"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
- Barbara Bush, 3/18/03

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visions of sugar plums


..amidst all the hustle and bustle of these last days of the year, i made some time this morning to stop and remember little moments like these.


these are the “yes!” moments that make up for every “no no no” in life. so, a big breath, a happy sigh, and then off we go again ~ ~

comment [5]

posted 24 December 07 & filed under familia!

progress!

thanks for all the comments on that last post ~ i’m sending my brother the link today and i’m sure he’ll be pleased as punch. so far, so good: he’s home now and happy to be out of the hospital and scott is doing well too, though will be at john hopkins for a while yet.

and what’s this? knitting? yes indeed. i have twenty-two rows to go before binding off, but with each row taking a good twenty minutes (and i read that the bind-off is a bit of a bother), it’ll be a week or so until icarus is done. at least i’m at the fun part with the feathers and such – plus i’m thinking about adding the beads the designer mentioned. so, make that two weeks. ;) no rush, i’m enjoying it for now.

and that in the corner, what’s that? my happy sourdough starter i got from a friend’s boyfriend a while back. i’m planning on making some homemade sourdough bread tomorrow. can’t wait.

other than that, i’m keeping on keeping on, you know? hope you are too. i almost always have good intentions about posting more often, but there’s so much coming up this week and so much happened this past week that i absolutely must post more and soon.

comment [5]

posted 13 September 06 & filed under familia!, icarus

my brother is the best

a few years ago, my oldest cousin on my dad’s side, scott, got really sick, all of a sudden. so sick it seemed he might die at any moment. it was a scary time for him and all the family, especially his wife and two daughters. it turned out his liver just wasn’t working any more – not due to too much drinking or drugs or any of the usual reasons livers stop working, but from some rare disease called PSC. to make matters worse, all this increases the likelihood of liver cancer, which if it happened, would spread more quickly to the rest of the body before a transplant would probably happen. all very scary stuff.

so. yesterday, tuesday, my brother marcus went to the john hopkins hospital in baltimore and they took out 60% of his liver to give to scott. (the liver is an amazing organ – it regenerates and his liver will be just like new once it grows back. ) for those of us that know marcus, this is just so typical him. he was an EMT/medic, a volunteer fireman, a cop,.. basically, if it involves saving people, marcus has wanted to do it. there was a lot of testing involved before the operation of course, and without the support of his wife kim as well as the rest of the family, it would have been pretty impossible, but still, it was marcus taking a risk to save someone, yet again. isn’t he awesome?

marcus was in surgery for hours – like ten hours or something crazy like that – and so was scott of course. so far all seems to be going well for both of them, knock on wood. marcus was moved today from ICU to IMCU, which is a step down emergency-wise, though he’ll be at the hospital for a while until his liver has grown back (!), i believe. so, fingers can be uncrossed now, but slowly.

a nice postscript to all this is that the bbc (working with the discovery channel) was planning a documentary on health stuff, including living liver donor transplants and after contacting john hopkins for possible candidates to film, chose scott and marcus. it’ll air this fall – and believe me, i’ll tell you all when i get the date. i don’t know how long the segment will be, but so far they’ve filmed dozens of hours, including my dad’s birthday party that marcus went to just days before the surgery and marcus riding about on his motorcycle. pretty cool, huh? i’m glad that their story is being captured and that others will see how great my brother is.

after all that, then, thank you for the good wishes and happy thoughts sent this way – as soon as i got them, i bumped them straight over to maryland.

(p.s. scott’s wife martha started a blog, with most of the updates on the status page. all the cheesy comments are from my family, yes that’s how we are.)

(another p.s. when i think of my brother, i think of these things: one christmas he gave me a solid gold barbie – no, not 24k or whatever, but based on the tv show, remember that? – and i was ecstatic over The Most Perfect Gift i was sure i could ever get; sitting in his ford bronco listening to the very excellent rock group rush; being freaked out in the woods with my sister because we knew marcus was hiding somewhere waiting to scare us, ah good times. i remember once when i was like eight and he would’ve been around sixteen, he started tickling me so much i fell down in a doorway. we both kept laughing so much that i banged my head hard again the doorframe – and he immediately went “oops! ooohh, laugh it off, laugh it off, ha ha ha, right, right? don’t cry, it’s funny, right?” hee, he was so nervous i was going to bawl my eyes out, but no fears, i had a hard head and i adored my brother. oh yeah, the first pic is from june this year, the second is marcus in bolivia, with my mom and my cousin jorgito, when marcus was like 15, and the last is him as the goalie for the MC Dogs hockey team in maryland. go marcus!)

comment [14]

posted 6 September 06 & filed under familia!

words later








hm, nevermind the later:

my sister claudin is here visiting for a week and we’ve already packed more into the last four days than i usually do in two weeks. of course, no work makes that easy – as do lovely events like the “fabulous fiber fest” (must be said with giant exclamation marks in your voice, it’s so very fun to do) where we ran into julia (who posted a cute pic of claudi and me, and one of me spinning) and marnie, which is always great. i didn’t go crazy but got some lovely fiber (pygora and a grafton batt of merino, plus some exotic fiber from a friend) – and notice the lovely glitter mascara? i like some fun makeup now and then, and glitter always receives a happy ‘yay!’

on sunday caroline, claudi and me went to the hollywood farmer’s market for their annual heirloom tomato festival. claudi, ever the professional/fanatical runner, ran in griffith park later that day while i took shots of the food haul, yum.

more happened since (today was our beverly hills day, with a nice celebrity sighting, etc, tomorrow is all santa monica with hopefully some bike rentals), and claudi has fotos too – plus a trip to the bay area is planned for thurs and friday, and so on and so forth. yay.

happy late august everyone~ ~

comment [7]

posted 22 August 06 & filed under familia!, hungry

jesse honey

for the next two weeks, i’ll be working about fifty+ hours a week – but the last ten days were a good recharging of energy. love those babies.

a little story: on the last day at the beach, after biking in from a nice ride with my sister, the clouds started rolling across the sky. just a few minutes later, the sky was dark and the wind was picking up and tossing everything around. my cousin amancaya (“edelweiss” in spanish, lovely name, no?) picked up jenna and i picked up her twin, jesse, my ahijada (god-daughter). we decided to walk out to the covered porch so that they could experience this crazy weather, especially as it was sure to start pouring any minute. as soon as we got on the porch, both babies got very quiet, stopped squirming, and just stared out at the wind and the clouds. feeling a little silly about it, i couldn’t help but say out loud, “witness mother nature, babies! she is awesome.” no sooner were the words out of my mouth, jesse raised both arms above her head and left them there, without a sound, for almost a full minute. goosebumps and shy but growing smiles quickly followed on our parts.

p.s. way overdue for a new background picture – i’m thinking the planets would be a nice interlude until i bring back some snowy birches in the fall. any other ideas?

comment [8]

posted 31 July 06 & filed under familia!

mami!

happy mother’s day! mmmmmua.

[this pic shows my mom rockin’ it out in the mid 60s in bolivia. more here. ]

p.s. one of the sweetest little stories i’ve ever read – perfect for mother’s day.

comment [6]

posted 14 May 06 & filed under familia!

crazy runners!

my dad is running the boston marathon right now. there’s this new feature this year where the runner can have emails, text messages, etc sent automatically to a few people, giving them an update of the actual time for that runner. my dad said something about a RFID tag that he ties on his shoe? i’ll have to ask for details, and a photo!, later. anyhow, here’s what i have so far:

110th Boston Marathon 2006

At 12:53 PM, Charles H at 10K.

Pace: 04:34
Projected Finish Time: 3:12:03 (Net)
——-

110th Boston Marathon 2006

At 1:45 PM, Charles H at 21K.

Pace: 04:40
Projected Finish Time: 3:16:30 (Net)

he’s got 21 km to go! he said he’d be happy with anything around 3 1/2 hours, so he’s doing great so far, seems to me. especially considering he got some big ole splinter in his foot the other day and hasn’t yet managed to get it out. ! he said he didn’t want to make his foot more sore, so he figured he’d just double up on socks. crrrrrazy.

this is his 5th boston marathon and after this he plans on running the marathon in rome. go poppy go!

update:

At 3:36 PM, Charles H has finished.
Pace: 04:57 per km
Finish Time: 3:28:41

yay yay!

comment [3]

posted 17 April 06 & filed under familia!

wawas *

so. i’ve been back from maryland for two weeks now but you know what i miss the most – the babies!! there’s so many now – my eldest niece just got a bunkbed i promised to try out, my nephew is a complete terror and i love him to bits for that, my sister’s eldest daughter is learning asl (though she is starting to say some words, it’s amazing how much she uses the baby sign language, totally a la meet the fockers) and has the sweetest smile, and the little twins are.. well, as you can see, just beautiful. (that’s jesse, my god-daughter, on the left and jenna on the right – don’t you wish you were a twin!) i miss them miss them all more than anything, a serious ache that is just surprising me over and over again.. argh, why hasn’t teleportation been invented yet!!

it’s hard to know when it’s ok to post pictures or not – they’re not my children and this is the internet after all. this one i decided was fine since it was already posted to my mom’s family listserv. there’s no pic of me with the babies since in each one taken, i look like a complete dork and/or my hair is greasy and freaky beyond belief. (i spent only 48 hours with those babies and still everything went out the window – sleep, showers, regular eating, etc. how does my sister do it?!)

oh, i want babies i want babies i want babies. ..that’s part of my brain there, the other part is relieved i don’t have a single one since i’m nowhere near where i should be to have them responsibly.. but look at that photo. sigh. my aunt-ly-ness will have to do.

links:

~ potcardx: old-fashioned pen pals

~ a great painting of women carding, spinning, and skeining, all barefoot. i spin barefoot as well, can’t stand the shoes or socks on my treadles.

~ do you know about crazy aunt pearl’s monthly horoscopes? oof, this month they’re spot on.

~ spring cleaning for your body. i’ve read about that lemon water thing all over the place, so i bought a lemon and will do just that as soon as i get up from my bed ;) the rest sounds pretty good to me too.

~ before i forget, while i was gone i used downtown dogs’ services to watch over my cats and they did a fabulous job, highly recommended to all angelenos.

that’s it for now – my first class of my last quarter is today, “the oppositional & activist internet”. hopefully the rain will let up soon, i want to do some trapeze flying already!!

happy wednesday ~ ~

*‘wawa’ means baby in bolivian quechua. it was funny to me when i was going to school in philly and all the local convenience stores were called ‘wawa’, hee.

comment [11]

posted 5 April 06 & filed under familia!, lots of links

favorite time of the year

hello! i arrived in maryland a few days ago and it’s just been a whirlwind: my nieces are enormous! my feet are killing me. i’m a knitting fiend. i have no wrapping paper. i’m entirely foregoing any watching-what-i-eat thoughts. it’s all so great.

i’ll be on the east coast till the 4th and will definitely post more after christmas. besides maryland, i’ll also be visiting my little sisters’ new home in north carolina and then i’m going on a four day cruise with my parents and younger sisters for the new year. wow, it’s going to be verrry fun.

i hope you have a chance to sit around a warm fireplace.. that and the smell of pine is what makes winter winter.

feeling decidedly happy, and hoping you are too ~
~ andrea

comment [5]

posted 24 December 05 & filed under familia!

eye of the storm

i’ll drop off my cousin at the airport at noon, and then begins three full days of insanity.. just to exhaust you as i am exhausted, let me list what’s to do be done:

~ write a paper comparing and contrasting the differences between readers of samuel pepys’ diaries in the 1500s versus now through his blog (!), what that means about print culture and all that fun stuff – i believe in miracles: due date was pushed back a week!

~ work about 10 hours in non-regularily-scheduled times on the archives’ website getting ready for our..

~ 18 hours annual funddrive, beginning at 4 am on tuesday. yup, i’ll be there.

~ two one three-and-a-half-hour lecture classes. it’s finals, folks.

~ 7 hours of work for another project on monday

~ and, most importantly, laundry so i have somthing to wear to said events not gonna happen.

but. my cousin came to visit me unexpectedly on friday night and since then, it’s been a talkfest with lots of laughing, and lots of traffic in which to talk and laugh in (though since she lives in mexico city, she scoffs at our traffic). in some ways, she’s my separated-at-birth twin, we are so similar in experiences, interests, personalities, humor. but she’s wayyyy beyond me in maturity and control, which are things i greatly admire. when we were little, we were so competitive with each other – or at least i was with her! – and i remember when i heard what her highest tetris score was, i was green with envy. silly! i never did manage to beat that score though..grrr. ;)

she’s a dancer, with a newly confered degree in choreography, and we got to talking about how i really want some kind of regular physical activity in my life.. and then it just occured to me out of the blue: horseback riding. hmm, crazy? time will tell. i signed up for classes that start in late january. i did some horseback riding back in elementary and middle school, but more at my parents’ wishes than any interest on my part. now though, i like the idea of it a lot. hm.

ok, linky time:

~ a web tradition by now, leslie harpold’s online advent calendar

~ this handmade clothing is great great. while doing some christmas shopping, i couldn’t help but buy one of stehpanie syjuco’s designs just for me.

~ that link came from craftivism’s posts – and there will be more each week – on crafter’s and artist’s stuff you can gift this year for the holidays, already a source of at least lots if virtual window shopping ;)

~ i’m thinking about christmas decorations – last year i had a little teeny tree and i loved it. the only problem was that i did no decorating besides some christmas lights, so this year, i’m thinking basics: a pom-pom garland, some paper snowflakes, and a star on top. [links via soulemama]

~ i found another example of an awesome digital library: the british library’s turning the page series – including the original alice in wonderland manuscript. they use flash, versus open library’s ajax, but it’s still darn impressive. check it out.

~ hintbug is a pretty cool online wishlist that’s free, not filled with too many ads, and a pretty clean design. my list is filled to the brim with fiber, yum.

and that is that. i’m shaking a bit in my boots as to what the following days will be like, but here goes nothing. hope your weekends were fabulous ~

p.s. that pic was taken using apple’s photobooth – lots of fun and there are some crazy images that will never show up on the internet using effects called “fisheye” and “squeeze” ;) but this one was using an effect called “glow”.

comment [3]

posted 4 December 05 & filed under familia!, lots of links

spinning again

on friday, after two strong emails to various spinning enablers all about how i was going to wait to get a wheel, or even rent a wheel, later that day, during lunch i drove up and rented a majacraft rose. so pretty! and a little more tricky than the ashford traveller but ultimately, i’m sure it’ll be more satisfying. why am i not positive now? because my brother, out of the blue, came to visit me this weekend and we did the following:

(the smart guy that he is, he saw and did more in 48 hours than a lot of people do in a week of visiting l.a.) so, now i need a weekend to recover from my weekend. and i need some wheel time, it’s just been sitting there all neglected. there was no knitting either – i asked my brother about bringing some to the hockey game and he just stared at me as if i had grown a second head.

so this is how that crazy fun yarn is made.

silk spinning explained, with pictures

MJ pointed out some beautiful wintery hat kits that i’m a-thinkin’ about.

there’s so many crafts i want to dabble in, like screen printing. i’ve done a bit but this cheap screen printing tutorial makes it seem much more do-able.

felted pumpkins are also on my mind – though what to do with them later..?! it’d be cool to make them hollow somehow, to put candy in or something like that..

for itunes users, i’m trying to figure out how to manage multiple libraries – success or failure to be announced soon-ish

i’m thinking ahead to new projects. i have probably four different works-in-progress, but i just don’t feel a zip of motivation about them. so, in the meantime, i’m making a plan. first:

theoretically, also on the list:

a verrrrry long post with zip pictures. sorry. i’m still under this dark evil mood cloud i’ve been under for weeks now. the kind that makes me want to be (or at least feels it’s inevitable so why not accept it) a hermit at the edge of the woods and become very bitter and spit at people as they pass. sux. but, hope some of this was interesting nonetheless – the creativity of people and beauty in the world are what keep me inspired and hopeful for some chance of meaning & beauty in some parts of my life at least. so, keep on keepin’ on, ok.

p.s. have you ever wondered why it’s always windy in autumn? this kind of question, the answers that follow, and the sites that promote them make the info-crazy in me happy.

comment [7]

posted 24 October 05 & filed under cranky, familia!

october is a great month

so far it’s treating me loads better than september. how so? for one, i have a happy secret (not involving any rings or bellies, no worries) i’ll hopefully share in a while, two, the weather is definitely a bit fall-ish, very blustery at least, which makes me grin, and three, i received this great package from the so nice & clever cassie. i hadn’t mentioned much about the syno swap up to now, because i was procrastinating horribly, although i have till the end of october, thank goodness… but now i absolutely have to! look what came in the mail yesterday:

first off, a mini-buttonhole bag! i’ve been eyeing the pattern for months, and then this shows up. yay!

oh yes, what’s inside? lush soap! in an enclosed card, cassie wrote that as she read that i don’t like candy – must have been from those sugar-free days ;) – she got me some non-candy. when i read that, i thought ‘please don’t let it be sunflower seeds, or raisins, or…’ and then the smell hit my nose. my!

i love love lush products – just got into them this past august, but since then, i’ve developed a major passion for them. and honestly, at the risk of sounding too infomercial-ly, my skin and hair has never been happier. double yay. the soaps – three of them, count ‘em! – are delicious and i can’t wait to use them.

thank you so much cassie ~ and yes, you clever girl, this has already motivated me to get cracking on your turtleneck shrug – though the heavenliness of the yarn (cashmere silk!) is doing it’s own motivating too ;)

~ happy friday ~

p.s. here’s an update pic of my cable-and-lace sleeve with it’s color change. i decided to go all dramatic and do a very deep ‘cuff’. it’s pretty huh?

update: can’t help it, my mom just sent me some pics of when my sisters were born, and they just take. me. back. sigh. i love station wagons! and that other pic is of my siblings, me, and my dad peeking in the nursery window. ahh.

   

comment [7]

posted 7 October 05 & filed under familia!, knitting

october!

hi ~ woke up very late this sunday morning – trouble was just sitting on my bed staring at me and once in a while leaning forward and softly biting my elbow.

i was very social yesterday, well for me at least, going to an informal spinning guild meet-up in the afternoon and then a house warming party at night. definitely fun, and so nice to get out of my apartment for a bit. my mom always says that my dad has to be literally dragged from the house to go out to parties, he’s such a homebody, but then, once out, he just has a blast and has to be again literally dragged home. ah, i am so much like him!

so, i have some finished knitted things to show and finally put into the project page – both have been finished for a while, just needed some ribbon and some blocking. i love the petit chou but all the pics were too scandalous ;) so i’m just putting this one up.

i had some fun with the handspun scarf ~ doesn’t my kitchen corner look cozy? not so clean, but definitely cozy. and yes, that’s me posing so, looking so studious, ha. the scarf is so soft and lovely, and the colors! sigh. very proud of this, my first superwash spinning and knitting, delish. as always, for more pics and info, see the projects page..

yesterday i finally paid the price for something i’ve been stupidly doing for weeks now. don’t know why, but i like driving on fumes, just seeing how long i can go before i get scared and have to put some gas in the car. so silly! my version of living on the edge i guess, ha. anyhow, finally yesterday, the car just shuddered and shuddered for a minute and then stopped. ack! lucky lucky me, i was just a few blocks from my apartment, and a nearby gas station.

(i know this sounds maybe really dangerous, but don’t worry, i was only taking local roads, driving on the right hand side, and totally ready to pull over at any minute. again, i have no idea why i did this, or have been doing this, for weeks now – any psychological insights anyone has are appreciated. ! )

anyhow, so then i was forced to admit my stupidity by having to walk to the station, buy a gas container, fill it up, take it to my car, realizing it wasn’t the right type of container (it was meant to fill up lawn mowers, etc), so then go to my apartment, find some sturdy-ish plastic to make a cone, fill up the gas tank – feeling very mcgyver-ish, try and start the car, flood the tank as much as i can (is that what it’s called?), and then hallelujah, get it starting, and of course, then drive to the station and fill it up all the way with gas.

since then, i noticed the car has a little wheeze to it, so i wouldn’t be terribly surprised if i caused some kind of permanent damage to my car. ahh, this car has been such a bane in my life. not the car’s fault, it’s all mine. so! the moral of the story: don’t be an idiot like andrea and fill up the car when it get close to empty.

in other news, big events are happening all around: lalitha got married! heidi and christine are both pregnant! tanya got engaged! go wish them all much happiness, yay.

and last, but not least, it’s my little sisters’ birthday today – happy birthday luci and claudi! sorry about the quality of the pics – they’re photos of photos – but in the first one, it’s the twins around 4 years old somewhere in utah, claudi’s on the right, luci on the left (lefty luci, righty claudi, hee.) and the next one is of the four sisters, me, daniella, luci, and claudi. mwah, i love you, chicas! can’t believe they’re turning 24, ahh, i remember when they were this little.

comment [13]

posted 2 October 05 & filed under familia!, knitting

yay it's friday

hi there!

first off, i’m very happy to announce my computer is fixed! after so much hassle, i believe everything is back to normal, but i’m holding off on restoring the backedup data for a few days more at least. in the meantime though, this means wireless once again (blogging from my bed is the best), watching dvds (saw far from heaven last night, dennis quaid rocks), doing pilates (my powerhouse is in much pain), and most importantly, reading and writing in blogland, yay!

i love love etymology, but can’t quite afford a copy of the OED, so i was psyched to hear [via librarian in black] about the online etymology dictionary. it seems they’re taking the definitions from a variety of sources, and they have gaps of course, but i was happy to see their definition of girl: c.1290, gyrle “child” (of either sex), of unknown origin; ... Specific meaning of “female child” is 14c.

a bunch of years back, post-college, with a group of friends, we tried to get in the habit of addressing each other as a group as “girls” instead of “guys,” no matter the genders. (at my all women’s college, it was amazing how consistently an entire class of women would be referred to by their male professor as “you guys”.) someone in our group discovered that the root of “girl” meant a child of either sex so we decided to switch it around and try something different. the result? it’s amazing how hard it was to get out of the habit of saying “hey you guys”. really, try it!

even though the cover is pretty darn ugly, i’m considering buying the next harry potter book from a canadian publisher because there, the publisher, rainforest books, is printing it on recycled paper. [via bookslut] greenpeace has a nice graphic of what this switch to recyled paper means in in muggle terms and in hogwart terms. hmm, the more i think about it, i don’t really like the cover art that much on the u.s. books anyhow.

starting sunday, gulp, i’m joining heidi by going refined sugar-free for a week. like heidi, i love me some sweets, and i love carbs. but i need to get healthier and help my body, and i know sugar just isn’t doing that. i’m not too bad as i used to be in eating blatantly sugar-rich food all the time (coughanythinggummigcough), but it turns out there’s sugar everywhere, in places i didn’t even think about, like ketchup!

this is going to disgust some, ok all, of you, but i love love ketchup – and that’s heinz, nothing special or fancy. my favorite use, since i was just a teeny kid, is (brace yourself) – ketchup with rice sprinkled with parmesan cheese. stop ewwwing, it’s delicious. i’m a tad embarassed about my love for that dish, i know liz and other healthy folks out there are probably aghast at my poor diet. ;) really i could live off that stuff for days. so bad. but come on, everyone has guilty unhealthy nasty-sounding food they love, right? and hey to me, ketchup on eggs, ugggghhhh. so there.

lastly, the pics you see are of me and my sisters – i’ll show the rest of them next week (in the first pic, luci and i are being silly in the kitchen, and in the second, claudi is being a first-rate navigator in my rent-a-wreck). also, i seamed up the baby ballering top last night, yay! it’s lovely and so teeny, a lot of fun to fold over and over again. (that’s one of my favorite things about knitting – the satisfaction that comes from folding and admiring your finished knits – they feel like real clothing! how cool is that?!) also, tomorrow is my spinning class, wheeeee, so fun. pics from there for sure too.

have a fabulous weekend and enjoy the beautiful july weather!

comment [8]

posted 8 July 05 & filed under familia!, knitting

it's oh so quiet

hi ~ it’s been a while, how are ya? ;) me, busy as always, but sans computer (sob), i’ve been feeling pretty internet-deprived. as i sit waiting to talk to an apple rep (they have good muzak, though a tad too moody for impatient folks like me), i thought i’d type up a bit saying what’s up..

[i know you’re probably sick of my lists, but for my tidy mind, they’re fun, so nyahhh]

during the next week, my sisters want to: see “wicked” the musical(too expensive! ah well) , a tv show taping of “ellen”, a movie premiere (maybe “war of the worlds”), eat at calif. pizza kitchen, go shopping on melrose, the glendale galleria, and ikea in burbank, try out new food recipes at my place, pig out and watch movies, see where i work, go out dancing, eat at my favorite restaurants, and talk talk talk till we croak. all of which needs to be photo-journalized so we’ll remember it forever and ever amen. let’s see how much we can actually tackle. i will be knitting this week, trying to lure them over to the dark side. [insert evil chuckle and knuckle rubbing in anticipation]

and once again, the tease: pictures soon. [crossing my fingers]

hope you all are good and enjoying your mid-week. happy (belated) solstice!

comment [12]

posted 23 June 05 & filed under familia!, knitting

holiday madness

hey there ~

it’s almost 11 am here on the east coast and i have a few minutes of break time, all alone, for the first time since i got home yesterday morning at 6 am. i love my family but we are a pretty intense bunch – so time like this is precious indeed. any minute my mom will walk in the door with a ton of food that needs to be laid out for an impromptu holiday brunch/belated birthday celebration for my nephew niko. also, any minute my brother, sister-in-law, and their two kids, ri & niko, will ring the door, ready my beatiful sis daniella, her daughter kiyra, & mefor some tree decorating. and, any minute my dad and two younger sisters will drive up in the truck with a big beautiful tree. very fun, glad i have a camera to take photos, but sigh, this silence right now is very nice indeed.

whenever i’m around my sisters, especially, at least the last bunch of times we’ve hung out, we really get to talking about serious issues: relationships, sex, fears we have, goals and dreams, in short, all the good stuff. in between we squeeze in singing silly 80s songs together (for some reason, A-ha means christmas to us, look at my grinning mamiespecially their first album) and practically swooning and/or squealing over christmas anticipation and happiness. i love my sisters, and love these opportunities to chat and catch up on each other’s lives.

i finally got to meet my lovely new niece - pictures forthcoming, promise. she is an adorable sweet baby, softly exuding that great baby smell all little ones seem to come with, with the most animated eyebrows and, in general, face, i’ve ever seen on a baby. of course, to have my sister as her mom, she’s gotta get good at that since my sister is the champ at happy loud exclmations, full of eyebrow waggling.

ok, off to steal a few more minutes reading.. at 1 pm my little sisters and me gotta go decorate for my older sister’s baby shower we’re helping to throw for her today. phew, busy day coming up.

hoping your day is great and hopefully very relaxing. ;)

p.s. just got a phone call from luci, one of the twins, saying that our tree is on the way but warning “it has a lot of personality”. hm. then i heard my dad in the background saying “tell her it’s flat on the bottom with very little on top. tell her!” and then luci hung up. hah, i love my family.

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posted 19 December 04 & filed under familia!

my christmas tree

i was getting a little blue on tuesday night – no tree, no clean clothing, and a really messy apartment. just a few hours later, all that changed. a sweet friend bought me a little tree (yes, it’s only a bit bigger than my cat, or my computer.. 2’4” of sweet ‘noble fir’) and gave me a bunch of quarters for the basement washing machine and dryer (as well as accompanying me downstairs, which has suddenly grown scarier with formerly mesh-covered big holes in the walls now with broken mesh lying around in tatters. shiver).

with all that help, it was easy as pie to sweep up, mop up, organize, and plan/daydream about the upcoming changes i’ll be making to my apartment when i get back from the east coast festivities. in the works: a new bed! and duvet, and sheets, and big boxes that slide for under the bed to hold sweaters and pants. yay!

in other news, here’s some helpful christmas links:

amanda provided a great link to the site i used to believe, which collects people’s beliefs they had as kids, ranging from thinking seeds swallowed would result in trees growing inside bellies to thinking clowns ‘were born that way’.

my belief? “i swear on all that’s holy, until i was around 13 or so, i used to believe that really truly one day a dragon would just burst out of the sky, lift me up, and carry me off to the world i was really supposed to be living in. ” no joke, that. i still sometimes glance up at the sky, squinting and sighing.

a final declaration/confession: i have not bought or completed making a single gift and therefore am 0% close to being done with my christmas shopping.

[flash snow courtesy of my old high school’s nifty website]

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posted 15 December 04 & filed under familia!, lots of links

introducing kiyra oahn hoffman, my niece!

on november 12, 2004 this beautiful baby was born – two days later, on the fourteenth, my sister and her husband were called saying there was a baby ready to be adopted.

it’s now been a month and a day that they’ve had her and as of last night at midnight, it’s official – she is part of our family forever and ever now.

i cannot wait to see her – the pictures have been so tantalizing and argh! my big sister is a mommy! a mommy. crrrrazy. this is the sis who used to grab my books from me, while fighting, and just hold them above her head (she was, and is, much taller than me), look at me, smile, and bend the book back, slowly slowly breaking the spine. well, miss-poopy-diapers-and-no-sleep-for-at-least-a-year, look who’s laughing now!

::hopping from one foot to the other:: i go back to maryland in three days, three days..

p.s. if your browser can’t ‘see’ iframes, try this, and if you don’t have flash, you can see the pics here.

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posted 14 December 04 & filed under familia!

back home

hi ~ i got back from italy yesterday and am rushing to catch up with all that needs to be done.. i was gone for over fifteen days this month . i loved being with my family, and it was great to be in italy again, especially the time spent in palermo (ciao mirko!), and my sisters rock (though i kicked their butts in uno), but it was just altogether way too much time spent out of town, out of my normal life, and getting back into the routine will be hard. i know, i go on vacation for two weeks to italy, and already i’m complaining? go figure.

family-wise:
two big news while i’m readjusting and fixing things and getting ready for fall: first of all, congrats to my big sister daniella! today is her first day of school, teaching it that is. she’s the brand new fourth grade teacher at the chrsta macauliffe elementary school in germantown, maryland. yay! auguri, bella! give them all A’s for me, and you, in membrance of struggling for hours over the multiplication tables and kicking in bathroom doors ~ it’s hard being ten years old! secondly, to my big surprise, i found out this morning that my little cousin sergio navarro got married last week! i almost fell over when i heard (from the family list-serv no less) and rushed to see the posted pictures of the newlyweds. felicidades sergio!

news-wise:
i watched a lot of olympics in italy, the coverage was way better. it seems, not only do italians like to watch when italian athletes are competing and winning, but they even like to watch other countries’ athletes compete and win. what a revelation! also, i’ve realized that yahoo’s ‘most popular photos on the web’ page is really funny to look at now and then, as well as being a pretty good round-up of what people’s interests are online. a few days into the olympics, the seven out of ten of the top photos circulating on the web, according to yahoo, were.. of taut olympian ass. yes, indeed: men are incredible predictable. today’s includes Kerri Walsh, bottom, and teammate Misty May celebrate after beating Brazil in the gold medal beach volleyball finals. i especially like how the caption makes clear who’s on the botton. rnc-wise, i haven’t been following much at all what’s been going on in new york, but i like rncnotwelcome.org, (especially the picture of the black bloc-ers on the left hand side all geared up and looking at a map). what happened to bikes against bush is really crazy. first of all, this one guy has a bike that “using a wireless Internet enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk”. wow! but he was arrested while showing how the bike worked to ron reagan jr. live on msnbc. crazy. also, to finish off the sex-y nature of this paragraph, i like this picture from the major rnc march yesterday.

just occured to me: since i used the word ass (especially connected with the adjective taut) i can pretty much assume that for those trying to access this site from libraries or other places that have filters, from now on they won’t be able to. hmm, gotta check that out later.

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posted 30 August 04 & filed under familia!

recap & planning

hello. i just finalized my italy plans, at least how i’m getting there and getting back. i’ll have one full day in maryland before i leave with my little sisters to join my parents and my older sister and her husband and i’ll have a night in maryland when we all come back on the 28th so that i can chill and relax one last night. this way, i can spend some time with my adorable niece and nephew as well as my very-cool brother and sister-in-law.

also, i’m getting ready for the saa conference in boston next week ~ very exciting ~ and, from boston, i’ll also be taking the train down to new york for some meetings, so i’m hoping to meet up with my oldest friend in the world, who i still have to contact.. yikes. it’s hard to get everything together but i cannot wait! i just found out there’s going to be a guided walk around boston highlighting anarchist-connected sites, focusing on sacco & vanzetti. also, i want to check out that lucy parsons center, and in new york, the bluestocking bookstore.. any other recommendations? i’m only in boston for three days and in new york for two but i’m going to try and pack things in.. (argh. i feel all run-on sentences today.)

on tuesday night i hung out with some old friends and former co-workers caroline and maria. we were (sucessfully) trying to get together once a month or so and eat a lot (they’re big foodies) and talk a lot but it’s been six months since we last did that so we were way over due. i had a brand-new fondue pot and boy did it get used! between the three of us, we ate a pound and a half of cheese and for dessert we had chocolate fondue. yum. it was incredibly delicious. i always like hanging out with them, we’re all three very different people that are all interested in each other’s lives and find each other funny and smart. so, a lively discussion with some (invariably) dropping of bread and veggies in fondue pot. very fun.

knitting-wise: ok, i’m a little slow-moving recently with my to-be-felted-bag but i just finished the bottom (involving no less than a three-needle bind-off) and feel very proud. i love binding off, it’s so very satisfying (and easy and looks pretty to boot). i’m getting nervous about the actual felting process since on the local stitch n bitch listserv a few people were writing about how cascade yarns doesn’t felt up too well. i swatched by hand and though it was a little gappy in the middle, i think in a machine it would work fine. but i’m still nervous.
~ andrea

p.s. if you like books and yarn, check out these knitters’ bookplates.

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posted 29 July 04 & filed under familia!, felted bag

my sisters are grrrreat

hi!

it’s been a few hectic days – i’m now in maryland, visiting my family for the easter weekend. it’s so great to be here: my parents picked me up this morning, the twins arrive tonight from north carolina, my older sister and her husband come back from vacation in fla. tomorrow, and hopefully i’ll see my brother, sister-in-law, and their two gorgeous kids tonight. yay!

i posted some pictures i took here. oh it’s so nice to be home! i wonder how long i’ll comfortably call two places home at the same time. where i lived before in l.a. (loft, communal house), i’m realizing now, i never really called home i don’t think. definitely not as comfortably as i call my pretty catalina apartment home. it’s pretty here in maryland right now – spring is very evident, with nodding daffodils, sweet little buds all over the place, and the grass so green and soft.

my sisters are grrrrreat!

i’ll write more later..

~andrea

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posted 9 April 04 & filed under familia!, vacation paradise

savio

hello!

busy busy on everything as usual & hatching little plans & daydreaming & also updating the look of this site a bit..

run luci run!

”...But we’re a bunch of raw material[s] that don’t mean to have any process upon us, don’t mean to be made into any product, don’t mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We’re human beings!

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Now, no more talking. We’re going to march in singing “We Shall Overcome.” Slowly; there are a lot of us. Up here to the left—I didn’t mean the pun.”
-mario savio

bye, andrea

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posted 8 April 03 & filed under familia!, politics

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