pictures & updates from julie & tracy

um, we're inactive

2007-03-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

i'm here to point out the obvious: i'm not really up with the blog. it's been replaced by actual work ;) and other more enjoyable springtime activities. i'd delete it but tracy (tracy who never posts here, i might add) says "no!" so, ok. here it will remain. maybe he will take it over. but i'm taking down the wedding blog in a few days so if for some reason you need anything from there (huh?) let me know. :)

2007-03-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

in the meantime....

2006-11-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

we have lots of photos from the busy halloween season (this year it's rivaling thanksgiving and christmas for get-togethers and food) but i've lost the cord that sends all the pictures up to my computer! bummer. of course there are stories but they're no fun without the pictures. i'm hopeful that a bit of cleaning tonight will make it turn up, so look forward to picture-ful posts in the next few days...

in the meantime, another little something on chatham county politics - this time it's actually kind of funny. outgoing commissioner tommy emerson evidently has made something of a halloween tradition of creating scarecrows inspired by people (this from the n&o). this year, inspired by the chatham coalition (the grassroots group i've been canvassing with most weekends to oust these commissioners) he made this scarecrow and accompanying sign (in case you can't tell from the picture, that guy is mooning you - or, i should say - us).

i'm glad to hear the coalition leaders are laughing about this one, as we've got to have a sense of humor sometime, and the halloween costumes that showed up on our doorstep tuesday convinced me that this holiday is our last vestige of public political-incorrectness. sometimes necessary, lest we lose our sense of humor. so, for the first and perhaps the only time ever, i say yay, tommy.

(come to think of it, i also just have to say that it is sort of cute and hilarious that this was reported in our local newspaper. ha.)

yes men on youtube

2006-10-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

my crazy friend mark made this video to remind people (WHY) to vote. fabulous. even as a non-tv watcher, i can say that sometimes video is so much more powerful.

the things we pay for

2006-10-17T07:52:00.000-07:00

the outgoing 3 on the county commission voted last night to provide financial incentives for a rock quarry near siler city. i'm not the slightest bit surprised. but really, their votes over the past several months seem criminal. it's inadequate that our only recourse is to vote these guys out. because even when we do, even when the county clearly speaks (not only with exasperation at every single meeting, but more importantly with their vote) they still have 6 months to ruin, ruin our home.

this is funny too

2006-10-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

(sorry about this). eyuck. but it made me laugh.

the nc state fair - c'mon over!

2006-10-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

i'm not quite sure how i came across this, but it's worth a look. enjoy the strangeness...

ah, north carolina. also home of cutting-edge deep-fried experiments!

lady spider

2006-10-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

we have a resident orb weaver. she's lovely. tracy thinks she's scary. if nothing else, this lady is determined: she built her enormous web right in front of our back door. maybe she's trying to catch us! try to use the deck without walking around through the yard and you'e doomed. (wish i could get a picture of it - these orb weavers are known for their symmetry - and it's huge!). we got a big rainstorm here the other day, tho, and were pretty excited about the possibility of using our deck again. but within moments of clear skies, she'd rebuilt. amazing. we may have her here all fall. which is ok by me - while tracy steers clear of the whole area, i watch her through the window like it's a tv. she so rarely moves, it feels like an enormous reward if you manage to sit there long enough that she lifts a leg or turns upside down (ok, clearly i have too much time on my hands). and here's a cool thing: if you open and close the door really quick, it throws some wind in her web. she thinks it's a catch, or a predator, we've learned, and she jumps up and down on her web! shaking the heck out of it to either frighten the predator or entangle the catch. crazy. this lady deserves a name...

small town drama

2006-10-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

i'd say 'never a dull moment in pittsboro' but that would just be really untrue. at least at this time of year (election just about a month away), though, there consistently seems to be a bit of small town drama.

starts with this guy named ricky spoon, and my lovely neighbor janice. janice won't be our neighbor for too much longer, as she's procured a lot at the very top of the hill in chatham forest, where she and her family are planning a very cool house.

up there at the top of the hill, chatham forest abuts property owned by this spoon fella (whom i've never met, only heard about since we moved this way). evidently plans are in the works (and laid before the town board) for a commercial and high-density residential development right there on that property. very close to home.

so clearly, janice is concerned. so are we - and our other neighbors, who signed a petition opposing spoon's proposal. would be simple enough - property owners opposing a development that threatens to change the character of their property - but turns out our mayor and the developer of chatham forest, randy, and the spoon fella don't really get along. news & observer does a thoroughly small-town job of covering the "news" (also here). so tempers are high all around and we're all holding our breath to find out what the board does with spoon's proposal.

really, i'm not a fan of subdivisions like the one we live in. this one is tolerable because randy left in most of the trees, and most of the houses don't look the same. but whether we like it or not, in any development like this you should be able to take for granted that things won't change all that much around you. the streets are already laid out, the lots are subdivided, the buffer land is commonly owned, etc. so no wonder janice is fired up and all the rest of us with her. rar.

no election news yet, except that we missed this weekend's canvassing due to a bad reaction to some bad tuna (bleh). but next saturday...we'll hit the streets to fight for tom!

um, we're married

2006-09-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

yep, after almost 7 years tracy and i finally tied the knot. which is why there's been no other posting on this blog for many, many days. making a wedding happen takes more time than i thought! despite all our best made plans, for a second on friday in black mountain under our terrential downpour when we didn't have drinks or food or music i actually questioned why we were doing it. but then saturday happened. the sun came out. and everyone we loved was there. and howard made us cry. and then we were married. and i remembered - ah, yes. THIS is why.

the whole weekend was fantastic. look at the silly things people do for you on your wedding day!

you 'll find links to more pictures (some now, others forthcoming) on the other blog (thanks to jan and mike for these!)

and now we're married. i'm a wife! it's glorious and yet, just the same (which, sometimes, also seems glorious).

international talk like a pirate day

2006-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

arrr.

carrboro scandal

2006-08-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

tho i rarely frequent the lovely lawn of weaver street market up in carrboro, the whole rest of the town certainly does - and i enjoyed many a lazy sunday morning there during law school. i recently heard news that the owner of the property on which the market sits has banned one particular carrboro local from dancing on the lawn. today i got this fabulous email from my friend and old law-school roommate, molly:

It's a Carrboro scandal... and Carrboro residents are dancing back... Wednesday, August 23, 5:30 pm... Weaver Street lawn…

In late July, Carr Mill Mall manager Nathan Milian told Bruce Thomas, dancer extraordinaire, that he could no longer dance on the "private property" of Weaver Street Market's lawn. Today, August 22, Weaver Street Market and Carr Mill Mall put out a press release with their "solution" to this PR fiasco: a new program called "Live on the Lawn." These scheduled events will feature performers who apply at Weaver Street Market. These performances must meet "approval" by Carr Mill Mall. The press release says there "will be a limit of one performance per week per artist or group."

Personally, we don't dance once a week. We dance when we want to. We want Bruce to dance when and where he wants to. Please help us make this point: come TOMORROW, Wednesday, August 23, 5:30 pm. to the Weaver Street lawn to raise dust with Bruce Thomas, the community of Carrboro, the Rainbow ReSisters, and the Carrboro Greenspace collective!

just thought i'd put that out there. i'm afraid despite all appearances to the contrary weaver street's lawn is private property. and so this nathan guy has a lot of leeway to tell people what they can and can't do there. but c'mon. people use his property like a town square, and he knows it. and as far as i know bruce isn't harming anything - he's just a wild dancer. the lawn and the community that gathers there are the greatest beauties of carrboro. so yay for molly and her crazy dancing/cheerleading squad. hope today's crowd makes some change.

comissioners strike again

2006-08-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

the (in)famous three are back at it again. articles here and here. unfortunately we missed the meeting last night but after the last few, i didn't need to go in order to predict that the commissioners would vote 3-2 (as always) on the first step toward new voting districts in chatham county. despite a house full of angry voters who sat directly in front of them and demanded they not. i often become exasperated with the national political scene, but i've still never seen politicians as defiant as this. (if you click on the video, you'll get to see how well our favorite bunkey comes off in person.)

turns out there were several people there in support of districts, too, and i guess it's good they turned out. i was trained in civil rights law and usually would say "yay" to districts too - but in chatham, things just don't work that way. not only are they using completely outdated numbers to draw these districts (admist continuing exponential population growth) but in chatham, where neighborhoods and towns are actually pretty well integrated, districts would dilute rather than empower the minority vote.

there's more to it than that (of course), but i have to get back to work (unfortunately tho i get paid to think about lots of complex problems, this is not one of them). anyway, the meeting continues tonight...

wedding bells are ringing...

2006-08-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

the nytimes has a funny article today about weddings. gives me a new perspective on ours! $28,000 for a wedding, holy cow. don't be spectin' such glitz 'n glam in september!

things about the house

2006-07-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

back to the point: here's evidence of summer around our house.

one of the not-so-great things about homeownership: recently we had to take out our only old-growth tree. poor thing was dying from the top down and, though we tried to deny it, our neighbors complained ("we can't sleep at night for fear it will fall on our bedroom") and then finally called for their own estimate to have it taken down. we took the hint (we are bad neighbors!) and paid 500 bucks to have it turned into mulch. where there once was tall, healthy jeff (when you have only one old tree, you give it a name!), now there is only a big empty hole. it was a sad, sad day.

any suggestions for what we should replace it with? we're thinking deciduous, definitely a mimosa (tho most consider them weeds, i love them!) and maybe a tulip poplar?

fortunately, other things continue to thrive.

this is what we started with this spring...

and this is what we have out front now! those bushes (variety of st. johns wort) are almost as tall as i am, and the lambs ear started out as just a sprig from tracy's parents' yard.

the passion flower is even producing fruit. anyone know anything about passionfruit jam?

and this thing - we don't know what it is? - is going crazy. we get one of these WOW flowers every day. a flower per day - a nice way to measure the passage of summer.

face of our schools

2006-07-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

a short post today because though i've certainly lingered on chatham and pittsboro politics on a blog ostensibly only about tracy's and my daily life, these politics are potentially more charged.

still, after my post a while back about the future face of our country, i thought this was an interesting follow-up. california projects in the next 3 years it will become the second state in the country (behind new mexico) in which a majority of students in the public schools are latino. this, as the article suggests,

raises questions of whether Latino students should be forced to assimilate or schools should adapt to students. Specifically, how should students with poor English-language skills be taught in a state that has essentially tossed out bilingual education? What subject matter should students be taught and with what books?

some serious questions, seriously related to my work, so i'm interested. but is anyone else interested just because it's crazy that only a few years back cali was a majority-white state? crazy.

the proverbial cat-in-bag

2006-07-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

do you ever wonder what the phrase "let the cat out of the bag" is about? i mean, what is the cat doing in the bag anyway? and why is it a big deal if he gets out? while we played no agent in the deposition of said cat, there was nonetheless a cat - in fact, cats - in the bag. were someone to let them out, we would certainly want to know who.

credit to tracy, today's writer and contributing photo editor (who openly admits he's the one who takes all the pictures of the cats).

hiss, boo

2006-07-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

that's about all we heard last night at the county commissioners' performance of "sell chatham today! part 1." the n&o covers the unprecedented meeting at which our favorite three approved 11 new subdivisions in chatham. congrats to the paper for pulling a story together - for all our best efforts we couldn't make out a word said through the faulty mic system and commissioner mumbles (ever want to get away with something? mumble. no one will ever know). unfortunately, last night was a drop in the bucket - albeit a large drop - after these guys' tenure, during which they've approved 10,000 new homes, mostly in the northern part of the county where we live (keep in mind chatham currently only has ~60,000 residents; pittsboro, only ~2500). they're scheduled to take up part 2 of the performance tonight at the district courthouse (developers' race to get a stamp of approval before the november elections = hearings that run over into 2 meetings). it's amazing what the lackadaisical raise of a hand can do: all in favor? the same 3 raise their hands. poof! we get another shopping center.

yikes! when will november ever come!

not in the mac store anymore...

2006-06-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

guess what we got! we barely got past this camera feature last night. so many amazing things about apple technology. tracy's work agreed to foot the bill for a new computer - with no restrictions - so he freely exited the pc world. i am turning green, working on my low-end dell (they don't even let you say the "d" word in the mac store).

this means we also get a new email address: trulieweb@mac.com. we'll use it for both of us but it might actually be a reliable way to reach tracy for the next few weeks, as he'll be glued to the spiffy white box.

more silly

2006-05-31T06:33:00.000-07:00

think there's something in the water? hmm, down here in pittsboro maybe i shouldn't joke about that ;)

these are actually pictures we took in the apple store, playing with the camera features on a fancy new mac. ha.

i can't stay out of it

2006-05-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

washington post editorial today that expresses, as closely as anything printed ever will, my thoughts about the private vs. public school debate. i call it a debate: i'm not sure any researchers or think-tankers are really out there arguing over which is better. it's more of a philosophical debate in many parents' heads and in my own mind, as an education policy person but more importantly as a future-parent-probably.

Admist the Duke lacrosse scandal, the newspapers and coffee klatches were abuzz with stories about privileged white kids run amok. Many of these kids came from some of the Washington area's top private schools. Even if no crime occurred, this story seemed to confirm all of my gut-level fears about private schools: They breed a sense of entitlement and superiority; private-school kids believe they're not held to the same standards as the rest of the masses; it might just turn my kids into people I don't really like.
I know these fears aren't entirely rational. Certainly most kids who attend private schools would not send horrifying e-mail messages or hire a stripper and hurl racial epithets at her, as the Duke lacrosse players reportedly did (and no one is denying these particular aspects of the story). I have friends and relatives who went to private schools and even more who send their children to private schools now. Both of my parents went to private schools, and neither ever could have been accused of feeling superior.
But I've also seen the flip side. One friend said her daughter's few private-school years were filled with kids who knew their parents' money would buy them out of any situation, with kids who talk to any adult with the same irreverent tone they used on each other, kids who thought the regular rules just didn't apply to them.

whether you go to private school or not, you can come out a good person (or may inevitably end up bad). but what happens to democracy? how do we get to know each other? people who you'll never have an opportunity to dress out with in PE or share math homework with again - but who will, unavoidably, later intersect with your life? how do we learn to view the people we won't live with or next to later in our lives still as people?

i read a lot about the (lack-of) quality inthe public schools, though, in my own town and around the country. while i wouldn't give anything for my public education at good ol' AHS, will i be willing to sacrifice my own kid for my philosophical beliefs?

good thing i don't have to answer right now. it's a big question, tho, and the WaPo re-sparked the thought.

everyone's cute

2006-05-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

yessiree!

politics, continued, this time even outside of pittsboro

2006-05-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

i don't get to listen to NPR a whole lot these days, since i'm never in my car, and because we don't have a tv either, my main source of news is internet-based newspapers. my limited knowledge about current events (outside of education of course) is a big reason why i don't take a loud position on things like immigration reform. but this article caught my attention today, and i felt something akin to a responsibility to share it. according to the washington post,

A new census report reveals 45% of the nation's children belong to racial or ethnic minorities, with Hispanics representing the largest and fastest-growing minority group.

that's huge. clearly, children born in the united states of immigrant parents aren't going to be directly impacted by our future immigration policies. but statistics like this just put the whole thing in perspective. my fellow white people, we have enjoyed our period of majority in this country. in not very long - within my lifetime - the word "minority" will take on a whole different meaning. as in, us. minorities. then who's going to be deciding our immigration policy? the whole "keep-em-out" mentality just seems so short-sighted. look at who your country is, folks.

i could go on, but i won't...just, had to put this out there...

ticks suck

2006-05-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

ginger is taking a biology class at unca this semester (well, technically i guess it's over now! woohoo!) and from her professor she's learned about how prolific ticks are in north carolina. evidently nc has the largest population of ticks in the country, and in nc, chatham county stands out for the highest concentration! eck. (ginger, correct me if i'm wrong here?)

it's been so lovely outside lately we just can't help but walk everywhere we go - and so, inevitably, tracy and i have had some ticks. some people really don't see the problem with this: they're just a version of a spider, really, that inadvertently passes along a couple of weird diseases when it tries to have dinner. i love spiders, tho, and i really really hate ticks. they're just so...leggy. and why do they have to bury their head in your skin? eck.

this sucker lodged himself in my underarm last night, and because tracy's out of town and i couldn't reach it myself, i went knocking on doors to find a friendly (and brave) (and tolerant) neighbor to get it out. i found michelle, who graciously shared a glass of champagne while she cringed and pulled him (actually, her) out. what a relief! so now she's in our freezer (the tick, not michelle), which i learned from my entomologist-grandfather is a good place to keep your prized multi-legged possessions.

another tip i learned recently, that worked last night: don't cover these things in vaseline or light a match or any other crazy thing you've heard all your life. just grab 'em with the tweezers and pull 'til they give up. works. and...yes, that's enough of this. my skin is crawling. on to something much more pleasant.

so if this happens to you, check out this site, and keep the stupid thing for a week or so 'til you know you're not getting sick.

primary results

2006-05-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

our candidates won the primary!

these guys (donning white cowboy hats no doubt inspired by the article in the indy) will be our new county commissioners (most likely, anyway - vanderbeck still has to defeat his republican opponent in november). the grassroots work WORKED! and our canvassing was not for naught.

hooray!

a couple of articles about the race and the outcome in the n&O and the herald-sun.

tracy and i celebrated with huge crowd (well, huge for pittsboro) last night at the general store (what would we do without the g.s.??) and as they released the results, we realized: "score!" we moved to the right county for sure. if we had lost, i think we both would have seriously considered our plans to stay in chatham county - our quality of life would have quickly gone down the tubes, not to mention our property values. but with these commissioners, we're feeling so optimistic that this county and our town might really turn into the land we want to call home.

hooray! :)

chatham county makes the front page

2006-05-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

the democratic primary is tomorrow, and boy has it been busy in chatham county. the triangle's independent weekly covers it in its front-page story. (check out the cover art - quite fitting!)

and now...local entertainment

2006-04-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

rebecca forwarded me this site today, where i enjoyed hearing this (ah, open eye coffee) and this (lovely weather?) from our old carrboro stomping grounds. fun. who is this guy? when do we get to write a song about pittsboro?

more local politics

2006-04-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

local politicos are gearing up for the democratic primary in chatham county. politics are strange here: most everyone seems to run on the democratic ticket, so this primary (may 2) will really determine our next county commissioners (when "local" gets this small, parties don't seem to mean much anyway). chatham county is facing crazy growth, and the biggest issue in this election is how to manage it. as in many small towns, it'll be about whether we should welcome walmarts or local businesses; housing developments or family farms; parking lots or public rec areas.

of course, even when you know who you want to win, implementation is a little tricky: in our little pittsboro, turns out sewer is a major limiting factor for downtown development. ah, how technicalities can muss good intentions. we've been wondering about that faint yucky smell as we walk to the Y (eh?).

oh a happier note: hooray for spring! our farmers' market is open. yesterday tracy and i walked to the drugstore in the morning, did yard work all day, then walked to the grocery store for grilling-out supplies in the evening and - it was still light out at 6:00 - i thought, isn't this why we moved here? yay.

important update

2006-03-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

no, really. this is kind of what's going on in our life. when does daylight saving time begin???

spring, spring, spring (that's a command)!

2006-03-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

well, it's almost here, anyway. evidence of lovelier months to come, popping up in our own front yard.

won't it be fun to watch these little surprises arrive all season long, as we discover what gifts prior owners left in our yard!

we plan to make some additions of our own. more pictures forthcoming, as cumulative free sundays allow us time for improvements.

braggin on my lil sis

2006-02-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

ginger has been volunteering with the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project part-time for the past 9 months or so. it's a great organization (they created the "local foods" bumper stickers) and she's done some really cool work with them. her latest: a radio show about elementary students' trip to a local farm (future broadcast on wpvm).

you'll enjoy it either because it's such an amazing project with kids or because my sister's so amazing - or both!

i'm also obliged to brag on laurey's (seriously good, local food - when you're in asheville), and on anna callahan, a community artist who ginger will also be working with.

IT'S OFFICIAL

2006-01-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

we're (finally) engaged. a type A idealist meets a part-time bohemian; a 19th century family diamond meets 21st century technology. with something old and something new already taken care of, there's just one thing left to do:
let's get married.

more to come.

the coolest (uh, literally)

2006-01-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

so tracy and i have kept up a little tradition of taking short walks in the morning before we start work. we usually walk around the neighborhood or nearby - yesterday, we walked down to the town of pittsboro building to pay our water bill. just after we stepped out our front door, we noticed something strange surrounding the reflecting pool. amazing formations of ice, little springs of water that had pushed themselves up through the dirt and the hay. crazy little things. they look a bit like eyelashes. can anyone explain?

genius

2006-01-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

we rediscovered this yesterday and are again obsessed (i can't link directly to it, so follow this link and then click on disc 1, #16 [mr. roberts #1]). genius. the kind that makes you happy.

holiday visits

2006-01-16T09:25:00.000-08:00

ack! time passes so quickly! tracy and i intend to post a "year-in-review" here and have used that as an excuse not to compose normal posts in the last couple of weeks. but in the meantime, stories and - more importantly - pictures are piling up, and so i'm just going to have to say something. :) or, rather, post some pictures.

one of the great things about the holidays (and a real house) is that friends who have moved away come home to nc and we get to see them. after christmas, we were lucky to have some of tracy's college friends (whom i have adopted as my own) over for dinner & a sleepover. jeremy & lauren (aren't they cute) -

and sam & terry and their (ah!) new nathan (sam didn't make it into any of the pictures! like a proper father, i s'pose, he was snapping them).

for the first time, conversation did not linger on our new date, new job, new pet, or even new house - instead it was directed to the much more fascinating topic of the new baby. sam & terry - congratulations. this kid's a serious cutie and you two? very cool with him. so cool, in fact, that tracy and i even thought we could do it (for a second - eek).

year-in-review coming soon. really.

yes, we are employed

2006-01-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

even though we never talk about it - yes, we do have jobs. and something a little exciting just happened at mine. the first thing i have to show for my work with public impact is a series of papers that was just published by the north central regional educational laboratory (forgive me if you already got the email). these papers examine the "restructuring" options under no child left behind - the (ideally) drastic changes that school districts have to use if one of their schools fails to meet student achievement standards too many years in a row.

really, you don't have to read them - they're designed for education leaders and are a tad boring - but the website gives you an idea of what i do, anyway. lots of research and writing that's supposed to help schools do a better job.

we hope.

back in time

2005-12-20T10:52:00.002-08:00

i'm starting to feel bad that y'all are still checking our blog and there's nothing new here! seems we haven't had much to report in the last few weeks (besides that we're doing the same thing as everyone else: cramming christmas shopping and celebrating into what seems like a shorter-than-usual month). but ginger (finally :)) sent some pictures from our thanksgiving down at the beach - so we'll have to work backwards, here.

this is bandit, a pretty amazing dog who belongs to my cousin debbie & family. while bandit is awesome (as is the picture) i would rather show off debbie & keith's two most beautiful daughters. but even though i'm ok posting pictures of tracy and me and our house, etc. on a potentially-public space, i'm not ok posting them. just, you should know that, hard as it is to believe, they are even more adorable than bandit. and smart, and polite, and creative, and oh! what fantastic dancers, and... i'm bragging.

this is thanksgiving, remember? november. cold. but hooray, at the beach it was warm and lovely and tracy serenaded me on his (mini-) guitar in the warmth of the southern sun. well, not really. he wasn't serenading me this time, either. it's ginger's guitar and it just looks like he's playing. but yay, it was warm.

we were so grateful for the invitation to spend the holiday at my aunt & uncle's house (that's it in the background), and enjoyed the weekend with all (most of) the Kowal family. it was tracy's first introduction to most everybody, and i think he handled himself quite well (of course, of course). though we both squirmed at the question, "when are you getting married?" huh.

this is it for a few days, now, as we'll head up to asheville tomorrow for more holiday celebrations with "my side" of the family. happy christmas, y'all.

'tis the season!

2005-12-05T06:11:00.002-08:00

i'm afraid we're falling a bit behind here. doing more around the house than we are posting about it. most recently we've been decorating for christmas - which is so much more fun when you have a house! so, the latest pictures.

our first christmas tree. purchased from two local guys right down 64. you can't tell from the picture but the best ornaments on the tree are the result of creative energies from anna, rebecca, jen, and james (we had a decorating party on friday).

it was too much to keep all of our (well, my) christmas cheer inside (tracy is still something of a scrooge, but handy on a ladder nonetheless). thanks to his dad for the supplies!

it helped, of course, that yesterday we sat in the 70 degree sun to watch the pittsboro christmas parade (follow link for pictures of old cars, marching bands, and tremendous tractors). ah, fabulous.

this one is my favorite. tracy will kill me when he finds i've posted it. what a gentleman. (thanks to my dad and ginger for the supplies, i.e. my grandmother's wingback chair).

hope y'all are enjoying the coziness and sparkle of december, too!

rar walmart, yay democracy

2005-11-22T07:36:00.001-08:00

i couldn't have known, despite my obsessive bar-study-induced-research about chatham county, what a remarkable community we were moving into.

it's hard to know where the story begins and (sigh) i don't have the time to tell the whole thing. but as you might know, last week was an anti-walmart week across the country (centered in part on screenings of the new documentary). it was particularly well-timed in chatham county, as the commissioners considered two pro-development zoning and land use regulations last night. tracy and i went with neighbors crystal and jan (yay). it was better than church (and with more whoopin' & hollarin' too!) and more impressive than court (due to the size of the crowd, they moved it to the old courthouse - yep! the old one in the center of town). inspirational. who knows where the commissioners' votes will fall, but in a way it doesn't matter: such impassioned participation from a local community may be a bit slower than a board vote, but it's exponentially more powerful. i have no doubt, after the most recent election and witnessing that meeting, that these residents (me!) will get what they want, and before long. the local press does a pretty good job of summing the rest of it up...

yay, chatham county.

wonders of the web

2005-11-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

i came upon these two sites today and found them both worth sharing.

first, journal entries and pictures from seven minnesota high school students who are traveling with MN's governor to china. how cool. i spend a lot of time reading about dismal performance in american schools, so the quality of these students' journal entries was particularly refreshing. also quite a portrait of those good ol' midwesterners.

and on a more local note (for some of you), a chatham county site devoted to all things local, reported in the independent. cool - and useful. :)

enjoy!

a yellow bedroom

2005-11-14T09:07:00.002-08:00

as tracy describes it,
the "thinking man's" school bus yellow.

hard to capture the color on a monitor. but much better than the blue we had before, eck.

yep, so that's what we did this weekend, homeowners we are. this working-around-the-house stuff has already taken over! and now we have a yellow bedroom. ah, the simplicity of the blog report. :)

your update on local politics

2005-11-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

voller won! by a slim margin, but yay.

also resulting from yesterday's local elections: a bit more security for wake county's policy of assigning students based (in part) on socioeconomic status. a second yay.

we have a lawn to mow

2005-11-07T14:34:00.001-08:00

a short post with some pictures from the weekend. too tired and way too disorganized to post more. mom and ginger came down yesterday for an impromptu visit (i am seriously the luckiest daughter & sister, ever) and we mowed the lawn. all afternoon. boy that grass was long (you can see tracy nearly airborne, fighting it with our enviro-friendly mower).
pictures, compliments of ginger. the lovely plant next to the front door, compliments of dad. more soon.

yay for local politics

2005-11-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

from the chatham journal. it may interest no one but me, but i think it's great. this one, interesting too. looks like "developer" is turning into a four-letter word in the pittsboro vocabulary. see? if i keep this up we'll all be wrapped up in small town politics in no time.

argh, i hope we can vote.

marshmallow shooters (and other explanations due)

2005-11-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

ok, ok. james is not the only one who's asked about my passing reference to marshmallow shooters. it's true, had i not seen one for myself i would have been very curious about what, exactly, they are. first of all, they are not related to jello shooters at all. these are designed for kids (really). evidently, you can shoot marshmallows from guns of all forms, but the ones we saw look like this.

you put a few small marshmallows in the long end, aim, and blow through the top pipe. i can't say for sure with what force the little balls of sugar coming flying out. but it's fun - you can even make one yourself.

as for the big hole in our yard, i also probably owe further explanation: the reflecting pool pictured below conceals a hole that's about 3 feet deep and lined with tiles. in the middle of the hole there is a very large pipe and a very important valve. the town has had to increase its water pressure recently in order to accomodate the new homes that are going in up the hill in chatham forest. the pressure necessary to get water up the hill is way too high for homes like ours back on "pittsboro-level." thus, the valve, of which we are the town's trusted stewards. if anything goes wrong with it, the hole will contain the water temporarily, and (in theory) still allow room for two people (presumably not tracy and me?) to access the pipes to fix it. thus, no dirt over the hole: it must be accessible at all times. anyone understand this better than i, to offer a more accurate explanation?

by the way, while i'm taking a minute away from work to write this post (eek?), i should mention (somewhat sheepishly) that i browsed around other blogs yesterday, and got some sense of our company here on blogger. not only do we use the SAME color format as everyone else around the world :), but i feel a bit frivolous for not using the space to analyze jihad or document worldwide travels or debate local politics. but to be sure, the purpose of this (join me, tracy?) was to provide pictures and some stories from our lives, which are refreshingly simple... hope you're still enjoying.

james, thanks for the comment. y'all post more to let us know if you're reading? :) thanks.

the crater

2005-10-30T08:40:00.001-08:00

well, if we had gotten through this whole house-buying thing without a hitch i might have been really nervous to move in. so i suppose it is good that we've just experienced the hitch. a big hole in our front yard. a coffin-sized hole covered in shiny reflective metal. no more happy grass, no more pollyana perfection, just a big ol' hole and an industrial reflecting pool on top of it.

tracy and i were both pretty upset about it at first (we heard about "the crater," which it evidently was before the dirt was dragged away, from mari and our neighbors and james before we saw it for ourselves), but after our visit yesterday we're feeling a bit better. most importantly, we finally met randy voller, the developer of chatham forest and (promising) (even liberal?) candidate for pittsboro mayor. he lives across the street from us, we learned, and doesn't want to stare at that thing either. so, he assures us, we will do something.

we also talked with tracy's father, who is an amazing designer with a great vision for landscaping. he is out to visit today, in fact, and will undoubtedly come home with several ideas about how to make this be ok. probably if this had all not been done six days from closing, we wouldn't have minded so much! it's not that much worse than the green tv box, i suppose - and we have more clout to make this one look better. welcome to homeownership! hey, but isn't the neighborhood lovely in the fall? :)

our visit to the pittsboro street fair also made everything look a bit brighter. it's an annual downtown festival with food, local music, local nonprofit and political and religious organizations (never before have i been offered so many bottles of water that say "God loves you" on them!). wish we had pictures of that. it was fantastic. what an amazing town we are moving to. more racial diversity crammed onto pittsboro's small downtown streets than i have seen in years. we registered to vote, made friends with the general manager of the new food co-op, met a few neighbors ("oh good. now there's three of us." "three what?" "three couples in town without children."), and learned how to use a marshmallow shooter (yup). it was a tremendously beautiful day. everyone was tremendously friendly. so despite the hole in our yard it made me tremendously excited to MOVE IN!

the countdown is on. pending further hitches (hope hope!) we become official pittsboro residents in FOUR DAYS. woohoo!

visit to fall

2005-10-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

tracy and i went up to asheville this weekend. it was time for the trip for many reasons: to spend treasured time with much-missed family, the annual brewgrass festiva l, short visit with friends lauren & jeremy, driving around in my dad's new saab (note the gas prices, can you see them?), a trip to the state-sponsored farmers market (an annual tradition during my childhood), and quick self-crafted bloody marys at the french bar (still the french bar, dammit) just like tracy and i used to have when we first started dating. it was a wonderful induction of fall. mostly, i want to share two things from the weekend (quality time in mom's and dad's respective living rooms cannot, i'm afraid, be cyber-shared): pictures that i hope will convey the vibrancy of the farmers market, and a few recipes i stole from my mom (let the recipe sharing begin).

first, then, fall's favorite:
apple crisp (8 servings, unless you have a sweet tooth. in that case, maybe 4).
ingredients:
4-5 sliced apples (preferably from henderson county)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. margarine (i use butter)
place the apples in a buttered baking dish (which, if you're local and lucky, you might be able to borrow from rebecca). mix the other ingredients and spoon them on top of the apples. bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until golden brown on top. this recipe has the added advantages of making your house at least a degree warmer (if it's as small as ours) and smell really cozy.

next? spinach cheese soup (i haven't made this yet).
ingredients:
oil
1 clove garlic
salt
6 c. scalded milk
2 c. grated cheddar
2 c. grated swiss
3/4 chopped onion
6 c. vegetable broth (actually it calls for chicken)
2 c. fine egg noodles (huh?)
2 pkg. chopped spinach
paprika
sautee garlic and onions. add broth and boil. add salt and noodles, and cook them until they are "tender but firm." add scalded milk and cheese. heat until melted, but do not boil. yum, cozy.

finally, spinach quiche (i wouldn't recommend putting habaneros in this, even though they are lovely).
first, the filling:
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. nutmet
1 tbs. melted butter
1 1/2 c. light cream
3 eggs
(beat that all together with a whisk)
then, a pie shell (bought or, if you're brave, homemade)
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 tbs. parsley
1/2 c. swiss cheese
2 lb. chopped, cooked, drained spinach (my mom used arugula, which was excellent. you can also use broccoli).
mix spinach and chopped onion in the pie shell.
pour over the filling
top with grated cheese and parsley
bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until puffed and golden.

that oughta get us started. good thing i put these up on the blog because i surely would have lost them in the move. now on to the fun stuff...

tracy and ginger checking out the beautiful habanero peppers at the farmers market. and some colorful corn.

some of the choices in the wnc farmers market warehouse.

i just realize this post is all about food. you can pretend it was written by tracy. love you, darling.

Tracy's debut

2005-10-16T16:46:00.000-07:00

Hi there. I'm being forced to blog tonight. Not that I don't want to. In fact this whole blog thing was my idea in the first place. See my first attempt That clearly predates the 'trulie' blog. Though only two entries, it was still a try. I can't really believe that I'm on a blog called "trulie," which, for the dense out there, (none of my friends of course) is an amalgam of Tracy and Julie, in much the same vein as "benifer."

Hey look at our new Fridge and Range! $250 total for both off craigslist. Granted we offered $50 to the seller to hold them until Nov. 4th, when we close on our house!

To the two or three people out there who haven't discovered craigslist, get on it y'all. It is such a great resource. NOT ONLY did we find this deal on the appliances, but we found a renter for the house we're renting. A pediatric nurse who is going to UNC to become a P.A.. You can also find a job, a place to stay, an even trade, or a little idle entertainment.
Really, be careful you can lose entire nights exploring this site. The bartering section is a hoot.

So that's an entry, huh? I hope Julie is quite satisfied. When I cook something cool, I will blog about that. Or when I taste a great wine. So far I'm only drinking the remains of bottles I've taken out to market, and cooking sporadically. I did make my first potato salad: potatoes, one small onion, one red pepper (from a house we looked at whose garden had been abandoned), mayo, mustard, salt, pepper, done.

I took a bite - it tastes good.

Just like my mother's - so good. Thanks, mom.

do you know anyone who needs a cute house?

2005-10-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

the girl i thought was so great and who agreed to take over our lease on the purefoy house has suddenly decided she must move to honolulu. i'm happy for her random decision, but really? it's a drag. if you know anyone who would enjoy living in a very small but extremely cute house in chapel hill, let me know. soon. where is october going?

more pictures. they're the fun part, anyway. it's a good thing our cats are this cute, because they're being very very bad lately. tracy and i definitely stayed up until 2am this morning waiting for our dear leo to return. we searched with flashlights. we put turkey on the front steps. we whistled (he usually comes, no kidding) and sang and even did our kitty-treat dance (yep). as usual, he returned when he was ready, nearly 3 hours after cairo-the-less-intelligent first meowed at the front door. very little sleep, due to these boys. so as i said, good thing they are cute.

tracy calls this one the alien beacon. cairo wanted to be taller, evidently, or perhaps needed to in order to communicate clearly with his alien comrades.

really these are tracy's pictures but he refuses to allow his first post to be of his cats. too unmanly? c'mon. i'll get him here yet.

pumpkin carving

2005-10-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

happy early trick or treating. we had a great pumpkin-carving party at anna's last night (tho i think the carving was perhaps overshadowed by dinner - anna's fiber-full black bean soup & famous apple pie).

the angry one, front left, is tracy's. anna's scarface is on the right. we all agreed joe's was the scariest, because it might eat your foot on your way up the stairs. my cat is in the middle, will require some work (who wants a friendly kitty for halloween?). rebecca's geometric and actually quite symmetrical face, on the right. eek, a scary crew!

anna's best apple pie yet. yay, fall has arrived.

our halloween house is frightening

2005-10-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

yesterday we attended the inspection for "our" house. actually, we missed 2/3 of it because we spent more than two hours (two hours?!) in a spooky office with an increasingly frenzied mortgage broker (to whom, i should say, we are deeply indebted, tho not literally, thank goodness). mere mention of the word "wachovia," and he nearly jumped out of his chair. no banking with them and applying for a mortgage at the same time! who knew? i think we understand now why people say this house-buying stuff is stressful. we submitted a loan application, which is good, but had to move back the closing from oct. 31st to nov. 4th, bleh. can we still be the halloween house?

14 cynthia is not scary, yay. built in 2000, it's as perfect as it should be. "sturdy," our inspector says, and well-built all around. whew. there's a bit of rot on one porch column, caused by gutters that are both clogged and slanted. eh? and a bunch of other smaller things that i should remember but can't. we'll start yet another negotiating process with the seller on those things today. yikes!

it was fun to be back in the house, though. we met the seller and his brother in law and, despite about.com's advice not to become friends with your seller, i feel sort of attached to them both. likely the feeling is not mutual, as we did little more than shake their hands, so we're probably safe.

we also met our new neighbors! crystal and jan, who, it turns out, are the same folks we saw jogging through pituresque chatham forest on our first driving tour through the neighborhood, and the same again as the young couple that we saw at the general store cafe our first saturday night in town. same, too, as jen & james' favorite hairdresser and her husband, and the "young couple" in chatham forest who bought their first house through mari. small world (small town). they seem quite creative and they have two cats, so i like them already.

that's the update. i'm still working on tracy, to get him to post here. i think he's upset about that picture i posted (sorry). c'mon, c'mon...

the experiment continues

2005-10-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

rowing on university lake

ok, i'm having trouble linking to pictures online. i can't seem to make this one disappear. really, my intention was not to post pictures of myself so that i would have a greater presence on the web. and i used to think i was pretty smart when it came to computers. clearly, my early-earned commodore 64 knowledge is obsolete. i am going to have to ask for help. tracy?

in any case, this is a silly picture of a lovely afternoon that tracy and i spent rowing on university lake. well, tracy rowed; i sat gracefully under a parasol. we were preparing for suburbanite life.

alright, back to work.

welcome to our blog!

2005-10-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

now that we've been cut off from the luxury of institutionally-provided (unc) webspace, we've decided to experiment with blogger, in hopes of creating a useful space where we can share updates & pictures with everyone we love!

here are a few pictures of the newest change in our life: OUR FIRST HOUSE! 14 cynthia lane, in pittsboro, nc.

and a few links to the new town we will call home...
chatham forest, the development the house is in. i know, a development. but it's actually a great one. really. we will be the coolest suburban 20somethings ever.
pittsboro, the "micropolis" we will call home!
chatham marketplace, the fledgling new local foods coop down the road
hiddencoast, the website of mari, our realtor and great friend!

that's it for now...please enjoy, and post a reply...and we'll see how this experiment goes!

love,
julie & tracy