chuck-town

great weekend with friends in charleston. turns out i don't have a picture with all four friends, so i chose this one which equally represents both sides of the friend contingent.

having hastily checked the morning job listings i now must get changed so i can go to the library to pick up my harry potter book. i may be absent from functioning life for a few days until i get this book read! and if it gets spoiled before i finish reading i'll be so pissed.

who is buried in grant's tomb?

finally, the answer to the age-old question.



answer: grant and his wife, julia.


this (dark) picture was taken when i visited grant's tomb during my trip to nyc last weekend. i lived in ny for 5 years and never even knew it was up at riverside park. how horrible is that?

great long weekend

got back late from new york last night. actually i got back this morning, at a little after 2:00 am. my flight was late leaving laguardia, of course. and then i had to drive the 90 miles from charlotte back to columbia.

but all-in-all, it was a fabulous weekend. here are a few choice shots.

on sunday, mom and jim came in to jersey city and we hung out for a few hours. we had a great brunch at this awesome little cafe. they made a mean frittata!


monday night we had a little mini newman club reunion for a few folks who were around the city. it was really great to see everyone. and it was cool to take a walk through some of my old haunts, like the restaurant we ate at, dojo's.


after dinner on monday a few of us headed down to the mercury lounge because my cousins' band, gringo star, was in town and playing. they're always fun to see play, and i enjoyed hanging out for a minute. i will see more of them in the coming weeks.


more pictures at my flickr set.

jet-setting

so i'm out of town again. i guess i mentioned previously that i got a last-minute deal to nyc. so i'm sitting in my sister's beautiful apartment to quickly type a few words.

arrived saturday evening and was picked up at the airport by my good friend, melissa, and her husband. went to an old haunt to meet friends for dinner and drinks. yesterday was a family day. mom and jim came up and we had a great day just hanging out and catching up.

i still have another 2 days to go and most of that will be spent again with melissa. we may pop in tonight for a quick view of gringo star, my cousin's band. anyone in the new york area tonight, or in the south east later this week, checkout their website for tour dates and times.

on a side note, anyone who has not been to chris's blog. there was a good report on his dad. read here for more.

change is in the air

i have had this blog for like 2 1/2 years and i can't remember if i have ever changed the format. so i spent some time tinkering today.

i'm not 100% i like it and that i'll keep it this way. there are definitely some things i know i want to add, i just have to find the right picture or phrase or whatever.

but any comments or suggestions on format and style related to the new design of the blog are welcome.

ouchies

i guess i'm more out of shape than i thought. well, that's not really true because i knew i was out of shape but i've been trying to pretend that i'm not really that out of shape.

but i got off my butt yesterday morning and tried to kick my own abs* by doing a total body fitness video. it was pretty good and i got most of the way through it. but today my stomach, arms and legs are not happy. i know i need to do it more than once, but we'll see if i can motivate to do it again tomorrow...



*kick my abs! get it? that was a really lame joke they use in the video and it totally bothers me.

i'm probably crazy

i just booked a flight to nyc for the weekend.

arrive saturday at 5:40 PM. leave tuesday at 7:30 PM.

i know i shouldn't have. but i'm home alone and i am bored and lonely. i found an esaver and couldn't resist*. it's been 2 years so it's about time for a visit anyway.

nyc, here i come!


*i actually found an esaver but by the time i got to it they were sold out. darn continental! so i had a mini heart attack and then found another one, which i booked immediately.

vacation

i've been away from blogging for the past week or so because i was on vacation with some of the waldie side of the family. flew out from columbia last saturday morning but had a horrible time getting to phoenix. finally did arrive, 16 plus hours later and extremely happy to finally be there. my horrible flying experience, however, was nothing in comparison to my brother's family. it took them 2 days to get there so i didn't complain too much.

we all hung out on sunday and "rested" our road-weary bodies. "resting" meaning we went swimming at dad's and at the community pool.



we all had a great time and we even managed to get dad and lizzie to go down the water slides.



monday and tuesday were spent in the grand canyon.



despite severe temperatures and hordes of crowds, we saw some beautiful sights and even managed a short hike into a part of the canyon.

wednesday i came down with an awful cold so i missed out on visiting rawhide, a western town, and seeing holiday fireworks with the rest of the family. instead i stayed home-side for a much cooler and low-key 4th as i watched tv all day and slept.

thursday i was back in the groove again and went with the family to visit sedona. this was my first trip to this town. it was definitely a tourist destination but it had a beautiful backdrop. we took a pink jeep tour to see some of the mountains and natural beauty of the area. it really was a beautiful place and we all enjoyed bumping around on the rocks as we "off-roaded it."



friday i headed back home again and, luckily, my flights were all normal and everything went off, for the most part, without a hitch.

i am back now to the hum-drum of looking for a job and the normal everyday stuff so you'll probably start hearing about the farm again, since that's pretty much all i do of note these days;).

green tomatoes

my tomatoes are coming in nicely. i have about 6 in all so far but they're not yet ripe. too bad, because i leave on saturday for a week-long trip and i'll probably miss them. i would make fried green tomatoes or something but i have so many veggies i'm trying to eat up what i have in my fridge before i pick any more. my neighbors will be watering the little guys and i told them that they can eat any ripe veggies (fruits) while i'm gone. hopefully this won't be the last i see of little green tomatoes popping up.

i know you're all probably tired of reading about the farm. but i like to catalog what i've been doing there for my own record more than because i think anyone else is enthralled with the details. i worked on wednesday for about 6 hours again. i helped again in this week's harvest: green beans (will they ever stop producing!), okra, a few squash, potatoes, sweet onions, and basil. then i helped ben in the afternoon once harvest was completed. i helped make soil blocks so we could plant cucumber seeds. i will head out there tomorrow to put in a few hours as well. i won't be around next week, so i have to get my fill in.

thanks for the visit

my sister's visit went really fast but we had a great time. took a quick trip to greenville on saturday. i thought it might be a nice place to stroll around and eat a bite of lunch. we chilled out in the park for a minute or two. rachel and i thought we could just sit and relax with our feet in the water, which we did only long enough to get comfortable. then we were chased away by some kids with their wet dogs. i did get a chance to cuddle with one before we walked away, only slightly wet.



we also had a great time at the farm day this weekend. some friends joined us for good food, home-played music, and hanging out under the stars.

sista' sista'!

my sister is coming in tonight for a weekend visit. yippee!

more about the farm

one phone interview yesterday and i worked on the farm again today. i'm getting a little rammy* at home so i'm trying to go up there as often as i can without wearing out my welcome. here's a new blog about the farm, posted by the usc volunteers.

today i helped to harvest green beans and the last of the carrots. also in our shares today are red russian kale, basil (!), and broccoli. and because i'm an extra special person, i got an eggplant. at this point i have so much veggies in my fridge i'm running out of things to do with them. i'm the kind of person who can't throw anything away, even if it will help my compost. so i'm frantically looking up recipes for carrot greens and such. of course, it occurred to me today (duh) that i could freeze some of this stuff, which i guess i'll do, especially once chris is gone (on monday).

after the harvest, i took a lunch break with the farm family and helped ben to rewire a trellis-system for the tomatoes. it started to pour rain, though, and the "system" wasn't really working as planned anyway, so we called it a day and i got home by 1:30.

i plan to head up there again tomorrow. they've got a lot of work they want done before their farm day on saturday, so i offered my services.

*"rammy," for those who don't know, mean fidgety.

pascal's wager

in honor of the environmental job that i interviewed for this morning, i thought i'd share this video. it's been passed over email so some of you may have already seen this.



Interesting Argument About Global Warming - Watch more free videos

under construction

yesterday i was making some changes to my blog and some of my old posts. those you get this blog through rss feed may have noticed some strangeness or notices that i posted like 12 times or something. sorry about that. i'm done now so all is good.

live country, not act country

there's a distinction. though, i was telling chris the other day that where i come from, the phrase "being country" or "acting country" doesn't really mean anything. but that's neither here nor there.

yesterday i worked on the farm again. this time chris came along and we joined some volunteers from usc. it wasn't much "farm" work, per sey. i helped uproot spontaneously-growing flowers from the garden and planted them in a bed out by the road. chris helped mulch stray limbs and "junk" around the property. we were with a fun group of people who are trained in permaculture and are really dedicated to living their lives with minimal impact and giving back to the earth. makes me want to work harder to live that way too.

last night chris and i went to see lyle lovett and his large band at the township auditorium. what a fun show! when they say "large band" they really mean large. He had 18 folks up on stage with him: 4 horns, a mandolin, a bass, cello, guitar, violin, steel guitar, 2 drummers, piano, and 4 kick-ass backup singers. what fun. definitely glad we spent the money on that*.

*that was money spent before i left that job, for those who think i'm crazy.

name dropping

in honor of his 1 year blog anniversary, i have put a link to paul's blog in the link section to the right. i guess i knew he had a blog, but i didn't really know he had a blog. but now that the link is attached to my own page, i'll remember to visit his site regularly.

catholic summer reading

i just finished rereading the 6th in the harry potter series in anticipation of the coming movie and book. (well, in truth, i just finished reading books 1-6.) and in typical waldie's world fashion i'm immediately on the hunt for a new read.

i've dug an old favorite off the shelf, which we aquired somewhat recently from a friends of the library book sale at a rediculously low price. at a future date i may post some ramblings with exerpts from this book of essays because it's really bringing me back to my roots.

but for the long term i think i'm going to try out this summer reading club. now that i've got time on my hands i have been surfing around blogs, including some old and new haunts. knowing that she'll post information on books she's reading, i went to amy welborn's blog yesterday to see if i could find book recommendations. little did i know i'd find a whole book club. so i've requested this book from the library and i'll start making my way through a few on the list. knowing me, i probably won't contribute to any of the conversations online. but i always like lurking in the background and hearing what others have to say. i've put the tag in the toolbar to the right for those who might want to go to the site at a later date.

happy birthday, dad!

free falling

some of you know this already, but many do not, so i thought i'd just put it out in cyberspace that i am offically unemployed. i won't go into the details here, but be it known that i quit yesterday and am now a free agent for anyone who wants to pay big bucks for my skills. just don't ask me what skills i possess, because i'm not really sure. but, shhhh, don't tell the prospective employers that.

i must say i'm enjoying being at home. this feeling will wear off in a few weeks, i'm sure. but i was so busy at my job before i left that i felt like i'd had my head in the sand for ages. so thus far i'm really enjoying the time i have at home to read blogs, play online, and (this morning) work on the farm.

congratulations

to the new barnettes.



it was a fun wedding and i hope they have a fabulous honeymoon this week!

chris and i had a really enjoyable weekend in all. we took a sort of mini vacation, which was much needed. we had a great time visiting with friends, eating out at good restaurants, and just enjoying greenville. we finished the weekend off by attending regular sunday mass at st. mary's (the church in which cheryl and sean were married). it was a long mass (1 hour 40 minutes), but the ceremony was so enjoyable and the homily excellent. i told chris on the ride home that it's too bad furman doesn't have an MSW program, because i'd be all for moving there.