Who's Blogging Whom?

The blog bug is catching. Yes, folks... my sister, Kathryn, and her husband, Andrew, (and their two cats and a guinea pig) now have a blog of their own. Here's what it's come to: I'm going to have to get up earlier every day just to read what everyone else has written about themselves. Hey, Mom, remember when people would just call each other and talk for a while?

Anyway... today was just a day, and tonight was just a night. Dinner was good... Flip grilled a steak indoors and stunk up the kitchen with the smell of burning marinade, but the steak tasted great. Add to that some potato casserole and you've got yourself a nice little meal. Sorry, Mom... no green vegetables. But Flip did offer to prepare peas, lima beans, or a salad just for me. During dinner, I watched Gilmore Girls with Jess and Flip and the "children", as J likes to call them... then walked the Moa-man, helped clean the kitchen just a little (you ladies pick yourselves up off the floor and read on), then headed up here to write this entry.

Let's see... what part of my daily life can I let you loyal readers in on this evening? How about a list of the websites I frequent on a daily basis? It's not a long list, I promise...

• Charlotte.com: This is as close as I get to a newspaper subscription.
  
• engadget: It's like Entertainment Tonight for geeks. If there's a rumor about a hot new tech gadget, you'll find it here. And the irreverent writing style alone is worth a visit to the site.
  
• insidecarolina.com: Gotta keep up with the Heels!
  
• tarheelblue.com: See above. This is the official UNC athletics site.
  
• ESPN: For a broader view of all things sport.
  
• Kathryn and Andrew's Blog: To see how in the world they're going to fit a new activity into their schedules.
  
• Heidi's Blog: To see what's happening in Statesboro, GA.
  
• Haley's Blog: If you read Heidi's blog, you have to read Haley's blog. It's written in some by-laws somewhere.
  

So there you have it. That's plenty of time-killing goodness each day. And that may not even be a comprehensive list. Long enough for now, though. Gotta go get ready for bed. Tomorrow's a basketball night, so I'm sure Jess will be the bearer of bland news while I'm peeled away from a cathode ray tube for a few hours. Night, everyone.

The pictures have uploaded

Here are the pictures I was trying to post last night. The first two are of the "children" being their usual cute selves and the last one is my niece Izzy (Elizabeth) on Christmas Eve.

Moa was being really patient with me on Xmas eve by letting me put this bow on his head. Either that or he was plotting his escape. He disappeared later that day and it took us about 45 minutes to find him. He snuck out when my brother left. Needless to say I was hysterical by that point. Hard to believe he'll be 11 next month.

The cats try to act like they don't like each other, but from time to time, we find them curled up together. Look at the size difference, Lucky (the gray one) is bigger than the dog. Here they are curled up in my office chair.


I'm a little biased, but she's the best 9 month old on the face of the earth. Check out her shoe missing, this is a usual occurrence. She refuses to keep a shoe on her right foot.


Thanks for letting me share. I promise you'll be tired of pictures of the "children" and Izzy as this blog progresses.

Hoodwinked, Otis, and Carolina Basketball

So here it is, our first weekend re-cap. It started out like a lot of weekends. You say you have no plans, and then somehow you're busy from start to finish. This weekend was a good mix of both, so hopefully we'll be refreshed for another week of the daily grind.

Friday morning started with one of the girls from work coming over to do her taxes and eat dinner with Flip (my roommate) and I. By 10, we had added someone else....and by 4:30 we had 3 people coming over. That's the theme of our apartment most of the time...."the more the merrier". It ended just being four of us and Flip cooked a terrific dinner as usual. She made her famous london broil marinated in Lawry's Havana Lime and Garlic marinade. I'm telling you, that stuff is awesome. It was nice catching up with Kim (co-worker) and Tera (former co-worker) and having some "girl time". Sorry Ryan, you missed out on London Broil again. We've only been promising it to you since your birthday (last summer). Mike came and picked me up about 8:30 and we went and saw "Hoodwinked". Ok, we've got to confess one of our secrets.....we're addicted to cartoon movies. It's one of our guilty pleasures. The squirrel is hilarious, and the movie was much better than expected. Go see it for a matinee or get it when it comes out on DVD. Anyone that knows of my caffeine addiction will understand why I like the squirrel so much. When we got back the girls were still here, so we visited a little more and then everyone headed home.

Saturday the "children" actually let us sleep in, so it was a pretty lazy Saturday morning. Watched the Heels spank Arizona, job-hunted (again), and got ready for our big date with Otis....I mean Clayton. Otis is the son of another one of my co-workers. Can you tell we all get along? We even spend our weekends together. He's 7 months old and the cutest thing on the planet....second to my neice of course. Pam and Reggie are the parents, and Reggie's dad's name is Otis. For some reason, we all thought that was hilarious, and called him "Otis" until he was born. Even though he's Clayton now, he'll always be "Otis" to us. So we went over and hung out with at the Gaither manse (no arguments Reggie), ordered some food, and played with Otis, I mean Clayton. Came home when it was his bedtime, didn't want to turn on the tv....so we decided to start this blog.

Sunday morning got up and went to church. Two weeks in a row, aren't you proud of us? Came home, cooked lunch, and then headed over to Cotswald to do some shopping. I have given up on the search for shoes that fit. If I do find a pair, even though I doubt they exist, I'm buying all that they have. Watched my last Gilmore Girls DVD (two seasons in one month), and then Mike came over and we cooked dinner and watched Extreme Home Makeover and the UNC/Duke Women's game. Tarheel's are #1 baby!!!!!! The family on extreme home made my feel completely lazy. They work full time jobs and run an animal rescue. God help us if we ever get a house with a fenced in yard.....I'll take in every animal in I see. Just can't get enough of them. Talked to my Dad for a few minutes and then started typing.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Not much planned for this week. Just the normal routine of work, home, job-hunt. Everyone cross their fingers for me. I hope something comes up soon. I'm really going to miss the group I work with....they're very special people.

I was going to try and post some pictures of the "children", but can't get them added for some reason. It's says they're uploaded, but then they're not here. Oh well.....we'll try again next time.

The Cat in New Orleans

A lot of you already know about the trip that Jess and I took to New Orleans in May of '05... and given the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina just three months later, we considered ourselves fortunate to have visited the Crescent City before all of the devastation. We've both wondered aloud about whether the things we saw will ever return to the way they were... Le Pavillon, Cafe Du Monde, Snug Harbor, the Aquarium of the Americas, and even the Lucky Dog stands have all been in our heads and our hearts since August 29th, 2005.



But as I was paging through the photographs on my computer this afternoon, these two shots made me take pause. Jess and I had been enjoying a hot Sunday morning on Royal Street when we happened upon this cat in the front window of an art gallery. (The gallery was closed... otherwise, Jess might still be there!) I wonder: what happened to the cat? Did its owner(s) leave town and take their feline companion with them? Was the cat left behind? What is its life like now? Thousands of pets just like this one were affected by Hurricane Katrina and they - along with their owners - should not be forgotten. It'll be a long and hard recovery for animals and owners alike.

Welcome!

Hi to everyone who stumbled upon this little blog of ours. Jess and I decided that we'd be followers of our friends Heidi and Haley... so we're starting a blog of our own. We'll try to stick some pictures up here for y'all to see from time to time, and we will definitely ramble on about all sorts of special events and daily occurrences in our lives. We think it'll be fun. Hope you like it.

Our first attempt at a photo comes courtesy of the butterfly in my great uncle's bushes. This little guy was hanging out on a gorgeous October day in McDowell County and Jess wanted a "suitable-for-framing" shot of him. This was the only in-focus photo out of the several I took. Jess' camera does a nice job, don't you think?