More Flowers!

You know how much I love flowers, I can't help sharing them every time I get a chance!  Here is the latest batch, I got so excited when I saw tulips in the store!  Totally a weakness!  I couldn't decide if I liked them with the bunch roses or without them best... so I tried both!

Crazy Semester Update!

This semester may possibly be one of the most stressful of my college career to date.  In addition to typical stresses that come with attending classes, I have the lamentable issue of my classes and schedule not working out as planned.  Does that sound familiar, something not going as I planned? Hehe, oh well, I guess this is just going to be a life long lesson for me!

In spite of my best efforts to leave blocks of time open for the field work I knew would come this Spring, my classes and work managed to spread themselves across the week in a rather lackadaisical manner.  I also took on a TA position that I thought would involve minimal time and investment only to be proven wrong.  Add to the mix the majority of my class presentations and projects being due before Spring Break AND starting treatments on part of my project and designing the irrigation system for another part, in addition to all the maintenance involved in life and school and you have my crazy semester!

Fortunately, I am on the tail end of this time, but it is the reason you haven't been hearing much from me on a consistent basis!  Some neat updates through all this I would like to share are:

1.) I have part of my project laid out and labeled!
           Part of my project involves mature trees in an already established orchard.  Last week I was able to track down old field plots so I could identify and tag the trees we will be using.  I went back to this orchard this week and was amazed at the difference in the trees in just a week!  They were all leafed out and almost done blooming this week when they had just been in the throes of blooming last week!  See example below...

Week one with busy bees...

Week two with lots of leaves!

2.) During this time I have been learning a lot about peach trees, their flower anatomy and fertilization.  I found out that peach buds usually come in sets of threes in the spring, (one flower bud, then a vegetative bud, then another flower bud) BUT you can find all kinds of variations if you look closely enough!

This one has a crazy FOUR flower buds!

This one is typical with a blind node at the bottom.

On this one a flower bud died.

Nodes are the places where we find the buds and new growth, 'Blind nodes' means that node doesn't have any viable buds for new growth and not because they died or got knocked off but usually because the plant was growing too quickly to make any!  Sometimes we see dead buds and they can happen for lots of reasons like too much could in the winter, a cold snap in the spring, or something wrong with the bud to start with.  For my project I am going to count the different types of node on several branches per tree.

3.)  I am giving my proposal presentation next week!!!  This shouldn't stress me out too much because proposals can change.  But it is really intimidating because professors from the whole department often show up to these so you are not just presenting before your class!  I finally finished all the slide details last night and am now practicing over and over so I will hopefully not need notes while I present.  The good thing about this is it gets me thinking about how I need to set up my dissertation and where I can start writing over the summer.

Counting peach buds in the lab!

4.)There is a lot more bureaucracy at UF than there was at WKU!  Since Chris is working under one of the committee chairs in the department he has be privy to a lot of discussions and changes that are being attempted around the university and especially in our department.  He has been involved in decisions about tenure and promotion for the professors, health care decisions for Graduate students and Post Doc assistants and family leave to name a few of the big ones.  Through this I have learned a lot of the benefits of working at such a large university (namely the deep pockets!), but it is much harder to get things changed when you have so many more hoops to jump through.

5.)  We have some neat little parks really close to our apartment!!!  Just in the last twp weeks we have discovered two parks with nice nature trails within walking distance of our apartment!  Both of these are connected with what is called the Biven's Arm Outflow and all of the water from them runs to or through Payne's Prairie, a nature preserve close to us that has wild pigs, buffalo, horses and of course alligators.  In the first little park we found I got to see a live armadillo!!!  I specify live because we see lots of dead ones on the side of the road.  We found the second one the last Sunday and got to take a longer walk on it today.  It has a great deck out into a marshy area and we used it for our picnic!

It was hard to get a picture of ourselves, but here's the picnic!

Chris holding up a large tree so I could cross the sidewalk!

LIZZARD!!!!

This tree grew up and over the trail!

Didn't see this sign til the end of the trail... meep!

Well, that's all I have for now! Thanks for keeping up with us and there will be more to come!

Spring Sounds...

We have been enjoying a week of fabulous weather!  It has been getting into the high 70's during the day and down in the 50's at night with low relative humidity and sunny skies!  It makes me feel better about this whole living in Florida thing!  One of the big things Chris and I have noticed with our windows open so much this last week is all the spring sounds that are awakening around us.  After our second day of warm weather we pulled into the drive for our apartment (which in case you didn't know it looks like a driveway into the jungle!) and as soon as we left the road you could hear all the spring peeper frogs singing! It was such a happy sound!  Since then we have noticed lots of birds around our feeder and several different plants pushing out their blooms.  I saw our first Robin today!  To top it all off the mature peaches for my study are in full bloom and they really are impressive.

There were bees all over the place!

Strange as it is to my Northern sensibilities, Spring is in full swing in Florida!

We got a new stove this week!!!

So on my list of things I'm working to be content about is our apartment.  Its silly little things that bug me really when I look at the big picture, we are in a safe complex and have very affordable rent for Gainesville, which I appreciate more and more as I ask around about what people are paying down here.  Anyway, my awesome hubby talked to our landlady about a few things that needed fixed/looked at and he mentioned that our oven manages to worm up the whole apartment even when I'm only cooking for a short time.  When the maintenance guy came to work on the other things he checked out the stove at the same time.  He didn't even look inside of it, just noticed what make it was and estimated it to be close to 20 years old and said he'd be happy to order us a new one!!!  So this Thursday when we got home from campus we had a new stove!  It's bright white looks great against the red but also kind of make the surrounding cabinets' off white stand out!  Still the contentment level jumped this week, and my appreciation for God's unexpected provisions!  So excited and grateful!

Flowers from my Hubby for Valentine's Day!

Chris always debates when he gets me flowers whether to surprise me or bring me along and let me pick them out because he knows I like to arrange them myself.  This year for Valentine's Day he decided to take me to pick out flowers!  We found these at Ward's and I was pleasantly surprised at how the orange roses opened up and fully bloomed.  They were such a joy this week!

Life right now...

Just a quick shot of Pandora helping Chris study!  She loves it when Chris is on the floor!  I love it when we are home for any length of time during this busy semester.

Birds!

 Our porch has seemed rather bare sine I have not had a chance to get pots filled with plants or hanging baskets out and about, so the other day I finally hung up one of our bird feeders that moved with us.  It is officially Pandora's new favorite thing!  She loves watching the birds that come and visit (mostly a few bold Cardinals).  She stalks them, hides from them behind the curtain, does her Xena warrior princess cry at them and generally enjoys herself immensely!  We were worried that there might not be many birds that visit since we hadn't seen many around, but it has been an entertaining investment!

Pandora the loan shark!

When I started school my parents made a deal with me, get as many scholarships and grants as you can and we will split the rest with you.  I don't think any of us thought about grad school at that point so this only went through my Bachelor's but it was still an awesome deal!  Mom and Dad are working hard to become debt free so they have started forwarding the part of my loans they agreed to cover.  As of two weeks ago we were able to use this money to pay off one of my school loans!!! WooHoo!!!  While going through some of the mail we laid the notice down and Pandora claimed it!  She was excited too!  While I still have several loans left, none of them will start accruing interest until I graduate again, but Chris has some that are already gathering interest so future payments are being forwarded towards those.  We are so excited to see some of this debt go away!

Welcome to February in Florida!

While I'm really enjoying it, I am still not used to Florida winters!  I am told over and over that no one is used to THIS winter, but in spite of local's protests to the contrary it has been really nice to us!

November and December were chilly to our Southerner adapted thermometers, January was brisk, but February has begun absolutely beautiful!  We have had highs in the 70's most of this week and a lot of sunny days!

Unfortunately the rest of Florida has not been so pleased with the recent weather.  As I said November and December were much colder than previous years, so many growers lost big chunks of their crops.  Last month enough numbers had been confirmed to officially declare disaster in Alachua County (where we are in Florida).  I am hoping that the winters return to normal by the time my peaches are close to bearing fruit so I don't lose any to a freeze like many growers here have experienced this year.

In the mean time we are enjoying a new month and welcoming it with open windows!  The recent warm weather has brought a lot of birds out that we didn't even know were around.  We were able to hang out on our patio last week and see lots of cardinals, a few sparrows, some birds I didn't recognize, and a pair of woodpeckers!!!  I didn't know there were even any around!  Last night we even heard some owls outside!  Still strange, but thanking God for His little miracles here in the sub-tropics!

Chris has a birthday!

My wonderful husband turned 26 in January!  We kind of spread his birthday out over the whole month and had several small celebrations.  We gathered with others at our work for lunch in my adviser's lab.  I made Chris Reece No-Bakes, something he had wanted for a while but I never got around to trying.

The next weekend we were able to go to our local Sushi place and celebrate again!  Afterward we went to the free movie night on campus and finally watched RED, a movie that several of our friends really liked.

I'm so thankful for my hubby who has supported and encouraged me through thick and thin!

Friends from Kentucky!

One of the hardest things for me about moving to Florida is being so far from friends and family.  So I get really excited when any of them have a chance to come and see us!  Our friends AJ and Adrienne have a much longer winter break than we do at UF so they thought it would be a good opportunity to come visit us!

AJ had visited Florida with his family when he was younger, but Adrienne has never been here or seen the beach.  I really wanted them to have a good time so I made out a list of all the options I could think of that were relatively close and within all of our budgets., plus we found some new places to go so Adrienne could shop at some places we don't have in Kentucky!

The first day went well, the boys (AJ and Chris) did 'manly' things!  They went for a hike at nearby Payne's Prairie and saw buffalo, wild horses and gators up close and personal!  Then they explored a nearby pawn shop, something they have both been wanting to do, and a local game shop.  Adrienne and I shopped around Gainesville, first at the mall then at some smaller places Adrienne had found online.  One was a really neat shop that had all kinds of treasures, from vintage hats and jewelry to new or refinished finds, it was a fun adventure!

The next day we were going to ride up silver river with Granddaddy but AJ came down with a serious stomach bug and Adrienne had several of the symptoms too.  So we spent a lazy day around the apartment eating soup and watching TV. They introduced us to a fun series of movies that were made in the 30's and 40's entitled Thin Man.  They are about a retired investigator and his wife and how mysteries always seems to find him.  We really enjoyed watching them and are trying to finish the series on our own time now.

The third day AJ wasn't back to full snuff but feeling well enough to come along, so we headed out because we all really wanted Adrienne to see the beach!  We headed to St. Augustine for the afternoon and had a great time, neither Chris or I have been to St. Augustine before and we really look forward to going back and exploring it more fully.

Deciphering directions...

Finally the beach!

Piggy-back ride? I don't mind if I do!

We brought a picnic and the seagulls though it was for them!

Spiffy light house!

Giant wrench used to work on parts of lighthouse!

At the top!

It cast a cool shadow!

We climbed a lot of stairs, going up was scarier than coming down.

There were lots of boats all over the place.

Unfortunately we were to late to visit here, Next Time!

Really tasty food!

Before we went home we got supper at a pub in town there.  I wasn't sure I'd eaten Irish food before and jokingly wondered if Mom's cooking counted.  Surprisingly it almost did!  I had some yummy Irish stew, Chris had fish and chips, Adrienne had the same plus some clam chowder (which I have to take Dad to try) and AJ had bangers and mash (the only thing I don't think mom has fixed, it was sausages on top of mashed potatoes with brown gravy).  It was all really good and I recognized a lot of other menu items as well.

The last day came and our friends had to fly out from JAX that evening.  Before leaving we took some time in Jacksonville to shop at some places that I didn't think I had enough money to walk into!  But we had a lot of fun looking around and Adrienne found some fun clothes, as well as spoiling me with a purchase or two.

We are so looking for ward to when our friends can come again and hopefully see more of Florida!

A new dress!

So I am still playing catch up for 2011, but hopefully I will be up to date soon!  One of the things that happened earlier this month was one of my friends, who also came to visit us, bought me a dress I had been eyeballing for sometime!  I love getting mail and especially packages, so I was super excited when I received an unknown package addressed to me!  I have been able to wear the dress twice now and it fits great, but I haven't had a camera either time!  The picture below is from the website but hopefully I can get one of me up soon!

Its a fun dress that's kind of vintage, Love it!