Two Peas in a Pod

I'm sorry for the gap in between this entry and the previous one. However, since the last entry - where I complained about my life and the lack of a job - things have been a little bit crazy or let's just say I don't have time to just sit at my computer for hours "surfing" the internet.

The Pod
Thursday I applied for a position at the Town Hall Tax office. Friday I applied to a position at a local town's community service doing manual labor (I told you I was desperate!). Friday I heard back from the Tax office that I got the job (wahoo!) and then it was taken away from me before I knew it when I informed the lady that I would need to come in a few hours late on the first day or so (back to square 1). Saturday I had an interview with Stop and Shop Peapod (they deliver your grocheries right to your kitchen counter). Sunday I was hired by Stop and Shop Peapod - and this time they didn't take the job away from me. Monday and tonight I worked. Oh how it feels good to be a working lady once again! It's a pretty laid back job and I think I'm going to enjoy it - although, if I didn't enjoy it I'd be telling myself "Self, Tough Luck! This is all your gonna get!" So screw Target and their two month training - I got a job and I am good at it!

The Two Peas

Sarah and I leave for Laura's (and Michael's) wedding on Thursday after I am finished with classes. We bought the wedding gift and we got a gift bag for it (I think she'll love it!). I bought my tummy tucker for my dress - and let me tell you that was quite an interesting shopping experience! Tomorrow Mom and I are going to get manicures and then I have to buy some grocheries for the ride down, pack: my clothes, the camera, a book, and of course my knitting project (Mom's already late birthday present). We will be back Sunday where I will then attend my "little cousin's" graduation party. I can't believe he's out of high school already! I can remember when I held him in my lap.

*I realized I don't have pictures of the happily married-to be couple or of my graduating cousin or even of my new work place. I apologize for a Picture-less entry.*

I'm a Toys R US Kid!

Let's take a break from Jerusalem, from Israel. A break for just one post - because I'm not in Israel right now (unfortunately) and there is stuff going on here at home that I need to write down.

I've been searching for a summer job. I've had no luck because it is nearly the end of June (although it was the start of June when I began this darn search) and no one wants to hire me because I'm going back to school in 2 months (YAY, can't wait!). This is a problem since I have to pay for Purl and for her food. I also need a job for my own sanity. No offense Mom, but I need to get out of the house every once in a while. I love you guys, but I need a change of scenery - a change of enviornment.

I've applied everywhere (even though Mom says otherwise) - even Target. They turned me down. But I'm glad they turned me down because if they really need TWO months to train me how to use the cash register, then I don't want to know - really. I got a card in the mail today from them. It was red on the outside (big surprise?) with their target symbol in the bottom right hand corner. Inside it said this:

Aileen,
Hello, thanks for taking the time to apply with us.
While we're unable to offer you a position at this
time, we do appreciate your interest in Target.
Thank You,
Human Resources

WHAT?! I have no idea what to think of this gesture. You didn't give me the job - fine I'll deal. But sending a note in the mail just seems like they are rubbing in the fact that they didn't hire me. Not to mention that it's corny. So if any of you Target administrators are reading this - which I highly doubt - you might want to tell Mr. Human Resources that I don't want his little card and he can keep all his 30 cash registers empty because they won't hire poor college students.

No, I'm not bitter. Really, I'm not. Instead I'm focusing on my future - my future as a librarian. I requested a catalog and application from the University that I plan to get my masters at tonight. I discovered that yes, I will have to take the GREs in order to be considered for admissions. I realized that I am growing up, and to be quite honest, that's scary.

I am not ready to hold my own job, have my own income and my own massive bills to pay. I have a minor credit card bill that I'm paying off now, but grown-ups have more than one bill to pay. They have the car to pay off, and the cell phone bill to pay, and insurance, and electricity, and food to buy, etc., etc. No Thank You! I will happily live off of my parents - feeding the dog and doing the dishes without complaint. I will keep my newly finished room clean. I will make my bed every day just as long as I don't have to grow up.

My friend Laura is getting married in eight days. She just turned 20. And while she is 100% sure that this is the man for her I am wondering how in the world she is able to do this. The idea of marriage scares me. I can barely take care of myself let alone another person. My mom married when she was 20. I'm almost 22 and marriage is no where in sight. I think that's a good thing.

*Now I've gone and done what I just told my cousin I don't do in my blog - complain and rant about my life. Oh well, guess it has to happen every once in a while.*

How Will You Remember?

So where did I leave off? Oh right... Jerusalem!

May 17, 2006

7:00 PM

Today was so full of things to see that I feel exhausted and overwhelmed. The morning started on Mt. Scopias - the north end of the Mount of Olives - which gave us a beautiful view of Jerusalem. Then we went to Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum (if you've ever been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. you haven't seen anything until you've been to Yad Vashem). As a history major who favors the moder time period i thrived on this.

Inside of Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum

The museum in Washington D.C. does not come anywhere close. There was so much information a whole day wouldn't have been nearly enough time let alone a mere two and a half hours. A small group of us latched ourselves onto a tour guide who was speaking English. She was absolutely amazing at giving us information we never would have got on our own. For example, the average Jew in the concentration camps was getting about 180 calories a day. We need approximately 1500 in our daily diet. And despite the small amount of food they were getting they were still expected to work a 12 hour day! This boggles my mind! The few hours at the museum was numbing and exhausting. It was beautiful to hear the personal stories of so many who survived and yet so horrible to know all that they experienced. I cannot imagine having to recound the stories continuously for others. I have so much to say and yet no word come to mind. Later that day we went to the Israel museum where we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls.The Shrine of the Book - the monument where they are displayed - was beautiful.

Inside the Shrine of the Book Memorial

Seeing such an amazing discovery laid before my eyes was unreal. Someday, wanting to go into archival work and preserving historical documents made this experience especially exciting and important knowing the work that went into saving these documents. Before the end of this trip we will visit Qumran which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found accidently by a shepherd boy (you'll hear more about that in a few entries).

Two Loves

Knitting News

I finished the Petal Bib that I mentioned starting yesterday. It was a great project to knit especially since it gave me some instant satisfaction in my knitting - which was much needed. The project that I have next in line is a purse that was supposed to be done for my mom for her birthday (which was 3 days ago) and with the end of school and my trip to Israel it just didn't happen. So, I really needed an instant gratification project before diving into the long winded purse. It will be fun though.

Puppies

About two weeks before I got out of school I got a phone call early in the morning - about 8:30 - from my mom. It was unusal for my mom to call this early and so I was concerned as to what was happening. She was in tears. She told me that they were at the Vet and they needed to put Chester down.

Chester was our 10 year old Spring Spaniel. He was the best dog anyone could ever ask for and was quite perfect for our family. He slept ALL the time and was pretty fat. We had to hand feed him because he wouldn't eat otherwise and we had to lift him up onto the couch or the bed. He used to be able to jump up on the couch, but in his old age, any attempt to try himself usually ended with him being half on the couch and half off looking around at anyone who would please help him up the rest of the way. He always had a dumb sheepish look on his face when this happened. Especially unique to Chester was that when he was six years old he was diagnosed with diabetes. Yes, my dog had diabetes. Every morning and every evening we gave him his shot of insulin and every afternoon he had to have a slice of cheese or two to boost his sugar level.Unfortunately, his diabetes caused him to age a little quicker than we would have liked. He became senial this past year and got athritis. Getting up on the couch became a much bigger struggle than it had been and he was much more dependent on us.

It was really hard saying goodbye to Chester. The house got much quiter without him (even though when he was here he was sleeping). The house was much more empty without him and it was obvious. I found myself still going into Mom's room to check on him before I went out for the day. I found myself wanting to call for him. I thought about him a lot. All my life growing up we had a dog. Camie came before Chester. She came before me. My parents bought her in 1983. I was born in 1984. We bought Chester in 1995 when we thought Camie wasn't going to be around much longer. But she wasn't gonna be booted outta the house by a new dog and she stuck around for another 4 years. When we put Camie down we still had another dog to come home to, but when Chester was put down all we had to come home to was an empty home.

We started looking for another dog. The lady that Chester went to for grooming and for a place to stay when we went on vacation gets rescue dogs and finds homes for them. So when we told her that we had to put Chester down, she offered us Cedric - who actually is one of her dogs. She also shows dogs, but Cedric was too tiny and already having 7 dogs or so she couldn't keep him anymore. We went to look at him last Sunday. He was adorable. We fell in love with him, and I think he fell in love with him. We said we'd take him.
We went to pick him up yesterday. He has made himself at home pretty quickly in the past 27 hours or so. He is two years old and full of energy. He eats when his food is put in front of him. He likes to be carried much like a 2 year old human would like to be carried. He is a doll. We love him - but he hasn't taken the spot of Chester. I don't know if that spot can be filled.

Drum Roll Please...

And the Winner Is

There were some great entries for names for the Name My Car contest. We had Silver Bullit, Purl, Stanley, and Subtle Rufus Nosal. And the winner is PURL. Thanks Joyce for your creative suggestion. I loved it (as did the rest of the family). I will send you an email with more details on your prize.

Moving Ahead 7 Hours

So you probably want to hear more about my trip to Israel... or atleast I hope you do - cause I'm going to tell you more whether you like it or not!

May 16, 2006

8:52 PM

Today we began the learning part of the trip - the whole reason I am here. We woke up at 6:00 in order to get breakfast at 7:00 and begin our intro walk of the Old City at 7:30. When I am at school I normally don't get up til 7:30 let alone already have been up for an hour and a half. We toured the Old City of Jerusalem the first half of the day. We went to the place where the tomb of King David is commemorated. Men and Women had to go into separate sides of the room. The men had to wear head coverings. I am not sure why the men had to and the women did not. We also went to the Western Wall and again the men and women had t go on separate sides of the wall. This wall is also known as the Wailing Wall - but Jews do not appreciate this term. This experience was like nothing I've ever experienced before and I am not entirely sure it can be put into words. I was awestruck and I stood there in amazement. This is something that I think the American protestant church has lost - the importance of a holy place and the importance of prayer. The cracks of the Wall are filled with paper that have people's prayers on them. When the cracks are fill up with these prayers they are removed and burned. I think this is beautiful. We also went to St. Anne's which is located in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. The acoustics in the church were absolutely amazing. We sang. We sang both the "Doxology" and "Haleluljah". I have never heard anything so beautiful. Also at this site is supposedly where Jesus healed the lame man in John 5. My mind cannot fully grasp the idea of being somewhere that Jesus performed a miracle at. It just seems so unreal. It's something that I have read about all my life - like in a storybook that one knows will never come true. But it is true and I can't get my mind around it! We grow up being told that they were true, but these events happened in a far away land that most of us will never visit and yet, here I am. They are true and we know where they happened. It is really unbelievable.

Knitting

While I did bring a knitting project with me to Israel there wasn't a whole lot of time to actually sit down and knit. So, as a result, it's been quite a while since I've knit anything. Last night, I finally picked up a project that I'd been working on - the bib. I am nearly done, working on the I-cord tie right now. I will post a picture as soon as I finish it!

In the Beginning...

So, I went to Israel and have been home now for 11 days and I've only written one entry about my trip. You probably want to hear more about it - or at least I'm hoping you want to hear more about it 'cause I want to tell you everything. But there is so much to tell and it's overwhelming trying to decide what you would want to hear about and what you wouldn't. I've decided the best way to tell is to share with you pieces of the journal that I kept while I was over there. So here we go:

May 15, 2006

9:00 AM Israel time (2:00 AM Eastern time)

We left yesterday for 3 weeks in Israel - the trip I've been waiting for sicne October. It is strange knowing it is finally here and that it's no longer just an "idea". When we got to Newark (we flew from Logan airport to Newark to Tel Aviv) we went to the waiting room that had been reserved for our group - one of those rooms that you can't see into from the outside, the kind one always wishes they could go into (or at least I always had). It had nice leather chairs and all kinds of snacks and soft drinks for us. We spent the next 5 hours hanging out and getting to know each other. We played a word association game and then a stupid pattern game - stupid because I couldn't figure out the pattern! I called my family and talked to them one last time before the flight.

I love flying. I love looking out the window when I fly - reminds me of Grandpa Lebo. I am told that when he was a pilot he had the smoothest landings. I find myself comparing the pilot to him. I slept most of the flight - taking a menatolin to help me sleep and hopefully minimize the jet lag. Dinner was served at 5:30 or so. I had what I think was Chicken Parmesan and rice with a salad that had a raw piece of salmon on top - ew. (Little did I know that raw fish for meals would be a common food that I would see while in Israel.) I slept straight through til breakfast - Special K cereal, fruit salad, banana, crescent roll, and a banana muffin. Both meals were pretty good, especially for plane food. When we land I will get my pass stamped - although the option is available not to because other Middle Eastern countries won't let you go in if you have a stamp from Israel. Then we are going to take three 10 passenger Taxi's (sheaurets - you'll hear more about these later) to Jerusalem. JUC (Jerusalem University College) - where we are staying - doesn't start serving us meals until dinner so Elaine and Perry are taking us into the Old City to get falaffels. (In this picture we are waiting for the falaffels to be ready.) We have a full day ahead of us, hopefully we can keep up (we managed to keep up then, but it got harder as the trip went on). I have so much ahead of me to experience!

* The Car Naming "Contest" will be closed to entries on June 17th, so get your suggestions in before its too late! So far the choices are: Silver Bullit, Purl, or Stanley. Think your name is better? Let me know! *

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round

Or rather, the wheels on my new car go round and round!

I don't know if you can remember this far back, but in a post back in April I went home for Easter with a speech all ready to tell my parents why I should have a car for the approaching fall semester. I came home (this speech and I) to be pleasantly surprised that I had no need for this pre-made speech, that instead my mom thought I should have a car for the fall semester too. We looked at a few cars at that time, but with no real intention to buy right then - and we didn't. The plan, instead, was to casually look over the summer and hopefully we would have found one by the time school rolled around. This was fine with me - as long as we were proactive about looking for a new ride for me.

I got home from Israel a week ago to find out that they had a deposit on a car. They wanted me to take a look at it and then maybe we'd buy it. This was much sooner than I had excpected to be having a car. We went and looked and while it was a car with four wheels and a working enginee it just didn't seem like it was the right car for me. Instead we found a better fit - a better car for a better deal. Drum roll please....

A 2002 Metallic Mercury Sable:

I think she (or he) is beautiful. I bought a air freshner for the car the other day and I am slowly making it my own.

There is only one problem! The car needs a NAME.

I haven't decided yet if its a male or a female. I'd really love for you all to decide the name for me. I will make a felted change purse for the person with the best suggestion that is left in my comments. I am open to all suggestions - male or female, unique or normal - and the one I like best will get a change purse. I will look at what feltable yarn I have in my stash and give you a choice of colors.

On your mark...Get set... GO!

Chocolate and Clean Teeth

I went to the dentist today. I was sitting in the chair watching a little television while they stuck those strange objects into my mouth to inspect my teeth. It was just an normal checkup, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing out of the ordinary until I realized what was on the television.

The T.V. was on the Food Network and it was all about chocolate. It isn't unusual for the Food Network to be having a special on chocolate, because they probably do this at least once a week. What was odd that the dentist office had this playing on their television. Aren't they supposed to discouraging one from eating sweet food like chocolate for fear that one day your teeth will rot away? Shouldn't they have had the gardening channel on? 101 Fruits and Vegetables to Grow in Your Backyard would probably have been more appropriate. I left the dentist's office only craving a Hershey's chocolate bar.

A while back I mentioned that I had signed up for the One Skein Secret Pal Exchange. It begins this month and I will need to send my pal a skein of yarn and a little note before the month is over. I have just begun to think about it. In the mean time, my secret pal is right on top of things. I received my first package today! It was wrapped all cute. See? And inside was this: I think it's absolutely beautiful. It is really soft malabrigo kettle dyed pure merino wool. The color is gorgeous. I'm going to have to really think about what I want to make out of it because its going to be very special. I do know that it will look great in my room: Thank you soo much SP! You are terrific. Hope your secret pal is as good to you as you are to me!

O Jerusalem

It's 10:45 and I am exhausted, but I cannot sleep. I am wishing so hard that I was back in Israel asleep on the hard and noisy bunkbed with seven of the best girls in the whole world (I am not forgetting about the 5 in the next room or my girls from T201).

I am back in the United States and let me tell you it is nothing like Israel. Israel is beautiful (that's not to say that the US isn't beautiful - it's just different). The special thing about Israel is the topography of the land. It is almost as if God used Israel to be the guinea pig (or the testing ground) for trying out all sorts of ideas on the land to see how it would work in the rest of the world. Israel is about the size of New Jersey. It isn't huge. And yet, there is green grass and the wilderness; hills and flat ground. The lowest place on earth is in Israel and yet there are some very big mountains as well. They have snow, and rain, and lots of heat. It is humid there and it is dry. And one only needs to travel a few miles to see a huge variety of these changes.

There is so much I want to tell you about the trip - and eventually I will get there, but let me start with the knitting news. First the bad news: I did not buy any yarn while I was over there. I did not see any yarn for sale. I asked the campus director if she knew of a place to buy yarn and she replied by asking "Just regular yarn?" And I replied yes, because as a non-knitter, she didn't know any better. She knew of a place, but I never got over to the store. But I did see lots of goats and sheep and other fiber-filled animals.

These ones were at Gezer, an ancient site near the coast of Israel. They were just wandering through the excavated site.
Those tiny little dots you see are sheep. The shepherd is leading them across the wilderness.

I have more yarn-related pictures, but we will save those for another day. For now I think I might just go to sleep and dream sweet dreams of Jersualem.

"If I forget thee O Jerusalem..." (Ps. 137:5)