predatory cache

So I did have qwuite a fun New Year's at Maciek's. I got to see my baby (Shout out, I LOVE YOU sweetie!) and many of his friends, lots of yummy food (way too much) and drinks... I did, however, get a lil too drunk for my own good (they gotta stop passing the caramel moonshine to me - i like to take ona challenge!) and certainly did not feel so hot later on in the night (1st time in a WHILE)! *groan*

My sis Mon was there as well, which was awesome, and her new boyfriend Josh from PA (Eco-man, YAY! u rock! lol) came up - I think we all had a blast. Fighting over the almost empty and nearly completely crushed deer park water bottle was an enjoyable and documented highlight. I do think I had the wettest jeans in the house... c'mon, it's WATER!! HAh!

So to make a long story short I saw about a millisecond of the New Year's Rockin Eve (or whatever it's called these days - don't even know if Dick Clark is on there anymore) show streaming on the computer screen, but enjoyed many people's company, now remember at LEAST almost ALL of Maciek's friends' names (tehehee! SHUD UP!), and will have a grin crack on my face each time I recall Josh curled up, fetus-style on the one person chair! Then waking up to him shouting "CICHO!" (Quiet in Polish - we DID teach him some Polish while he was up here) German-style at sweet lil Dino (the precious gold-headed silver-bodied Yorkie that is very cute sweet playful and not usually yappy!)and listening to Evanescence throughout the morning.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - may 2007 bring you & yours health and happiness, many blessings, and the fulfillment of dreams and ambitions that are to be...! Bad times pass and are necessary building blocks, and the best is yet to come. Have faith.

"I can do everything through him who strengthens me" [Philippians 4:13]

I can't believe tomorrow is my LAST day at Skylands CLEAN!!! And I just
found out I am getting the parttime job at Tenafly Nature Center to
start in late January after the PRAXIS Exams!!!!!

And tomorrow is my and Maciek's 6 month anniversary!!!!!!!!!

I will be applying to Montclair University and Ramapo College for their
Teacher Education program to get certified to teach Earth Science and
hopefully start up full time with school in the Fall!!!!

And now I need to leave to go to a planning board meeting in Wanaque
(the last HOORAH!) and sit there bored to tears until they entertain
developer George Capodagli's Preliminary Approval application for 96 units on 35
acres of environmentally sensitive land on Federal Hill in Wanaque - this
COULD be GOOD. Hope that we can kill this one off!

I am sorry, I am extremely hyper, which I have not been in some time...
I have been lacking energy lately and going through stuff, but wow! The
Lord is sooo good! So I will send a more sensible e-mail when I have calmed
down. :)

What a SWAMP... ze neverending battle to do it all!
Sooo...where to begin?

CHURCH - I have a HOME church at long last (which i am SOoooooooo excited about!!!!) - Cornerstone Christian Church in Wyckoff, NJ, a non-denomenational, great Bible teaching church. I think Katherine can be testimony to that - when she visited Joisey from the long lost North Carolina in August, she came with me one Sunday. WHICH, btw, anyone who is around any Sunday, you are MOST WELCOME to visit my church anytime. AND I will be helping at the Sunday school for the Children's Ministry (I AM SUPER EXCITED about it, my first time being involved like this)! I really wanted to teach, but can't commit to every single Sunday yet, so I am helping with crafts for the lil dudes - 2-5 yr olds at 8:30am the 4th Sunday of every month and may sub.

CAVING - Pictures from Sunday June 10, 2006 Clarksville Cave Trip can be found at the following site (some nice ones were submitted by Ayzha):
http://www.geocities.com/cnico.geo/photos_page1.html
I went caving with UYACEF to Clarksville Cave in upstate NY near Albany and it was awesome, although I have qwuite a story about the trip to the same cave on Sunday August 6, 2006!!! That will be for the next dose.

Well I gotta run now. Skylands CLEAN is doing a fundraiser with Rita's Italian Ice in Wanaque from 6-11pm and I need to be there for a spell! YUMMY Rita's Ice... mmm... and even better on a 60 degree night when clouds are foreboding of POURING rains from Hurricano Ernesto! And I still sound somewhat like a sniffling fish crow, better than the froggie horse of the other day!

Welcome to the middle-to-end of September!

"And the leaves on the trees are falling..." (~ Van Morrisson, hehe) They really are, the leaves, on the trees..... falling! there are beautiful reds floating to the ground just behind our office....

WORK - It's been a super crazy busy past couple weeks and honestly I have been qwuite overwhelmed at work... there;'s just been so much going on and I don't feel like I can handle it. I feel a bit better today, but the past few weeks.... phew. There's a Council meeting in Wanaque tonight and I really don't want to go. And the Planning Board meeting Thursday night will be a biggie... I am very much worried about that one. I love a lot of the work we do, and although I have learned a lot and have been gaining invaluable experience, I am not finding a passion for land use law and it has been quite stressful on me as well. I don't usually talk about it through e-mail. This will take thought...

TRIBUTE TO FEEBEE - But my kitty kat Feebee cracks me up... last nite she was sleeping on my covers so that I could not get under them, so I had to flip them over her, figuring she'd bolt like she usually does when you breathe in her general direction, LoL. Well, she stayed! She slept with me the WHOLE night - AWWWWW! - hehehe, UNDER the covers completely. Feebee's antics of late are great entertainment - the way she flies off the handle and bolts when you approach, the way a while back she nestled herself b/w these bed sheets and blankets that were folded up on the floor so that only her head was sticking out.... the way she scratches @ the back door when she wants to come in - YES she actually does, it kinda sounds like a squeeky cleaning rubbing noise and so then I know she's there :).... EVEN the way she's starting to meow! She never meowed before, but now I think she's learning from Tigger! Oh terror of terrors! hehe..

CAR (my CACTUS) - I am still loving my car... this baby will take a while to pay off, but it's worth it. I will come to the point sometime when I NEVER accidentally stall for long drawn out periods of time, I know I will. :) Ha, it's not that often really. The Maintenance REQUID light came on a while back and would not go away, but I found out it was just because it hadn't been shut off after my last oil change. Oh, and my tip is to not hold a pen near the steering wheel, b/c I made a mark up there by accident, grrr... Simple Green or the other organic based cleaner I got, works ok. And I had a lil tiny spider living in my car for a while... it was SO CUTE!!!! It crawled across my dashboard and near the music buttons..a lite cream green colour...
Until later.

"I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. ... It is more blessed to give than to receive," ~ [Acts 20:35]

Updates:

RUTGERS FOOTBALL - I got burned yesterday at the Rutgers football game and totally didn't expect it! BAH! I thought the sunscreen season had passed us. Well, it was a fun time, although a total shut-out for poor Illinois. Rutgers won 33 - 0. My brother Adam was wonderful as ever on his fabulous drum with the marching band, although he was "too cool" in his BLACK stuffy long sleeved band suit to talk to me & Maciek out there, right? ;) haha
And I was never your sportsfan, but this is fun. And hey, getting the tix 4 FREE due to having blood relatives in the marching band ain't so bad. ;)
So Adam's back at Rutgers for Fall - it seems like just a few weeks back my mom and I were moving him out (back in May). A great time to hit up a service @ Calvary Chapel Old Bridge while being down there if it's a Sunday (near New Brunswick) - YEAH!

PET SITTING - A while back (June) I had the pleasure of living at my friend Nancy's house in Ringwood at the Weis Ecology Center for a week while she was in Maine, so I had a GREATLY shortened commute (down from 45 min to 10 min) which was so nice. I got to look after Simon ze cat and Gollum ze snake, both lovely specimens (although Simon's a little crazy, but don't tell him I said so! well, actually, i told him to his face qwuite a few times hehee). It was a week of meetings as well so I couldn't be around a whole lot, but I experience almost tripping over the resident lil black bear as I stepped out of the house 8am one morning (100 pounder or so) - and listening to the foghorn type dealie another morning int he efforts to scare mr. lil bear off. And I must say playing ultimate frisbee with some of the Weis folks was great.

OUTER BANX, NC - So after the pet sitting, in July our family had a vacation to the Outer Banx, NC. Despite a lonnnng trafficky drive down and not finding the house until 10:30pm (we meandered around Duck, Kittihawk, and Southern Shores for a good hour), we made it at last, and had a wonderful week. You would think tho, that a well to-do real estate place would be able to provide well oriented maps that are well marked and easy for the lay person to understand.... and that a cottage for rental would be defined by a HOUSE # on the street and not a PROPERTY #! (I was very reasonable and in the evaluation). So we loved the beach (even after I got some crazy heat rash all over the back of my legs and back - but it went away the next day) & hit up lots of great seafood restaurants.

CRABBING - My dad, bro & I went crabbing and caught 11 crabs with just sticks, string, & lil bitty chicken legs! AW YEAH I think I had the biggest crab, WOOHOO! Those were great cooked up for dinner.

SEA KAYAKING - We rented 2 sea kayaks for the week and fared the waves (that was a blast!). One of the later days the waves were rougher and we got a little pummeled, hence I came home with a few more bruises than I had left with. But the bruises have since receded :) I also think I overdid it with the kayak - and the texting ont he cell - b/c I strained the the interossicular muscles in my right hand and had to pop advils and wear a wrist brace for a couple week. You don't realize how fortunate you are to be able to use the hand your write and use for primary functions until it's busted and you gotta try to drive stick shift, type, use a mouse and eat with it... heh heh

HANG GLIDING - Mon, Adam & I took a beginner Hang-Gliding lesson and learned how to Hang Glide at Jockey's Ridge State Park in Kill Devil Hills, NC! This is the #1 place in the world to learn how to hang glide, the most ppl have. We have some great fotos from that. I tell you, even tho we were only 10 feet or so off the ground, it was AMAZING to feel that flying feeling... even tho our instructor was not too far below, holding a string attached to the hang glider. Looking out into the blue sky and feeling FREE... even tho you're strapped in around the legs, you've got this huge body glove smock thing around your chest that you're hanging in, all hooked into the glider. :) Foruntaely I was able to land on my FEET on my 5th flight, and not crash into the sand like the 1st 4 flights, LoL! Monika had some AWESOME and beautiful flights (what a pro!). I was so grateful we heeded our parents' advice and stuck it out even tho the wind direction was stinky that day (North) and we had to go down the shallowest dune. It turned out wonderful! It's also especially beautiful being up there on the "living dunes" at sunset to see the pinks oranges blues yellows ahhhh... Oh, and for anyone who's interested, the hang gliding is $89/ person for the 3 hr beginner lesson and I would SOOO recommend it to all!!! www.kittihawk.com.
We also went to the Wright Bros. Museum - fascinating to be reminded of the history of flight... we weren't really meant to fly naturally :), but given the brains and capability to figure it out!

HAPPY SPRING!!! Tomorrow is the first day of SPRING, I await it all!
Also, Happy late St. Patrick's Day! I wore lots of green (including green care bear with a clover!)Goldberg's was selling green mini-bagels - woohoo! I love green. And corned beef and cabbage is rather tasty in my opinion, contrary to the views of many! At least it is at Nellie's Place. A guy came in playing the bagpipe, I got a picture with him, cheeseball that I am - good times, right Lynn?!

PANCAKE BRUNCH: So I just came from a wonderful Weis Pancake Brunch earlier today. The famous Weis natural maple syrup made onsite was very good! Pancakes and sausage and mocha cawfee! Ahhh... I remember 2 yrs ago, all the work that went into collecting the tree sap (which is about 97% water and 3% sugar) from the Sugar Maples, trucking 5-gallon jugs across the field, cooking it up all day in the kitchen... 40 gallons of sap to make 1 galloon of maple syrup! And when I made my own batch all by myself one Monday (my day off at the time) because I felt bad for the trees and didn't want to waste the sap and ended up spilling part of it all over the kitchen floor(you didn't hear that, Karla!)! :) YAH! We still have some of that syrup at home and need to eat it! YUM!

WWW HIKE: The brunch was at 2pm after Don Weise's strenuous 9-mile Pancake Challenge Hike in Norvin Green State Forest by Weis Ecology Center, and it rocked!!!! I survived it; my 1st WWW (Weis Wyanokie Wanderers) strenuous hike and I made it all the way through! I felt like wobbly rubber and spaghetti legs by the end, and the last hour (the whole hike was from 9:30am to 2pm) or so were definitely tougher, but I was surprised how well it went and really enjoyed it. Bushwhacking up steep terrain OH YEAHHH!!! So invigorating. I've missed the east coast, tho i do also miss California now.
OOOH OOOOH it SNOWED while we were out, but there were also bouts of sun, so it was gorgeous!! THe flakes were HUGE; it must have been just borderline, maybe 33 or 34 degrees, b/c it did not feel cold. I'm glad you came out for the hike too, Will, and mom and Adam for the brunch! :) Great to see the Weis folks again too!!!

WEIS HOUSE: I actually looked into renting a house a few weeks back. It's behind Weis in Ringwood, NJ, the town I work in. It's super cute, beigeish exterior, 2 levels inside, and is very tempting to rent b/c of location and surroundings. It's 5 miles from work, a less than 10 minute drive, 24+ miles of awesome hiking trails right there and my Weis friends!! (YAY WEISLAND!) Many cute things about the house and the secret door panel through the floor to downstairs is wicked cool, BUT the ceiling downstairs is an INCH above my head and that is where the bathroom is, so I'd have to have the room down there... Closterphobia!

MT. PETER SKIING: Yesterday I went skiing @ Mt. Peter with my parents (I had INTENDED to do income taxes all day, and we all know how very enticing that is) and attended the annual end of the ski season pig roast bash. Weather was beautiful today and yesterday, but snow kinda stunk yesterday. Icyness underneath all the fake snow which my skis were not crazy about. But who can complain about a free pass! And the adrenaline of flying down the hills, despite the tinyness of the trails there :) More time waiting on the line and chairlift than skiing. Want to make it up to Okemo, VT (where my parents went this year for a few days and said it was GREAT) and many mountains further north someday. So that comes to 2 days skiing this warm winter.

I WAS ON FIRE/ NJDEP HEARING: Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all that I was on fire a few weeks back. LOL. It was February 25th, the day of the NJDEP (NJ Department of Environmental Protection) Hearing in Bloomingdale for a "hardship waiver" for a developer D.R. Horton who wants to construct a bridge over an already flood prone area into a pristine forested area called "Federal Hill". THis would mess up things for many of the residents, create more displacement and flooding, disturbance to the waterway and land. The hearing was GREAT - there were so many quotable objectors, like, "The developer does not have a hardship. There are other options that have not been explored. I would like to show you what hardship is all about if you grant them this waiver". GREAT stuff!
So after the hearing I went home and was busy writing schedule in on the calendar, right by our kitchen stove. My mom was cooking up a storm fabulous meal, so the burners were going. I was wearing a long courdoroy jacket over another shirt and started to feel very warm. It was a breezy day outside, so the warmness was very much welcomed...ahh...wow...it feels REALLY warm... hmm... the stove doesn't project qwuite THAT much heat... AHHHHHHHH I'M ON FIRE!!!!! Flapping about, then remembering from back in the day (stop drop and roll, stop drop and roll!) so of course I dropped to the kitchen floor and rolled over on the jacket, effectively putting out the flames. Lying there right by the cat's food and water bowls, after the horror fear and frustration, I cracked up. No burns on me, Praise God!

CALVARY CHAPEL BERGENFIELD: Great news that I don't know if I'd shared with all, but I've been attending a lovely lil church for some time. Pretty much since November I have been going to the Calvary Chapel of Bergenfield, NJ, a small church about 15 or 20 min from my parents' house that is an outreach of Calvary Chapel Old Bridge, which is about an hour away. I can't always make it out there, but it is my home church now and I love it. Great worship, wonderful kind people (reminds me a lil of HMB! I miss you guys!!!) and a youth Bible Study on Tuesday nights that I have been going to, but again, I cannot always make it regularly. A lot of times I have work meetings and such on Tuesday nites. But it is such a blessing to be there!

TOXIC LEGACY: This I could go on about for a LONG time, but for now, I just want to leave you with the website www.toxiclegacy.com. It's the Record's following of the Ford toxic dumpsite in Ringwood, a very tragic situation for the Ramapoughs, a nation-recognized Indian tribe, having to deal with the repurcussions of Ford Motor Co.'s dumping in the late 1960's to early1970's. MOre later.

~ Love Eve :)

"I can do everything through him who strengthens me" [Philippians 4:13]

so dry my tongue feels the desicaation of my throat
my eyes burn
I wait for you Lord..... my soul waits
Jesus why have I betrayed you?

I cry and wail on the shower floor
warm water filtering over my supplication
prostrate and quivering
as I long to give myself over to you,
what I cannot seem to do

I feel like I've been in a prison cell - not each day or hour, but coming and going, in a way always hanging overhead like a dark abyssmal mist. A mist so thick, that once entered, it takes breaking through a wall that the mist has become, to get out. But I stay away from the mist, maybe a week or a few days... then it envelops me, a fierce possession. A trance.

Do I care if I pass by someone in need? Do I care if I put myself in danger to fulfill that pointless, relentless self-destructive yearning?

NO. Yes, I do, but the trance whisks it away.
Satan.

And this is what destroys me. I want to help, and I want to tear my hair out that I pass by, that I do what I do. As Paul says in Romans, "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want."

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
OH MY GOSH WHAT A CRAZY DAY!!!!!!!!!!
HA HA HA HA!!! God is so cool cause he got me through it!!! So neat how things turn out when you run over a brick in the middle of the highway after running around like mad at work, all alone to get a tax return for the company in b4 the end of the year to get out early so you can meet the insurance broker to sign papework you been tryin to work out for a week and then go to the dealership to pick up a NEW CAR that needs to be off the lot by the end of the year.
I love AAA also! Less than an hour to get to me on the highway as I made frantic calls about the predicament and munched on chicken in the front seat.

So Cactus, my lil babe, is my new car, and she was just brought home 2nite... Or is it a boy... not sure... well, maybe a lil femminine... a girl! Ok, Cactus mica (a light green - beeeeeuuuutiful!) 2006 Toyota Corolla LE stick shift w/ ABS and front/side curtain airbags!

So yeah....lotsa details with today, but save that for the nuts who actually get through to talk to me.

Ze Jetta, she is at my friend Katherine's family's house b/c our driveway is PACKED with a panoply of colourful motorized vehicles! The garage is stuffed w/ weights, donation stuff, old couch (that needs to be taken away - bought hopefully!). So there's a greyish 2000 Ford Windstar, goldish orangey 98 Toyota Corolla automatic, white 2005 Honda civic, WAS my bright red 97 VW Jetta, but now the Toyota. Mon and Adam (the joyous sibs) are home (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY - and that is NOT completely sarcastic ;)) so we're packed.
Jetta's gettin donated to the National Children's Cancer Society, they're coming on Tuesday to pick up. (Sorry Genevieve, she served me well, tho!)

ALMOST 2006!!!!! Goodbye 2005, hello a new year for renewed vigor, vitality and zest for life, right??? Ha, no. I am NOT always filled with this much enthusiasm, but I try. :)

So b4 i make this TOOO long, here is some JOYOUS news that you may have already heard! The in the Military Appropriations Bill that Sen. Stevens (R- Alaska) has been pushing his almighty 82 yr old foot to pass, has been stripped of the sneaky addendum to get ANWR drilled (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). YAYYY!!! So that's scotfree.... for a year anyways.
Here's the article!
God Bless! Merry late Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Holidays!
Tidings of joy for the NEW YEAR!!!!

~ Love eve


December 22, 2005
A HOLIDAY GIFT FOR THE ARCTIC!
Arctic Refuge Drilling Language Stripped From Defense Bill

Yesterday the Senate voted to remove Arctic drilling language from the Defense Appropriations bill, 56-44. The actual vote was on whether to shut down the filibuster to protect the Arctic, for which we needed 40 votes. The list of those voting is below.

This is a remarkable achievement and marks the end of a long arduous battle this year to protect the Arctic from drilling. Audubon has worked tirelessly alongside virtually every other conservation group out there to stop this latest series of attacks. After efforts to attach drilling language to the Budget Reconcilation bill failed in the House, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) added his Arctic plan to the Senate Defense Appropriations bill - a backdoor effort to attach controversial legislation to a must-pass bill.

We once again turned to our Senate champions to commit to a filibuster - a difficult political ask. Once again Senators Cantwell (D-WA), Leiberman (D-CT), Boxer (D-CA), Feinstein (D-CA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Durbin (D-IL) and Reid (D-NV), among others, stepped to the plate and they fought for the Refuge. Thirty-four other Democrats and two Republicans, Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Mike DeWine (R-OH), joined them in defeating the motion to end the filibuster.

Please take this opportunity to thank the following Senators and Representatives who have worked extra hard over the last several weeks to protect the Arctic Refuge Please call them using the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Please also call their district office. To find those numbers check out the following websites: www.senate.gov and www.house.gov

I was trying to send some pics from my digicam to my sis... computer was takin FRIGGIN 4ever the other nite and I wasted time got pissed and I think it didn't work. BUT Iafter the aggravationa nd trying to change the format of a pic so I could actually put it on my MySpace page, I got it up there! That was a triumph!
YAY!!
I felt so pissy and aggravted the later part of today. Suigh I know not why.
I was praying so hard in the car and needed worship music the whole commute home. You know those days where just every little thing grates on you? Or at least you feel like it does? yeah... well it's cool. I'm just obsessive.
I want to be a better person and at these times I feel I am cruel and vile. To rationally observe, absorb, to lovingly live for others... SO HARD.
Of course I feel too rushed now to go into detail, this is SO vague and kind of stream of conscioussy, I know. :) TIS I!

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!! I know I hunted mine down ;)
Spent some kickass time with my girl Jamie who flew in from LA yesterday and extended family including my goddaughter and cousins!! Yum YUM sooooo much goooood foooood and drink! HOORAH!