Finally, he is back to work

After a very long rehab but a very successful rotator cuff surgery, hubby went back to work this week.

(Thank God) LOL

It didn't take him long to get back to the swing of things.  I think he is happy and the people he works with are happy also!   God is good!

Praying that this winter coming up doesn't have the cold, snow and ice as bad as last winter, and that no one else falls and gets hurt!  

Reunion

On Wednesday evening, my sister invited us over for dinner.  My sister was having her best friend from high school (Natalie), plus Natalie's brother  (Walt) who was my brother's best friend in high school (and grammar school), plus Natalie's sister (Ruth) - who was my friend in high school and growing up.

The DeForest's were our neighbors growing up and what a reminiscing session we had!!   Laughs for hours and hours.

 This is Walter, Vinny and my brother Chris - friends from the Terrace for almost 40 years.

This is me and Ruth.....we lost touch over the years, but it didn't matter.  We are back now!!

Walt and Ruth - Walt lives in NYC now, so he doesn't get back up here too often.   

Walter, Ruth and Natalie - our wonderful neighbors.  I can't say enough about the memories.  And I will get to see more of them in the coming months which is just fabulous!!

A short trip

I took an overnight trip to visit a friend up in the Saratoga area of NY.

It was wonderful day just to relax, play at the casino, have a nice dinner and then have a glass of wine in the hot tub!

What is better than that?

Thank you Eva for a wonderful getaway!

(how did I forget to take even one picture???)

CSA #10

Since my sister went away for the weekend, she gave me the whole CSA again.  She will take the whole thing next weekend!

Let's talk about tomatoes...

One box of cherry tomatoes, 3 lbs. of heirloom tomatoes (all different types), 3 lbs of regular beefsteak style tomatoes - these were all in the regular CSA - and then they had a table out back with cherry tomatoes and bruised regular tomatoes (and heirloom) and you could take your pick!!  So I Did!!

The picture below is missing all the bruised tomatoes and one head of lettuce, but here is what I got:
six garlic, all those tomatoes (I will be canning tomatoes on Sunday afternoon!), six sweet red/green peppers, two heads of lettuce, one huge bunch of swiss chard (yeah!), two eggplant, one cucumber, one zucchini, one yellow squash and I traded my kale for another yellow squash!  

Last Night

Last night, I sat outside again.......on the patio, watching the fireflies in the backyard...but there were only a couple of them.  The dog sat beside me. As I was sipping my second glass of wine, a V formation of geese flew by.  This was the second time in a week.  Why are geese flying south in V formation on August 19th?

There were a few planes in the sky, very few stars and lots of peepers (I don't know exactly what they are called, but I call them peepers - birds or bugs that make a lot of noise - maybe katydids?).

But it's the geese in V formation that is bothering me.

I can't remember them this early in the season.  It has been the coolest summer - absolutely glorious to be honest......no humidity (although it may come back next week), but really, it has been like Indian Summer all summer long.  (Maybe I'm just lucky that I was home to enjoy it? :))

But there is still that very uneasy feeling in the back of my brain that makes me really nervous about this winter.....since this summer has been so cool.

I guess we shall see what happens.........

We are back

We are back from NC.  It was a LOONNGG trip.  Way too much traffic on the East Coast!  What's the deal from Baltimore to Richmond???

The trip down took almost three extra hours.  The trip home was a little better (almost 12 hours), but really so unnecessary.  Traffic wears a person down.  I don't know how people commute to work in traffic every day, twice a day.  I could not do it!

My daughter has a beautiful apartment this year.  Her bedroom and bathroom are bigger than mine at my house.  True! The roommates are new, so we will have to see how that pans out!

I am back to the job search and babysitting trips!  All is right with the world again!

But I miss her!

On the road again

We leave tonight/tomorrow morning to take our daughter back down to NC for her junior year of college.....Wait, what?  Junior year?

When did that happen?

She just received a scholarship from her summer place of employment which will help her because this year she is in an apartment.

And we are off...........

Trips Time

Now that I haven't been working full time, I've been helping out my sister with the triplets.

I babysat two days this week.  We made a cake, made jam, baked zucchini bread and played with the dog.  We made it to the library for some new summer books (about chickens) and played a lot!  I also introduced them to Shark Week!  You are never too young to start learning about sharks!

EDIT:

I wrote this post and then I scheduled it.....and in the meantime, I got to babysit the trips another day - Three times in four days!  They are really a blessing!!!

I only had the morning session with them while I was job hunting, so we didn't exactly do too much, but they are fun!

Dinner with the family

We took my daughter out to dinner on Sunday with my sons and their girlfriends.  It is our annual pizza night out and a fond farewell, as she leaves for NC next week.  I can't believe her junior year of college is about to start.

And it begins again....

SHARK WEEK

My favorite week of the year begins today......So excited!   I love the hype, I love the commercials and I love that they always show JAWS, the movie, this week....a lot!!

We are ready - Hubby has taped most of the new programs, but I love some of the older programs also!   

Come on Colossus!!!  

CSA

I don't have a CSA today, but here is a great picture from last week's share.

I thought it looked like an old man with a big nose.  As of yesterday, he (and five of his friends) are now fried and in the freezer waiting to become two delicious eggplant parmagiana dinners!

Mom is home

My mom arrived home last night!  She has spent the last month in Italy with her cousin and enjoyed a wedding and lots of sight seeing, etc.  

It is good to have her home!!!

Job update

So far, I have had four different phone interviews.  Nothing has happened beyond the phone interview.

I had my first real interview last Friday, but I haven't heard back yet.  The company had more people to interview on Monday, so we will see what happens (if anything).

I continue to apply every day, to jobs I find online or even in the paper or on different company websites.

Something will happen.

Yankees Game

We took our annual trip to Boston to see the Yankees play the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

It was a great trip with our friends, Barb and Kenny.

Trace Adkins sang the National Anthem - so exciting!  The game was LONG! Over four hours with 9 pitching changes.  (Ridiculous!)  However, the Yankees won, so it was good for us!

This is a picture of Trace - obviously, we were too far away to get a good photo of him singing!

 We were in Section 22 - right behind home plate - but we had obstructed view seats!

 The forecast called for rain, so we brought rain coats - it ended up not raining, but it was cool.  It was the first time that I had to wear jeans this summer!  

 Just some views from the park - it really is a nice park!  This is the newest statue outside the park - Carl Yaztremski.

 This was the view from our hotel room - It is a bit fuzzy because I am taking it through the window.  We were in a great area of Boston.  We walked outside some, but we were able to walk through a sky walk and through a mall to get to restaurants!  When we woke up on Sunday, we were early, so we went downstairs to ask the Coincerge if there was a local church for Mass.  There was a Chapel in the Mall, called St. Francis and we made the Mass - It was my first time going to church in a Mall - but it was surprisingly wonderful!!!

 On our way home we stopped for brunch at Cracker Barrel - we don't get there often and we really like their food, their portions, their service and the rocking chairs on the front porches!!  

CSA #7

This CSA is all mine this week.  My sister will get the full share for the next two weeks.

It was another great week - one head of lettuce, three zucchini, 3 patty pan squash, 4 cucumbers, a bag of tomatoes containing 4 lbs (15)(regular, yellow, plum and purple), a pint of cherry tomatoes (which i get to pick myself), 1 regular eggplant , one Italian eggplant, 3 hot peppers and I traded the scallions for another eggplant!