February 2012
3 posts
WatchThe Low Anthem played in a church in Portsmouth tonight, they were amazing.
Return to the land of the living
I have been inching back towards my normal schedule. Sort of. The first few days home have been rough… I sprained my leg while running to catch a flight from a late plane so I had been hobbling around, though it’s about healed up now. I then went on a bout of housecleaning since my room was inexplicably covered in a sizable layer of sand. But today I woke up before noon! I didn’t...
Back home from the frozen north
I arrived home from Alaska two days ago. Since I’ve been home my thought process has been something like this: What time is it? Wait, back up, what day is it? Am I awake right now or asleep? When is that last time I ate something?
So traveling from another time zone, where I was pulling night shifts, and spending a whole day on planes with no sleep has messed me up pretty nicely. I wish I...
January 2012
4 posts
More rocket adventures →
Click above to head over to my field research blog and follow it for the next month or so while I’m up in Alaska helping out with yet another sounding rocket launch
A New Year
Welcome to a brand new year. For me, it will be a year of big changes. But I honestly can’t remember a year in recent history that wasn’t, so I suppose it should but obvious to me by now: the only thing you can count on is that nothing is constant. I don’t care for resolutions, but my friend Meghan has a “year of _____” habit going on that I can adopt by...
December 2011
1 post
November 2011
5 posts
Cidermaking!
This was quite the adventure! As I understand it, this was a banner year for apple production in this region and my trees were no exception. What do you do with hundreds and hundreds of apples? Make. hard. cider.
Luckily, I have a couple friends (who are a couple, in fact) that have made their own hard cider recently and knew much more about the process than I did. Doubly luckily, Matthew has...
NY Times Vegetarian Thanksgiving →
The NYT Well blog is hosting a vegetarian Thanksgiving series with new recipes posted every day in November up until Thanksgiving! Yum! Last month was Vegan Month of Food, where everyone was blogging vegan all month long. And now another great way to get ideas for holiday feasting. They also did the same thing last year and you can peruse those recipes as well and host a meat-free, healthy holiday...
Halloween Week
You all know I love Halloween and this year it was an exceptionally good time! Matthew and I made a pumpkinhead spook for the top of the driveway to creep out the drivers-by. I placed an LED timer candle inside the carved head, so it lit up each night for a few hours and looked extra scary.
here is just the carved head sans straw-stuffed body
Then, last Saturday, 2 days before Halloween,...
October 2011
3 posts
The Lips!
Last night Matthew and I went to Portland to see the Flaming Lips at the State Theatre. What a great show! I love seeing them live, it’s different every time and amazing every time.
Everyone had huge smiles walking out at the end of the night. Also, the lead guy, Wayne Coyne is a very cool person. Here is a little quote of his that I like:
There’s some comfort in saying,...
Home from another adventure
There’s a lot going on right now. Between falling miserably behind in my research and failing at many other simple life tasks, I thought I would take a week off to visit North Carolina with Matthew. Despite my life stress right now, we had a wonderful vacation. Matthew had to meet a million people in one week, but was so awesome about being dragged here and there, paraded around in front of...
September 2011
3 posts
Critters
One of my favorite things about my house is that I can share my space with a bunch of little critters and provide homes and land for them to live out their lives. I love walking around outside and seeing the snakes that live in the barn sunning themselves on the old bricks and standing outside at night listening to the owls calling out all along the valley. Yesterday I had a surprise visit from a...
August 2011
3 posts
Staying Dry Today
Well, I really wish I had a copy of the Neverending Story to read, because this would be a perfect day to do it. A Dance With Dragons is a pretty good one too though - I just started it so I have a huge book to occupy my time once the power goes out. We already had a small brownout, and it’s just a matter of time before the whole thing goes down.
The power goes down quite a bit where I...
July 2011
3 posts
Adventure Time
Last Friday, I had a bit of an adventure. A garden-devastating woodchuck had been camping out under the barn for about a week, seemingly fearless of both humans and canines. After almost all the broccoli suffered enormous losses, I decided he had to go for good. Bought a wire trap and (after shoring it up and filling it with his two favorite foods: apples and fresh broccoli) he soon fell for the...
“Saw sign in yoga store: Do One Thing A Day That Scares You. So today I start...”
– Andy Richter
June 2011
5 posts
Boys with guitars
This week back home has been a whirlwind. I have helped people move, stayed up way too late, worked like a madman on the garden, and barely had time to unpack before packing up again for another trip. Also had some fun nights of live music, an impromptu dinner party and bonfire, and random day of candlepin bowling.
I think the best part of this past week was my friend Josh playing some songs at...
WatchI love Futurebirds! You should too.
[They also do an incredibly lovely cover of Wild Heart by Stevie Nicks]
“Maybe your soulmate is the person who forces your soul to grow the most.”
– Six Feet Under
Peace, love and flying monkeys
I just got back from Oz, exhausted and homesick but so happy. Coming out of the woods each year gets harder and harder. I just wanted to stay! I was having a bit of a sad life lately, but that’s the best thing about the Reunion - it’s there exactly when you need it. It’s like coming home… and finding the biggest family ever waiting with open arms. So all I feel is...
May 2011
17 posts
#240 Being single →
one of my favorite blogs to read, 1000 Awesome Things, has the best post today! perfect timing too, because i was being all sad and lonely for most of today…
It's official, I have no heart!
Last night was bizarre. That’s all I have to say about it. But maybe that’s because everyone there was wasted and I wasn’t?
And the best part about last night: Newton came home with me! I get to have a big fuzzy teddy bear dog hanging out at my house for the next four days. Newton and Edith are best friends, so they’re both very excited and happy today. :-)
Also...
Re-post!
So, I have to re-blog an old post of mine from my livejournal written in March of last year. My friend asked me to go see a band last night after trivia: Tan Vampires. I told him hell no, never will that happen. He asked why. Here’s why:
Mar. 12th, 2010 at 2:50 PM
Last night was the highly anticipated Mountain Goats show at UNH. This marks one of the few times I’ve been in the...
I am Xenomorph free!
Today was my hospital test day, and while it wasn’t much fun, it wasn’t too bad either. The nurses and doctors were really nice and gave me heated blankets when I got cold and I fell asleep instantly from the anesthesia, slept right through and woke up right after without too much grogginess. There were like 8 doctors/nurses in the room at one point just before I went to sleep and I...
Recipes! (with lots of links)
This weekend was all cooking and gardening. Being super domestic and looking for pleasure in little things, like delicious food and beautiful flowers. Trevor came over Saturday to help do garden chores with his Terminator-like strength (thanks, Trevor!) and I promised to pay him in kind with freshly harvested veggies. So what have I been cooking lately? There was this vegan mac & ‘shews...
Comfort music →
What unfailingly gets you through all the bad times? Music.
Click above for a stream on NPR of the entire new Fleet Foxes album. Listen if you like any of the following: 70’s folk-rock, Crobsy Stills & Nash, Neil Young, british baroque psychedelic rock, impressive beards on cute guys. I watched a live show streamed on NPR the other night, but they haven’t put up a final cut...
Time to whine
So these last few weeks have not been the greatest in my life. I got dumped a little while ago via the silent treatment (which should win an award as the worst way ever to break up with someone). I had written a post about how excited I was to have Matthew coming back home from Hawaii, complete with an amazing picture, but it goes without saying that it was never published. In my past, I’m...
Watch
Thanks to Josh for turning me on to these beautiful voices!
Won't someone please think of the children??
I like this graphic a lot. Even though it was made by PETA and I have no love for them. I have always had people asking me dumb questions like what would happen to all the poor cows if everyone stopped eating meat. Duh, farmers would stop breeding as many until the industry was phased out naturally. But what about all the jobs and livelihoods that would be crushed if the meat industry died?...
Ack, sometimes I am such a loser! Yesterday was a bad day. And the peak of the bad day occurred when I almost broke into tears in a doctor’s office in front of the checkout desk. A little back story: Just to clarify (to all those that have recently felt the need to comment on how much weight I’ve lost), I have some unknown problem with my health that has yet to be figured out and...
BBBQ
Brendan is graduating (bye Brendan!) and had a little party to celebrate on Saturday. I took some pictures of people smiling and being happy at the Brendan-barbeque.
Kris, Dan and Ian
This is pretty much how Ryan & Amanda looked every time I saw them - awesome!
Max likes veggies!
I think this sums up the kind of night Toby was having
Brendan: good party. Random guy trying to...
April 2011
14 posts
Green things
Check out my basement plants! No, not the illegal kind, the kind that can feed you for months. I once tried to start seeds on a windowsill in March in NH… did NOT work out and I gave up. But I resolved to try again, using a borrowed grow light and heated mat. Success! Last year the garden was a resounding achievement, the best garden I’ve grown so far, but I wanted to expand my plant...
First off, immediately open a new tab and do a google image search for “fennec fox” - oh my god! Second, find one and bring it to my house for cuddles. Next, send me the link of a live fennec fox webcam. Move over, red panda!
Okay. For reals, do everything I just said.
The following excerpt is one of my favorite passages of all time from one of my favorite books of all time,...