Work All Day Makes.....

Jacque very grumpy and Jeff very happy.  The monotony of the work week is really getting to me.  Plus, I am starting to get pretty homesick.  I miss my friends, my family, my house, and most especially my pooch.  Every day Jeff gets up at 6am and then wakes me up at 7am.  Then we wait around for an hour while our assistant takes his first shower of the day (he usually takes at least 2).  We leave the house around 8am and then, depending on the day, drive for 90 minutes or for 5 minutes.  In total Jeff has 12 sites on the river, 5 90 minutes upstream and 2 90 minutes downstream.  The rest are all within easy reach from our house.  We finish the day somewhere between 3pm and 7pm, again depending on how much work we have to do, how quickly we do it, and how far we are from the house.  We go on-line and check e-mail and then cook and eat dinner and then bed around 9pm or 10pm.  The same exact schedule every day.

Our work is also not the most demanding work on the planet.  For the majority of this week we have been taking aquatic samples.  Which means obvious water quality samples but also 2 different kinds of net samples (this is when Jeff put a net into the water and sees what floats into it), counting rocks (yes, we actually go into the river and pick up rocks to count), clipping leaves from trees, and collecting algae.  We did this at every singles site.  Now that we have finished this work we have moved onto the ultra hard terrestrial samples.  This is where I swing a net into the trees and see what I catch.  I have to tell you have a girl do this with god knows what kind of bees, hornets, scorpion flies, spiders, etc. out there, is really not the best plan but I can only use the "I'm not being paid" excuse so often.  Of course, Jeff claims I say this WAYYY too often!  Whatever.  After swinging the net around a few times in a lot of different places, we then look to the ground and literally pick up whatever we see crawling around.  I cannot tell you how thrilling this is.  But it's science, I guess. 

Luckily I can just keep telling myself that Sunday is only a few days away and then I can be on vacation in Rome for more than few days this time.  I really am very lucky to have married such a smart man.  I mean I am in Europe for the entire summer!  And I'm complaining??!  No, just ready to come home, I think.