Friday the 13th

Hello everyone! TGIF - that is all I can say! What a tortuous week starting with Monday snow/rain - ugh. Leah will understand my dilemma at work - my co-worker, Susan, had a cold this week and oh my god we were all tortured. It was something like this: uuuuuuuuuhemmmmm, cough, cough, cough, snnniffffllle, snort, pause 10 seconds, repeat the same sounds - THE ENTIRE DAY. Now, at one point, her boss asked her to go home, BUT SHE SAID NO, "I'm fine". I swear, the next time, I will ask to go home and she can cough and snort the whole day without me!!!!

Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

My next dilemma was finding the time and location to get my car fixed. If I brought my car to the auto shop on Canton Ave., I would have to drive up the street at 7:30 a.m. and then walk 1 1/2 miles back to Mattapan Square and then catch a trolley to Ashmont, a train to Andrew Square and then wait for a crosstown bus to take me to the hospital, or walk the 1 1/2 miles to the hospital. Then repeat this on the return trip back to get my car at the end of the day. Instead, I chose to drive to Watertown this morning (1/2 hr. trip) to the auto shop, walk a few steps to the bus stop, take the express bus to Copley (10 minutes) and then I walked from Copley to my hospital on a beautiful, bright, sunny but chilly morning. Thanks for listening to me. Hopefully the damn car won't cost me a million bucks - I swear it would be easier to drive the thing into the Charles River!

I WAS THRILLED to see a post from Leah - love the pictures - it looks fabulous in LA. AND MR. BONARRIGO is hairless on his face - he looks fabulous clean shaven and, well, he just looks fabulous! Thank you Miss Leah for posting the pictures and keeping up with this blog.

I was also thrilled to see Judie's post. Hopefully we will hear from Sarah - maybe over the weekend. I will have to find out why Trish is unable to get onto the blog - she doesn't know what she is missing!

My dance class last Sunday was so much fun - salsa, the cha cha, the tango - I will be going to the class again on Sunday.

Everyone have a wonderful weekend! Hope to hear more details from Sarah!

Saying Goodbye to Los Angeles

Just relaxing and indulging and little bit of exercise and site seeing. Can you see the hollywood sign in the back. Squint really hard! It felt much closer than it photographs!

Look closely and you can see the downtown Los Angeles skyline. How weird right? Just walking through runyan canyon and we come across a house right off the path oh and also a farm?!! on the hillside no less.

Lee hiking down a small closed off path. Haha hiking lee and I...we had a blast.
A sign at the beginning of our hike told me to watch out for rattle snakes and I didn't much care for that!

Me and Los Angeles. or Runyan Canyon rather.

Went to Disneyland yesterday and got in for FREE thanks to a young employee who offered to get us in! What a magical day. My favorite rides are space mountain and of course I love Dumbo, but I am afraid I really am too old to ride on it. So I watch the kids on Dumbo and the tea cups!

MICKEY!

Lee's favorite ride is Mr. Toad's wild ride and of course the indiana jones ride which was awesome! Here is Lee with Mr. Toad!

Spring is coming our way!

SOON THE POLLEN WILL BE TICKLING OUR SINUSES!

Sarah, what are the flowers like in Australia? Do they have palm trees or cactus?

How was your evening at the wine tasting?

Debbie, how was your first dance class? Is it similar to Salsa dancing? Will you get a tall well-dressed member of the opposite sex to tango you around the room? If so, give him my phone number!

Leah, how is your vacation going? Amidst the packing, do some fun tourist stuff.

Andy, Are you out there? Are you online? We need a male voice on this blog to keep us from badmouthing men. What do the girls at your college look like? This is not a loaded question.

Love, Judie

Embrace all peoples of the world!

This could be Debbie at Curves or Sarah at her music class. You go girls! Leah, have a wonderful trip. Our love to Lee from Larry and me. Don't speak to any stray kangaroos! Spring is just around the corner. Judie

Patience is a Virtue

I just knew we were going to hear from Sarah! It is so good to hear from you and see your pictures. It sounds like your experience is wonderful. Aunt Judie will be fascinated to read your entries and see the pictures. We look forward to connecting by way of this blog! It is a gray and dismal day today but at least it is going to warm up. We have about 1/2 foot of snow on the ground and really enough is enough - bring on spring! We turn our clocks ahead tomorrow - definitely a sign of spring! Leah leaves for L.A. later today and I am sure she is looking forward to this vacation. She worked very hard this past week with her library project and had a presentation in class yesterday - I am hoping that this went well for her.

Again, it is so exciting to hear from Sarah!

This weekend I am working at curves on Saturday (what else is new) and on Sunday I will be returning to curves to join a latin dance class that we are offering - I should burn a few calories with this class. The instructor is part of a dance team that was featured in a Mark Anthony (J Lo's other half) video. I'll let you know how this turns out! Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Pictures from Australia

1.) The first picture is of a "Quokka" which is one of the cutest animals I've seen. It looks like a mixture of a rat/kangaroo when it stands up. They are all over Rottnest Island with a population of over 20,000 and it is the easiest place to see these animals. 2.) The second picture is of Parakeet Bay on the northside of Rottnest Island. We went snorkeling there right off shore to the reef and saw tons of fish, crabs, manta rays, etc. (My favorite experience on Rottnest!) 3.) The Mom Orangutan at the zoo, which I swear looked right at me! Not native to Australia, but they are native to the islands of Indonesia which are pretty close to Western Australia. The zoo gives them lots of structure to climb all over and my friends and I were the only people at the exhibit this day.

4. The fourth picture (below here) is of Cottesloe Beach on the Indian Ocean. It is one of the most picture-esque beaches on the West Coast and the level just drops right off. 10 feet in, you are over your head but the water is clear and there is no seaweed. People swim laps really far out at this beach because its pretty calm.

Cool/Scary Fact: There was a white hammerhead shark sighting here about the time we got here (Febuary 7th). They use shark planes and alarms to get everyone out of the water. No one was hurt or anything and there haven't been any sighting since.

5. The Kangaroo! (I cheated and saw this at the zoo, although they are around in the wild.) Next week we're going on a trip all over the Northwest of Australia. We're going up to the Ningaloo Reef, Monkey Mia/ Shark Bay and then inland to much of the Outback so I will hopefully see some of these out in the wild.

Hi Everyone!!

Hello from Australia everyone!
This blog is such a great way to connect, thanks to Leah for setting it up. I think I finally understand it, atleast a little bit. Also, thanks to Leah for posting some of my facebook photos to this blog ( I don't mind, it was a good idea since I mastered facebook before the blog). Anyways, I am living just outside Perth, Western Australia in an international student village with about 900 students (mostly international and those from other states in Australia). In Australia, it is the norm to commute to Uni so those who live on campus are from countries all over the world and places in Australia at least an hour or so from campus. I live with 2 Americans (one from North Carolina and one from Wisconsin) and I also live with an South Australian from Adelaide and a person from the French Island of Reunion. So far things have been great. The weather is beautiful, its exciting to be living in the complete opposite climate, and pretty much every Aussie i've met is exceptionally friendly. My favorite things I've done so far have been going snorkeling and biking around Rottnest Island, taking an Environmental awareness course at Rottnest Island, trying surfing at Trigg Beach in WA, exploring the small port town of Fremantle, WA, and meeting people from all over the United States and world. I take three classes while I am here. Two of them are really interesting so far. I am taking "Black Indigenous Music" which chronicles the history of music of the Native Aboriginal people (thought to be the oldest civilization on earth of at least 60,000 years old.) It is definately one of the most fascinating classes and subjects I have ever learned about. It is all about nature, ancestors and spirituality. My professor is Aboriginal from the North, she has long dread locks, never pays attention to the time, and always tells us about Aboriginal events going on around us. My other class is International Management, in which the professor is extremely knowledgeable and we mainly have been discussing cultural similarities and differences (perfect for an international student studying abroad.) Its funny being an American in Australia. So far they think I have a cool accent, some people even know the Celtics, and sometimes they don't understand me when I talk. Australia is very American in some ways but so foreign in others. It has been a great transition so far and I Love the Aussie culture. It is so laidback and centered around enjoying life. It never stops to amaze me how laidback they are as a people. So much more to write but I don't want to take up all the pages. Today I'm going on an Aboriginal Heritage tour with the program I came on (C.I.E.E.) and tomorrow I'm going on a wine and beer tour of the breweries in the Swan River Valley (East of Perth). I am excited to read all the other posts and will post pictures of what I have seen so far! Love, Sarah

From my house to your houses!

It was so nice to see some new postings and hope to see many more from Trisha, Sarah, & Andy whenever they have time. It looked like you got socked yesterday with Winter weather, and we, as well are getting snow right now, cold, and windy. David Meadow got engaged to Priscilla, his live-in love. Emily going to Chicago this month for more pulmonary tests regarding her newly active fibrosis. Hope your mom is doing better, Debbie. I hope you are getting more support with Meredith back.

Talk to you all soon. Love, Judie

I spy with my little eye...and I hope she doesn't mind

Hi all- Sarah posted some pictures on facebook and I thought that I would share some of them with you. I picked some of my favorite ones and then a couple of her flat. This will hold us over until she is able to post with us. Hopefully this will save her some time too and she can just write to us.

An example of in town in which she probably takes the bus to.

Her Kitchen...

Her Common room...I am guessing

I love this pic!

And this one too!

We miss you Sarah and hope you are having a blast!!

UPDATE FROM LEAH: Midterms are drawing near and I am very busy doing last minute work. I am very much involved in my Library project and hope that it turns out well in the end. I am leaving for LA on Friday to visit Lee. He just decided that he is moving home March 25th instead of May! Which is in like 3 weeks. We are shipping the car and selling all of the furniture. I will help him pack while I am there next week. All he has to do is fly on March 25th. He already has a job lined up at the Baseball Tavern for the red sox season and he'll be able to look for a job at the Plymouth Rock Studios. I hope the east coast is better for him!

Hope all is well with everyone else!

Love, Leah

This blog is very exciting so there is an excessive number of people waiting to join.

I have overheard many people talking about this mooney/maloney blog. It was started by an accomplished designer and has been contributed to by a top level executive secretary as well as a person who communicates primarily with a donkey. If that aint enough, we are excitedly awaiting contributions from an A student recently returned from Australia, a top notch athletic student, and a highly comedic biotechnology manager. Run, don't walk, to the nearest computer to submit your entry!

Oh My - I do believe there is some confusion with this blog!

In response to Judie - yes you can change the font, color in the text of your post. If you wish to get any fancier than that you should direct your inquiries to Leah Mooney who is the creative director of this blog.

Tricia has not yet published a post - the tutorial was from Leah. I think once Sarah gets settled and maybe if Leah emails her with the directions to get on the blog then it should be an interesting blog. It takes time to get everyone up to speed. We shall try to help Tricia with getting on the blog - she doesn't have a working computer from home and she is a very busy lady at work.

Have a great weekend - and an extra day off if you celebrate President's Day on Monday!

Trisha, one question. P.S. Thanks for the tutorial!

Trisha, happy that you have joined the blog.

One question: How to put the inserted pics into

the Archive section on the right?

Also, this may be dumb but is there anyway to choose

a less conservative type face? They are all boring.

Thanks, Judie

Blog Tutorial

First off after going to the website mooneymaloney.blogspot.com you click sign in in the upper right hand corner.  By doing this it will allow you to post a blog entry.

 

Next you can do two things…

 

One: Read through all of the posts…there are about 15 to a page and at the bottom you can go back in history to read other blog entries. 

 

If you like what you read or have something to say you can click on the comments link to post a comment to the entry.  The comments link is at the bottom of every entry.  Don’t forget to look at the comments to all the posts!!

 

Second:  You can go to the top right hand corner and click New Post to post your own blog entry.

 

Once getting to this New Post page you first enter a title for your post that will show up in orange on the main page.

 

Then you enter your post under that.

Other features for the post are above the post entry field.  You can choose bold, underline ect., then you can also choose to insert a picture which is the icon the looks like a landscape.  Just follow the directions after that to post a picture with your blog entry.

 

When you are finished writing you can then click publish post, which is at the bottom of the page on the left.  It is the orange button.

It will tell you that your blog has been successfully posted and you can click view blog to see what you have written.  At any time you can go back to your blog and edit it.

Hope this helps Trisha!

Mooney Mom & Nanna Colgan

Pearly wants to wish everyone a very

happy Valentines Day!

Debbie, don't know if they got along, probably not. Cold and snowy here for two weeks. I will talk with you to much greater length later.

Take care not to fall. Judie

Fabulous Looking Ladies!

Judie - love the photo of the two grandmothers - do we know if the two mother got along in an in-law kind of way? It would be interesting to have a little background on these two ladies. Was one really sweet and nice and the other uptight/strict?

It is 55 degrees here today - unheard of since the fall. Yesterday I was walking around in boots, hats, and a coat (still fearful of falling on the ice) and today no coat, beautiful and I just saw on Boston.com that some areas might get a thunderstorm tonight.

I am off to curves to work until 8 pm and then drive home (hopefully before the storm).