Picture post

Since I don't have all that much time, I'm going to do another picture post. This way you can all see what's sort of been happening. We've been having a lot of Sunday night dinners and I've been testing my pumpkin pie and pecan pie making skills. I also made a pumpkin cheesecake tonight to take to a dinner at Neil's after work. (Neil is my boss.) I love working at Celery. Well the people I work with anyways.

These are mostly pictures of Emmy, but she has been very cute lately.







These are the kind that I'll be sending home for Thanksgiving.


Food! Glorious food!
I guess it's a good thing that cooking and baking is stress relief for me.

Price Chopper's recipe for Pumpkin Pie


Pecan Pie from Bitman's How to Cook Everything

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake


Mexican Lasagna

Chicken and bacon burgers adapted from RR. I can't find the link anymore, but it's on FoodNetwork somewhere.

She had just had a bath and she always gets very hyper afterwards.

Mrs. Levie

Hello everyone. As you have probably noticed, I haven't been posting much lately. We've been having a difficult time over here. After we got back from Georgia, Mrs. Levie was admitted to the hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. We later found out that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although Edward and I are not religious, we hope that you all will pray for Mrs. Levie. I've pasted Julie's formal announcement below.

Dear friends and family,

I just wanted to write everyone a quick note about my mom's recent hospitalization.

On Sunday, October 12 she was admitted to the hospital due to fluid build-up in her chest, which had caused her discomfort and difficulty breathing for a long time. Her health began to deteriorate rapidly over the last few months to the point that she was unable to walk, stand, or even speak without wheezing and struggling to breathe. A group of her friends (along with her pastor) confronted her that Sunday and urged her to seek medical treatment. Without that intervention, she would probably not be with us today.

The root of her breathing problem appears to be advanced breast cancer, which has spread to her lungs and bones. She has now been in the hospital for over 3 weeks and she will have to remain there until the fluid build-up in her chest has been mediated. She may undergo a surgical procedure later this week to remove the malfunctioning pleural cavity so that her left lung can work at full capacity once again. (A handful of other treatments have been tried, but to no avail.)

Her weekly chemotherapy treatments began last Monday. We're all hopeful that these treatments will do their magic and halt the spread of cancer. We're also hopeful that she'll be able to come home soon (until then we're busy readying the house for the possibility of wheelchair accessibility and sit-down showering).

The support from my mom's Livermore friends has been amazing--she actually had so many visitors her first week in the hospital that she complained to me about not having time for a nap!

As you know, my mom *loves* receiving short notes and cards in the mail. If you would like to send her a get-well-soon note you can mail it to my parents' house in Livermore.

My entire family would benefit from the power of positive thinking and prayer from all of you right now. My mom needs "get well" wishes while the rest of our family could use prayers for concentration on our regular work/school duties.

Thanks in advance for keeping my mom in your thoughts,
Julie (Levie) Bower

--
Julie C. Bower


So now that you know what has been going on in the past month, you can all understand why I have not been posting. I pretty much think about Mrs. Levie, school and what we're going to have for dinner. It is not a happy time for us even though hockey has started and we have a new group of friends to hang out with. We're just hoping to make it through the rest of school so that we can come home.

Picture Post

Since it's been a stressful two weeks Edward got me this little African Violet to cheer me up.


Rolando, Nadeem, Edward and Roshan...boy Rolando sure is in a lot of pictures.



Me, Sara, Rolando and Maggie.

Our friend Rolando.



Emmy never fails to help me study.




Learning through osmosis.


The cutest picture ever.


We had a Mexican themed dinner party for a friend of ours last weekend. With all of the left overs from burritos and tacos I made this awesome nacho plate. It was almost as good as back when Juni and I used to share them in Riverside, though not quite the same because Juni wasn't here to share them with me.



A semi-homemade pie. The only thing homemade about it was that I assembled it and put it in the oven.

It's been a while

I know I haven't posted in a while, but it's been very hectic over here. With work and school I've been very stressed out. I will hopefully post something that actually has content soon.

Behold the Ferocious Laundry Elephant

I spy with my little eye...






A laundry elephant-dog!

Georgia

If you hadn't already heard, we're down in Georgia because Edward's Uncle Walter passed away on Thursday afternoon. We made the drive down here on Friday afternoon and arrived on Saturday evening. The wake and ceremony were tearful, but we are trying to have a good time here. After the funeral today we went back to Annette's house for lunch. Then, we went fishing down at Chip and Kathy's pond. I actually caught a few fish! It was a small step up from the fish farm that my Baba took me to years and years ago, but it makes me think that I can actually go fishing with Edward some time. I think that Chip's pond was giving me a false sense of reality, but I'll live with it. It actually made fishing fun.

Right now it is raining and Julie is loving it. Since we get rain all of the time in Troy, I'm a little used to/tired of it. I think today we will be going to help Annette clear out her house so that she can move to South Carolina where Nancy lives. It's good weather to be inside.

...Okay, so I let almost a week pass between now and the first two paragraphs of this blog. In that time I got a hair cut, Emmy decided to go on an adventure and cross the highway to look for us at Uncle Walter's farm (we were staying at Chip and Kathy's farm), she jumped through the window of my car so that we wouldn't leave her again, we went to Rock City and Ruby Falls, spent lots of time with the family, and are now in Atlanta visiting Tim (our friend from UCR).

On Wednesday Julie and I got hair cuts at Creative Images with Lebron. I really like the way that he cuts my hair. I got my last cut from him when we came down during the summer so it was just about time to get another cut. Julie and I actually showed up an hour early by accident because we got our times mixed up. She was supposed to get her cut on Wednesday and I was scheduled for Thursday. We ended up both going on Wednesday because we wanted to go touring on Thursday. When we told them that we'd just cancel my appointment Lebron and his staff were able to squeeze me in. That was quite nice and they did a great job. (I feel like I'm writing a review for them.) I really like our haircuts. They are low maintenance, but still very cute.

While we were off getting our hair done, Edward and Davie went to get new headlights for my car and an oil change. When we got back to Chip's farm we were in for a story. Apparently, when we left Emmy with Chip and Mr. Levie our darling little girl was distressed and tried to follow us. She managed to make her way down to Uncle Walter's farm, which is about 1/4- 1/2 a mile away. We think that she went through the corn field path that we had walked on the day before and crossed right in front to Uncle Walter's farm gate. Now, the street isn't very busy, but it is a highway so she could have gotten very hurt. We hope, hope, hope that all of the training paid off and she sat before she crossed the road. Chip said that he noticed that she was gone about 10-12 minutes after we left so she must have figured that we were over at the other farm and tried to follow us. Ray, one of the workers around the farm, saw her trotting around the house and told Chip. He went down with his truck and brought her back. For some reason she didn't want to get out of his truck after he brought her home. I think it might have been because she knows that when she's in a car that we always come back to get her. When we heard this we thought it was really funny/cute, but it did scare us too. Julie was going to take her in to get wiped down (she was muddy from the corn field) while we went down to the other farm to drop off some food. Emmy saw that we were going to leave again and promptly turned around and jumped into the car through the window. I practically had to flatten myself against the seat of the car so that she wouldn't whack me. She apparently did not want us to leave her.

On Thursday we left Emmy in the crate and took off for Chattanooga, TN. We went to see Rock City and Ruby Falls. Rock City was pretty cool. There were lots of rocks... Ruby Falls however, was slightly disappointing. I guess it was so hyped up with billboards and stuff that I thought that it would be much bigger. During dinner that night I described it as a giant peeing through a hole. I think I imagined an underground Niagara Falls or something. The tour guide built it up to be something spectacular also. Although it is the tallest underground waterfall, it didn't really look like much. I guess I was just expecting a lot more. I really liked the lights and water though. I love it when people put lights to water. I just like lights in general, but water added to it is a bonus.





Woops, slightly off centered. Hehe







I think that it's a pretty well known fact that Emmy is not a fan of other dogs inside the house. Buttons, Chip and Kathy's boxer, really wanted to play with Emmy. She didn't even get the hint when Emmy growled at her.


Testament of Emmy's dislike for other dogs around her pack.

We are currently in Atlanta now visiting our friend Tim from college. We all went together to a tailgate party for the Georgia Tech football game today. Emmy and I walked back to his apartment and slept until they called around 6pm. After that, Emmy and I went on an adventure to find a Pho place while they went to a volleyball game. I have to say, I think I enjoyed my Pho way more than I would have enjoyed the game. It was soooooo good. I think this will hold me over until Christmas.

Tomorrow we're going to leave Atlanta pretty early so that we can get as much driving in as we can. The plan is that we'll drive all day tomorrow and then visit Josie Monday afternoon on our last leg of our trip. I'm not really looking forward to the drive, but I do really need to do some reflecting about my project. Long car rides are good for this. I need to have half of it done by next week! EEK!

You wouldn't believe....

This meal looks pretty good, huh? It's for Emmy. Put her in the bin, get the white jacket, she's loony! I'm not, really. Yesterday we got a notice from BJ's Wholesale telling us that the food that we purchased for Emmy could be a batch of dry food that was contaminated with Salmonella. So for the in between getting a new bag of food I made her a bunch of rice, boiled chicken tenders, and peas. I'd say that this is a pretty well balanced meal for anyone. There aren't any spices so it may not taste that great, but it's gourmet for Emmy!




Aside from the food recall, this past weekend we took care of my boss' darling little poodle, Josie. (Pronounced Jo-sIe. The "I" is accented, not like how we pronounce Josie.) I was a little (well maybe a lot) nervous that Emmy would beat up on her because she is old. She had already practically attacked her in the office, but everything was okay in the end. I might even say that they are friends. They sure both wanted to sleep on the bed! After I dropped Josie off at the Celery office I went to go cheer on Edward's inter mural soccer team. They won! They also gave me team shirts since I'm the cheerleader for the team. I wouldn't say I'm the best cheerleader as I yell at them to get on their marks and to drop back when they aren't running fast enough. The poor keeper has to listen to me yell because I stand right next to him. If the team would only listen to me, they'd realize that I'm not full of hot air. I kind of know what you have to do in the game. Hehehe. The goalie agrees with what I have to say, so at least I know I'm not just a ranting fan.

Then we went out to BJ's to stock up of food. While we were out in that area we went to the India Bazaar. We got a whole bunch of spices for less than you'd get in a small bottle of McCormick's. They are huge bags! We also got some microwavable Indian food that was absolutely amazing. We're probably putting our Indian friends to shame by loving this stuff, but it is sooooo good. Cheap, easy, and good. Can't beat that.



Josie the Celery dog.


Also, Edward's Uncle Walter is declining in health. He is currently in hospice so at least he is comfortable. We expect to go down to Georgia in the next few weeks. It is difficult to talk/write about, but please think good thoughts for Edward's family.
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My brain feels like it is going to explode. This is my current away message:
I need a drink. The beginning of my story was originally only 11 pages and now after cutting the parts that were too backstory-ish I only have seven. The preface is totally gone. Goodbye, good night, you're gone. Four pages of writing down the drain. The worst part is that I wrote a lot to fill in the blanks and it's still so short. My brain is about to burst. creativity can only work for so many hours in a given day. Apparently 3.5 is my max.

I didn't even get through the whole manuscript! Writing a hundred good pages is looking very bleak at the moment. I know I can pop out a hundred pages, but I want/need good pages. I'm very frustrated at the moment.

Cake Decorting

I'm getting better at this cake decorating stuff. I might just need to take it up as a hobby. It's not so bad when I'm not try to make a 3D cake that refuses to be 3D.




This cake is for a co-worker's party that Ed and I are going to tonight.

Peppers!

Look! Today after my walk with the little doggy I noticed some red peppers! I'm very excited to use them. There are a lot more green ones on the plants, but I want to wait for them to turn red. The Jalapenos are looking good too!





P.S. You should congratulate us. Emmy an I ran all the way up the stairs on the Approach. The hill between the actual Approach and stairs at RPI was a little too steep to run all the way up.