Archive for Work
August 25, 2009 at 7:05 pm
· Filed under Work
it’s been fun having the last few days open. we are working on the house a little. going through stuff, trying to get rid of it.
things i’ve accomplished in the last couple of days:
1. i’ve also gotten addicted to playing scrabble on my phone.
2. signed nat up for twitter. he said he may tweet!
3. bought new dishes that are pretty.
4. spent more on pork chop’s haircut than on my own in over a year.
5. kittie sat for a friend who when to puerto rico.
6. ate some chocolate. it makes me sneeze by i nibble bit by bit.
7. woke up early every day.
8. discussed 2012 with kids at my work and now we’re all freaked out.
9. ate soup that nat made.
10. tried to play fetch with nat and pork chop in the backyard and neither was interested.
what else is on my mind?
PA hasn’t passed the philadelphia budget yet and has yet to pass other childcare initiative spending. my work is about 50% state funded, city contract and the money isn’t flowing until the budget gets passed. rumors are that the funding might be less than it is promised to be. please cross your fingers that the funding will go through. (we were supposed to get payment at the beginning of july.)
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August 25, 2009 at 8:21 am
· Filed under Beasts, Friends, House, Work
here are some pictures describing my life lately. of course focusing on pork chop and her hair cut. summer camp is over- we plan for it for 7 months, have it for 2 months, and recover from it for 3 months. it doesn’t leave much room for error.
i’m working mostly from home and doing fun projects, like a newsletter and website stuff. getting ready for a lot of visitors! hilary, nat’s cousin, today! beth, one of my good good friends, on thursday! then i have my mom, mother-in-law, nat’s stepbrother and hopefully my dad in september. i also found out that one of my arts admin buddies took a job in harrisburg, pa, so hopefully i’ll see her soon too! and in october, autumn’s coming from san diego! AND in november, another one of my besties, anna is coming from pdx! i am sppppppoiled.
i had a bump ticket from when i went to puerto rico this april and i’m seattle bound in october-november. west coast, watch out! i’ve missed you so!
my brick wall and some plants! my dining room area
kitchen ceiling
plants from san diego. not as colorful here
fig tree at beginning of summer. huge now
giant ant papermache from summer camp bug parade. also known as poo with eyes.
tent camping with over 60 people in the rain!
campsite had a pavillion where we took cover from the rain
pork chop and tofu -- pre-dog shaving
pork chop- streamlined!
a friend from work, cathryn, admiring pork chop's haircut but wondering why the tail fluff remained.
bike pics!
more bike pics
i road cathryn back and forth on the street where i live on the handle bars. plenty o' room
cathryn ordering chinese food while nat works fevershly on a rock sculpture at our friend eugenio's apartamento.
nat's proud of his balancing act.
my beautiful basil bike basket and pork chop DOES fit!
hehehhe
thanks parents and nat for my birthday presents!
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July 24, 2008 at 6:35 am
· Filed under Work ·Tagged shoes
Right now, it is the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I remember big drops like this when we went to visit my grandparents in Colorado- a real storm. After living in Oregon for almost my whole life, you would think that I would be used to rain. I am used to Oregon rain- gray days and weeks at a time of icky drizzle and wet shoes.
Philadelphia rain is something that I really enjoy. I’ve always loved stormy weather. In Eugene, we only got one good storm per year or every couple of years. Here, the street sign outside of my living room window regularly bends and shakes in the wind, making a metallic thunder sound. The storms here pour down floods of rain with lightening streaking and lighting up the sky. The thunder scares my cats and small children with load roars lasting 30 seconds or so. And then it stops. There aren’t gray drizzling days here. It is either pouring down or it isn’t. Wet sneakers have a chance to dry out.
Speaking of sneakers? Yesterday, I went on a mission to buy a megaphone. A little one used in youth sports or events would have been perfect. One of my summer program teachers has a problem with her vocal chords and can’t speak loudly enough to be heard over screaming 6-7 year olds. I looked online before I ventured out and found some sporting goods stores and other stores which had sporting goods departments. I called all of the stores and asked if they had megaphones before I left. Most of the people answering the phone didn’t seem like they knew where they worked, let alone what the stores carried, so I decided to venture out.
A young man that works with us volunteered to go with me and we set off. I was explaining to him that I needed to buy a megaphone. He looked perplexed and asked me what a megaphone was. I replied, “a bullhorn.” He said, “Oh, you mean a blowhorn?” And I agreed- new to this terminology. We went into the sporting goods store and I asked for the megaphones. The young men working looked confused. Juan said, “We need a blowhorn.” The workers responded with understanding and replied that they don’t carry them, nor do they know who does. They get asked that question all the time. I was just standing there wondering what a blowhorn was.
The venture further northeast in Philadelphia was not for nothing. They were having a sidewalk shoe sale. I walked up to the tables under a long white tent and immediately found shoes that I wanted to get for Nat. They were only $30 each! I got Nat two pairs and myself one pair. Bright colors and high tops- two very good things together. (One of Nat’s pairs was a lowtop.)
CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE
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July 20, 2008 at 5:24 am
· Filed under Work
Tofu and I are laying in my living room right now at quarter to 5 in the morning. Nat is snoring and snert face is munching on food in the kitchen. I need to go to sleep. This is the first weekend that I’ve had off in recent memory. I am trying to post this from my new iPhone that my dad gave me as an early birthday present (thanks!) but I don’t really know how to use it- other than to look at the weather in Philadelphia tomorrow, which will be 95 when Eugene is predicted at a mere 80. Sometimes I miss home. Kind of like always.
We are 14 days into a 33 day summer camp for 60 kids. I was playing charades with a group of 6-9 year olds and not only did they not know what skiing was, but they didn’t know what a lawn was or how one would mow one either. I forget sometimes that Oregon might as well be a different country to these kids.
I feel like I am starting to fit in here, now that we have lived here for almost a year. (crazy, huh?) I started talking like I’m from here. I went to the wooder ice store and ordered some jimmies on my gelati. Translation: I went to get some “water ice” (frozen slushy stuff) and I ordered sprinkles on top of my ice cream.
I was in my office talking to someone when I realized that I was saying things like “pu’in” for “putting” and “di’int” for “didn’t”. There is also a trend of putting (pu’in) en extra “-ted” on the end of a past tense verbs. Example: I “likedted” that movie. Or I “walkedted” down to the store. I haven’t picked that up too much, but I did catch myself saying “pu’edted” last week. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
I think that I will be posting more often- not that I have the time, but I think that I need to have some sort of outlet for myself after being around sticky 8 year old boys and catty 11 year old girls all day long. Some of our adventures are hilarious. One of the boys, 7 year old Xavier O., could not understand how I was married and didn’t have kids. Without getting into the economic (and selfish) factors, I was trying to put it simply that we just don’t have kids, but we have cats instead. Still confused, he nodded to feign understanding. A girl next to him said, “Oh, if you have cats instead, did the kittens come out of your stomach?” After I regained my composure, I smiled to myself and thought that summer camp might be pretty entertaining- albeit exhausting.
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December 9, 2007 at 11:01 am
· Filed under Work
Why does this week seem so long?
Yesterday, we had a fire safety event at work. A bunch of fire fighters and volunteers went around to install fire alarms and smoke detectors in the neighborhood. I got to meet the fire commissioner and meet again our new councilwoman.
After people had been out and about setting up the detectors, we heard sirens across the park. A house that refused the detector installations (a man said that he had them), had caught on fire and had to call the fire department. Many of the fire fighters that had stopped by earlier had to come back on official business.
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October 17, 2007 at 9:33 pm
· Filed under Food, Work
and i will post pictures tomorrow. i am sllllllacking. it’s been crazy around NSNP and i’ve been soooo exhausted when i come home. wahhhhh ahhhhhhhaaaaaah wahhhh. i should just buck it up and post pictures of my gourmet cupcakes, huh?
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October 15, 2007 at 4:30 pm
· Filed under Work
except the light pink will be white…
I have a big bay window…
i need more art on the walls. the color is a bit off, it’s quite turquoise-y.
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September 27, 2007 at 8:59 pm
· Filed under Food, Visits, Work
Today was a special day at work. Grupo Motivos was preparing a feast for a harvest celebration. They were cooking stewed chicken and rice with pigeon peas.
I got to drive our big van to North Philadelphia. We hopped out and brought in all of the food. There were 20 or so other groups that had gathered to celebrate the fall harvest. The late lunch was mostly made with organic vegetables by the people that had grown them. It was delicious.
I got to meet a ton of people with whom NSNP has collaborated in the past in the gardens. Then we got to go on a tour of the garden areas. They grew lots of yummy veggies.
There were also some structures and paths that were very pretty.
There were other pretty plants too.
Did I mention that this was in a prison? The City Harvest program is amazing. Organizations, community gardens, individuals, and prisoners grow vegetables to curb hunger in Philadelphia. Over the last two years, they have harvested 16,000 lbs. It was pretty amazing.
It was a bit exhausting though- traffic was insane driving back and my Steve Madden sneakers were killing me. I just wanted to get home and relax. But I was locked out, so I had to drive to Center City to get keys from Nat. It took over an hour to get there in back. Now I just want to crawl into bed. But my bed is a lot more comfy than the ones that I saw today.
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September 22, 2007 at 5:35 pm
· Filed under Food, Work
I thought you’d like to see Nat dressed up for work!
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September 16, 2007 at 8:46 pm
· Filed under Beasts, Family, Food, Visits, Work, random
Yup, I started my day by taking pictures of a pig on a spit at 8:30 am. There was a party hosted by some of the women involved with NSNP (my work) and my mom and I woke up early to help with the preparations.
Then we decided to go to the Italian Market. Please see East Coast Foods for the pictures.
After an afternoon of wondering around, we went to the party. It was a good thing that Ricardo had a machete big enough to hack at the pig.
Nat ate the foot. With glee. He asked for it.
It was a fun celebration with food, music, and dancing.
I took my mom and Nat on a tour through the NSNP African garden.
We were tired when we got home because of our long day of running around. So we ate more pie and ice cream. Then I talked to my Granddad from Seattle and he and my Grandmom are going to spend the night with us on Monday! How ironic that I leave the West Coast and all of my people are coming here! Beth and Abe are coming on Wednesday too.
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