Snow???

Uh oh... The DC area is scheduled to get 5" of snow!  I might not be able to leave my house for a week!  OK, we shouldn't be that bad, if the snow even shows up.  But I'm kindof hoping it does!!!!  The last big snowstorm we had was in 2002.  It could be time for another...  I'll post my old snow storm photo hoping it brings on a new one!

~L

And the oscar goes to...

Well, probably not me, but this is my first directing work!  I made a movie of the buns of course...  But the iMovie program is pretty cool!  enjoy!  I only wish I had gotten this computer sooner because I know my bunnies' godmother would have loved videos of them!  

~L

Cockles and Mussels, alive, alive-o

Well, I did not make it to the inaugeration, although I have a good excuse!  I had just gotten back from Ireland the night before!  Plus, it was really cold.  And crowds scare me!  I would have gotten accidentally pushed onto the metro track like that one lady (who luckily lived I think and had to hide under the platform as the train pulled in!).  But Ireland was fun!  We were only there for a little bit, so we stayed in Dublin again.  This time I saw Christ Church and Dublinia.  Dublinia was about the history of Ireland, mainly in the medieval times and the Viking times.  It was interesting.  Except it had full size humans standing about that were scary because I kept expecting them to move!  There was one room I couldn't even go in because there was a model / statue of a beggar guy right by the doorway and I was afraid he would move and not let me back out!  creepy.  Then again, maybe it was the lack of sleep.  But besides that it was a nice fun little musuem.  We were in the Temple Bar area again, so lots of pubs and restaurants to go to.  We even went back to the Irish singing and dancing show that we went to last year!  The band was not as good as the one last year, but they were still good.  They sang traditional Irish songs.  And then the dancers were the neat part.  It really is a crazy sort of dancing.  Lots of leaping about!  We wanted to find a cool Irish sweater, but did not!  But that will just hopefully motivate me to make the sweater with all of the Aran wool that my brother gave me!  

But it was a nice trip.  I'm afraid I won't get to take any more little mini-breaks until after I move!  But then again, I'll be a lot closer then to a lot more cool places to travel!  Like Prague... And Copenhagen... And Budapest... And Zagreb...  really quite a lot of places left to see!

~L

Musical Me!

(10 points to anyone who got the reference in my title*)

I am the official owner of a piano!  Well, not quite a real piano, but a pretty darn good electronic one!  Now I officially have too many hobbies to take to Ukraine (piano, knitting, wii, learning russian) but hopefully that means that I will never be bored!  There's also the whole work thing to do...  But the piano is pretty cool.  It took a little effort to get it together on the stand (bah! instructions that say two people required!) and in the house for that matter, but luckily, it's actually a lot lighter than one of the other ones I had been looking at.  And it was a little cheaper, yet has cool features like "beats" and "electric piano" sounds.  80's here I come!  Or at least that Night on Bald Mountain song... (with the pipe organ-not the 80s beats!) But for right now, I'm having fun flipping through the book of songs that came with it because it's like a walk down memory lane!  I'm going through and highlighting the songs that I played before.  So far, I can only currently play the one that I think I played in my 6th grade recital, but hey!  That's not too bad for picking it up after about 10 years!  It's funny though, my sight reading is not what it used to be!  I used to be able to get through entire choir practices accompanying them on songs I had never seen before...  (Don't tell the choir teacher!)  My goal is to work back up to my favorite recital piece of all time "Pathetique" by Beethoven.  And no, it's not pathetic.  It's really nice.  Hmm, maybe along with this rediscovery of piano, I should rediscover my classical music cds and get them onto my ipod!  Hooray!  Another hobby!  :)

~L

*Yes, I just re-watched the Harry Potter movies (and am reading them again in Italian to study for my Italian test) and it's a reference to Gilderoy Lockhart's book

(Why am I studying Italian to go to Ukraine?  I just have been refreshing my Italian all year and wanted to see what "score" I could get before I switch over to learning Russian and Ukrainian.)

2009! My Goal: Make Better Choices

The holidays in Indiana were lovely, and I got to meet my newest niece (technically my cousin once removed for the geneology purists out there).  She and her big sister were too cute!  It was also wonderful to see my grandma, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins - including the ones from Ohio who I haven't seen in a long time!

It also was a neat end of the year because three of my friends had daughters!!!  And another friend got engaged!  So, all in all, I must say that 2008 was a pretty fantastic year!  

On to 2009!!!

Last year I decided that laundry lists of new year's resolutions never really work out, so I went with a general goal.  I think it worked!  Well, a little bit at least.  I don't know that I met the goal, but I had a good year anyway.  You know what they say about new year's resolutions...  So this year my goal:  make better choices!  Pretty simple, but it really is the focus of what I'm trying to do with myself right now!  At the Wendy's drive through?  Get the small!  That's a better choice!  Cleaning up after the buns more often = better choice!  Working out more = better choice!  Then again, sometimes sleeping in because you're really tired = a better choice also.  I like how it's flexible.  Something tells me that moving half way around the world is going to require me to be flexible!  Eating more beets = perhaps a better choice???  Learning Russian = necessary choice.  

Things are slowly falling into place so that I can get my head around the move.  The current mystery:  How to provide documentation of a rabies vaccination for the buns when the vets won't give rabies vaccinations to buns....  Stay tuned for this and more fun mysteries involved in moving to a distant land!

~L

Chicken Kiev!

That's right!  My other exciting news is that I got my first assignment, I'm going to Kyiv!  In Ukraine! (I've been told it's no longer called "the" Ukraine.)  Some fun facts about Kyiv:

1.  It has a UNESCO site, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra or Monastary of the Caves

2.  It does actually have a tour guide book which I purchased the other day

3.  They speak Ukrainian and Russian (I'm going to learn some Russian and try to mix in some Ukrainian while I'm there)

4.  It has a beautiful metro system (that puts other European metro's to shame in their opinion!)

5.  They are excited that Christina Aguilera is going to perform there...

6.  They are also proud of their very own Bond girl (I guess in the current movie)

7.  There are over 40 casinos (which I will be avoiding!)

8.  They have a female prime minister

9.  There seems to be lots of restaurants, an opera company, and a few musuems!

So, I'm pretty excited!  It's not going to be an "easy" assignment, but it should be definitely interesting and a good project!  I just have to wait to find out who my boss is going to be, and when I'm actually going to go!  Small details, right?  But it won't be for a few months at least!

~L

Walkups Abroad!

My mom, dad, aunt, bro and I returned safely (if reluctantly) from our Italy vacation!  It was lots of fun, and although it rained a little bit (the whole second week!) we got to see and do everything we wanted!  And of course we got to eat lots of great Italian food!  Also, everyone met my boyfriend who was very well liked by all - especially when he was helping to carry the suitcases!  We went to Venice, Rome, and Florence.  Luckily, we were in Venice the weekend before the flooding!  It snowed a little bit while we were there!  In Rome, we had lovely weather, and a perfect day to have a fabulous picnic in the Forum.  We enjoyed proscuitto, braesola, bread, and cheese, and of course prosecco and some white wine!  It was amazing.  Some of the other tourists were even taking pictures of us eating (that was weird).  Thanksgiving we also had amazing weather and got to eat Thanksgiving lunch at the same restaurant that I went to last year on the Appian Way.  But then the rain started when we went to Florence.  It wasn't too bad, or at least not when we couldn't wait it out in the hotel drinking vino and snacking on fruit and cheese before going to dinner!  And playing bananagrams!  I did not end up running the marathon on my birthday, but it was a lovely birthday none the less, actually all the more!  We saw the marathon runners though, and it actually looked quite nice and not too crowded.  Sadly, even 2 weeks went by in a flash, and it was back to the real world.  But, as you will see in the next post, I did get to come back to some exciting news....  (to be continued!)  But first, I am going to attempt to add a Picasa Web Albumn to show the rest of the photos from the trip!

~L