Time to Blog.... La-dies : )

Ok, if ya don't know what that means, you must go to Youtube and watch Demetri Martin...Mia turned me on to him....he is jst so darn funny!!!! OH my gosh.

ANyway, this weekend is mellow yellow. We were supposed to go to Dunun village to drm and dance and camp and play in the river all weekend, but, Tony started school last week spontaneosly and art school is pretty intense. He is majoring in industrial design, so, lots of drawing. SO, the I ching reccomended that we stay home. Never doubt the i ching.

Yesterday we went to the art store here and slowly sorted thru his materials list for his classes. WOW! I just love art stores. Not that i know exactly what i would do with most of the stuff in them, but i just have to resist this overwhelming urge to grab everything and start squishing paint out of tubes and testing every pen or colored pencil. Art stores must be the most optomistic place on earth....i mean, all that blank paper, all that possibility.....anything could happen! (um...deep thought by brie)

Last night I went to a hip hop performance that was a memorial for a teacher of mine who passed away laast year from meningitis as a complication of HIV, and the benefit was for the santa crz AIDS project. The performance was so amazing....maybe there will be clips on line, but you should look up Gary Kendall. You may know his choreaography if you ever saw the Jabbawockies dance on whatever that dance show is on MTV. They wear masks. Pretty bad ass.
I haven't danced with Gary in years, but it was sch a blast to see his old coreography revisited on stage last night and to recognize and remember doing some of them with him years ago.

Here are some pics..... love you!!

Manifesting!

Hellooooooo Ladies! (said in creepy male prowler voice)

I am with you both about taking a fun hike or two during our rendezvous! 

Speaking of hikes...

Sunday night was an interesting night for me.. I was definitely having one of those moments where I began frustrated because after another retail weekend of 7-hour anthropologie shifts, and no social life at all, I was finally out of work with nothing to do. Ar and Aus had friends over, Da and Bina went to a movie, and I had completely nothing to do but watch TV again. I started harboring all of the things that are bothering me right now... I all of a sudden have no Job, no Friends of my own age, no Home of my own, and no social anything. Needless to say Sunday SUCKED.

BUT.. Monday led to great Yoga class and Tuesday I decided to go on a long hike with Cooper by myself. IT WAS AWESOME! We drove about fourty minutes east to the Gorge here, and hiked Angel's Rest. The hike is INSANELY hard... really just hiking a mountain, and getting to the top was so fulfilling, and such a beautiful view. After a little rest, we both descended and ran down the entire mountain! It was such a change for me because 1. I felt like I finally am Okay with doing things on my own like that 2. I felt in much better shape than i had been in which made me feel better, and 3. It reminded me that it makes everything feel so much better when you connect with nature. So upon coming home I got a call from my yoga instructor that she recommended me to one of the ladies in my class that owns a Maternity store that is also at bridgeport village. Anyways, long story short, I am going to work about 20 hours for her, and keep my 20+ hours at anthro... that makes me happy because I was earlier that morning thinking about how i wanted to at least get a second part time job! So I totally manifested it! hehe

From there, on Wednesday Sara and I went to the River with cooper and got him swimming! FINALLY! And today I had a lot of time to think and write some things down, and (as you know Lex), I am starting to contemplate going to grad school to get a Masters in Education...!!!?!?!? Weird and unnexpected I know, but Ive been keeping it in the back of my head lately, and figured I might as well find out more about it. Who knows..

The last exciting thing that Im really happy about ( and that I know you will make fun of me for) is that Ally is rushing DG!!! HAHAHAH I LOVE IT!!!! I am so excited because I wrote her a letter of recomendation for it, and the girls there have told me they love her, and pretty much on Friday she will be a Delta Gamma!!! hehe... i know, its silly, but its kinda cool that I can share that with her, and be able to hand her down all of my old stuff! 

Anyways, Sorry im talking so much about me me me, but i thought that those were finally some interesting things going on! 

Lets start coming up with specific things we want to make for thanksgiving!!! and post some cool ideas!!! also maybe some things we could do? yeayyy--- and yes, Brie, Im totally down for going to NJ on the weekend, and I think Jej is too! 

Love you guys so much

Gobbble Gobble.....

WAHOOOO!! I fly in monday night the 24th @ 9:49, and stay until 7 am tuesday the 2nd. YEAH!!!!! Turkey with Tim and LExi and Mom! Cool! I can't wait to play in the leaves. Wish I could bring Pooka. Can we all drive down to NJ together for sat and sun? Or something like that.

So Saturday Tony and I drove up to SF for Power to the Peaceful, which is a festival in Golden Gate park that started two weeks after 9/11 and has been held every year since. Micheal Franti of SPearhead started it, and it is a free music festival to raise consciousness around pro-peace, anti-war/bush/etc community. It started out as 4-5000 people in the park, and this year, it was 50, 000. It was insane! I ran into a few women who used to live in Santa Cruz but moved to LA, and it was great to re-connect. It was super sunny and hot, which is rare for summer in the city. It is usually foggy and cold until fall. I never even saw the stage thru the crowd, but we had fun anyway, and after the show, Tony and a few of our guys friends played drums and people danced on the grass. Then we went shoe shopping (a favorite passtime/weakness of both of ours.) He usually gets white sneakers of some sort. I was looking for flat or short heal leather boots for fall, but wound up finding some wine-red saucony tennies on sale for 25$. : 0
Then we cruised home and hung out with our friends Andrea and Alsene, who live in Eugene, and were down for the weekend so Alsene could teach dance class. She lived with him in Guinea for 7 years and is the only american I know who speaks fluent Sousou. Sunday he taught a great class and we all took turns dancing in the circle after, and then walked across the street to the natural market and ate lunch together. Pooka came to class to, and sat patiently outside the door to class until the drums stopped and tyhen ran inside to find me, and to run around saying "hi" to all of our friends that she knows. She is such a social butterfly!!

Can't wait to see you guys-- can we go for a fall hike together? xoxoxoxo brie brie

Toys, Dogs, and School

OH.MY.GOSH! I haven't seen one of these in years!! For the longest time I was searching for on.... I couldn't remember their name and the whole family thought I was crazy trying to explain what I was looking for. Well, now they are back....much like Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears, The Rubik's Magic is back.  Tim and I were at the lovely Target AKA Tar-Jey wandering through the game section just to see if any of our favorite party games were on sale and.....WHAMO! There it was sitting on the shelf!  Tim thought I was crazy for how high I jumped.....Needless to say I did not get one but you know what is going on my birthday wish list!!

On another note, we finally gave in and got Kida a "puppy cut." He made it through the summer just fine until the past few weeks. Lately it has just been soooo humid that Kida has been lethargic and mopey. Tim and I took him up to the Granby Dog Park to meet up with mom and her dog and had a wonderful time. Another friend of ours(someone I teach with who lives up that way) brought his dog down and we took them to the stream/river out back of the park.  It was up in Salmon Brook park in Granby, and the water was great. After a wonderful afternoon at the park, Tim and I attempted to brush and bathe Kida.  We did just fine until we realized that he had decided to shed ALL of his undercoat at the same time and it was all matted.  Off Kida went to the groomer and we gave into the Puppy Coat. Here is the before and after!

Before: 

After:  

He is loving his new cut and is just so darn cute!!  

I have been back at school now for two weeks, and the year is going. I am not going to put an adjective on that but I'll just say smooth as it was, it has not been the best school year start thus far. I don't even know where to start telling you all about it so I might just leave it up to you imagination and hope things get better!  

I also went back to classes this week and although I am enjoying them so far, I have a feeling it is going to be a busy fall. One of the courses is called Managing Anti-Social behaviors and will hopefully give me some new ideas for handling my tougher kids, and the other is Reading Interventions in the Inclusive Classroom which should be REALLY good for me since reading instruction in the mainstream classroom tends to be my weaker area.  The professors for these classes are both professors I have had before and I love their styles so I look forward to the semester as demanding as it may be.  

I also look forward to the possibility of a sister's reunion??!?!?! Mia, holy crap! How did you possibly get a flight that cheap??? I wish I was finding flights like that when I tried to come out west!!! I cannot wait to see you both! Looks like Thanksgiving at my house this year! YEAH!!

Love you guys,

Jeje

Hello!!!!!

I booked the cheapest flight in the history to man kind today!!! $275!!!! (Ignore the fact that I will be up at 4am to make my departure time of 6:30 am, but hey, ya win some ya lose some right?)

Sooooo.....

I come in to CT on Monday, Nov 24th at around 5

and leave CT on Tuesday, Dec 3rd at around 11am I think?

Looooonggg stay. Get excited!

HA, i love you guys and can not wait to be reunited!!

Brie, post your flight when you get it!

Lex, can we come to school for Thanksgiving show and tell?

Non-Labor day weekend...

Mia i love those boots! So, friday, went to an amazing haitian dance class and then out to see a great Afro--funk/soul/classic rock band called ORogone. (i think that's how you spell it--they're gonna play at Bumpershoot, so Mia, you should go check 'm) I was out with two other brown curly haired ladies, so dancing was super fun with lots of hair flying around.

Saturday there was a master dance teacher in town teaching west african. He is always very diva-esk and moody with the drummers if they mess up even once! Tony and I went home and cleaned the house instead of going to the second class....that is a new bonding activity of ours :)
Finally got a big jute rug too, so poor pooka doesn't have to walk so tiff on the slippery pergo floor. Ouch!

Saturday night we went to Age's (pronounced o-ah) for a house warming/potluck. Poor guy, he is 83 and had to move out of the house he lived in for 15 years with all his stuff and couldn'tfind a new house for like two months, so he was couch surfing. But now he and two other drummers got a great place, and we raged dununs until around 10:30 and hung out with friends and barbecued. I love playing drums!

So sunday, we slept in, went out for breakfast at this little place with the best pancakes in the world (i don't even like pancakes!, but these are great) and took pooka to the beach, where practically every family from San Jose with a kid under 5 was for the day. So cute! all these little kids, mostly latino and vietnamese, running around like the circus. I laughed alot. When people see pooka, they just get the biggest smile on their face, because she smiles at them. It is the funniest thing to watch.....what a flirt!

So, today, i was going to go buy a bed off craigslist, but then realized i need to rent a small uhaul to get it, and.....yeah, um, it's Labor day , remember Brie? So, no Uhaul. No bed either. At least not until tomorrow. Other than that, started a Detox for this week, and hung out reading/studying, and sunbathing on the deck with pooka.

XOXOXOX

Brie

A relaxing weekend

For the first time in a long time, Tim and I haven't had a gazillion things planned into our weekend. This in fact was the first weekend in months that neither of us have had ANYTHING planned!  It was such a nice treat.  So, what did we do with nothing specific planned?  Well, we planned something of course!  

We spent all day Saturday cleaning the house and hanging some much needed artwork. Then cooked up a storm and had some friends over for game night.  It was wonderful!!  The house looks great now that we have some artwork on the walls. We are still far from being done, as I have heard is the never ending saga of homeownership, but that is ok. It feels more and more put together each day. Overall, this long holiday weekend was a MUCH needed break from the normal crazy schedule we have.  

Now back to the crazy. This week is the second week of school, much more work is needed on schedules for my students, we will be attending a wedding this Friday, Special Olympics on Saturday/Sunday and much of the same for the next few weekends. September appears to be wedding and celebration month!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends!

Love you all!!

-Jeje