good friends, Laura and Gabe, got engaged and are already planning a wedding for next March!
3) Another of our friends, Ted, just graduated from medical school - and will be moving to Kansas City soon to start his ER residency.
4) Spring is here, and summer is soon on its way - we went from having only 1 wedding this summer to having 3 in the past two days.
5) On that same note, I've already purchased the flowers for my pots - some have been planted, but I'm hoping to do the others soon. I also filled in the large hole that Jonas dug in the backyard last summer; we're hoping that if we lay sod over it he'll forget about digging again this summer - ah, wishful thinking.
6) And finally - Favre in purple?!?! I may lose my mind.

Our dog is an abberation.

The last time we were home, I decided to take some pictures of our dog, Jonas, and his parents, Joey and MidKnight. As you can see, he looks a lot like his dad, but he's HUGE compared to his parents! Seriously, where in that genetic makeup did his gigantic size come from??

It's official. I have a post-doc.

Just finished lining up my post-doc, which I will start this fall. I'll stay at the U of MN, but I'll be switching departments and moving over to the St. Paul campus (which, I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to be on the slower, smaller campus again - plus, it's a shorter commute!). I'll be working with Dave Brown in the vet bioscience department, looking at how opioids affect the interaction of Salmonella with intestinal epithelial cells. Meanwhile, I am working on the presentation for my thesis defense - less than 2 weeks away! Today, I met to have coffee and brainstorm with my other mentor-to-be, Lucy. We chatted about a couple of grants that she's looking to put together involving probiotics, but after making a couple of suggestions, I got homework! Now, I need to find time in between doing the experiments I've been slowly starting up in the lab and working on my thesis defense to write up some experiments for one of the grants! Looks like I should be able to keep busy before I graduate!

My Craigslist Chairs

Last summer I posted about being a Craigslist virgin - I sold my first item and purchased two wooden lawn chairs from Walt, a slightly sketchy but harmless guy up in New Brighton. I never got around to posting the before pictures of the chairs, but after a few coats of red paint and some fancy new cushions, I have two great chairs for our deck! Maybe I'll have to start combing Craigslist again to look for more goodies...