Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My new car! Isn't she pretty.

All in all, a great day yesterday!! We got the Blazer traded in... and miraculously-- it started, and the AC worked and the 4-wheel drive worked when the appraiser was trying it out... and well, I guess the time we spent washing and waxing it on Sunday paid off-- cause they traded it for more than I was hoping for!!!! Yay!

So now the subaru is my car, and it runs nicely and the AC works, and it has a CD player and doesn't seem to drink near as much gas as the Blazer--- so I am overall pretty excited.

Plus it fit my basic car shopping requirements-- It doesn't guzzle gas, has modern safety equipment (eg- air bags and ABS) it would hold a 100lb golden retreiver (Murphy) and will hold a car seat. And as a bonus is has All Wheel drive-- so I am very happy with what I got-- oh and it only cost one arm and part of a leg-- so that was a nice bonus!!!!

Super great day yesterday-- topped off with yummy grilled hot dogs on the spiffy grill-- and even with the good hot dog buns for toasting-- the new england style ones. They toast so much better than the plain ones. YAY!

Introducing my (hopefully) new car!

You can check it out at this site! Assuming I can get the blazer in on Monday to work the trade out, things are all set... well, in this case-- even if they blazer doesn't get traded in, I think we can swing it. I did a pretty darn good job negotiating the price (I am definitely not paying what it is listed at)-- so I am excited!

and its Red!!!

This after test driving every other car in the known universe that was 4 door with a hatchback. Craig is thrilled cause its a subaru like his, and I am excited about the whole 26-32MpG. YAY... and did I mention its Red?!?! And I get a CD player, and I get AC and unlike the blazer lately-- it should start, and its All-wheel drive, and well... I am just really very excited to have a new car!

Stay tuned on Monday for even more excitement!

Bits and pieces

It seems Craig has managed to pick up my cold. So hopefully he's not sick for too long. I am finally feeling better after going to bed at 7 last night-- yep, you read that right. I slept from 7pm until 7am... and finally feel almost human. Now if I could only stop coughing like a 70 year old chain smoker I'd be back to normal. Winnie had another day with no messes-- YAY! She does have the most painful ear splitting bark though--- ugh, I sure hope she doesn't do that all day while we're at work. 5 barks is enough to make me want to try and chop out her vocal cords.. I can only imagine what the neighbors think after a day of that noise.





I've got a long and hectic procedure at work today, so I am hoping to be out of here by 5. The one thing I can say about this procedure is that when it is done I have TON of data. So its nice to show the boss that I can be productive-- it just makes for an unpleasant work day. Keep your fingers crossed that it works!


Here is one pic of a previous run of this experiment. The procedure takes mouse boobs (yes, the techinical term) and turns them into a soup of single mouse boob cells. Then I can run those cells through a machine called a flow cytometer that lines them all up single file and looks at them. It looks at them for what they have on their outsides--- (that is, are the tags I stuck on there)-- I can then see how many cells that have a certain tag (A) also have other tags (B, C, etc)-- then I can quantify how many cells are A+B vs B+C, vs A+C--- which tells me something about the kind of cells that make up the mouse boob. The big problem for me is that I put a LOT of cells in, but only the ones circled in the picture are the ones that matter. So it takes me a long long time to get enough of the important cells--- oh yeah... and it takes me 6+ months to get a mouse with the right combo of genes to be old enough for the experiment--- so there is a lot riding on it working right--- cause if it doesn't I have to start over with breeding more mice-- YUCK!









Other than a big science day, we have cake class tonight--- no actual cake this week, just working with fondant and gumpaste-- we're learning carnations, "fantasy flowers" and daisies. Should be a quick and easy class. I'll try and get some pics up tomorrow for everyone to see.






Also-- if you have any recommendations for an affordable reliable car-- 4 door, decent gas mileage (ok, so anything will be better than the blazer was), has a radio, good safety record, would hypothetically hold a car seat and associated progeny related crap, that doesn't look awful-- please, let me know.
The blazer is dead (may she rest in peace) and I need to find a new car. I figure I am going to have the new one for a bunch of years, so practicality is important. All suggestions of models or makes are welcome!