Hey guys!
Just thought I'd send an update from Nashville (if you've been watching the news you've seen that currently the city is underwater!) Weather over the weekend was atrocious... it rained 13" in 3 days, and the Cumberland River (the one right next to downtown) is 20 ft. above flood stage! So it's been pretty intense. There were tornado warnings -the sirens woke me up at 5:30 Sunday morning! Since I live on the ground floor of my apt. building, there is no basement. I looked it up online, and was fully prepared to jump behind the couch with a cushion over my head if there actually was a tornado. I had visions of myself running into my roommate's room yelling, "It's a twister! It's a twister!" a la Uncle Henry from the Wizard of Oz. But thankfully that didn't happen. I've been pretty lucky, my apartment is fine, and I have power and water. Other people aren't so lucky. One of the Metro Water Plants is down, so they're asking everyone to conserve water, and the Governor has asked the White House for Disaster Relief Aid! So all in all it's a mess, but the area where I live is fine, there is no water on the roads, and I feel pretty lucky to not have any damage. I only had to work a half day today, so I thought I'd write a much needed blog!!
On to other news...
Maggie and I rocked the 1/2 Marathon last weekend! (I am so glad this flooding didn't happen then!) It was amazing and I am so proud of us! Although I felt like my legs were made of wood the day after...it was a good kind of pain! haha
I've been reading Madeline books to Adelyn! (she's the 2 year old girl I babysit if you recall) and I thought you would all appreciate it! I think of you every time I read them! I can't wait for June 10th! It will be here so soon!
I've been on a househunt these past few weeks, along with my friends here in Nashville, and we are getting really close to finding a place! It's so exciting! I can't wait to move in June, and in July Erin Connelly is moving here too! So you all really should plan a visit!
That's pretty much all for now, I don't have any updates on the Planning My Future front, but as soon as I know what the heck I'm doing I will fill you in!
See you all so soon!
Em
Monday, May 3, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
500 days of summer
okay ladies am i going to be the only one writing on this? i thought the point of this was to fill each other in our lives... and i am in the dark. and i´ve stopped receiving personal emails. what´s up with that? well, i just wanted to say that my friend gave me 500 days of summer to watch (a little after it´s debut in the states) and oh my gosh. that was both the best and the worst movie i have ever seen. best because i loved it when tom and summer were together (slash i want to be them). worst in the sense that summer sucks and is a bia. how could anyone break jospeh gordon-levitt´s character´s heart? i felt like i was part of the relationship i was so offended. but the soundtrack was nice and the first thing i did after watching it? i went to an internet cabina and googled if joseph gordon-levitt is dating anyone slash if he was making any future trips to macchu picchu anytime soon where i could ¨casually intercept¨him. who´s with me?
maybe i´ll make a documentary... 500 days of peru. keep yourselves posted.
maybe i´ll make a documentary... 500 days of peru. keep yourselves posted.
Friday, February 19, 2010
i almost forgot.
I forgot to add that i finally was able to watch the awesome vids you (mags col jules and lattaface) guys made post-maggles´ bday celebrations. they were great! I cannot believe heidi montag. She looks like a 23 year old cougar. Especially the photo of her reading the Bible with surgery tape all over her face. I almost choked on my spit. So yeah, thanks for those! I´m sad I couldn´t have been there mags. P.S. you (directed at mags) kept saying how you didn´t think I watched your 20 min video with you and pfeff from new years. I totally did! And I responded with an equally long video! Booya.
p.s. i just spent all of my extra money this month (and the $20 Dutchie (my grandma sent me) to buy a bathing suit because my other one has been worn to shreds. So I went to this store on the street that has ¨american fashion¨or so it says. I just went in because it looked like they had bathing suits that weren´t the thong styles they sell everywhere else here. So i bought a bathing suit for 120 soles. The brand? Mossimo. It must have come from a target all the way in the states! How crazy!
p.s. i just spent all of my extra money this month (and the $20 Dutchie (my grandma sent me) to buy a bathing suit because my other one has been worn to shreds. So I went to this store on the street that has ¨american fashion¨or so it says. I just went in because it looked like they had bathing suits that weren´t the thong styles they sell everywhere else here. So i bought a bathing suit for 120 soles. The brand? Mossimo. It must have come from a target all the way in the states! How crazy!
sup bizzos!
.Hola queridas! This is my first blog post- I hope you all find it to your liking. Well, I feel like since this is a blog, on the world wide web, where everyone can read it- I need to keep this moderately politically correct. Is that true? There’s some stuff I won’t write about in here because I write in my other blog and I don’t want you all to have to read stuff twice! Pfeff, your post was great- I laughed, par usual. I too, started my diet yesterday. No more chicken and French fry sandwiches or alfajores. It’s so much harder because I live so close to the city that I am always in there and the food is so good! There’s this little old lady that makes cheese empanadas on the street in the afternoon and I just sit on a little plastic chair and talk to here while I consume my trans fat-ridden fried dough. BUT THEY’RE SO GOOD.
Right now, I find myself at odds with PC as a result of the administrative termination of my friend and site-mate, Steve. He was kicked out a week ago after “the man” found out he had taken a little vacation under the radar in Trujillo to go to a yearly festival. I am now alone in my district, with twice as much work and well, it should be interesting. I’ll keep you all updated. But not all is sad and lost! Another volunteer, Caleb, left and went home back in January (there were only 7 of us to start with here) but now…one of my best friends is switching sites and replacing him here! Cowabunga! She’s coming today and we’re all psyched to add another volunteer to our Tumbes gang. How is everyone doing?!? Julie and Col, your apt. looks great. I’d say it’s a tad more modern than where I am living but it looks awesome! I built a castle of sand around my door to my room to block out the rains from coming in (not that it would really damage anything- I just would have more bugs than usual). How about that for using my resources, eh?
Life here in Tumbes continues as usual. I have started working with my health promotors in site to get our butts moving on a “viviendas y familias saludables project” in my site so we can start doing health promotion with high-risk families. I’m really excited about it. Some health promoters are really cool- they come to my yoga class and we sing karaoke. Others- well, they’re older and I’m not sure how much they like taking cues from a 22-year old American. But they better get used to it I say, I’m not going anywhere! After Steve left (against his will) I kind of freaked out at the thought if I had to get sent home all of a sudden. I for the most part, really like it here and feel like I’ve set down some roots. Which means… if any of you chiquitas wanna see this tan, sun-kissed face in the next two years, start putting those pennies in the “Peru fund.” :)
The other day I ran into a volunteer who had just finished their two year service and was traveling. She, another volunteer and her Ecuadorian boyfriend had all decided to go on a South-American road trip. This included them buying a car and hatching on the back, an ice cream machine. When I saw her, they had been driving through all of Ecuador and had entered northern Peru with the plans of continuing all the way down the country and into Bolivia, selling ice cream along the way. Brilliant, right? I found it quite amusing and she said they had found monetary success with their portable fro-yo machine! Came you imagine if we all did that? It’d be like our very own UDF. All we would need was some good coffee.
Speaking of good coffee, Peru has none. It’s amazing that for as close as we are to Colombia (it borders us on the north-eastern side), we have maybe the worst coffee EVER. It’s a travesty. I scoop instant coffee form a jar into a cup of hot water and poof, it’s watered-down coffee-ish tasting water. Mmmm. So, we have our parents send us coffee grinds from the US, that have been exported to them by Colombia!!! Globilization at its finest.
Last night I had a dream we were back at Miami again, and the only thing I remembered was eating LaBo. It was glodrious. Dreds was working, we all ordered our usual and I swear I could taste the basil mayo on my Dinah. Ahhh… then I woke up. Do any of you suffer from this?
To accomadate my intense cravings for American food, yesterday my friend Alyse and I went over to our friend Ian’s house (he’s form the Chi mags!) and made pancakes!!! They were AWESOME. They don’t sell syrup here so we ate them with honey and jam which is actually really good! We (in reality Ian’s host mom) squeezed orange’s from their backyard and we had real orange juice too! The whole experience was delectable.
So there you have it, my first entry into the “Misadventures of SAB.” I miss you guys every single day. It may not help that I look at the ibook that you made me mags, but yesterday I came home and was watching movies I had taken of us on my camera. These included a 3 minute video form “last girls standing”, a 5 minute video of the night we all sat of Pfeff and Latta’s porch at the end of the year while Latta wore those stupid glasses without lenses and I had a sling on my arm, and videos of Mags, Col, and I walking around the tunnel in between Skeinkeller’s and Cirlce Bar on our last night. They are presh. I think I told you Pfeff already, but I was having a bad day the other day and was super frustrated with Peruvians. So, I opened up one of the cards you all sent me that said “Open me when you’re sad/frustrated/or angry.” So I did. It was a picture of a cat doing yoga that said inside “I meditate, I do yoga, I chant, and I still want to smack someone.” I laughed and felt a lot better. So whoever’s idea that was… it was a good one. There are still some that I haven’t opened yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know!
Okay now I have to go into Tumbes and run some last minute errands before I go down into Piura city tomorrow. Mags…this means I will have videochat (hint hint), slash maybe I can put some pictures on here! Okay love you all! LYLAS BALM.
Linds.
Right now, I find myself at odds with PC as a result of the administrative termination of my friend and site-mate, Steve. He was kicked out a week ago after “the man” found out he had taken a little vacation under the radar in Trujillo to go to a yearly festival. I am now alone in my district, with twice as much work and well, it should be interesting. I’ll keep you all updated. But not all is sad and lost! Another volunteer, Caleb, left and went home back in January (there were only 7 of us to start with here) but now…one of my best friends is switching sites and replacing him here! Cowabunga! She’s coming today and we’re all psyched to add another volunteer to our Tumbes gang. How is everyone doing?!? Julie and Col, your apt. looks great. I’d say it’s a tad more modern than where I am living but it looks awesome! I built a castle of sand around my door to my room to block out the rains from coming in (not that it would really damage anything- I just would have more bugs than usual). How about that for using my resources, eh?
Life here in Tumbes continues as usual. I have started working with my health promotors in site to get our butts moving on a “viviendas y familias saludables project” in my site so we can start doing health promotion with high-risk families. I’m really excited about it. Some health promoters are really cool- they come to my yoga class and we sing karaoke. Others- well, they’re older and I’m not sure how much they like taking cues from a 22-year old American. But they better get used to it I say, I’m not going anywhere! After Steve left (against his will) I kind of freaked out at the thought if I had to get sent home all of a sudden. I for the most part, really like it here and feel like I’ve set down some roots. Which means… if any of you chiquitas wanna see this tan, sun-kissed face in the next two years, start putting those pennies in the “Peru fund.” :)
The other day I ran into a volunteer who had just finished their two year service and was traveling. She, another volunteer and her Ecuadorian boyfriend had all decided to go on a South-American road trip. This included them buying a car and hatching on the back, an ice cream machine. When I saw her, they had been driving through all of Ecuador and had entered northern Peru with the plans of continuing all the way down the country and into Bolivia, selling ice cream along the way. Brilliant, right? I found it quite amusing and she said they had found monetary success with their portable fro-yo machine! Came you imagine if we all did that? It’d be like our very own UDF. All we would need was some good coffee.
Speaking of good coffee, Peru has none. It’s amazing that for as close as we are to Colombia (it borders us on the north-eastern side), we have maybe the worst coffee EVER. It’s a travesty. I scoop instant coffee form a jar into a cup of hot water and poof, it’s watered-down coffee-ish tasting water. Mmmm. So, we have our parents send us coffee grinds from the US, that have been exported to them by Colombia!!! Globilization at its finest.
Last night I had a dream we were back at Miami again, and the only thing I remembered was eating LaBo. It was glodrious. Dreds was working, we all ordered our usual and I swear I could taste the basil mayo on my Dinah. Ahhh… then I woke up. Do any of you suffer from this?
To accomadate my intense cravings for American food, yesterday my friend Alyse and I went over to our friend Ian’s house (he’s form the Chi mags!) and made pancakes!!! They were AWESOME. They don’t sell syrup here so we ate them with honey and jam which is actually really good! We (in reality Ian’s host mom) squeezed orange’s from their backyard and we had real orange juice too! The whole experience was delectable.
So there you have it, my first entry into the “Misadventures of SAB.” I miss you guys every single day. It may not help that I look at the ibook that you made me mags, but yesterday I came home and was watching movies I had taken of us on my camera. These included a 3 minute video form “last girls standing”, a 5 minute video of the night we all sat of Pfeff and Latta’s porch at the end of the year while Latta wore those stupid glasses without lenses and I had a sling on my arm, and videos of Mags, Col, and I walking around the tunnel in between Skeinkeller’s and Cirlce Bar on our last night. They are presh. I think I told you Pfeff already, but I was having a bad day the other day and was super frustrated with Peruvians. So, I opened up one of the cards you all sent me that said “Open me when you’re sad/frustrated/or angry.” So I did. It was a picture of a cat doing yoga that said inside “I meditate, I do yoga, I chant, and I still want to smack someone.” I laughed and felt a lot better. So whoever’s idea that was… it was a good one. There are still some that I haven’t opened yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know!
Okay now I have to go into Tumbes and run some last minute errands before I go down into Piura city tomorrow. Mags…this means I will have videochat (hint hint), slash maybe I can put some pictures on here! Okay love you all! LYLAS BALM.
Linds.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
First Post!
Hey ya'll! (you know I had to say it)
Sorry I have been so negligent of our beloved blog! When you spend your days with a 2 year old who doesn't speak, there's not a whole lot to report. (Adelyn is the adorable little girl I babysit, and we communicate using baby sign language, which is pretty cool but on the other hand I just talk to myself all day. I can say whatever I want because she doesn't really respond...I talk about my diet and the plans I have for the weekend...If the parents have a nannycam they probably laugh their faces off at me every day. Especially when I really get going and sing Michael Jackson. But, ahem, that is beside the point. I really do love babysitting, so that is a plus. Hopefully I'll post some pictures of us painting or something soon!
Life here in Nashville is great! (minus the fact that the city does not own one snowplow-they just hope it melts, really) I was hoping to be able to say that it's been 50 degrees here, but sadly it's pretty much been like Ohio! Hopefully it will get warmer soon (like I was told it would be when I moved here!). When I went out last weekend, we went to this bar that plays live music-so of course I requested a song. And then was unporportionally upset that the honky tonk band did not know how to play "Rich Girl". I thought you all could understand my pain. Besides going to really cool bars with live music all the time, there are tons of great restaurants that I and my roommate have been systematically eating through... so when YOU ALL COME TO VISIT ME (hint hint) we have some sweet places to go! I hope everyone is doing great! And I can't wait to hear more on the blog!
Sorry I have been so negligent of our beloved blog! When you spend your days with a 2 year old who doesn't speak, there's not a whole lot to report. (Adelyn is the adorable little girl I babysit, and we communicate using baby sign language, which is pretty cool but on the other hand I just talk to myself all day. I can say whatever I want because she doesn't really respond...I talk about my diet and the plans I have for the weekend...If the parents have a nannycam they probably laugh their faces off at me every day. Especially when I really get going and sing Michael Jackson. But, ahem, that is beside the point. I really do love babysitting, so that is a plus. Hopefully I'll post some pictures of us painting or something soon!
Life here in Nashville is great! (minus the fact that the city does not own one snowplow-they just hope it melts, really) I was hoping to be able to say that it's been 50 degrees here, but sadly it's pretty much been like Ohio! Hopefully it will get warmer soon (like I was told it would be when I moved here!). When I went out last weekend, we went to this bar that plays live music-so of course I requested a song. And then was unporportionally upset that the honky tonk band did not know how to play "Rich Girl". I thought you all could understand my pain. Besides going to really cool bars with live music all the time, there are tons of great restaurants that I and my roommate have been systematically eating through... so when YOU ALL COME TO VISIT ME (hint hint) we have some sweet places to go! I hope everyone is doing great! And I can't wait to hear more on the blog!
Monday, February 15, 2010
snow day (grown-up style)
Home office: 
Room with a view:
Room with a view: 
Looking to the street.
Snow Day [for grown-ups] means working from home! Snowflakes are falling quickly and it is nice to sip some hot tea (previously coffee until I drank it all) while I work. I'm listening to my soundtracks from "Little Women" and "Pride & Prejudice" - and I feel just like a modern-day Jo, writing a little letter [albeit virtual] to all of you while the snow falls hard and fast outside my window. There is no denying that while this stuff is super inconvenient, it is also breathtaking. Each snowflake is swirling & dancing as the wind blows it around before falls to the ground.
More pics on my tumblr account: http://www.julielech.tumblr.com/
(I heart social media.)
P.S. I better not be on the only person who is going to use this blog. It's only fun if we all USE it. So getting posting. Or atleast comment so I don't feel like I'm writing to myself.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Valentine's Day (love)
Weekend in Review:
On Friday night Col and I went out on a party bus for Tina's 23rd bday celebration. I took one photo. I think it is highlarious that Francia's (Erin Vacchiano's roomie) dress fell open. After we saw the photo it was promptly fixed!
This morning was a quiet Sunday a.m. and I was a little sad to be away from the people I love most. You, my dear friends, are scattered about the Continential U.S. & South America. The Lechleiter fam is in Waters, MI for the annual cross country skiing trip and Scooter is in Pittsburgh. However, I've gotten sweet notes and cards, as well as sent my own, so I'm doin fine!
Behold my delish latte and homemade bistcotti from Coffee Emporium. A delightful way to enjoy Sunday morning in the winter sunshine with a new book borrowed from Col. ["Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen -so far so good.]
At mass today the priest talked a lot about loving and being loved, and how if you have this, then you truly have all you need. Feeling so very lucky to have all of you in my life. Hope you all enjoyed the weekend. Looks like MORE snow is in the forecast - ughhhg. Bundle up! xoxo
P.S. I cannot WAIT to see Pfeffles, Latta, Kim & Maggles Friday. Livin la vida loca in Cincy!!! :)
On Friday night Col and I went out on a party bus for Tina's 23rd bday celebration. I took one photo. I think it is highlarious that Francia's (Erin Vacchiano's roomie) dress fell open. After we saw the photo it was promptly fixed!
This morning was a quiet Sunday a.m. and I was a little sad to be away from the people I love most. You, my dear friends, are scattered about the Continential U.S. & South America. The Lechleiter fam is in Waters, MI for the annual cross country skiing trip and Scooter is in Pittsburgh. However, I've gotten sweet notes and cards, as well as sent my own, so I'm doin fine!
Behold my delish latte and homemade bistcotti from Coffee Emporium. A delightful way to enjoy Sunday morning in the winter sunshine with a new book borrowed from Col. ["Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen -so far so good.]
At mass today the priest talked a lot about loving and being loved, and how if you have this, then you truly have all you need. Feeling so very lucky to have all of you in my life. Hope you all enjoyed the weekend. Looks like MORE snow is in the forecast - ughhhg. Bundle up! xoxo
P.S. I cannot WAIT to see Pfeffles, Latta, Kim & Maggles Friday. Livin la vida loca in Cincy!!! :)
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