Ever wonder if there is a way to open your suitcase and close it back up again with out removing the lock?
De Riekermolen in Amsterdam, Netherlands
5 hours ago
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Springtime, a time of renewal and rebirth.
This Blog Post was originally posted on 2008-03-27 1:13
Springtime- as good as any of a time to restart this blog I have completely forgotten about for the last 15 months. God, has it really been that long since we left California for Boston??? It doesn't feel like it. Still feels very new to me, but like a great pair of new shoes, we're slowly breaking each other into a comfortable stride, blisters and all :-)
To recap the last year:
I got a job working for an asshole from Boston. What is commonly known in these parts as a "Masshole".
We bought a house in the Metro West, in a small town of 2800 people.
The house flooded 1 day before we closed on it, so we managed to get a great closing deal including a new french drain for the backyard. (will never flood again through the back yard but doesn't stop it from flooding in the front, more on that later).
I was 'laid off' (fired actually, due to irreconcilable differences, Your A Douchebag that Smells Like Bad Cheese I Am Not) the job working for said Masshole in Boston about 2 weeks later.
I spent most of the next 4 months pleased as punch pulling up weeds, and my DH spent his time mowing the lawns and spreading more than 100 bags of mulch around the yard.
Got a whole house fan and a dehumidifier. (Dry winters, wet summers, go figure)
October came the pretty leaves that fell all over our pretty lawns. Shit. Time to buy a leaf blower, changed name to Manual Labor.
Fall here, Winter around the corner: Winterized the house, made it air-tight, insulated, got a pellet stove, paved our driveway.
I got temporary job working for a Hotel Renovation Co. until November. More leaves fell.
On December 18th it started to snow, covered all of those damn leaves, nice :-)
December we went back to California for Christmas, had a nice time. Held my friends newborn baby, had too much food to eat, had too little time to see the people I wanted to see, got back on an airplane and made it back to NE for New Years with our sanity intact.
Ta-Da! What a year.
Officially spring started two weekends ago http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1921-spring-equinox.
Unofficially, it starts here when the last frost is due to arrive, arround the 20th of April. http://www.almanac.com/garden/frostus.php
Unofficially, it starts here when the last frost is due to arrive, arround the 20th of April. http://www.almanac.com/garden/frostus.php
Springtime in New England really is about rebirth, the beginnings of green life pushing through the cold dark ground that has been covered in dead leaves or snow for several months. I did enjoy winter here, don't get me wrong. Everything looks very clean, neat and pretty when it's covered in a blanket of whiteness. But 3 months later, I'm ready for a change of scenery.
In California it was about being the Harbinger of Heat, aka Summertime about to decend for several months. Springtime didn't last very long, somewhere between 3-6 weeks starting sometime in the beginging of March,, before the average 80 degree days and no rain started for the next 6 months.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....
This Blog post was originally posted on 06-12-30 @ 05:00am
It snowed today, just enough to cover the ground and shrubs to make them look like they were sprinkled in powdered sugar, very pretty. After waking at 4:00am to pick up hubby and kitty at the airport, we came back and pretty much slept until 1:00pm. Very happy and starting to feel like I've got my feet under me with husband and kitty here...
I woke up with very sore sinuses due to the cold. Bright green snot-not a good sign. Back to Target for more anti-booger goodies like Vicks Vapor stuff to put in the humidifier. Also got two chairs and two lamps, this place is starting to look like someone lives in it now. Maybe a university dorm at best but it's getting there.
Rule #2-Get some boots. Tennis shoes will make you walk like you have a stick up your butt in the snow just to avoid falling on your ass. Went to Payless shoe source and got some horrible black things with Thinsulate. At least they're warm and have 'anti-fall-on-your-ass' sole technology built into them.
Will post some pictures of the snow once I unpack my usb cable for the camera.
It snowed today, just enough to cover the ground and shrubs to make them look like they were sprinkled in powdered sugar, very pretty. After waking at 4:00am to pick up hubby and kitty at the airport, we came back and pretty much slept until 1:00pm. Very happy and starting to feel like I've got my feet under me with husband and kitty here...
I woke up with very sore sinuses due to the cold. Bright green snot-not a good sign. Back to Target for more anti-booger goodies like Vicks Vapor stuff to put in the humidifier. Also got two chairs and two lamps, this place is starting to look like someone lives in it now. Maybe a university dorm at best but it's getting there.
Rule #2-Get some boots. Tennis shoes will make you walk like you have a stick up your butt in the snow just to avoid falling on your ass. Went to Payless shoe source and got some horrible black things with Thinsulate. At least they're warm and have 'anti-fall-on-your-ass' sole technology built into them.
Will post some pictures of the snow once I unpack my usb cable for the camera.
Bye Bye Miss American Pie
This Blog Post was originally posted on 2006-12-29 @ 05:00am....
I'm sitting on the floor in my new apt in Marlborough, MA writing this blog. I have no furniture except for a blow up mattress and a humidifier I bought today.
Rule #1, if you have gas heat your skin will begin to feel like a prune and you will get a nasty shock every time you take 2 steps across the floor. Dries out everything. The pro's outweigh the cons though-the heat's paid for by the landlord :-)
My husband and cat are flying in tomorrow morning at 5:00am. It's now 11:00pm, the jet lag and excitement of my husband coming out to our empty apt is keeping me buzzing. My butt is going flat and feels sort of tingly sitting on the floor for the last hr using the computer so I don't think I'm going to last much longer. I'm so excited I miss my hubby and I can't wait for someone else around to think a store called Price Chopper is pretty darn funny and should have several stupid jokes made about it immediately.
Tomorrow we're expecting snow flurries. Since we didn't get allot of snow in South San Francisco Bay Area, CA (ok, none in fact) this will be a first for me. My husband used to live in the snow before moving to CA. I've gone to Tahoe several times so a Nigerian in Greenland I am not. But I am recharging the camera battery tonight to take pictures tomorrow.
"Bye Bye Miss A. Pie"-That was the song my best friend and I sang when we drove up to Seattle, WA from Oakland, CA 6 years ago. She was moving to Seattle and I was expecting to follow along within a yr or two later. Now she's a mother of two living in Western Washington, is a Born Again Christian, and married.
She tries to tell me about the consistency and texture of her children's various liquids exiting their body (which they seem to do allot of for the first several years) which I have no interest in hearing about. This just encourages her sick sense of humor to continue and say that mantra all women thinking of procreating HATE to hear: "You'll feel different when it's your own child".
I don't care what anyone says, I'm not bringing some 14 month old kid to a restaurant so the surrounding tables can listen to those various liquids leak out while they exercise their ever expanding vocal range. Nope, not going to happen. Cynical? Yes. A Pessimist? Through and Through. But really now people- You should throw me a friggin parade for this shouldn't you?
So back to the song Bye Bye Miss A. Pie...Does anyone really know more than the main verse to that song? Yes, I know it's about Buddy Holly dying I think that's great but it's up there with "Leaving on a Jet Plane" for having very cool lyrics for about 5% of the entire song, the rest of which I have no interest in hearing.
So of course I had those 2 songs stuck in my head 2 days ago when I boarded my Jet Blue plane for a Red Eye to Boston, MA I. This time the trip was only 5 hours long, had free cable tv for all, and they gave us these cool little gift packs with ear plugs and hand lotion from Bliss cosmetics, not bad for $200.
I'm sitting on the floor in my new apt in Marlborough, MA writing this blog. I have no furniture except for a blow up mattress and a humidifier I bought today.
Rule #1, if you have gas heat your skin will begin to feel like a prune and you will get a nasty shock every time you take 2 steps across the floor. Dries out everything. The pro's outweigh the cons though-the heat's paid for by the landlord :-)
My husband and cat are flying in tomorrow morning at 5:00am. It's now 11:00pm, the jet lag and excitement of my husband coming out to our empty apt is keeping me buzzing. My butt is going flat and feels sort of tingly sitting on the floor for the last hr using the computer so I don't think I'm going to last much longer. I'm so excited I miss my hubby and I can't wait for someone else around to think a store called Price Chopper is pretty darn funny and should have several stupid jokes made about it immediately.
Tomorrow we're expecting snow flurries. Since we didn't get allot of snow in South San Francisco Bay Area, CA (ok, none in fact) this will be a first for me. My husband used to live in the snow before moving to CA. I've gone to Tahoe several times so a Nigerian in Greenland I am not. But I am recharging the camera battery tonight to take pictures tomorrow.
"Bye Bye Miss A. Pie"-That was the song my best friend and I sang when we drove up to Seattle, WA from Oakland, CA 6 years ago. She was moving to Seattle and I was expecting to follow along within a yr or two later. Now she's a mother of two living in Western Washington, is a Born Again Christian, and married.
She tries to tell me about the consistency and texture of her children's various liquids exiting their body (which they seem to do allot of for the first several years) which I have no interest in hearing about. This just encourages her sick sense of humor to continue and say that mantra all women thinking of procreating HATE to hear: "You'll feel different when it's your own child".
I don't care what anyone says, I'm not bringing some 14 month old kid to a restaurant so the surrounding tables can listen to those various liquids leak out while they exercise their ever expanding vocal range. Nope, not going to happen. Cynical? Yes. A Pessimist? Through and Through. But really now people- You should throw me a friggin parade for this shouldn't you?
So back to the song Bye Bye Miss A. Pie...Does anyone really know more than the main verse to that song? Yes, I know it's about Buddy Holly dying I think that's great but it's up there with "Leaving on a Jet Plane" for having very cool lyrics for about 5% of the entire song, the rest of which I have no interest in hearing.
So of course I had those 2 songs stuck in my head 2 days ago when I boarded my Jet Blue plane for a Red Eye to Boston, MA I. This time the trip was only 5 hours long, had free cable tv for all, and they gave us these cool little gift packs with ear plugs and hand lotion from Bliss cosmetics, not bad for $200.
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