twitter and flock

so i am updating myself. i am now on twitter and started myself on this isp called flock.... ill let you know what i think in a few days

Blogged with the Flock Browser

yuckiness

i have a geographic tongue. and it comes and goes. mine shows up about once a month, due to hormonal changes. and probably lack of certain vitamins. but i hate it. read about it here.

it looks like i have fungus on it, but i don't. it is actually a cluster of papillae. and the red places are without the papillae. but i don't know why the taste buds are so big.

any ideas?

my jewelry

i have a new website where i sell jewelry

go here

brandi

Our september life

well, life is becoming very busy for jeff these days. He has opened his ebay business , and is very busy working on that. He also started teaching at UAB, Samford and Birmingham-Southern (teaching trombone). And on top of ALL that he is playing with the Alabama Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony and the Mobile Symphony. Whew

And me, i am just working and I am also helping with the Children's chior at Covenant.

We are busy!

I'll post some pictures soon. But don't worry. We look the same.

hola amigos

nothing really exciting has happened, so no new post.

i have a cold.

and school started.

my birthday is tuesday.

the joys of homeownership

yesterday at about noon, we heard a gurgling sound coming from the bathroom. there was water coming up from the bathtub. After trying some draino, we called a plumber. He came and snaked the drain from the roof, 180 feet.. and still it was clogged. So he came today and put in some kind of little pipe that you can stick the snake in. There was apparently already one there, it was just under the ground. The main problem was a root. plus toilet paper.

This is what the tub looked like. yuckie.

also, there was a bug in jeff's computer monitor. yeah, not on the outside. INSIDE the monitor.

On Saturday night we hung out with the Shulls. Nate can't say Brandi, so we decided to let him call me didi. Becasue when he would try to say Brandi, that's what it sounded like. so now he says "DiDi!" when he sees me or wants my attention. It's cute.

But most of the time, he will see me and say "DiDi! Jeff?" because my presence means Jeff will be there, and thats a lot cooler to him :)

Nate enjoyed taking pictures with my camera.

a picture paints a thousand words

ONE MORE DAY! UN DIA MAS!

I don't think anyone reading this will be more excited for us to be home than we will be. This teenage dorm life is getting very old. and we miss home! and a cell signal!

We are heading out Saturday morning and will be home sometime on Sunday. Probably in the late afternoon. We are planning to then watch tv and sleep in our bed. We miss just sitting and flipping the channels. It will be a thrill. We have been watching tv on the internet for 5 weeks now and sometimes i just want to change the channel... but i cannot!

I will be so happy to cook in my own kitchen with my own groceries and my own refrigerator. and i am so excited that in the middle of the night when i need to go to the bathroom i do not have to put on a whole outfit just to go. I can just roll out of bed and don't even have to bring my key or wear flip flops! Oh the simple joy.

But! Most important! We cannot wait to eat at Sabor! So come one, come all, to Sabor Latino on Wednesday, July 30! We want to see everyone we can. (parents, we will probably see you before. but you are still welcome!)

And happy birthday to my mom on Monday! Yay!

and this is what i gave jeff for our anniversary:
They are pictures i took at our house of "found letters" (things in life that accidentally look like letters) that spell KOONCE

some are dark photos.

Let's eat cake! (by: brandi)

So this was our cake eating experience:


Here is the cake in the fridge

jeff opening the cake

jeff saying "the icing is all down here"

The piece we cut

Our piece did not come out so well!

Contrary to what jeff says, it does taste good!

1 year

Anniversary trip post #1 (by:brandi)

Yesterday after Jeff's class we headed to Roxbury, NY. On the way it rained, but it was very nice. The drive was nice, with views of the Catskill Mountains. We got to Roxbury at about 6:30.

Our room is #13 and is on the bottom floor


This is the view of the bed. Jeff had laid on the pillow and squished it. The room is small, but very nice and very clean. It even smells really good. I cannot decide what exactly smells so good.
It may be the linens. or the soaps. Whatever it is, it smells great!


This is the really cool sink. And the water tastes good. It actually has no taste, which Jeff says is why it tastes good.

We ate dinner at the Public Lounge. It is two doors down from the hotel. We had really good food there. Empanadas, Quesadillas, and little sandwiches.
Jeff took this of me.

Today, we ate lunch at a deli one door down. Jeff said it was the "best sandwich he had ever eaten". Then we went and walked around the town. It is a small town, with very old houses.

It started to rain while we were walking. Jeff was not happy.
So we came back and washed our feet and watched tv.


Yesterday, when we arrived, the manager told us there was a surprise in our fridge.
Jeff looked in the fridge when we got in the room. He said "It looks like some kind of cake". I told him to get it out, and he put it on the table. It had a little lily on it. When he moved the lily I said "It is our cake!" He said "What? How?" He was so confused. And I think he is still puzzled as to how exactly it got here.

Thanks mom and dad for going to the trouble! It was such a nice surprise!


We are planning to eat it later. We will take pictures!

weekend trip (by:brandi)

Jeff and I are leaving this afternoon to go on our anniversary trip to the Catskill Mountains. We will post pictures when we return.

hopefully we will have a signal and we can call people!

our friends

Out of the many people we miss from home, these are 4 of them.
They just so happened to get some wonderful photos taken of them by a cool guy named Brian T. Murphy, so we just happened to want to post them to show everyone.

Jared, Mohana, Nate and Isaiah

Another update (Jeff)

I decided to take a break from practicing/studying and write since I haven't in over a week.

I would have to say the last week was a good week. I didn't really get good until Thursday and Friday, but I think I made significant progress those two days. Something just clicked Thursday and things began to make more sense.

One thing I've realized is that whatever I'm doing (or trying to do) I'm not doing enough of it. I need exaggerate everything, which is the exact opposite of what everyone else is being told... So even though I hear all day long while others are conducting " smaller, more focused, you're all over the place, too big, too much", I just have to ignore that and be bigger and more all over the place... big shock huh...

I'm still trying to work this out. Today I thought I was doing something and I told to do the exact thing I was trying to do. So I just did it bigger. "You're on the right track, now just more" ...

So at least what's in my head is right. I just need to figure out how to get it out of my head and into my arms.

Also, I have to get more comfortable... I think it's just a matter to doing it more and more. I think confidence would help too, but that's a hard one here. Most of the time our sessions are long on criticism and short on instruction and edification, which disappointing and isn't really the best breeding ground for confidence. You never know what you are going to get. Yesterday I got a lot of criticism, today I got instruction. Who knows about tomorrow. Confidence built on a successful day is completely destroyed the next day and you just have come back for more the following day hoping that it will be a good day. That's not to say I'm not learning anything it's just that the environment for learning is a little hazardous.

In other news: it looks like I'll be teaching trombone at UAB next year. So that's kind of exciting. There's a chance I could be teaching at Samford too, but that's still in the works. I'll let you know as I find out more.

Alright back to work... Shostakovich awaits

Southern Hospitality (by:brandi)

Last night, I cooked a "Southern" meal. Abraham had requested it, so i agreed. He loves cooking, and Paula Dean, (and we are pretty sure he likes Anna)
However, what he did not understand is that i actually have never cooked any of the things he wanted.
He had requested fried okra and fried green tomatoes. So i tried.

I made shake and bake chicken, creamed corn, my "famous" patato salad and fried okra. I also made the fried green tomatoes but i didn't get to take of picture of them.
They actually only had 2 green tomatoes in the store and the guy at the register didn't know what they were. he asked me if they were granny smith apples.

and i made sweet tea. in a pot on the stove! i have never done that!

Everyone loved it!

a barn and the shed (by: brandi)

Yesterday we ventured to Lenox, Massachusetts. We went there to watch the Boston Symphony play one of their summer concerts in Tanglewood.

On the way, we stopped by a used record and bookstore.

The store was called the "Book Barn"

Which is a good title, because it is a barn

and as you can probably guess...

it was FULL...

of books!
This was great for Jeff, record wise he apparently found things that made it "worth the trip" and i found some books i wanted. and our friend Abraham found a LOT of books he wanted. He said that books are expensive in Canada and he likes buying books in the US because they are cheaper. So he bought a LOT of music books. He was thrilled.

This is Abraham and Anna. I posted yesterday that they were church friends. But I was wrong. They actually met at another music workshop last year, and they attend the same college in Vancouver, Canada, and are both from Hong Kong. But they don't really know each other that well.

The concert was at Tanglewood

Which is an outdoor venue with outdoor and indoor seating. It was originally designed to be a very large concert hall, but they didn't have enough money. So the designer, Eliel Saarinen, said "then it will be nothing but a shed!" so now they call it "the shed".

We bought tickets and sat inside the shed. They were at a good price. And it was to see a good symphony play a good piece. This guy named Bernard Haitink was the conductor. He is very old and I have learned that it is good that we got to see him because he is so good.

This piece, Mahler's Symphony #2 has a choral piece during the 5th movement. Thats the only part i remember... i like it better with words! and especially because there was a guy in the last row in the back right corner who stood away from the group and REALLY got into it. in an almost very funny way. But it made the last 10 minutes a lot more exciting for me!

Jeff said it was good, but the brass was not that great. Apparently the first trombone used too much vibrato in his solo. I thought it sounded good. but i was wrong :)

Abraham was overwhelmed and couldn't decide if he wanted to talk about it all the way home or if he was speechless. (he is a very talkative guy!)

Then we rode home, and got back a little after midnight. Anna and Abraham talked to each other in Chinese most of the way home. But that was ok. I could talk to jeff, and I enjoyed listening to them. Especially after i found out that they really didn't know each other. I thought it was nice they got to talk. Road trips are good ways to get to know people.

Jeff still needs to write. He had a good week. He learned to click is like jumping on a trampoline. And that was apparently a breakthrough of sorts.
(i know... it makes no sense. These people have their own language!)

hope you had a good weekend.

by:brandi

wow its been a while since i last posted. basically because i haven't done anything exciting. Jeff has, and he'll probably write about it sunday.

Tomorrow we are going to Tanglewood to see Mahler 2. For those of you who don't know, (which is probably all of you!) this is jeff's favorite piece. So i am going to go see why.

We are going with Abraham and Anna, two friends we have met here. they are both from Vancouver and are in college, but actually are both from Hong Kong. They are church friends who came here together.

Abraham is an amazing cook, and cooks for us almost nightly. He is also quite a joy to be around. his use of the english language is always interesting and he is always excited about something.

Anna is very quiet and has a beautiful spirit.

It will be a fun day!

prayer request

hello again!

we have a prayer request. We have a friend we have met here who is 18, and she has struggled with cancer before, and has learned that it is back. She is not a believer, and she really has no hope. She found out last Saturday that it is back, and that she should probably go to the hospital, but she says she doesn't want to fight when she says "it's not going to work." She is so fragile and scared, and we are trying to love her the best we can.

So pray for her, her name is Alex, and pray for her friends here who are believers so we can show her some hope.

we love you guys!

jeff and brandi

What we did for the 4th (by:brandi)

We had dinner with a group of people in our kitchen area. We ate mussels, pasta, roasted chicken, broccoli, and salmon. all cooked by non-US citizens. It was a good 4th :)

here is the group eating

me and jeff


Also, Jeff's birthday was yesterday. And his present finally came in to the wal-mart today. (i had it delivered to the store) This was it:

I got him a digital camera! he needs it to
take photos of his records to sell on ebay.
and so he won't use mine!

Jeff playing with his new camera

jeff said "i am playing with these settings.
I wonder what sepia
(he pronounced it sep-i-a instead of see-pi-a) is?"
So cute! He is taking pictures of everything :)

Remember to also read the blog jeff wrote. its the one after this. :)


Have a good day!

The Conductors Institute: Week 1

This past week has been one of the hardest, most stressful weeks of my life. I knew this was going to be hard work, but it's a completely different level of hard. It's like knowing, theoretically, how to swim; knowing how to move your arms to control your body in the water, but never actually getting in water deep enough for it to matter. Then you're dropped in the middle of the ocean and all the things you think you know how to do leave you and you just wave your arms to keep from drowning, riding the current until you get back to land. That's kind of what it felt like this past week.

Apparently, this is normal for conductors at the beginning. It just means I need to work harder this week. Just get to the point that the movements are second nature and I don't have to think about them. So when the panic comes I don't have to think so much about not drowning, I can actually think about controlling the movement. Don't worry, I actually ended up doing ok this past week. I didn't drown... :)

It's intimidating standing in front of an orchestra. Especially, having sat in the back of the orchestra knowing what everyone thinks of bad conductors. I think a lot of it is just exerting your authority, making them believe you know what you're doing and convincing them to allow you to control what they do. I'm working on that.

And I don't mind the hard work. It's good for me. :) My favorite part of this whole summer has been being able to focus on just one thing, instead of 50. I'm glad I'm being overwhelmed by this one big thing instead a lot of little different things. And I'm not getting tired of the hard work but actually looking forward to it everyday. Who would have thought I would like studying this much...

Yesterday was my 29th birthday. Thanks to everyone that called and/or lefts messages. Sorry, I didn't call you guys back. This no cell signal thing is getting old... I never know when I'll have signal so please keep trying to call, and eventually I'll be able to call you back. hopefully.

We went to the restaurant in an old church in Rhinebeck last night (there's a picture of it somewhere on an earlier post I think). Then we went to see Wall-E at a tiny independent theater that only charges $6.50 for a ticket ($4 matinees) and ate ice cream at a little place across the street, where we got 2 cones and a small coke for less than $5. Apparently, it's the place to be on Saturday night because we had to wait in line outside for 15 mins to get into the place.

It's kind of refreshing to be in a place where everything is locally owned and there's not many chain stores. A place where you have to drive 20 miles away to find a McDonald's. A place where the towns don't run seamlessly into one another, connected by strip malls, fast food, car dealerships, and interstate exits. Here there's a town center and then nothing but fields, trees, and the occasional house, until you get to the next town center 10 miles down the road.

Well, time to get back to work...
-Jeff

a night at the Roxbury (by: brandi)

Hello!

So we finally figured out where we are going for our anniversary. We are going to the Catskill mountains (home of Rip Van Winkle) to a renovated motel called "the Roxbury motel"

I saw it on the internet and i said "they built it just for me!"

So here is the link to the hotel and here is a link to our room.

I am so excited! It looks like a great place to spend two nights(the 18th and 19th).

Don't be too jealous!



Also, i realized the blog was not set up for just anyone to comment, so i changed that. please comment, and put your name if posting as anonymous!

slow news day (by: brandi)

so nothing super exciting happened yesterday or today. i went on an adventure yesterday to the wal-mart in Poughkeepsie (pronounced pa-kip-see). its about 45 miles south. and it started to rain right as i got there. big huge raindrops, so i missed my exit and took the next one which took me over a bridge over the Hudson river with nowhere to turn around. so i just went back to Kingston and took the bridge back here.

today i went to the wal-mart in Catskill. and i made it there. it was a nice one. i was looking for a present, and i found it.

so because there are no pictures of my wal-mart trips, i will post some pictures of places that i haven't posted yet.

this is a well on campus. i guess it used to work. it says:
"Margaret's Well Erected in AD 1885
In Memory of Margaret Johnston Bard
'I was thirsty and ye gave me drink'"

Del's Dairy Creme. It has fried food and ice cream.
We ate here Sunday for lunch.

This is the "oldest Inn in the U.S."
It is in Rhinebeck. It is called The Beekman Arms.

This used to be a church in Rhinebeck,
now it is an moderately expensive restaurant.

This is a bike on campus that looked like it has been ridden a lot

through my eyes (by: brandi)

if you asked me what jeff was doing here at Bard,
i would tell you he was doing a LOT of this:

Remember: Jeff's birthday is SATURDAY (july 5)!

send him mail!

Jeff Koonce
c/0 Conductors Institute
Bard College
P.O. Box 5000
Annandale on Hudson, NY 12504


also, please comment! we want to know who is reading! we thrive on your comments.

and did everyone see the oddly shaped trees? well, click here because we are very proud of this! and there will be more photos added, so check back!

the Vandy mansion in Hyde Park (by:brandi)

Right now, i should be out buying groceries. but i am not


Yesterday, we took an adventure to Hyde Park, NY which is only about 30 minutes from here. In Hyde Park there are many interesting things, but we only visited one of them, mostly because it started to rain. so, our adventure had to end.

We visited the turn of the (20th) century home of Franklin Vanderbilt. This at one time was home to one of the richest families in the United States. But now, it is falling apart.

Here are some photos of the outside. We did not want to pay 12 dollars each to go on the inside. we will save that for other historic houses in Hyde Park. (that will be next week. maybe. until then you have to just wonder. or google it to find out where else we could go!)

this is the Vanderbilt Mansion

this is jeff acting like he owns the place

this is me
and the mansion

this is us in the "Italian gardens" on the grounds of the mansion


to read more about the Vanderbilt's and their mansion(s), click here. and here.