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chandamulligan
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Name: Chanda & Bryan
Interests: reading, sleeping, eating, walking, running, biking, camping, various oceans, beaches, tanning, sipping caphirinias, speaking slowly and clearly, journaling, drawing, dreaming, photographing, making out, buying plane tickets, buying ipods, setting up blogsites, languages, surfing, kayaking, the stock market, cooking, curry, creating. FEEL FREE TO EMAIL US AT: chanda_mulligan@hotmail.com or mulbry777@hotmail.com
Expertise: This has nothing to do with our expertise; we just wanted to include these verses somewhere on our blogsite: "Blessed are the man and woman who have grown beyond their greed and have put an end to their hatred and no longer nourish illusions, but they delight in the way of grace and keep their hearts open day and night." --Psalm 1 (3rd century b.c. translation)
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
11/7/2005
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| a long timeOOOh. It feels good to write again. We don't have the internet anymore, so it is difficult to keep up with this. I'm feeling like an update is in order. This past year has seen a ton of change. Fiona is enormous. She is 15 months old this month. Today, actually. I am more in love with her than ever. I guess that tends to happen to parents. The month of July was pretty much our vacation month. A trip to Alexandria with Bryan's family, a solo (just Fiona and me) trip to Wisconsin to see my parents, and then a big family vacation in Boston for the last couple weeks. Boston is glorious, as my friend Kristin would say. So is Gloucester, a small fishing village just north of Boston. I appreciate them both so much for different reasons. We went out there to say goodbye. Bryan's sister Becky, her husband Patrick, and son Marcus are moving to the Middle East next month. It was kind of a crazy time in general, but relaxing in other ways. In the midst of the craziness of being with three children under the age of 3 and adults going in a zillion different directions because they seem to have forgotten how to sit still, Gloucester got under my skin. I am in love with Gloucester. I love the rocks. I love the ocean. I love the fishy, salty smell. I love the people there and their tan, weathered skin. I love the way they congregate on the rocks by the ocean every evening when the sun is sinking. They skip around on the rocks in their swimsuits and slip into the water, telling vacationers from land-locked states that the water is "incredibly warm," when, in fact, it feels like ice. They laugh and smile, and some of them talk with a Boston or New York accent. Many of them have some type of drink in their hand. They share their corn chips with us. They understand things like where to find mussels, where the lobster traps are and which belong to whom, and that the seaweed on the rocks is edible, and actually tastes delicious. As our plane was lifting off the ground, I stared at the ocean and thought about how this wonderful place had become a part of me. At the same time, it felt so good to be home. We opened the door to our house on Montreal Avenue, and the hot air from inside the house puffed in our faces. We ran around, into the kitchen, through the dining room, up the stairs. No wasps got in this time. Everything is still here. Fiona shrieked happy shrieks, like she knew where she was and that maybe she would be staying awhile. Our garden greeted us with big yellow squash and green beans a little bit too big to eat. There were tomatoes and lettuce. We gathered them all up and put them in a big white bowl. They were fun to look at. Our first harvest in our first garden. It felt good.
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| a fresh startIt is January 7th, 2008, and we still have 358 days left of 2008. That makes 2008 relatively new. I love opportunities for a new start. My favorite memories of Christmas 2007: playing the poop train game with Bryan and my brother Brett (a slightly modified version of Mexican Train), mommies and daddies dancing with their babies to Brazilian Playground, and Becky my sister-in-law and me desperately trying to learn the Napoleon Dynamite dance the night before she had to leave when she probably should have been packing. It was a great holiday, everyone caught their holiday cold, and now everyone's recovering. I have three new year's resolutions. They are: dancing, writing (NOT on my blog, but writing for real), and painting. So far I have been dancing and writing, but to be honest, I'm kind of scared to pick up a paintbrush. It's been two years. But I reeeeally want to paint. So I'm going to. I think I'm going to write a children's book about my grandpa. He's so cool. I have never once heard him say anything negative about my grandma. They really love each other. He used to take me for rides in his big red tractor with the air conditioner blasting during spring planting. We talked about farming the whole time. He taught me about tractors, soil, crops, pesticides, and how to have a great time while you're sitting in a tractor planting your fields all day. When he wasn't busy planting or walking beans or mowing or harvesting, he would play games with my brother and me. We especially loved badminton, scrabble, uno, life, rook, and sorry. My grandpa is likely going to have heart surgery this week in Rochester. We are going to have a birthday party for him. His 82nd birthday party.
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