Bloggers Anonymous?

"My name is Emily Kurtz and it's been 22 days since my last post..."

I'm so sorry! I know that all of you, my admiring fans, have been gasping for air with the absence of Emphoto in your life. Fear not! We are back to breathing.

The first (#1) reason I have been absent as of late is because I have recently relocated. Moving, I think they call it. My new location? Clemson, SC. One of my favorite towns in the southeast. We don't have a cool motto lingo phrase for the city. At least not that I know of. But perhaps we could make one up?

Clemson, SC: Where the Tigers play. Maybe that's too cliche. Clemson, SC: Where the Blue Ridge yawns it's greatness. You may have noticed that I am copying the Clemson alma mater. Not very original. Clemson: Famously Orange, Surprisingly Green. Hmmm, we'll keep working on that. One-liners are not my greatest skill. Please feel free to throw out ideas below.

The second (#2) reason I have been absent is because I have recently started a new job! Yep, I get to pursue college students! I get to hang out with internationals! I get to work with incredible men and women of God! I get to share the good news that has changed my life with others! For my job! Not bad if I do say so myself.

What I didn't mention to you is that doing these things that I love requires looooooong hours. So, therefore, no blogging time. I counted up hours logged last week: SIXTY-SEVEN. Wow. Now, a disclaimer is this. Personal ministry and work ministry can blur together in some areas. But still, that's a lot of hours. That's 33 hours less than 100. Now a 100 hour week, that would be a really long one. I'm not gonna do that.

The third (#3) reason for my absence is my second job. Don't worry, the 67 hours included this job. I know you were worried. After-school care at a Walhalla elementary school is a sweet second job. I get to take care of a bunch of cute little buggers every afternoon after school when they're all full of energy from a long day at school! I would post a bunch of pictures of these cute little buggers, (since this is a photo blog you know), but for security shemurity reasons I'm not supposed to. And I sure do respect that rule. But it means you don't get to see how cute they are! I promise they are cute. You're just gonna have to take my word for it.

There are so many more things I could say about this new life I lead. Good things, Great things and GRAND things! But, I won't keep you reading much longer. Instead, I will give you some photographic evidence of this new life! That way you can be sure that I haven't just been hiding out at my parents house in Charleston all this time and actually just avoiding you and hoping you wouldn't figure out that it was all a big fat lie. What if that was really true? Then I wouldn't be so cool after all. And what a disappointment that would be!

Lucky for you, I am still a little bit cool. And here's the pictures to prove it. For your viewing pleasure...

I painted that for my new room!

The coolest leadership team EVER.

My new friend Jin!

Asia meets Atlanta.

Indian lunch with a sweet new friend. Yum.

Meetin the neighbors.

The neighbors!! They liked the chai we made for them! A+

My new Partners in Crime, Heather and Lauren. Learning Hindi with Rosetta.

And that is all folks!

Cheesy.

I really enjoy being cheesy. Maybe that's not the best way to start out a new blog post. Don't worry, this blog post won't be cheesy. Well, maybe a little bit.

I've already told you about William Burk, haven't I? Well, a few of my girly friends decided to nickname him Sweet William. They did this for three reasons.

1) His name is William

2) He is sweet.

2) There is a cool flower named Sweet William.

Bet ya didn't know that. Now you do. It's scientific name is Dianthus barbatus. Apparently the Sweet William symbolizes gallantry. Here's a picture.

Nice, isn't it? I don't know about you, but when I look at that flower the first word I think of is "gallant." What a "gallant" flower that is! It is looking so great and "gallant." Is that what you think? That's what I figured.

Anyway, moving on to the real, live Sweet William in my life. He made a little visit this weekend. Let me just say, it was really wonderful. And he truly is gallant. Was that too cheesy? I'm sorry if it was. Moving on again.

Saturday I Molly Maided for the last time. And Whitney and I braved the "Stairs of Death." I don't know about you but I wouldn't particularly want to get caught on these stairs on a rough stormy night.

Thankfully we made it up and down the stairs multiple times with no catastrophies. Wouldn't want to mess up something important like our palmaris longus.

Right, Emily? Right, Aliece? An injured palmaris longus would be tragic I think. Could cause some difficulties with important things like drinking coffee and writing blog posts.

After work, I jumped in my car to head on back to my house to see Sweet William. And what do you think Jimmy decided to do to me? He decided to sit there and refuse to crank. Here's a picture of Jimmy during a moderately epic moment of my life in years past. Unfortunately, this current moment with Jimmy was not even close to moderately epic. Not even a little bit epic.

I wasn't sure in this particular un-epic moment if I should be angry at Jimmy's rebellion and respond with correction and punishment, discouraging all future bad behavior? Or if I should use positive reinforcement to develop Jimmy's sense of self and encourage him to behave properly? I can't say I thoroughly thought through all psychological possibilities at the time. Actually, I was just really hot and bothered by the inconvenience he caused me. So, to make a long story short, Jimmy is still stranded in the Molly Maid hood in Mt. Pleasant. Sucks for him.

Good thing for me, Papa Kurtz is great at search and rescue when it comes to his first born daughter. He showed up with a mallet intending to give Jimmy the business. Then he thought better of demolition and chauffeured me home instead. I'm glad. Cause I still like Jimmy.

One more weekend story for you. And then I'm going to have to do some serious post-weekend snoozing.

Saturday night, the spark for adventure within us was accompanied by a cloudy, rainy night. This called for a rendesvouz to Harris Teeter, of course. What we soon discovered was that the big HT has a thing for cheese. In fact, the big HT has a whole ISLAND of cheese! "Cheeses of The World", it is called. And it is just that. Is there a better way to spend a Saturday night than exploring a cheese island in the big HT? I think not.

So, naturally, we found the biggest, baddest, baller block of cheese on the island straightaway. Then we proceeded to lift it, smell it, photograph it, lick it...

Here she is. Well. Here she is. With him.

This picture may have taken me like 20 minutes to take because I was too busy laughing about something to hold the camera still. Who knows what was so funny. That's why Sweet William is mid-smile. Sorry Sweet William, I'm not a very good picture-taking-while-laughing photographer (ptwlp).

So, it's a hefty hunk of cheese. I think you would agree. But not anything worth a pretty penny, right? Wrong. Take a guess how much this cheese hunk cost. No, don't scroll down yet. Take a guess. Now double the number you just thought of. Nope, you are still too low.

Now take a gander at this price tag. Can you believe your eyes? You may have to rub them and look again. It's still true!

Six hundred eighteen dollars and twenty five cents. All I've got to say is that better be some tasty cheese. Way to set the bar high, Harris Teeter.

P.S. When I said we licked the cheese, I was just kidding. That would be gross.

And that is all I've got for now.

Just a drop in the bucket.

So I know you've been wondering about this mysterious maid career I've been working on every Saturday from dawn till dusk. And now, the mystery is revealed! I have been working for the rich and famous, and that is a truth.

Every Saturday I hop into Big Bertha with Karri (the boss) and Rachael (my really cool maid partner) and we frolick off (as well as a big black suburban can frolick) to Kiawah Island: Land of The Rich and Famous.

This past weekend we had a lovely surprise. Thelma, a great grandmomma and a cleaning machine, joined our giggly, silly team. Thelma meant business. And that's just what she did. We whipped out clean houses like they were Krispey Kreme doughnuts. The last house we worked on is pictured below. It was magical. (I threw that word in there for you, Annemarie).

Here's the kitchen. I made it spic n span. Also, I ate three of the popsicles leftover.

The popsicle sticks had jokes on them.

What is the alphabet's favorite part of the beach?

The C shells!

Good one.

Rachael didn't really want her picture taken. Ms. Thelma didn't really care.

Dining room. Half of it.

Living room. The fluffy rug felt like a shaggy dog. It was just as hard to clean as one too.

The master bedroom complete with a customized ceiling fan.

Half of the master bath. Some people don't seem to like to have much privacy when they shower. Also, having feet on your bath tub seems to be a sign of wealth. Am I wrong?

I haven't named that house. We've only cleaned in it once. And you can't very well name a house that you have no personal connection to. The house below, on the other hand, I have cleaned every week since I started working. This house is a massive 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms spread out over 3 floors. That's a whole lot of house. According to bookings.com, this house is 4800 square feet and "set among 30 magnificent towering oak trees." Good to know. I haven't actually seen those 30 oaks, but next time I go there, I'll have to see if they are telling a fib or a truth. Here's a picture of this hound of house.

And here's the house next door. Poor house. It's a perfectly nice house. It just doesn't have a chance sitting next to Eugenia. That's what I named her. She and I have gotten tight. Eddy. That's the house you see below. Eddy is the more practical, home-style house of the two. Eddy is a house I might rent. Or I might just camp out on the beach. That seems most practical.

So here are a few pictures of the inside of Eugenia. She's got a lot to offer. So, if you ever have 16 friends, an itching for a beach vacation, and a spare $12,000 to blow, go for it! Yes, I said $12,000.

$12, 918.98 to be exact. I'll provide the $0.98 if you'll take care of the rest. Sound good?

If you want to see some even better pictures of Eugenia and a more-than-thorough description of her every curve and corner, you should check out: http://bookings.aetrealestate.com/Unit.mvc/Details/50132.

They've got her covered. And you.

So, yep. That's what I clean! Eugenia is my baby. A rather large one. It is strange how you can get attached to a house. But you know, she's the reason I can put gas in my car every week. So I love her. That's legit I'd say.

The Best.

Have you ever spent a weekend in Columbia in July? If you have, you may have come to the conclusion that it was the worst decision of your life. You may have sweated your face off. And in the heat of the moment, you may have scoffed at Columbia, saying it is "The armpit of the south!" But Columbia is, in fact, "Famously hot, surprisingly cool." Or so it claims. And I, for one, would agree.

On my recent adventure to this controversial city to see that boy named William, I made a pit stop on Burke Road. Just for kicks and giggles.




The first 24 hours were a crazy good time. Monday morning called for kayaking down the Saluda River rapids with Burks. (Does that sound legit? Oh, don't doubt, because it was. Class II baby).



These high quality pictures were taken by William's survivor of a phone camera. I think that's why we look like brilliant angels surrounded by holy light.



Then the next 24 hours were a crazy good time. After spending some QT with Heather Mack and Rachel Montgomery (and getting dominated in pool by Rachel Montgomery, who is an official RN now, by the way), who do you think showed up at the door? No, not Patrick Swayze, but he came a little later to do some dancing. The front door opens up, and there stands Ms. Lauren Poleynard! All the way from Clemson to surprise me! What a woman.

This is my favorite picture of us. There are a lot of good ones. This is the one where she and I rode off into the sunset together on a moped in India. And then she almost died in a moped crash. Yes, she. Not we. But that's another story for another time.


So after, an evening of dancing with Swayze and some cuddling and snacking and sleeping next to Rachel Montgomery, Tuesday morningarrived.

Now you should know, that if you are Emily Kurtz, or someone like her, it's not every day that you get to hang out with someone famous. The events of Tuesday turned out a little differently than we might have planned them ourselves. And it was wonderful. We had a lovely Starbucks catch up with many good friends, including, but not limited to, Amy, freshly back from Uganda and Kelly, freshly back from China.

Afterwards, we decided to take a meander up towards the capitol. Now, to protect the identity of the protagonists of this story, I will use a few stage names. We will call my dear friend, Annemarie by her affectionate nickname, Lil' A. Her father, we will call Mr. V. Now you may not know this, but Mr. V is a grand, faithful, hardworking Senator for our great state of South Carolina.

Well, of course, Lil' A needed some money from Mr. V in order to buy some watermelons. Seven watermelons, to be exact. So, we trekked up the road to the Senator's office building. After security checked us for weapons (we didn't have any, because William hid his knife in a bush outside), we got on the Senator's elevator and headed up to the Senator's office. There we were greeted by the Senator's receptionist and ushered in to sit in the Senator's chairs. We then proceeded to go through the Senator's desk and help ourselves to a few of the Senator's breath mints. Don't worry, he didn't mind.

Here's Kelly chilling in Mr. V's chair pretending to be Mr. V.


Once Mr. V arrived, we all were on our best behavior. I may or may not have gotten Mr. V to sign a library READ poster to put up in my room. He pictured in the poster posing with the book, "I Love You, Ronnie," which he says he has never actually read. I don't think I've read it either. But I will now.

Well, Mr. V likes Lil' A a lot. So do we. And he likes us. So after some convincing, the plan was for Mr. V to present us to the Senate as Clemson Tigers and Lil's A's friends. Great plan Mr. V! An excellent Tuesday afternoon activity for a bunch of college grads. Nbd.

At 2:30pm we arrived at the state house, dressed appropriately in jeans, lobster shorts, tshirts and v-necks. All the important people in suits looked at us funny until Mr. V proudly introduced us as really cool people. After talking some politics with a few politicians, we got the down low on the government and found out about the hoohaah that's been going on with the national debt lately. Unfortunately the Senate was doing something fancy they call "recess" and then planned to "adjourn" shortly after, so we could not be officially presented to the Senate after all. Not this time. But next time, of course. Kelly will be giving a speech.

Here's Mr. V in his snazzy Senator suit. If you print out this picture I bet he would sign it for you. What you can't quite see in this picture is that Lil' A is wearing a pair of excellent lobster shorts. I just had to point them out. She loves when I point them out.


Do I look star struck? I wasn't. Just hanging out with my homies on a Tuesday, that's all. Please notice my casual attire. Inappropro for hanging out with Senators.


My Columbia visit ended with some excellent bonding time with some old friends and some new ones. Comida mexicana, boggling and $1 bowling with these jokers... never to be forgotten.


These guys not only agreed to be friends with me, they also agreed to be friends with Greg, who came along. They also remembered to lock Jimmy's doors. It's always a very good sign of a life-long friendship when someone remembers to lock your car door for you. So take note.

Bye Columbia!