Happiness is....

....a new cellar door.  When A built the patio last summer, the old cellar door had to come off.  We think it was original to the house.  Because of the location and size, we had to have a door custom built.  We kind of dilly dallied about doing it, then finally got on it this summer.  It took a while to be built, etc.  So, we went through the summer with the old door just laying on top of the opening, weighted down by some patio blocks.  Until Irene was coming, then A fashioned some serious supports and a tarp so the basement wouldn't get flooded - well at least not by rain coming through the door.  It came in other places.  Anyway, the new door was installed yesterday.  It looks so nice!  It's waterproof.  I'm a happy camper.

10 years on, it continues to be important that we remember, that we tell the next generation what happened that day.  In the years to come, we need to tell those who were not yet born then or were too young to remember that our nation was attacked, but not defeated, that good men and women were killed, innocent men and women, heroes.  Even on that horrible day, when it was clear that the chance of survival was low, good men and women rushed in to save others, rushed in despite the risk to themselves, rushed in to their deaths.  Strangers bonded together to survive, to help others survive.  We need to tell them that it is the American nature not to give in, but rather to survive, to go on and rebuild.  It's not just about reliving the horror of the day, it's remembering how we responded.
I've posted this tribute before.  This tribute that was published in Pensions & Investments magazine on 10/15/2001 in an ad from Progress Investment Management Company.  From the day I first read it, it has resonated with me.  I have it hanging on my wall in my office, along with editorial artwork that shows the Statue of Liberty amidst the smoke, still standing tall.  That's an image that will always stay with me and which I think represents that day and our country's response.  They did their worst, yet she stood tall, unbowed, as did our nation.

Tribute

Some things can not be adequately expressed, yet cry desperately to be told
told to those you know and love
to those you meet in passing
told to the children of today
and to those who are yet unborn
You need to tell them what you saw that day
And make them see....
the ones who fought with hand and axe
and took the stairs by twos,
who looked into the face of death
and stayed its hand,
if only for a moment,
with a calm ferocity of spirit
the ones in uniform and those without
who vanished in the coming of a madman's dream
the fatherless...the motherless...the childless who remain to mourn them
Tell them of the great heart of a great people
And let them ask, and let them hear your answers.
To our friends and colleagues at the New York City Fire Department
To the men and women of the Police Department and emergency medical services
To all who have sacrificed and those who will.
We will tell your stories.
We will remember.

Happiness is....and looking for help from knitting friends and others

....almost done with one pretty shawl, thinking about the next.  And I need help picking the next one!First, the almost done one.  This is wollmeise yarn - so nice, beautiful color.  The pattern is Batik.  It's a bottom up, so it was slow going with long rows at first, now it is flying off the needles.
Then, the skeined yarn is my next one up.  It's squooshy sock yarn from fiberphile.  The colorway is Sakura - it's creamy, pink, peach and tinges of beige.  I want to knit a scarf that I will wear to a friend's wedding the end of the month on a beach in the Dominican Republic.  So, I'm trying to find something that fits the color and fits the idea of just a light cover if needed on the beach.  I'm posting a few of the top contenders.  Would love to hear opinions, suggestions!

Kindergarten dreams

School is starting all over the place today.  I should be sending a little one off to kindergarten.  How much fun it would have been buying a little backpack, school supplies, school clothes! I'll bet I would have been weepy watching my baby go off to school.  But those are just dreams that will never be fulfilled now.  It's easier 5 years later, but I don't know that I'll ever not think of how old our child would have been, what milestones they would have hit.  I know I'm not alone in this.  Every person who has miscarried, suffered a stillbirth or lost a child after birth goes through the same thing.  It really does get easier with time, but the feelings of loss, the hole in your heart never completely goes away.

Friday Photos just a day late

It's been a while since I posted photos, so I thought I might catch up some.  We survived Irene just fine.  Luckily we never lost power.  We did get water in the basement, no surprise there, so I spent a fair amount of time Sunday with the wet vac.  The garden survived pretty well, the dinner plate dahlia plant was the only one that really got beat up.  So, here are some photos, the roses are pre-Irene, everything else is post.  Note the bee in the 4th picture.  I love the mums.  A did that.  After the driveway was done, he thought that area would make a nice little planter box - and it does.  He picked out the plants and did all the work.  And then, of course, there's Boomer doing what he does best, sleeping in the sun.  He did very well during the first part of the hurricane, but Sunday afternoon when there was no rain but the wind was really whipping, he seemed agitated.  He was like a little kid wanting to be next to me all afternoon.  Until A came home of course.  Then I was just that other person who hangs out at the house.  :)

Happiness is surviving the East Coast Earthquake TV Coverage!

hahahahaha
I felt it.  No one else on my staff did.  Two were at lunch, the one who was with me thought I was nuts when I said "What just happened?  It felt like the building moved."  So - thank you Al Gore for inventing the internet - I promptly googled earthquake and saw that there had been one in Virginia.  Then I went on facebook and had my suspicions confirmed.  The TV coverage was just a little bit much.  I do feel for people in DC and NYC that must have thought it was another terrorist attack.  It appears that no one was injured or killed and damage seems to be relatively minor, except for some damage to our national monuments.  That makes me sad.  And Californians can laugh all they want at the New Yorkers who evacuated their buildings - but if your city was once the target of a terrorist attack and rarely has earthquakes - what would you think was going on and what would you do?  I would get the hell out of the building, that's for damn sure!
Anyway, the earthquake pre-empted my planned post that would have said "Happiness is that new car smell."  I picked up my new car on Friday.  I'm happy with my decision.  I don't totally love the color, but I don't hate it and for the price I got I'm not being picky.  One feature that I love in this car is that it has a hard drive for music.  So, I put a CD in and it records the CD to the hard drive.  I've been having fun picking what CDs to put on the hard drive.  So far I have a little Bon Jovi, some Queen, a mix from Greys Anatomy soundtracks and some standards (think Frank Sinatra).  Must add more Bon Jovi, REO, Beatles, Buffett - so so many.  Tonight on the way home, I think I'll load up the soundtracks from The Concert for New York City from back in 2001.

Happiness is....

....the car hunt being over and money in my pocket.  I find car shopping to be very stressful.  Test drives, sales pitches, negotiating.  UGH.  I thought I knew what I wanted this time - a Ford Edge or some other crossover.  I really liked the Edge.  It was not as economical as I thought it would be, but that wasn't really an issue.  I was briefly swayed at the thought of a Lincoln.  Went and test drove the Cadillac SRX.  Didn't like the styling, didn't like the roof support that created a big blind spot, but I really liked the ride.  Got a quote on a Cadillac CTS and was amazed at the price and thought - I may be getting Baby Jr. soon!  (Dad had a Cadillac Sedan back in the 70s that we called Baby.  We swore that if the house caught fire, he would save Baby first.)  I was really determined to buy American, helping out the economy, but did want to keep my personal economy in mind.  So, I got in touch with two Infiniti dealerships - the one that replaced the dealership where I got my current Infiniti and the one where the salesman I worked with 3 years ago went.  Well, the first one got back to me pretty quickly and gave me an amazing price.  $130 less per month than I am paying now for basically the same car.  I was still willing to go with one of the others if Ithought the overall value would be better.  But after reading reviews, etc - nothing could match the price or the value I was getting with the Infiniti.  So,  my personal economy won out.  Now - what to do with that extra $130 each month?  And I got a raise this month too!  Some of it will definitely go into savings.  I may also finally break down and get a cleaning lady to come in every week or every other week.

Friday Photos

Just a quick post - finished a blanket for my new niece.

and boomer

Happiness is....

....a truly local local yarn store.  And I don't have it.  I finished the baby blanket for our new niece on Monday.  (Pictures will be coming.  It's pretty and colorful.)  So now, I am ready to start a new project.  I want to use up some of my stash and I have this beautiful skein of Wollmeise yarn just itching to be a shawl.  So, with A's help, I pick a pattern.  I wind the yarn into a ball - let me tell you - 575 yards takes a while to wind.  I'm ready to cast on 319 stitches - WOW!  As I'm casting on with a larger size needle per the pattern, I realize that I only have one set of size 5 circular needles that are long enough for the body of the shawl.  And those size 5s are currently in the middle of a top I am knitting during my lunch hours.  Well, I could use some new stitch markers too, so I order another set of size 5 tips for my addi clicks.  I thought about waiting until Friday to head to the nearest local yarn store that would carry the needles I like, but I figure that if I ordered them first thing in the morning from a favorite online supplier, I would probably have them by Friday anyway.  And then I can spend Friday doing other things I want to do - like test drive cars.  It really would be nice though to be able to just pop into a yarn store on my way home or only have to drive 10 or 15 minutes.  Instead, the nearest good quality yarn store is over 30 minutes away.  They are quite lovely, just wish they were closer.

I need clever quips

A friend of mine is posting a countdown to my 50th birthday on my facebook wall.  Every day it's "Morning :) XX and counting...have a nice day!".  Today is 22 days.  I have been trying to come up with clever responses.  One of these days I plan to say "beats the alternative" but I've got 21 more days to quip back.  I sure wish I had some comedic talent right now.  One thing I will be doing soon, is starting a countdown for her, because she turns 50 less than 3 weeks after me.  :)  I love this woman.  She's a good friend and I actually am enjoying the fact that she is enjoying the fact that I turn 50 first.

Happiness is....

...a new hair style.  That's what I'm going for today.  The longish (chin length) look is just not doing it for me.  The perm makes it harder to dry and I don't think it's really added so much body that it makes the style look good on me.  I still feel it looks kind of old ladyish.  So today, I'll spend some time looking at hairstyles yet again.  Hopefully I can find something I like that will be attractive on me.

God's Will? or not

When you are dealing with infertility, loss or any kind of disease, there will always be people who say things like "It's God's will" or "It must be God's plan for you."  I suppose with some people, believing that their situation is God's will helps them cope with it.  For me, the suggestion that my situation is God's will is not a helpful one.  Starting on an intellectual level, I find it hard to believe that God gets that deeply into an individual's life.  Yes, He is the Supreme Being and could probably map out each twist and turn in our lives, but I don't believe He does.  Otherwise, it negates the concept of Him having given us free will.  On a purely emotional level, I don't buy it either.  If it is God's will that I remain childless when that is my heart's desire, then it must be some form of punishment.  Well, why would He punish me yet grant other people their desires?  I know I'm no angel, I am a sinner as are we all, but I am a good person.  There are people that you can legitimately look at and say "not so good a person" yet they get their wishes.  You could make the argument that they are not happy with their lives - but then I think you are stretching it.  And where does God's will come in to people who abuse or worse murder their innocent children?  Every day in the news you read about people abusing or killing children.  Was it God's will that those children live painful lives, die painful deaths?
So what started me off on this rant today?  I read someone's blog where they opined that it was selfish not to accept God's will for your life.  This is the blog of a woman who experienced infertility and eventually accepted living life without children.  If it helps her cope to say it was God's will, then I guess I need to respect her coping mechanism.  But for me, I don't believe it was God's will.  If it was God's will, then I would have to blame him.  He wouldn't be the loving force I have always believed in and relied upon.  For me, I believe it is just how life turns out sometimes and God's role in all of it is mourning my loss with me, being an anchor to hang onto when the pain is too much, being a light to show me that there can be happiness in my life in other ways.

Happiness is...

....eating the vegetables from your own garden - or in the case of tomatoes, I think it is fruit.  Last year, my attempt at tomatoes was a downright failure.  This year - success!  I planted them in a corner of the garden and have nursed them along.  Yesterday, as a snack, I had some tomatoes in Italian salad dressing.  I came home, and A had taken some more tomatoes and some of the cilantro we grew and some other ingredients and made salsa.  YUM!  He barbecued pork chops and topped them with the salsa.  Double YUM!  I have peppers growing, soon to be picked.  Can't wait to see what we can do with those!

Happy Birthday Daddy

My father would have been 82 today.  My guess is he probably would have spent the day playing golf with my brother, my husband and my cousin before going out for a nice dinner with Mom.  I always wonder what he would have been like as he aged and retired.  What would he think of the things his children have done.  How proud would he be of his grandchildren - I have to say I think my niece would have been his favorite.  We'll never be able to know how all of our lives may have been different had he not died so young, so suddenly.  Thirty years on and I still miss him.  I always will.

Hairspray is your Friend...and other thoughts from vacation

"Hairspray is your friend."  I had a hairdresser who used to say that to me.  I realized just how much of a friend it could be when I was on vacation on the Cape last week - and had forgotten my hairspray.  Permed hair, a weak hairdryer and no hairspray make for some bad hair days.

I don't know how I survived childhood without air conditioning.  How did anyone ever survive it.  My favorite person on the Cape was the guy who fixed my mother's a/c late Friday afternoon.  Boomer loved him too.

Sand stings on a windy beach.

Thundershirts work on dogs that are scared of thunder.  Don't know how, but they do.

Flowers grow differently on the Cape.  My mom & I both have gallardia plants, but hers grow much taller than mine.  Balloon flowers too.

Hydrangeas are everywhere on the Cape. 

Pedestrians can be really stupid.

We have great neighbors on the Cape.

Retread pictures

I didn't take any pictures this week.  I plan to take some next week - like the ones below.  What do they all have in common?  All take on the Cape.

Friday Photos...

A study of the Stink Doggie, aka the Boom Doggie.  A week ago tonight, Boomer got skunked.  Such fun.  The boy does not like being bathed, but we managed to get it done.  He's still a little stinky though.  I took these photos a couple of days after the skunking, playing with the Retro Camera app on my cell phone.  The stuffed animal on the floor next to him is Charlie the Chimp, his consolation prize for having to endure two baths.  This dog is spoiled!

Friday Photos

The usual - flowers, knitting and Boomer.  The knitting is two more squares for the blanket for our new niece.  I took the flower shots this morning.  Sadly, some of the shots that I thought would be really cool - like one I took of the shadow of the daisy on the fence did not come out.  There was too much light.  I need to learn more about how to work with different lighting.



Dog instincts

Sometimes it's hard to remember that, though domesticated, a dog is an animal with basic instincts.  Like - if the dog sees a bird in the garden, it is going to try to get the bird.  That's how my day started.  I let Boomer out to do his business.  I heard him making noise and went out to check what was going on.  He saw the bird in the garden and tried to get him.  The poor bird appeared injured and wouldn't stand a chance.  Thankfully another of his instincts - and apparently a higher one - is to do what his master tells him.  So, when I pulled him back and told him to get in the house, he did it - very reluctantly, but he did it.  When I left for my run, I checked the garden and didn't see the bird.  I knew that the bird was going to be prey for some larger animal because it was injured, I just didn't want it to be my animal.  I was glad it was gone from my yard.  At least I thought it was.  I came back from my run and let Boomer in the yard while I started to water flowers.  I saw him near a dark blob in the yard and thought at first it was a pile of poop.  I went to go pick it up.  It was the bird.  Boomer appears to have gotten it in some way.  There are little feathers on the ground, the bird is on it's side and Boomer is drooling.  Again, he did as I told him and went in the house.  He kept looking back as he sadly trudged back in, but he did as I told him.  I told the bird I was very sorry for what had happened - like it understood me.  The poor thing crawled back into the garden.  I'm so sad for that little bird.  I know that's a part of nature, part of life, but it's still sad.  And now I know I'll have to deal with a dead bird when I get home from work.

Happiness is....

....thunderstorms at midnight.  I don't wish for thunderstorms much - but I like them when they come in the middle of the night, when I'm safe and warm in bed with A next to me and Boomer in his bed nearby.  I feel extra safe then and the noise is kind of beautiful.  Also, those late night storms usually clear the air and you wake to a beautiful blue sky with only wispy clouds.  And even more - it means I don't have to water the garden.  All in all, a good thing.