From Beaver Falls

:) another photo-less post on location...this time from Ami's apartment/dorm. I would include a picture but my 300D is dead (and for sale if anyone is interested). my new 30D is in transit from MISSISSAUGA, Ontario. My old film camera is in Ami's stuff in Wyoming, and the little camera is in the red toolbox next to the big wooden box in the Henry barn.








Here is where a photo of Ami's desk would go if I was not camera-less (and lazy)








Where will i post from next you may wonder. We'll I'll tell you. New York City. And then Wyoming.

Las tnight i had a dinner that was not supposed to happn for a year at least. but it was Good. My dad was back in PA for a wedding instead of Wyoming and Micah and I are in the United states instead of Slovakia. And so last night i got to sit at a table in applebee's with my huband, my little sister, and my Dad.

Today Ami & I leave to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with the Iovinos tuesday when we get back, Micah and i leav for 26 hours of driving to WYOMING. We will stay through Sunday and then take it slow on the way home.

I am not thinking about the numer fo hours in transit. I am concentrating on seeing every member of my immediate family insid of a week!!

Choreography

I spelled that right the first time.

I have this song from white Christmas in my head. Never mind that i do not like this song. Never mind that we skip this song every time we watch the movie. Never mind that it is a beautiful day in September, and i am not dreaming of snow. Somehow, I can do the entire annoying snooty voiced intro and can hum all the annoying bridges.

I have decided to share the misery. Don't blame me, Ami started it I have merely one upped her by linking to the entire vicious thing. I shudder to think what Abi will come up with.....

Contrast

now another on location post form the library in jefferson ohio!






this is where the photo of the library that looks like a library would go if i was not lazy







My in-laws do not have high speed internet (28 Kb/sec is normal) so I'm spendign this afternoon at the library. Hopefully micah comes to pick me up before 8 tonight. We do not have cell phones yet.


We arrived in New York without any incident besides a 3 hour flight delay. We decided that having New York City as your rentry point to US culture was (for us) a little like diving directly into the deep end. In NYC we visited with Jimmy & Abi and CLAIRE MARIE, ate at a cuban restaurant, visited the empire State building, and played (a lot of) rock band on the XBox. We also got lost in what we think was the Bronx on our way out of the city. It was a good time.

Sunday we drove to Ohio and the past few days have been a bit more our speed. Monday we went to the Amish Salvage grocery store, a consignment shop located behind someone's house in a barn, the Middlefield Library (an amazing establishment - it had a fireplace and "adult DVD's" i think they just meant that they were not animated, but the sign made me laugh), and a cheese store (nothing like Grandpa's Cheese barn, but disappointing only in that they were not making cheese behind the big window when we were there). Tuesday I made chocolate granola, read some and wrote our update letter. Micah helped Ben clean out an apartment full of mold and other disgusting things. Tuesday night I drove in a dump truck (but did not get to see the back go up) to Dinner at Meghan & Judah's apartment.

Let me be CLEAR, i'm not judging either of those places. I enjoyed myself immensely in New York (except when we were lost on our way out.) I love my sister and Jimmy and Calire. Skipping everyone at the Empire State building was great and I fouind out that I like cuban food (fried Plantains!!) I also got a huge kick out of the Library, the fact that the Amish sell Salvaged groceries, and my ride in a Dump Truck.

I'm Just saying.


PS Judah just came to pick me up on his way home from work. Micah called and asked if he could stop at the library on his way home. Judah thought Micah wanted a car repair manual or something. Micah thought He "might have left Stasi at the library"

look, a post

from the airport in Hungary. I am not ambitious enough to take and post a picture of the airport in hungary. you will be ok with that right? I'll just describe it, it looks like...an airport

this is where the photo would be if i was ambitious :)

We have almost 3 hours of flight delays and free wireless internet. we ate the sandwiches that Miro packed for us. I ate my pickles and micah's too. we bid on a camera on e-bay and called new york on Skype. the airline gave us bottled water and a sandwich. we hope this was not in lieu of our promised inflight meal.

Every time that i typed "airport" in this post, i had to go back and add the r. anyone want to make up a definition of an "airpot"? :)

see most of you soon.

a bit more adventure

Life got a bit more interesting.

My camera is Kaput. I would take a picture of the broken shutter. Except that it makes me want to cry when I look at it. also it is difficult to take a good photo of the inside of your good camera. I have not tried. i have a mental block.

there are some complications with our temp stay permit. There are a few options at this point. one involves going back to the states for, oh, about 3 months. Marian summed it up just about right " the process has taken forever." It is just the way bureaucracy works in Slovakia with papers" We're working on figuring that out.

Our flight we bought for the wedding is highly restricted i.e not transferable refundable or changeable.... so basicaly if we come home now for bureaucracy reasons, we are out $1600. which is a pretty good price for two round trip tickets. we thought we were doing so well and getting them in advance and for a good price.

I have a vicious combination of cold/allergy/flu symptoms. I am trying to avoid the urge to take asprin, benedryl and DayQuil all at the same time.

so anyway, pray for us. things will go ok. God is in control of this adventure.

Adventure

So I started getting thisquestion of the day. I thought it might be interesting to give me something to blog about or a kick in my thinking pants. (i have no clue what thinking pants are. or where you would wear them. anyone...anyone?)

Today's question isWhat adventure are you craving?
I think a lot about adventure, Adventure is half the title of this blog! for as much as i thrive on tradition and routines, i still hate to be in one place too long. i have a list of places i want to go that is waaay longer than the list of places i've been. (Poland is at the top right now based on proximity...Morocco is on there too as soon as KT names the date) I am not sure it will ever be shorter than the places i want to go list. I almost hope not. But i think i imagine myself to be more adventurous than i am. we can't forget the princess part of me. the part that likes pretty things and a good book wrapped up in an afghan (the blanket kind, not that i am prejudiced against the person kind, but i have no desire to wrap up in one, and i am sure micah would mind).

I don't know if i crave any kind of adventure right now. I would really like to be settled maybe i'd like the adventure of decorating our own place with Micah. I think i am living just about all the adventure i can handle. of course, "He gives more grace as the burdens grow greater" But i'll tell you i am living exactly the adventure that i want to be in the middle of, and not just because it puts me in close proximity to Poland and closer to Morocco than Ohio. That is a plus though.

How about you, what would you pick if you could choose your adventure (remember those books)?

Micah and the saw of death

Micah and the saw of death from Anastasia Henry on

i don't think there is anything else i can add to this. it speaks for itself.

except that Micah is starting to be distressed by his web presence :)

Prolificacy

I did a little math today. I know, that alone would be blogworthy!

I figured out how many pictures i have taken with my camera.

TWENTY TWO THOUSAND six hundred and ninety nine!!!

now that strikes me as a lot of photos. and that is just since christmas of '05!! and it does not count the shots taken on the little camera we bought last year. I did not realize I was so prolific. I love the word prolific. I am going to use it more often in daily conversation. 

SOUGHT FUTON FUTON DOILY PROLIFIC!!!

Currently i have around 5,000 photos on my computer. The rest are backed up on DVDs or CDs or whatever but that is a LOT of photos. a lot of lots of lots of photos. My children (hypothetical children, breathe Miss Brenda) will be very glad, I think to sort through discs instead of a huge box of half filled albums and unsorted prints.

i think i will buy myself a new lens to celebrate my prolificacy (this really is a real word) or maybe more budget realistically, i will get a big print of one of my own photos for over the couch we don't have in the apartment that we don't have. (pray on tuesday, if this one falls through, we may loose our cool...)

ps. earlier in this post i spelled new N-O-O. i fixed it.

pps. What adjective would you use regarding a post about my prolificacy (a real word!! i looked it up!) which contains no photos?

Hiking

Last Saturday, Micah and I went hiking in the Prosiecka Dolina.


Micah is really the one who likes hiking. I just like to take pictures. We have a good deal, I go hiking with him and try not to complain and he waits while i take pictures and tries not to complain.


The particular trail we took was written up in a photocopied flier that we got from the info center. It rated the trail as good for older people or children...


So micah wore his new sandals, because if older people could do it, he could do it in sandals.

we want to know who rates hiking trails in Slovakia? We can not imagine our grandmothers doing this.


the trail did end at a pretty neat water fall


I took over 100 photos and Micah climbed a tree.

do you think I will get in trouble for posting this one?

Flying

Guess who's coming back to the states!!! We're planning to spend the first day sleeping the rest of the first week doing our best to get Judah and Meghan married in style and without incident! and then who knows, what adventures the USofA has in store for us. We're contemplating (and trying to figure out the gas prices) driving across the country to Wyoming. Life was much simpler before my parents moved 20+ hours away from Micah's parents.

I officilally stink at writing newsletters.
also i can not spell
grrrr

Butter

Also, they reengineered butter?! I have not done any baking or cooking since we got here so i have not done any real grocery shopping either. i can not comment on the shape or size of butter in Slovakia or Europe at large. And i dont have an incompatible butter dish to compare. I am afraid that when we get home in October for the wedding, i will not be able to recognize butter the same way that the new 5$ bills threw me off last time i came home form Europe.

definitions

I can not type i would like tho start with that even though it has no bearing on what i want to say. I did one of those things that scans your blog and makes a word cloud. one of the main words in mine was JSUT. i can not spell just. that just took three tries. my hands just get a head of themselves.

anyway what i really wanted to say was that i'm thinking a bout what the point of having the two blogs. The reasoning is that this is my private face in the internet. and the micahandstasi.blosgspot is for more official things. this is where i can be sarcastic and occasionally snarky. it is also the place where i can wax rhapsodic about ClaireMarie and whine about flies. I can tell the funny stories aobut married life here... But i think that havign the other blog will take away from this one. I hope not but you can never tell. i'm going to keep trying.

Also, if that man does not stop ringging that bell i am going to take it and throw it in the river.

I miss you too.

Sorry about the depressing front page. It's Just CampFest, gotta run
pray for us.
Talk to you soon

Stasi

obituary

Rabbit died.

i miss her

i dont even like cats

She was a good kitten

I dont want to talk about it anymore.

hair

I cut my hair.
all by myself!
just like a big girl!!

I have no clue what came over me. I have never cut my own hair. well, I imagine that I must have cut it as a child at some point. I was that kind of kid.

There was that one time we played hairdresser with the Neighbor's dog clippers. But that was my sister's hair and that is a different story. Actually it's just about all there is to the story... except that we cut the neighbor kid's hair in a reverse mohawk and his mom had to totally buzz his head.

Ok, it was just my bangs but it was a totally spur of the moment thing. Still, I think they look good (if a tid bit shorter than i intended).

I am concerned that this will lead to bigger and crazier spur of the moment things. Very little good has come of things that combine spur of the moment and scisors.

Also, i discovered that if you take your self portraits in front of a mirror, you can see what's on the viewscreen in the mirror. Very convenient.

I like italics today.

Micah Vacuums Rabbit

Micah Vacuums Rabbit. from Anastasia Henry on Vimeo.

We named the cat after the car, Kind of. I htink she's so cute here getting feisty with the attachment.

On our honeymoon I bought this little digital camera that shoots video. I wanted to have something smaller than my big SLR and something that Micah could use without freaking out. I have a real video camera, but it's a pain for shooting silly things like this, messing with tapes and capturing and editing and exporting. The little camera just uploads the video when i load pictures.

I'm thinking about shooting and posting more video, especially for MicahandStasi.blogspot.com. what do you think?

FLIES

If you did not know better you might htink that, considering the frequency with which they appear on my blog, that i like flies.
I do not.
Besides the fact that my work area is a tad bit unorderly ("neporiadok" in Slovak) you may note that there are flies all over it. in the first picture there is one on the CD case as well as the one that had the audacity to die on my keyboard. they guy in the second shot was still alive and just buzzing about on his back.  

it's a delightful sound. 

It's a constant sound.

There are 10 flies dead or in the process of beating themselves to death against the closed window above my desk.

One just landed on my shoulder as i typed that last sentence

I want a screen over the open window

well well well

The car is a VW Golf according to all the paperwork....but for some reason, the back says rabbit. So everybody is wrong. But it is definitely NOT a Polo. Now that I think about it, i wish it was.... oh! the fun we could have if it was....MARCO!!! :) :)

Rash 2008 Update.....I will not post pictures. It has gone down some, although it still itches. The cat has a severe case of Notoderic Mange...Feline Scabies. 80% of websites and the Vet say that the mites will not bother humans. 19.9% of websites say that on the off chance they do infect humans the result is "mild and self-limiting". I found one website that described a possible reaction that included intense itching (worse at night) for about 3 weeks. This seems to be the reaction we are having. Lucky us! The good news is that we're already a week and a half in, and as Micah says, it's not like it'll itch intensely for three weeks and then suddenly stop, it has to taper off some.

I updated a bunch of photos to Flickr

we are going to look at an apartment tonight.

I have no clue why i titled this post the way i did...but have you heard the joke about the three holes in the ground?

weird

so all i was doing was a search to see if i could find out if a certain band was at campfest 2007. and i came across this....


this probably doesn't mean much to you, but i edited this. i spent hours lining up beats and editing video from 3 or 4 different performances together. i'm in a sort of awe. When i got tho Slovakia a month ago, Roman told me that this video was playing on the christian TV station and all....but really it's weird seeing somethign you did on youtube if you didnt put it there.

i'm just weirded out and i still don't know if MIC played at CF 07