Getting Ready for Fall Term

My classes are a mix of online, face-to-face and blended this term. The campus is still a ghost town. I am taking organic chem + lab, physics 2 + lab, world literature and GIS (geographic Information Systems). My labs are face-to face. My orgo lecture is face-to-face one day and zoom the other. All the rest is online.

Mom and Dad decided that E and I needed real desk chairs and working surfaces this year. Only catch, we had to build them! I got this cool new peddle machine for under my table to keep moving when I am sitting all the time. I really like it, helps me focus.

We also had a last minute coffee taste test. Our coffee is no longer made so we had to find an alternative. Mom tasted them and bowed out. Emmerson tried but just kept making faces and racing to the sink to spit it out. Dad and I picked a few new favorites and look forward to a fall season of iced coffee in the mornings.

The last night before school started we had fun playing Putt-putt and having lobster rolls. Back to business and distractions as we continue to live in this weird world of COVID-19. Someday we will look back and laugh, maybe?

Oh, a few last things. Es gecko hasn’t been eating much so mom is not hand feeding it to get it to bulk up. Going well so far! Also, earlier this summer was the SEmmy Awards at SPC. It is an art contest for high-school and college students. I entered one of my insect photos and was a runner up in this years contest. It was supposed to be a huge gala event but ended up as a virtual youtube video event. Still cool though!

IECC BioBlitz and Virtual Meeting

I was looking forward to IECC in Arizona this summer but sadly that too was canceled. They still held some virtual events so I had a lot of fun with that. We participated in the Bio Blitz, even got our 4-H group involved (before they said no more meetings for a while). We found lots of amazing critters, plants and fungus! The bio blitz took is all over the area in search of specimens. We spent time in the local county parks, Honeymoon Island State park, Hammock Park and finally Hillsborough River State Park.

We participated in a trivia night and actually won! It was mainly pop-culture trivia and insect news trivia so it was really fun for me. I am glad we got to connect with some of the members of the group online. It made my buggy heart grow. I really needed it!

Sunshine’s Castle

Well, it has taken us a long time to finish but we are officially completed. Many trips to the hardware store, long nights of working and many tears… but she is done! We got all the construction complete, sanded the entire thing, added 3 coats of epoxy pond liner for water proofing, painted the outside, installed the doors, 3-D printed latches for the doors, and finally had a smokey piece of glass cut for the top. I love it. Sunshine LOVES it! She is crazy active now and loves exploring all over the place. I left the latch open and she made a break for it and we found her under my bookshelf. OOPS!

Only step left is to add UV film to the doors to reduce the UV in my bedroom. We have to wait for the film to come in a few weeks.