Charleston

We went to Charleston on Monday and got back yesterday. It was wonderful! We both loved Charleston and didn't want to leave. It has very old architecture and a laid-back feel. It has a lot of palm and magnolia trees and (apparently) a lot of really good food. It was a comfortable city and I am sad we couldn't see more of it. The first day it was raining the whole day and the second day we had to take off so we could get back at a reasonable time. The interview went really well and I should find out tomorrow if I have a second interview. It seems likely that I will get a second interview and I can't imagine them calling me all the way back down there (4 and a half hour drive!) for another interview unless they were seriously considering me for the job. Anyway, Charleston is right on the coast and felt like home the moment we got into the city. Here are some pictures of our trip. Most of from the car as we drove around and there aren't too many because, as I mentioned before, it was raining the whole first day we were there so we took all the pictures in the couple hours before we left yesterday.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2343295&id=19703332&l=a601f56c8b

I got a call last week about interviewing for a chemistry job down in Charleston, SC! So Monday we are heading down to Charleston to stay the night and the interview is on Tuesday. I will try to take a lot of pictures and update about how it was. The city seems pretty neat, but we will find out as much as we can in the two days we are there. This is a short update so here are a couple pictures. One is of the snow storm we had over Christmas weekend and another is a recent one of the cats.

Resolution

So I/we are making a resolution to update this more. This is the first update of the new year and I am going to try to update once every week or two. Anyway, Christmas was good although low-key. We talked with all the family and on Christmas day we had brunch at a friend's house. The kitties got some presents as well and they loved them all (we could tell by the growling at each other when one had the toy).

Other than that, Leah is going to Portland soon and I am taking the first actuary exam on the 20th. After that I will start applying for jobs and take the second exam on the 15th of Feb. I have been looking to see what entry-level jobs are available and it seems like my best bet is one in Connecticut right outside of NYC. There is another in Wisconsin that I will apply for too, but I don't really want to end up in Wisconsin, haha.

We have a bunch of pictures saved up so maybe the next post will be of all the pictures we took of the snow and all that. Happy 2011 all!

Not Ribs!

Okay, we've kind of been failing at blogging...but here comes a revival! Jared gave a photographic essay in the last post, and hinted that there is another piece of exciting news to share...

Kittens! The title of the blog comes from a conversation we had after hearing about wedding vows that included "I love you more than tacos." Kittens and ribs are the two things that make Jared happiest in life. Smoked meat is aplenty out here (food posts coming, I promise!) but we have had kitten-shaped holes in our lives for a while.

And then we found these ladies on Craigslist!

That first photo is from 3-4 weeks old. Born Aug 1. They are identical twins from one placenta, which is apparently a rare thing that does happen in cats. Oh, the cuteness.

We drove out to meet them at 4 weeks, fell in love with them and laid claim. We got another email yesterday saying that they are using a litter box and eating food. We'll be picking them up at 6.5 weeks.


Their mom is a really, sweet and affectionate dilute calico and they seem to be taking after her in both coloration and personality. Perfect.

This is what they are looking like now. The worried eyes kill me!

If you follow the micro-blogging that is my twitter, you'd have seen the series about potential names. We like food names for pets, especially those of the meat or cheese variety.

Brie & Camembert? Chicken & Nugget? Rosemary & Marjoram? Biscuit & Muffin?

The next best kind of names are old lady names (though I like them better for human babies.) Jared came up with Ethyl and Ester...he likes these because they are also food chemistry names. So I think we'll give those a test run when we finally bring them home.

Long post, lots to update

This is going to be a long one since it has been exactly one month since we updated last. We have a bunch of pictures so I will just go off of those. Here we go:

Farmer's Market:

We went to the Farmer's Market a few weeks ago and bought some plants, veggies, meat, and a ton of o

ther stuff. The market here is huge! It runs every day all day and they have two restaurants that use food

from the market right next to it. This

picture is of part of the selection of peppers from one grower. As you would imagine, there are a ton of peaches and corn being sold at these things but also a lot of neat plants and really good meats, cheeses, and bread. We ended up buying some herbs to keep on our porch and that got us wanting more plants so now we have eight things growing on our porches (hopefully they all survive).

Home-making:

After we moved all our stuff in, we realized there were a few things we still needed. Pictured above are the couch that we bought (we will post an updated picture of it later, that is just right after it was delivered) and the TV we got. We also had to get a couple more bookshelves and luckily we found someone selling his for cheap. We have been buying things to furnish the porch (like a little light, chairs, table) and the kitchen (hooks, knife rack, etc). It is amazing how much stuff we still needed when it seemed like we brought so much out here.

The Tour:

The three pictures above are from the brewery tour we have on the second Saturday of each month. The top picture is of the line about a half hour before the doors opened. A ton of people show up for these things. The second picture is of one of the tour groups. They split all the people into three groups for tours and the groups are huge. To show how many people are at this thing, the last picture is from the stairs going up to the bar from the brewery. This picture is probably about a sixth of the people that were there. The brewery was packed, the parking lot was packed, the bar was packed; there were just people everywhere. It was a ton of fun, though, and it is more of a party than a tour. Everyone comes and just hangs out, chats, and has a good time. They also have a military vehicle preservation association that comes out with a big army truck they outfitted with benches in the bed of and gives about 12 people at a time rides around the block. There is also a truck that shows up and makes amazing burgers. The next one is this coming Saturday and I am pretty excited for it.

Baseball:

We were invited out to a baseball game by the guys at the brewery a week ago. We sat at a bar that overlooked the field, as you can see (free to get in, no cover. Bonus one). As we walked in, we saw that they had a pint special that day where every beer was $2.50 (bonus two). As we went and found my boss, we found out he had reserved two tables out on the porch right next to the fence and it was a beautiful day (bonus three). We sat and ate and drank and even had a couple baseballs hit up to us while we were sitting there. About 10 people showed up in our group and it was a lot of fun. It is too bad the season is about over or else we would definitely do it again.

That's about it for the updates from me. I think Leah is going to update tomorrow (or tonight, not sure) with some fun news and also to cover anything I may have left out. We will try to update more when things actually happen instead of forgetting or losing track of time and not posting for a month.

Y'all Go Swimmin'?

"You know, this is how Sookie's parents died..." - Leah

I said I was going to make a post about storms, among other things, and that seems like the best thing to start with because there was a CRAZY one last night!

I think this could officially be considered our second huge storm so here are a couple videos I took from our first. These were taken from our side balcony. I'm filming the trees, or really the space between the trees as they light up with insane/awesome lightning.

In this first one it isn't raining yet so you can also hear the cicadas and crickets and shit. More on those later.




In the next one, it has started to rain. This isn't rain like how it's always soggy in the NW, this should have some other kind of name - "it's drenching outside?" Anyway, so you can see that, and probably hear the thunder 'cause now it's right upon us.


Yesterday it was hot and sticky when we headed out to Best Buy...but when Jared pulled the car up to the front of the store to load the new 42" tv into it, it was "drenching." Carrying the tv 30 ft to the car and trying to shove the box in the back seat (a total of 3 minutes max?) resulted in us looking like we went swimming in our clothes. The tv didn't fit! The Best Buy guys were kind of awesome, brought it back in the store, took it out of the box, and three of them wrapped it in like 10 layers of plastic and we headed out.

We drove home from the mall/flash flood and ran ourselves and the tv into the apartment. Got out of our wet clothes, then the power went out. ("I can't pee in the dark!" -Jared) I found a lighter and lit a few candles and then the power came back. What a joke show.

Oh, when we got home we found this article. Six sentences down? That's where we were when this nonsense started.

Don't Touch That Dial

Downtown Raleigh. So cute and tiny.


My excuses for the lack of posting are that our internet has been spotty, Jared works 10 hrs a day, and I...am kind of a mess.

It's still hot, though not *so* hot and storms are helping with that. Stay tuned for a post about thunderstorms.

There are still bugs - mosquitoes are still kinda ruining my life and I think I killed the venus fly trap the day after we got it. Stayed tuned for a post about cicadas and ''water bugs."

Still trying to get settled and moved in, though we're getting close and settling in. Stay tuned for a post about how we're eating.

In other news...I've applied for a catering job at the Whole Foods up the road from us - if I don't get it I'm going to keep applying for things there. We're thinking about heading to the coast this weekend, but we'll see. So...stay tuned for news about those things.