fun in the sun

The most exciting thing this week is that Oscar's shifting over to one nap a day. We see him so much more on the weekends now! It was tolerably warm this week, and most of the snow has melted. Here's a nice article about how cold isn't all bad:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/how-being-cold-burns-calories/283810/

This part of it made me laugh for a long time: "Our bodies burn energy to keep us warm in a process called non-shivering thermogenesis (NST), they explain, which works even at pretty reasonable temperatures. They defined mild cold exposure as 64 degrees Fahrenheit." We keep our house at 65. My parents keep theirs at 63 - all of us turn the heat down to 55 at night. No wonder snacks are so important!

We took Oscar out on his sled today. He was outside and found the sled and then clambered into it and demanded a ride:

I bet it's a lot easier to pull him over snow instead of grass. He really liked it though!

The snowdrops have started blooming, and the tulips and crocuses and daffodils have started to emerge.

I need about 100 more snowdrops to be really happy, I think. Maybe 200.

Here are some more pictures of Oscar having a grand old time:

There are some videos to share too, but that will have to wait on well-behaved internet.

Have a lovely week!

late post

Sue and Lloyd were here on Sunday night and took us out to dinner! So the blog is getting updated a little late.

Oscar is very well-behaved at restaurants. He dutifully chews on the crayons and drinks from straws and eats the unfamiliar food. It's quite pleasant! He is also no longer able to click his tongue in an inhumanly loud way, since he has giant front teeth that get in the way.

Eric is negotiating with reps all the time. The lab is going to buy a robot to do RNA extractions from plant tissue for them, for many thousands of dollars. And then they will have a lab robot! We had one in the Biology department a few years ago as a demo, and it was very cute and very efficient. The yields were exactly the same, every single time. And while it was running, you could go do something else!

I am finding more and more evidence that extensins are an integral part of wood, which is essential to my theory that extensins are a problem in making biofuels out of wood. I don't know why I couldn't find all these articles before when I was applying for grants - a paper was recently published that had a bunch of good citations that have opened the world of wood-protein studies to me. One paper is by an art conservator who studies pyrography, which is the art of making pictures by burning wood. A lot of the discoloration is achieved by caramelization of the sugars and also by my personal favorite, the Maillard reaction, which requires nitrogen, which is donated by the proteins found in the wood! It all comes together so nicely...
a) a pyrograph

b) the painting it's copying

a - ‘The Dead Christ Mourned’, by Smith c. 1829. Photograph by Susan M Millis; b - The original painting, NG2923 The Dead Christ Mourned (‘The Three Maries’) by Annibale Carracci c. 1604. Presented by Rosalind Countess of Carlisle, 1913. Photograph ©The National Gallery, London. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of Oscar at his latest and finest.

Investigating his Valentine's Day package from Great-Gramma

Playing with some dinosaur magnets

And finally, the shawl for my cousin is finished! It's very warm and cozy, and I'm excited to make another one just like it for myself!

Here it is drying after I blocked it. When I make things for other people, I do it right, but I usually can't be bothered to block things.

Ta-da!

surprise post!

I finally mailed Lloyd his Christmas present so I can now show it off here:

It's a runner, on which he may display his finely turned wooden bowls. The pattern is Swedish lace, the yarn is Tencel (a kind of rayon), and I am very pleased with it. The selvedges turned out particularly nicely. Lloyd likes it too, he says, so everybody wins! Merry Christmas!

The other surprise news is that Eric was offered a position at CTY again this summer, in Bristol RI, and Todd has said that he can totally go! Eric gets to go to camp again and see all his camp buddies! And now that Oscar's in daycare it won't be quite so dramatic for me either! Everybody wins again!

It is still February.

Yesterday and Friday were exciting because the temperature was around freezing, unlike the rest of the week when it was at or below 0. I was woken up many times in the night by the furnace kicking on, which confused me since the furnace usually turns on at 7, acting as my alarm.

I was not woken up by Oscar! He's been sleeping through the night for the past two weeks and boy has that been wonderful. However he just started growing again so just recently he's started needing a bottle again in the middle of the night. It's really too cold for such shenanigans, so we've been stuffing him as much as possible during the day. I think he prefers to sleep through the night, himself, so the strategy might actually be working. Oscar has also mastered standing up by himself, as well as spinning around to make himself dizzy. He'll spin as long as he can without falling over - a real thrill-seeker!

Not so many pictures this week - it is February after all.

Oscar assumes the upright posture

The unheard-of three-cat pin

Happy little dude!

this week, wicked baby edition

Events of note:
Eric had his first week of work as Lab Manager. He ended the week by getting ordering powers ($2000/day on the lab credit card!) and interviewing undergraduates - in other words, highly managerial. We also got all signed up for all the benefits, mainly health insurance and a retirement plan. The health insurance is a little bogus because CSU's plans are "grandfathered" under the ACA, so they don't have to meet all of the new requirements like no copays etc. However, they cannot refuse coverage due to preexisting conditions, and it is cheaper than student insurance, so I guess I'm happy.

I got publishable data! My theories are right and everyone should grant me lots of money! There are no fancy pictures to go with this data, but suffice it to say the error bars on my charts are really, really small. My advisor left this weekend for Denmark, so I'm not sure when this paper will get written, but updates will ensue as events warrant. (I'm definitely going to graduate!)

I had my first Super Bowl experience and boy was it disappointing. I'm quite glad I didn't travel to any parties or even change out of my pajamas for it!

Oscar has been terrorizing cats and the general public in various ways, including donning socks as mittens and being inconsolable at daycare.
Evidence:

Beer bottles are very cold and nice on baby gums, Oscar tells us.

A tripartite pecan! Whoever heard of such a monstrous nut?

It's been snowing, and it's going to snow. A snow caterpillar decorates a coneflower.

Socks for hands!

I don't know what got into us - it was halftime, we were feeding Oscar dinner, it just seemed right...

That's the news, see you next week!