Saturday, November 22, 2008

do you like them in a house? do you like them with a MOUSE?

It's gotten cold out finally. which means the mice have started to seek warmer places to call their homes. this past Tuesday I happened upon a furry little rodent scampering across the floor of the Station (the youth room at church). I actually stepped on his tail before realizing it was a mouse. The little guy either followed me home or told his friend where I live because on Friday Diane discovered a mouse in the living room. That's right, he was in the house.
We took action immediately...

he hid under the entertainment center for a while.
we tried to lure him out..


Jessie almost caught him with that ice cream container. Diane tried to kill him with her laser eyes.

more cheese...
Diane googled "How To Catch a Mouse" not helpful. but funny
Jake was determined...

so he went out and bought some mouse traps
That night we set the traps. This morning Jake came down to find all the cheese missing from the traps but no mouse. Smart little guy. But around 4:15 this afternoon while we were all hanging out in the living room, we heard a sudden SNAP! It made us all jump. But we knew we'd finally gotten him.
The following photo is the result of our mouse hunt. I apologize if it's a little graphic.
Poor little guy. May he rest in peace.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

sometimes all you need is a pair of purple glasses

Today for lunch Paul and I, along with other staff members, joined ClearView's 55+ adult group for the monthly luncheon (they invited the whole church staff to join them). It was quite an interesting and entertaining lunch.
So we got our plates, piled on the pot-luck food and sat down with the 55+ group. I should mention that Paul went to the dentist this morning before coming to work and was still very numb from the Novicane. Due to the half of his face that he couldn't feel, Paul was struggling a bit to eat. As Connie said, "he fit right in" with the crowd we were with.
Anyway, the schedule for the luncheon went something like this:
11:00 – the group started gathering.
11:30- we started eating
12ish- we sang a few hymns and Fletcher Allen spoke.
1:00- the luncheon ended.

Once the singing began I knew I was in for a memorable lunch. We sang two hymns out of the Baptist Hymnal, not leaving out a single verse of either song. The second song we even sang in groups- the first verse all together, the second just the women, the third just the men, fourth was a solo by one of the men, and the last verse we sang all together again. By the time we were finished with that song, most of the elderly folks were a bit winded. It's a good thing we only sang two songs, I don't think they could have sung much more!

After the singing commenced, the speaker, Fletcher, began. It took him a moment to get situated. He kept slipping off the stool (don't worry he didn't actually fall, it was just "very slick" as he put it) and having to adjust the microphone. He realized that he'd left his reading glasses at home but not to worry, at least four people offered for him to use theirs. After trying a few different pairs, he settled on a nice purple pair from Betty. He opened his message with a poem he had written for his late wife. He read it out of his book, "Plowing Wind and Time." The poem was called "But Love" and is about his wife. As he read I looked around the room and noticed many teary eyed women listening intently to his words of love towards his wife. How sweet.

Though his message was short and at times hard to follow, Fletcher kept the attention of everyone in the room. The 77 year old man spoke about serving others, forgiveness, and friendship. One of the stories he told was about a missionary women in China back in the late 1800's. She came from a wealthy family and had many nice clothes, shoes, and hats that she would wear everyday as she did her mission work. As Fletcher told the story, he referred to this woman as "Miss Fancypants."

His anecdotes and examples kept making me giggle. At one point he was talking about befriending the people you see everyday- for example the young guy or girl you see at the checkout and the grocery store. He said, "they wear their name tags right here (pointing to his shirt pocket) so it's easy to simply say 'Hello Gladys, isn't that a pretty name. How are you today?'" Gladys. What a great name to use as an example of the "young girl" that works at the grocery store. Now, no offence to you Gladys' out there, but lets be honest, how many people name their baby daughter Gladys these days? I've had this conversations many times actually, not specifically about the name Gladys but similar names that I feel are no longer used. For example, Phyllis. When you hear the name Phyllis do you picture a newborn little girl with chubby cheeks? No. At least I don't. I see a cute old woman teaching her granddaughter how to play canasta. How about Milton? Or Herbert? You get the point, sorry for the tangent... back to lunch with the seniors.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable lunch. Fletcher finished his message by saying, "I'm going to have to cut this short (he'd been speaking for about an hour) because I'm almost out of breath." After he prayed he made sure to let us know that he was giving us each a copy of his poetry book and if we didn't take one it would "break his heart." Of course I couldn't break his heart so I gladly took my copy of "Plowing Wind and Time."

Old people are so wise. And adorable. I hope I'm adorably wise when I'm 77 years old. I'll just have to make sure I have a pair of purple reading glasses.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

anybody want a peanut?

If you know me well you probably know that the movie "The Princess Bride" is one of my favorite movies. And if you know me really well you might know that I can quote the entire film, from beginning to end. But did you know is that The Princess Bride happens to be my favorite book as well (or that it even exists in book form)? Written by S. Morgenstern a.k.a. William Goldman, it far surpasses the movie in greatness. I might have to read it again now that I mention it.
Anyway, William Goldman has written other great books besides The Princess Bride, one of them being The Silent Gondoliers. I love this book as well (though not nearly as much as The Princess Bride, just to clarify). Not only is it a funny story, it takes place in one of my favorite cities- Venice. Ah, Venice. If you haven't been there you should go. I'll even volunteer to go with you. I know, I'm so nice.
What makes Venice so great you ask? (besides the fact that it's in Italy) Well, let me just show you...

You don't need a car (which means you'd save tons on money on gas, not to mention car insurance. who needs Geico? I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by going to Venice).


You could buy fresh fruit and veggies everyday from this cute old man selling produce from his boat (the S.S. Mario).


After purchasing said produce you could return home to your apartment nestled away in this quiet piazza (which has plenty of space for a good game of 4 square or hopscotch).


you could go to the amazing Guggenheim Museum whenever you wanted to (the two smaller white buildings in the photo).

I mean, come on. Does it get any better than that? Plus its only a train ride away from other great cities like Florence or Rome.

here's one last photo, it's one of my favorites.
Piazza san Marco on a busy afternoon

Monday, November 17, 2008

old summer job excitement

I got on my myspace page for the first time in who knows how long tonight. I was reading through some of my old blogs and I came across this one from June 23, 2006.
It's titled "another boring friday" but i promise it's not boring...

so i have a boring job. not a bad one, just boring. i am the receptionist at a company called CBM and basically all i do is answer the phone. which rarely rings. and when it does ring, there's a good chance that it's a wrong number

so it's been 2 weeks since i've had this job. and in those 2 weeks i have probably played all the games there are to play on yahoo and i now know everyone's most recent relationship status on facebook. if you ask me how my job is going... my reply is always "good, but very boring."

but. today there was some excitement. this week especially has been slow. not many phone calls. nothing to file. niente. with the exception of this morning

this morning i was doing the usual, playing some type of solitaire on yahoo just waiting for the phone to ring. i was the only one in the office at the time. so these 2 regular looking men in their late 40s come in the office and ask me where they can find an employee of ours. well of course i dont know. one of them then proceeds to pull out his badge and says "we're the police." yeah. the police. undercover police to be exact. the one officer then asks me if there's someone i can call to ask how we can get a hold of this employee. so i call sandy and tell her that there are two policemen here looking for.. we'll call him Bob... and they want to know where he might be. so policeman #1 gets on the phone with sandy and tells her that they have a warrant for Bob's arrest. yeah. Bob's in trouble. so Sandy tells them where he should be and they say how they don't want him to know they're looking for him because he'll run... apparently he has before.

so as mr. policeman is on the phone with Sandy, guess what, the phone rings. so i run into Dean's office to answer it and i of course have no shoes on. mr policeman sees that i am barefoot and makes a comment to sandy about the "young lady walking around the office barefoot." something about how i might fall, i dont know.

anyway, Andy Griffith and Barney Fife tell me that they are going to try and find Bob but if he comes back to the office to call them. yeah. now i'm a part of the chase. just call me sergeant barefoot.

not too much later Sandy and Andy are back in the office so i'm no longer alone. the cops return a little later to report that they found Bob, asked him his name, he lied and ran. great, now he's a fugitive.

the cops leave again and we return to our normal work atmosphere. except when Andy leaves for the day at 12:00 he locks the door and tells me to hide under my desk if anyone tries to get in. ok not really, but he does lock the door just incase

so that was my day. just a usual friday at the office. not too many phone calls. i told you this job was boring.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Scala Contarini del Bovolo

Venice is one of my favorite cities that I've had the chance to visit. Tucked away in the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo stands this spiral staircase. Both times I went to Venice during my semester abroad I visited the stairs, first with some friends and then with my mom. I remember my mom loved it so much, once we'd climbed to the top she called my dad to tell him about it.


This is one of my favorite photos. I took it from half way up the stairs.

I love this one too.
I remember taking this photo while mom was talking to dad on the phone. The view made me think of the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins.

coo, what a sight.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Sunday, November 9, 2008

the knights of certaldo alto



There's a quaint little town in Tuscany known as Certaldo Alto. It sits atop a hill overlooking the larger, more "modern" town of Certaldo. Mom and I spent a day there back in May of 2006. This is something we stumbled upon...






Thursday, November 6, 2008

potential new apartment

really this is for Jessie so she can see the apartment I looked at on Tuesday.
The pictures really don't do it justice...

entrance from the garage and coat closet

living room ( the curtain rod and curtain will be replaced)

fireplace in the living room

pantry (i think it will be painted, if not we can paint it!)

kitchen

another view of the kitchen (with the lovely Anna modeling it)

bathroom- it's getting new floors and the shower/tub is being redone

more of the bathroom with the washer and dryer

bedroom (the walls are yellow)

bedroom # 2 (it's bigger than it looks in this photo)


Jess- I can't wait for you to see it! I'm super excited :)

Saturday, November 1, 2008

homecoming and halloween

Last weekend was Greenville's homecoming weekend. I made the 4.5 hour drive up there so I could play in the alumni volleyball game (and see my siblings of course).
Kendra waited to carve her pumpkin until I got to Greenville so I could help come up with something to carve...
can you guess whose is whose?

they look so much alike


Yesterday, as you all know, was Halloween. Diane and Javen went to Florida to visit the grandparents so they were not here for this festive occasion.
When they arrived in the Ft Myers airport, they were surprised to find these strange characters waiting to pick them up...
Javen looks a little unsure.
In other Halloween news, Chuck Norris stopped by last night for a few minutes.
I guess you're never too old to go trick-or-treating.
Custom Search

visits since 11.16.08