Put on the Glasses

Yep, we all knew it was coming. They found me, they sent me a questionairre and we all knew that it was going to happen eventually. I have been summoned. I will let you all know the details after it happens in a little over a week. Bah humbug.

In this installment of the tale of our garden I bring you the flower bed. Brian and I used chunks of wood found in the backyard to section off the side of the garden. I aded a layer of top soil to it after I dug out most of the weed roots, big rocks and garbage. In the corner closest to me in the picture you can see the toy car and domino that Brian found while digging in the grass patch. We like to keep the more amusing things that we find. For plants, Brian and I first brought his huge ivy plant out from the kitchen where it spent the winter. Then I bought some day lily and canna bulbs and planted them in the box. There is also a mixture of flower seeds coming in near the front of the box. The pots are some random things I am growing. So far I have marigolds, forget me nots, onions and chives coming in. My cilantro seems to be dying already but that's okay. I went into this with little hope for any plant's survival under my care! So far it looks rather pretty, the l...

At the risk of sounding sickeningly cutesy I am posting this email. Earlier today Brian sent me this message in an email. I laughed so hard that I had to share it with all of you. Here it is: Let's do a quick choose your own adventure: 1) Does Brian love you more? If yes, go to question 2. If no, go to question 3. 2) Are we drinking tonight? If yes go to question 4. If no, go to question 3. 3) What are you, stupid? Yes, I'll go back to question 1 and try again. 4) Damn straight. Brian always makes me laugh.

Our latest installment of Garden Project '09 takes us back to the section of the garden that we worked with last year. Yes, in the very spot where Brian's poor zinnias met their tragic end due to flooding, Brian is now trying to seed grass. We have no idea if this will work. Really, we just want something that isn't dirt or weeds. Also, we don't want to put the effort into flowers again just to see them perish. Here is Brian digging through the dirt removing rocks. There were a shocking amount of large rocks under the soil. It is now no surprise why Brian's flowers fell over last year: their roots just hit rocks. Here are all of the rocks that Brian removed (to the left of our path). We later used them to line our sitting area. Here is the area after we seeded it. We really have no clue what we are doing. Sunday, when we went out to water the seed, a cat had dug a hole in the soil, using the area as a litter box. Later that evening, Oreo dug a whole and us...

Above is yet another cat that is frequenting our backyard. We are calling him Nero. He is pretty scared of us but likes to sit and watch us from a distance. Nero seems fitting since he has such fiery orange eyes. Oreo is still doing well, aggravating Livia every chance he gets. Here he is under Livia's favorite window taking a nap. You can just barely make our Livia in the window glaring at him. Here is a good picture I got of Brian and Oreo: Since Oreo seems to hang around every time we go outside it is almost as if we have multiple cats. We have our indoor Livia and our outdoor Oreo. Hopefully the other feral cats will continue to keep their distance so that we do not end up caring for the whole neighborhood!

This weekend, the garden project continued with a new addition to the garden: mulch. Late Friday night, like the dorks we are, Brian and I trekked down to the Home Depot in Bed-Stuy to look at gardening supplies. Brian decided that he had to buy something to cover the dirt where our bench and table sit. I admit, I was skeptical at first. Brian wanted cedar mulch and I had never dealt with mulch before. I don't know anything about it or what you have to do to maintain it. However, I set my reservations aside in view of the fact that each bag of mulch was only $3. Plus, Brian offered to carrying all of the mulch home on the subway (I only had to carry bulbs and a mini-Weber grill; I am spoiled). Any doubts I had about the mulch quickly dissolved as I watched Brian spread it out in the area under our bench and table, as seen above and below. Not only does the cedar smell great, but it is nice to be walking on something that was not only cheap but also significantly prettier th...

Last weekend, Brian and I went back to Minnesota for Easter. We had a lot of fun visiting Brian's family at his grandparent's house and my family at my sister's house. Lots of ham and good conversation! We also had fun at Berns and Brandon's house party! Livia stayed home in Brooklyn with Jay checking in on her. Jay said that Livia was a great hostess, even if she ate Jay's hair again. When we got back Livia would not let us out of her sight. In the above picture, she sat on my luggage when Brian and I were leaving to take a walk. She clearly didn't want me taking off again and made her point clear by keeping me from taking any luggage with me out the door. The picture below was taken at my parent's house. My mom hid chocolate around the living room for me and Brian to find. I just wanted to post to let everyone know that Livia is doing well, Brian and I are back in Brooklyn and to thank everyone who we saw over Easter for showing us such a great time...

She is still cute and she is a thousand times better than any fish.

James Tiberius Fish the Second died sometime this evening peacefully in his fishbowl. He will be missed. We will never buy a fish from the PetCo at Union Square ever again. We are done with fish for a while.

I am testing out the photoblogging function on my phone as an excuse to brag about our trash can.  It was free!  Brian noticed it in the hall right after some guys moved out of an apartment upstairs and we grabbed it. (There was an old cable bill in it so we knew it belonged to them). It is a Simple Human trash can so it is like we got a $90 trash can for free!  We thoroughly sanitized it and have been enjoying how much bigger it is than our old bin. Yay free stuff!

This is a test post.  I am checking to see if I can post to my blog from my phone.  If this works, I will be able to take a picture on my phone and email it in immediately. I have no idea if this will actually be usful to me but it seems like a fun feature!  I hope it works!

Here are the pictures that I promised of the garden after our big cleanup. Above you can see Brian putting in the new solar lights we bought at the hardware store. They make the garden look very romantic at night. The wood that Brian is standing in front of is going to become a flower box when the weather gets nicer. We put our table that we got from Target last summer in front of the bench to make a nice reading/drinking/eating area. This is a different view of the area where you can see the stone path we created. We still have a lot of white rocks to pick out of the mud from the old garden to the left of the path, but that is a project for another day. Here is Brian from another angle. It was hard to get a complete picture so I hope that I can convey how much cleaner it looks back there. It is really nicer to see something other than trash out of your back window. The next step is plants! Right now I have a big Jiffy seeder next to the kitchen window with a bunch of differ...

Got the logo from adriarichard's photostream I am trying out Twitter now. It seems pretty neat and I keep hearing about it everywhere so I figured it was time to give it a go. I am not going to go into a long description of how it works. I just felt like letting people know! I have added Twitter updates to my sidebar (on the right side of the screen). Now I am just like Brian! If you are on Twitter too, come find me!

James Tiberius Fish the First died suddenly last week. The cause could not be determined by lab results. I do mean that literally. After he died, Brian took the deceased fish back to the PetCo. where we got him. They apparently had wanted Brian to bring in a separate vile of the water the fish died in in order to determine if the water was bad for the fish. They would not accept the water the dead fish was sitting in for testing. The whole process was a bit ridiculous but, in the end, we got a new fish. Meet James Tiberius Fish the Second. We call him James. He is almost all grey (matching our Livia). As a result of the sudden death of James' predecessor, we are constantly asking: "Is he dead?!" "Are his gills moving?" "Is he eating anything?" "Are we feeding him too much or too little?" "Is he sleeping?" It has made us both a bit neurotic. Here's hoping this one lives! Long live James Tiberius Fish the Second!

Yesterday, Brian and I continued working on Garden Project '09. Here, Brian is working on getting rid of the random bits of lumber that we found in the backyard. He is being nice and tying a handle for the guys who pick it up from the curb. Above is a picture of Brian on a bench he made. I was going to make a bench out of the wood but we soon discovered that it was a real headache to make with our limited tools and impatience. So, Brian showed his creativity by resting a hunk of wood on top of two cinder blocks in the back yard. It is surprisingly comfortable! I know Brian doesn't look super happy in the picture but that is just because we were very tired. In fact, my whole body is sore today from all the yard work. This shows all of the trash that we got rid of this weekend. Recall, we got rid of this many bags a few weeks ago too! There was a lot of trash, leaves, twigs and junk in the backyard. We even got rid of a another dead rat and a bird skeleton. Here is ...

I spotted this beautiful old school when I was walking the other day. It is in the hasidic section of Brooklyn where most of the signs are in Hebrew. What shocked me about the age of the building were the entrances: This one says "Girl's Entrance" and the building is old enough that the street name is etched into the building. This is the "Boy's Entrance." The really odd part is that the Hasidim actually do use the entrances as they are labeled. At least that is what it looked like the first time I passed it. I think it is interesting and I wish I knew more about it.

Click on the slideshow to go to my web album of pictures from my blog.

I'm Alicia Glaser Copeland and this is my website.  I originally created this site for family and friends back in Minnesota to check in on me.  It has now morphed into my personal scrapbook of photos, thoughts, projects and ideas.  Here are some fast facts about me: Grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota Yes, that's the home of the Mall of America. Went to college at the University of Minnesota in Duluth I firmly believe that Lake Superior is the best lake in the world. Spent a year studying abroad in Birmingham, England I miss real fish and chips. Got a degree in English I can officially make up words and grammar as I go along.  Moved to Brooklyn for law school I love Brooklyn!   My borough can beat up your borough. Passed the New York Bar Exam The test was more of an endurance test than a difficult exam.  It took two exceedingly long days.   Married in Las Vegas to the love of my life It was actually a totally normal weddi...

It turns out that registering to vote puts you on a jury after all. All those lazy non-voters were right after all. I got this "questionnaire" in the mail last week. Of course, I know I am going to end up on a jury. I speak English, I have no felonies and I am a resident of Brooklyn. Brian got one too. I'll post if they summon me. Until then, see if you can spot the glaring typo in the above letter. i know that I covered most of it up (for privacy) but I made sure that the error was still visible.

I spotted this sign not far from my apartment when Brian and I were driving the U-haul back to Ikea. I saw it, I almost said, "Hey! Someone is sticking their fingers out from a grate!" Then I realized it was a flat photo pasted to the side of the building and I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes. I walked back later to get pictures of it. I love it.