Welcome to the world Bailey Mae!

My brother and his wife had a baby yesterday. That makes me an official aunt! All she does so far is eat and sleep.

Summer...

Summer in Bath, for me, is the naked lady fountain in the library park. I've always loved this fountain, even when I was a little girl. I also love the stories my parents would sometimes tell me about going to work and seeing a bra decorating/attempting to clothe the woman. I took this photo during one of the fantastic days of weather we have been having this week. It is so nice to be able to walk around the city of Bath on my lunch break.

The office that I work at (also known as my parents office) is going to have a Biggest Loser competition. If you are unfamiliar with the Biggest loser, it is pretty much a competition to see who can lose the most weight. I've already discussed how I think it should be percentage of body weight lost, since I'm outweighed by everyone there by at least twenty pounds. Perhaps even thirty. My father and brother will not be taking part in the competition, since they are both very skinny already. I've already told the secretaries that I'm going to kick their butts. They seemed uninterested in my comment.

Rummage Sale

The picture of the bike is my NEW bike that I bought for fifteen dollars. I love the rummage sale. There were far too many people there this morning. I went with the intention of getting some sort of furniture, but it was so packed in there with people and stuff that I quickly was too overwhelmed to be productive in furniture hunting. I'm going back this evening with my mother and probably tomorrow and the next day. You have to go multiple times, because there is just so much stuff there that it is easy to miss things. Plus the last day is bag day and they pretty much want to just get rid of all the stuff.

Woofstock

Today Joel, Sequoia and I went to Woofstock over at the Lincoln Home in Newcastle. It was amazing how many people and dogs were there. Mardi (Joel's dog) came, but my dog Woofie stayed at home. He isn't all that keen on other dogs and a large crowd of people.

I am officially a graduate student at the University of Southern Maine. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for it.

Yesterday there was a thunderstorm so intense, that there were rapids on our street. The water was just pouring down the road and then over our lawn into the river. Also down into our cellar.

In the past few days, since I've been stuck at home trying to recuperate, I've had a lot of time to read. I finished two books, the first one being "Eight Lives Down" by Chris Hunter and the second is "Don't Eat this Book" by Morgan Spurlock.
Morgan Spurlock is probably better known for his movie "Super-Size Me" and his television show "Thirty Days". "Don't Eat this Book" is pretty much what Spurlock went through doing the filming of the documentary, where he ate nothing but McDonalds for thirty days, and then ties his experience in with the state of nutrition in the nation today. It's probably not the best book on that topic, but it was a nice, fairly light read. He's a pretty funny guy, even when he goes on a multi-chapter long rant about the food industry.
"Eight Lives Down" is a memoir of a British soldier in Iraq during 2004. Chris Hunter is in charge of a bomb disposal unit, who are called out daily to diffuse bombs and try to catch the bad guys who are making them. This is a book that I would call a "dude" book or one that is definitely suitable for a guy who isn't really into reading, but likes either the army, bombs or exciting stories about other guys in dangerous places. I would place this in the same category as the "Time Bandit" which is about two brothers who king crab fish in Alaska and are on the show "The Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel. It was quite interesting to read what a soldier goes through on a daily basis in Iraq, specifically the stresses that are placed on them emotionally and physically. It gave me a greater understanding of what is going on in Iraq or at least what was going on in Iraq in 2004. One of the most interesting aspects of the memoir was the interactions that Hunter had with the Iraqi civilians or at times the obvious restraint that he had to show to not interact with them.
I've also become quite addicted to Mark Bittman's blog on the New York Times. He makes cooking seem so simple that even I could make some of his recipes of the day.
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/
It really is fantastic. It makes me realize that I need to get out my "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" (by Bittman) and start to actually cook some things out of it. I've decided that I'm going to try to make this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/dining/302mrex.html?ref=dining
which is an Indian style rice salad. It looks easy enough that even I could not mess it up. The videos that he posts are interesting to watch as well. That is what made me convinced that I could try this recipe, but I will have to wait until this weekend after a trip to the store.