Key West!

Matt and I in Key West! The weather is beautiful, the air is salty, the sun is shining... It's great to be here. Feels like a second home. Haven't been here in years. The last time I remember coming is when my great-grandmother died... But this is a much happier occasion!

We have been running around getting our sight-seeing in. We visited my cousin's new pottery shop. It looks beautiful! Not much merchandise, but that's to be expected--she's busy preparing for her wedding.

We walked down Duval St. and admired all the tropical plants, especially the orchids. Everywhere we turned, there was an orchid hanging in a tree just BURSTING with blooms. And the chickens! They really are everywhere. We saw several mothers with her brood of adorable chicks. We even had chickens come into a restaurant we were eating at! Crazy. The waiter had to keep shooing them out and eventually fed them rice down the sidewalk to divert them away. I was hoping to see an iguana, but no such luck. Apparently, they had a recent campaign to reduce the iguana population centered in the cemetery.

Tomorrow, the wedding ceremony is at the family church and then there will be a trolley car to transport us to the Hemingway House for the ceremony! I love the Hemingway house. We went on the tour a few trips ago. There are so many cats, and the stories about all his wives are really interesting. There is even a urinal-turned-cat-fountain from the original Sloppy Joe's bar! And the first below ground pool in the Keys.

Matt is with us, which is super cool. He knows a lot of my closer family members, but hasn't had the chance to meet the extended portion down here. Plus, he hasn't been to the Hemingway House. I think he is very excited about this weekend.

Going to Key West soon!

Tomorrow, Matt and I leave for Key West!

We are flying from Tallahassee to Tampa, and then Tampa to Key West. This will be Matt's first flight, and I don't much like them. Hopefully it turns out alright?

We are going for my mom's cousin's wedding. She is an artist and sells her pottery in Key West. I have a bunch of family who lives down there. My mom was born in Key West and I lived there for a summer with my grandmother and great-grandparents. It's really great to have a lot of history in such a famous place--but it means I know a totally different side of the island. Most people think of Key West in terms of the gay population, or Fantasy Fest, or tourism.

My great-grandparents owned a grocery store way back in the day. And my great-great-grandfather before that. Carlos Supermarket has since been torn down, but the house they lived in has been restored by family. It was across the street from the store and is now home to a cafe and some offices on Carolina St. That was the house my grandmother and all her siblings were born in. The house my great-grandparents got married in still stands, on Simonton St. The house my grandfather built, and the only one I visited them in, is still there, just being rented out to a family friend. My mom's uncle is a doctor in Key West and has his house still--a beautiful house in the old style of architecture for the island.

I have all these stories from my family. When my grandmother broke her arm and had to go to Cuba because there were no doctors in Key West, just a vet. When she got sick and they cooked her pet rooster for chicken noodle soup--back when chickens didn't run wild but were valuable property in the depression, back before the keys tried to "secede" and become the Conch Republic, with the rooster as their national bird. When she went to Cuba for her honeymoon. When her father locked her in the store overnight so she could conquer her fear of the dark. How she would run to her aunt's house to use the indoor plumbing instead of the outhouse at her house. How there was only one movie theater and how movies cost so little. How girls couldn't go to the movies with a boy without a chaperone. So many stories about an island I haven't really seen, that no one can see now. It's been torn down, rebuilt in pastels and neons and parallel parking spots. The roads are dangerous, teeming with bicycles driven by clueless tourists who think they are in Disney World. The island turns bar scene at night. My family is too old for that island and can barely afford to live there. But, it's home for them and they make it work.

Nutrition Event

This Thursday is our nutrition event! Yay!

Finally, all of our hard work will come to a point. I am excited to see how the student body takes our information. Hopefully well?

Fingers crossed for a successful event! :)

The House

We had a lot of fun touring the house! It was really interesting. Parts were original, but other parts were not.

If we get it, it will be a lot of work. Matt' dad thinks it is doable though! He is going to put in an offer. My mind is full of all the possibilities for next year--a garden, a cat, a roommate, a usable kitchen, a firepit... But I am probably getting ahead of myself right now. I should wait and see how it goes. We are offering under the list price, and it's a foreclosure/short sale, so the bank will have to decide.

Hopefully we will find out soon? :/ I hate waiting...

New House?

So, tomorrow Matt and I will be touring a little 3/1 house on Copeland St. So exciting! If we get it, then there will be so many possibilities in terms of being green. There is already a clothes line in the backyard, lots of room for a veggie garden, and lots of beautiful trees. Maybe we can get a bike rack? And a push mower? And I can't wait to build a huge compost bin! And we can use candles and there's a fireplace and we can have a fire pit!

I don't know if Matt is quite aware of how much I want to do. Maybe I will have to talk to him about all of this...

New phone!

Over spring break, I got a new cell phone :) My fiance and I are switching over to Virgin Mobile from Verizon because the plan is so much cheaper. I got a phone on clearance at Target, used a gift card, and got 5% off with my mom's credit card. I feel so frugal and thrifty! Plus, the phone is made from recycled post-consumer waste.

Now all I have to figure out what to do with my old phone...

Summer Internship

So, over the summer I will be doing an internship for Orchard Pong Organics. So exciting! I have to do an English internship for my major, so getting that requirement out of the way is great, but the content is fantastic. It ties right into our class project!

Basically, Shelby will be my supervisor. I will write two days a week from home and then work on the farm one day a week, helping out with harvesting and such. I will write their newsletter, work on their website as well as their presence on social media, create informational pamphlets... I also get to create a project of my own. This summer should be very fun :)

Health Update

I have been suffering from a strange allergy-like affliction since Veteran's day and Monday I had an appointment with an allergist. Apparently, it isn't an allergy! I have chronic urticaria with dermatographism. Which means an autosomal reaction... to something... My trigger is pressure and it is intensified by heat, alcohol, and most over the counter pain medications. And then, 8 vials of blood were withdrawn along with a  cup 'o' pee. And in four weeks I should know if this has a physical cause, like a viral infection, or if it's just some weird thing I have to deal with indefinitely. In the meantime, loads of antihistamines and avoiding my triggers.

Baking Soda update

So the baking soda shampoo has been going fairly well in Tallahassee. I thought it would be tough coming home and having to find baking soda all the time, but it was super easy! Best part? The soft water back home made the baking soda paste so much smoother. It looked exactly like shampoo. And my hair felt fantastic afterwards! Now if only I had soft water in Tallahassee...

Carrots!

Over winter break, I planted some carrot seeds... Promptly forgot about them. I came back home Friday and today I got to harvest my carrots! :)

Here's what they looked like:

No more iPod!

I used to have an iPod. And an iPad mini. But the iPod was kind of useless compared to the iPad mini and it just used more energy to charge and carry around. So, I gave it to Matt to trade in at Gamestop. It was worth almost $70! Along with a few games he was done with, he had enough credit to pre-order a new game he wanted with lots extra. Now, in the winter, when the next Zelda video game comes out, we won't have to pay out of pocket for it! It's great when being green and frugal turn out to be the same thing.

Reverse Printer

Reverse printer? Yes! It takes the ink off of paper so you can print on it again. That would make recycling printed paper obsolete.

Take a look! It looks really cool. http://www.yankodesign.com/2011/06/24/reverse-printer/

Solar Fridge

Here is a link to some concept art for a new solar-powered fridge: http://www.yankodesign.com/2010/09/16/chilling-outside-the-window/
It seems really cool! The fridge stays outside the window apartment and uses solar and wind energy to keep the food chill. I can't wait for it to become real. It would be perfect for my apartment and would saves us lots of money.