OK, the internet is never coming to our apartment. :( the end. Currently posting from the Grove City Library.

This is not a festive thought (i'm slow getting into the spirit this year.) but it is a thought i had at work this morning:
Garden salads are salads with just veggies theoretically made from a garden
Chef salads are salads with meat but are not made from a chef.
I am glad about this. but shouldn't the name be different?


This morning i walked to the Post Office and got like at housand packages. A little old lady who was ringing the bell for the Salvation Army gave me a ride home so i didnt have to walk... it is good to live in a small town at Christmas time. If you sent a package to us, it probably arrived. We got mail from Wyoming, and Beaver Falls, and a few from New York and I dont care what Abi or Aunt Nancy Say, i'm keeping that one package for myself!

I am going to clean and make christmas cookies today. Bring on Christmas, I'm getting ready!

Hi
i'm still here
here is now Grove City PA again
I'm processing a lot of stuff
I have a new old job (same place new position)
Micah is still looking for work
We have grandma Henry's car.
We have no clue what exactly comes next.
we're prayign about it.
we are not in Slovakia.
once again i'm in the uS over the winter, and my winter clothes are stored in Slovakia.
I miss my sweaters.

so...ummm....well

I may be a blogging failture :) I even mistyped blogging just now TWICE.
I'm in grove city, i still have to go to the library to get internet :(

i have a bunch of stuff to do, including painigna nd scrubbing back at the appartment (which STILL only has one p), so i will make this quick.

WHO in the name of all that is good would name a child CHANCE. no kidding, i just sat next to the kid at McDonalds, and that was his name. i heard it more than once!!

From Beaver Falls

:) another photo-less post on location...this time from Ami's apartment/dorm. I would include a picture but my 300D is dead (and for sale if anyone is interested). my new 30D is in transit from MISSISSAUGA, Ontario. My old film camera is in Ami's stuff in Wyoming, and the little camera is in the red toolbox next to the big wooden box in the Henry barn.








Here is where a photo of Ami's desk would go if I was not camera-less (and lazy)








Where will i post from next you may wonder. We'll I'll tell you. New York City. And then Wyoming.

Las tnight i had a dinner that was not supposed to happn for a year at least. but it was Good. My dad was back in PA for a wedding instead of Wyoming and Micah and I are in the United states instead of Slovakia. And so last night i got to sit at a table in applebee's with my huband, my little sister, and my Dad.

Today Ami & I leave to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with the Iovinos tuesday when we get back, Micah and i leav for 26 hours of driving to WYOMING. We will stay through Sunday and then take it slow on the way home.

I am not thinking about the numer fo hours in transit. I am concentrating on seeing every member of my immediate family insid of a week!!

Choreography

I spelled that right the first time.

I have this song from white Christmas in my head. Never mind that i do not like this song. Never mind that we skip this song every time we watch the movie. Never mind that it is a beautiful day in September, and i am not dreaming of snow. Somehow, I can do the entire annoying snooty voiced intro and can hum all the annoying bridges.

I have decided to share the misery. Don't blame me, Ami started it I have merely one upped her by linking to the entire vicious thing. I shudder to think what Abi will come up with.....

Contrast

now another on location post form the library in jefferson ohio!






this is where the photo of the library that looks like a library would go if i was not lazy







My in-laws do not have high speed internet (28 Kb/sec is normal) so I'm spendign this afternoon at the library. Hopefully micah comes to pick me up before 8 tonight. We do not have cell phones yet.


We arrived in New York without any incident besides a 3 hour flight delay. We decided that having New York City as your rentry point to US culture was (for us) a little like diving directly into the deep end. In NYC we visited with Jimmy & Abi and CLAIRE MARIE, ate at a cuban restaurant, visited the empire State building, and played (a lot of) rock band on the XBox. We also got lost in what we think was the Bronx on our way out of the city. It was a good time.

Sunday we drove to Ohio and the past few days have been a bit more our speed. Monday we went to the Amish Salvage grocery store, a consignment shop located behind someone's house in a barn, the Middlefield Library (an amazing establishment - it had a fireplace and "adult DVD's" i think they just meant that they were not animated, but the sign made me laugh), and a cheese store (nothing like Grandpa's Cheese barn, but disappointing only in that they were not making cheese behind the big window when we were there). Tuesday I made chocolate granola, read some and wrote our update letter. Micah helped Ben clean out an apartment full of mold and other disgusting things. Tuesday night I drove in a dump truck (but did not get to see the back go up) to Dinner at Meghan & Judah's apartment.

Let me be CLEAR, i'm not judging either of those places. I enjoyed myself immensely in New York (except when we were lost on our way out.) I love my sister and Jimmy and Calire. Skipping everyone at the Empire State building was great and I fouind out that I like cuban food (fried Plantains!!) I also got a huge kick out of the Library, the fact that the Amish sell Salvaged groceries, and my ride in a Dump Truck.

I'm Just saying.


PS Judah just came to pick me up on his way home from work. Micah called and asked if he could stop at the library on his way home. Judah thought Micah wanted a car repair manual or something. Micah thought He "might have left Stasi at the library"

look, a post

from the airport in Hungary. I am not ambitious enough to take and post a picture of the airport in hungary. you will be ok with that right? I'll just describe it, it looks like...an airport

this is where the photo would be if i was ambitious :)

We have almost 3 hours of flight delays and free wireless internet. we ate the sandwiches that Miro packed for us. I ate my pickles and micah's too. we bid on a camera on e-bay and called new york on Skype. the airline gave us bottled water and a sandwich. we hope this was not in lieu of our promised inflight meal.

Every time that i typed "airport" in this post, i had to go back and add the r. anyone want to make up a definition of an "airpot"? :)

see most of you soon.

a bit more adventure

Life got a bit more interesting.

My camera is Kaput. I would take a picture of the broken shutter. Except that it makes me want to cry when I look at it. also it is difficult to take a good photo of the inside of your good camera. I have not tried. i have a mental block.

there are some complications with our temp stay permit. There are a few options at this point. one involves going back to the states for, oh, about 3 months. Marian summed it up just about right " the process has taken forever." It is just the way bureaucracy works in Slovakia with papers" We're working on figuring that out.

Our flight we bought for the wedding is highly restricted i.e not transferable refundable or changeable.... so basicaly if we come home now for bureaucracy reasons, we are out $1600. which is a pretty good price for two round trip tickets. we thought we were doing so well and getting them in advance and for a good price.

I have a vicious combination of cold/allergy/flu symptoms. I am trying to avoid the urge to take asprin, benedryl and DayQuil all at the same time.

so anyway, pray for us. things will go ok. God is in control of this adventure.

Adventure

So I started getting thisquestion of the day. I thought it might be interesting to give me something to blog about or a kick in my thinking pants. (i have no clue what thinking pants are. or where you would wear them. anyone...anyone?)

Today's question isWhat adventure are you craving?
I think a lot about adventure, Adventure is half the title of this blog! for as much as i thrive on tradition and routines, i still hate to be in one place too long. i have a list of places i want to go that is waaay longer than the list of places i've been. (Poland is at the top right now based on proximity...Morocco is on there too as soon as KT names the date) I am not sure it will ever be shorter than the places i want to go list. I almost hope not. But i think i imagine myself to be more adventurous than i am. we can't forget the princess part of me. the part that likes pretty things and a good book wrapped up in an afghan (the blanket kind, not that i am prejudiced against the person kind, but i have no desire to wrap up in one, and i am sure micah would mind).

I don't know if i crave any kind of adventure right now. I would really like to be settled maybe i'd like the adventure of decorating our own place with Micah. I think i am living just about all the adventure i can handle. of course, "He gives more grace as the burdens grow greater" But i'll tell you i am living exactly the adventure that i want to be in the middle of, and not just because it puts me in close proximity to Poland and closer to Morocco than Ohio. That is a plus though.

How about you, what would you pick if you could choose your adventure (remember those books)?

Micah and the saw of death

Micah and the saw of death from Anastasia Henry on

i don't think there is anything else i can add to this. it speaks for itself.

except that Micah is starting to be distressed by his web presence :)

Prolificacy

I did a little math today. I know, that alone would be blogworthy!

I figured out how many pictures i have taken with my camera.

TWENTY TWO THOUSAND six hundred and ninety nine!!!

now that strikes me as a lot of photos. and that is just since christmas of '05!! and it does not count the shots taken on the little camera we bought last year. I did not realize I was so prolific. I love the word prolific. I am going to use it more often in daily conversation. 

SOUGHT FUTON FUTON DOILY PROLIFIC!!!

Currently i have around 5,000 photos on my computer. The rest are backed up on DVDs or CDs or whatever but that is a LOT of photos. a lot of lots of lots of photos. My children (hypothetical children, breathe Miss Brenda) will be very glad, I think to sort through discs instead of a huge box of half filled albums and unsorted prints.

i think i will buy myself a new lens to celebrate my prolificacy (this really is a real word) or maybe more budget realistically, i will get a big print of one of my own photos for over the couch we don't have in the apartment that we don't have. (pray on tuesday, if this one falls through, we may loose our cool...)

ps. earlier in this post i spelled new N-O-O. i fixed it.

pps. What adjective would you use regarding a post about my prolificacy (a real word!! i looked it up!) which contains no photos?

Hiking

Last Saturday, Micah and I went hiking in the Prosiecka Dolina.


Micah is really the one who likes hiking. I just like to take pictures. We have a good deal, I go hiking with him and try not to complain and he waits while i take pictures and tries not to complain.


The particular trail we took was written up in a photocopied flier that we got from the info center. It rated the trail as good for older people or children...


So micah wore his new sandals, because if older people could do it, he could do it in sandals.

we want to know who rates hiking trails in Slovakia? We can not imagine our grandmothers doing this.


the trail did end at a pretty neat water fall


I took over 100 photos and Micah climbed a tree.

do you think I will get in trouble for posting this one?

Flying

Guess who's coming back to the states!!! We're planning to spend the first day sleeping the rest of the first week doing our best to get Judah and Meghan married in style and without incident! and then who knows, what adventures the USofA has in store for us. We're contemplating (and trying to figure out the gas prices) driving across the country to Wyoming. Life was much simpler before my parents moved 20+ hours away from Micah's parents.

I officilally stink at writing newsletters.
also i can not spell
grrrr

Butter

Also, they reengineered butter?! I have not done any baking or cooking since we got here so i have not done any real grocery shopping either. i can not comment on the shape or size of butter in Slovakia or Europe at large. And i dont have an incompatible butter dish to compare. I am afraid that when we get home in October for the wedding, i will not be able to recognize butter the same way that the new 5$ bills threw me off last time i came home form Europe.

definitions

I can not type i would like tho start with that even though it has no bearing on what i want to say. I did one of those things that scans your blog and makes a word cloud. one of the main words in mine was JSUT. i can not spell just. that just took three tries. my hands just get a head of themselves.

anyway what i really wanted to say was that i'm thinking a bout what the point of having the two blogs. The reasoning is that this is my private face in the internet. and the micahandstasi.blosgspot is for more official things. this is where i can be sarcastic and occasionally snarky. it is also the place where i can wax rhapsodic about ClaireMarie and whine about flies. I can tell the funny stories aobut married life here... But i think that havign the other blog will take away from this one. I hope not but you can never tell. i'm going to keep trying.

Also, if that man does not stop ringging that bell i am going to take it and throw it in the river.

I miss you too.

Sorry about the depressing front page. It's Just CampFest, gotta run
pray for us.
Talk to you soon

Stasi

obituary

Rabbit died.

i miss her

i dont even like cats

She was a good kitten

I dont want to talk about it anymore.

hair

I cut my hair.
all by myself!
just like a big girl!!

I have no clue what came over me. I have never cut my own hair. well, I imagine that I must have cut it as a child at some point. I was that kind of kid.

There was that one time we played hairdresser with the Neighbor's dog clippers. But that was my sister's hair and that is a different story. Actually it's just about all there is to the story... except that we cut the neighbor kid's hair in a reverse mohawk and his mom had to totally buzz his head.

Ok, it was just my bangs but it was a totally spur of the moment thing. Still, I think they look good (if a tid bit shorter than i intended).

I am concerned that this will lead to bigger and crazier spur of the moment things. Very little good has come of things that combine spur of the moment and scisors.

Also, i discovered that if you take your self portraits in front of a mirror, you can see what's on the viewscreen in the mirror. Very convenient.

I like italics today.

Micah Vacuums Rabbit

Micah Vacuums Rabbit. from Anastasia Henry on Vimeo.

We named the cat after the car, Kind of. I htink she's so cute here getting feisty with the attachment.

On our honeymoon I bought this little digital camera that shoots video. I wanted to have something smaller than my big SLR and something that Micah could use without freaking out. I have a real video camera, but it's a pain for shooting silly things like this, messing with tapes and capturing and editing and exporting. The little camera just uploads the video when i load pictures.

I'm thinking about shooting and posting more video, especially for MicahandStasi.blogspot.com. what do you think?

FLIES

If you did not know better you might htink that, considering the frequency with which they appear on my blog, that i like flies.
I do not.
Besides the fact that my work area is a tad bit unorderly ("neporiadok" in Slovak) you may note that there are flies all over it. in the first picture there is one on the CD case as well as the one that had the audacity to die on my keyboard. they guy in the second shot was still alive and just buzzing about on his back.  

it's a delightful sound. 

It's a constant sound.

There are 10 flies dead or in the process of beating themselves to death against the closed window above my desk.

One just landed on my shoulder as i typed that last sentence

I want a screen over the open window

well well well

The car is a VW Golf according to all the paperwork....but for some reason, the back says rabbit. So everybody is wrong. But it is definitely NOT a Polo. Now that I think about it, i wish it was.... oh! the fun we could have if it was....MARCO!!! :) :)

Rash 2008 Update.....I will not post pictures. It has gone down some, although it still itches. The cat has a severe case of Notoderic Mange...Feline Scabies. 80% of websites and the Vet say that the mites will not bother humans. 19.9% of websites say that on the off chance they do infect humans the result is "mild and self-limiting". I found one website that described a possible reaction that included intense itching (worse at night) for about 3 weeks. This seems to be the reaction we are having. Lucky us! The good news is that we're already a week and a half in, and as Micah says, it's not like it'll itch intensely for three weeks and then suddenly stop, it has to taper off some.

I updated a bunch of photos to Flickr

we are going to look at an apartment tonight.

I have no clue why i titled this post the way i did...but have you heard the joke about the three holes in the ground?

weird

so all i was doing was a search to see if i could find out if a certain band was at campfest 2007. and i came across this....


this probably doesn't mean much to you, but i edited this. i spent hours lining up beats and editing video from 3 or 4 different performances together. i'm in a sort of awe. When i got tho Slovakia a month ago, Roman told me that this video was playing on the christian TV station and all....but really it's weird seeing somethign you did on youtube if you didnt put it there.

i'm just weirded out and i still don't know if MIC played at CF 07

Skin

I got a shot in my butt. I have a rash that literally covers everyinch of my body between my neck and my ankles front and back. It itches like crazy. now at first it started on my stomach. a patch maybe tyhe size of my palm. but then it started to spread. this is bad, i thought. Micah said, What have you never had a rash? it'll go away stop complaining. so i did. and it continued to spread.
(meanwhile he sunburnt the heck out of his shoulders. Blisters and everythign. and i was quite sympathetic. Even though i predicted this when i saw him without his shirt. i even warmed the aloe before i put it on. and made sure he had enough water.)
but once it coverd over 50% of my body i asked Milos to take me to the doctor. There was no way i could have done this on my own. anyway the doctor looked only at the rash on my right arm, the nurse gave me a shot, they said it was a reaction to some food or lotion (which doesn't' explain why Micah is starting to get the rash too) I got a prescription for some verrry strong antihistamines and two bottles which contain from what i can tell a solution of Aloe and menthol. But i didn't itch when i went to bed last night and i feel a lot better today. We'll see.

Something to think about.

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But here was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that this was my life. This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way
~Alfred D Souza

Micah tells me this all the time. I was waiting to get to Slovakia, and now that we're here, I'm anxious to get a place of our own. And once we have a place, it will be something else. He's right of course, I do struggle with this. I love being married but I hate being married to someone who's always right.

Around here, the 4th of July is just the day after the 3rd and before the 5th. Eat something off the grill and think of us tomorrow.I have not found my American flag yet. I'm sure it's packed in some bag that i have not gotten to yet. There's not much point in unpacking just to repack everything once they find an apartment for us. This goes against the quote I started with. See, that's how deep it is in me. 

work?

This "weekend" I went with Timothy Sound (Part of YFC Slovakia) to work the main stage at a music festival. They picked me up at the ranch on wednesday around 5. we drove two hours and then worked till about midnight or so unpacking the trucks. Thursday we got to the festival site at 8 and worked till around 11 that night getting the stage and all the wires and monitors stuff set up. We headed back Friday morning around 9 to finish setting up the lights and projector and screen and checking everything. Volnost nad Nevolnom (Freedom in Nevolnom - name of the town) started at 3 that afternoon and went till about 2AM. We slept in till around 10 on Saturday and walked around Kremnica for a bit. We headed to the festival around 2PM and worked till 3AM and then got up at 6 AM (3 hours later) on sunday to tear everything down we finished up around 3PM, and then drove back to the ranch. I did not help unload the truck since once it's all boxed up it's too heavy for me.

It was a great weekend. I enjoyed almost every minute. I came home VERY tired. Micah said he's going to talk to the "powers that be" and ask that they not return me next time until i've had a full night's sleep. I get kind of grumpy when i'm tired. (understatement)

All that to say that i have today free!!
I realized that having the day off to do what i want looks a lot like what i do when i work. (aside from the fact that I slept in till 10 and pent the rest of the morning in bed with the kitten and a good book) I have written a few personal e-mails that i've been putting off. I uploaded and played with some pictures in photoshop. I called the bank. I updated my blog. I uploaded some photoshop brushes. I have not bought any yarn yet so i didn't knit anything. and it's raining so i couldn't go for a walk or anything.

Basically i sat at the computer most of the afternoon, just like a regular day. But i didn't do anything i didn't want to or even anything requiring much thought. i'll work tomorrow, and it will look a lot like this afternoon.

I am either very lucky to have a job that i mostly enjoy, or i am very dull and have no personal boundaries.

Buying a car in a foreign country

This is our newest car. In the past year and a half, I have had 3 new cars. Well, none of them were new, but new to me anyway... Also, the front ends of the other cars got smashed up. I'm hoping against that for this one. I have bad luck with cars.


buying a used car is a simple and straightforward procedure or so we were told. Let me sum it up for you....

The first thing you must do to buy a used car in a foreign country is have money to pay cash. In order to do this, you had to request a temporary salary increase at least 2 weeks in advance. No one told us this. If you did not already request the temporary salary increase, you have two options. You can wait two weeks, stranded at the remote location where you are staying temporarily because you can't live anywhere else without a vehicle. Or you can just empty your bank account and borrow money from people you work with. and then pray that no big expenses come up before the next payday.

The second thing you must do is speak the language. If you don't speak the language, you have to find someone who does. Preferably someone who also speaks English and knows a little about cars. This person should also be willing to give up his free day to drive you around looking for a car. (Paly Biros has put up with more trouble on my behalf than any one person should ever have to. I believe he will get an extra crown in heaven just for that)

The third thing you must have is a temporary stay permit (this is a cluster of a process itself). If you do not have a temporary stay permit yet, you must find a Slovak willing to let you put the car in his name. This person will also have to go to the police station at 5 in the morning to transfer all sorts of paperwork. You will have to go with him. He will also have to do something about insurance (still not clear what or how much it will cost).

After you have gathered these things, you will have to drive your car home. If you buy your car 2 hours from where you live, and you do not know what the road signs mean, this will be a stressful thing.

If you get it home, you must be sure and communicate with the man whose name it is in so that all the bureaucracy will be satisfied. This will be complicated by the fact that he does not speak English.

So we have a car. It is sitting in the parking lot. We have no clue when we will be allowed to actually drive it again. It's ok though, we dont have anywhere else to go.

the brain is a wonderful and mysterious place.

I stood up to go down to the bathrooms and take some pictures. (that sounds funny...because this is a retreat center/campground, they are building extra bathrooms outside...oh never mind)
Anyway, As i stood up, i looked at the clock and the thought that occured to me was,

It is quarter to eleven, do you know where your chickens are?

yeah, i'm a bit confused and surprised too.

dum dun duuunnn

creative control strikes again. and on the first day. lets just say that my morning was a total waste because not only is the great idea i had thrown out the window, i am having trouble wiping the slate clean and starting my brain over on a new track :(

I'm in Slovakia!!!

i have waited over a year to type those words again. It feels good! It is nice to be here. Micah doesn't speak any Slovak so i feel really good about what i remember. Tomorrow when we meet with Milos who doesn't speak much English i may feel differently.
It was 24 hours from when we got to the airport until we landed in Kosice. 13 of those hours were spent sitting in airports. Yes, more time on the ground than in the air. i hate airport chairs. that is all i will say on that subject. period.

I thought we might be in trouble when a couple with a baby sat down next to us on the flight from DC to Germany. I consider it God's very big gift to us that the baby didn't cry once during the whole 8 hour flight. She looked like she was about Claire's age. I think Abi might consider it a very big gift if Claire went 8 hours without crying.

I thought we were really in trouble again when the security guard in Germany told Micah there was a pocket knife in his bag. Micah was 100% sure he put that knife in his checked bag. They emptied his bag, found the knife and threw it away for us (no strip searches or anything). I am not sure wether the knife moved itself to the carry-on before or after we left home. All I know is that it didn't show up when we went through security in Pittsburgh. I'm just saying :)

So to summarize, 13 hours of layovers, 11 hours of turbulence free flights, 1 baby who didn't cry, 1 confiscated pocket knife, 2 Henrys in Slovakia. I count this a successful trip so far!!

moving out

can i just refer you to my other blog? it's a reall busy day. we're moving out tonight. nothing is packed and i'm supposed to be calling the FBI not blogging. gotta run.

Spaghetti Brain

OK updating this has been on my list all week!

And now I'm locked out of my appartment (long story, i'm an idiot, apartment still only has one p) and i'm online at the Library. So I am updating to tell you that we made it!!
if i was not locked out of the apartment, i would be on the phone with the travel agent to finalize tickets right now!! (looks like it'll be June 5th)

going to google and then call a locksmith...more later!

YAY yay YAYAYAYA!!!!

SOOOO CLOSE!!

short post. 

lots of calls to make. lots to do. 

Apartment only has one p in it. Our apartment is a mess. 

I work 9+ hours today. I do not believe that a high school male will start getting ready for Prom at noon. I do not believe that he didn't know about the prom more than a week in advance.

We only need between $425 and $450 in pledges by May 15th to reach our goal!! We are trusting God to bring the needed funds in and plan to leave the 1st week of June!!

WOOT WOOT.....

Panory Time

I feel compelled to reccomend to you subscribe to the new and upcoming blog, Panory Time!! the link is over in my sidebar.
It's written by my brother, Alex. He's a little like me. In fact some people believe that he IS me just 13 years younger and a boy. We even had the same haircut for a while.
I should prepare you by letting you know that a Panory is Alex and his friend's own comic creation. A Panory looks like this:
- -
O

except there's a dot in the middle of the o. add a circle head around the face and a stick body and "pow, you have a Panory"

additionally, it's not all about Panorys....(how do you pluralize a made up word?) Sometimes it's an interesting look into the mind of a kinda different 12 year old.

I may be biased. but I love the little Booger, and i think everyone else should too.

below the fold....

No one was in either car, no one was hurt. Just my poor car. The whole story is someone parked uphill in the parking lot from us, without using the parking brake. Consequently, the jeep rolled down the slight hill and into my car.

When we parked the car last night, it was fine. This morning, Micah came back up to the apartment to ask if the car was OK when we parked it last night. (we got home kinda late) :(

Then told me that he had bad news.
Then i felt like crying.
Then the police came.
Then I got fully dressed.
Then i spent all morning on the phone with insurance agents and claims people, who only return calls once you have given up and gotten into the tub.

They keep calling it "your loss" like someone died or something....

It is time to leave the country!

Breaking News in Grove City....

That is all I have to say.

LOOK WHAT I DID!!

OK, I might be taking a bit more credit than I'm due with the whole what I did thing. BUT I Planted these as SEEDS!!! I put my hands In DIRT on the Kitchen Counter......AND! thy haven't died yet!! This (as well as the BEAUTIFUL! weather the past few days) calls for LOTS!!! of Exclamation points!!! and CAPITAL!!! LETTERS!!
I think it's the influence of the farm boy I married. Sometimes though green things in my care live a while and then die unexpectedly. I just hope they turn into flowers soon and look just like the seed packets...only actually GROWING in the pots on my windowsill!!

Spring is here. I can tell because of the little green sprouts on my windowsill, and the increased amount of pressure in my sinuses and the volume of my sneezing. I LOVE! SPRING!!!

referral

It is my humble opinion that everyone should go and look at pictures of my niece in the wild. 

she crawls with her head on the ground, burps and eats dirt.

I tell you what sir. Babies have the life!

Random update stuff

I got a job as a waitress in a BBQ place here in town.  Waitress is the one job I always have always said I could never do. I figured that I would be no good at it. I was mostly right, but since I work the lunch shift we are never too busy and I manage to hold my own. A customer has only made me cry once.

During the past week or so I have collected a number of random thoughts. 

1) The phrase "Dodge Garage" rhymes. Even though it doesn't look like it should. I am surprised that more advertisements don't use this in their radio jingles. It is so perfect that it should be cliche by now.

2) A funeral procession went past the other day. At the end of it there was an ambulance. This seemed backwards to me. I mean I've heard of ambulance chasers, but that's ridiculous! Maybe it was an old person who died and lots of old people came to the funeral? (or it could be that it just got stuck behind the procession)

3) Only 30% of Americans have passports. This is logical to me and sad at the same time.

4) I sometimes watch subtitled TV in my downtime. The other day a lady on the travel channel tried Pickles with Honey & Sour cream. Wether it tastes good or not is totally irrelevant (btw, the travel channel lady said it was good). The real issue is WHO thought this would be a good idea to try in the first place? 

5) I think my brain needs a better music filtering system. In the past week I have had in my head: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Heart and Soul, Freak Parade, Personal Penguin, I Surrender All, My Maria, and various other random, out of season, and generally uncalled for music. 

Dear Brain, could we please stick to the top 40 pop country and christian charts? or at least seasonally appropriate songs that I know all the words to?

6) Occasionally the Closed captioning on ESPN is jibberish that looks like some sort of Scandinavian language. I can't imagine that deaf sports fans appreciate this.

7) spell check wants me to spell jibberish with a G. I politely declined.

8) This is Micah's foot. This picture was taken on my living room floor. It is directly related to the log that was in the bathtub for awhile. In fact the parts of the picture that aren't Micah's foot are pieces of the log that was in the bathtub.

9)We have pledges for 71% of our monthly support!! Looks more and more like we will be getting out of here BY THE END OF MAY!!!

10) I lost my cell phone. If you have it, please call me. It has been deactivated and I have another now. (thanks Mr Phil and Mom) If i used to have your phone number, chances are it was programed in my cell phone and consequently I may no longer have it. Give me a call sometime and then I'll have it again.

Well, there you have it. 10 or so random things that have recently occupied space in my brain.

one of those days

did you ever have one of those days where everything you wanted to do is taking twice as long, you have a thousand e-mails to answer, and appointments to schedule and the kitchen is full of smoke and somehow you lost an entire plate of cooked bacon....and then found an entire plate of cooked bacon on. the. couch! with no clue how it got there. admittedly my couch in only about 10 feet from my stove but STILL!

roller coaster

I love roller coasters. It is stretching to get on them: knowing that I'm about to be scared to death but trusting that the engineers did their job and I will get back off (in one piece). I always keep one eye on the chicken ramp until the moment that I get strapped in. I love to scream. I am the one who burst your eardrums last summer. I do not put my hands in the air. I hold on 'til my knuckles are white. But when the ride stops I feel like I won something.

If you guessed that there was a non-theme-park related reason that i am blogging about roller coasters in February, you win!
Getting on the Steel Phantom or the Thunderbolt is one thing. Living a roller coaster is another--and I'm tired of it, worn out by it. I'm strapped in, committed. The chicken ramp is not an option anymore. I'm holding on for dear life. But i'm getting tired of the ups and downs I wish that I could count on staying right side up for awhile, I want my feet on solid ground again. Preferably Slovak ground.

huh?

One of the greatest joys of being married and sharing a bed is that you get to hear the other person's last incoherent ramblings while they are half asleep.

Micah swears that the other night i started to sing "how much is that Hippo in the window" but then stopped and asked what sound a hippo made. I do not remember this. I think he is making it up.

Last night Micah said to me "you should call the Superbowl people" we have talked about watching the game a number of places so i asked him which people he meant...it went downhill from there.
Micah: call whichever ones you can get a hold of.
Me: what should i tell them
tell them that you like ice cream
huh?
and tell them that rice cakes don't taste good but they are good for you. but if you eat them with milk they fill you up so they're good if you want to lose weight
ok then, should i ask them anything?
yes, ask them where Polaris is located in the winter sky

oh yes, married life is all i thought it would be and more!

Hey I put my new shoes on!!

YAY!! a happy theme song for my tuesday!!

well, Technicaaly, they are socks, but look how cool they are!! and i guess they weren't NEW today, they were a christmas gift thtat accidentally got put away in the wrong place and it's the first time i've worn them. they are soft and wonderful!!!!



and i put on a pair of sneakers that had gotten burried with my flip flops.

and suddenly everyhting is right!!

GERMANY!!!!

Ganz Meine Meinung!!!
:) :)
this is my new favorite phrase (in german)

it means "i agree COmpletely!"

my cousin Sarah taught it to me

i am using it every chance I get.

Micah would like to learn how to say contemptable. i think my enthusiasm is overwhelming to him!!

I am a moron

I just said "have a good" evening to someone right after he told me that he was going to a funeral.

Take Luck...and care....take care....of your luck....You too!!



Micah introduced me to Brian Regan (not literally). He does not look like anime in real life. please, pretend that it is an audio clip.