bee pictures

"bees nuts!"

i've uploaded our pictures from the bee instillation. check out the flickr set here.

bees (take 2)

the bees are in! and installed in their hives.

i say "hives" because we have 2 this year. after our failed attempt at one hive last year we figured we'd double our luck this year and hope to have better success.

we took some pictures of the instillation this evening but i'll post them tomorrow, i think. i want to veg out to some dancing with the stars for now.

important (and fun) april events

you may be wondering "what can i do for fun and interest in april?" well, april is sexual assault awareness month (commonly referred to as saam). it also happens to be my birthday month and my wedding anniversary month. so, come out and commemorate all of these things with me at any and all of these events that my work is facilitating.

april 1: yours truly's birthday, holy thursday, and saam kick-off day! thought you couldn't jam all that into one evening? well, think again! join me and other advocates to end sexual violence as we celebrate at gotham bagel cafe on main street. we'll be there starting at 5:00 pm and free music and dancing starts at 7:00. i'll be heading out a little before 7:00 to go to holy thursday mass. if you're so inclined, you're welcome to join me for that too. it's one of my favorite masses of the year!

april 6: i'm facilitating a free child sexual abuse prevention training at newberry county library from 4:00-7:30. this event is free and open to the public so register at our website. it truly is a really great program, if i do say so myself--very important for parents and adults who work or volunteer with children.

april 10: we're partnering with richland county sheriff's department and the ymca to provide a free self defense course for teen girls and women from 9-1:00. this event is also free and is really fun. the teens must be at least 14 years old and have to have a parent's permission. sign up here.

april 14: walk a mile in her shoes. calling all men! we need you for this event! join us in five points at 6:00 pm for this walk to raise awareness about sexual violence against women. we're asking men to literally walk a mile in women's high heal shoes. women are encouraged to join as well, but they don't have to wear heals. the event is only $10 and you get a t-shirt included in registration. it will be a fun and purposeful event, so please join us! register here.

april 21: denim day. encourage your company or office to allow their employees to wear jeans on this day to remember victims of sexual violence. denim day is an international event commemorated around the world. click here to read more about why we wear jeans on this day.

april 24: we have two things going on this day. we're hosting another child sexual abuse prevention training. this one is in lexington from 9-12:30. we're also going to have a booth at lexington kids day. lexington kids day is an amazing and fun event and if you have kids i encourage you to attend. in the park behind the courthouse in lexington they have a big festival with free games, food, and other vendors for children. stop by anytime during the day to see my agency at our booth. we'll be distributing free information about child safety.

happy birthday, david

today would've been baldman's dad's 56th birthday. in honor of that, here's a smooth picture of him with a wee baldman.

dss update

it's been a while since i posted about the fostering process, so i figured i'd just give a little update. last week we handed in the application to our caseworker. from the date that we handed that in (3/15) they have 120 days to get us through the whole process. it could take less time if we move quicker with it, but i have my doubts that it'll be anything less than that.

we have a few things that i know we must work on (i.e. medical reports, fingerprinting, references). but i'm also just waiting for our caseworker to call us with next steps. more likely, i'll be waiting a few weeks for her to call and when she doesn't i'll call her.

ok, last trip down memory lane... for now

we liked birthday parties in my family. this is my sister's 6 birthday as my dad lights her candles. of note in this picture is our long time family friend, robin, to the right. she is now married and has kids.


here's my family eating breakfast. i loved our kitchen when i was a kid. actually, i still love the kitchen. there's a lot i really like about the picture. and i wonder who took it if my mom, dad, brother and sister are all in the shot. did i take it?


look at these cuties in their uniforms. we wore those things from kindergarten till 8th grade. and then traded them out for another set through 12th grade. every year we took a picture of us on our first day of school. this shot must've been before i started school since i'm not in it.


mom and a friend in her bedroom. people say i look a lot like my mom. guess i see it here in this shot. i always loved that wallpaper, by the way. it had cool birds and flowers on it and i remember staring at it whenever i was laying on their bed.


don't know who the dude in this picture is. if any of the family knows, you can post it in the comments. my brother, of course has a cape on. that was quite usual for him as a child. actually, it wouldn't be that unusual for him now as an adult to have a cape on. and the brown corduroy couch! we had that couch until i was in high school and my mom and stepdad moved out of philly. that was the best couch in the world! so big and comfy!


we always used to sell lemonade when we were kids. i don't remember a lot of people buying (it's not like we lived on a busy street), but i do remember a few people having pity on us and purchasing a dixie cup of that sweet goodness. i love my brother's little visor. dork! and i think that might be my grandparent's car in the driveway.

more vintage waldie

here are some more shots of my childhood that the family has been passing around over the past few weeks.


my brother and sister are on either side of my mom as santa and i'm in front. i love that we're all wearing matching IUP outfits. my granddad worked for the university for many years so we often got IUP stuff for christmas. (this might be the only time you see my sister as a child not in a dress;)


me and my sister in front of the fireplace. what was up with the stockings and shorts?
notice on the left side of the mantle there's a glass-domed clock. that clock is famous for being broken at some point after this by my brother. unruly kids!


my 4th ? birthday party. mom always made a cake and decorated it however we wanted. i can't remember how this cake was decorated. one year i remember i had casper the friendly ghost cake.


my sister's 5th or 6th birthday party. i think the dining room is a different color by this time.

blast from the past

my mom sent me these pictures today. how sweet are they?


this is the house i grew up in (until 4th grade). i loved this house. it was big and old but it had some really beautiful things about it - the huge porch, the iron fence, the big trees around it (which gave me plenty of leaves to jump in during the fall). we used to play baseball in the driveway. and (though you can't see it) there were big cement steps that led up to the porch. i used to pretend that the steps were my bathtub and i would take sidewalk chalk and make a spout on the side of the step. even back then i loved baths.

speaking of baths...


AHHH! brilliant! i love that my sister is pretending to sing into the hose. that's classic "rachel." man, that was a great tub! check out the claw feet on that thing! and, gotta love the vintage 1970's towels. we used those things until they were rags.


how sweet are we with our little stuffed toys? my bear didn't have a name but he had a badge like a police bear. my brother's bear's name was geegee (is that how you spell it? correct me, ben). he has kept that bear all these years and now his daughters have it. i don't know if rachel's doll had a name. but she sure is nappy, huh? i think i remember having this picture taken. we pushed mine and rachel's beds together and we were being all goofy. i think mom had to bobby pin my brother's hair to make it stay down.


here's my sister on the swing on our porch. we later replaced this swing with a bench swing. what i love about this shot is the yellow bushes in the background. those bushes were so beautiful when they were in bloom! this shot is looking toward the front of our house onto the street so you can see the catholic school across the street. that's where i attended kindergarten through 8th grade.

ok go did it again!

i posted a while ago about the amazing videos by ok go.

check out this new one:



brilliant! it makes me happy.

free tax returns, anyone?

just finished filing my tax returns. urgh. i hate that process. but it was made all the easier and cheaper this year. beehive.org allows for free online tax preparation for households making less than $58,000/year. it leads you to an h&r block site and it's really easy to use. check it out here:
http://www.thebeehive.org/money/pay-taxes/file-your-taxes-free-online

locally, united way of the midlands also provides free tax preparation, but the income bracket is a little lower ($49,000). click here for more information on that program.

anybody want to garden this summer?

every year around this time of year i get spring fever and start envisioning my summer veggie garden. and inevitably i start looking through seed catalogs and lust for 1/2 the things in there.

today was a gorgeous day so i sat outside on the swing in the backyard and looked through southern exposure seed exchange's catalog, circling a million and one things that i want. of course, the problem is i never really know what's going to work and not work in my garden. the other problem is they send a ton of seeds in each pack, way more than i need for my little garden. so i'm putting a call out to my dear readers to see if anyone is interesting in splitting seeds with me.

i've listed below the seeds that i'm thinking of ordering. if you're interested in any of them (you don't have to want all of them), let me know in the comments section or send me an email. if there's something not listed here that you found in their catalog and you want to order it, let me know. i might be open to splitting it with you. the seeds found at sese are mostly heritage, organic seeds and have a history of being grown in the south. some of them work in the north too though so if your garden is not in sc, check out the links to read the information for the plant.

louisana purple pod pole beans $2.85/pack
hickory king corn $2.75/pack
marketmore cucumbers $2.25/pack
early black eggplant $2.65/pack
powder puff asters $1.99/pack
memories of mona cosmos $2.45/pack
wild garden perennial insectary $5/pack
even' star winter arugula (if they have it in stock soon) $2.50/pack
winter bloomsdale spinach $2.35/pack
cilantro $2.10/pack
sage $1.99/pack
creeping thyme $2.30/pack
cosmo romain lettuce $2.50/pack
evertender okra $2.85/pack
amish snap peas (if they have it in stock soon) $2.50/pack
carolina wonder bell peppers $2.50/pack
tromboncino squash $2.50/pack
arkansas traveler tomato $2.25/pack
neptune tomato $2.75/pack

fostering update

a few weeks back i gave a vague update on the fostering situation and our progress with dss. for documentation sake (a NECESSITY when dealing with this preposterously bureaucratic agency), here's what's been happenning.

in early january i started making phone calls to dss. i left a message on the number i found online and didn't receive a phone call for a day or two. so i called back, got a human being who stressed how much dss needed foster homes. she asked me which county i was from and gave me another number to call. i called that number, left a message and a few days later i got a phone call back. naive me didn't document the dates of these first phone calls, but i'm fairly certain that at this point it was either the week before or the week of MLK day. the man i spoke with during this hone call was an intake worker who took my general information (name, address, etc) and then said that they would mail me a packet of information and a case worker would be in touch with me shortly to schedule a visit to come to our house and speak with us about the process. at the time when i talked with him i though he said that all of this would happen within 3 days. but 3 days came and went and we didn't hear anything. so then i thought maybe i misheard him and it was really 3 weeks. so i waited 3 weeks.

3 weeks to the dot a package arrived in the mail. it had pages upon pages of applications but no information about the fostering process that would answer any of our questions. so i waited a few more days for a phone call. nothing. so on friday, february 5 i called back and left another message. that monday i got a call back from a supervisor who apologized and said that it was possible that they may have assigned me a case worker who was on maternity leave. she said if that was the case, they would give us another case worker. but her intake coordinator was not in the office that day so she said she would have him call me.

tuesday, february 9 i received a call from the same intake coordinate who i had spoken with previously. he remembered doing the intake with me but he said they could not find it so he had to do it again. i asked how that was so if i received a packet in the mail and he thought that was odd. so we redid the intake. i asked when i could expect a call back and he said he was going to give it to the case worker that day and he said he wouldn't be surprised if i got a call back that afternoon. he said "definitely by the end of the week."

two days later, no phone call from the case worker. we did, however, receive another of the same application packets in the mail. thanks for the expedience on that one, dss. by the end of the week i had not received a call back.

on wednesday, february 17 i called the county dss number again to find out why i'd STILL not yet gotten a call for a home visit. i actually got a human being instead of an answering machine and she gave me our case worker's name and number. she said the case worker was not in the office that day but indicated that i could leave a message and she would call me back. so i left a message with the CW telling her about how long this process had taken and that we wanted to get the ball rolling by having her come out to our house.

no call back.

this morning (friday, february 19) i was at a work event- an internship fair for social work students at usc- and i just so happened to see that there was an adoptions supervisor from dss there. so i went up to him and explained my situation. he was very upset that we've not been helped and have gotten the run-around. so he gave me his card as well as the name of our CW's supervisor. he said call the supervisor and tell him our predicament. he said the supervisor was very good but he said if for some reason we didn't hear back from the supervisor, call him directly and he would help.

so this afternoon i called the supervisor. he wasn't in the office and did not have voice mail so i had to leave a message with the woman who answered the phone. when i told her what was happening she said that she would give him our message and that our case worker was in the office today and i could call her now if i wanted (she couldn't transfer me). i told her i would call her, but i didn't get a chance to because the case worker pretty much called me immediately back. i guess if you involve a supervisor you get results!

she said she didn't get my message from the other day because she "was not in the office on wednesday and was not able to retrieve her messages." (whatever that means?) so we proceeded to talk about scheduling for her to come and visit with us at our home. she said, "when is good for you?" and i said that my husband and i would be available next week during any evening except tuesday. and she said "evening!?" i said, yes, we both work during the daytime. she responded "well, that's not going to work for me because i work 9-5." i was stunned. surely we're not the first working people in the world to want to foster a child through our dss system!

"when is your lunch break?" she asked. i laughed. "my husband and i are both social workers. we don't really get a lunch break," i responded. she was being very unhelpful so i said to her that i was shocked (yes, i used that word) that this wasn't an issue for most people. i said, "aren't there other foster parents who work and can't meet during the day?" she replied that most people will meet first thing in the morning or meet at the end of the day at like 4:30 and "if it runs over to 5:15 or something that's okay with me." well, ms. case worker, i'm so glad that you will inconvenience yourself 15 minutes for me considering the fact that we will take off work to come home and meet you for what is YOUR JOB!

so basically we left it that i have to talk with the hubby to find out when we both are able to take off work so that we can come home and meet her during her working hours. every supervisor that i've spoken with so far from dss has stressed to me how badly they need homes for foster kids. if they want to know how to get more homes, perhaps they could talk to their case workers about flexibility and working evening hours if it's necessary. oh yeah, and about returning phone calls.

belated presidents day tribute

i (almost) missed my chance to wish our beloved presidents a happy presidents day. i can think of no better way to memorialized this day (yesterday) than with this beautiful picture that i stole from erica's blog.



(this picture was lovingly painted by noah ginex and commissioned by fuzzy for his wife. and, yes, the star is not there in the original painting.)

animals need a good home

i don't think i've mentioned, but the hubby has been out of town all week helping his mom in mississippi. it's been a long and difficult week for him and his sister as they try to work through the (literal and figurative) mess. progress has been made, however slow and difficult. his mom has agreed to give up all but one cat (allie) so she can move into a smaller, more manageable place. if you don't know tricia, you don't know what a miracle that agreement is.

so, the long and the short of it is, if you know anyone interested in a cat or a dog, let me know. these are the good ones, the animals that are family. we have to find homes for woofer and saddie, both outside dogs, and buffy, bobbie, and bootsie, all sweet inside female cats. if you want to see pictures, you can look them up at baldman's old post about all the cats that were once here.

viewing baldman's old post lets you know how much progress has been made. to go from having 26 cats and 3 dogs down to just 4 cats and 2 dogs is a serious accomplishment. and by the end, we'll just have 1 cat left for her to keep. how did allie get so lucky?

saturday snow

it continued to snow last night until about midnight, i think. and, all told, we had about 8 inches, or so says the state. i dreamed in the night that all the snow was melted when i woke up, but that proved to be false. i ventured out around 9:00 AM and took some more shots. i have the whole set at flickr. it did get fairly warm today so much of it has melted, but i think it'll be a few days before everything is gone.

duh

yea, so i might be the biggest moron every for not originally finding the camera in its "hiding place." i won't tell you where it was because then you'll know how serious my moronism (?) is, but let's just say it was in probably the *most* obvious spot ever.

now that i have my camera, here are the latest shots as of about 10:30 tonight (and still snowing):

no more snow pictures

well, it's been about 4 hours since i took those first snow pictures. i was going to go out and snap some more shots in the backyard. but i can't find the camera! wtf? our house is not that big! but i can't seem to figure out where i put it.

i'd say at this point we probably have about 1/2 foot of snow on the ground. our backyard is beautiful! actually, columbia in general is beautiful in the snow. i was out and driving around tonight* and it was such a pretty sight. a rarity-columbia in the snow.


*thanks, margaret, for the sushi party! great fun! and i enjoyed the adventure of driving home in the snow. i almost forgot what it was like.

snow in the south

one of the things i always loved about snow when i was growing up (other than days off school) was how quiet everything got outside when it was snowing. like, the crazy, busy world just came to a halt for a few hours or days.

our house is like that now. the quarry and factory are shut down so the constant hum of their work is gone. and it's just cozy and warm inside, but blustery outside. i can't remember the last time it snowed here. certainly not since we bought our house which was 2 years ago. we'll see how much we actually get.

so far, here's a peak:

everything you hear about dss

7 phone calls
over 5 weeks of waiting
2 of the same application packets received in the mail

still no movement forward with the fostering process

ahh, dss, i would like to defend you, but so far you're everything we've always heard about you.

another thing for the list

i told you i was going to be adding to the list. here's another thing that people say that really bothers me:

5) when i say to someone that i'm not feeling well, have a headache, or any sort of minor ailment and they respond with "ohhhh!?" wink, wink. nudge, nudge. "that may not be a bad thing!" meaning, if you're not feeling well you surely must be pregnant. i've gotten these types of responses starting immediately after i got married. and they've steadily continued. in fact, someone with whom i work and who even knows that we have fertility issues said something along these lines to me yesterday.

sheesh!