Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas family and friends!

snowed in!

Seattle has a new winter plan: snow.
Snow all the time :)


And no one has any intentions of salting the roads because it will flow into the freshwater lakes.
Bless them.
It is making life really fun!!
I haven't gone to work in a week.

free bread

Yes, free bread. Back in September, I was happy to find a Seattle replacement for my free bread supplier, Carlucci's, of Salt Lake City. God bless that establishment.

My new spot - The Essential Baking Company - is great.
They have everything: pear-fig bread, sweet potato pecan, walnut, olive, orange, cinnamon raisin, rye, focaccia, sourdough, millegrain, etc, etc.


They have it all the time! Three dumpsters to pick from, always full of bread.
They have everything all of the time right next to the bike trail! ...it's too great.
:)

Jesus loves all creatures

Jesus loves all creatures :)

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goods!

I've got goods!
Holiday goods, Christmas goods, friendship goods, you name it!

I have the ever-comfortable reversible headbands:

I have the ever-hilarious homemade potholders:


I have the ever-reusable canvas tote:


and I have stamped notecards for the ever-corresponding:

Leave a message about what you need or go to treepeople.etsy.com for your gifting needs.
Happy Holidays friends!
It is almost Christmastime and the new 2009 year!

Amanita

I finally found a real, red Amanita muscaria. There were two 6-inch diameter mushrooms growing right next to the road. Candice and I were so excited we missed the bus we were waiting for!
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Happy Halloween!

life

Biology is amazing, I can't get enough of the endless forms of life.
Here is a link to beautiful pictures of slime molds.

I want to know what they are all about!

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Big News:

Adam and I are engaged to be wed!

...more details to come :)

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my lab job

I work in a molecular lab, and this is what i do:


My boss, Dean Glawe-a plant pathologist and mycologist-picks out what powdery mildew samples he wants me to sequence. I am his lab technician.


Remove powdery mildew from plant leaves with a scalpel.


Break open the cells with a lysing matrix of garnet sand and ceramic balls.
Use Qiagen kit for DNA extraction.


PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) on extracted DNA with primers that amplify only (hopefully) the segment you are looking for.
Gel electrophoresis of PCR product to visually confirm correct amplification before investing more time in following procedures.





Exosap-IT procedure to clean the sample of non-target DNA.


Prepare samples of amplified DNA to be sent to Sequencing facility.


Three days later, we know the sequence of base pairs (A,T,C or G) and can compare our segment with others whether online or previously extracted in our lab.

Amazing!!! Science is amazing!!!

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