Amb[e]rosia…the ramdomness of Amber

We went to Flicks on 5th last week it was so much fun.  The movie was Horton hears a Who.  ASAP or ACT SWIFTLY AWESOME PACHYDERM according to Horton was my favorite line from the movie.

Flicks on 5th is a great way to spend an early summer evening in Midtown Atlanta.

I wanted to post this on Friday in honor of Oyster girl’s long abandoned FOTO FRIDAY but I got too busy and before I knew it …it was Monday.  This is a photo that my husband took on his trip home to Uganda in January.  It is his sisters and cousins at a resort on Lake Victoria. I like how the focus is on the straws and the lades are in the background sipping their sodas.

DO NOT SWALLOW YOUR

CHEWING-GUM

See what happens ?

This was an email that I received from a coworker last week.

I laugh and forward it on to a few friends including my husband…

This is the response I get from him

“I used to swallow my gum when i was little all the time, this never happened”

I was crying I was laughing so hard!

Maybe he should have swallowed bigger pieces!

The name of this blog came about in discussion with my friend Amanda aka “Oyster Girl.” I am completely random and will jump from one subject to the next and you had better keep up with me.

This post was originally part of my firm’s annual meeting…every new employee must give a one minute presentation on themselves….I decided to tell them 7 random things about myself that may not come up in everyday conversation. There of course was commentary the went along with each slide….for example. The photos at arm’s length first shows a sample of my wonderful photographic abilities and secondly one of my husband’s typical photos….with his own head cut off

1) I’ve been entering religiously EVERYDAY.

2) I talk about winning it all the time…seriously, it is scary how much I talk about it.

3) I’ve been day dreaming about all for the fun events we are going to hold & time we will spend there. The first event will be our first anniversary; June 29, 2008. The second event would be Wooden and Leah’s baby shower to welcome little Christopher Rodney; July 5, 2008…..Farther down the road it would be a great place to bring our own new little bundles of joy home to. Not to mention all of the family Thanksgivings and Christmas celebrations.

4) I am a LEED Accredited Professional and it is a GREEN HOME in a green development.

5) All of the accents in the home are what Lynne has dubbed “Amber Green.”

amber green [am·ber green] adjective,

1.	of the color everything amber wears and owns…similar to chartreuse

All of the accents in our condo and in our wedding are “Amber Green.” I also frequently wear “Amber Green.”

“Amber Green” Items in our condo

-the kitchen

-the hall accent wall

- the living room rug

-dining table runner

- chopsticks

-soy sauce holder that matches chopsticks

- stripes on duvet cover

- really cool pottery bowl with lid

- lamp shades

6) Our golden retriever, Rocky (aka The Rock or Rockstar) would love being that close to the water. Also, the upstairs bathroom would be Rocky’s bathroom after all he does love to shower and it is decorated with dog prints. (Don’t worry Rocky is good at sharing so he will let you use it when you visit.)

7) I love that area of the country. My husband and I both lived in Savannah for 6 years while we attended SCAD. (That was back when you had to drive to Hilton Head, S.C. to go to Target and Old Navy.)

8 ) It has a brand new washer and dryer (in a real laundry room) and after 1.5 years of living on our condo we are now on our second washer/dryer combo (stuffed into a small closet) and this one doesn’t work either.

9) I will be so disappointed if I loose.

So back in July I was able to attend ( through the kindness of a great Sidekick) a knife skills class at a cooking school here in Atlanta. I was thinking of this tonight as I was dicing an onion for the “false Alarm chili” that said Sidekick also introduced me to. Before I could have never diced an onion like that. My onion pieces would have been the size of garlic cloves. Or rather some of them would be.

The class was great and I would highly recomend it to anyone that steps foot in the kitchen. Not only did I learn how not to cut off my finger but I also learned the importance of a good knife. My dicing life will never be the same….

After some encouragement from two very special people I have decided to post.  They said, “just tell us about one thing.”  I’m going to do that but I may actually give you more than one thing.

Thing One -THANKSGIVING… we were here in the ATL this year as we thought James was going to have to travel to Auburn, Alabama for work the day after thanksgiving.   (Thankfully he didn’t have to head out of town and worked on the condo all weekend.  More to come on this project.)  As I was cooking I was thinking of all the things I am thankful for and one of the major things that I am thankful for is WONDERFUL friends.  I was feeling very sentimental about this but I really do have the best friends in the world.

Thing Two… KitchenAide Mixer….I’ve been saving up gift cards from our wedding and I have been trying to decide what to buy.  I love all things kitchen related but you see our kitchen is the size of a postagestamp and we have three tiny  closets in our entire condo.  I have been wanting a kitchen aide mixer for years now and I think i am going to finally do it.  The thing holding me back…well really there are three…they are so darn expensive, were to store it in our postage stamp,  and if I have one I am going to want to use it all the time and that will counteract my healthy eating. 

Thing Three… Daring Bakers…an online community of bakers that have a challenge every month.  Sounds fun.  But you have to apply and provide a link to your blog.  I don’t talk about food on my blog really. Maybe i should start.

I haven’t posted in quite some time.  I just can’t think of a worthy post after posting about the loss of James’ mother.  We are still dealing with it and it is something we will deal with for the rest of our lives.  I think about it often and I know James must think of it at least twice as much.  So many things have happened since I last posted perhaps one day I will post them.

“The loss of a mum” This was the subject line of an email that my husband, James, sent to friends a few days ago.  He was tenderly expressing to them the sadness of loosing his mother, Jane Aguro.  It was just about three months ago that she and his father, Peter Omedo, were here in Atlanta for our wedding.

James’ mother was sick when she was here but not many people knew it.  Her stomach had been bothering her and doctors in Uganda had diagnosed different things…ulcers…tumors…we still don’t know what it was…James even took her to the hospital here in Atlanta but they looked at the records she had brought with her from Uganda and told her it was gall stones.  She actually felt better while in the US… we think it was the happiness of seeing her son after not seeing him for 8 years.  On the plane ride home she became very ill and could not bear the pain.  After returning to Uganda she was under the care of three doctors and about a month ago she had surgery to remove part of her stomach.  After spending two weeks in the hospital she was sent home to recover.  We spoke to her monday evening she said she was very week and her stomach was hurting her.  We thought she was getting better.

On Friday evening September 21 Jane Aguro left behind her husband, 7 children and one grandchild.  She is now in God’s hands.  Rest in peace mum, rest in peace.

I would like to add a few photos of James’ mum at our wedding.  She was so truely happy.  I will always remember her this way as the three weeks they spent with us in the United States is the only time I will have ever really known her.  We are so thankful that James was able to see both of his parents before his mother left this world.  We thank God for giving him that last time to be with his mother.

So james, Paul, Herbert, Nneyka and I all got Lucky last week….together….in an old theatre in Atlanta.   We got Lucky but not the way you are thinking.  We were attending the Lucky Dube concert.  It was at the Variety Playhouse in Little 5 points.

James grew up listening to Lucky Dube he liked him before he became a reggae artist…..back when he was into a traditional Zulu music known as Mbaqanga.  James often opens my eyes to new things south African music is one of those things.  I have been listening to Lucky Dube for the past 3.75 years of our relationship I just didn’t know it.  Brenda Fasse is another South African artist that I love.  James also introduced me to her.

I ‘d like to comment a bit on how refreshing it was to be at the Lucky Dube concert.  His bio says that his parents christened him “Lucky” because he was born very sick and was lucky to be alive.  In my opinion Lucky Dube has carried this positive attitude with him through his entire career.  All of his songs were positive….this is what was so refreshing.  Today so much music is about killing, shooting and other terrible things.

After the concert I was contemplating this fact.  I was wondering if that positive energy was stemming from the fact that Lucky first became popular in the 1980’s and things were just more positive then or if that is just Lucky’s outlook on life.  I think I’ve decided it is just his outlook on life. 

 I will leave you with one of my faves from Lucky Dube… this is some of the song from a recent concert he did in Columbus.  I would also like to add that the singer in RED was my favorite!  She had such great facial expressions.