erica and fuzzy visit

boy, we had a great visit this week with chris's sister, erica, and her husband, fuzzy. they came in sunday night. while i worked monday, they spent the day driving up to charlotte to deposit their mom at the airport. tuesday i took off work and we all had a fantastic time hanging around the house, doing a little window shopping around town, and tearing it up at frankie's fun park. we were all surprised that this little scaredy-cat conquered all in laser tag. i guess my terror of people chasing me with guns served me well in shooting the hell out of everyone on the course. i can't say i did so well at mini golf, though i did get 3 holes-in-one. despite that, i still came in tied for third*, which speaks to how awful the rest of my scores were. after mini golf we played in the arcade and the husbands used our combined tickets to "purchase" the wives a skull and crossbones cuff bracelet. cool. we rounded the night out with a chill cookout in the back yard using our fire pit. good times, folks. good times.

here are a few choice shots. there are more to come i'm sure. but here's a little taste of what i've got uploaded so far.





**















*thanks to generous scoring i came in tied for third. i really should've come solidly in fourth place.

**by the way, the bees look to be doing well. we spotted the queen and we named her latifah, of course. erica and fuzzy got a great shot of her on their camera. she was laying eggs and things looked to be strong. hopefully that continues.

graduation boy

graduation boy

my baby boy* graduates today. congratulations, sweet sweet sweetie for successfully completing your masters in social work! woot woot!

*this is really an inside joke because baldman told his mom today not to call him that. and i find humor in doing things that people ask me not to do, especially when it's my husband.

hive sweet hive

the bees are back home!

traffic court

so i had the pleasure (that's joke) of sitting in traffic court for over an hour this morning. let me first just complain about a few things. i hate how they tell you to be there at X time but then don't actually get rolling until 30-45 minutes later. i'm an overly punctual person and i get really testy when i show up on time and feel like my time is being taken advantage of. it's not like i expected it to start on time. i know that's how these things go. but still. it seemed like an eternity before they got started. plus, three is no free parking around anywhere. so i had to park at a meter. and, of course, i only had 2 quarters on me, only enough for 40 minutes. so i put the money in the meter thinking, "certainly this'll be more than enough." but, to my dismay, 40 minutes passed and they hadn't even STARTED yet. and, of course, i couldn't leave to feed the meter because you're really not supposed to leave and i was also afraid to miss my call.

so we waited and waited. once they finally got started i found it really interesting to see how the process went. i was also surprised at the number of alcohol and drug violations were going on in traffic court. also suspended licenses. once they finally got to us (me and the other girl involved in the accident), i got nervous for a second because i thought it wasn't going to be thrown out right away. but everything was okay and they dismissed the charges.

and of course, i returned to my car to find a $7 parking ticket. thanks city of columbia pd, for being so on-point.

while the hubby's away...

the wife will play? well, sort of.

baldman left saturday for a graduation-present-vacation in california. he's not really had much time off for the past few years. and i've certainly had my share of quick trips to ny or nj. so i figured this was more than well-deserved.

in all honesty i've not "played" all too much. on saturday i worked outside, babysat, and partially cleaned the house. that night after the husband left i attended my first kentucky durby party and partook in my first ever mint julip. man, that's a serious drink! it was interesting to see what the horse races were all about. and the horses were certainly amazing to look at! i'd never really seen racing horses before. i obviously didn't have a favorite going in so i chose flying private because his name sounded so dirty. he came in last place. oh well, good thing i'm not a gambler.

the rest of the weekend i spent errand-running and working in the garden. a bunch of my seeds never sprouted (probably because i'm a really inconsistent waterer), so i bought some transplants of okra, yellow squash, green peppers, banana peppers, marigolds, and a few lantana to put in the garden.

i've also taken off work tomorrow. i have a few flex hours that i have to use. so i have my court case in the morning for the accident from april. and i plan to finish cleaning the house and get a facial in the afternoon (that's was a gift from my birthday that i've yet to use). so the facial is playing, right?

i was just talking with baldman on the phone and we were discussing how i don't really know how to relax and do nothing. i always long for free time to do nothing. but when i do nothing i'm constantly feeling guilty and thinking of the million things i should be doing. for the past few nights while the man is gone, i've been sitting down and either reading a book or catching episodes online of the office or 30 rock. it's been great to do that, but it's hard to enjoy fully when i feel like such a big, lazy fatty. eating a bowl of ice cream tonight didn't help too much on that front. and i had a beer with dinner.

i guess that's my idea of playing.

catching up- an anniversary, bees SOS and a new car

so much has happened this week i've just been running to keep up. so here's a quick run-down.

first, sunday was mine and baldman's 6th wedding anniversary. we were fortunate to be invited to a little lady's first year birthday party in greenville. so we got to share our anniversary with the dells who were celebrating their 12th wedding anniversary.

this is pretty much what we did most of that day.

though, baldman, dogwood dell, brian and sean did get up for a little to play a good round of redneck golf. brian and sean were the victors by a close margin.

then, of course, the bee problem. i left my readers hanging on this one. so last week i had a few folks from midstate beekeeping association come out and look at the hive. we're still not really sure exactly what happened. but we do know that we do not have a queen and that we have a few egg-laying workers. this is a problem for many reasons, one of which is that a worker can only lay unfertilized eggs, which produce only male bees (drones). so the population will decline and eventually just die off.

so wednesday night, mr. frank, my teacher from the class, came to pick up my hive and bring it back to his house. now the problem is to get the egg-laying workers to get out of my hive. if he introduces a new queen into the hive the workers would kill her. so he has taken all of my bees and frames out of the hive. he is going to put some of his bees and frames with larvae into my hive and introduce a new queen. once he knows that the queen is accepted and laying eggs, he will then try to get some of my old bees into my hive. the hope is that the egg-laying workers will not return. so he will keep my hive at his place for about a week to watch it and make sure that everything goes okay.

i feel so badly that we've had to get someone else to bail us out. but on the other hand, i'm just not at the skill level yet to work all this out. so i'm treating it like i've called a doctor to fix it and hopefully i will be able to take it over from here. i owe so much to the folks at MBA. they're the best!!

and lastly, we bought a car! a new car! what what?!! after the wreck a month ago we've been borrowing a car from some very generous friends. that, of course, couldn't be a permanent solution. so once baldman lightened his workload* we could concentrate on researching and test-driving several cars. it was a really tough choice. we knew we wanted a 4-door hatch-back. and there are a lot of really good, inexpensive cars out there right now. in the end is was a choice between the 2009 vw rabbit or the 2009 subaru impreza. wednesday night we ended up purchasing the impreza. the decision-maker was that there were very few 4-door rabbits left in the country, let alone our area, and their financing deals weren't really great. so wednesday we signed the paperwork and then thursday we were able to pick up our car and drive it home (the one we wanted had to be shipped from charlotte). here she is:







ain't she a beauty!!?


*i know i should do a whole post on this and not just an aside at the bottom of another post. (bad wifey!) but baldman has officially finished all of his coursework and internship to complete his masters! he'll be graduating in about a week. i'm so proud of him! he has worked so hard and has been so diligent. he's truly an inspiration. plus, he's already gotten a job. did i mention that? hence, the ability to buy the new car!

help! my bees are sick

i don't know what's happening but this is what we found this afternoon!


larvae and bees outside the hive


these are a bit blurry, but basically, you can see that the wax foundation is discolored and collapsed. you can also see hive beetles, which may be the source of the problem.





i called someone from the midstate beekeeping association and hopefully they'll know how to help me!

slow food gardening workshop

Small Scale Urban Gardening
Partner event with USC Green Quad Learning Center


Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 6:00 pm
USC Green Quad: Learning Center located at 1216 Wheat Street, Building D

The Green Quad Learning Center for Sustainable Futures along with Slow Food Columbia will host a workshop on Small Scale Urban Vegetable Gardening. The workshop will introduce square foot gardening techniques, container gardening, soil preparation and seed selection for the Columbia area. Green Quad Community Gardener Michael Drennan and Permaculturalist, Matthew Kip will lead the workshop which will begin at 6pm on April 23rd at the Green Quad Community Garden.

Learn more about Michael's Square foot garden.

the torture didn't really transpire

so i was supposed to be on live at five on wis this morning. anyone who knows me well enough will know that i'm not a morning person. so to be awake at 4:30, let alone being perky and coherent is a feat for me. but i got up at 3:30, started to get all prettied up and got a call that there was breaking news and we were being bumped. so i crawled back in bed with very little delay. thus, the torture was minimal.

in all honesty, i have to say i was a little disappointed because this was a good opportunity for me, the agency, and our cause. but oh well, there will be more chances in the future.

torture

if i go to bed right now, i'll get 5 1/2 hrs of sleep. i have to wake up tomorrow at 3:30! that's AM, folks! i'll tell you why tomorrow.

mom's visit

i've not written in over a week mostly because i was so busy with my mom's visit. she came in wednesday night and stayed until this morning. we had a jam-packed, fun time.

i had to work a good part of thursday because we were preparing for a big event for sexual assault awareness month. we did a free movie in the park where we showed the lifetime movie, speak, staring kristen stewart (of twilight acclaim). the event went so well! we had about 100* people there and mostly everything went off without a hitch.

mom and her friend sarah helped put up flyers around the park.


although they were a bit cold, i think they enjoyed the show.


mom's main purpose for being in town this week was because her friend was visiting. sarah works for the michael feldman show and they had a broadcast from columbia on saturday. if you don't remember, or didn't know, we met the michael feldman show four years ago when they were on their bus tour. they visited mom's house in cape may, nj. mom struck up a friendship with their stage manager. hence, the connection.

so on friday evening, after a busy day of shopping for mom and me, we met up with the what d'ya know folks and went out with michael, the cast, and some of the accompanying crew of the show. i was pleased that they chose hunter gatherer as their restaurant for the night. what a great representation of the fantastic food in our city. it was great to meet these folks again. they're all really fun to hang out with and share laughs.

on saturday mom, baldman, a friend, and i all went to the watch the broadcast show. of course, that was really neat to see. and we got to hang out backstage for a minute waiting for sarah to be ready. a bonus to that excitement was that while waiting, i got to sample hunter gatherer's new high gravity beer and homemade chocolate fudge from a fan. yum!

after the show we spent a better part of the day bumming around columbia and eating more good food before sarah caught her evening flight back to wisconsin.

saturday afternoon i was able to show mom the bee hive. everything is still looking really good! there is larva growing, and more eggs being laid. still can't find the queen. i'm beginning to think that she was unmarked even though she's supposed to have a little marking to help me find her. but i know she's doing her job. they have laid comb in about 4 or 5 of the foundation. and some of the comb is capped off, which is fantastic! things are progressing very well!


mom, the bee-uty queen


suiting mom up


opening the hive


mom takes a peak


frames set to the side

on sunday we went strawberry picking, which has become an annual event for me. i tried to take the somali kids like i usually do, but they were not to be found. oh well, that'll give me an excuse to do it again before the season's over. i'll have pictures of the strawberry picking when mom emails them to me.

*yes, the 100 people included about 25 homeless men. but they ate the popcorn and watched the movie so they definitely should be included in our count. still even if they weren't, 75 people is an excellent number for our the first year of this event!

happy easter

i hope everyone is having a happy and blessed easter. ours was different than originally expected, but it turned out really nice. baldman was not feeling well yesterday so we did not go to the easter vigil like we normally do. he wasn't sure he could make it through the several hours-long mass. so we went this morning.

while in the jam-packed church, we sat next to an african. a guy from burkina faso who we'd never met before. of course, my husband struck up a conversation and ended up inviting him over for lunch. we really enjoyed the visit and it was nice to have someone else to celebrate with. plus, the lunch was awesome (if i do say so myself).

artichoke, leek and potato gratin
green salad with orange, fennel and asparagus
white-eyed peas*
homemade bread
wine
rhubarb pie



*i bought these peas from a road-side stand in lexington and i think the lady said they were white-eyed peas. but i'm not sure. they're like black-eyed peas, only not. they were really delic!

what are you doing tuesday night?

nothing.

why not go to the vagina monologues? the proceeds support (partially) my office.

check it out:

first bee check

this afternoon baldman and i did our first inspection of the hive. we couldn't find the queen, but i'm fairly certain she's there. the point is to find the queen (or signs of her) to make sure she's laying eggs and doing her job. we noticed a few hive beetle. i'll keep an eye on that. the bees were definitely working, though. they'd laid comb in a few of the outer frames. so we rotated frames to keep the middle full. hopefully they'll move out as they fill it up. at first i didn't see any eggs. they're so minuscule, it's just so hard to see them. especially when there's thousands of bees covering everything. but we removed some stray burr comb and when i looked closer at that i'm almost certain there were eggs in there. i figure i'll check back in a week to see if there are any more signs. but so far so good.

here are a few picts of the inspection:


is he not the cutest!?


taking out the frames


if you look closely, you can actually see where they've laid the comb


bzzzzz


the burr comb. if you blow this picture up big enough, you can actually see what i'm fairly certain are eggs. (how 'bout them blue nails?)

look what i did yesterday!

and i did it without spending any money. i moved some irises that were in the front yard, planted some lilies that mom transplanted from nj, and used wood chips from the tree that was taken down a few months ago. i'm really proud! now, i hope everything does okay and survives the move.


another similar shot.

this is kinda like how people react to my work

from the desk of the onion:

Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize For Medical Advancements Down There

the best april fools joke in the world

except that it's true.

so today's my birthday. happy birthday to me.



here's the saga of my day.

on my way home from work tonight i was in a 3 car accident. someone cut me off in traffic and they hit the person in front of me. i, in turn, hit them. no one was hurt, thankfully, other than just a few scrapes and bruises. i'm sure i'll feel sore tomorrow. but the car is totaled, i'm certain. the front bumper was totally crunched in and it had smashed the radiator. the irony is that i know the person who cut me off. she was my intern from last year and the other passenger in the car was our other intern. nice.

on the plus side we got to install the bees. that went really well. only one sting which i can't blame her because i was really banging them around. so here are a few picts of the process.

bee update

the bees were set to arrive in lexington yesterday at 5:30 pm. so i jetted out of work and pulled into the parking lot right around 6:00. as i pulled in it seemed like the line was deceptively short. and all the cars were in park and not moving at all. so i decided to get out and investigate. first of all, it turns out that the line was so short because i had cut in line. the eta for the bees had been changed to 9 pm, which had caused a lot of people to leave. i had apparently pulled into a gap in the line where people had not moved forward once others had left.

so at this point i had a choice to wait 3+ hours and keep my prime spot in line (which i had stolen anyway), or go home to chill for 2 hours and come back, possibly to wait another hour or so in line again. i decided on the latter, which in the end i really feel was a wise decision. as i was leaving lexington at 6:30 i heard that the drivers had just left the suppliers in south georgia and i knew that it would take them more than 2 1/2 hours to get there.

so at 9:30 pm i pulled back into lexington to find the line grown significantly. no worries, i put on the radio and listed to an old friend on a new-to-me show. it was 1/2 hour later, at 10:00, that the bees arrived. by 10:15 i was inching forward in the line and by 10:45 i had my bees in the back seat and heading home. it was creepy to have them in the car with me, but i knew there was no harm they would do to me. i felt like i had to challenge to myself to ride with them so i could get used to them. it was too late to install them into the hive last night, so i sprayed them down with sugar water to give them something to nibble on and stuck them on the porch. hopefully it won't rain tonight so i can put them in. they can only be in the shipping container for about 2 days tops.

here's a picture that baldman took last night. it shows you how they're clustering around the top where the feeder and the queen are. that cluster is totally thick with bees. there should be about 10,000 bees in there!

it's almost bee time!

the bees arrive this tuesday! i'm so psyched! today was my last bee class and i got the opportunity to look into a couple of hives and handle the bees. it was so interesting! in just that one time i got to see several baby bees hatching their way out of their cell. i also saw hive beetles, identified the queen, and saw the difference between cells that have brood, workers, nectar and a queen. i took pictures with my phone but i don't really have a way to get the pictures off the phone; so you'll only see them if you see me and ask to show you. hopefully i'll take pictures of my own hive once i get it started.

i also got most* of equipment today. but there was a little mix-up with the order. i wanted to have the pieces already assembled for me since i didn't really know what i was doing. but that message was not completely understood and i ended up getting 2 boxes full of wooden parts and 6 bags of various sizes of nails. what i thought was going to be a disaster ended up turning out pretty well. through the course of the afternoon i managed to assemble almost everything. hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow so i can paint the supers.











*in the shuffle to get everyone their equipment, the wax foundation for most of my hive went missing. i'm really hoping they can find it otherwise i'm in a heap of trouble!

a few new picts

we've had some visitors over the last few weeks. two weeks ago this friday my mom came through town for the night. on saturday she and i experienced a rainy farmers market and then we (she and i, plus baldman) took off for grandmom and grandad's little house in georgia. the weather was kind of yucky, but we had a great visit anyway.

then, a week ago this friday, my stepdad came through town. he also spent the night and left the next day to join mom in georgia. but he left their dog, tommy, with us. i really enjoyed having him around. we played in the park, took walks, and snuggled on the couch.



yesterday both parents came back through town for one more night visit. this time they took me out to dinner for my birthday. we went to garibaldi's. i'd never been there but had always heard it was excellent, which it certainly was. we also had a little cake and presents celebration, which was very special. thanks, guys!

also, unrelated, on friday afternoon i picked all the remaining kale and collards, plus a bunch of spinach and lettuce. boy, did we have a lot! i'll definitely grow those things again. the kale has been growing for over a year now!


not the best picture, but you get the idea!

henna

khadijah (my 8th grade somali friend) did this last night. i'm rather fond of it, though i wish i'd gotten a design on my other palm instead of covering the whole thing. i have to take credit for that idea. khadijah said it was going to look dumb and sure enough, it kinda does. guess she knows what she's talking about.

job perks

i may not get million dollar bonuses with my job like the folks at aig. but i do have some bonuses and perks that come with my line of work.

i've been at a middle school all week speaking to classes of 7th grade girls. yesterday we were talking about sexual harassment. i like to explore the difference between just playing around/"flirting" vs. sexual harassment. i broke the girls up into groups and had some girls brainstorm behaviors that would be flirting and other girls brainstorm behaviors that would be flirting or playing around. one group of girls were really talking a lot and seemed to be having too much fun to actually be doing the activity, so i went over to their group to investigate. i noticed that one of the group members had written something on their piece of paper and then had crossed it out. they seemed to be arguing about what they could and could not say. the girl kept saying "i can't say that!" and they were all laughing. i explained to them that i wanted to have an open and honest conversation and we might be using language that we're normally not allowed to use in school. but i also wanted to keep it appropriate and respectful. i tried to get her to tell me what it was she wasn't sure she could say. none of the girls in the group would say it, they just kept exploding with that middle school girl giggle. so finally, i looked at their sheet of paper and saw that they had written "grabbing someone on the boobs or balls." so i was like, "oh! you can say 'boobs' and 'balls' in today's class." oh my gosh! you would've thought i said the funniest joke in the world. it was that outrageous that there was this "teacher" saying "balls" out loud! holy smokes! the girls just laughed and laughed. one girl said, "this is, like, the most fun class ever!" to which i replied, "i'm so glad i can bring such joy to your life simply by saying one word, a word which you heard in gym class probably every day."

the cutest family

Reid Family Photo
Originally uploaded by Erica Reid

how 'bout that family i married into!

new technology

thanks to my stepdad we now have wireless internet that spans the entire house! before, we had wireless, but it only worked if i stayed in the same room, which was fine but sorta pointless.

but now. well, now it's just amazing! we were away for most of the weekend so i couldn't take full advantage. but i've already watched several shows and short videos (like this one, and this one, and this one) from the comfort of my couch. and i'm typing this now from my bed. oh the fun i will have! (while being comfortable, which is the difference, see.)

a happy reunion

on wednesday of this week my favorite somali family welcomed a new addition to their household. well, not so much a new addition, as a new welcome of an old member. for the past four years the mother (hamido), has lived in the u.s. as a single mother, raising her three children, while her husband (ali) remained in kenya. but on wednesday of this week the family welcomed their father to america. it's been a mixture of strange emotions for baldman and me. we are very protective of this family and we wondered how the presence of a man would change the family. but we were immediately pleasantly surprised by how nice he is and what a natural fit he is with his family. everyone seems to have picked up where they left off. so we are so happy for them and their reunion.

when i went over to the house tonight for my regular weekly visit, hamido asked me if i would like a skirt from africa. i immediately said "YES!" and she proceeded to take out a bunch of newly hand-made outfits that ali had brought over from kenya. apparently, she told him about my, described my size and asked him to pick something up for me in thanks for all i have done for them over the past 3+ years. so i graciously accepted a black and white patterned skirt. it was so hard to choose because everything was so beautiful! but i am so proud of my skirt, i wish i could wear it to work tomorrow! when i was wearing my skirt tonight i asked them if it made me african and they said, YES! so sweet!

lessons learned and not learned

why is it that i can never remember to check for poison ivy when clearing out vines? seriously, i know there's poison ivy in our back yard and i know approximately where it is located. but yet, still i find a way to get it. every spring. and sometimes in summer too. heck, i've been known to get it in other times of the year too. i don't have it too bad this time around though. i only have a few spots here and there, so i guess that's not too bad. maybe i'll just eventually become immune.

this weekend i did learn a valuable lesson in gardening. if you live in south carolina and you put down one of those mesh thingys to cover the ground around your plants it will indeed prevent weeds from sprouting. however, what you'll have in place of your weeds will be a raging anthill. seriously. big mistake, people. right now about 1/4-1/3 of my garden is one big anthill. dig in the soil just a little bit and i see bazillions of ants going crazy and heading for my legs. got it. it's on my list of "don't dos" for next season. now i just have to figure out how to still utilize the garden without being eaten alive.