Krys' World (it's not much, but it's all I've got!!!)

Judging a Book by Its Cover

2012-01-24T11:57:00.001-05:00

Judging a Book by Its Cover

This is an article in today's Shelf Awareness for Readers, Tuesday, January 24, 2012, Volume 1, Issue 62. It's interesting. Here are my favorite parts, in case you don't want to read the whole (short) article!

"On an airplane, do you notice what people are reading? Do you surreptitiously contort a bit to see a cover? Do you think about the (usually) men who are reading genre thrillers quite openly while women seem to hide romances? Same thing on the bus or subway or in cafes at lunchtime. Checking out book covers brings many pleasures; it also subtly imprints a book in your mind." - [Comment from Krys - This is the ONLY reason I read Room, by Emma Donoghue!]

"With e-books, there are no book covers. There's no tipping point reached by cover art, no visual validation of your own reading tastes. What will replace this passive advertising? Is it even a worry? A recent survey found a plateauing of e-book reader adoption (December sales notwithstanding)--52% of readers say they are "not at all likely" to buy an e-reader; additionally, e-reader owners buy almost as many printed books as e-books. [Comment from Krys - THANK YOU, JESUS! And btw, my sister gave me a gift card for Amazon and suggested I used it to buy a book or two for my Kindle Fire. I did, and I'll review below...] Good news for people who like cover art, for publishers who devote so much time and money to cover art, and for those of us who like to see what others are reading (or proclaim our own good taste). There are many good reasons to use e-books, but don't forget--it's really hard for authors to sign them."

Loved this article, and even though I have such strong opinions in favor of printed books, I'm so happy to hear that e-readers are STILL buying print editions, not just e-books.

So I bought Down the Darkest Road, by Tami Hoag, in e-format, thanks to the gift card from sister P. (Thanks, P!) I can't say that I'm a convert, and I am STILL a print girl, not an e-reader, but it wasn't so very horrible that I'll never read an e-book again. I may not be an e-reader, but I am a techno-geek-dork - I like gadgets, and I like my new smart phone (yes, I'm an iPhone person now), and I like my Fire, but I'm just not an avid e-reading fool. I never will be. That said, however, I think I left myself at a disadvantage...

1. I was reading it on my Kindle Fire, the screen was similar to a regular Kindle, so I think the reading experience was comparable. (Yea, I know all about the backlighting, etc., but I spend quite a bit of time on the Fire, and I don't think it was an issue for me.) What I HATED was how quickly I had to turn the page, and funnily enough, how I didn't like not being able to see two pages at once. I read quickly and I think I even speed read a bit, and scan ahead as I'm reading; I don't know how else to explain it. Now, I admit, until after I finished reading the book, I didn't think about making the font smaller to fit more on the page (duh!). But I'm already dealing with old eyes that need reading glasses, so I was put off by having to constantly flick the page. It gave me a headache to read across such a narrow page. BUT once I turned the Kindle sideways, the pages were still short in length but I was able to read across a longer span and that seemed to help with my eyestrain.

2. I admit, and always have, that I can see the benefit when I'm traveling. I've never gone on a trip anywhere, not even overnight, where I wasn't carrying at least 2 books with me, or an extra carry-on full of books to read on vacation or in the evening when I'm on business. My Fire will most definitely be traveling with me, with books loaded and games at the ready (Mah-Jong helps pass the time, to say nothing of Bejeweled or Words with Friends!). Not sure how much I'll like it and it will be interesting to see if I read as much on the e-reader as I do when I have print books with me, but I know my back and my arms and shoulders will send a thank you card to Amazon!

3. I admit, too, that I loaded a couple of Amazon freebies on my Fire to read on the train, when I have to commute without my chauffer (aka, hubby). And I've ordered - in advance! - an e-book version of Lisa Gardner's new Catch Me! which will be delivered when it releases on or around February 7th... In fact, I'll be reading a $3.99 sale book I bought for my Fire today, when I leave at 4pm to take the train home. It's a thriller and the synopsis intrigued me. And Lord knows paperbacks aren't $3.99 anymore so this was a financial plus and I got a new story to read!

As previously stated, I will not ever be e>print, but I'm trying to incorporate it into my reading experience, at least to a small degree, and perhaps the day will come when I'm less anti-e-reader, but I will never ever be less pro-print!!!

One Little Word - FOCUS

2012-01-17T11:40:00.000-05:00

Someone else chose FOCUS as their One Little Word, and Ali Edwards chose to feature her OLW on her blog today...
In case you want to hear why someone else chose FOCUS...
One Little Word / Community Member Feature: Michelle & Heather

Focus

2012-01-13T11:28:00.000-05:00

Last year I took a class from Ali Edwards: One Little Word. I'm not taking it this year because I'm signed up for too many other classes and I just can't swing another one!

But I'm picking a word and trying to live by it and I'm sure somewhere in the year I'll do a spread about it, either as a scrapbook page, or in my diary, or in my Project Life binder, or in my art journal, or in my soon-to-be-started gratitude journal, or perhaps in all five of those places! I'm sure I'll probably blog about it when it strikes me, too, so you can add this blog as another place that my One Little Word will show up...

FOCUS.

That's my word. As a matter of fact, that was my word last year. I intended to focus in every aspect of my life, but as happens quite often, life gets in the way! I got a necklace for myself with the word "focus" stamped on it.

That helped a lot, as long as I remembered to wear it! (Got it from Lisa Leonard - she has some lovely pieces and her prices, I think, are pretty reasonable.)

There are still a lot of places in my life where I need to focus. Here are a few:

I want to focus on being a better wife, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, employee.
I want to focus on my faith during the week, not just when I'm in church on Sunday.
I want to focus on my creativity, through the online classes I'm taking, by sketching and scrapping and taking photos.
I want to focus on my health. I'm taking a class called Move More, Eat Well with Cathy Zielske. I'm hoping that this, along with Weight Watchers, can help me accomplish this year what I've been trying to accomplish for many years. I've joined a gym, too, so I want to focus on actually going!
I want to focus on my job. I get too distracted: the internet, my new iPhone, Words with Friends, Facebook and Twitter - they're all more interesting and more fun than my job. But I need to focus on my job. I always do a good job. Now I want to do a GREAT job.
I want to focus on my house. Both of them. They need to be decluttered, cleaned, painted, refreshed. And it shouldn't be on J to do it all.

Get the idea? Last year's One Little Word was FOCUS. THIS year's One Little Word is FOCUS. While 2011 wasn't an epic fail, I could have definitely done better. I'd like to say, on December 31, 2012, that I DID do better THIS year.

I wish Katie was my friend...

2012-01-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

Bower Power is one of my all-time favorite blogs. To see the funniest, frickin' post I've read in a VERY long time, click here. And be sure to read it, and scroll down, and see what a beautiful family Katie Bower has... I SO wish I was friends with her!!! I just KNOW we'd get along!!! You'll know why when you get to the bottom of her post...

Happy 2012!

2012-01-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

Oops, one of my unwritten resolutions was to blog more in 2012...

Yea, epic FAIL!!! It's January 4th and I haven't even wished my readers a Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you all have a 2012 filled with love and happiness and good health, and may you all accomplish whatever it is you set out to do, achieve whatever it is you want to achieve, and enjoy whatever it is you wish to enjoy in this new year...

I want to write more, take more photographs and post them here on the blog. I am taking part in an online class called Move More, Eat Well by the esteemed Cathy Zielske, and so far, I've gone to the gym once, yoga class is at 1:30pm today, I'm hoping to go to the gym tonight, and I haven't eaten fast food yet this year. I've started my journal (oops, another resolution: learn Photoshop Elements).

I'm also taking two art classes online with Alisa Burke: Sketchbook Delight and Create Daily. I'm not very talented but I've learned to call what I dabble in "art." According to Donna Downey, with whom I took a class in December, when I call myself an "artist," THEN I'll really be one... Can't really see that one happening any time soon, but Donna, I'll let you know when/if it does...

Last year I took an online journey with Ali Edwards. I signed up for her One Little Word series, and while I started off just fine, as usual I tapered off into simply filing the emails in the file called OLW and that was about it. So this year I didn't sign up for it again, but I've chose my word to be FOCUS again: FOCUS x 2, if you will... I hope to remember to FOCUS on everything in my life, to pay attention, to learn, to make better decisions...

As I created all these links for you, I realized something: I'm determined to be more creative and artistic, even if it kills me, or breaks the bank! I have spent a lot of money on scrapbooking supplies, on printing photographs, on sketchbooks and watercolor paint sets (I've found I like watercolors better than acrylic paints, although I like acrylics in my art journal), on mixed media supplies, on classes... What I haven't done is spent the TIME I'd like to spend on creating.

So here we go:

In 2012 I resolve to spend less money on classes and supplies and spend more time on actually creating, or practicing/developing my creativity.

There it is: in black and white. Out there for the world (my readers = the world!) to see. I'm accountable. Sort of like Weight Watchers for the artsy me.

I might not blog more, but I hope to include more photos of what I create, be it a scrapbook page, a mini-book, a sketch, a watercolor painting...

Feel free to remind me next month that I haven't blogged, posted a photo, or cracked open my sketchbook - I'll most likely need the reminder...

Free Hugs in Sondrio, Italy

2011-12-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

If only we had people doing this all over the world! It would be a better place!

Look at yourself after watching this...

2011-12-21T13:36:00.000-05:00

Please take 4 minutes and 11 seconds from your busy holiday week and watch this video. This man has touched my heart. I will never forget him and I'm posting this video here so that I'll always be able to go back and hear him say, "Every single girl right here, right now, I want you to know that you are beautiful. You are gorgeous just the way you are. And you boys? You da man!"

THIS is the lesson I hope all young women can learn, and it's a lesson I hope all young men can learn.

You/we are all beautiful.

On Being a Woman...

2011-12-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

I'm not a feminist. That's the last word I would use to describe myself.

I think it's because I just automatically and unconsciously (until I really think about it) put a negative connotation on the word "feminism."

And I'm wrong to do that, I know. I'm where I am today, in my life, in my career, in the world, because a lot of women stood up for themselves, their mothers and aunts and grandparents, and for their unborn children and younger sisters and cousins, stood up and shouted, "We're not going to take it anymore!"

We vote. We work. We own homes. We have valued opinions. Sure, a feminist can be still be stereotyped to be a bra-burner, a political rant, an in-your-face, gruff sort of woman always fighting the men even when she doesn't need to, but of course, not all of them are... It's a stereotype that needs to be tossed.

But I do think sometimes that many women DO still fight a battle that has been raging for generations, whether we know it or not. And I ran across this blog post today on The Wild and Wily Ways of a Brunette Bombshell. I don't know the author of the blog, and I never saw the article she's reposting, but man, did it strike a chord with me today.

There are some women I know who are living this every day. And I probably encourage them to fight back a bit more than I should: after all, I'm not living in their shoes. I should really support them any way I can, and not tell them, "You should fight back!"

I'm lucky to be married to my husband, a man who respects me, my abilities, my brains, my heart, who believes in me, believes that I can do anything I put my mind to even when I'm doubting myself.

The women mentioned in this article (original author is Yahsar Ali) do exist, even today, in 2012, after all we women went through in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and on... They're still living with those sly little comments that do nothing but demean them, even - and I do truly believe this - even when the men in their lives don't realize what they're doing!

We've learned, women, now let's teach the men in our lives to cut this $&*# out!!! Be sure to teach your sons and nephews and husbands and brothers NOT to make comments like "You're overreacting! You're so sensitive! Get a grip: I was just kidding!"

Bottom line, guys? If you have to say that after we react to whatever it is you just said? IT WAS A STUPID THING TO SAY AND YOU SHOULD HAVE NEVER SAID IT!!!

Oh, Thank Goodness!!!

2011-12-02T08:04:00.002-05:00

from Shelf Awareness, Friday, December 2, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1617

Future of Print Books: 'You’ll Be Neck Deep in Them'

"Will the e-book kill off the print book? Every time I hear that question, I think about the 'paperless office.' Back in the '80s, the rise of word processors and e-mail convinced a lot of people that paper would vanish. Why print anything when you could simply squirt documents around electronically?

"We all know how that turned out.... When you make something easier to do, people do more of it. Now that every office worker has access to a computer and a printer, every office worker can design and distribute elaborate multicolor birthday flyers and spiral-bound presentations.
" 'Print-on-demand' publishing is about to do the same thing to books. It'll keep them alive--by allowing them to be much weirder.... So don’t worry about the fate of print books. Heck, you'll be neck deep in them."

--Clive Thompson in Wired

Children really are still reading!!!

2011-11-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

My baby sister sent this one to me; I hadn't seen it yet.
I'll sleep better tonight!

From this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/for-their-children-many-e-book-readers-insist-on-paper.html

Came this quote:
“When we go to bed and he knows it’s reading time, he says, ‘Let’s play Angry Birds a little bit,’ ” Mr. Thomson said. “If he’s going to pick up the iPad, he’s not going to read, he’s going to want to play a game. So reading concentration goes out the window.”

THAT's what frightens me, people! NOT the geeky, dorky, shiny toy - I, myself, am the proud owner of a new Fire (although admittedly I didn't buy it for the books) - but the fear a child will choose the shiny toy over the book... I want them to learn to love books, and choose an e-book, perhaps, when it's convenient, not all the time. And it IS convenient, when traveling or commuting, for instance, but I don't want them to miss out on the pages, the ink, the smell, the experience of a b.o.o.k.

Borrowing Books from "Amazon Library"

2011-11-22T11:18:00.003-05:00

This is a much bigger deal than simply e-books vs. print books...
I don't know enough yet to take sides, but this article and the accompanying comments are enough to spark some serious thought and debate...
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/49430-could-amazon--s-lending-library-end-in-court-.html

Taking down another tree...

2011-11-19T15:57:00.000-05:00

We came up to the lake house this morning, by way of Weight Watchers, Walmart, and Hearth and Home. We had a couple of rather inactive hours and then J decided to tell me he was planning to take down 1/2 a tree. Well, he didn't tell me, really. I heard a familiar rattle and looked out the window only to see the ladder leaning against a tree.

After 1/2 an hour of me complaining, begging, crying, he won. "Fine. Cut the tree down if you're convinced it won't hit our house, our neighbor's house or you!" I wasn't real enthusiastic about this project.

So here's photographic record that he got the tree down. Of course, it wasn't easy...

First he ties a rope above the place where he's going to cut so I can pull the tree in the direction we want it to fall, which is away from the houses. I was supposed to duck behind another tree to make sure I wasn't hurt once we heard the ominous CRACK that meant it was on its way down.

We heard a small crack so he scampered down the ladder and ran over to me to take the rope and pull. "HEAVE! HO!" And the tree didn't come down.

And that happened several times. He'd cut more, he'd hear a cracking sound (he was up close and personal with the tree when he was on the ladder) so he'd quick come down off the ladder, run over and take the rope from me and try pulling. To no avail. That tree wasn't going anywhere!

He finally decided it wasn't coming down because it was caught in the twin tree next to it. I wasn't that convinced that was the reason; the weight of the part he was cutting down should have been enough to make it fall...

So after some serious contemplation...

He decided to cut the tree lower to the ground, make that bottom piece fall in the opposite direction from where he wanted the top piece to fall, and he started cutting... And it worked.

That was one LOUD CRACK and he ran for cover on the other side of the tree trunk, away from the falling trunkS and the falling ladder and the falling SawzAll blade that was stuck in the trunk of the tree 25' above our heads!

So now he's out there cutting the trunks and branches into more manageable pieces, stacking the trunks for lumber for our wood-burning fireplace, and dragging the branches up into the woods.

And he's taking me to Olive Garden for dinner because I want a Sangria.

A FUNNY look at e-books...

2011-11-07T12:46:00.002-05:00

E-Books: A Threat to Marriage?

"The lightness of the e-book medium, literally and figuratively, holds a terrible allure and an insidious threat to the heavily booked-up among us. How many marriages, seemingly held firm by the impossibility of moving several hundredweight of vinyl or CDs out of a family-sized home, have already foundered post the digitization of music? How many more will break if apparently inseparable and immovable matrimonial libraries become something that anyone can walk out with in their pocket?"

--James Meek in the most recent issue of the London Review of Books

From Shelf Awareness, Monday, November 7, 2011 - Volume 2, Issue 1598

Am I pretty?

2011-11-02T08:43:00.001-04:00

I read this blog called Carrying a Cat by the Tail! Spuds is a single dad with 6 kids, 2 of them girls. He posted a really funny piece the other day about Halloween and I linked to it a couple of days ago.

Today's post? Not so funny. Heartwarming? Yes. Important? Double yes!

Spuds knows how important it is to make sure his daughters know they are beautiful. Inside AND out.

My parents never made a big deal about our looks. No "You're the most beautiful girls in the world"" or "You're so much prettier than XYZ!" I didn't grow up thinking looks were important.

But I'm a girl. I got to a point in my life where I knew I wasn't as pretty as some of the other girls in my class. I knew I didn't have a great body. Admittedly, no one ran screaming into the wind when they met me, but no one dropped dead of shock over how beautiful I was, either! If you ask me to describe myself, my description will always be the same: "I don't see Jaclyn Smith in the mirror in the morning, but young children don't run away screaming when they see me!"

When we get dressed up and my husband tells me I look pretty, my first and only thought is "Not pretty, but better than usual." I'm 50, soon to be 51, and it's taken me a long, long time to ~~almost~~ believe I'm okay the way I am. And I credit my husband for that. Not for the thousands of compliments he's tossed my way (NOT!) but because he makes me feel loved. Accepted. Okay the way I am. In fact, BETTER than okay just the way I am. Just what he wants in his life and in his heart. And that makes me feel pretty.

Spuds doesn't want his daughters to grow up putting themselves down. He's one smart cookie. He knows how important it is that his girls know, with every fiber of their being, that they're beautiful, that their dad loves them and that he knows how beautiful they are. And he's going to make sure they remember... What a lovely gift from Daddy to his girls...

Read his post here...

http://blirred-reality.blogspot.com/2011/11/youre-perfect-and-beautiful.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CarryingACatByTheTail+%28Carrying+a+Cat+by+the+Tail%21%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Books are magic...

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

from Shelf Awareness, Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - Volume 2, Issue 1595

The Book as Object: 'A Piece of History'

"You must hold a real book in your hand, smell the pages, examine the type face, the spacing between letters; must note the shape and size of the book, the weight of it. Only then can you experience the book’s full import. And its magic.

"A book as an object is a piece of history....

"Of course, new books are not quite the same, but you can be a book's 'first' owner, the first to hold, read and study it. You can learn from its binding and paper and weight and lettering and smell. You can hold a new book in trust for its future owners. You can become part of its history.

"Give your e-reader a rest, grab a real, printed book: and feel the magic."

--Helen Selzer, owner of Farshaw's Too, South Egremont, Mass., in a post on her blog Books Books Books.

This quote touches my heart. This is a great way to explain how I feel - I'm not really ANTI e-books, I'm just so much more passionately PRINT books... It's the magic I refuse to give up...

Halloween

2011-11-01T16:04:00.000-04:00

I'm not particularly "into" Halloween. For a while, as a child, I'm sure I was. (Mom seems to remember me being excited to put on a costume... I seem to remember loving bottomless Smarties...)

And when we first moved into our house, I was excited to decorate for Halloween and buy tons'o'bad-for-me'candy and give it to all the cute little kids who were going to be ringing my doorbell...

I'm Catholic but I live in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. We get some trick-or-treaters but we don't get nearly enough for me to dole out a candy bar or two or twelve to get rid of said bad-for-me-candy... So for a while I bought a bag of candy I didn't really like so there'd be no temptation to eat it.

You see where this is going? There are starving children... and I ate the candy I didn't like, so I went back to buying what I did like - it wasn't worth feeling sick over what I ate...

Then I finally figured it out.

Don't be home on Halloween. Go to your sister-in-law's house, go to B&N, go shopping, go out to dinner, ~~have a colonoscopy~~, anything not to be home listening to the doorbell ring 8000 times because THIS year you didn't buy any candy...

So this year I went to my sister-in-law's (option #1 above!) and that was cool 'cause I got to see my little E dressed up like Madonna, right down to the fingerless gloves! She was so cute! [Oh, before I cause you all to have a mini-stroke at the thought of cone-shaped brassieres on a little almost-16-month-old, we're talking Like-a-Virgin-Madonna with a pink/white/gray/black tulle skirt, a poofy and lacy barette with hot pink ribbons/feathers in her hair, flat pink glitter maryjane shoes, black leggings, and a cute top with her initial "E" on the front... nothing inappropriate...]

Then I came to work today, and caught up on one of my favorite blog feeds, Carrying a Cat by the Tail.

Did YOU know God tastes like salt? Intrigued? Read Spuds' Halloween post!!! You'll know from whence I speak... Word to the wise: do NOT be drinking your hot coffee or cold Dr. Pepper/Diet Coke when you read the punchline!!!

Pirating Books

2011-11-01T11:55:00.000-04:00

Ran across this article in Publishers Weekly. For a change this has nothing to do with e-books vs. print books.

This is just an article about a lawsuit that hits close to home. It's not a long article. Check out the punchline: "The company did note that Bit Torrent users on the demonoid.me site downloaded Photoshop CS5 All-in-One-for Dummies more than 74,000 times since June 6, 2010." 74,000 TIMES!!!

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/49342-wiley-goes-after-bit-torrent-pirates.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=a5b452b3ed-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email

Yea, e-books AGAIN!!!

2011-10-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

From Shelf Awareness, Friday, October 28, 2011 - Volume 2, Issue 1592

Used Bookseller 'Not Afraid of E-Books'

"My customers still have all sorts of reasons for purchasing printed books. The collector of modern first editions; the new mother passing her childhood favorites down to the next generation; the reader of forgotten and esoteric texts unavailable digitally--all are seeking out an experience greater than the words on the page. The e-book can't replicate that experience, and it doesn't have to.
"E-books are fantastic at keeping us reading; traditional books are great at reminding us why we started in the first place. We're fortunate to live in a world where we don’t have to decide on one or the other."

--Michael Popek in his Wall Street Journal piece headlined "I'm a Used Bookseller, and I'm Not Afraid of E-Books." Popek is the author of Forgotten Bookmarks and a bookseller at his family's used bookstore in Oneonta, N.Y.

You all know how I feel about books vs. e-books. This perhaps is the most even-handed clip I've ever posted on the topic... And believe it or not, this TOTALLY is my opinion!

I CHOOSE print over e-books, but I would never tell YOU to make the same decision.

That's probably what annoys me about other people who have such strong opinions - they try to force me to feel the same way or they tell me I'm wrong.

But e-books, in my personal opinion, are just like politics: I'm NOT wrong, I just don't agree with YOU!

Just like I will never tell you not to be a Democrat or a Liberal or not to be Green, I don't expect you to tell me e-books are the bomb and I'm wrong to be against them.

Signed,

Proud Republican print book supporter!!!

Couple married 72 years dies holding hands

2011-10-19T14:27:00.000-04:00

Some people might think I was crazy for posting a link to this story, but this is love, in my book...

Couple married 72 years dies holding hands

What a beautiful story! I LOVE that they were buried together.

A Blog Post - YAY!

2011-10-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

So I know I haven't been blogging all that regularly lately and as a voracious blog READER, I know how that sucks. Although I ALSO know you're not all sitting at the edge of your seats waiting for pearls of wisdom to fall from my lips on a regular basis; you probably didn't even miss me!

There's another blogger I read who's been a bit incommunicado recently, and she's decided to blog every day of October, using a list of blog subjects she got from someone else. I've been keeping track of her subject and figure I'll use them to spark a little somethin' somethin' when the muse is on vacation... AND I thought I'd start today...

I'm not posting in the same order as she did, and I'm not even going to IMPLY that I'll post every day for a month; I know me better than that! But at least when I have a few minutes, I'll have a list of stuff to write about. We already know my life is not really all that blogworthy... LOL...

My List of Short Term Goals for This Month (and yes, I'm aware that the month is more than half over!!!

1. Start Christmas shopping
2. Start planning a redesign of our lake house bedroom
     a. Decide on a face for the fireplace
     b. Shop for a new mattress (the old will go into the spare room Murphy Bed)
     c. Clean out dressers and nightstands
     d. Bring standing lamp up to lake house will be done this weekend!
     e. Reorganize walk-in closet
     f. Donate and/or discard old clothes
     g. Start shopping for nightstand lamps
     h. Decide on photos, wall art
3. Start planning a redesign of my lake house scrapping room/spare room
     a. Purge, donate, discard
     b. Adhere poster on posterboard and hang on wall
     c. Clean out the closet
     d. Winter jackets go downstairs to cedar closet will be done this weekend
     e. Clean desk will be done this weekend!
     f. Start shopping for folding table for sitting room so we can scrap up there
4. Organizing and reorganizing my kitchen
     a. Clean out cabinets
     b. Clean out refrigerator
     c. Discard old condiments, canned goods
     d. Get rid of tools, mugs, anything we don't use or have too many of
5. Take my sister and mother out for my sister's birthday
~~6. Scrapping Day 10/15/11~~ done!
7. Finish swapping out spring/summer clothes for fall/winter clothes 1/2 done!
~~8. Change bedsheets to fall/winter flannels~~ done!

Think I'm too ambitious?!?!?

R.I.P. Dan Wheldon

2011-10-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

So sad.

33-years old and gone.

It was a horrific accident - 15 cars crashed and burned 13 laps into the race. Dan Wheldon was air-lifted to a nearby hospital where he died of "unsurvivable injuries."

We watched the accident on the news after it happened. The phrase is "like a train wreck..." Watching it on the news, it was so horrible that it brought us to tears, but you couldn't look away. After they announced his death, the MCs said they'd play the crash footage one more time, but out of respect wouldn't play it again.

The 19 drivers whose cars were not damaged did a 5-lap tribute around the track, in honor of Dan. His car number, 77, posted at #1 for the remainder of the afternoon. For the first time since 1999, they said, they were cancelling the remainder of the race.

33. M's age this year. So sad. What a waste. I'm so sad for his family.

Have been incommunicado...

2011-10-16T13:37:00.000-04:00

... and not for any good reason...

Work's been busy, or I've been busy working...

Here are some photos from recent weeks...

Last Sunday we took a motorcycle ride down to New Hope, PA, with T (one of our 2 best men), and D and D (J's two partner teachers at work). Here's a photo of J with one of the Ds...

Here's a photo of the main drag in New Hope. We got down there, ate breakfast outside, walked around town for a little while, then left for home up the Delaware River, on the PA side. It's so scenic; the road is right along the river for most of the ride. There are so many beautiful riverside homes there, and you could see how many of them were flooded this past summer when we had rain and hurricane issues. There are, sadly, LOTS of those beautiful homes for sale.

Took this "self-portrait" in the motorcycle mirror on Saturday afternoon, before we left to go home. We were meeting our riders at the Tick Tock Sunday morning and going home Saturday night meant we could go to church and get a good night's sleep before being out all day Sunday...

She loves to read. She must have gotten that from her Cioci! She gets the book and says, "Book, Unca Da!" And wrapped as he is around her finger, just like that, our departure is delayed until she gets bored! And her mommy is trying to teach her to say Cioci (that's aunt, in Polish). For now, I'm "Kiki!!!" And I can live with that until we get to Cioci!

The beginning of the school year means shopping for new sneakers. No, we don't start in August, BEFORE the school year. We have to wait until we realize we NEED them, rather than WANT them, and that's when we start school and last year's pairs just don't cut it anymore...

I spent yesterday scrapping with my friend E. After December, when I finally get a smart phone of some kind, I'll be posting/updating in real time, not a day or two later, when I finally have some wifi at home... I'm already looking forward to posting photos in real time, posting on FB when things are happening, or at least when I think to post them, rather than hours later when I'm home and trying to watch my sitcoms, read my books, eat my dinner, talk to my husband, clean my house, and get ready for bed...

Will try to update more regularly...

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T12:18:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Steve Jobs died. Now I've never been particularly iObsessed, I'm more a PC girl than a MAC girl, simply due to proximity. I admit that once I played on a MAC Pro in Best Buy (or some model of MAC), ooohh, could I see why people go the MAC route!!

And I'll also admit that my "Congratulations, you're turning 50" gift to myself was an iTouch last December, and I like it!

But this man has touched everyone's life in some way or another. If you're an iFan, there you go. But even if you're not, you probably have an iPod or ten, or an iPhone v. something-or-another... At the very least you've heard of apps.

I saw on Twitter last night that Albert Brooks said Jobs was "our Edison." You know what? I don't think he's far off the mark.

Saw this on Molly Irwin's blog - and I decided I wanted it in MY archives, too...

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

- Steve Jobs

It's been a while...

2011-10-01T19:49:00.001-04:00

I have no idea what's been going on, what's been happening to me, to us, that has kept me away from this blog. I feel as though I've been sucked into this huge black hole, where time is not, and where I just can't have enough hours in the day to do all I want to do... Enough sobbing, I'm sure you all know what I mean...

So what's been going on, you ask? (Despite my opening sentence, I'll try to remember...)

Let's see...

I.ORDERED.A.KINDLE.FIRE. That's the most exciting thing that's happened in the past couple of weeks. Originally I was going to wait a bit before I mentioned it to J (he's not the techy one in the family and doesn't understand why I need one when I have a phone, a laptop, a desktop and an iTouch). And to be honest, now that I reread that, I really don't "need" one... I want one! Heck, it's only $199. My iTouch was more!!! So I'm waiting with baited breath for November 15th... If you don't know what the Fire is, here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Color-Multi-touch-Display-Wi-Fi/dp/B0051VVOB2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1317511225&sr=8-5 But I told him the other day about the new tablet and he asked if I wanted one, so I told him I ordered it already...

I thought my allergies were bothering me. I started with a wheezing chest cough and no other symptoms. Gradually, over a week, I added runny eyes, a congested head and ears, and a runny nose. (Attractive, no?!?) So, being the genius I am, I deduced that it's really a cold, not an allergy. And that wheezing cough? A couple of years ago I had a really bad winter cold, and ever since, I've had a lingering wheeze in my chest. When I lay on my back, I cough, in a wheezy way... And now, it's getting aggravated by this cold... I'm not too happy about this.

FYI, I LOVE House Hunters on HGTV. (Just thought I'd share!)

J is in the basement, building a new floor for the laundry area. We got a new washer and dryer a few years ago and the washing is walking all over the floor! We never had that problem with our old machines. Today, when he moved the washing machine and pulled up the old floor, it became (naturally!) a much bigger job than he anticipated. While he likes doing work like this, he likes to plan for it, and he really didn't know there was so much damage underneath. He thought he could just tighten the existing floor, but it got to bad over the years that it needs to be entirely replaced. So, he's replacing it...

Went to the gym this morning. I did 35 minutes on the treadmill, using the pre-programmed weight loss plan. It's an hour long program and boy, did it kick my butt! I'm not much for hills, but this plan included an incline that went as high as 6.5; not all that much, I suppose, if you're fit, but to me? It may as well be Mt. Everest! Then I moved to the bike, and I did 4 miles on the bike, again using the weight loss program. That's not half as bad. And then I started some weight training. I did a couple of sets on the chest press and a couple of sets on the butterfly machine.

I did a 1/2 hour with a trainer the other day. I must say, the program is fine, but she didn't impress me at all. I signed up on a Friday night and they said she'd contact me within 48 hours to set up an appointment. Well, Tuesdsay night, when I went to the gym, I asked and they said they would text her and that if she didn't contact me within 24 hours, to call her and they gave me her telephone number. She didn't, so I called. She had an excuse for not calling me, my file wasn't in her binder. Okay, she's a trainer, not a psychic, so we just made an appointment for 2 weeks later on a night that worked for us both.

I got there early to do some time on the treadmill; she suggest 7 minutes. Not 5. Not 10. 7. Okay, moving on... I did about 15 minutes on the treadmill then went over to the counter to ask if she was there yet. Yes, she's waiting for her appointment. That's me, so they flagged her over. She was there, but she started whining about not having paperwork for me, where is it, without paperwork how's she going to get paid...

Hey, I have MY receipt to show I paid; you can use that! Oh. So rather resentfully, I felt, we started my session. She was better while she was actually working with me, but I really don't like her very much. We finished my session, then she started on the paperwork again... I just left, thanking her for the session. The girls behind the counter told her they'd take care of it, that she has nothing to worry about, that she'll get paid...

Today I asked them and they took care of it. It was misfiled in the other trainer's binder and he inadvertently flagged me as done, so they just switched his person to my trainer and they both got paid... Ah, the joys of robbing Peter to pay Paul... If it works...

Boy I miss the days before HIPPA and privacy laws and all that nonsense... Today I was on the phone with Optimum for 10 or 15 minutes and after all the account numbers and passwords, they had to talk to J because he's the account holder. His name is on the account. Yea, go ahead and ask him about the password for wi-fi, or about the user ID for the account... I dare ya!

Back in the day I used to set up PSE&G and phone accounts for my friend Dave all the time. I'd just say I was Mrs. DW and we were moving and could we switch accounts from address #1 to address #2 and could you come set up cable on Thursday because one of us could be there that day and yes, I'd like to keep the same phone number when we move next week... And Dave would just move into his new apartment, and everything would be set up for him...

Well, I'm going to take a break now and heat up some leftovers - J said he needed another 15 minutes or so and I guess it's been about that long... He made a delicious sauce the other day, with fresh tomatoes and fresh eggplant, and all the herbs, all from our garden. We've got tons of peppers, a few more eggplants to go, and our crops will all be gone... We had such great veggies all summer long, save so much money on fresh vegetables... Winter is going to be tough!

More later...

Funniest Post Ever - full disclosure: it's not mine!

2011-09-30T11:11:00.001-04:00

For the record, I have not yet read anything else at all by The Bloggess but I will be playing catch up all weekend.

And for the record, this is the single, funniest, MOST HYSTERICAL BLOG POST I HAVE EVER READ.

PLEASE take 2 minutes and read this. I promise you won't regret it. (Apologies in advance for the mild profanities.)

http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

Reading - make 'em love it!

2011-09-29T14:53:00.000-04:00

My mom is a huge fan of James Patterson. She loves his short chapters, the quick action, the fact that you can't get bored - something is always happening.

I know he's a huge supporter of reading and that he's involved in various literary endeavors... And I found this... "How to Get Your Kid to Be a Fanatic Reader."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/opinion/patterson-kids-reading/index.html?hpt=op_t1

Thanks, Mr. Patterson, for pushing reading, books, and literacy...

"Books 'Are Memories'"

2011-09-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

Books 'Are Memories'

"Books can be passed around. They can be shared. A lot of people like seeing them in their houses. They are memories. People who don't understand books don't understand this. They learn from TV shows about organizing that you should get rid of the books that you aren't reading, but everyone who loves books believes the opposite. People who love books keep them around, like photos, to remind them of a great experience and so they can revisit and say, 'Wow, this is a really great book.' "

--Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis., in an interview with OnMilwaukee.com.

From Shelf Awareness, Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - Volume 2 / Issue 1556

Bar Mitzvah #3

2011-09-11T21:05:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER: ANY and ALL misinterpretations of the Jewish faith are mine and mine alone, and not presented here with any intended disrespect. This is only my observation of the neighborhood in which we live and the customs and traditions of the Ortodox.

Our neighbors have 5 boys. Their middle boy, E, was bar mitzvah'd yesterday. We are very close with the family (they are absolutely wonderful!) and they kindly include us for all the celebrations.

We went to the school for 8:45am, stayed for the ceremony. Then we had appetizers, then lunch, and finally left for home at 3pm.

At 6pm we went next door to have dinner. We stayed until 8-ish. At 9pm we went back to the school for E's dance! He wanted to celebrate with a dance for all his friends!

I admire them for how they live their lives based on their faith. They have a lot of rules. I will admit that several times yesterday, I thought, "I'm glad I'm Catholic." They are very superficial reasons, and please know that I mean absolutely no disrespect.

But men and women can't dance together. The women, after an hour-and-a-half of watching the men and boys dance their hearts out, dragged the potted trees into the corner to separate themselves from the men and danced with each other in a little 10'x5' space.

I like dancing with my husband. Even though I don't like dancing.

We spent 3 hours sitting on two different sides of a wall in the same room. Men and women can't sit together at shul, or apparently, at their son's bar mitzvah. For the first two that we attended, there were only temporary screen dividers that one rabbi actually moved away after one of the bar mitzvahs so that the women would be included in the end of the service. At the other, S was at least able to peek around the corner to see her son become a young man.

I like going to church with my husband and holding his hand when we say the Our Father.

What I DO love about living here is the strong sense of community and neighborhood. The kids are outside playing with each other. The moms are outside talking with each other (and with me!). We know each other and recognize each other and care about each other. We used to have more of that in the neighborhood where I grew up, but in recent years, as the "old folk" moved out, there's less of that. My mom doesn't "know" her neighbors like she used to "know" her neighbors. [I will admit that she does speak to them when she sees them and perhaps this is more my impression since I don't live there anymore and I don't know the neighbors anymore! As a matter of fact, I'll talk to my mom about this later this week. I DO know she doesn't have her best friends around anymore; J died several years ago and E moved away many, many years ago. I know that makes it more lonely there for my mom but she manages!]

Here are some photos from the party yesterday...

This is their school. They just completed it a few years ago, perhaps 2006?

This is the room the women sat in for the ceremony. To our left were some permanent screens that prevented S from seeing E. Apparently peeking is, if not permitted, understood, so they were quite upset that these new screens were installed!

The boys danced for 1-1/2 hours straight!!!

They dragged J in just long enough for me to get a photo of him with the neighbors and E!!!

I must admit it was incredible to see an entire room full of teenage boys dancing the Electric Slide!!!

If they can do it... I might just give it a try next time!!!

10 Years

2011-09-11T18:37:00.001-04:00

It's been ten years since 09/11/01. Ten years since we lost so many family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Ten years since we lost our innocence.

I wanted to write something profound, something moving, something that might express what I felt that day.

I can't do it.

I've hit the same wall I hit when I try to write about my dad, who died in 1987.

I can't find the words.

Ten years ago I was at work and my mom called to tell me that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. I ran down the hall and told my girlfriend M, then ran back to my office and turned on the radio so I could listen.

What I heard - well, it felt as though it stopped my heart.

A SECOND plane had hit the SECOND Tower.

It wasn't an accident. It wasn't, God forbid, a pilot who'd lost control of his plane. It wasn't bad visibility. It was a beautiful, sunny, gorgeous sunny day...

We went to the boss' office. We saw the Towers fall.

He sent us all home. He told us not to bother leaving any messages on our phones. "Just leave. You need to be with your families." That was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the most sensitive and humane thing he ever said in the 15 years I worked at that company.

This was the in days before cell phones (at least in our family). I called the school to see if all was okay there; J was only a mile or so as the crow flies from the Twin Towers, maybe a little more. I couldn't get him.

I didn't hear from him until he got home after 6pm that night... He said what he saw on the way home shook him to his core. People walking on Route 3, shell-shocked, covered in ashes and blood and bandages. No disrespect intended, but he said they reminded him of zombies...

I spent the next 48, 72, 96 hours GLUED to the television and/or the radio.

I couldn't believe it happened.

We were attacked. Attacked in our own home. Not once, but FOUR TIMES, twice in the City, and again in Shanksville and at the Pentagon.

That was the day I truly realized how much I had to lose. My husband. My family. My home. My country. It's not the things that matter, it's what's in my heart. And what's in my heart is irreplaceable.

I've had a headache today, all day. I blamed it on the weather, on a late night last night (more on that in another post), but since the Advil Cold and Sinus didn't really work on it at all, I'm thinking it's reliving the pain of that black day 10 years ago...

Prayers to and for all who perished, to and for their families and friends, to and for our great country, that we all heal as best we can, but also prayers that WE.NEVER.FORGET.

Me: I just feel like sharing...

2011-09-09T13:02:00.001-04:00

I was visiting Carolina Girl and she posted some random facts about herself and I've always loved these kinds of posts, so I thought, "What the heck? It's not like you have a lot of work to do..." And of course I can't do it exactly like the instructions say... What if I don't have SEVEN random things to share? What if I don't have a "best feature"? So let's just see where "random" takes us...

Here you go...

1. I spent the first night of my freshman year in college under a pool table, in the midst of a hurricane warning. No hurricane, and no pool-ball related accidents...
2. The only time I ever got a "B" in gym class was the year I cut gym. If I attended every class and tried my hardest, I only ever managed a "C."
3. And I'm married to a gym teacher.
4. I spoke English and Polish equally for the first 4 years of my life (or at least from when I started talking until we moved out of my grandparents' house to our house 2 miles away...).
5. I have forgotten almost all of the Polish I ever knew.
6. I read every organizational book I can get my hands on and still my house is just a few uncontrolled months away from being featured on Hoarders: Buried Alive. (OK, a slight exaggeration about the condition of my home... let's just say I have a high tolerance for clutter...)
7. I'm going to cave and get a smartphone of some kind in December; I'm a Verizon customer - any suggestions?
8. I don't know how to swim even though I took 2 classes at the Y.
9. I've never been to Europe.
10. I used to work with my best friends. Now I work with friendly acquaintances who think they're my best friends...
11. [edited out 09/11/11]
12. My other sister is a fine artist.
13. I am addicted to reading. I always have several books going, with several backed up and ready. I read the cereal box in the morning, the can of hairspray in the bathroom, street signs while I'm driving, etc.
14. I skipped senior year in HS to attend the Freshman Honors Program at the University of Delaware. We spent our first year on the Wesley College campus in Dover, DE, then moved to main campus in Newark, DE (then I got stupid!)
15. I've visited 25 of our 50 states. Admittedly, some were business trips only, to one city, one conference center, but still...
16. I was once diagnosed as having gout. Turns out it was bursitis.
17. My mom was born in Poland and traveled to Siberia, then through Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, to the UK, and then finally to the US where she met my dad, fell in love, got married, and the rest is history... (and yes, I realize that's not about me, per se, but it's a cool fact anyway!)
18. I could go on, but I'll save some for another time...

Favorites and Bests... (most borrowed from Carolina Girl)
Favorite Color: it was purple for all my life but since I got married I'm liking green, too
Favorite Song: A Love Like This, by Dan Fogelberg (our wedding song)
Favorite Singer: Dan Fogelberg
Favorite Dessert: Cream Puffs (unhealthy) and watermelon (reasonably healthy)
Favorite Candy: Candy corn or circus peanuts (those orange marshmallow ones)
Favorite Actor: Clint Eastwood
Biggest Pet Peeve: when someone doesn't say thank you
When I'm Upset: I either cry or slam things
My Favorite Pet: My Samoyed Belle
Black or White: Black (unless it's summer and I have a tan, then white is okay)
Biggest Fear: Fire
Best Feature: I can't answer this 'cause by nature, I'm too picky about myself
Everyday Attitude: Generally pretty positive, although when I am cranky, watch out!
Perfection Is: Being in love with the person who's in love with you at the same time
Guilty Pleasure: An ice cold mojito!
Favorite food: pizza or fried eggplant
Burger King or McDonald's: Burger King all the way!
Favorite Author: Ayn Rand (fiction) or Richard Bach (fiction)
Favorite Book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Bach) or Anthem (Rand)
Favorite Movies: Pretty Woman, Ghost, While You Were Sleeping, You've Got Mail, Dirty Dancing, Gone with the Wind, and of course - anything with Clint Eastwood in it
PC or Mac: PC but only 'cause I never used a Mac and can't afford one... played with one in the store and I can see how easily I'd become a convert
Surgeries: appendectomy (I was 8) and back surgery in 1991 (I was 30)
Contacts or glasses: Both!
Favorite Number: 2 or 3
Favorite TV shows: What Not to Wear, Castle, Hoarding, House Hunters, Big Bang Theory
Favorite Holiday: Christmas all the way!!!

I know usually I'm supposed to tag someone, but I'm not going to! If you feel like posting some random facts about yourself, though, let me know! I'd love to visit and read all about you!!!

He Listened...

2011-09-07T09:15:00.003-04:00

No locusts, but more rain...

J and I drove through Little Falls and Paterson, Wayne and Lincoln Park on Monday. My heart simply bleeds for those people. They're no longer getting rid of "stuff" from their flooded basements; they're getting rid of their basements! The piles of "stuff" on the street, waiting for trash pick up, no longer include Grandma's old sofa, Lola's toy kitchen, Roy's train set, last year's Thomas the Tank Christmas present.

They're throwing out insulation, oak floors, sheetrock, paneling, water heaters, washing machines and dryers, refrigerators and freezers, dehumidifiers, shop vacs, cars, bicycles, milk crates of tools...

I complained and bitched and moaned about the water in my basement, water that J and I spent hours and hours sucking up with a shop vac, carrying up the stairs and dumping it outside the side door.

Guess what? WE.HAD.IT.EASY. I am ashamed that I spent all that time groaning about 6 total inches of water in my basement that never got over 2" since we were on top of it. Eventually we were able to sweep it all into our sewer trap, once high tide went down.

SO.FREAKIN'.WHAT???

We didn't lose anything, not a stick of wood, not an appliance, not even a lousy garbage bag filled with crap I took out of my red Honda when I sold it - in 2000!!! (Side note: that WAS my favorite car EVER!) My treadmill never got wet, our washing machine and dryer are up on a 3" platform so the water never touched them. None of J's tools were damaged or ruined.

We saw PSE&G volunteers and command centers and food stations giving out hot meals in styrofoam containers, a guy driving around in his SUV giving away cases of water. I watched a guy carry 2 cases of water into his home, shouting to the driver, "I wish I could do something for you, but I'll never see you again, so I'll pay it forward, I promise! I'll do something to help someone, someday. Thank you! Thank you so much!"

I am ashamed.

Yes, we had hoped to stop by my girlfriend's house in Lincoln Park to see if there was anything we could do, but honestly, it was more like a field trip on the way home from the lake than a mission or a call to action.

My life has changed. I have been sending extra clothes and stuff to the Vietnam Vets for years because they come pick it up at the house (how convenient, Krys!).

I will be doing a bit of digging today, online, making some phone calls, to find out where I can help LOCALLY. There's got to be a place I can bring things for these people, people like me and like you who just happen to live a little too close to the Passaic River. People whose lives were affected FOREVER by Irene last week, and guess what?

That damned river is going to flood again this week! All the clean up and siphoning out of their basements they did this week? For naught, because the water is coming again.

There's a guy on William Street in Little Falls... I don't know his name but here's a video of his home:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/849068/santa-s-in-little-falls-nj

He sets this up every year and opens it to the public in his 2-car garage. Trashed. So much damage to his home and to his garage, and it's September. He should be preparing to bring joy to thousands of kids, he should be plugging in light strand after light strand, getting ready for the holidays.

Instead, he's cleaning up. Again. And Lord knows how many of his decorations were damaged in this latest flood...

I want to help these people, all of them, directly, not through the Red Cross, not through Flood Relief organizations, I want to touch their lives directly, and I'm going to find a way to do it, even if all it means is buying a handful of pizzas and dropping them off at the Command Center/Food Tent...

Last week, an earthquake. This week, a hurricane.

2011-08-28T19:34:00.000-04:00

What's next? Locusts? I REALLY don't like bugs, Lord, so can we stop at just two natural disasters and forget the plagues?

Although the actual hurricane, Irene, wasn't as bad as we had been prepared for, we got water in our basement. If Jack and I hadn't jumped on it first thing after breakfast, we'd be underwater now. It never got deep; it was just a constant stream of water, well, constant streamS of water coming up through the floor, in through the windows and walls. Our neighbor on the left has 6-8 inches of water in their finished basement. Our neighbor across the street has a completely renovated basement that was done a few years ago after the sewer backed up into her basement - so deep that her second refrigerator wad literally floating. She sent me a photo that year of Ole' Faithful gushing out of her basement toilet. And that happened again this morning. Not quite as bad as last time, but she was SUPPOSED to be on vacation in Virginia this week... Imagine if it was spouting lime that with no one there for a week...

It can always be worse; we just have to keep telling ourselves that...

5.9 Earthquake in Mineral, VA...

2011-08-23T17:31:00.000-04:00

... and we were evacuated from our building!!!
I was in yoga class, in the middle of some stretching, and we felt the floor move.

It was more than the rumble of a truck passing in the street below. This was, for lack of a better word, "different."

It felt shakey, like a truck, vibrating up and down, but it was also swaying back and forth. You know how they say, "Once you feel it, you'll recognize it!"? Well, that's true. To a point.

We knew it was something more than a big truck. But we never expected it to be an earthquake!

We finished another 3 or 4 minutes of yoga, and were just settling in under our blankets for a 15-20 minute nap (this is "Yoga Snooze" class, after all!), when the sirens went off and they evacuated the building!

I grabbed my flip flops and my clothes and my work I.D. and ran out of the building to my assigned spot. The 4th floor meets on Pier A, on the right side, about midway. My purse, keys, and phone, and all my money and credit cards, were at my desk. I could get on the train, and get home, but I couldn't get into my car. I could walk from the train station to my house but I couldn't get inside.

And besides that, it was H.O.T. outside today - I was wearing a t-shirt and some capri-length work out pants that were a heavy jersey. It was so warm that an hour later, by the time they let us back into the building, I needed a shower! (Keep in mind, after Yoga Snooze, I don't normally need to shower; it's not a class in which we really exert ourselves all that much!)

I haven't seen any news reports yet from the epicenter - I don't know how much damage was done there - but apparently this earthquake was felt as far south as South Carolina and as far north as Rhode Island and/or Massachusetts, depending on the news media you subscribe to... I must say, though, if I felt it as strongly as I did, and it was nowhere near a 5.9 in Hoboken, NJ, then I can't imagine what "The Big One" must have felt like!!!

And, quite frankly, I don't want to know...

Lots to catch you up on...

2011-08-14T15:19:00.001-04:00

I spent 4 days in Boston/Cambridge last week. I traveled up there on business and for the first time, I found something that said spouses can't travel with you... didn't want to get in trouble, and he was working anyway, so this trip didn't work out for a side trip to Cape Cod (sorry, D & A!). He said for the rest of the summer, he's free to accompany me, so we'll see what, if any, trips I can schedule quickly... Here are some photos from this trip, along with some notes...

This was my view from breakfast at the ArtBar in the Royal Sonesta Hotel, BEFORE I walked out without breakfast - 35 minutes I sat there, without even a cup of coffee! And when I complained to the hostess, she stopped a waitress who looked right at me, shook her head "no" and didn't come over to take my order. Another 15 minutes and I was outta there!

The waitress who refused to serve me...

The view of the lobby wall when the elevator doors open - I like those pictures!

South Street Station on Thursday, on my way home.

A mural on the wall, done with tiles, in the hotel, on the 2nd floor. Apparently the hotel is known for having art on display all over the hotel; you can even take a self-guided tour of the art... There were a few pieces that caused me to think, before I knew it was "art," "What on earth is that and when are they going to finish it??!!??"

Appetizer at evoo, in Cambridge: Lourdes' Burratini with Drumlin Farms' Arugula, Kimball Farms' Cantaloupe, Cucumber, Red Onion and Toasted Pine Nuts

My hotel room at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. Opposite the bed, to the right, was a corner window that let in a LOT of light - loved that, even though the view was of the Galleria and PF Chang's...

On Sunday, August 7th, Mom turned 39 (again!). I threw her a little surprise party at our house. She knew I'd invited my baby sister and her family, but she didn't know I'd invited my cousin and his family, and my husband's family, too! She was very surprised when they all arrived! Here are some photos...

We put together an appetizer of tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions and mozzarella, drizzled with evoo and seasoned, on a bed of fresh basil. Personally I could have eaten that whole plate, and nothing else, and been perfectly happy!

We had cavatelli and broccoli, sausage with peppers and onions, mini sandwiches, cole slaw made from the red cabbage from our garden, three bean salad, potato salad, and a tomato salad my sister made.

My little great niece, at 13 months old. Apparently we had to be sure not to draw attention to her barettes or they would be torn out of her hair!

My SIL, mom and one of my nieces.

My sister and her beau.

My niece's hubby (she's the one in the photo above), my sister's beau's son, and the baby's daddy, who's married to my other niece (they're twins!).

Mom blowing out her candles - my sister got red candles that sparked colored flames!

Mom with my cousin - he's more like a brother to me than a cousin... His family couldn't come, dang it - his wife and son were working, and his daughter was away for the weekend with some friends. Yes, it's my fault, I left invites to the last minute...

Hubby and me!!!

From Shelf Awareness...

2011-08-08T09:53:00.000-04:00

Good Advice: Live with More Books than You Read

"He should live with more books than he reads, with a penumbra of unread pages, of which he knows the general character and content, fluttering round him. This is the purpose of libraries.... It is also the purpose of good bookshops, both new and secondhand, of which there are still some, and would that there were more. A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye.

"To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon's entertainment. Feel no shyness or compunction in taking it. Bookshops exist to provide it; and the booksellers welcome it, knowing how it will end."

--Economist John Maynard Keynes, as quoted in a Canberra Times piece headlined "Bookshops about more than just purchasing."

From Shelf Awareness, Friday, August 5, 2011 - Volume 2, Issue 1525

You will be missed, Mr. T.

2011-08-06T20:25:00.000-04:00

If you're friends with me on FB, you might have seen that my friend's dad died this past Thursday. I'd like to take just a minute to write a little something here in honor of Mr. T.
     Mr. T., I didn't meet you until 1981 even though C and I had been friends for three years already. I'd met Mrs. T. at the end of freshman year, for just a minute or two. You and Mrs. T. made me feel so much at home when I came out to KCMO to visit C in 1981. We alll hit it off spectacularly well. We talked and talked, I never felt uncomfortable spending time with the two of you while C was at work. I felt at home at your home.
     I remember when you told me about C's eye. What you said was that you'd been looking through his things for my number so you could call me because you knew he'd want me to know and you knew I'd want to know he'd been hurt. You were so worried about your son but you took the time to tell me what you knew, reassure me that C was okay, get me the room number and phone number for his hospital room...
     Then when I came out for C and D's wedding, you rode back to the hotel with me from the rehearsal dinner. That's when you said I was like a daughter to you. Mr. T., you'll never know how much that meant to me; my dad had passed away the year before so hearing that... well, you'll never know how much it meant to feel that I had another "dad" out there if I needed one, to know that someone else loved me ...
     I invited you and Mrs. T. to our wedding but you watched the boys so C and D could come. Thank you for that. I wish you'd been there to celebrate with us, but thank you for letting C come. That meant a lot to me, that he was there.
     I had always talked about you and C with J, and we promised that if we retired and drove cross-country, on the motorcycle or by car, we'd stop in MO to see you and Mrs. T. I'm so sorry that I won't be able to spend time with you, but if the timing works, I'll stop by and see Mrs. T....
     I know your life wasn't easy. I know you've had some health issues, especially these past few years. I'm so sorry for any pain or suffering you went through. But knowing you're with God now, that brings peace to my heart. Hearing from C that your children were with you, that it was easy, that brings comfort to those of us missing you.
     We will miss you, Mr. T. Say hi to my dad, will you?!?

Home Re-Do - in My Dreams...

2011-08-02T09:08:00.000-04:00

Oh, my, someday, when I can do whatever I want to do in my house, decorating-wise, without having to explain to my husband "why" I want to do it, I'm going to do this: painted wood floors [For some reason although I was able to save a photo or two from her blog to my desktop, I am having trouble posting it here so please click through to her blog and look at her painted floor project.]

I LOVE IT!

Although most times my traditional decor leanings have been in line with J's, lately I find myself wanting to go either the cottage route (see painted floors above) or the neat and clean and more modern look of the Petersiks (Young House Love). Oh, my, all that white and gray with pops of color around the house!!! See here for an example of what I mean: Tea Time - and to top it all off? NO CLUTTER

It took YEARS to get color on my walls and now I sort of want to go white again? Go figure.

It must be the impending onset of menopause...

(That may ALSO be the reason I am itching to just throw out everything I own and start all over...)

I'm Not Alone!!! Thanks, Kelly!!!

2011-08-01T15:02:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite scrapping bloggers feels as I do about books vs. readers... Just thought I'd post a link to Kelly Purkey's post about her love of real books...

I especially love when she says: "Give me my books!!! I admittedly sleep with books in my bed and call me old fashioned but who wants to wake up face to face with a computer. Give me my books. Let me keep my bookstores."

Week in the Life - Thursday, July 28

2011-07-28T22:56:00.001-04:00

The usual, up at 5:50am, ready for the 7:20am train Which was 22 minutes late. Without any announcements on the track. If it weren't for Eva's smartphone, we wouldn't have known. Although then I could have turned around and "worked" from home...

Spent 5 hours doing that damned 500+ line report for Grainger. No matter what, I just KNEW I'd wind up doing it...

Ate two sandwiches for lunch - no idea why. They were just so good... Then I had to eat dinner 'cause if I didn't, J wouldn't eat dinner and he had nothing all day. Think I'll be taking a Tagamet before I go to sleep!

Took some photos of theclock tower and the train station in Hoboken, Franklin Avenue in Nutley, the front porch of our house.

Tested Sue's chocolate chip cookies (she put too much baking powder or baking soda in them and she was afraid they tasted bad). Chatted with Shifra and her girls for a little while, and an old neighbor (the Dennises up the street, who moved to Florida years 9 years ago). She popped by to see the neighborhood...

Picked up some photos at Costco for the past few days of Week in the Life.

Got P's anniversary card today. It was a funny one!

2011-07-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Not that I'm late finding Pinterest, but I'm late posting my LOVE of Pinterest on my blog and linking you to my pages so you can see what floats my boat!!!

Enjoy!!! If you want an easy way to keep track of images off the internet that pique your interest (Pinterest!), click on "Send Me and Invitation" at the top of my main page.

Krys' Pinterest Pages

Week in the Life - July 25th,26th, and 27th

2011-07-27T09:02:00.002-04:00

I'm doing Ali Edward's Week in the Life project this week, and I guess what I'll do, starting a couple of days late, is summarize my days here on the blog, so I have a record somewhere, just in case the jotting down thing doesn't work! (And I know it doesn't 'cause sometimes I forget to jot...) I'll go back and add photos when I'm on my laptop...

Monday, July 25th
Took the day off from work to spend it with J - it IS, after all, our 12th wedding anniversary! He got up at 7 to go to the gym; I slept in a little later than usual. Got into the shower at 7:30, watched some Good Morning, America, lounging around in bed. We opened our anniversary cards and then went to breakfast at the Corner Bakery Cafe (iced caramel latte and a slice of pumpkin bread for me, coffee and a banana for J).

By 10am we were in Hoboken to help Gen and Murray move some furniture from her mom's apt to their house. (Gen's mom passed away a couple of weeks ago and she has to have all her mom's stuff moved out of the senior housing apartment by Sunday.) Spent some time just talking with her about her loss and about dealing... So sad... By 1pm we were done so we were off to WalMart. Did a little shopping, didn't buy anything, though (THAT must be a first!). J asked about air conditioners; he's thinking about putting a new one in our bedroom; the small one takes too long to cool off the room. I think I'd rather put one on the first floor; we don't have a working one down there and it was pretty miserable last week when we had that heat wave. We went to the Olive Garden for "soup, salad, and breadsticks" (no cooking for me on our anniversary!). Back home where we both putzed around for a while, him in the basement and outside, me cleaning our room and the computer room. It's still in a shambles from the burst pipe - need to really put all that stuff back in the closet! Some cold salads for dinner; we were still full from lunch! Dropped $25 at Mom's for A - she finally realized she can make some gas money cleaning Babci's house for her, a deal I offered her last summer and she forgot about until last week! Went to my sister-in-law's house for our usual Monday dessert. We watched T's graduation video to see her give her speech, watched E take a few steps on her own (she's thisclose to walking by herself!), and then went home at 10pm, watched some TV and went to sleep. Happy Anniversary to us!!! One of the best moments of the day: E falling asleep in my arms - you can feel her little body just becoming heavier and heavier... Love the smell of a baby! Got the invitation for Ezra's bar mitzvah.

Tuesday, July 26th
Woke up at 4:30 to visit the bathroom (too much coffee the night before!) so played a couple of rounds of Words with Friends on my iTouch. Back to work - the usual: up at 5:50am, in the shower and getting ready to be on the 7:20 train to Hoboken. Took some tomatoes from our garden to snack on at work. A tractor trailer got stuck under the Delawanna bridge near the train station - just can't understand how this happens. You know how high your truck is - you know how high the bridge is. If the truck is higher than the bridge, don't drive under it! Seems easy to me... Played catch up all day at work - lots of phone calls and emails...

Caught up on some blog reading at lunch, and worked on a To Do list that includes prepping for Mom's b'day lunch on the 7th. Lunch was pasta with peas and bacon in a cream sauce - not too healthy, I know, but yummy! Of course I balanced my meal with a sugar-free raspberry iced tea! Then I promptly ruined it farther with free Ben & Jerry's ice cream! The B&J truck is apparently traveling the country and yesterday was Hoboken's day! They were promoting two new flavors: Americone (vanilla with caramel and chocolate-covered waffle cone pieces) and Late Night Snack (vanilla with caramel and chocolate-covered potato chips). When I told J about it, he knew IMMEDIATELY I was an Americone kind of girl! (He knows me so well!) J had to go in to work at the garage at 8am instead of at noon; someone ripped the sidewalls on 128 tires at the Comcast lot! Think they're annoyed at the new union regs? We had a cold Spicy Italian sub at Subway for dinner and went to see HP7.2 for the third time! (LOVE those free movie tickets on Tuesday nights! Thanks, Optimum!)

When we came outside, it had apparently rained; it smelled like a warm summer night's rain. According to Neen, it STORMED while we were in there, complete with lightning and thunder! And we missed it all! Both of us fell asleep quickly last night - we must have been tired!

Wednesday, July 27th
Up at the usual time, a delicious iced caramel latte from Chock full o'Nuts to start my day.

Catching up on my blogging (you're reading this, aren't you!?!?). Checked Amazon delivery notification: yay, my 2nd Project Life binder is being delivered! (Becky, mine is already too full for the one binder, so I ordered another! Thanks, Ali, for encouraging us to add extra pages!). Taking Mom to get our nails done tonight.

Here's a photo of the vitamins and supplements I take every night before I go to bed. I do feel better in a number of ways, so I guess they're working.

This is a new blouse that I bought at Dress Barn earlier this week. I also got it in maroon. I got two others at the same time, a black and white floral tank that looks awesome with my white shorts, and a ruffled floral top that I think flatters my shape, but at the same time makes me look a little boxier/shorter, not in a bad way.

Words with Friends: My name is Krys and I am a Words with Friends-aholic.

Dinner tonight was peppers and onions on a garlic pesto wrap - mmm, good!

Posting... Finally!

2011-07-26T22:57:00.001-04:00

It's been a while... But I was traveling. To St. Louis for business, to Atlantic City for vacation, then to the lake for the rest of the week...
Timing is everything and I managed to time a last minute trip to STL around a surprise party for my best friend from college. I flew into STL in the morning, businessed as I had to, then checked into my hotel. It was 2 blocks away from historic downtown St. Charles, so I spent Friday night eating at The Mother-in-Law House Restaurant, and wandering along the MO River and into some stores that were still open. [Surprising to me was the fact that so many of the boutique-y stores closed before 8pm on a Friday night, while it was still light out and while tourists galore were still tourist-ing around town...

On Saturday, I went downtown again (a nice walk in some very hot and humid weather, although it didn't hold a candle to my current 101 degrees and 75-degree dewpoint) and decided at the last minute to go get my toes done for the party. I went into the Chamber of Commerce/Tourism Office and the closest pedicure to my hotel was $56. Yea, right. So I hopped in my 2011 red Impala and drove to the big intersection near the hotel (it was a bit too scary to walk!) and went into Walgreen's. I looked for a nice lady to accost and ask directions from and of course, the very nice lady I chose wasn't a local! But she pointed me to Zumbehl Road, two exits west of where I was, off Interstate 70, and said there were lots of malls there and she was sure I'd find something...

So I went. I found boats, tons of boats parked in the parking lot outside a sporting goods store! They looked so odd in the parking lot; there were more boats than cars! I found a spa/salon who charged $46, but that included a $5 bottle of polish (so I wound up with a stocking stuffer for Mom!). They could take me within 45 minutes and of course I wanted to go back and shower and get ready for the party, so I caved.

To kill 45 minutes I went to the St. Louis Bread Factory, aka Panera Bread in the rest of the world. Apparently the "St. Louis Bread Factory" store name didn't cut it outside of St. Louis... Had a delicious strawberry and poppyseed salad and a large iced tea. Then I went and got probably the worst pedicure of my life for one of the highest costs I've ever paid, but they were cut and clean and polished, even if not as well as I get done here in NJ! I also popped into this knitting store in honor of my middle sister and my mom - they're going to be opening a website and an online store soon...

I got ready, went to C's house, and he was being treated to a day'o'bowling by his 3 sons, since the bowling alley was way more air conditioned than the golf course (their original plan was a day'o'golf!). He came in and was suitably surprised, especially when he saw his ex-roommate T and T's wife, who had come from Kansas City. He commented about the distance, that he couldn't believe they came! Then C's wife said something about them not winning the longest distance travelled award, and she pointed at me.

C was FLOORED! He couldn't believe I had come to MO for his party! He ate dinner with T and J and me, and the three of us stayed the latest, after the rest of the party left. I was the last to leave, at a little after 11pm; his youngest son was falling asleep in the living room! We could have talked all night, but didn't. I wanted to get a shot of the family before I left, so I asked them to pose for me. I couldn't get them to look at me; well, DANNA couldn't get them all organized and in place so I just took a shot. The flash got their attention and they IMMEDIATELY turned to the camera and smiled!

They invited me over for breakfast the next morning but I had to get to the airport so I couldn't. It was so nice to see him - and apparently he, too, feels 6 years is too long between visits. I only wish J had come with me...

Then on Monday, J and I left for AC. He had to be there for a credit union seminar, and spouses always tag along. I lost a little, then broke even, but I prefer to come out ahead. It just didn't work this time; the slots were against me! I sat on the balcony outside their meeting room for a few hours and got a nice sun~~burn~~tan. We had a nice dinner at Casa de Napoli in the Showboat Casino and Hotel and then came home on Wednesday.

We hung around Clifton for a day or so, then went to see Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Part 2 in Real-D! It was awesome! My favorite one ever! (We just went to see it a 2nd time this past Tuesday, for free, courtesy of Optimum Triple Play's benefits card.)

This weekend we went to the lake; there's central air there, so staying home where only my bedroom has a small air conditioner is not really an option. I would have to shop in the mall, or sit in B&N for hours...

Speaking of B&N, which leads me to think of Borders... How sad. 10K+ employees are losing their jobs. 10K! In one shot. Not 10 here, 20 there, a few hundred in our building when my company closed down... 10K! I've never been a Borders fan; I didn't like the way their stores were arranged. I feel as though in recent years they looked more at book "stuff" than at "books." At least that was my feeling in-store... I know someone who got their start in a Borders store, worked their way up to shift manager, or store manager (I forget), but then came to work at SDC and we became friends and I know she's hurting over the people she knows from her years there losing their jobs... Do you realize that with the exception of a handful of independents (compared to years ago, and they're going the way of the wind, too, these days), B&N is all that's left?

We spend hours in B&N a week NOW. Guess it will be a bit more crowded soon...

P.S. I gave mom the polish as soon as I got home! And the TSA officer thought my toes looked GREAT when she body scanned me in the airport...

My HP7.2 post is to come; in the meantime...

2011-07-20T08:56:00.000-04:00

OMG - go to Cake Wrecks right now and see some more of these Harry Potter cakes! They're incredible!
Here's one, to whet your appetite!!!

Colors!!

2011-07-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

LOVE this room! What I like the most is the combination of patterns and colors! If only I could recreate this... but I have trouble even doing it with scrapping papers - can you imagine the trauma if I tried to combine pillows??

From the handmade home...

I have a red/gold pattern of dragonflies on my sitting room window seats - I can't even get pillows for that 'cause I'm afraid the reds will clash.

Yea, I know I could buy them and return them if they don't work... but I just keep looking...

2011-07-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

OH, OH, OH - I was going to ask J to design me a table that fits what I need it for and I saw this one!!!
This would be an AWESOME way to use some of those books I was going to give away 'cause I had no room for them - what do you think??? (Yes, I'd have to do something about how it seems to sag a bit in the middle, but I like the idea of the legs... Saw something similar recently using books for the base of a nightstand lamp...)

One of the comments on the blog was from someone who couldn't stand the thought of the books being damaged. Okay, trust me, I GET that! But I have such a hard time giving up any one of my books to the great big void that is the world that this would be a way for me to keep it, and use it, even if I couldn't ever read that particular one anymore... and of course, there are plenty of old editions and $1 books you could save from the trash heap...

http://blog.hgtv.com/design/2011/07/17/daily-delight-stacked-book-desk-and-a-design-mystery/

Why Librarians 'Need to Be More Like Lady Gaga' - NEVER thought that would be a title of one of my posts!!!

2011-07-18T08:38:00.000-04:00

Why Librarians 'Need to Be More Like Lady Gaga'

"This is one of the most exciting times to be a teacher-librarian in our country and is also the scariest. A revolution is at hand, and we need to be nimble, daring, digital and shift both our practice and the way the world thinks of school librarians and libraries. Some revolutions compel you to throw everything out. This revolution is easy... keep what you love but just make a shift....

"Shift perception! We need to be more like Lady GaGa than Lady Bird Johnson. We need to establish a clear, pervasive, vibrant, and involved presence in their school, community, and on the web. The more visible librarians are the less likely that they’ll be taken away. Those teacher librarians who are hiding their brilliant programs under a bushel, that's when they're most likely to get cut. We need to stay positive, be proactive, and always be professional!"

--Gwyneth Anne Jones, a teacher-librarian in Laurel, Md., who writes the Daring Librarian blog. Jones's piece was featured in yesterday's Washington Post.

From Shelf Awareness, Friday, July 15, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1509

Books as Part of Your Every Day

2011-07-08T22:24:00.000-04:00

I live with books. Books are part of my home. They're in my kitchen, in my living room, in my library, in my bedroom and in my bathroom. They're in my dining room, in my car, in my pocketbook, and in my laptop bag.

I'm worried because there is no library at the lake - how will I be able to bring all my books with me? Where will I put them? Will I donate the ones that don't make the cut? Will I sell them or auction them off?

There are so many ways to include books in your every day life. Here's one way I never thought of...

http://blog.hgtv.com/design/2011/07/08/daily-delight-penguin-cover-deckchairs/

"E-Readers vs. Love?"

2011-07-05T08:05:00.000-04:00

   E-Readers vs. Love?

   "I had one good pickup line, and e-readers ruined it." 

   --Lisa Lewis in the New York Times, lamenting that when men are reading books on e-readers in public,
   she can no longer see what they're reading and say, "I love that book!"

   - Shelf Awareness Pro, Tuesday, July 5, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1500

This is funny! And, were I still single, oh-so-true!

Project Life

2011-06-30T22:06:00.000-04:00

I'm doing Becky Higgins' Project Life this year. I bought last year's binder package when it went on sale on Amazon for, if I remember correctly, $30 or $40. I've bought some different divided page protectors so that I could include multiple sizes, additional photos, etc.

Here are some photos, from Week 1 on... I'm not including spreads for each week, and some might be more overview and others might be close up...

A list of scrapping classes I'm taking in 2011

When I have to go back and fill something in, I just insert a Post-It with a scribbled note. If I don't go back and finish the page, the memories are still there, sparked by that little note...

I took a photo of my favorite soda while food shopping in Shop Rite.

Mom came home from AZ so I took some photos in the train station while I was waiting for her.

I bought myself a necklace from Lisa Leonard. It included my 2011 word: FOCUS.

Aunt Fanny died. Nothing more to say. RIP, Aunt Fanny! We miss you!

Kat brought us all a candy snack from Japan so I saved the label!

Love you and miss you, Kazia!

Paying bills - I could post a picture like this twice a month, but I won't... That would be cheating... and really boring!

I'll post a few more photos another time - My friend E is coming up on Saturday to do some scrapping. I've almost got her converted, to a small degree. She joined me at the Rockaway crop earlier in June and made herself a mini-book. And LOVED it! She loved the process, the end result! Everything! Yay! Someone else to scrap with! (Yea, I know, don't end a sentence with a preposition...)

Libraries and Bookstores, Oh, My!!!

2011-06-24T12:07:00.000-04:00

From My Shelf, Shelf Awareness for Readers, Volume 1, Issue 4, June 24, 2011

On Browsing

I hope no one will mind if I give a shout out to my very local indie bookstore, One More Page Books in Arlington, Va. I say "very local" because Eileen McGervey's new (launched in 2011) shop is less than a mile from my front door--I can even walk there via the W&OD Trail bike path.

But I'm not talking up One More Page to get you to shop there (although you would be very happy if you did). I want to talk about a quote I read recently in the delightful Pushcast Press compendium of quotations Book Love: A Celebration of Writers, Readers, and The Printed Bound Book, edited by James Charlton and Bill Henderson (who also wrote the introduction). Helene Hanff's quote is "I don't browse in bookshops. I browse in libraries, where you can take a book home and read it, and if you like it you go to a bookstore and buy it." It stopped me right in my tracks with its elegant logic.

I find Hanff's reasoning sound, but for me, browsing in a library is wholly different than browsing in a bookstore. In the library, things are catalogued and cross-referenced. Anyone who has ever worked on a research paper will know the feeling of sliding down an archival rabbit hole while digging out library material that leads you in all different directions, but are, happily, somehow connected.

In a bookstore, you may wind up running in different directions, but it won't always be because things are connected. Perhaps you spend an hour looking at the latest mysteries--then remember that you need to find a great book on wine for a Father's Day gift. Oh, and your book club chose that bestselling novel... hmmm, what's this? A new literary magazine?

Libraries and bookstores are both wonderful places to browse, and I prefer not to go without either one.--Bethanne Patrick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm bemused by this article. I don't keep every book I read; I do keep a large number of them. But I read so much that I'd run out of space quickly. I couldn't possibly fit every book I read on a shelf in my house. I am one of those B&N customers they love to hate: I buy every week, usually more than one book at a time, but I also read others while I'm there, books I have no intention of buying or owning. I would LOVE to support my local library more, but due to the usual constraints of budget and time, I can rarely get over there and they rarely have the books I want to read.

I read all the time. Most of what I read now is current and new. At the library those books are already on reserve for other members. I'm out of the publishing loop; I don't see as much as far in advance as I used to, so I'm into the immediate gratification of reading what I see when I want to read it and if that means I have to read it in the store, over a caramel macchiato, so be it. It might also mean I pick up one or two or three books for the next few days, those that are by authors I LOVE, or stories I've been waiting to read...

For those of you who have been following my "I don't want an e-reader 'cause I love books" rants, hold onto your hats.

I'm going to have to cave and buy one, no idea which one, but I'll have to do so by October. Harry Potter e-books will be available only from http://www.pottermore.com/ and all digital rights belong to JK Rowling. Smart woman, that JK. Bloomsbury and Scholastic will get proceeds from the sales, but her initial contract for HP1 didn't include digital rights for the publisher and subsequent contracts were identical. Smart businesswoman or lucky duck? Either way, she will be the primary beneficiary of all those e-book sales and yes, I will be buying each and every one for whichever reader is the best at the time they're released.

iPad? Kindle? Nook? Not keen on the Kindle 'cause that means I can ONLY buy from Amazon. Nook? Not all that enthused about contributing to that whole monopoly thing (and I love indy bookstores!). iPad? Oh, I'm geeky enough to want one, but apparently there are a few more tablets coming out that I'll have to look into before I commit... Will be discussing with my IT-savvy pals as October draws nearer...

I'll have to own whatever I need for the HP books but that's all I'll admit to right now!

I know I'm not David Letterman...

2011-06-20T08:33:00.000-04:00

...but I just found a news headline I love in today's edition of Shelf Awareness, June 20, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1489:

Favorite headline of the day: "Go the F**k to Your Local Bookstore," from the Colorado Springs Independent.

Ouch, that HAD to hurt!!!

2011-06-17T09:43:00.000-04:00

If you don't want to read about tattoos and/or piercings, please don't click on the following link. But if you want to read a short funny blog post about the newest piercing fad to hit the NY beaches, please visit Laid Off Dad at http://laidoffdad.typepad.com/lod/2011/06/beyonce.html. I "found" Doug years ago (I don't even remember how - perhaps through Dooce?) and I've been a fan ever since.

Libraries

2011-06-10T08:20:00.002-04:00

Forty-Year-Old Wisdom About Libraries

"[A library] isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you--and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life."

--Isaac Asimov in a March 16, 1971, letter to children at the newly opened Troy, Mich., public library, as posted on lettersofnote.com.

From Shelf Awareness, June 10, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1482

Miscellaneous "Stuff"

2011-06-09T12:19:00.000-04:00

I've run across a few things lately that strike a chord with me... I think I'll just post them out here for $%&#$@ and giggles...

I'm on Weight Watchers. I'm not grossly overweight but I can sure stand to lose a few more pounds. A few years ago I lost 25 lbs and was well on my way to getting to my goal weight. Then I fell into the trap that so many newbie WWs fall into: I can do this on my own. Well, I can't. I need WW. And I still trip and stumble and justify two cotton candy treats by saying, "But they're fat-free!" Yea, they are, but they're not sugar-free!!! And sugar + metabolism = carbs = weight. Anyway, gained about 15-20 of those same lbs back, but have recently climbed back into the WW wagon and I'm down 17.3# from my highest. So I have a bit more to go to reach the 25 lbs lost, but I'm shooting for a grand total of 30-35 lbs lost. I'm doing it slowly and hoping the summer fruits and vegetables really give it a kick-start! In the meantime, I ran across this image and thought, "This is one of those ah-ha moments Oprah was talking about!" (Yea, not an Oprah fan but I read a lot!)

We've been talking about gay marriage lately, probably because locally they're running quite a few television ads in support of it in my neck of the woods. I just don't get the objection, I really don't. I'm happy, so happy, in my marriage. Why wouldn't I wish that for each and every human on the planet? And if it happens to be another guy or girl, depending on the person we're referring to, who cares? I'm Roman Catholic. My faith is very important to me. I practice. I get so much support and strength from my relationship with God. I have a hard time believing that He would be against it, that he would punish those that find love and affection and support in someone of the same sex, rather than the opposite sex. I'm NOT posting this to generate comments. I'm just saying...

I ran across this photo on the Pinterest site; I think it originated on Martha Stewart's website. I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to put this on the left wall as you walk into the lake house. I'd LOVE to remove the broom closet and the pantry and just push these shelves back into that space. I'd even push the drawers back flush with the back of the locker space so they're not sticking out and tripping our guests, but I.DON'T.HAVE.A.COAT.CLOSET.IN.THE.LAKE.HOUSE. Well actually I do; Jack just built one in the basement so we'd have somewhere to hang at least our seasonal jackets and coats when we're living there full time in a few years...

Freshman Class

2011-06-05T21:14:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of photos from my high school years.

First, a b/w photo of the front of the school, a shot that was used as the liner pages in our yearbook...

And now a picture of my homeroom class from my freshman year. 10 points to the reader who finds me... And since a few of you only know my by my married name and my maiden name is cut off in the photo, I'm in the first photo, seated in the front row, second from the right, in a stylin' shag and coke-bottle glasses! Like a fine wine, I feel that I've improved with age...

I need to win a $100 gift card from Home Goods

2011-05-31T17:10:00.000-04:00

Yea, yea, I know. YOU could use it, too. But this here blog post? This is my 2nd chance to win!

Here's where the contest is originating: http://kaylaaimee.typepad.com/giveaways/2011/05/shop-til-you-drop-giveaway-100-homegoods-giftcard-.html

By the way, Kayla Aimee's blog is terrific - and her little Scarlette is one seriously GORGEOUS baby! If you want to read a tear-jerking blog, visit her at kayla aimee: only slightly neurotic and read about her beautiful baby's premature arrival and the scares her mom and dad went through until - YAY! - she was strong enough to come home! I'm a regular visitor!

Some scrappy examples...

2011-05-23T14:07:00.000-04:00

Was chatting with my sister this weekend and she commented that she'd be interested in seeing some of my scrap pages, and my art journal work, too. I'm taking a new art journaling class called Life Journaling with Amy Coon (it's an online class) and while I haven't started any hands-on work in this class, I have some other pages I can show off here...

DISCLAIMER: Although I love to do it, and I read tons'o'blogs written by professional scrappers, I.AM.NOT.A.PROFESSIONAL. Please leave only happy, constructive criticism - vicious laughter at my ineptitude will only make me cry!!!

I created this background when the prompt called for inchies: they wanted us to put together a page using 1"x1" photos, pieces of photos, etc. There's a running joke amongst my scrapping pals that I never do exactly what I'm told, or what the instructions say to do - I always give it somewhat of an original twist and do it my way... So rather than 1"x1", I used colored squares that were about 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 inches square and I inked them up with my selection of distress inks. (That selection has doubled since then, by the way!) I thought it would make a cool background but I can't decide what I want to ruin it with - I like it just the way it is! Someday I'll add to the page, either some journaling, some lettering, some photos, some other type of something to finish the page...

This was a page I did in a previous art journaling class that wasn't based on any prompt whatsoever. I was playing around with colors and that wiggly way of putting text on a page, and this is what came out of my doodling...

This is an art journal I made with my own two hands - it's from a kit from Donna Downey. The cover is canvas with a fabric front and back. The interiors are all random sizes and textures: some envelopes, IBM timecards, cardstock, etc. I like the randomness of it a lot - some of the artwork can take literally 5 minutes 'cause the "canvas" is 3"X3" - others take me forever 'cause they're on a 7"x9" page!

For some unknown reason that may be related to the fact that I'm a "guest" on my corporate "guest" wifi network, I am having a devil of a time uploading photos to this site, even from my external hard drive.

I'll make a point of posting future work, and old stuff when I can figure out why I can't post them today...

2 Small Polyps and Mild Diverticulosis

2011-05-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

I was so convinced that I'd be clean as a whistle, I was disappointed to find out I had 2 small polyps and some mild diverticulosis. Nothing a high fiber diet can't eliminate in the future, but...

The important thing is they found them and removed them. And Dr. M. said I don't have to give up seeds or nuts so I can easily add more fiber to my diet. I go back in 3 years.

Advance Notice to Dr. M.: You have 3 years to figure out another way of cleaning me out 'cause I'm not doing this NuLYTELY solution again. It's like drinking salt water; after a single sip I'm ready to gag. THANK GOODNESS the pharmacist said I could mix some lemonade in with the drink. EWWW. (I believe I said the same thing yesterday.)

I had to take 4 Dulcolax tablets - I'll take 8 if I don't have to drink that stuff...

My daughter convinced me a small burger or something on the lighter side would be better after going without solid food for 38 hours, so we went to BK and I had a Whopper Jr. Then after a bottle of water in the afternoon and a hard pretzel, we went to CiCi's for dinner with Mom. I enjoyed my dinner - lots of different pizzas, lots of flavors - and Roman Holiday Italian Ice from the Lyndhurst Pastry Shop for dessert. Mmmmmmm...

Turning 50 - Officially!

2011-05-21T09:05:00.000-04:00

So my birthday was December 18 and that's the day I turned 50. FIFTY! The big Five-Oh! 5 decades! 1/2 a century!

One might think from that sentence that 50 traumatized me but truly, it didn't. I couldn't believe I was 50 years old! When I look in the mirror, I see the me from 30 years ago, granted, with a few more pounds and a few more fine lines on my face, but still? 50? No way.

But today, it's official. I FEEL 50 today. I spent yesterday working from home, prepping for my 1st colonoscopy.

EWW.

There are probably other words I could use, like, "I'm starving!" and "That stuff sucked!" and "It made me want to vomit after the first three glasses!" and "NO EFFIN' WAY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN!"

But I will, in five years or next year, whenever Dr. M. tells me I have to do it again...

I have to be at the office at 11:30 this morning; the procedure is at 12 noon. I'm pretty sure that I'll be fine and they'll find nothing, but even if they find a few polyps, they'll remove them.

I have a bad headache; I'm not sure if it's from the low pressure system on its way (I'm susceptible to pressure headaches) or if it's because I'M STARVING! I haven't had solid food from Thursday night, and I'm so hungry I could scream!

I'm dreaming of where to go for lunch, post-procedure. I'm thinking a diner, instead of our traditional Burger King (that's where J wanted to go after his colonscopies...)... Or perhaps California Pizza Kitchen - I haven't been in a long time and I love their Pear and Gorgonzola pie... That would totally make J sick to his stomach, but it's MY colonoscopy...

Well said...

2011-05-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

Quotation of the Day - Shelf Awareness, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - Volume 2, Issue 1460

Book Reader vs. Book Owner?

"There is a growing distinction between the book reader and the book owner. The book reader just wants the experience of reading the book, and that person is a natural digital consumer: Instead of a disposable mass market book, they buy a digital book. The book owner wants to give, share and shelve books. They love the experience. As we add value to the physical product, particularly the trade paperback and hardcover, the consumer will pay a little more for the better experience."

--John Makinson, CEO of Penguin Group, in a Wall Street Journal q&a yesterday.

[Admittedly not applicable across the board, but to some degree, accurate, in my humble opinion, which is allowed on my blog...]

Love in Cabo - our goodbye breakfast

2011-05-07T21:40:00.000-04:00

Not too much to explain here, so here are some photos....

Wish I was back in Cabo San Lucas...

Love in Cabo - the wedding

2011-05-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

You don't need a lot of narrative, the pictures say it all! (But since you know it's impossible for me to sit quietly, I'll insert some short-but-sweet explanations or comments where necessary!)

Coffee on our terrace.

Poolside...

A little niche 1/2 way between our room and the pool - J waited 2 days to take a picture of me in this spot!

Didn't he look great in that shirt and pants combo?!

I was so worried about being the "only one" in a short dress - 1/2 the guests were in short dresses and it was so darn hot, I'm THRILLED I was in a short dress!

The parents of the groom...

Here comes the bride!

Showing off their bling! (The minister's words, not mine!)

They chose to do a sand ceremony, where they alternated two different colors of sand into a single vase, and the minister made reference to their lives being intertwined and inseparable: "As the grains of sand cannot be separated, neither can your lives."

The happy couple... Oh, I meant to put this caption near the bride and groom! (LOL!)

They had couches and pillows and ottomans set up on the sand for the cocktail hour.

Their first dance as Mr. and Mrs.

Beautiful centerpiece. Every other table had this centerpiece, or the other was a ball of hot pink flowers.

The place settings...

There were fire pits all around the reception area...

The bride cuts the cake, the bride cuts the cake!!!

We went to bed around 10:30/11:00. The party went on until about 1:30am, apparently, but we needed a relatively early night. Immediately after the wedding ceremony, J almost passed out from the sun and heat. All he had to eat all day was 1/2 of an apple and 1/2 of a pear, a 1/2 slice of pizza, and some water. Not much. Some. The resort was there with cool cloths and Gatorade almost immediately when they saw him sitting down, holding his head.

If only I'd thought to take a photo... Yes, to hold over him every time he does something that dumb in the future... Which we all know he will...

;-D

Love in Cabo - the pool and rehearsal dinner

2011-05-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

We ran out to the pool as soon as we got our luggage, which really only took a few moments. Although J wanted to get out and about so we didn't wait - he had to take a picture of me on the premises in my yoga pants/travel outfit... not the most flattering clothes I own but comfortable for 6 hours on a plane...

We got our luggage and immediate went to claim some poolside lounges. There are several pools on the property: a few adult-only pools for those rich old fogies who prefer cigars, peace and quiet, and no kids. Us? Not so much. We went right to the main pool where our group was hanging out and staked a claim on two spots. J started to turn one of the lounges to face the sun and Ernesto ran over and told him not to move the chairs, that he was there to do that. Of course J said, "No, that's okay" and Ernesto almost had a stroke making sure J didn't exert himself in any way... "NO, Sr. Salvetta, I will relocate the lounge for you!"

We settled in, slathered ourselves in either dry oil #4 or a combination of that and SPF 15, SPF 30, and SPF 50 (for my face) and my clear zinc oxide. They brought over a bucket of ice with water and spray Evian cans to mist ourselves if we became too warm...

I have vowed to never take a bathing suit photo with my sister-in-law and/or my niece. You think TV adds 10 pounds?!?!?!?!?!?

At around 3:30 we went back to the room to shower and get ready for the reahearsal dinner. It was being held on the beach at The Office, a restaurant P and B found the last time they went to Cabo. Here are some photos from that evening's dinner... The waiters were AWESOME! They not only provided a high chair for the baby, but when they saw she was sleeping in her mom's arms, they put two chairs together, brought over 6 Mexican blankets, and made a little crib for her so she could rest until she woke up for dinner. Look how cute she looks sleeping in it...

I need to learn how to pose - 9 times out of 10 I stand in THE most unflattering position... Trust me when I say I truly didn't look that heavy in this new dress...

My sister-in-law on the left, mother of the groom, and mother of the bride on the right...

The table at the rehearsal dinner, on the sand, with torches all around us, too...

This was the "crib" the waiters created for E...

Here's a photo of the bride and groom - we love you, R!! (And G, too!)

That was one GIANT mojito!

J and G (the groom) - they may not look alike, but personality-wise, they are SO much alike!

The baby and her mom - she was in a GREAT mood when she woke up from her power nap! To be honest, she was an angel that whole trip - not a peep out of her on the plane, not on any of them, not in the airports when we were delayed, not during our layover, she's the BEST!

I'll do another post of wedding pictures...

Love in Cabo - upon arrival

2011-05-07T16:43:00.001-04:00

On ~~Thursday April 28~~ Friday April 29th we left for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to attend the wedding of our nephew. They decided on a destination wedding. I've never attended a destination wedding before but let me say here, I would SO do it again! We stayed at Las Ventanas al Paraíso.

We are a Motel 6 sort of traveler. As long as the sheets are clean, along with the shower, and there are no critters with more than 2 legs sharing my space, I'm okay with the room. A comfortable bed is negotiable, since we're usually there en route to somewhere else. This resort, though, is beyond anything I've ever experienced in my life. You're greeted on the open air reception patio with a shot of margarita, and then you're escorted to your suite. We paide $575 per night, plus 25% tax. This is so beyond anything we've ever spent before, and that was the wedding rate!!! But as God is my witness, I'd spend it again! The gentleman greeted us by name (we'd never introduced ourselves!) then took us to the room. Here are some room photos:

Every single employee referred to us by name. My sister-in-law is convinced we're videotaped upon arrival and when we confirm our identities, the employees then view the video so they know who's who. How else can you explain that Ernesto at the pool called me Sra. Salvetta when I walked out there to sit in the sun and ~~tan~~ burn for the wedding??? How else can the gardener call me by name? Not the two ~~cleaning fairies~~ butlers assigned to my suite; they know who's staying where, of course...

The next post will be photos from the pool, then the rehearsal dinner. Then I'll post wedding photos, and finally pictures from our Sunday departure breakfast.

For the record, more than a few of us were overheard saying we could get used to this kind of treatment: the white glove service, the coffee service on the patio first thing in the morning, the iced water bottles next to the pool, along with iced spray cans of Evian for when we ~~sweat~~ perspire... Oh, I also have to tell you that our flight down on Thursday was cancelled due to weather. THE HOTEL DID NOT CHARGE US FOR THE ROOM. You're talking about 23 people who didn't make it to the hotel in time for the welcome dinner on the first night. 23 people paying, MINIMUM, $800 dollars per night. Do the math! And the welcome dinner? They didn't charge my nephew for the peopl who didn't attend EVEN THOUGH FOOD WAS PREPARED FOR US AND THE AREA WAS SET UP FOR US.

THAT, my web-friends, is customer service. I would HIGHLY recommend Las Ventana - click on the link above and take an advance look, if you'd like, but I'll be posting my photos tomorrow (or later tonight if we get home early enough)...

My Boyfriend Does My Makeup

2011-04-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

Dooce thinks O should have his own show - I agree. They are so cute!

An amazing 3 minutes 46 seconds

2011-04-18T07:59:00.002-04:00

I'm a fan of Dooce - she seems to find some of the most amazing music, a lot of which while it isn't my "style," is worthy of a few minutes of my time...

THIS? This was definitely worth it - not only music from Yo Yo Ma, but dance by Lil Buck.

Have to admit, "Lil Buck" is not what I would have expected. But I'm still picking my jaw up off the floor.

Yo Yo Ma and Lil Buck

Thank goodness it's over!!!

2011-04-17T12:51:00.002-04:00

For the past two weeks I've been planning a surprise party for my husband - it was his 60th birthday and I thought that deserved something a little special... To make it that much better, too, his friends D and A came down from Massachusetts for the party! He teared up when he saw them. I'm so grateful they took the time to come down for the party; the only thing that would have made it better is if we could have spent more time with them...

J and I talk about EVERTHING and for the last two weeks, since I last-minute-decided to throw this shindig, I've had to watch every word that came out of my mouth. "Maybe I'll call T to join us for b'fast tomorrow..." My instinct is to say, "Don't bother, he's in PA this weekend." "How do you know?" "He texted me to RSVP for your party." Nope, that would have certainly spoiled the surprise... "M called." "Oh, where is she?" "On Rte 3 en route to Bromilow's?" "Why?" "To pick up your chocolate motorcycle lollipops, the favors for your party." Nope, probably not a great conversation starter unless I wanted to spoil the surprise...

I HATE lying. I know it wasn't really lying; it was just avoiding saying certain things. Even his friend K struggled not to slip when they were talking. D's birthday is a few days after J's - he wanted to call when we weren't home so HE wouldn't slip and he was planning on screening his calls when J called HIM so he wouldn't slip then...

That whole surprise thing is stressful. Maybe had I started planning it earlier, I'd have been less stressed, just concerned with not slipping rather than worrying about every last minute detail...

Wish you all could have been there. Rather than tell you all who was there, it would be easier if I just post some photos and add some captions....

Introducing...

My handsome nephew J and my beautiful niece A... now if only he had smiled, with his eyes AND his mouth!

My beautiful mom and J again

My niece T and my darling daughter M

Our friends from Massachusetts, D and A

Our friends E and T - T was one of our best men at our wedding (we had 2! Best men, not weddings!)

My sister C and her beau T - I think almost every photo I have of them is in a similar pose!

My niece C and my sister-in-law P

My great niece E and me - isn't E gorgeous?!? She is SUCH a good baby - not a peep out of her and she was up WAY past her bedtime...

E and my daughter - how I wish the picture was clearer...

Me, J and M - nice family photo!

A and me in one of those self-portrait photos you take at arm's length...

E and her great uncle, the b'day boy himself

Courageous, the movie

2011-04-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

Watch the trailer here: http://www.courageousthemovie.com/

Apparently the Sherwood Ministry, from the Sherwood Church in Albany, GA, has produced several independent movies in an effort to expand their outreach, but I've only seen one: Courageous is due in theaters September 30. My sister got advance screening tickets from one of her sales reps and asked me to go along. The screening was intended for local ministers and while I thought for a moment I might feel a bit out of place, the audience was a bunch of people from several walks of life, all who believe in the value of a father's place in the family.

The movie is about 5 men, 4 friends who are police officers, and one Hispanic man who's a manual laborer struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over his family's heads. They become friends, the 5 men. One of them suffers a tragic death in his family and struggles to come to terms with his loss. During that struggle, he thinks about a quote by his sheriff: that a high percentage of children without a positive father figure/role model eventually wind up doing drugs, committing crimes, walking away from their own children...

These men resolve, in a beautiful family ceremony, to be there for their children, to guide them, to teach them, to show them the way to God, to love them...

The movie follows their lives through loss, success, tragedy, and just the every day.

Sure, there were a couple of too-easy conclusions to some of the situations, but I LOVED THIS MOVIE. I was lucky enough to have an awesome father, a tremendous mother. I grew up confident in their love and support, knowing what was expected of me, what they hoped and prayed for me. I have two sisters who will most likely agree that we had a pretty Leave It to Beaver/Father Knows Best sort of childhood. We were loved, protected, guided. I BELIEVE that not only should fathers step up, PARENTS should step up.

But the purpose of this movie was to show how important it is for a father to be there for his family. It was an inspiring, powerful movie. At the end we found out that the movie was created by the Sherwood Ministry. The "stars" are not actors, the writer acted in the movie, people in church and in town donated a lot of the set props, the actors are "just people." They did a tremendous job, and quite honestly, I'm eager to see some of the other movies they did, too. Apparently their last movie, Fireproof, was the #1 independent movie of 2008.

Tomorrow is J's Birthday...

2011-04-11T23:34:00.000-04:00

... so of course, in the grand tradition of our family, we extend birthdays at least one day, maybe five (of COURSE that's not a hint of any kind!)... Here are some photos from our 1st b'day celebration...

Grand-niece E's mommy made b'day hats for Uncle J and for the baby...

The cutest thing is when he's in the room, she has eyes for no one else. Well, it's cute, but rather annoying since I'm totally addicted to her smile and love when she looks at me!!!

Apparently since she just turned 9 months old, she can have sugarfree icebox cake with Cool Whip, but she can't have any ice cream to celebrate J's b'day... No dairy until she's a year old. (Because I suppose, you can be allergic until the 365th day, but on the 366th? All clear!!!)

Keeping a Journal

2011-04-08T17:18:00.000-04:00

Ali Edwards posted this on Facebook. I think, despite how much I love my husband, that I sort of fell for this guy...

I promised you a photo or two...

2011-04-04T23:13:00.001-04:00

I promised you a picture of the banner J made and hung up in the doorway of our room while I was away... I got home and there were hearts on the front door and on the inside French door, and this banner was hanging in our bedroom doorway...

And just 'cause she's too cute, I can't not post a photo of my baby grand-niece... (Don't pay any attention to the bad grammar OR the bad photos of me - just look at how absolutely ADORABLE she is!!!)

Why Publishing is a Unique Industry...

2011-04-02T14:30:00.001-04:00

Publishing: 'Not Like Any Other Business'

"When people say publishing is a business--actually it's not quite a business. It's part gambling and part arts and crafts, with a business component. It's not like any other business, and that's why when standard businessmen go into publishing and think, 'Right, I'm going to clean this up, rationalize it and make it work like a real business,' two years later you find they're bald because they've torn out all their hair. And then you say to them, 'It's not like selling beer. It's not like selling a case of this and a case of that and doing a campaign that works for all of the beer.' You're selling one book--not even one author any more. Those days are gone, when you sold, let's say, 'Graham Greene' almost like a brand. You're selling one book, and each copy of that book has to be bought by one reader and each reading of that book is by one unique individual. It's very specific."

--Margaret Atwood in an interview with the Globe & Mail.

I haven't read much by Margaret Atwood, but this quote will make me check her out! It was published in Shelf Awareness on March 21st, and I had put it aside to post here, but I'm just getting around to it...

When I first joined the publishing industry, after several years in the independent bookstore world, I learned that there were really only 300-400 people in publishing, and they all just moved around from company to company, position to position. I clearly remember the day one of my sales reps changed companies -- I felt so much a publishing insider 'cause I could track him from one company to another! I was working for a woman, at the time, who'd been in publishing for a few years and seemed to know everyone who was anyone, but it turns out that all it takes is a few years in the business and you, too, could "know everyone."

I've been in publishing long enough, too, to have seen how it changed from "publishing" to "a business." Big companies swallowed up small companies. Instead of moving up to an executive position from a lowly sales rep position, bean counters were hired from outside our industry to turn publishing into a profitable business. That's when we lost a lot of the passion in publishing. Back in the day, when there were a lot of small, independent bookstores, before B&N took over the world, the employees in those indies knew books. They knew authors. They knew their customers. There were several employees in the small bookstore in which I worked. We knew who to call when the new so-and-so came in 'cause that customer would be in the next day to get it. We knew to put away all the new Harlequins 'cause Ms. XYZ would be in to pick them up, no matter the cover, no matter the author. We knew if something would sell the minute it was pulled out of the carton, and we knew who would buy it.

Today? Not so much. Sure, if you ask B&N management if their store employees know books, they'll say yes. And to a certain degree, I guess they do. But they don't know me. Hell, I'm in there once a week and the employees, not a one of them, would recognize me if they were about to run me over with the book cart. They don't know who I read, they don't know who I won't read, they don't even know my first name!

That's a business.

That's NOT publishing.

100 Titles I May or May Not Have Read...

2011-03-29T13:18:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure where this book list came from, perhaps the BBC? I found it on Jana Laurenes blog... I'm going to boldface those I've read, and italicize those I've started but never finished, just like Jana did... Thanks for the idea, Jana!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - does it count if I've heard almost the entire thing in church over the past 50 years, and read so much more of it?
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louis M. Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - I've finished quite a bit but by no means have I finished the "complete" works!
15. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Ttraveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Fostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de zBernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - not sure if I ever finished it
66. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding - saw the whole movie, though...
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island – Bill Bryson - read other Bryson titles, but not this one
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Inferno – Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Home Sweet Home

2011-03-27T21:27:00.001-04:00

I was SO darned happy to get home from my business trip, you have no idea! I missed my husband, my bed, my shower... Any my husband missed me, too. So much so he put up a sign to welcome me home; I'll post a photo once I get it uploaded to my computer.

The trip home was tough - lots of turbulence. It didn't make me sick, but apparently it really bothered my boss. He commented the next day that he can handle turbulence that makes the plane rise and drop, but that side to side movement at the same time? Not so much!

I came in on Wednesday evening. Just in time for snow lightning and thunder and lots of icy slush on the ground. And me in my flat work shoes and no boots. Managed to step right into a cold puddle of slush outside the airport, and again outside the house. COLD!

Finished the work week by working from home on Friday. I had a doctor's appointment with a geriatric rheumatologist at 10am. Yea, I didn't know he was a geriatric rhematologist when I made the appointment. I was the youngest patient in there, and at 50, that's not saying much! After a thorough review of my medical history and my symptoms, the doctor recommended a cortisone shot. I know that J is anti-cortisone shot so when Dr. L. recommended one, I told him I wanted to call my husband first. So I did. And I explained that the doctor was convinced the injection would alleviate the swelling in my bursa that was, in his expert opinion, causing my hip pain. Ultimately I decided to try the shot.

And OH.MY.GOD. I'm walking almost normally again! I've already made an appointment for the other hip, and if I need another shot, I'm going for it. I haven't walked so comfortably or climbed stairs with so little pain in almost a YEAR. I am going on the record right now: this shot helped me. I don't know how long this will last; the doctor thought this could conceivably "cure" the problem by reducing the inflammation. I can't even imagine - but I'm going to give it a darn good shot. Or two or three...

Well, have to go and update my iTouch - will be back later this week, hopefully with more photos...

In Wisconsin, by way of Chicago

2011-03-23T00:43:00.000-04:00

So if we were just a few miles north of Madison, we'd be getting 12" of snow.

Instead, it's 35 degrees with a REALLY chilly wind off the lake. And it's raining. A cold, cold rain.

And to make me SO happy to head home, 4"-8" of snow are due in NJ tomorrow (in the lake area) and up to 3" or 4" at home.

It's the end of March, for cryin' out loud. It is officially spring.

As much as I love snow, it's time for spring. It's time for crocuses, buds on the trees, sun, warmth, a long, tall, unsweetened iced tea on my front porch, in the porch swing.

It's time for the snow to go bye-bye. Until next winter. Not forever.

I was a bit worried since one of J's after-school workers was in WI last week and said there was still snow on the ground and it was cold... I saw snow, but really only in about 2 or 3 patches; I saw a lot more flooding, as if all that snow melted and the water table was just f.u.l.l. Plus they've apparently had some rain, too, at least these past couple of days...

So tomorrow I'm due back in Chicago for a 4:05pm flight home. Thank you, God! I do love to travel, but I miss my husband. I'd prefer to travel with him, not leave him at home. We both miss each other a lot. Just knowing he's in the house, nearby, is comforting to me. Having to sleep in these huge beds in the hotels just makes me miss him that much more. Waking up in the middle of the night, realizing he's not just in the bathroom - that makes it harder to fall back asleep. I miss knowing he's there, next to me.

I'm a teeny bit worried about tomorrow - I have no book to read on the plane. I might have to visit Hudson News in the airport and pick up a little something...

Counting down to HOME!!!

Need a dock???

2011-03-20T11:50:00.001-04:00

This is what our dock looks like down, post-iced-over-lake.

Wanna buy it? Best offer gets it. Pick up only.

No takers?

Okay. It's firewood next year!!!

I'm traveling this week (to Chicago and Wisconsin) so J's job is to call a couple of dock guys and see if they can come out and take a look and give us at least an idea, even if all we decide to do is replace the one that was there. Although we are thinking about expanding it to be about 20' long by 10' wide for the biggest part, and u-shaped with only a 2' or 3' wide by 20' long for the other long part of the U. And we're thinking about spacing it to accommodate a pontoon boat like this one:

We're hoping to get one used here at the lake at some point in the future.

We certainly don't need it now, since we don't have a dock...

But I can imagine it... wind in my hair, sun on my shoulders, book in my hand, iced tea at my side, lounging on my lounge chair in the middle of the lake on my pontoon boat, or if we're lucky and get the version of the boat that has two built-in lounges....

Welcome to my retirement, boys and girls! Hope you have as nice a time as I plan to...

Now if only I could win that MegaMillions/Powerball...

Some photos I took these past few weeks...

2011-03-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

I did it! I used an overlay in Photoshop Elements 8 and managed to do it right and save it so I could print the photo WITH the overlay!

To say nothing of the fact that this is my all-time FAVORITE photo of J - I see such love in his eyes as he looks at me...

On my iTouch I have a couple of photo apps that will alter photos I take - this Instagram filter makes the stack of games at school look like the photo was taken in the 70s - love that vintage look! (From now on I'll have to keep track of what app/filter I use...)

A self-photo of me and my camera...

A photo of the lake, frozen over this past February; took this one in Instagram (no idea which filter, though)

Here's a shot from my office window - another Instagram photo of the NYC skyline

And another...

When I went up to the lake this weekend, before J and I took ill, we found that the ice took out our dock. I'm going to call our insurance agent to see if it's worth putting in a claim, and how much our premiums will increase...

Here she is, Princess E - this photo was taken last Monday... isn't she just darling?!

She crawled for the first time the hour before we got there. Her daddy got it on video and he tried to get her to do it again for her Cioci Krys - and she did!!!

My aunt's family is okay.

2011-03-14T17:44:00.000-04:00

Thank you, God.

My aunt is Japanese and we've been wondering if her family is okay (she lives in Colorado Springs). My cousin called her (he lives nearby) and it turns out that, luckily for her and for the family, she has no friends or family in the affected areas of Japan.

Which means that much more of my prayers can go to random strangers in that country who SO need them.

Tomorrow I'll be doing some research for a charity I can donate to - we have an office in Tokyo and thank goodness, they're all okay, too, although they've closed the offices until Monday or Tuesday of next week. Our company will be matching our employee donations so I'm going to try to make a good one to contribute to the grand total.

It feels good to work for a company who cares.

What this week looks like for me...

2011-03-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

Work:

Prep for my trip to Chicago and Wisconsin next week
Volunteer at school on Tuesday
Catch up on new title submissions

Play:

Catch up on photos for Project Live
Pack up a project for Friday, just in case
Prep for next week's crop day
Watch Ali Edwards video

Home:

Eye doctor Tuesday night
Laundry
Clean house (1st, the bedroom!)
Create a meal plan for the week
Shop Rite with Mom for this week's food shopping

I'm sick, too...

2011-03-13T20:35:00.001-04:00

We started out at 7:15am and went to the lake. I went to WW and Jack went to the Walmart to get Mucinex-D. When I came out of the meeting he was napping in the car. The Walmart pharmacy didn't open until 9am so he couldn't get the medicine he needed. He insisted on getting me breakfast at Panera, then we drove to the lakehouse and dropped off the cabinets J built for the new basement pantry area. Then we left to come home.

I suggested he go to the Immedicenter but he said, no, maybe later. Until we got within 20 minutes of home and he decided we were going straight to the doctor. They prescribed another Z-pack and Flonase, then suggested gargling with hot/warm salt water and some steam therapy with either an inhaler or a bowl of hot water and a towel. He felt so bad that he wanted me to drop him home before I went to CVS to pick up his prescriptions.

I had made plans to go shopping with E and he insisted I still go. He didn't want me to stay home and get infected. So I went, and all I bought in 4 hours of power shopping was a can of dry shampoo. Better luck next time...

I got home and he was awake, so I warmed up some homemade chicken soup, which he managed to keep down even though he was a bit queasy. He slept in M's room because he didn't want me to get whatever it is he had. I really don't like sleeping alone; it just doesn't feel right...

Then my nephew called at 11:30pm to say he had a flat tire up the block from me, and he needed a lug wrench. So I took it up there and waited until he changed his tire; one guy stopped to ask if we needed help, and then the local police patrol stopped, but J was almost done at that point. I followed him home to make sure he got there. I was a bit suspicious that he might leave after I did to go out again, but according to my sister, he stayed in for the night. Call me a prude, but getting home at 12:30am is late enough; there's no need for him to be out until 3:30 or 4:30 in the morning...

Anyhow, all day yesterday I was getting pains in my left ear. I've never had an earache and personally, I hope I never have another one.

I got up this morning, and MY HAIR HURT. J told me that was a hangover, not an earache, but since I don't drink, that would rank up there with another virgin birth! I have never ever thought my HAIR could hurt!!! But it truly does! The nurse practitioner I saw at the Immedicenter this morning (yes, indeed, today I went to see someone there!) said it was probably just my scalp was inflamed from the ear infection she can't swear I have because it all looks clear in there. My throat is a little red but there was no indication of strep. She did a throat culture anyway and will call me tomorrow to tell me if it came back positive or negative. And she started me on an antibiotic even though she can't swear I'm positive for strep, and if she hadn't, I'd have begged her to, even though I'm not big on antibiotics unless I'm really sick... For crying out loud, MY HAIR HURTS!!!

The medicine is making me really thirsty, too; my lips feel like they're cracked and chapped, even though I don't think they are, at least not yet. I've been drinking loads of liquids today since my visit to the doctor...

I have to be sure I'm well 'cause next Monday I leave for Chicago and Wisconsin. Yay. Note the enthusiasm.

Well, I'm off to get another drink of something - I'm really, really thirsty!!!

Sending prayers to Japan...

2011-03-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

My aunt is Japanese.
My cousins are 1/2 Japanese.
They have relatives there.
They have relatives there who may (or may not) have suffered in this massive earthquake and tsunami.
I'm praying for my family. And for their family.

And I'm praying for the many, many people in Japan I'm not related to.
I'm praying for their survival, their safety, their families, their grieving, their recovery.

I'm praying a lot today.

Reading Experience 'Shattered by the Presence of a Mob'

2011-03-10T09:04:00.001-05:00

Reading Experience 'Shattered by the Presence of a Mob'

"I'm reading a new book I downloaded on my Kindle and I noticed an underlined passage. It is surely a mistake, I think. This is a new book. I don't know about you, but I always hated underlined passages in used books.... And then I discovered that the horror doesn't stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who's defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station.

"So now you can add to the ease of downloading an e-book the end of the illusion that it is your book. The end of the privileged relation between yourself and your book. And a certainty that you've been had. Not only is the e-book not yours to be with alone, it is shared at Amazon which shares with you what it knows about you reading and the readings of others. And lets you know that you are what you underline, which is only a number in a mass of popular views.... Conformism does come of age in the most private of peaceful activities--reading a book, one of the last solitary pleasures in a world full of prompts to behave. My Kindle, sugar-coated cyanide."

--Andrei Codrescu on NPR's All Things Considered

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me you can shut this feature off!!!
This would drive me up a wall!
I LOVE to underline and comment in some of my books, not all of them, but someone else's highlights???
They're of no interest to me.
I wouldn't want them to skew my reading of a book that's completely new to me!!!

100 things about me

2011-03-08T20:44:00.002-05:00

I am addicted to reading.
I finally learned I have some artistic talent at the ripe old age of 43.
I love babies.
I take pride in my work.
I'm registered as a Republican.
I love unsweetened iced tea.
My favorite colors are purple and green.
I really believe time goes more slowly at the lake house. That's why weekends seem longer there.
I would like to visit Paris.
I skipped senior year in high school to attend the University of Delaware as a Freshman Honors Student and graduated from there in 1981/1982.
I used to be smart. (See #10)
My husband built me bookshelves in our library for a Christmas present several years ago.
I would have gotten engaged on July 3, 1998, instead of July 4, 1998, IF I had let my then-boyfriend win at Rummikub.
I love to drive.
There were only 107 people at our wedding, including the bride and groom and our attendants.
I've made some wonderful friends on the internet. (Hello to all of you!)
I miss my dad every day. He died March 16, 1987.
I became best friends with my best friend on January 30, 1978.
I love snow.
I am VERY myopic and have a bad astigmatism in my right eye.
I was 30 years old when I had my ears pierced.
Amethysts are my favorite gemstone.
One of my favorite books is Anthem, by Ayn Rand.
My favorite singer/songwriter is Dan Fogelberg.
I love everything about the Christmas season.
I could watch What Not to Wear all day, every day.
Along with House Hunters.
I have owned 4 cars in my entire life.
I have a stepdaughter and a stepson.
I love pizza.
My childhood dog was a Samoyed and her name was Belle.
If I could be half the mom my mother is, I'd consider myself a HUGE success in the parenting thing.
I've only had one real boyfriend in my life and I married him.
I love computers and gadgets like my GPS, my iPod Touch.
I go to Weight Watchers, but I don't stick to plan very well.
I would like to take a class in photography when I retire.
I'd like to retire.
I'm a Harry Potter fanatic.
I love riding on my husband's motorcycle with him.
I like wood floors SO much more than I like rugs and carpet.
I used to like gold more than I liked silver, but now I don't have a favorite.
My baby grand niece has me wrapped around her tiny little finger.
My favorite cake is yellow cake with milk chocolate icing.
I miss my sister and wish she didn't live so far away.
I spoke only Polish until I was about four-and-a-half, except, I guess, with my dad, but I can't speak a word of it now! (But I can understand most of what I hear if I concentrate.)
I love scrapbooking.
I don't like NYC and would avoid going there if I could.
I ~~like~~ love to eat.
I remember watching Romper Room and Wonderama as a child, on our black and white television.
I'm 50 years old!!!! (It just doesn't seem possible!!!)
Coffee, not tea.
I love my dentist!
If I miss church on a Sunday, it just feels like something is missing, and not right.
My dream car would be a Turbo Lotus Esprit from the mid-1970s, in yellow with a black interior.
I bought a cross ring the day my dad died, and have never taken it off since then.
I volunteer every other week by reading for a 2nd grade class at my husband's school, for a Read Aloud program my company sponsors.
I leave my Santa Claus collection up year round.
I've only had four full-time jobs in my lifetime, and one for only two months, and only 2 part-time jobs.
We attend two different churches, one at home and one at the lake on weekends we're there, but we're only registered at the one near our primary residence.
I'm Catholic.
I was a microbiology major for the first two years of my college career.
I'm really quite shy and modest.
I can remember not having to dial an area code unless it was for long distance, and I can also remember telephone numbers that sounded like this: (PI)lgrim3-7407.
The first LP I bought for myself was the double Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It cost $11.00 and that was more than HALF my monthly allowance in 1977.
I'm a homebody and would rather be home than away.
I love to window shop.
I had only two rules in my house for my nephew and my niece: no whining, and pay attention when I speak to you.
As I get older, I truly think I suffer more and more from some sort of seasonal disorder. I NEED some sunlight!!!
I hate the Twilight series.
I'd like to take a cooking class when I retire, too.
I love notebooks and pocketbooks and can buy one at the drop of a hat!
I spend every Monday night at my sister-in-law's house where we gossip and drink coffee and eat dessert.
Irises are my favorite flower.
I like to fly.
I'm not a big stew person, although I like soup once in a while.
I had an emergency appendectomy in January, 1969, and back surgery in July, 2001.
I'm 1/2 Polish, and 1/2 American (of Dutch, British and Lenni Lenape descent)
When I was a freshman in high school, my dad picked me up one day dressed as Santa Claus!
I never went on a real "vacation" until I was about 13, and that was to Washington, DC, and Longwood Gardens with my family.
We spent a couple of weeks each summer in Seaside Heights, NJ, while my dad stayed home and worked, or took his vacation and painted the house or did other jobs around the house. He'd come and visit on weekends.
I got Cs in gym class until the semester I cut class, and THEN I got a B. And then I married a gym teacher. Go figure.
I worked in a photochemical company for 5 years - wonder if I glow in the dark? This was WAY before we took so many precautions with hazardous chemicals...
My wedding dress was the first one I tried on, NOT the one I dreamed about for years before I got engaged! (THAT one looked AWFUL on me!)
When I retire I want to learn to quilt.
I make awesome cole slaw with my mom's recipe.
Thank God for that show, Hoarders. It makes me feel better about my pack-rat tendencies. I'm nowhere NEAR as bad as those poor people!
I make better quick and easy chicken soup with pre-cooked rotisserie chicken than I do chicken soup with a fresh/raw chicken.
I don't like to cook meat - I like it well-done and I tend to think "it's a bit too pink" and then I leave it in a little longer and it becomes shoe leather!
I like cold chocolate milk more than hot chocolate.
My favorite Starbucks drink is an iced caramel macchiato.
Dogs. Not cats.
I love to play slots at the casino!
I don't like lobster.
I can't wear heels higher than 2 inches or I'm sure I'd twist an ankle!
Speaking of ankles, I love ankle bracelets. And I never thought I'd like toe rings, but I do!
My favorite weekly crime show is Criminal Minds. I will rearrange my schedule to be home to watch it. And the other show we refuse to miss is Castle.
I would leave my husband for Clint Eastwood. I'd come back, of course, but I'd have to go!!! He's a god!!!
My favorite engagement ring setting is a simple Tiffany setting - and that's what J got me.
I like salty snacks better than sweet snacks.
Mojitos rock!!!

Want vs. Need

2011-03-07T17:01:00.000-05:00

I NEED to win the lottery.
I need to not work.
I need to be able to sleep past 5:45am.
I need to be independently wealthy so that I can do #1, #2, and #3.
I need to lose a couple of difficult customers and perhaps "need" in numbers 1 through 4 could be changed to "want."
I need to be a better housekeeper. (I most definitely do not WANT to be a better housekeeper.)
I hope to be a better daugher, wife, sister, aunt, friend, cousin, employee.
I need God to smile down on me and help me to achieve numbers 1 through 7. I know I can't do it alone.

Went to a bridal shower yesterday...

2011-03-06T11:36:00.002-05:00

My nephew (on hubby's side) is getting married in April.

In Cabo San Lucas.

Mexico.

And we're going.

YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!

Yesterday was the bridal shower for his fiancee R. We love R. She's so nice and he's so happy with her.

The shower was at a restaurant named Jane in NYC. I really wouldn't voluntarily go to NYC on a Saturday for very many people, but R is one of them! The food was great - here's what we got to choose from:

Starter

Mushroom Soup - Portobello, brandy, truffle oil

Seasonal Fruit Salad

Main Courses

Shrimp Risotto - lemon, chervil butter, lobster broth

Steak Salad - organic arugula, goat cheese, red onion, beefsteak tomatoes, shoestring potatoes, balsamic vinaigrette

Egg White Scramble - sauteed spinach, goat cheese, mixed greens

Sides for the Table

Spicy Garlic Broccoli

Rosemary Fries

Desserts

Profiteroles - espresso ice cream, caramel and chocolate sauce

Warm Apple Tart - puff pastry, cider caramel, vanilla ice creaam

Mimosa, Bloody Mary

juice, fountain soda, coffe & tea (they also had green iced tea)

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!! (I boldfaced my choices!)

Here are a couple of photos from the party...

The gifts

The bride (R is in the middle) with her bridesmaids

My dessert - I could have eaten 3 plates!

The clock we got her (along with the hamper she asked for - see that HUGE box behind her head!?)

R with my nieces (the groom's twin sisters) and their cousin-in-law (K) on the right, along with the ribbon bouquet they made with the ribbons from the gifts

The party ran from 11:30 to about 2:30 - we got home around 4pm-ish, after we packed the cars to bring all the gifts back to NJ, made our way through Holland Tunnel traffic, etc.

It was a fun party, not without a little grandma drama (she's 95 and a little too used to being the center of attention), but all in all we had a great time and it was a lot of fun spending time with my nieces and my sister-in-law and meeting the bride's friends and family.

Welcome to the family, R (almost!)!!!

I'm not a size 10.

2011-03-05T17:58:00.002-05:00

Apparently if you want to buy a nice floral gown for a beach wedding, you have to be a size 10. Or smaller.

If you go to Bloomingdales, though, and are willing to spend $600 or more, you can be a size 12, because that's the largest size some designers will allow. When I told the lady that I was a 12, 14, or 16, depending on the designer, she said, "Well, this designer only goes to a 12 and that won't fit you."

Really?

THEN she said, "What about this dress?" And she pulled a navy blue, OLD grandmother of the bride dress off the rack on the other side of the aisle.

My response? "I DID mention this was a beach wedding, right? And I'm 50, not 85." She hung that dress right back on the rack and didn't try to help me anymore. (I think SHE was about 85!)

Now I'm not sensitive about my age or my size, truly, I'm not. But it's completely unacceptable that I can't find a dress to wear that is floral, is not made of heavy textured satin, and doesn't cover me up from head to toe like I'm wearing a nun's habit. I'm really not into letting it all hang out, but I was hoping for something bright and cheerful, maybe a bit tropical, and a little floaty... Something along the lines of this dress (although I'm not a big fan of the one shoulder look)...

(Yes, we veered away from a short cocktail dress and most of the women are looking for fun, bright long dresses, so I thought I'd look, too.)

I went to Sax's Fifth Avenue, knowing full well that when you wear designer clothes, I could easily be in a higher size number than when I buy off the rack at Target and Walmart, or Dress Barn and Annie Sez. The dress could be a size 52 if it looked good on me - you're looking at ME, not the size tag! The very nice lady brought me about 8 dresses to try, in 14s and in 16s. Dresses that she had to bring to me FROM THE STORAGE ROOM. They don't keep dresses in those sizes on the racks!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is America! The average size of a woman in the USofA is NOT 6. And while I did find a sort of nice dress there, it was black and white and I'm just old-fashioned enough to not want to wear something that looks too white to a wedding... And surprisingly, several of them looked quite nice but just weren't appropriate for the event.

So we went to Macy's and I tried on a couple of dresses that were, well, okay, but a little formal for a beach wedding. Perhaps if the wedding was going to be in a banquet hall somewhere, they'd have been acceptable. Actually, they'd have been great for that type of event.

But we're going to be barefoot on the beach, for crying out loud. I don't want to wear satin or taffeta. Especially satin or taffeta all the way up to my neck and on my arms and down to my ankles.

My sister-in-law found a dress that she brought into the dressing room for me to try on, and I did.

And I bought it. Even though it was short. I can easily wear it with gold flat sandals that I already own, and it's more than appropriate, with a cream background with gold and bronze and sort of a muddy brown print... Sounds a bit dull, I know, but it looks cute on! Here's what it looks like:

(Truly, in real life, it's much less white, and much more cream - I think it's my yellow-ish walls that make it look so white-ish.) It's much more shapely when it's on me!! To top it all off, it was $101.40, on sale, and I had a $50 gift card, so - do the math - it cost me $51.40. And it comes with a matching scarf, too. LOVE it, and it's appropriate; IF I can't find a long dress I'm wearing this one. (My SIL and my niece loved it on me, and hubby said I looked pretty in it, too - SOLD!!!)

Anyway, just got back from the shower - will post some bridal shower photos later... Gotta start dinner...

So far, one dress...

2011-02-26T17:30:00.002-05:00

Okay, it doesn't fit, it's a little too big. I had to hold it up so I didn't wind up flashing the internet... but so far, this is my favorite dress for the wedding. I really would prefer a brigher print, and I'm still going to look for another dress, but this one is in the running.

I know it would look a lot better with a tan, and without my sock peeking out at the bottom, and of course, if it fit, but I like it. It feels comfortable. It feels like me, rather than me dressed up.

Will keep you posted.

(And by the way, all of you who gave me great advice on those short cocktail dresses? Thanks. But now it seems the family is leaning toward longer dresses.

Of course, if I can't find one...

Received two orders today...

2011-02-25T22:43:00.001-05:00

... two orders containing some of my favorite things... scrapping paper, stamps, alphabet sets, brads, buttons, labels, and rub-ons based on "The Classics" - The Three Musketeers, Pride and Prejudice, The Wizard of Oz, The Ender, et cetera, et cetera... How could I resist???

And what did the other package contain? Books! The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - A Love Story, by Ree Drummond, .and The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown. I can't wait to start them!

J is building some cabinets for me for the basement at the lake house. They're not for the summer kitchen, per se, but for the pantry and a counter for the microwave. There will be some closed in cabinets so that the canned goods don't get AS dusty when he's working on one of his projects in the big room...

We put together the frame of the floor to ceiling pantry today. Tomorrow he'll start working on the smaller cabinet.

I'm going to the mall with my sister-in-law tomorrow, to start looking for a dress for her son's wedding in Cabo San Lucas in April. I'm going to start tomorrow with a visit to WW, then a bagel with my hubby, then I'll run home and shower before we start shopping. Maybe I'll be able to talk P into lunch while we're out shopping... I'll check Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor, Macy's, etc. If I can even try on a few dresses and get some idea of styles, colors, prints and patterns...

Sunday we'll got to Shop Rite, Mom and I will, after breakfast with J's Uncle Johnny. Breakfast at the little coffee cafe in the Shop Rite, actually. (They have some yummy flavored coffees - J really enjoys the Amaretto flavor, while I usually opt for the Chocolate Raspberry.)

I have about 2 or 3 hours of housecleaning to do, too, which I'll probably do after the mall. A load or two of laundry, clean off the coffee table, match up the dental insurance and send a payment to Dr. M., and then start sorting through our tax paperwork so we can submit our tax returns. (Yea, sounds like fun, right?!?)

Want to do some reading tomorrow, and some scrapping. Ordered some photos tonight, for pick up at Costco tomorrow. I ordered a real cute one of E in J's camo hat. I chose to print 4 wallet-sized ones so I could use it in my Project Life book... I have to remember that I have other page protectors that I can use for vertical 4"x6" photos...

Well, it's 10:43pm and I need to just finish my coffee and relax before bedtime... Talk with you tomorrow...

I feel helpless...

2011-02-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

A dear friend of mine, who I met through J, is having a very tough time right now.

For as long as I've known G, her mom's had a heart condition. She's 85 years old (her mom is), and it's really quite simple: it's just not as easy to recover from an attack as it was 10 years ago, or even last year. She gets bad more quickly, it seems, and it takes longer for her to recover, and she never quite gets back to where she was post-last-episode.

G is having a real hard time dealing with the fact that her mom is, well, she's dying. There's no other way to put it. This morning I called and left a message at G's house, just to say hi, we're thinking about you, we're going to be around this weekend, if you can spare an hour...

She called me this afternoon. She cried. G is such a strong woman. To hear her cry and say that she doesn't think her mom will make 2 more weeks - well, it broke my heart.

We forget that strong people hurt, too, and for some reason, when we realize it, it seems bigger and worse than for other people, or at other times, or under other circumstances. She's so worried that there's so much to do:

decide hospice vs. no hospice
pick out a dress for her mom to wear
sign her mom's new lease vs. not signing
if she doesn't sign, she has to empty the apt immediately
if she does sign, and her mom dies soon, she has to empty the apt immediately
what if there is money in envelopes hidden around the house? she can't leave others to clean the apt
her brother doesn't get it - he doesn't realize his mom is dying
G's husband ate a PB&J sandwich for dinner the other night (the end of the world, according to G - I was quick to point out that M is an adult and if that's what he made for himself, that's what was okay with him)
etc.
etc.
etc.

She's overwhelmed with thoughts of what she needs to do, what she should do, what she doesn't have time to do, what she can't do. She's angry because her brother won't take vacation time he doesn't have (he just started a new job a month or so ago) to spend time with their mom now, before she's gone.

Her mom's wishes are to be revived no matter what. Although, she said, if she's on a respirator and there's no hope, then let her go...

But G is worried about THAT, too - "if she's on a respirator, I could never pull the plug."

I let her talk. I let her cry. I sympathize. I cry, too. I tell her how much I wish I could help her. I tell her to call a mover NOW, move her mom's stuff into her parlor. Fill the damn room with all her mom's stuff and get rid of what she doesn't want NOW. If you know you want the new recliner, put it where you want it in your house. If you know you don't want the rickety old dinette set that you've been trying to replace in her apt for the past 5 years, toss it. Go through her things later, when you have time.

IF you're positive she's never going to come home. Because I know her mom. If she rallies, and if she can come home again, and she finds out G gave up her apt, OOOOOHHHHH, G is in trouble!!!!

And you have no idea how much I HOPE G gets into trouble with her mom again soon!!!

From Shelf Awareness, today's issue...

2011-02-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

'Imagining the 21st Century's Digital Bookstore'

"As more and more Americans choose to order books online, or to switch to e-books, they don't need to patronize physical bookstores any longer. But any sales person ought to know that need and want are two different things.... I can find a much larger selection of books by firing up my Web browser than heading over to my local Borders, which is among those scheduled to close. I don't need that Borders in order to find and buy the books which interest me.

"But, as an enthusiastic reader, I want to have an excuse to get out of the house once in a while and spend some time alone with fresh books and magazines. My middle-school, book-worm daughter wants a place to hang out with her friends after school. No, we don't need a physical place to buy books any longer, but we want that alternative.... While it's nice to daydream as a consumer about the type of bookstore I want to see in my neighborhood, for publishers, a functional 21st-century physical bookstore isn't just a want, it's something we will continue to need."

--Robert Niles in his Online Journalism Review article, "Imagining the 21st Century's Digital Bookstore."

See? Yet ANOTHER need vs. want discussion... that applies to so many things in my life: do I really NEED another muffin? do I really NEED another set of scrapbooking stamps? do I really NEED to buy that magazine? (Yes. Yes. And yes again.)

Weddings

2011-02-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

I had the most perfect wedding. The only thing that could have made it better would have been my Daddy alive to walk me down the aisle.

Oh, and I admit I wish the church had air conditioning. It was the freakin' HUMIDEST day of the year!!! (Yea, I know that's not a word - it's all for effect!)

But this wedding here?

http://www.stylemepretty.com/2011/02/24/brooklyn-wedding-by-weddings-by-two-bespoke-affairs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fstyle_me_pretty+%28Style+Me+Pretty%3A+The+Ultimate+Wedding+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Okay - they win. A wedding in a library? A historical society's library, no less?

I've died and gone to heaven...

He had nothing to do, so...

2011-02-20T17:18:00.001-05:00

... he cut down a tree...

See those three trunks, right in the middle of the photo?

Well, you won't see the left one of the three anymore.

It's cut down for next year's firewood...

That's me, walking toward him, out on the lake. It was REALLY slippery out on the ice!

After 65+ degrees on Friday, the temperature dropped to 20+ degrees yesterday, and it was 17 degrees when we got up this morning. The water that was melted on the surface of the lake froze solid, and VERY smooth, so it was great for ice skating.
IF you ice skate.
Which I don't.
The ice is about 16"-18" thick, so it's safe to be out on the ice, but I admit I was surprised when that tree came down it didn't even make a dent or a crack in the surface of the ice...

My Scraproom

2011-02-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

Finally, photos of my scraproom -

If you stand in the door to the spare room, this is what you see on the opposite wall. The green fabric drawers contain either embellishments, stamps, or flowers. You'll get a peek into one of them later on. I modified Stacy Julian's organizing by color idea to fit me, and when I did it, I found it SO much easier to create a page. I tend to choose the photos first, the background paper next, then the embellishments, and then I create a title and journal. So being able to decide what paper I want by color, to match or contrast or enhance the photo, and then do the same with embellishments - that works for me!

To the right, against the front wall of the room/house, I have a Clip It Up, 2 tiers high, with 1/2 of my alphabets on it. This was a HUGE breakthrough for me! Seeing them in front of me makes it easy for me to use them. I would love to have a room decorated perfectly with closed storage, but I'd never accomplish anything. I've learned I'm a visual learner as well as a visual doer! Below the spinning rack is a Polaroid printer I got 6 years ago for $5. You heard right - $5. No offense, Polaroid, but it's worth $5. The colors don't print true and you can't adjust them, so I'm thinking I'll give it away on Craigslist or something later on - I wouldn't even be able to take money for it - I'd feel I was robbing the customer! That brown horizontal box has photos in it, and the dark basket on top is "stuff" that needs to find a home. The white wire cubes have, in order from left to right, top to bottom: stamps, my art journaling supplies (paint, gesso, paper, brushes), that wicker basket will go in one of the bottom cubes (it contains paper I can use as background, books I don't mind tearing up), and that blue folder has assorted photos in it.

This is my tiny desk. I was happy to get it (it's the first piece of furniture J ever built and he used it for a kitchen table/desk when he bought his first house after his divorce), but now it's simply too small. I can't even keep my tool spinner on it - that has to stay on top of those wire racks! In the back is another wooden rack with my Distress Inks in alphabetical order. That works better for me - I know their names so it's easier to grab Barn Door from the B than go looking for red paints and inks... Those two piles of "stuff" need to be put away. That black unit all the way to the right is a rolling rack that I gotfor $25 (originally $89.95 at AC Moore). It came with a fabric cover. The next photo shows what's on it...

I took the cover off - there's plenty of room here I'm not using yet. The hanging files have gallon freezer bags with scraps sorted by color. The basket on the top shelf on the right contains photo CDs. I'm a bit worried that they'll become obsolete so when I retire in a few years, that will be my 1st project - be sure the files are on my external hard drive. If they're not, copy and organize them. THEN I won't worry that the CDs will go the way of cassettes and 8-tracks... Plus, there are probably photos on them that I haven't scrapped yet!!! The shelves on the right side of the unit are empty, except for one project I'm working on, a painted Christmas canvas project from Donna Downey. The two drawers have my journal, my P-touch, a small photo trimmer...

This is my favorite part of the room. That wooden unit is a Murphy Bed that J built so that I could use the room but if we have guests, there's a full bed that can be pulled down. On either side are floor to ceiling shelves that I use for storage. I was worried about the sun fading my paper so I went to Walmart, spent $4 on a flat sheet (BH&G brand), cut it in half and trimmed it. I sewed the pocket rod, but used iron-on hemming tape to finish the long edges and the bottom. Easy! (Thanks, G, for the idea of using a sheet!) My ribbons are all sorted by color: red/pink/white/black, yellow/orange/brown, green, blue/purple. The shelf at the top is miscellaneous "stuff" right now - a white shelf that needs to be hung up, an altered paint can I'll get rid of soon, and two boxes of fibers I have to sort into my color bins.

This is the bookshelf on the left side of the bed. Top shelf: extra empty photo albums. Next shelf: a basket of projects to do when I'm bored (HA!), an empty cookie tin that I thought I could use for storage of something, and a couple of albums I put together with pages I got in a scrapping swap, two sorted by 2 pages/month, and one sorted by a theme/holiday for each month. Next shelf: plastic drawers with borders in the top one, punched out faces of family and friends from pictures that weren't so great, but their expressions were, and then an empty drawer (except for a few cut-out words from paper or magazined. Next shelf: paper storage using Cropper Hoppers, and this shelf includes an envelope of transparencies. Next shelf: the green and white bin contains 6"x6" and 8"x8' paper, and there's a stack of notebooks to the right. Bottom shelf: the orange and white bin contains alterable "stuff", and to the left of it are some chipboard albums, magazines I'm saving to scrap, and a pink box of letters from my best friend from college. Okay, some people save love letters... LOL!

This is the set of shelves to the left of the bed. Top shelf: all but empty, with just an expanding folder with a few photos in it that have to be moved into photo storage. Next shelf: my idea binder (a project I did online with Wendy Smedley, I believe), card storage for my homemade cards and for store-bought cards. There's also a photo album of pictures of this house being built that has to be completed and moved out to the sitting room with the other scrapbooks. Next shelf: Cropper Hoppers with 8.5"x11" Stampin' Up paper, and horizontal files with my patterned paper in ROYGBIV order. Next shelf: the remaining ROYGBIV patterned paper shelves and some page protectors.

I had to take a separate photo of the last two shelves because of the rolling cart, which admittedly, I could have simply rolled away... Next shelf: storage bags and a file of magazine clippings for decorating my house. Bottom shelf: Sizzix Big Shot, Sizzix alphabets, and assorted other miscellaneous "stuff" to be sorted through and put away someday...

This rolling cart has a project in each plastic box. From the top down: a book I'm making for my stepdaughter about her boyfriend/fiance/soon-to-be-someday husband, a vacation album, a home album, and three Christmas boxes (yes, I love Christmas, so what?!?!). My Cricut lives on top, with the various Cricut doo-dads on the shelf immediately to the right of the machine, just below the ribbons you'll see in the next photo.

Those ribbon storage boxes came from Walmart, and they work but I wish they were closer to my other ribbons. Oh, well... Those plastic drawers contain my Bazzil paper, some 1/2 sheets of mulberry paper, and some pads of Bazzill. There's a jar of binder rings I use for mini-books, a plastic box of mini-books that will move to the sitting room soon, alcohol inks and blender solution, adhesive-backed ribbons, and a whole punch on top of the plastic drawers. The Stampin' Up craft inks will go somewhere else when I figure out where I'm going to store my Stampin' Up ink pads...

Each of the green drawers contain, for the most part, embellishments sorted by color. There's a little mini white plastic basket in each to corral the small "stuff", quart ziploc bags for some of the embellishments I picked up at the EK Success warehouse sales they used to have here in NJ, borders, adhesive- backed/themed felt ribbon borders, etc. For instance, if it's green and it isn't an alpha set, paper, ink or paint, it pretty much gets tossed into this drawer. Each drawer has a ribbon tied on the handle to indicate what color "stuff" is in it: green, blue, pink/red, yellow/orange, gold/silver/bronze metallic, purple, black, white, multicolored (where I couldn't decide what the predominant color was). There are a couple of drawers that aren't color specific: one of adhesives and tape refills, one of Christmas embellishments, one of my flowers, and one of stamps.

When you look at the white cubbies/ green drawers in the first photo, you'll notice several cubbies without any drawers. They contain, in no particular order:

paper tagger
Crop-o-dile
a fabric tote with journaling spots
a wooden bowl with scrap-decorated tags I've either gotten in a tag swap or created myself
embossing supplies
markers in a mini 3-drawer unit, paints, and pastels
stamps in two or three cubbies (some Stampin' Up and other vendors, too)
boxes with buttons (sorted by color) and other mini embellishments (similar to fishing tackle boxes)
chipboard shapes
two metal bins with my punches tossed in them (I don't have a lot of punches)
blank card/envelopes
quote books/title books

There's one empty wall on your left when you walk into the room (opposite my desk). I have a poster to be hung up there, and there's a card table there now with a few boxes on it - boxes of some supplies that need to be stored away, and two boxes of supplies I'm looking to get rid of/donate. There's also a clothing closet with cardboard, albums, storage containers and TONS'o'photos that I've started sorting according to Stacy Julian's Library of Memories program...

Hope you liked the mini tour - thought I'd do a video, too, but I want to practice that a bit before I actually post it here for you all to see!!!

Not much of anything...

2011-02-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

So I have to decide whether to take all of tomorrow off, or only 1/2 of tomorrow. I WANT to take all of tomorrow, and I'm hoping my baby sister will take a couple of hours to join Mom and me for breakfast and a quick trip to Trader Joe's... If she can't take the time, I'm not sure... I might still do it... Hmm, let's call Mom and ask her what SHE thinks - just hang out for a second...

[One minute later...] No answer at Mom's house. She's either (a) "washing her hair," or (b) at a doctor's appointment she didn't mention she had this morning... Guess I'll ask her later...

We're going to the lake tomorrow - for the weekend. The whole weekend. Including Monday, when we have off. For Presidents' Day. YAY! We haven't been to the lake for the weekend since Christmas, what with the holidays, me getting sick, Jack getting sick, snow, bad weather, more snow, Mom coming home, more bad weather, a funeral... just to mention a few of the things that got in the way... We did take a few day trips up there just to check on the house and so that Jack could do a bit of work on my closet in the basement... But a relaxing weekend with nothing to do but read and scrap and shop? Not in wwwaaayyy too long!!!

Which reminds me, we have sort of decided to change the design of the summer kitchen and the pantry down there. Instead of putting open shelves in the corner near the pump at the bottom of the stairs, I think we're going to go with a full-length pantry from Ikea (yay for Ikea!). It's better for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it will be closed in so when he's working in the main room and making a mess, the sawdust or sheetrock dust will, for the most part, stay off whatever is in the pantry. (Mama didn't birth no fool - I KNOW there will still be some dust inside the pantry, but it will be a heck of a lot less than on open shelves!) The opposite corner will be some coat hooks for our every day jackets, against the wall of the new coat closet he built me in the family room. Someday, when I can use one of those floor plan sites, I'll include a floor plan of the house and show you what we've already modified... maybe that will be my assignment this weekend... hmmm...

[21 minutes later] Mom called - she's all for TJ's tomorrow, and yes, she was at the doctor's office. Now we have to convince my sister, who said that Fridays are her worst day - she might do TJ, but possibly/probably not breakfast... I'm going to try to convince her...

This was a very productive week at work - I got loads done, including a 2 hour meeting in the middle of Wednesday, an hour of yoga immediately following, and some brief visits to my blogroll and Facebook whenever I needed a break. I would love to stay on this roll for the next few weeks, catch up on everything that is on my desk, including what's been there for months but not handled (!), and leave on vacation and go to sales conference (end of April/beginning of May) with a clean desk, with only current work sitting there, waiting for my return.

A woman can dream, can't she?!?

Anyway, this was my break for this morning... More "not much of anything" later!

Breakfast...

2011-02-10T09:09:00.001-05:00

My favorite breakfast (when I'm not in a restaurant that offers biscuits and gravy) is scrambled eggs with pepperjack cheese, on a wrap, with some hot sauce to dip into...

So today, even though it's 2 days before my WW meeting, I decided to have a real breakfast instead of, oh, more weight-friendly fruit or water with a grape or two floating in it... So I ordered my eggs and pepperjack on a wrap, picked up the little plastic cup and its matching lid, and reached for the Tabasco sauce...

Which wasn't there.

After the initial panic, I asked the grill guy for some hot sauce.

"Oh, sorry, we don't have any today. We went through a whole case these past 2 weeks."

"Oh, sorry, we don't have any today. We went through a whole case these past 2 weeks."????????????????

For real? I'm supposed to just accept that? Why would you think I care how much hot sauce OTHER people were lucky enough to consume with their breakfasts or lunches when THERE.ISN'T.ANY.HERE.FOR.MY.EGGS???!!!???

So today's ephiphany is: yes, eggs and pepperjack on a wrap IS my favorite breakfast, as long as there is hot sauce to dip into.

No hot sauce?

Waffles and maple syrup...

No, Stevie, you're NOT the only one!!!

2011-02-09T11:56:00.000-05:00

'Real Books Mean Wandering Around the Store'

"I'm actually not so crazy about reading books on the iPad.... This became clear when I decided to buy my favorite book this season, As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, as well as another treat, In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. That's the moment I realized the iPad was wrong for book reading. I just couldn't bear to read these electronically. I needed to go to a beautiful bookstore and buy the hard copy and hold it and admire the type and the feel of it. Real books mean wandering around the store, talking to the owner about what's new and great, reading a few pages, buying it, carrying it with me. My iPad works hard enough for me that it doesn't need to download books. Friends love their Kindles and Kobos and I understand, but my heart leaps with the actual book, not the virtual one. And surely I'm not the only one."

--Stevie Cameron, author of On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver’s Missing Women, in the Toronto Globe & Mail.

'How You Read Not as Important as Will You Read?'

2011-02-07T08:29:00.001-05:00

from Shelf Awareness, Monday, February 7, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 1385

"The new immigrants don't shoot the old inhabitants when they come in. One technology tends to supplement rather than supplant. How you read is not as important as: will you read? And will you read something that's a book--the sustained train of thought of one person speaking to another? Search techniques are embedded in e-books that invite people to dabble rather than follow a full train of thought. This is part of a general cultural problem."

--James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, in a Newsweek poll of "some literary brains on the future of reading."

In this instance, I disagree. The search techniques are a bonus - IF you are already a reader. You will read no matter what. Your reading will not change if you're in a book or on an e-reader. You will not "dabble rather than follow a full train of thought." The thoughts are there and you will read them.

My fear is the potential loss of a generation of readers, per se, the loss of a love of books, the loss of a love of reading, when books on an e-reader become a reference tool, as the internet is now, rather than the gift of time lost in another world created by someone's blood, sweat, tears and imagination... I am afraid people will view books on an e-reader like they look at the internet: bits and bobs, one-liners, fragments of information like that commercial about how you jump from topic to topic when using a search engine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jMt6saTqq4

I'm just not convinced that you are sucked into a book, lost in that world, on an e-reader the way you are when those bound pages are in your hot little hands. I've read books on an e-reader. I'm not speaking without the experience. But in my case, one will NEVER take the place of the other. Admittedly there are circumstances when an e-reader will be beneficial to me - when I have to pay for every piece of luggage I take on vacation by the pound and one suitcase is filled with new hardcovers to read that week? Uh-huh, an e-reader would be better. BUT I wouldn't (and don't) enjoy the reading as much on the e-reader.

Perhaps that's my objection - not the tool itself, but the fact that I don't enjoy the activity using that tool as much as I do holding the book and turning the pages. I have the Nook app, the Kindle app, AND an e-reader app on my iPod Touch. I've had the iPod Touch since mid-December, and have yet to finish a book/story on it. I have read 8 books since then... I play games on the Touch, I read email on it, I listen to music on it, I check the weather at home and in St. Charles (where one of my best friends lices) on it. But I don't read books on it. I have Ayn Rand's Anthem on it, one of my all-time favorite stories. Nope. I have a freebie version of a Winnie the Pooh story on it. Read about 3 pages. Little Women is on one of the apps, too - another personal favorite (I always wanted to be Jo when I grew up!), but no, haven't read more than the intro. And didn't enjoy it.

I know part of it is the size; the small screen only allows you to read a sentence or two at a time and I'm such a fast reader that I can't "turn the pages" fast enough; maybe on a bigger screen I might be less angry every time I try to read one... Although I have the apps on my desktop too and it never even crosses my mind when I'm on the PC to read on it...

Oh well, just another one of my humble opinions...

Happy 100th, Mr. Reagan!!!

2011-02-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

You would have been 100 today. You were one of our greatest presidents, in my humble opinion, at least one of our greatest contemporary presidents. You were a patriot, dedicated to your country, you had faith and valued your faith above all else, allowing it to guide you in all your actions. You were funny - and your one-liners reminded me of my dad's humor, delivered with a straight face and followed up with a smile once you knew we all "got it." Oh, how I wish you were still President!!! Those are some mighty big shoes to fill...

R.I.P., Kazia

2011-02-06T12:13:00.001-05:00

P had to put her beautiful Kazia to sleep yesterday. She has been suffering these past two months from spontaneous pneumothoraces, so bad that she couldn't sit, sleep, was coughing, panting, losing air into her body cavity from her lungs - basically bulla on the surfaces of her lungs would burst and leak air into her chest cavity. So she would be panting and panting and not able to get enough air.

Kazia brought P such joy in her 10 years (she just turned 10 on January 26th) and my heart is broken. How I wish I'd been able to be there, with P for this awful time, but also to love Kazia just a little bit more before it was her time. She just didn't deserve to suffer, not after the loving and wonderful life she shared with P.

I know this is one of the hardest things that P has ever had to do, and I ask you to send some healing thoughts her way. Thank you.

We'll miss you Kazia!

It's Friday...

2011-02-04T09:55:00.001-05:00

... and I can't wait for the day to be over. It's 9:39am and yes, I should be working instead of blogging, but sometimes when you can't concentrate, it's better to just take a break and then buckle down later. I can't seem to focus on my work this morning ---

FOCUS. I'm wearing my necklace. Perhaps I just need to use my little touchstone and try to apply myself. Give me a minute...

Oh! I responded to an email! (Stop laughing! It's a start!)

Talked to G this morning. Her mom's back in the hospital, for the past week or so. It's so hard on her, but with her mom suffering from congestive heart failure, it's pretty much par for the course. G is taking a lot on herself, blaming herself for M not having much of a life, and certainly not much of a marriage. I jumped on her for that. If the situation were reversed and it was M's mom they had to care for, they'd be doing exactly the same thing that they are now. Yes, their lives revolve around caring for G's mom. Yes, they can't go away or even out to dinner very often. Yes, G is exhausted and tired and perhaps not great company for M.

But you know what M said to us at dinner a couple of weeks ago? He said that he'd been reading about caregivers and how their own health and mental state suffer - even in the midst of it, he's worried about G. And that's the way it's supposed to be. Of course he misses his wife and the marriage they used to have. When she retired it was to take care of her mom; wouldn't both of them have liked it to be so they could spend more time together? Sure. But this is what it is, for now, and the alternative sucks. M is worried about G - when her mom finally gives up the fight, and we know she's fighting now, it will be the all time worst thing G has had to deal with, bar none. And M knows that. And is already worried.

I took advantage of the opening and told her she.needs.to.bring.someone.in.to.help. Period. End of discussion. If not every day, all day, then at least for part of the day, several times a week, so that G could rest, take a shower, food shop, have dinner with M... Surprise him at lunch one day... Go away for a short weekend to recharge... Or just sit down. And watch a TV show with her husband. Or take a nap.

She agreed that she needs to do something soon. I have to encourage her - she needs a break. It's not that I don't understand taking the responsibility on yourself: if I'm late giving her her pills, if I forget to check the oxygen tank, if I close my eyes for one minute... But G needs a break. And she needs it before SHE collapses and has a heart attack and winds up in a bed next to her mom. THEN what?!?!?

I'll mention to J that I talked to her so he can mention it to M. Perhaps now's a good time for him to encourage her to do something like that. She seemed more receptive to it, less likely to blow it off...

Well, breaktime is over, and it's back to work...