Heather Martin Reporting News

They are leaving early tomorrow morning. I was lucky to get an extra day to spend w/ them today, they were supposed to leave early this morning since my brother has to work tomorrow at home in Michigan but after this weekend's wedding festivities, that's why they came home in the first place, my brother and sister-in-law weren't up for a long drive today.

Got lots of good photos and videos and each time they get more and more comfortable w/ me, mainly JJ, he's the shy, younger one who still is afraid to come to me. Ella not shy at all so she's fine w/ me but I rarely see them so though they both can say Auntie Heather, I'm not sure how much it means to them.

Spent lots of time w/ Ella. She likes my laptop. I had to rent 2 movies from iTunes for her, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, which I remember buying the VHS when it came out in 1998, and Scooby Doo and the Goblin King which came out this year. I also had to buy Shrek because she wanted to watch it and it wasn't available to rent on iTunes and I couldn't find it for free online. That cost me $9.99, the rentals are $3.99 each and then buy two songs for $0.99 each, Ring of Fire and U Can't Touch This. At least you get it all instantly w/out having to move.

We also played some games online including stuff on PBSkids.com. I could just leave her in my room on the bed and she'd be happy clicking the mouse all alone until her mom made her stop because she was doing it for too long. We did some dancing and pretending to be bears and crocodiles, zombies that ate brains, we pretended to film a cooking show, watch out Rachel Ray!, and all kinds of fun stuff.

I've been feeling crappy for the last week or so w/ bad PMS. Finally went for a tough run today for 6 hilly miles out and back on the road my mom lives off of. I didn't want the hills but they're unavoidable around here. I'll probably feel it tomorrow but I definitely needed some running. Hope to keep it up now, plus I'm on vacation so I should easily have the time.

Had another abstract accepted to a meeting in Feb. in Cali. I want to go since it's way more fun than Indianapolis where I just presented at a conference last week but I don't think my PI will send me, saying the budget is tight. I think it's just an excuse not to send me but I did the work and I think I should get to present it, not just my collaborator. He gets to go because his PI wants him to, not fair. So he'll be presenting the work even though I'm first author. Oh well, I only have about a year left in my postdoc anyway so I should just be happy about that and start counting down the days, and the work. I think I have a good plan set for the next year, now I just need to execute and get everything done and wrapped up so I can leave on time. No clue where I'll look for a job but I gotta start thinking about it.