Build more roads.

Lunch

Tamara — Sat, 01 May 2010 13:42:58 +0000

Philadelphia has some great food. John and I are always talking about how it’s hard to not be fat here. Since we quit smoking we have kind of been on a culinary binge. There have been so many restaurants and delis we have gorged ourselves on. Sure there are sushi places and good for you restaurants we could go to but who wants to do that in a land of cheesesteaks and jewish delis?

At any rate the other day it was veeery nice outside and I had the day off so John suggested I meet him for lunch to have a picnic. Oh good! Instead of making sandwiches why not just pick them up? Primo Hoagies here I come!! John and I have a joke between us about the Italian population here in our area. There are about 8791823 sandwich and pizza places and every single one of them has the same menu: pizza, hoagies, salads and steaks. Primo is just hoagies and they are delicious!

Here we go

We went to the airfield where John got his pilot’s license to watch the planes come in and out

It was real windy so we tailgated out the back of the pathfinder. Here is my Primo, a turkey schwartzie

Here is John’s, a turkey diablo

Mmmm turkey schwartzie

Penndot’s helicopter came in and the wind coming off it John said was like a category 3 hurricane. It almost blew off my glasses and I had to turn away from the blowing debris

Yay for picnics!

Photo Blog?

Tamara — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:08:46 +0000

Since I’ve been taking a bunch of pictures lately and I really love my new camera I have decided to start photo blogging. Little bits and pieces of my life through pictures. I am not one of those trendy photo bloggers that have those awesome shots of their french press on their 1950′s retro kitchen table. I don’t have a bicycle rusting in my backyard to pose by nor do I have neat backyard get togethers with fire and guys with beards and tight plaid cowboy shirts.

Here’s what I do have:

A rug that needs vacuumed a lot

A lot of animals that I am always feeding..I swear they stalk me

Laundry that piles up

Arts and crafts that I enjoy doing

A nice backyard with pigs and dogs and red adirondak chairs

Nothing spectacular for dinner when I am too tired to cook

This is what might be a part of dinner

Here is my artsy geranium picture

My kitchen table doesn’t have anything cool on it like fresh flowers and I am a florist. Right now it has Mr. Ropey, dog food for guest dogs and other stuff

So there you have it. Hopefully the pictures will get more interesting the further I go.

Stewie Bag of Donuts

Tamara — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:24:38 +0000

John and I adopted a new dog. His name is Stewart. He is a beagle mix with a black and white body and little dalmation pokey legs. He is the same age as Henry so they will be little old men together.

There have been a few dog fights as Henry has been an only child for so long he has territory issues. He’s getting over it and Stewart is luckily pretty passive so we get by. I did break up a dog fight the other night and got bit in the process. I am not sure who did it because it happened so fast but I think they both felt bad about it because right after they were loving on each other and giving me hugs.

I love dogs.

Here is a link to the shelter we got Stew from. They are good people and really care about their fur babies.

Here are pictures of an afternoon in the yard

He loves tennis balls

Brother butts

resting

Stick and ball

yard slug

playing

nose ball

Henry is a competitor for balls

he is cute

air sniff

mom?

left leg turns in a bit..super sweet

2 of 5 boys

hey, there's a pig in the yard

grass

the end

Are you going to eat that?

Tamara — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:05:27 +0000

Being fat is the worst. Especially since all your cute clothes are from when you could fit into them. I know some people that refuse to buy “fat clothes” because they feel that it is giving in to their fatness. Giving it a reason to be. In the meantime they are reduced to wearing whatever was in style the last time they were fat. I am in this position now.

The last time I was thinner was when I lived in Portland some 3 years ago. Jesus, has it been 3 years? Anyways. I worked hard at getting in shape by smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, taking Henry to parks and going on extended walks and only eating one meal a day usually consisting of vegetables. I looked fabulous and I had cool hair.

I have since quit smoking and have taken up drinking a little more than I should. I don’t mean I’m going out to bars and stuff, I am merely filling the void by having a glass or 8761231 before bed. My other half and I have also been eating at restaurants for the greater part of a year. Bad idea. I have always been relatively poor so going to restaurants for me was few and far between. This was helpful to my waistline. I think I am being far too indulgent with myself. This is not helpful to my waistline.

I have lost all sense of looking cool. I got rid of all my fat clothes when I was thinner last time. I vowed to not let myself get fat again. I am a liar!!! I used to have a beat on what was cool, marched to the beat of my own drum. Up here according to John I look like a “freak show”. This might be because of my platinum blond hair in a sea of brown or my insistence on wearing Converse in a land of Uggs. I don’t know, but I need to get it back.

I have a closet full of cool shoes that need to come out again!!

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated..

Oh, Savannah

Tamara — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:44:52 +0000

I used to take all kinds of pictures. I used to be really good at it. John got me a cute camera for my birthday. I used to use his digital SLR but it was too bulky for every day use. These are some pictures from Savannah. John took some and I took the cemetery ones. Enjoy..

I should have taken more pictures of the beautiful downtown and some of the historic homes but at the time I didn’t think they would represent as well in photos as they really are in person. I think cemeteries are easier to photograph. Bonaventure reminded me of Highgate, in England. The statuary in both places are just stunning. The trees of Savannah make it sad and magical..

Pictures

Tamara — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:58:42 +0000

Suhvannuh

Tamara — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:06:34 +0000

Whew! March has been crazuh!! The man and I have been going non-stop it seems all month! The highlight of course, was our trip to Savannah.

view from our room

Our alarm clock

I had never been to Savannah before and I fell in love with it real quick. The man has family there so I had something to do while he was working(we were there for a conference he was attending). I even got to go on a ghost tour at the Sorell-Weed mansion. It was neat and something I would definitely do again. Will post pictures later

Our hotel was right on the river so in the evenings you could hear the buskers. We were in one of the squares the day we got there and out of nowhere an old black man popped out from behind a bench and just started singing some old sad southern song. The whole city just has this sadness to it. It’s in the trees I think. The sad trees with all the moss that line the squares and houses.

We ate some awesome food. Of course we went to Paula Deen’s place that was a block from our hotel. It was oookaaaaay. The gravy and mashed potatoes tasted packaged. Fail. We had a few drinks at the Moon River Brewery that is supposed to be super duper haunted. We closed the place down one night and before we left I used the ladies room and heard some tapping on the walls. Hmmm..

Moon River Brewery

I will post more later as I retrieve my pictures off the camera..

Beautiful Wormsloe

Wormsloe plantation

You and Me, Punk Rock Girl

Tamara — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:25:18 +0000

I have known my friend Carmen since the 8th grade when I was shoved into the Catholic school system in Leavenworth. We shared a love for creating things early on and it carried us through high school(when we were voted “most creative” by the senior class).

That’s me on the right..

We have been through a lot during the years and I can say that I have known her over half my life. I like that. I only wish I had half the creativity and focus that she does!

I believe that Carmen has hit the zenith of creativity with her latest project. I am so proud of her and I can’t wait to see what comes of it.

Cute, right? Love these

This was featured in Etsy finds..jealous..

Ahhh, if only I was thin and Asian..

So springy

So go to her Etsy store you good people and check her out! Here is a blog she was featured in. Here is her Etsy finds debut..

We’ll dress like Minnie Pearl, just you and me, punk rock girl

Aaaaaand We’re Back!

Tamara — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:07:27 +0000

I have been putting this off for quite some time. I got a great book at Christmas called “Writing Down the Bones”. It has lots of neat writing exercises to get the creative juices flowing. I had an idea right after I got this book to document every exercise here. I still might but for now I want to ease back in to this.

My good friend has decided to start blogging also and I am so excited that I wanted to take that first jump again and say hey! How’s it going? I’ve missed you.

So much has happened since I’ve been away. So much that I should have been documenting but lucky for all of you, I have a mind that nothing escapes(except selective bits and pieces for various reasons). I realized that blogging makes me happy and why shouldn’t I do what makes me happy? I have learned to keep private private and share what can be shared. So thank you for being patient and waiting for my return.

Here’s to us!