Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A Trip for Two!

Do you see this face? Do you? Cause I get to see this face, up close and in person in two short weeks! (Click on the picture to see the fantastic drool puddle beginning on her mouth.)

Yup that's right! I bought myself a plane ticket to go visit this little lady where she now resides in sunny Napa, California. As you may recall, she entered this world in this somewhat less glamourous state Sorry to any readers out there in Idaho, but come on, this is Napa we're talking about!
So I am not only excited to see this:
Sorry, my sister JUST got a computer so now I have to catch up on almost 4 months worth of baby

But I am also extremely excited because The Boy is coming right along with me! He and I have been dating almost four years and other than my younger sibling, he has not met either of the others. So the awesomeness of this event is like gazillion fold!
Oh yeah, did I mention that my older brother will also make the trek up from San Diego?!
Monumental I tell you! Monumental!


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Proof of Mohawk Jess

In response to my recent 7 things post, a buddy of mine may have thought I was yanking the chain of truth about some of my more wild hairstyle days. I am here today with proof; cold, hard evidence to lay these rumors to rest and, well, have a good laugh that I would actually do this to myself. (I was 18, what do you expect?)
And here we have a few pieces of nostalgia for us all to get a kick out of. Feel free to click on the image in order to appreciate history in its full size. (Please don't mind the horribly unflattering pictures.)

And there we have it! And no, I am not being choked in the first picture, nor am I forcing my friend there to drink a beer. We thought it would be a funny picture if the non-drinker had a beer in his hand...ha.

Just in case you were thinking of giving yourself a mohawk but didn't quite know how to approach the ordeal, it goes something like this:

- Lose a bet in order to get the mohawk
- Take ratty old scissors, any old kind will do, non-hair cutting scissors would be so punk rock, and proceed to cut hair off but make sure you leave that nice skunk pattern down the top and back.
- After said hair has been cut, go back with a set of clippers (can be ratty and old too) and buzz that head right down, remembering to leave your mohawk in place.
- Shake off the hair and presto! You have your mohawk!
- Now, we must also spike the mohawk to be extra punk - with a longer mohawk I found the best product to use is Elmer's glue. Forget the gel, hairspray, pomade route, we need some anti-gravity staying power and you will only find that in glue.
- To get the mohawk nice and straight I found that by taking a piece of cardboard and cutting a hole shaped like your head, it makes a nice "table" for your hair to sit on while you coat it with glue.
- Let the glue take hold for a few minutes while your head is resting on the cardboard cutout.
- Remove head from its resting place and presto! again! You have your full blown, punk rock, mohawk.


Now, go on out there and get bad-ass!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Seven Things You Don't Know About Me

*Psst* It's me strangers! I'm back with a fun little post that my blogging buddy Water Roots so kindly asked me to share.
It's funny, blogs get you in touch with people you would probably never encounter, ever. Though, depending on the blog, and although deeply detailed, we only get to know a small sniglet of a person's life. But damn, do we know that small sniglet like it's our own! So I thought it was great for Water Roots to share a bit about herself that I wouldn't normally get from reading her wonderful gardening blog and so I would like to share a bit about myself.
She was clever enough to tag fellow bloggers and ask them to share some things about themselves, hence why I am posting my blog. I am still a new blogger and don't have the massive crowds of followers like many do, so I cannot really tag my buddies. Though, Unspeakable Visions here is your official invite. :)

If there's a rogue blog-watcher out there, first off, "HI!!" and second, feel free to join the fun and let me know about yourself as well.

And here we go, a bit about me:

1) I work in one of the libraries of the university I graduated from. I sit in a cubicle in the deep, dark, basement (well not really deep and dark, but very basement-y). Here I catalog books both in print and online. You know the title page of your favorite book? Flip it over and read all that boring copyright information. That's what I over analyze to death everyday. It's interesting, but not my choice for a career. Plus, the whole basement thing is a little much. Where I work was originally created as a place for storage...now it houses humans. You can imagine how lovely the decor is.

2) My dream career is to become a nurse midwife. I've always been very passionate about women's health and how we approach it in the U.S. My Mom was a lay midwife for a short period of time in her younger years and she had all four of her children at home with a midwife. I'm sure she's the person I get my passion from. Ideally, I would love to have my own practice or shared practice. I would love to be able to go to women's homes, where they are comfortable, and help them give birth in a relaxed, calm environment.

3) I am the second youngest of four kids. My two older siblings are my half siblings but we never really say that. They spent much of their childhood living in California while my younger brother and I lived in New York. I always wished we could have spent more time together but alas, that is usually, unfortunately, not up to children to decide. Even though we've lived on opposite ends of the country for much of our lives, we are all very close and have surprisingly similar personalities. My older sister is the one who just had the baby. I'm trying to keep up with her growing by living vicariously through cell phone pictures. I promise myself I will see her at least one more time before she turns a year old.

4) Though I may seem quite "boring" looking now, growing up my appearance often led me to stand out from the crowds. Funny thing is, I'm often quite shy, I've always liked to blend in and not be noticed, I hate being the center of attention and am always the one off to the side watching what's going on, not being involved in the goings on. You'd never know this by my choice of appearance for most of my teenage/early adult life. I've had every normal hair color and most abnormal hair colors. I've had short, spiked, blond hair, I've had a black mohawk, and I've had long dreadlocks. I pierced my lip, my septum and had my ears gauged large enough to stick a thick marker through them. I wore fishnet stockings and plaid skirts with combat boots. It's hard being a kid. I guess this was my way of dealing with what we all thought was important at the time. (Oh how naive we all were!)
*For the record, I still have that septum piercing. Though it stays tucked up into my nose for the most part. :) *

5) Growing up my family did not have money. At all. We never went to Disney for Spring break (I never went to Disney until I was 22!), I didn't get to join Ski Club, or have the coolest clothes, my Mom made my clothes. But from the time I was about eight to my early teens my parents would take my brother and I to Nova Scotia, Canada for almost an entire summer. We drove all around the province and camped at some of the most wonderful campgrounds I have ever seen. We ate lobster and scallops right off the fishing boats. And we got a taste of how our wonderful Canadian neighbors lived. I still don't know how they did it, they must have saved the entire year for those trips. But it was an amazing experience and I miss that place terribly. First chance I get, I'm heading back there. I'll take the ferry out of Portland, Maine, just like we did when I was a kid. And hey, now I can even gamble on the boat!

6) I love, love, love to watch hockey games. Sports in general are good to watch as long as I'm live, at the game. (Though football and other such sports as golf and tennis are not my cup of tea.) We have a local team, The River Rats, (great name eh? Brings a lovely image to the mind doesn't it?) whom I love to watch. Hockey season is coming up and I'm already planning out date nights. The Boy and I especially love to go together because it's one of the few things we get to do with our busy schedules. Last year we took my parents to a game and it was great to watch my Dad get so into it. He loves making up funny names/phrases for players. Mike Kennedy, for example, would go something like this, "Kennedy! Can he getty it right in that goal!" Get it...Kennedy, Can He Getty...yeah...suffice to say it's an interesting few hours of grammatical fun!

7) The Boy and I have been together for almost four years. Our story is a funny one: Once upon a time we met while in the same 4-H club...when we were 15...young love is so funny. He lived a good hour from me but we had awesome taxi-driver-parents who catered lovingly to us. He broke up with me for another girl named Jessica. That jerk! :) Over the years we were still friends, catching up every now and then. After he moved back from college we became pretty close friends, his Mom would always tell me he was in love with me. And then one day he must have learned the err of his ways so many years ago and indirectly let me know it. I wasn't having it. Not one bit. Not after getting my heart broken once! Oh the horror!
Alas, after many months, he wore me right down, he did. And on New Year's Day back in 2006, after he spent an entire day taking care of my hungover, puking self, we decided we'd give it a shot. We were great friends then. I never regretted it for a second and still don't.

So there it is a little look into my past and present. That was fun to do and brought back a lot of great memories as I was thinking about things to write.
As far as the, ya know, gardening goes, I have finally managed to snag some photos from the garden, get them onto a computer, and then get them onto my IPod to then get them back to a computer where it will be feasible to write a decent update. *WHEW*
Shockingly I imagine my job would not appreciate me using their time to update you wonderful readers with wonderful pictures, so I'll try and snag some time this weekend and I will whip out the best darn blog update there is.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

A New Future Gardener Joins the Family!

Here is the newest part of our family, my beautiful niece! (So weird to say that! I am a first time aunt, if you couldn't tell.)
She was born July 28th (the day I predicted, by the way!) and very happy and healthy. Momma and Poppa are doing great as well!
We had a great time out in the western part of the U.S. I had never been to the upper midwest and we were able to drive right through it. Very nice. Here's a taste of some of the great views we had as we drove my little Scion xD across the ol' USA.

North Dakota

Enchanted Highway, North Dakota

rest stop in Montana


Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho - sunset

And one more picture of that little cutie:

one of my favorite pictures of the little girlie

So there is a little taste of how I spent six days in a car and five days in a two bedroom house with an infant. Oh wait, that may have sounded bad...

Head over to my Flickr to see some more pictures of the little cutie.

So right now I am still living out of boxes, pretty much living in two different places, trying to sign up for a class that I probably won't be able to get into because I slacked on the whole matriculation thing, cats and dogs are living together. It's just insanity, really.
This all means, blog time has become non-existent at the moment so bare with me as I piece my world back together. I promise, when I am bored this winter and not taking classes because everyone and their mom is going to community colleges - I'll be blogging up this whole world wide web, yo! Yeah!


Nerd...


Til' next time, my blogger buddies.



Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Back from the West!

Hello fellow readers!

I am back from my journey across the U.S.!
My new niece is a wonderful, adorable, poopin' machine and, hey, she's named after me, so she's on the right track so far! ;)

I'll post a picture of the little cutie soon and I will update everyone on what has been going on in the garden this past...month...yikes!

In the meantime, I'm sure you're all aware of the horrendous amounts of rain we've received here in the Northeast. It has been terrible, really. We have gone from rain almost everyday to upper 90's and humid. So the exact opposite of what makes happy little plants. It has been a rough year, but we'll gather up some highlights, I promise it's not all bad!

While you wait, here's an interesting article about the blight and how the "Walmarts" of the world are contributing to the problem.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Happy Day!

In approximately 7.5 hours I will be sitting down to my A&P II final for the semester. After that, freedom until August.
I do love school, don't get me wrong, I especially love what I'm doing now. But...it will be nice to be able to come home after work, not plan out three meals for the day at 630AM, and of course, attend to my apartment garden. Which by the way, is coming along quite nicely. The sunflowers are taking right off and I even have some chamomile popping up!
I planted some cress and chives over the weekend. The cress package was not lying when it said it was fast growing, the plants are an inch tall already!
E.S. Garden is also booming. The asparagus is growing like a weed! We have to pick it a few times a week! Boy do I love that asparagus...makes your pee smell funny though.
OK TMI, Jess.

Pics coming soon!

Til then, wish me luck!

Friday, May 8, 2009

Where in the world is the The Pale Gardener?

modeling for us is little Alf. he is the coolest dude ever. and the cutest.


So for all of you out there who read my blog you may notice that if you have it linked, it does not work. That is because I changed my url. In my extreme intelligence, at the time, I spelled a word incorrectly and it has been driving me crazy ever since. I've always been a lunatic about spelling, and grammar for that matter. (it's their banana, not there banana) grrr
...oh wait let me hop of this soapbox here...
So here's the new url to update your bookmarks:

http://thepalegardener.blogspot.com/


Because I know people are just bringing down the internet trying to find my blog.
Psshhh.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Ok, Ok...

I know, this doesn't look good for me. I can't even get past the first post! I promise once the weather gets above 25 during the day, I will be more motivated to do plant-type things and therefore more motivated to blog!
First I'll set the st
age for you all. "You all" being, like, me at this point. Regardless! Here we go:


The players:

The reason for this blog:









And you can see many, many more pictures of the jungle after I get around to setting up a photo site.


Also playing a roll in this production number:






Me of course!
Yes, the short, sunburn-prone individual above will be providing the entertainment for this evening.
However, don't show up every night, this girl is a nursing student (with high hopes of being a midwife!) so between a full-time job and part-time school, shows will be infrequent and possibly quite bad.
Fair warning to you all. (yes, yes still just me)



Also included in my rabblings but currently I am too lazy to post pictures of because, damn it takes a while to edit each picture so it doesn't take up 5 feet of scrolling space are:

-The full-time, humugo garden I help take care of over in ol' East Schodack.
- My doodle-bop animal buddies that I share a home with. Alf, Lola and Floyd.
- The great BF who may or may not want his mug posted on my blog. That will be determined.

Eventually I will get a photo space set up so I can post the beautiful pictures there where my lazy self will not have to edit each one for perfect height and width proportions.
In the next month I'll start planting some seeds and will get ready to transplant all the houseplants that are dying in their too small pots.
Until then, all us Upstate NYers are ready for Spring! (Although it was comforting to have a real winter again...finally)

Friday, February 13, 2009

We all come around...

Well here is my very first, brand-spankin'-new attempt at writing a blog.
I hope it helps me channel my inner nature lovin' self a bit more. And may even open me up to *gasp* more homely, crafty-type activities.
This is especially important since here, mid-february, in deathly cold Upstate New York, we're all about to go jump into a raging fire just to say we were warm...seconds before death hit.
Anyway, I will follow shortly with a list of characters I hope to incorporate into my life-on-the-web.
Please, enjoy.

-The Pale Gardener