Keeping up my Photoshop Skillz

Since I haven't had to make a figure lately I thought I would spend my evening re-designing my blog header. I haven't had an excuse to use Photoshop lately and it is fun to mess around with images when you don't have to worry about the fact you are manipulating them.

And, if you were wondering: Yes, the feet are actually those of ThePrincess when she was a newborn. (Although those aren't really my Erlenmeyer flasks.)

Lost: 1 Sewing Machine. Continued fallout from our moving disaster

Ack. The hell that is the result of moving continues..

I just realized I cannot find my sewing machine. Well, one of my 6 sewing machines. (Clearly I have a slight addiction to sewing machines, but that is a discussion for another time.)

The one I am specifically talking about my fancy-smancy Pfaff Quilting Sewing Machine. The one I use 99% of the time.

Police Sketch of Missing Subject:

I have searched everywhere.. she (because the gender of sewing machines is clearly feminine) is missing. I'm so depressed. So if anyone sees a cute little purple Pfaff.. please send her home. LabMom misses her.

Kids and Scientists: Media Stereotypes and Gender-bias

With all the talk of sex discrimination in science, I found this post over on Restructure to be an interesting one.

It shows kids drawings of what they think a "scientist" looks like before and after a visit to Fermilab. Before the visit, scientists looked a lot like this:

And afterward they look a little more like this:

You should really look at the actual drawings, they are pretty cute.

As I blogged before, I am pretty convinced that the (inaccurate) way scientists are portrayed in the media even from a young age, (for example Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Disney's Phineas and Ferb, a current fave in the LabFamily household) influence our kids' ideas much more than even close contact with actual scientists.

image courtesty of dragoart

Even the LabChildren (who have both a female and male scientist parent) would identify a scientist as a crazy man in a white lab coat. Mommy and Daddy are just way to "normal" to be scientists.

Yes, they have been to where we work, they have seen the test tubes and beakers, and they still believe all we do is play on the computer all day. In their eyes "real" scientists clearly do all their work in dimly lit rooms with strangely colored backlighting and insta-output DNA sequencers (a la CSI). Or they must be busy constructing giant ray-guns in order to remove the underpants of their unsuspecting arch-nemesis. (I mean, isn't that what scientists really do?)

So what does that mean for gender bias down the line? As much as we may not want to admit it, I believe that if children continually hear that scientists are typically men they have no other reason to believe other wise. Why wouldn't they believe that women are inferior in those types of careers if no women are portrayed as successful on TV or in the movies?

Now granted, as kids get older they will intellectually understand that there are female scientists (just like, disappointingly, there are no underpants-removing ray guns), but there will always underlie that subconscious gender bias. The silent (and sometimes even spoken) assumption that any scientist who is truly successful must be a male.

And as the Fermilab experiement shows, it is going to take a lot of exposure therapy (aka Bring our kids to work day) to change those beliefs, since I doubt you are going to see a huge shift in mainstream media anytime soon.

Fun Stuff: Star Wars Gone Cutesy

Since every science nerd loves Star Wars (or at least they should) I thought I would feature a few shall we call them "outside the box" Star Wars products that may put you into sugar shock.

First up: How about the entire cast of Star Wars as portrayed by Hello Kitty:

Source: Geekologie
Can I get a collective "Awwwww..."

Next: The most darling birthday party invitations courtesy of FinePrints on Etsy.

Seriously, who wouldn't want to go a party with those invites?

And since everyone needs a daily dose of Stormtroopers, check out the Stormtroopers 365 project. Cute and funny.

Complete flickr set flickr set or you can even get prints.

Or how about some crocheted Star Wars cuteness? Sammi Resendes from Geekcentralstation has condemed us all to a life of cavities with these little fellows.

I must say I am partial to the Wookie. That is just too cute to be legal.
(Check out the rest of her blog since she has posted a lot more characters.)

And if you are in the mood to dress up your youngin' like our favorite green Star Wars Character, you definitely need this:

Get yours here. (Cute youngin' not included)

Lastly, of course no post is complete without a quilt. So here is one from ModestMaven. (Close ups of characters after the jump.) Cute and Star Warsy, what more can you ask for?

Twitter: Cuz all the cool kids are doing it

So I am jumping into the world of Twitter.
Well, that isn't true. I have been on the world of Twitter for a while, but I haven't really been posting much as lab_mom.

Tonight I spent a while getting a little more organized and tried to hunt down most of my favorite bloggers (both science, mommy or quilting).

If you are on twitter, please feel free to follow me, or drop a comment in here about your Twitter ID since I'm always looking for great new people to follow.

The Job Search: A final update

I have made the call.

The life-changing, no-turning back, all-encompassing decision.

The angst has come to an end:

Hello off ramp, goodbye science.

Yep, I have decided to quit working. The term I am using with my new-found stay-at-home mommy cohorts is "early retirement."

I know previously I mentioned that I thought it would be tough to land a part-time gig, but it turns out I was wrong. I actually had an offer to work part time a few days a week from one of the PIs who I interviewed with previously, but my heart just wasn't in it. It just felt so disjointed. I knew I couldn't be an effective researcher if I wasn't there every day. Plus the balancing act between home-life and work-life is skewed when you aren't doing either of them full steam ahead.

I felt like when I was a full time working mom I was giving 100% to both my career and my parenting. (Strange I know since my kids were in daycare, but I was an awesome mom because of it plus I was able to be a great, dedicated employee, if I do say so myself.)

On the other hand, doing the part time thing, I suddenly saw clearly that I would be sacrificing both. That may sound strange, but I do think both my career and my family would suffer more if I didn't commit to them both fully. I would be "mostly" home with my kids, but not really. And my job would be half-assed. I won't kid myself.

So there you have it.

I guess that will mean quite the evolution for my blog. Eh, I have been so torn about things lately I have been a shitty blogger anyhow. Maybe now I can get my life settled down a little bit and get back on track blogging. Clearly, I won't be doing any mini-preps anytime soon.

House-hunting we will go.. House-hunting we will go...

Yep, we are still at it. On the quest for the perfect house.
This marks the 2 month mark and we may as well have started tomorrow for as far as we have gotten.

At this point I am mostly attending open houses, since the market here is so hot, that the way it works is:
1) Listing added to market on Tuesday or Wednesday
2) Following Sunday is Open House
3) 50 people attend and multiple offers are put down
4) House is sold

(At least the decent houses have all gone this way.)

So, I have been dilligently attending open houses. Unfortanately we haven't gotten past the first half of Step 3. I am one of the 50 attendees but never one of the people making an offer.

All in all it has been pretty depressing. We have a pretty high budget (at least relative to what we sold our last house for) and don't have many requirements other than the house needs 3 bedrooms and must be inhabitable by humans.

So, here is what I looked at (IN PERSON) so far.

Budget/Bed/Bath/SqFt: Why it sucked

1. 100%/3/1.5/1420: On a busy street, steep lot
2. 95%/3/1/1660: Needed a new kitchen and baths (1940s)
3. 94%/3/2/1728: No parking AT ALL, Climb 20 stairs to enter front door
4. 114%/3/2/1937: Second bath was in basement, over budget
5. 84%/3/1/1500: Water in basement, overlooked freeway
6. 100%/4/2/1838: Top floor CONDO, lots of stairs, no garage, busy street
7. 80%/3/2/2200: CONDO, in need of repairs, no garage, dining room converted to bedroom
8. 80%/4/2/1867: Busy street, old duplex converted to single family (two kitchens, two living rooms)
9. 105%3/1/1134: Distant location, small, over budget
10. 82%/4/2.5/2055: Steep lot, lots of steep stairs, overlooked lumber yard
11. 96%/2/1/1094: Not enough bedrooms, shared driveway, tiny
12. 100%/3/2/1547: Needs repairs including new kitchen (1950s)
13. 80%/3/1/2012: Foreclosure, in terrible shape, no garage
14. 100%/3/1.5/1625: Dumpy, needs lots of work
15. 72%/3/1/5/1450: Foreclosure, 1980s house, needs lots of work, shared steep driveway
16. 105%/3/2/1400: Tiny living area, no garage, over budget
17. 80%/3/2/2396: Square footage included basement, on busy highway, steep lot
18. 97%/3/2/1417: Distant location, needs new kitchen (1930s), no garage
19. 100%/3/2.5/1984: CONDO, busy street, overlooks cemetery on 2 sides
20. 98%/4/2/1900: In disrepair, walk-through master, needs new kitchen/baths (1950s)
21. 95%/3/2/1628: Business converted to house, weird layout, no garage, tiny kitchen
22. 84%/3/2/1810: In bad shape, no garage, horrible bathroom in basement
23. 82%/3/1.5/1490: Busy street, in disrepair, needs new kitchen/baths (1950s)
24. 97%/3/2.5/1522: CONDO, 3-stories, tiny winding staircase, between school and grocery store
25. 81%/3/1.5/1490: On busy street, steep lot, needs work
26. 90%/3/3/1803: CONDO, in downtown area, no lot, no parking
27. 77%3/1/1210: In terrible shape, bad neighborhood, no garage

There were a couple more, but if they were truly dreadful I didn't even record the information about them. All but about 4-5 of those are not currently under contract. (Mostly the ones which need major renovations.) I am not surprised since the open houses are always a mob scene. You never would have thought there was 'a recession' going on with the number of people house hunting around here.

It is all so daunting. This weekend I have 7 more on my list to check out. Hopefully we will just get lucky, although I fear that even if we find something we like, and want to buy, that we will end up competing with a bunch of other people who feel the same way. Yuck.

That is what I have up to.

I also have an update about the job search, but I'll save that for another day. Enough depressing news for now.

Fun Stuff: I want this T-shirt

Enough said.

You can get one too..

Fun Stuff: Science Quilts (for all your Neuroscientists)

Lookie what I ran across: More Science Quilts!

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as "The Museum of Fabric Brain Art" Who the hell knew?
Of course they feature all sorts of fiber art techniques, but I wanted to point out the quilts. Here is one example:

I originally stumbled upon it in the Laurie Toby Edison blog but check out the original for details

How about this beauty? It is the artist's version of a chart entitled "Capturing Phase Dynamics of Circadian Clocks" and the quilting is EEG patterns at various stages of sleep and waking. It is the brain child (ba-da-dump..I'll be here all night) of Becky Haycox.

For the original and inspirational materials used check out the link above

Here is Christian Holstad's take on a Brain Quilt

Featured in the Saatchi Gallery

And to wrap it all out, here is my absolute FAVORITE:

I wish I had any info on the artist other than it was shown at the Tokyo International Quilt Festival this year. (If anyone knows anything about this quilt please contact me and I will update this post.) It is phenomenal. It is made up of offset log cabin blocks and only from a distance can you see it is a brain cross section. Look at the tiny pieces!

This image was posted by Jennifer at moving hands.

I guess Anton Checkov was right when he said:
"An artist's flair is sometimes worth a scientist's brains."

The Job Search: Be All That You Can Be.

Back in the 1980s the Army ran this great ad campaign entitled "Be All That You Can Be." In case you don't remember it:

Makes you want to jump out of plane, shoot somebody and then drink crappy coffee, doesn't it?

Anyhow, now that I am settled in I have some big decisions to make. And one of them is figuring out a way to Be All That I Can Be. Once again the dreaded work-life balance equation comes into play. Yippee flipping skippy.

The cost of living in our new city is so astro-freaking-nominal, it has thrown a huge wrench into my original plan. Before the move I had intended to go back to working full-time, and I had even begun interviewing for Lab Manager jobs. But now I am pretty sure this is just not going to be feasible. The commute, the cost of full time child care (I shit you not: $61,000/year!), and (in all honestly) my enjoyment of having the days free and not having to think about experiments all the time, have made the idea of returning only part-time very very very appealing.

But what does this mean for me in reality? Remarkably, after interviewing for the full time position I originally thought I wanted, I had plenty of job offers, so clearly I have the skill set that lots of labs are looking for. Unfortunately, I have had to turn them down, one-by-one and reevaluate not only what they need but also what I need.

So what am I looking for?

In a perfect world I would love to work part-time, maybe taking Mondays and Fridays off. But anyone in science knows, it would be pretty tough to be uber-productive with a three day work week (especially in animal models which is the type of position I am interested in.)

The other option would be to do reduced hours but come in every day. This sucks since you end up having a huge Commute:Work ratio, so (at least for now) I am taking that off the table. I don't want to be spending as much time in my car as I do at my bench. I know my limits and I know I will burn out if I have to do that.

So where does this leave me?

I have found a 4 day a week preschool program for ThePrincess and I am searching the Nanny-share options for part time care for ThePeanut. I am disclosing to all my interviewees that I am only interested in a 3-day work week and I am letting the cards fall where they may. I know that it is going to be a problem. I have reduced my marketability by about 1000% but I don't really think I have another option. It is part time LabMom or nothing.

Hopefully I can make it all work. If not, well, eh.. I guess I am going to be one of those moms on ramping in a few years.

The reality is that I don't HAVE to work, I WANT to and I love science, but I am going to have to put my family and my sanity first. I never would have predicted that I would have ended up being of of the 'opt-out' women in science, but it may come to that.

Only time will tell. For now, the job hunt continues.

All I can do is stick to the Army campaign and market myself like this:

"I do more by 9 AM than most people do all day!"

Rockin' the Shoppin'! Call me the coupon queen.

Since I am still on the fence about my employment situation and we are down to just one income in a strange new land I decided I would get back on the bandwagon and focus on couponing once again.

You may not have known that I am an avid coupon user. When I was working full time I used a fantastic coupon matching service for one or two of my favorite stores. It was a huge time saver and well worth the few bucks a week it cost. I would do a weekly shop right off their 'must buy' list and that was that. Easy peasy. I would say I cut 50% off my average weekly grocery bill with only a hour to two of work.

When we knew we were moving I stopped shopping completely and just ate down our huge pantry and freezer stock. I haven't done anything with my coupons in at least six months and I even discontinued my grocerygame subscription. In other words: I fell off the wagon.

Now that we are finally settled in the new apartment, we are in desperate need of groceries. I nearly tipped over when I saw my grocery bill to restock my basic supplies. Since I NEVER pay full price for things I was sick leaving the store with my three digit bill for a mere 5 bags of groceries. THAT DID IT! Time to get back to couponing.

Since I am currently in a new area and still getting the feel for which stores I like best I decided not to re-enroll in GG right away. For now I am just doing it the old fashioned way. Scouring the flyers and cross referencing my coupon stash. I also have run into the problem that I have no coupons left. I stopped getting the paper and cutting them out before we moved, so I only have a weeks worth of coupons. Fortunately, yesterday there were three coupon inserts and I hit the grocery/drug store circuit for the few items I could get a deal on.

Yes, I do have to buy stuff we actually NEED (produce, meat, cereal) so this isn't going to be one of those 100$ shopping trips for 15 cents, but a realistic grocery excursion for a family of 4.

So, without further ado.. The results of week 1's shopping adventure:

Grocery Store 1:
Peaches (99c/lb)
2 lbs Strawberries (1.69)
Hebrew National Hot Dogs (3.99-3.99*=free)
Refried Beans (99c)
Snapple (1.19)
2 Boxes Cheerios (2-1*=1)
2 Boxes Town House Crackers (1.99-1*=99c)
Activa Yogurt (1.99-1.50=49c)
Danimals Yogurt (1.99-2.00*=free)
Danonino Yogurt (1.99-2.00*=free)

Total: $10.74
Savings: $26.85 (Sales and *Coupons)


Grocery Store 2:
2 lbs Blueberries (2)
Tomatoes (1.50)
Pork Shoulder (1.29/lb=8.94)
4 boxes Mac&Cheese (2/1)
1 lb Butter (2.79-1=1.79)
2 Half-Gallons Tropicana (2-50c=1.50)
Cream Cheese (2 but rang up for 2.50..so I got it for free!) It pays to pay attention.
2 3-packs Ivory Soap (1-.50=.50)
2 boxes store-brand Klondike Bars (1.99)
15c off for using my own bags

Total: $26.58
Savings: $14.01 (Sales and *Coupons)


Drugstore 1:
6 Bags of Gummy Bears (39c)
3 Cans Peaches (1.99-1.20*= 79c)
3 Gallons Water (1.19-50*69c)

Total: $6.78
Savings: $8.70 (Sales and *Coupons)


Drugstore 2:
3 Boxes Frosted Mini-Wheats (1.66-50*=1.16)
1 Box Tampax (2.97-2*=97c)
1 Box Always Ultrathins (2.97-1*=1.97)

Total: $6.94
Savings: $16.31 (Sales and *Coupons)


Week 1 totals:
Total: $51.04
Savings: $65.87

My total monthly grocery/baby/drugstore budget is 250$ so I am right on track. I will need to get milk, bread and chicken at a wholesale club later this week, but I have a little wiggle room for that!

Moving Update: You don't wanna know

I have been avoiding blogging about the move since, well, it has gone so completely disastrously**.

The last time I blogged about our moving status we had already run into a snag, but that was only the tip of the iceberg:
Yes, the movers showed up 6 hours late on moving day.
Yes, the truck broke down after is was only half loaded.
Yes, they temporarily loaded our crap onto a rental truck.
Yes, we left our house at nearly midnight and stayed with my parents while our stuff was in transit.
NO, IT DID NOT END THERE.

The idea was that the movers were going to move our stuff from the rental truck onto a repaired semi and (although delayed 3 days) it was going to come straight to our apartment. Since our mini-van didn't fit on the rental truck, they were going to come back and pick it up before they left... Oh you see where this is going don't you?!!

Well, clearly it wasn't that simple. They ended up off-loading our stuff from the rental truck onto the semi and get this: IT WASN'T REPAIRED! Once they moved our stuff to the semi, it wouldn't start. (Don't you think they would check that before moving 18,000 pounds of housewares? Guess not!) Our shit sat on the side of the road in a semi trailer for a few days before being loaded onto yet ANOTHER rental truck and then onto a NEW semi.

Yes.. Count it: That was loaded/unloaded 6 times at this point! (Naaaw, our stuff isn't getting at ALL beat up by this man-handling. Never.)

Almost 8 days later our stuff shows up at our new apartment. But guess what DOESN'T show up? Hmm.. What were they supposed to go back and get? Yep, the mini-van!

Their response: "Ooops! Slipped our minds! We'll send it down with the next trip."

W.
T.
F?!

Well, nothing I can do about it at this point. Just focus on unpacking. Now that the stuff has arrived it should be smooth sailing right?

Of course not! We don't have enough space in our apartment for all our stuff. In case I never mentioned it before, we are staying in a 2 bedroom 1100 sq. ft apartment. We have relocated from a 4 bedroom 1800 sq. ft house (with a garage and yard.) We have LOTS of stuff. (In fact, we have 9 TONS of stuff.. literally.)

We aren't stupid. We knew we needed to store some of it and so we had rented a storage unit based on the measurements the movers gave us we got a 10x10 foot unit. Well, not even 10 minutes into unpacking I have the horrid realization that it isn't going to fit in our rental unit. We need more than space. A LOT more.

Turns out we needed an additional 2 units (thus tripling our monthly rental space costs! Yay.) At least we have all the stuff off the truck right? Well, except the missing mini-van.

I spend the next 72 hours unpacking. I just white-knuckled it through. Everything in the apartment was out of boxes within the first 3 days. And THEN the mini-van shows up.. Duh-duh-duh-duuuuuhhh..... *queue ominous music*

Of course, both the front and back bumpers are badly damaged. It appears they scraped it when rolling it onto and off of the truck. ARGH!

But that isn't the sum total of the damage. So far (and mind you I have only unpacked one third of our things. My good china and other valuables are still wrapped up in storage. We won't know about any of those until we move into our permanent home. This is only based on our bare essentials that have been unpacked for our tiny apartment.)

Collateral Damages:
*Almost half of my stemware was shattered (6 of 14 wine glasses)
*The handle was broken off my toolbox
*Lost the shelves off one bookcase, completely LOST second (matching bookcase)
*They dropped the TV on our hardwood floor denting it
*Stainless steel kitchen trashcan is now flat so the lid will not shut
*My daughter's play-kitchen door was ripped off and the pegs that hold it together were sheared off
*Hardware to assemble the crib went missing. Crib=Useless
*Lid to cooler was crushed
*A bottle of mouthwash was shattered and they packed it in a box of books ruining all of them. (Unless you enjoy minty-fresh books)

And don't forget: I need two new car bumpers.

Oh god I don't want to think about what is left in storage and I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to do this again. It is also at that point I will discover what else is missing. Right now I am assuming I just can't find things but I fear we lost a lot of stuff in the shuffle. What a nightmare!

Hell, we are already 2 months into our lease. Only 4 months to go and we get another shot at it.

I need a drink. (Too bad I don't have many wine glasses left!)



**See Titanic if you would like further examples.