just a quick post...

I have been quite busy with a project for awhile. Now that I have put that on the back burner (for now) I feel I will have more of an occasion to write. I have a few irons in the fire hopefully soon some with bear fruit. Wow talk about mixing metaphors! Looking forward...

Farmer's market, reading, a gay doc and Indy

These are the beautiful herbs that I got at the new Athens Farmer's Market this morning. I got up sooo early this morning to get there while the pickin's were still good. I got mint, basil, cilantro and onions all for $8! I am so happy I could bust. I can't wait to take Randall next Saturday. I came home and read on my back porch for as long as I wanted, which is just heaven to me. The seemingly unlimited time of days off. I hate time constraints. I understand that we must have clocks and schedules or there would be chaos, but I prefer timekeeping to be a little less rigid.
I eventually got hungry and made a lovely breakfast out of my farmer's market finds. Also, I made some lovely wheat scones from scratch--without a recipe! They weren't very pretty so, no picture. They tasted very good, if I do say so myself, with jam and butter.
I am watching Before Stonewall a chronicle of homosexuality in America before the historical Stonewall Riot. I highly reccomend anyone interested in this subject to see this well-made documentary.
Cassy and I are going to see Indiana Jones this afternoon. I am mildly excited. I remember loving the old Indy movies, mostly due to the fact that Harrison Ford was my boyfriend for most of my childhood. I loved him so much. Thinking back on it I don't remember when it started, but it just was. My mom loved Al Pacino, I loved Harrison. Then he got that tacky earring and started dating Calista Flockhart and it was over.
It seems like a truly kick-ass movie comes out like every week this summer. Next week is Sex and the City! I have very carefully avoided any media on the movie so that I might be as suprised by the plot as possible. So only one more week to go. I hope I make it.

Happy Saturday!

Bad Sesame: The Fern Incident

This is my new boston fern. This is my bad kitty named Sesame Chicken. I discovered his "love" for his new friend? dinner? today while posting. He was literally inside the thing going to town.

I was so facinated, as Sesame rarely shows such enthusiasm for anything other than canned food, I didn't make him stop right away. I took pictures. Then in a guilty-mother terror haze pushed him away from it and frantically begain to google the words: Cat poison fern. You'll be happy to know that Sesame is not in mortal danger. The boston fern should apparently fear him more than vice versa. As I type this 30 minutes or so after the initail altercation he is making his way to the fern again. Such is his fervor, such is his passion and desire for this bulky potted plant.

Roses?

This is our beautiful, I think, rose bush in our front yard. I wish that I could show you more pictures, but blogger is being special and only letting me post one picture per post. I have to find something to plant aroung our mailbox. We had a beautiful butterfly attracting bush of some sort. I'm not going to say I killed it so much as I offended it into eternal slumber. A gardener lady in my neighborhood said after it died in the fall that I should cut it to the ground. So i did. I guess I didn't do it right. It never came back so now all we have is a creepy grey dead stick plant guarding our mail post. Oh that and the evil bees that won't let us get our mail. Seriously, Randall has to take bug spray to the mailbox everyday. I gave up. I just don't get the mail anymore. I think they may be carpenter bees, which means they won't sting me. They still charge at me everytime I get anywhere near the mailbox. Terrifying.

books..too many?

Speaking of the beauty of the outdoors, I have the perfect outdoor activity. This is a stack of all the books I am currently in the middle of reading. I have a very annoying propensity for starting a book when I am half-way through another. I have decided enough is enough. I will climb this mountain of books. I am going to finish all the books that I own. As I write this I have added another book to my stack. So it will take a little longer, I'm game. Summer is the perfect time to read. Winter is for videos and TV, summer is for reading. Outside in the sun (with plenty of sunblock of course) is my new heaven.

Just a regular day...

So today was very productive. I ran around all day, being a good little consumer. I did drop some stuff off at Goodwill so maybe that will offset some of my guilt.

Here are all my babies, some are starting to sprout. The Gardinia in the middle, that Cassy almost killed while we were in NY, is starting to come back. I knew if I was patient it would come back. Now if the Rununculas would sprout, I would be on cloud nine.


This is my new beautiful red tea kettle. We are switching to a french press, instead of using the electric coffee maker. The electric tea kettle I have had for 10 years died. Thus the need for this lovely new one. It is perfectly short and stout. It makes me happy.



We are finally going to paint the hall! We have decided upon blue. The only trouble is there are 500,000,000 shades of blue. I always find myself standing at the color chip wall in Lowes staring at colors that all look the same and make my eyes hurt. Then I cry...

I tried to narrow it down, but ended up getting 4 different testers. So there are 5 different spots on the wall for us to choose from. I feel like we are getting farther away from deciding, not closer.

I am watching Walk Hard. That's exactly how it should be watched, while doing something else. It doesn't deserve my full attention, and can't hold it anyway. Fun cameos and crude jokes do not a movie make.

Well dinner is not going to make itself. Hopefully, I'll post again soon with a more interesting story to tell. For now I am still enjoying my regular day....

This is it...

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

~Joseph Campbell

This is the lesson I am learning right now. We always try to force things
when we should just let it be. This life is not at all what I pictured when
I was a child, but I wouldn't change a thing. I am happy. It's so strange
when you stop in the moment and think "I am happy." Isn't that all that
really matters? I could be successful and "important," but still not be
happy. When I was a teenager I thought that other's adoration and applause
would be my life. I have found my life instead in a tiny house in Athens,
Georgia. A house I share with a neurotic cat and a wonderful partner. A
partner and friend who never fails to amaze me with his kindness and
patience and good humor (this is the true secret of a good marriage). I have
flowers and a place to sit outside and read. I have goats across the way
that just created beautiful, tiny offspring. All of this fills me with joy.
I hope you have found this kind of joy. It is there all around you, you just
have to stop trying to making it happen and just let it be. Kinda like the weird spacing on this post....blogger would let me change it. So after like 20 tries, I have decided to let it do what it wants. Love to all

We sprung, but still no spring

Well we lost an hour this weekend. I guess we get it back in the fall. What if you don't live that long, though, what if you never get it back? How can they just delete and hour? It is still there. Just because we change our silly time-keepers doesn't mean anything. Time is not something that can be trifled with lightly. I have seen many a Sci-Fi flick whose plot turned on this point. Oh time is a motherfucker, and it will have it's revenge. It'll be when we least expect it. It'll lure us into a sense of calm and normalcy. Then BAM, all the clocks will begin to drip with blood, but not human blood. No, that would be expected. It'll be, like, alien blood. The headlines will read "Clocks drip blue paint, townsfolk confused-not really scared." Then Time will write an anonymous letter to the editor saying "it's alien blood and you can tell by how it cures cancer." Then the townsfolk will be excited, I mean a cure for cancer-Cheers! Then Time will be like, "wrong it's bad...very bad in, like, an end of world way." Then the townsfolk will be slightly depressed as now they won't have time to cure everyone of cancer. Then Time (still writing into the editor I suppose) will be like "just forget all that, your all gonna die." Then they'll be scared, and then, well, they'll die. I mean it was inevitable.

I'm moving to one of those towns that doesn't observe DST. They know what they're doing. They're the same ones who still have canned goods after the nuclear holocaust. Buddy, they are prepared. They know better than to mess with time.

um,OK. Have a nice day.

a nice quiet day

I spent the entire day outside reading. It was beautiful and warm and dry, finally. So I soaked up some vitamin D and finished the The Amber Spyglass. The final instalment in the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials series. It was amazing. This last book was the best, very well written with plenty of stand alone quotes. The end made me cry, I was deeply satisfying as only sad endings can be.

Then I paid some bills and had a nice cheese sandwich on store-bought bread, that Randall brought home, since I still haven't made the loaf I promised him. I'll get to it. Today was not bread day, maybe Saturday. Then I made a list of all the other things I wanted to get accomplished during the remainder of the day. Which always guarantees I won't do a damn thing on the list, it's like I write it all down so that I can be free to do what I really want to do. Man, I am needlessly complicated.

I completed my day by watching the longer-than-expected Lust/Caution. It was as racy as the NC-17 rating promised it would be, the story was compelling too. I do worry for Ang Lee's sense of romantic love. This is not the first time I've seen him initiate a love-affair with a violent act.

So that was about it, tomorrow brings work and stuff of the not-so-quiet persuasion. Now I also need a new book...oh wait I know where to find one of those.

have good day

Christmas in march

So I am a little behind....This is what the new house looked like in December. It was just such a pretty picture that I didn't want anyone to miss it! I really am going to come back with avengence. There are so many cool things going on right now, I really have to share it all. I need to share all the homemaker-y stuff I am totally getting down with right now. So all you peeps that deleted me or moved me down on your blog list go ahead and pull me back up to the tops 'cause I'm back bitches! If you look closely at this picture you can see many really cool things.

tori. pigs. turkeys. goats.

We saw TORI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is totally a picture that I took at the show.

Ok not really.

The Ticket said no cameras or videocameras. I am a rule follower. I follow rules. Apparently NO ONE else does. Everybody had their cameras and cell phones out shooting the whole thing. I was so sad. Randall pointed out that without trying to capture the "moment" the whole time we acctually just enjoyed it. Crazy, huh. Old people are smart. It was fantastic. I loved every minute. There was only one song that was ruined because people were talking next to me, very loudly. Then they left....I had nothing to do with them leaving or not coming back. Don't listen to Randall. He lies. She played alot of old school music which was awsome and the lights were amazing. I think Randall even enjoyed it without being familiar/caring about her music.

We also found our new favorite pre-fox restaurant. It's called Loca Luna. It was so cool and we ate so early we practically had the place to ourselves. We had tapas and drinks and dessert it was all so indulgent. Once again i have to reiterate, I absolutely did not have TWO Dirty kettleone vodka martinis. I absolutely did not get very tipsy and tell said rude-talkers to "not come back" the third time they made the whole row get up so they could go-- what snort blow in the bathroom? I don't know. These are lies. He really has a problem. He makes things up.

After that we had a few boring days. Then I got interesting news from my sister.

She is now really a woman. Some men are Pigs.

I have all my groceries for Thankgiving I: the great experiment! ( imagine that being said very dramatically with arms in the air). I need a web cam.

I am really excited to cook on thursday, we'll see how long that lasts. i am going to make a whole turkey, which we found out don't come any smaller than 12 lbs. That and the fact that when a recipe calls for Day-old bread it really mean old-bread, have been our first two suprising discoveries. (i thought it was a brand-name or something) So this should prove to be interesting to say the least.

For now I must go turn in my paper on the evilness of the passive female role-model as exiplified by Disney's Princesses. i can't believe I just typed the Princesses i told myself i would EVER have to do that again. princesses. Oh my (nonexistant) god! I can't stop.

Love and goats to all! Most especially cheers (have a drink) to Natalie.

It's the house...

So there it is for all of those who haven't seen it yet. Please disregard the unkempt shrubbery. We love it so much. I literally can't wait to get back to it everyday. I know it's silly but I feel like it loves us back. I feel like it is alive. Our first house. Wow.

The Family room with our fabulous white fireplace! You might especially note the gathering of various religious icons on the mantle, the perfect thing for any Atheist household. My peach chair is my favorite. That is my nook where I sit in the mornings. Once again the Ramirez's are a relaxed people- I didn't bother to straighten up before I took this picture. So there's a little taste if you want to see anymore you have to come visit us!

I had such a lovely day today, and it's not over with yet. I get to go to work now and Christmas up the Cafe. I really want to be all PMS-y but it's so pretty and the leaves are gorgeous, who can be bitchy when surrounded but such natural glamor?

I'll leave you with this...

That's from my back yard! It's just succulent. I hope everyone is well.

breathe

I hate posts with no pictures

I am writing from school, so no pictures. Sitting at the main library on campus, already it has been such a day. People are really weird and crazy. I really want to go empty a vending machine. It is one of those days. I need a day off, and very well may go crazy any second now. I have to close tonight and spend tom (early) morning with the wonder(less) twins from work. All will be better after my Halloween-crushing tests are over on Thursday. The traditional night of horror movies and snacking will commence as soon as Randall gets home from work.

Cassy and I saw Gone, Baby, Gone on Sunday. It was wonderful. Casey Affleck was a revelation, perfectly suited for the part. The story was amazing in good and terrible ways. I definitely recommend everyone see it.

I am excited new Buffy comic very soon.

Heroes was a huge disappointment again last night. I love this show and they are trying to kill it. The 15 different plots and 25 new characters are so LAME. I keep waiting for the big cliffhanger or plot twist and the only thing I get is more weird faces from that tv-imitating chick. I am so mad I can't remember her stupid name.

All right enough nerdin' up for one day.

Hope everyone is well. Don't forget to breathe.

Don't Plan it, Live it.

So in my readings today I relearned some interesting things that I have not been living for a while. Mindfulness. Every moment is precious, it is after all, the only thing of which we can be certain. Right now, as you are reading these words, this is it. This is your life. All the stuff we lament about the past, the future, for some the afterlife. It means nothing. The only thing we have is here and now. It sounds so simple, but it is everything. If truly meditated on it will blow your mind.

Some of my favorite things right now.....

This man here, if you don't already know, is Simon Schama. He is the writer and narrator of my current obsession. The History of Britain is a 15 hour documentary of...well I think you can guess. It is amazing. This man has the most interesting storytelling voice ever. He is also kinda cute. I absolutely have a crush on him. Fifteen hours is not long enough. I want more. The story of Britain has made me want to go there all the more. Maybe I could find Simon when I go. Wow, now I'm a stalker.

I am reading this book here right now. That is as much as you read comics. The Best American

Comics of 2007 is chock-a-block full of cool people you know, and some you might not be acquainted with yet. The problem comes trying to find the writers that you like somewhere else. I have a list now of people I want to find elsewhere. It is just a tasty giant morsel if you enjoy comics.

If you are not watching 30 Rock, you must start immediately. Randall had seen a couple of eps from last season and instantly loved it. SO seeing as how I LOVE Tracy Morgan, (I don't think this point can be over emphasised), we decided to get the first season, we ended up buying it. It has something for everyone. Besides Tracy, my favorite is of course Tina Fay, she is exquisite as a down-trodden singleton. She is like a more realistic Carrie Bradshaw. I love her, her humiliation is real. She is me, sitting in a wedding dress, eating ham and wiping her hands on the skirt. I never really cared about Alec Baldwin, besides his SNL stuff I could take him or leave him, but on this show he is magic. Ever since Tracy Morgan said "that bird is ruinin' my credit" as Brian Fellows he has had my heart. Singing "Doo Doo Pie" with the now infamous Spears as a homeless man, I can't explain it, he is my kind of humor. On 30 Rock he is bombastic, paranoid and tender. I love it. 30 Rock comes on Thursdays at 8:30 on NBC, watch it. That's not a request.

Sesame says Hello! Have a good day and remember to breathe.

Has it really been a year.....

It can't be possible that almost a year has come and gone. So many things have happened/changed. That's a big DUH! The best of all has been the fact that my husband and I bought a House! We are officially grown-up and stuff. I'm still trudging through school and Randall has started a new blog. It is great if I do say so myself. I feel like we are kinda wandering right now. I still don't really know what I want to do, but I do know that I am tired of school this year I only took one month off from school this whole year and I feel a little burnt out. The point is that I want to finish. I just don't understand how this whole life thing works. I just want to do something I love and get paid enough for it. I don't want to be rich. I don't want a big house and fancy cars. I just want to know that we can buy food and rent movies and not have to worry. It seems so simple. Why is it so hard? Will I have to wait until I am 50 to figure out that what I want to do is what I should do? My jill-of-all-trades has left me the master of none. I don't know what I want to do. That's a lie, I want to read and write. I want to watch movies and TV. I want to hang out with my husband and laugh. I want to have time to organize my house and cook. I want to spend the 40 hours a week I spend at work with my family. I want to have time to spend the holidays with my family. I really feel like a wage-slave. How does this work? I am 27 1/2 years old. I know what I want. I just don't know how to go about getting it.
Well there have been some successes over the last year in figuring things out. I have finally begun to conquer my life-long unhealthy relationship with food. I did with the help of Dr. Judith Beck and her Beck Diet Solution, which is not really a diet at all. She helped me get at the root of my problem thinking and behavior. I feel like a different person. I have lost to date 44 lbs. I still have 94 lbs to go, but that is less than 100 lbs! So I feel like I am closer than I have been in a while.
This biggest motivator for the weight loss has been the desire to have a baby. I want to be closer to my goal weight before we begin to start the process in earnest, but I feel like our time is slipping away. Randall will be 40 next year and I can literally hear his biological clock ticking. So that will probably be next year's big adventure.
I should be off to class now. Then it's on to work. It never stops. Here's hoping for rain.
Love to all and remember to hug someone today.

New Year, New Me?

Happy new year to everyone! Well I took a nice long Holiday break from everything including computers. School is back in now though and I am muy excited. Yes Spanish is what it is all about this year gonna learn it up real good. So hopefully I will also be blogging more this year. Last year was really a lost year, so much happened yet I felt a little like I was sleepwalking a bit. This year I am gonna take life by the ...well you know...and show it what for. I will post again soon. Until then be well and breathe!

Gobble, gobble, gobble, zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hey Everybody! The day is finally here!!!! Turkeys for all!!
I made mac n cheese, fancy taters, and an apple pie decorated in the fine 80's tradition I was raised in (at least thats what my aunt said).

The parade is just about to end it was super cool this year! So many good shows!! A Chorus Line was, of course, my fave! The B-List stars were
a-plenty, and a Sandi Patti in a pear tree!

Now on to all things Christmy (a term nat just coined)! Oh wait...not until turkey is in the belly as my mom always insists!

Go give thanks and enjoy your Fam, whatever shape it takes!

If your happy and you know it clap your hands!!!

Oh my stars...Where did the year go?!?!?! Well so many beautiful things have happened over the last month where do I start!

Goodbye Rumsfeld and K-fed!

My hope is that both of these sad little men disappear into the background and just fade away....

Hello Speaker Pelosi first woman majority leader of the house. Yea!!!! Femme-Power! Now I no longer believe that women are inherently better than men. Its just I can't help but feel proud every time we break down another wall between us and equality. What could be next... VP Clinton!! I am NOT naive enough to believe that Hill can get elected Prez but I think she would be a great VP at least to start.....

Oh Dreams Dreams...I love imagining the future the way I want it to be.

Anyway its almost TURKEY day! I don't know what I'll be making this year for our feast. I have seen so many crazy scrumptious things on the Food Network, I just love that channel. It's the perfect channel to turn on when your doing something else, its good back ground.

I am so Jazzed because Cassy and I are going to see Anthony Rapp tonight the original Mark in RENT!!! He is speaking/performing at UGA and we have tickets! We are both so crazy psyched (I love that spellcheck tried to replace psyched with pussycat..Hilarious) we might pee our pants from happiness. Anyway....

Hope everybody has a happy day and don't forget to clap your hands!!!

Pussycat, Pussycat I love you.....

Oh My Goodness is that not the sweetest thing you have ever seen. Ok I'll admit it...I love silly pictures/videos of kitties. If that's wrong I don't want to be right. I've had this secret for awhile but now I am proud to stand up and say--My name is Emily and I am a dressed up Kittieoholic. There I feel better. Now my new goal is to get sesame on stuffonmycat.com. I just don't know what I can put him that is going to be good enough...









Now here we have a very prestigious founding mother of kitty rights. You may not have heard of Duchess Rasmalina Vanhousenblatt, but not a kitty today can forget. She fought for the rights of the fancy housekitties of America. Her cry to "forgo the rat and encourage the pat" emboldened her followers (self-titled the Rasmalites) to refuse the dirty, unregulated, underpaid, underappriciated job of killing rodents for the Uprights (humans) and take up positions in the home. Positions of leisure, principally laying down and sitting as demonstrated by one of the more popular pictures of the duchess. " We must use our skills for less, no more bloodshed in the streets, the uprights will bring us our blood now, the heart-blood of love and affection." With these words a wind of change swept across the kitty world as it was known and nothing would ever be the same.

Here now is an offerings from the Kitty Knitty Couture Collection shown this last week in New York.

I guess this model is tired from all the after-parties. The wild life of Kitty models is well-known. Full of ups and downs and the looming peril of catnip addiction. So many of our best have been lost to this seemingly pleasant yet life ruining "herb."


That's all for now. I hope you are well and happy.

Free the WEST MEMPHIS THREE!!!