machines, hand tools, and future plans (?)

Hello Everyone,
I hope that everyone is doing well and soaking up the last days of summer. I guess that summer doesn't really end until September 22 but it always feels like it is over once people start going back to school [not me though :)]. I have pretty much been working hard on the farm. My boss, Richard has Lyme disease and has been not working as much the past few weeks as he might normally. I guess I don't know what he normally does, but it seems like he has been taking more naps than most farmers would if they weren't sick. So, the result is that I feel a little bit like I have been assuming/having thrust upon me more and more responsibility on the farm. It is kind of cool because I am learning more that you really have to think about a lot of things and keep everything on a farm in balance to be successful. However, it is also a lot more stressful because I kind of get blamed when things go wrong more often. So I have been working a lot. The good news is that the family is going out of town for a few days starting tomorrow, so I get to completely run the farm. I also plan on taking some afternoon naps and taking it fairly easy to try to regain some of my energy.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to NYC to visit my step siblings. I mainly hung out with my stepbrother Michael, who is my age and about to start an Americorps position in Puerto Rico. He and I shared a room for a few years after our parents married, so we have been pretty close over the years and it was really fun to hang out with him and catch up. I also got to see my stepbrother John and my stepsister Bowie. Bowie just got engaged and she is pretty excited about that. New York was pretty overwhelming for a country boy like myself, especially since I am used to seeing four or five people on any given day and all of the sudden I was surrounded with people. It was a nice change of scenery from the farm though.

I just finished reading Pigs in Heaven. It was a pretty good book. It is basically about what it means to be american indian in contemporary america, but it is also just about what it means to be family. I am kind of a sucker for nice family stories so I really enjoyed that book. Other than that I have been reading books on farming and harvesting grains and hay with hand tools. So, look for me to be scything a field of hay any day now. I am definitely realizing how crappy I am with machines and engines, so I think I need to have a farm that is mostly powered by my sweat and some horses. Tractors are not my friend.

Finally, just a little update on what I am doing in the short term future. I am working here at Cowberry Crossing until the beginning of November and then kind of working, kind of travelling during november and december. I definitely hope to visit some of y'all during that time, but there are so many of you to visit and we all are scattered to the four winds. I am farmsitting here from december 27 to january 10 while they are on vacation. After that I am officially done here and am thinking of going to the Gulf Coast to do relief work for a month or two and then maybe WOOFing or getting a job on another farm that would last for a few months. We'll see what happens. I miss you all a lot a lot. Take care.

who's procrastinating? fiones is!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vqn5f2ISnvo

sleepy days, and sunny dresses
my sweet summer, can you really be done?
soon i'll be back to "work", and doin' what i think is right.
back i'll be to my beloveds, back to long, tired nights.
time, it sure does seem to fly...
thinking about my lovely life, sometimes it makes me cry.
it started with checking off the list with my bridgie
then off to adventureland with h, each day was new,
bright as the sun, like two little kids.
early mornings with b.m., work days were few and far between,
but isn't that what youth should be, at least what i dream.
making it my personal duty to change the minds of those older than i,
more than just chopping, talking about life, baseball, childhood, and the quick passing of time.
fanny packs, hundreds of stickered posts [ny], and shared grins with toddlers,
sometimes it's the people you call strangers that make the days worth going through it seems.
constant talk of the council, neverending phone calls, and possible loss of job.
days filled with tears, and fears, where one speech can make all the difference.
daily trips to uncommon, walks down the sticky alley
to the place where i borrowed so many texts and films that i hoped to fill my nights with,
instead i chose letters, postcards, the interweb, through which i expressed my love, and my stories, music and trailers.
trips down the northway, seemed to drift by without a sound,
quickly running down the contacts list, made it seem like you were all riding alongside me.
off to the capital, wsl, and that tall kid on the farm.
so many cooks, so many laughs, so much was "false", yet true at the same time.
evenings in the heat-filled church, lemonade from the mix, the mate for conversations in broken english,
desperately trying to connect with those whose lives i can only hope to understand.
now i'm off to big blue, where i embark on a new Quest.
excited about new adventures, with the old and the new.
more coffs, more talks, more sharing, more =).


i hope everyone is happy and well.
talk soon.
all my love.
<3 fiones

It has come to my attention that I do, in fact, have eyebrows

Last night, I made a grave mistake.
Being one of 2 colorblind members of my household (once, my dad inadvertantly bought a hot pink power cord for the firehouse he is chief of, and was promptly and continuously berated by the other firefighters for his introduction of such girlishness into their manly space. My dad's comment: I thought it was orange), I typically have little to no input on the color of my hair at any given time. I may make bold statements such as "I want to go red" or "I think I want a little darker brown", but in the end, it is up to my sister and mother to decide what will look best on my head and/or when my hair "looks like crap" and needs to be "fixed" immediately. Last night was one of these nights.
Deciding on a chocolatey brown (how can you ever go wrong with chocolate, I thought. BOY WAS I WRONG), we set about our business. When all was said and done, not only did I end up looking like morticia/a middle school goth, but my sister had decided to also dye my naturally blonde eyebrows and I looked pretty much like groucho marx. The ensuing plucking (I am not a girl, and have never, until this point, had my eyebrows plucked) was enough to cause tremendous strings of obscenities flow from my mouth, and make me feel as if my eyes were bleeding.

All in all, it's been a trying week.

So all of you who didn't know, I'm moving to connecticut tomorrow (yes, tomorrow!) to get my apartment set up and start graduate school at the university of connecticut for speech language pathology. Sounds very exciting and all, but right now I'm just looking around at the cyclone that is my room and wondering "do I really need to bring this floppy hat, this pillow with cats on it, this lump of green silly putty?" and the glamour of picking up and moving to a new state/new life is pretty much lost.

I've had an amazzzzing summer though. For one, I went to europe and backpacked around a bit, which was overall a really awesome experience. If you're bored and feel like reading some blog entries about it, my friends and I kept up a travel blog at backpackingsuperstars.blogspot.com. Since then I've been visiting people every weekend, working with special ed. kids (an eternally crazy experience where I'm alternately bitten, asked where babies come from, forced to chase kids trying to run into rivers to "be with the beavers", and informed that my butt "moves back and forth" when I walk by young developmentally disabled children every day), and having a ton of sweet adventures with those capital region kids, Fiona Murray, Harrison Watkins and Matt Lapennas! I was also lucky enough to catch Taryn, Em, and Sara on their visit to camp murray, and to meet Bill the 8 lb bunny not once but TWICE. Let me tell you, that rabbit is impressive.

Despite my horror at beginning the whole grad school thing, I'm kind of excited to go on to the next step. Everyone keep blogging and I'll try and keep up with this thing as well now that I've started! Love you and peace out, cub scouts

Kristine

MISTAKE ON THE LAKE

I'M IN CLEVELAND!

so far, it has been awesome and not anything at all like the Drew Carey show. stay tuned for a real update sometime in the next few days.

cool

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/wikipedia?gusrc=rss&feed=technology
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/





and this is how net neutrality works.

p.s. did you know that wikipedia has 83 articles written in klingon? chyeah!

random act of kindness!

today at work [price chopper] whilst checking out a customer, i realized that i needed to acquire an ironing board. i asked my supervisor if price chopper sold any and she went to check for me. she came back carrying one covered in pretty flowers that was bigger than her and said it cost $16.99. seeing as i am broke i thanked her and said i would get it on thursday when i got paid. she told me she'd keep it in the office for me.
ten minutes later i saw her in one of the nearby lines getting a receipt for the board! she had bought it for me! "an early graduation present!", she said.
i thought it was super nice. things like that don't happen every day. =)

all my love.
<3 fiones

bill murray loves the mets!

hi!

it's august 10th! i can't believe it.
i have had such a lovely summer, it's sad to see it go, but good because i know this new year will bring exciting and wonderful things to everyone! =)

yesterday, my dad took my sisters and me to see the mets. they played the braves. the braves won- but for anyone who watched/read about the game, it was not without its share of excitement! carlos delgado almost hit a home run in the ninth inning, but the braves' willie harris made a SICK save, and thus stole away the would-be tie, sealing the series win for the braves. bill murray was bummed. we were all sweaty. it was great.

this past tuesday i had the chance to speak at the city council in my hometown. i, along with two other women, spoke about the latino advocacy program that i volunteer for. the woman who started the program two years ago has since handed over the reins to her daughter, who spoke about the program's plans for the future, and hopes for funding/grants. i basically just gave an overview of my experience and a call for action. it went really well, and it felt good to let others, others who can help make a big difference, know. helping out with this program has been so wonderful, and i hope more people become aware about the great things the program wants to accomplish- and want to help! i've recently been thinking a lot about teaching as a career. every time i leave the esl class, i am filled with so much frustration, but also joy at the same time. frustrated that there's not more i can do and how can i get others involved, but also happy that i have been able to spend some time with people whom i would otherwise have very little interaction with. it's not so much the feeling of helping others, because i really don't know how much of that i'm doing, but actually being able to catch a glimpse of people's day-to-day lives, because that's what i enjoy most in life, as you all know. i feel like being a good teacher isn't necessarily about imparting all your knowledge onto your students, but maybe more of the ability to engage and connect. i don't know... i've just never really had this feeling that i've been trying to convey before, and i think that's a sign- at least that this is something i should continue to think about. we'll see!

in other news, i've been trying to keep up on what's been going on locally/politically in geneseo, and will mostly likely be sending out emails soon. i'm too scared to write names on the blog, since i've had trouble with that in the past... just know that this upcoming fall will definitely be interesting!

i think i might see "the sound of music" tomorrow night! yay! they're performing it in ballston spa.

i saw "the simpsons movie" the other night with my sister. i thought it was super funny! laughed it up!

i'm down to my last few weeks at the chopper. my family and i are going out to long island/fire island next week to visit family.

sara and greg are in iowa! and harrison's leaving for cleveland on monday!

i hope you all are enjoying your augusts. i miss you so.
all my love, and more. <3