The Empty Nest

2010 Christmas Newsletter

2010-12-18T14:43:00.014-05:00

December 2010

Happy Holidays to our family and friends! This newsletter comes with our warmest wishes and we hope that you and your family have reasons to celebrate this season of love.

Our year started on a sad note with the passing of Jim’s Dad on January 15^th. Many family members gathered in December 2009 for a great 93^rd birthday celebration for George and we were grateful for our time together. His Memorial Service was a wonderful celebration of his life and we appreciate the efforts made by many family and friends to attend the service.

On a happier note, we look back on many good things in 2010. In mid-July we spent 6 days in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan with the Schaefer clan re-living the good times that Jim and his family had with his cousins, aunts and uncles.From there we joined friends on RABGRAI, the bike ride across Iowa, and we enjoyed the mostly gentle terrain of this year’s route and the kind temperatures provided by Mother Nature.

In early August we flew to Rome, Italy, where we did the tourist thing for a couple of days before embarking on a 7-day Mediterranean cruise. We saw many beautiful and interesting places during our cruise, but some of the highlights were biking for miles and miles in Mallorca, and exploring the market in Tunis, Tunisia. Rome is a beautiful city and we’d love to go back as we only scratched the surface of things to do. If you are planning a trip to Rome in the near future, we have a couple of B & B’s that we can highly recommend!

Jim continues to work at Johnson & Johnson and continues to run. Early in the year, he won an award at work that included an all expenses paid trip to the Grand Beach Resort in Naples, Florida. So for 5 days we enjoyed the luxuries that the resort had to offer as well as the opportunity to get lots of flat training miles on some rented bikes. It was a wonderful mid-May break.

Marji is still teaching Physical Education to kindergarten -2^nd grade students, which provides an endless source of entertainment. Biking and knitting fill her spare time.

A quick update on the boys: Corey is in his senior year at Syracuse University and continues to love the academic challenge as well as the athletic challenge provided by the Cross-Country and Track teams. This fall we had a couple of opportunities to cheer for Corey and the rest of the SU cross-country team as they ran in the Big East Championships, just outside of Syracuse, and then in the NCAA Division I Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Tucker’s big news is that he is now a home and land-owner in Colorado. He recently purchased a house on 3.5 beautiful acres of land in the town of Dolores, CO. We hope to go to visit him during Marji's spring break from school next April.

We are looking forward to having both boys with us for Christmas and New Year’s. This year we will be traveling to Tennessee for Christmas with some of Jim’s family. We will then head to the Adirondacks for our annual New Year’s celebration with the hardiest of our friends.

Our wish for you this holiday season and the upcoming year is for times of stillness and peace as well as times of great joy and celebration.

Hope all is well.

Of Mice and Men

2010-12-16T21:21:00.004-05:00

The hunt is on! A while back, while reading in bed at night, I heard a scratching noise in behind our bed in the attic. So Jim sprung into action.

He set the traps. The irresistible bait seems to be a piece of the wax covering from a hunk of fontina cheese, covered with peanut butter. So far, Jim has caught 4 mice!

I won't go into details, but it appears that there was one incident of mouse cannibalism. That's enough about that.

Stay tuned for more updates of the Great White Hunter!

Hope all is well.

Catch-Up Time

2010-12-12T19:32:00.004-05:00

Wow! It's been a while since I posted. I guess this will be a quick catch-up.

We are all well here, just busy and doing other things. I realized that I have been knitting a lot in the evenings and when I am not knitting, if I am sitting at the computer, I am not doing my blog, but rather reading trail journals from people who hiked the Appalachian Trail. They are absolutely addicting to me and I cry every time a thru-hiker completes the trail on Mount Katahdin in Maine! So I have now put a few restrictions on my reading of trail journals and will attend to some other things that should be done around here.

We had a great Thanksgiving with a wonderful dinner at Gram and GrandDad's. Corey was home for the weekend and we enjoyed having him here!

We have been doing some hiking on the weekends as I try to break in my new hiking boots. Here is a photo of some swans in Durand Eastman Park.

Jim and I took a hike at Canal Ponds Park and marked our new hiking guide for the town of Greece. Wegmans and Greece worked together to promote some of the local trails, encouraging families to get out and go for a walk. The guide has places to mark which trails you have walked by doing a pencil rubbing at a trail marker. It is a nice idea, although some of the hiking info is a bit sketchy! I got our trail guide at my local Wegmans and I know that there are other guides for other local towns. Here is Jim putting our first rubbing in our guide.

We have had several dinners at the Villages which is always enjoyable. Grandma will be in Tennessee for 10 days at the end of this month so she has to use up her meal allowance before she leaves and she can do that by having us be her guests at dinner. I love it when I don't have to cook dinner!

Jim raced in North Carolina this weekend and will be home in a couple of hours. He had a frustrating race, not running as well as he wanted to.

I went to the Auditorium Theater on Friday night to see a Broadway production of Mamma Mia. We know the young man, Travis, who was playing the role of the male lead (Sky) that night and it was so exciting to see him on the big stage. He really is a talented guy and the show was wonderful!

Yesterday I went to the Holiday Brunch at the Villages with Grandma. The dining room was beautifully decorated and we enjoyed a wonderful brunch including mamosas!

After eating a plate-ful of delicious food, we visited the cookie table and had to choose from many yummy, homemade treats! It was a fun morning!

Today Gram came over at 8:30 AM and we got lots of Christmas cookies made and made some plans for the holidays when the boys are here. We had the Christmas music going so it was a very festive time. Thanks Mom!

Tucker is now a home owner!! He signed all the paperwork and moved in on Dec. 3rd! Congratulations Tuck! He was in his new home for about a week before he left for Costa Rica. He joining Alison and her family for a 10 day trip to that beautiful country. I can hardly wait to see him when he finally gets to Rochester on Dec. 21st. And then I get to meet Alison when she arrives for New Year's! Lots to look forward to !

How is your Christmas shopping coming? I got a bunch of errands done this afternoon so I am feeling better about what still needs to be done. I hope the Christmas cards I ordered get here soon, because that is one big job that still awaits. I think it is time to set up the wrapping table in the basement so I can work on that job when I have a few minutes.

Time to knit some more and wait for the call from Jim telling me that he has arrived at the airport.

Could be some interesting weather coming through in the next few days.

Hope all is well.

Indiana Recap

2010-11-23T20:32:00.010-05:00

We made it back from a wonderful weekend in Indiana! Corey and the Syracuse XC team were running in the NCAA Division I National Cross-Country Championships in Terre Haute, IN on Monday, so we left here early on Saturday morning with a destination of Indianapolis. We arrived around 3 PM and checked into the Westin. Jim went for a run and I found the yarn store that was only 1.5 miles away! After we returned from our separate jaunts, I decided I needed a good walk after sitting in the car all day, so Jim took me to the White River State Park, right in downtown Indy where we ended up walking about 3.5 miles along the canal and past the zoo. It was a great walk and just what I needed.

We then got in touch with niece Amy who was in town to spend some time with family. She recommended that we eat at her family's pizzeria and pub, which was a short walk from our hotel. We had a good meal and then Amy joined us for a beer. If you ever find yourself in Indianapolis, give the Pearl Street Pizzeria and Pub a try! We talked for a short time and made some plans to get together in the morning. It was great to see Amy again~it had been a long time since our paths have crossed.

After our Sunday morning breakfast, Amy came to the hotel and we walked in the other direction along the canal trail, racking up a few more miles. What a great resource that canal is in downtown Indy!

We then said our good-byes to Amy and made plans to meet up at Corey's meet the next day. Jim and I then went to a neat outdoor store where we learned a lot about backpacks for me.

We then drove west some more to Terre Haute where we spent the afternoon with Corey and some of his teammates.

The highlight (or maybe lowlight) was watching the Milk Mile and cheering on Syracuse's entrant, Sean. The Milk Mile has become a tradition before the National Championship race and it is for some of the runners that come along with the teams, but are not going to be running in the big race the next day. The contestants start the race by drinking 12 ounces of chocolate milk and then running a lap of the track. They drink and run until they have consumed 48 ounces of milk and run a mile. If you throw-up before crossing the finish line, you have to run one more lap. Most of the guys did OK, but the poor women! They crossed the finish line and quickly put their head in the conveniently placed large garbage can and started puking! People cheered! It was a bit sick! But they all earned the respect of their teammates. Sean did a fine job of representing SU by taking 3rd place in the Men's Elite race and managing to hold down the milk! He later told us that eating dinner that night was a challenge!

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Knowing that nothing could top that entertainment, Jim and I headed back east about 35 miles to our hotel in Cloverdale, IN. We had to drive to the larger town of Green Castle to find a small, local restaurant for dinner.

Monday morning we were up early to get to the race course in time to walk it for a while and to check everything out. This course is one of the few dedicated XC courses in the country and is built on an old landfill, so there were hills for the runners to go up and down! We walked a good bit of the course and then Amy joined us and we walked some more.

The women ran first and I quickly realized that if I wanted to get some good photos of the SU runners, I would need to pick one spot and stay there.
There were lots of spectators who ran from point to point on the course so if I wasn't in a good spot right from the start, I wasn't able to get close enough to get good photos. So Jim ran all over the course cheering on Corey and the rest of the SU runners and Amy and I staked out our spot at a turn on the course where the runners were coming right at us and would come by this spot two times.

Corey is right in the center of the following photo.

There was a jumbotron right at the finish line so that more spectators could see the runners as they crossed the finish line. With thousands of spectators at the race, only a lucky few, who staked out their spots early were able to be right near the fence at the finish line. This jumbotron was a great addition.

The SU women had a good day and ended up with a tenth place finish out of 31 teams. The men had a tougher day and claimed 14th place. It was incredibly exciting to be part of this Big Dance for college runners and we were once again so proud to be wearing our Syracuse colors. Corey had a OK race and was SU's sixth man.

After the races, we hung around for a bit, but needed to get back on the road for our long drive home.

We left the course shortly after 2 PM and pulled into our driveway at 12:33 AM, not bad considering that included 2 stops for gas, dinner and a change of drivers.

Edited 2 days later: This has taken me some time to get posted because Blogger would not let me upload my photos, and what is a story without pictures! So, here it is Thanksgiving morning and Blogger is working again.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends. Corey got home last night and we put him to work this morning raking up the last of the leaves (at least we hope it is the last). We will be at Gram and GrandDad's for dinner and Grandma will join us there.

Hope all is well.

Practically Perfect Long Weekend

2010-11-14T20:51:00.007-05:00

Have you ever tied 3 or 4 days tied together that were just wonderful, in a variety of ways. That is the way I can describe the past 4 days for Jim and me.

Thursday was Veteran's Day which meant a day off from school. After taking a couple of minutes at 11:00 AM on the 11th day of the 11th month to be thankful and grateful for the service of many past and present, I got to have lunch with a close friend.

I picked up Jim at 4 PM to begin our trip to Connecticut. We headed east, spending the night in the Albany area. In the morning, Jim realized that we would be crossing the Appalachian Trail while on I-90 and wondered if I wanted to stop and hike for a bit! Well, of course I did. So after a 45 minute drive on the interstate we exited and started our search for where the AT crossed the road we were on. We couldn't find it at our first road crossing, but were successful on our second try, finding the trail in Tyringham, MA. I changed into my hiking boots, we loaded up our day pack with some water and snacks and then headed south on the trail. We hiked for about 45 minutes, following a boardwalk over what must be a swampy area in the spring and climbing some good hills to get some nice overlook views. We turned around and retraced our steps, heading north on the trail, back to our car.

But then we decided we really needed to see what the trail was like on the other side of the road, so we hiked almost another 30 minutes, all up hill, hoping to get a view when we got to the top, but no such luck, so we turned around and returned to the car. Now I must tell you that the weather was absolutely perfect for a day of hiking~sunny, clear and in the mid 60's! It was very exciting to be out on the AT~plus my feet felt good in my new boots.

After getting back in to the car, we drove lots of back country roads towards New Haven, CT. There was yarn store in New Haven that I wanted to visit (of course there was!). Our trusty GPS took us through part of the Yale campus and right to Knit New Haven, a lovely yarn store, which just happened to have some yarn that I thought I needed to add to my stash. And since it was such a beautiful day, Jim enjoyed his walk through this part of New Haven and Yale, so he didn't mind the time I spent in the yarn store.

We were in Connecticut to see the SU XC team race in the Northeast Regional Championships. Corey was not running, but had come along with the team. While in New Haven we contacted Corey to see where he was and what his plans were. The team was staying west of New Haven and we would have to wait until the next day to see him, which was fine with us.

We continued on east to the town of Madison, where we were staying at the Tidewater Inn, a lovely place located only a mile from the race site at Hammonasset State Park. We had nice room at the B&B, where we got settled in before heading down to the state park for a walk on the beach.

It was a perfect time to stroll in the sand as the waves gently lapped at the shore and the sun was setting. We returned to the B&B in time for a wine and cheese gathering for the guests and the innkeeper. Our innkeeper recommended and made reservations for us at an Italian restaurant in Old Saybrook, about 7 miles down the road. We had a delicious dinner there.

Saturday morning dawned clear once again, with the promise of a delightful day. We returned to the state park, with plenty of time before the races (women's and men's) so we walked around the nature center and then I took the Dunes Trail back to the race site, while Jim drove the car. While we were walking the course, we met up with Corey, who was doing a workout.
We got to spend some time with him between races, but during the races, we all went our own ways to cheer on the SU teams.

There were 39 schools at this regional meet and last year both the SU men's and women's team won so they were running with targets on their backs this year. And once again the SU runners rose to the occasion and won both events!!!

It was a great day to be wearing the orange and blue of SU!! Both teams will be running in the national championship races in Terre Haute on Nov. 22nd, and Corey will be running on the SU men's team! We will be there to cheer them all on!

Shortly after the last SU runner crossed the line, and we were pretty sure they had won, Jim and I jumped in the car because we needed to get home that night. Jim was racing on Sunday morning!! We had an uneventful trip home, but Corey could not say the same. The SU runners and coaches were traveling in two big vans and the first van (the one in which Corey was riding) hit a deer on the Thruway!! Fortunately, no humans were hurt, but the van and the deer were not so lucky. So, a tow truck was called and all the guys in the first van climbed into the second van, where all the gals were riding and drove the last 45 miles back to SU! Champions and Survivors!!

Today Jim raced at Center Park in Fairport. He had a good race and it was a good day for running. I went along to help with registration. I was then asked to hand out some lanyards to all the runners after they crossed the finished line, which I agreed to do. Well, I learned a lesson and will never agree to do anything at the end of the finish line chute. As some of the guys came across the line, they were gagging and puking and snot was coming out of their noses, and I was completely grossed out!!! Never again! After the women's race started I followed along walking the first 5K of the 6K course and got some good exercise. With some of the hills I walked up, I can see why some of the faster runners with throwing up at the end of the race!

Tonight we closed out this great weekend by having the parents here for supper. I made them each make their own Naan pizza (all you Seinfeld fans will recognize this as a Kramer business plan!) and we each enjoyed our own creation.

We talked to Tucker briefly this weekend and he is looking forward to closing on his house. Corey commented that that seemed like such a "grown-up" thing for Tucker to be doing!!

I hope you did something this weekend that made a good memory~ I know I sure did.

Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

2010-11-07T19:19:00.003-05:00

After surviving Halloween night, we embarked on the first week in November! This week I have made 6 more grape pies~2 for the Baked Food sale at church to support the youth bell choir and 4 for "Friday treats" at school. The pies at school were gone by 9:00 AM!

Jim has had a nasty cold for the the second half of this week, but seems to be on the mend at this time. He was feeling so poorly that he worked from home on Friday.

Saturday we went to the Section 5 cross-country championships at the Genesee Community College. We were there to cheer for the Odyssey team and they had a good day. Two girls qualified for the state meet and the boys team won the section 5 title for Class C and are on their way to the state meet too! Congratulations!

Today Jim raced in Syracuse and got have lunch with Corey. Jim did not run well, but after being sick for the last 4 days, he wasn't surprised! I stayed home and went to the gym for a good workout and then ran errands for a big chunk of the afternoon.

I did finish knitting the lace shawl that Corey gave me for my birthday. I blocked it on Saturday and it came out beautifully. I will post pictures here when I can get a good photo of it. I love the shawl!

This will be a short week at school as we have Veteran's Day off. Yippee!

I guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.

Hiking, Racing and a Cool Photo

2010-10-31T20:12:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween!

Corey's spectacular finish at yesterday's Big East Cross-Country race was captured by a photo/journalist for the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper and the photo was in today's sports section. For those of you who don't get that paper, here is the photo.

Today was Jim's day to race and today's event was at Watkins Glen State Park. I decided that I wanted to test my new hiking boots, so decided to tag along and hike the Gorge Trail while Jim was racing. Jim's running buddy, Tony, and his wife, Ann, rode down with us and Ann went hiking with me which was fun! We left the guys at the race course at one end of the park and drove to the main entrance of the park, where the trailhead was located. We hiked up the Gorge Trail, enjoying the many waterfalls and came back on the Indian Trail to make it a loop trip. It was a delightful hike and I am pleased to report that my boots were very comfortable. Here is one of the views that we had along the Gorge Trail.

Our 3 mile hike took just under an hour and we drove back to the race site and arrived with just a few minutes to spare before the start of the race. Tony gave us the lowdown on where to stand to best see the race and we cheered as the gun went off. Jim and Tony both had good races and Ann and I enjoyed our walk around the course. Here are 2 photos from the race. Jim won a medal and a share of a case of beer for the winning Veteran's team!

It was a good day to race and Ann and I only had a few sprinkles of rain as we started our hike, but mostly it was cloudy with welcome breaks of sunshine.

We enjoyed the ride along Seneca Lake on the way to Watkins Glen, especially the bright yellow leaves of the ever-present grape vines. The hillsides were vibrant with these golden leaves. Sorry, no photo.

So far, we've had about 30 trick-or-treaters (8:30 PM). We'll shut off the lights in another half hour and then Jim can get into the leftover Kit Kat bars!

Tonight I knit the last stitch on the shawl kit that Corey gave me for my birthday. It is going to be lovely once I block it out! I'll post photos when I finish the blocking process.

Tomorrow is November 1st! Time flies when you're having fun.

Hope all is well.

Big East Champs!

2010-10-30T20:25:00.006-04:00

Congratulations to Corey and the rest of the men's Syracuse University Cross-Country team. Today they defended their Big East title by beating 13 other Big East XC teams. Jim and I, along with the grandparents drove to Jamesville Beach County Park, just outside of Syracuse for this meet. Bob and Sally drove over for the meet too, and their support was much appreciated. The women ran first and the Syracuse women took 3rd place overall. Then the men stepped to the line and we were all nervous-excited as the gun went off.

The course was a true cross-country route~hills and mud! The SU men ran a smart race and when all the runners had crossed the finish line, SU had a 4 point win over Louisville (that would be a good win in basketball, too!!). Corey ran well, finishing 7th for the team, and passing 2 other runners just at the finish line. We all enjoyed seeing him run again, because we do not get that chance very often anymore. The grandparents were all real troupers, dealing with cool, windy conditions, with lots of walking and standing, but I think their cheering kept them warm!

We stayed for the awards ceremony and then drove 4 miles to the German restaurant that I like, where we had a delicious lunch.

Here are a few photos from today's race. Enjoy.

The start of the men's race.

One of the many, muddy hills. Corey is the SU runner on the right.

Corey looking strong!

At the 3 mile mark.

Corey with a great finish, just beating 2 other runners!

Celebrating with Gram and GrandDad!

The celebration continues with Grandma!

The awards ceremony.

A proud father and grandfather with a happy runner!

Hope all is well.

Congrats Tucker!

2010-10-22T18:35:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to Tucker who had his offer accepted on a house and piece of property in southwestern Colorado! Here are 2 photos of the property that he sent to us when he first looked at this house and land. The house is smaller than some of the others that he looked at but the 3.5 acres surrounding the house are superior to any of the other land they looked at. He has beautiful mountain views in one direction and the property has 3 irrigation shares (which are like gold in the west) and a small creek running through one of the corners of the property. By early December, he will close on this house and will a homeowner!

On the home front, we were up at 4:30 this morning so I could take Jim to the airport for an early flight. He flew to Portland, Oregon today for a Master's XC race tomorrow. Good Luck, Jim! Run fast!

After school today, I went to EMS and bought a pair of hiking boots. I decided I wanted to have lots of time to break in a pair of hiking boots before we went on our 120 mile hike next summer. The first time I went to EMS a week or so ago, they didn't have the boots I thought I wanted in my size. Today they did and so I tried on those boots and 2 other styles. I bought the pair that I originally thought I wanted and I am now wearing them around the house to see how they feel. So far, so good. I am going to try a different pair of socks when I finish this blog entry. Here is a photo of my new boots.

I don't have any "must do" plans for this weekend, but hope to get some leaves raked and some knitting done.

My Christmas cactus is misnamed~it should be called a Halloween cactus because it is close to blooming! Oh well, I am just thrilled that I can get it to bloom and will enjoy its pretty pink blossoms whenever they feel like opening!

Go Yankees!

Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

2010-10-17T19:36:00.006-04:00

Another busy week in the books. Besides going to work, there were several nights out for the usual things.

This weekend we covered a lot of ground and enjoyed the variety of activities we had. Friday night we drove to camp to help Gram and GrandDad close for the season. We had to drive through a fair amount of rain, but GrandDad had a nice fire going in the wood stove so camp was quite comfortable. Saturday morning was our chance to get some of the heavier work done. Jim and GrandDad got the dock all in position for the winter and got the boats into the carport. The roof was swept and the skylight covers were put in place. Gram and I did some cleaning indoors and then we went to Glens Falls to pick up some things that Gram wanted to have at home. Jim and I stayed for lunch and then started home. Here are some photos from our short time at Jenny Lake.

Securing the dock for the winter.

Nice color!

Sweeping the roof.

Getting the skylight covers ready.

A beautiful fall view of the lake.

We took a detour shortly after we left camp to go and see the trailhead for the Northville-Placid Trail. We hope to hike this 120 mile trail next summer so we wanted to check out the starting point. We decided to park the car and hike for a bit, going up the trail for half an hour before turning around. This hike fueled our excitement for this adventure, which is still about 10 months away! Here are some photos from our hike.

From the trailhead, Jim used his gazetteer to find a lot of back roads so we could pick-up the Thruway at Little Falls. By the time we exited the Thruway, the sky was clear, and the sun was setting. We stopped in Pittsford for dinner at Brio's and we had a good meal. Had to eat at the bar, since we didn't have a reservation, but that allowed us to watch the Yankees lose : (

Today Jim spent most of his day helping at an epic cross-country race which included a swim through a farm pond for the crazy runners.

I went to church and rang bells under the direction of one of our former music directors, Tom B. It was great to see him again and I think I did some of my best ringing for him!

My new food dehydrator was delivered while we were away so today I got my first chance to try it out. I sliced 6 apples and placed them in the dehydrator. Eight hours later, I have beautifully dried apples~all ready for our hike next summer!

Corey ran at Penn State this weekend and had an OK run. Now he will focus on the Big East Championships in Syracuse in 2 weeks.

Tucker looked at another piece of property this weekend and is considering putting in an offer on it. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Happy Birthday to Jeannie on Oct. 19th. We are all looking forward to spending Christmas with you!

Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

2010-10-10T19:56:00.004-04:00

I hope you have had a weekend as beautiful as we have had here. It was the kind of weather that makes you want to be outside!

The great weather started on Friday so I rode my bike to school which is always a treat.

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. Jim was supposed to go sailing with Jim A. and GrandDad, but big waves kept them off the lake and they cruised up and down the river for a bit. Gram and I went to the Farmer's Market and then to pick apples. It didn't take long to fill our baskets because the local apple crop is abundant.

In the afternoon I joined Sue A. her sister, her brother and his wife on a bike ride. We rode the canal trail to Genesee Valley Park where we saw some crew boats participating in the River Romance regatta. From the Park we rode north to the city. They stayed for the Columbus Day parade and I turned around and came home because I had a grape pie to make. It was a wonderful ride!

Last night we went to the movies to see The Social Network, an excellent movie! Bob and Sally joined us for the movie and then we 4 went to Davinici's for a tasty dinner. We all came back here and were joined by Jim and Sue for grape pie. It was a fun evening.

Today Jim raced in Buffalo and had a good race. I took an 18 mile bike ride in the morning and enjoyed the crisp fall morning. This afternoon I planted some mums and cleaned up some of the leaves.

Since tomorrow is Columbus Day, I have a day off, and because the weather is still supposed be nice, I have a bike ride planned with friends.

Corey called tonight and he has had a good weekend. Tonight is his "family dinner" with 3 of his running buddies and he seems to really enjoy the company and the food that they make.

So that was our weekend.

Hope all is well with you.

Bits and Pieces

2010-10-02T21:06:00.003-04:00

Saturday night, watching football and knitting~sounds like a good night! Plus I just finished watching the Yankees beat the Red Sox, which is always good.

Last night we went to GEVA theater and saw Amadeus which we both really enjoyed. I was a bit concerned going into the show because I heard that it ran for 3 hours! I gave up going to the local high school musicals because they went for 3 hours and I don't like to sit for that long, even if there is an intermission. Well, Amadeus keep my attention the whole time, and I only looked at my watch twice! There was lots of yawning in the Beetle on the way home at 11:15 PM!

Today we were out and about on a beautiful fall day. This morning we went to Genesee Valley Park for the McQuaid Invitational. We cheered on the Odyssey runners and got to see some people we knew. It was a great day for a cross-country race and we enjoyed walking around the park.

From the races, we drove south to Naples where we picked a couple of pecks of grapes. The aroma as we walked through the vineyard was overpowering~so grapey!!!

On the way home we stopped at the Dome Arena to check out the Ski Show. I have needed new XC ski boots for several years, but if I get new boots I have to get new skis because the bindings have changed since I bought my skis and boots many years ago. Unfortunately, the only skis that were at this show were non-wax, and I prefer waxable skis so we will look at some ski shops at another time.

When we got home, I did some work around the yard and Jim went for a run.

Corey was in Madison, Wisconsin today for a XC race and he had a good day. He ran a PR and finished 6th for his SU team. Congratulations, Corey! Well Done!

In September the stump in our front yard was removed and last week the town workers returned to fill in the hole with top soil and spread some grass seed. Hopefully the grass will come in before the snow flies.

Jim has harvested most of our apples and to date I have made about 15 pints of applesauce from 2 pecks of apples. So many apples fall from the trees and the squirrels and bugs get into them, but I will end up with more applesauce than we can eat!
Tucker continues to look at property in Colorado. We have enjoyed looking on the internet at the properties he is considering. Google Earth is an amazing tool!

Tomorrow I am going to make grape pie fillings with Grandma's help. I also may try dehydrating some apple slices.

We have signed a contract to have our windows replaced. It will take 3-4 weeks for the windows to be manufactured and delivered and then it will take a couple of days for the installation. It will be good to have new windows before the really cold weather arrives.

Speaking of cold weather, we have made it to October without having to turn on the heat, which makes Jim sooo happy!

I will close this entry with a photo of the sunset over the mall from earlier this week.

Hope all is well.

Dress a Girl Around the World

2010-09-28T21:01:00.005-04:00

Tonight I had the pleasure of participating in an international effort to provide dresses for girls in impoverished countries who would be vulnerable to kidnapping or unmentionable acts. A local non-profit organization, Angels of Mercy, has adopted the cause of Dress a Girl Around the World. In some countries around the world, when bad people see girls who are wearing raggy, unkept clothes, they think these girls have no one who cares about them and will try to take advantage of these girls. Very sad. Providing these girls with a simple dress can make a big difference in their lives. My friend, Sue, saw an article in the newspaper about the women who were sewing these dresses and asked us women of Women's Weekend if we were interested in helping at the next sewing session, which was tonight. Sue, Sally and I joined up with about 30-40 other women at a local church and we sewed 5 complete dresses and got a good start on a bunch of other dresses. Hundreds of dresses were completed in the 6 hours of this work session.Here are some photos from our evening.

Sue and some of the other workers.

Sally cutting out a dress.

More of the action.

Sue and I at the sewing table.

One of the completed dresses.

Our first completed dress!!

A beautiful, original, handmade doll is put in the pocket of each dress.

If you are curious about the Dress a Girl Around the World, please click

here. It was a very gratifying evening and I hope to be able to go back next month and do some more sewing for this good cause. The dresses are really cute and it is heart wrenching and heartwarming to know that a simple dress could save a girl's life.

Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

2010-09-26T20:03:00.008-04:00

Here it is Sunday night and before I start to think about my upcoming school week, let me write about our weekend.

We decided to go to Syracuse for the day on Saturday after consulting with Corey to determine that our arrival in town would not negatively impact his weekend plans! He said, "Come on over!" We arrived shortly after 1 PM and picked up 3 of his friends for our trip to a local farm market to pick apples and pumpkins. We went to Abbott's in Baldwinsville and had fun walking up and down the rows of apple trees, picking only perfect apples to fill our bag. Then it was on to the Pumpkin patch where we all got pumpkins. On our way out we stopped to give our best to the sheep and goats and then stopped for a funny farm photo op! Here are some photos from our fun:

After returning to campus, we dropped Corey's friends off at their house and returned to Corey's apartment where we watched some college football and drank some "Beer of the Month" beer! Later we headed to the Little Italy section of Syracuse and decided to try Francesca's Cucina for dinner. We were lucky to get the last table in the bar area, since we were in Syracuse on Parent's Weekend, and arrived at the restaurant without a reservation! We had a wonderful dinner and would recommend this restaurant. Here is a photo of Corey's chicken dinner, edible orchid and all!

After dinner and dropping off Corey, we headed west and arrived home shortly after 9 PM. It was a great day!

Today was a race day for Jim. He was running in the first of five cross-country races, with the series being dedicated to memory of Rochester running legend, Pete Glavin. Many runners from around western New York came to the race to pay tribute to Pete and it was a great day for a race. I went along to help with registration and enjoyed my morning there. Jim had a good race and his GVH Veterans team took first place among all the "old guy' teams!

Tonight we had a birthday dinner here for GrandDad. I tried a new recipe and it was a delicious beef minestrone soup/stew. For dessert I made an apple crisp with apples from our trees! Yummy!

Tucker called us on Friday night to tell us that he had been looking at property to buy and was excited about one offering. It is an exciting time for him !

I've finished my Sunday night ironing and can now turn my attention back to my knitting, where I need to find a mistake. Oh well!

Hope all is well.

Saturday Summary

2010-09-18T18:03:00.005-04:00

We had a beautiful fall Saturday today and we took advantage of the day.

My spinning guild sponsored the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival in Hemlock, NY. I volunteered to work a 2 hour shift at the Information Table. I arrived just before the opening at 10 AM and took and hour and a half to tour around and see the animals, fiber, and some friends. At 11:30 I began my shift and worked with another woman from the guild who I didn't know. I enjoyed her company and our 2 hours went by quickly. Most people wanted to know where they could buy festival merchandise and where the sheep dog demonstrations were. We did have to deal with a really rude man but we killed him with kindness and found just the person he needed to talk to, to solve his problem. Here are some photos the first day of the fiber festival.

Tomorrow I am volunteering again and will be there before the festival opens so I can work the first shift in the ticket booth.

Jim went to Colgate University because Corey was running in a race there. Corey had a good race and was pleased with his 6th place finish. The Syracuse men took the first 6 places in the race, so they all had a good day. Here is a photo of the start. Corey is on the far right side of the pack.

Tomorrow the weather is not forecasted to be as nice as today, but I look forward to being at the fiber festival again.

Friday night I went to a Happy Hour with some of the school staff at Pier 45, a restaurant on the river near the beach. It was fun to relax with my colleagues and then Jim joined me and we stayed for dinner. We sat on the enclosed deck and had a good meal, watching a few boats cruise up and down the river.

This past week we got 2 more estimates for replacement windows and next week we have one more guy coming in. Then we will make our decision.

Hope all is well.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2010-09-12T18:19:00.004-04:00

I first want to say that I am enjoying having a bread maker. I got this bread maker in March as one of the prizes that Jim chose for his 35th anniversary prize package. I just took this loaf of Honey Wheat bread out of the machine and it looks great, will taste wonderful and has filled the house with mouth-watering aromas! Can you smell it?!

We've had a good weekend. Yesterday we drove south to the Bristol Harbor Golf Club where we volunteered at a rest stop for the Highlander Bike Ride. It was a beautiful day and we were glad to be in such a pretty location, overlooking Canandaigua Lake. We had the early shift which meant our alarm was set for 5:20 AM and which got us to Bristol Harbor before 7 AM. We set up tables, a canopy and set out all sorts of food and drinks that the riders could enjoy. We worked with another couple which was fun.

Our shift ended at 9:30, at which time we drove back to the city and stopped at the Convention Center for the Home Show. We are looking to replace 9 windows in our house and we got some information about a variety of window companies and will make some appointments with sales people from some of these companies to come out and give us an estimate. We want to get this job completed before the end of the year so we can take advantage of the federal tax credit.

I was going to go to the Clothesline Art show later on Saturday, but it was such a beautiful day that I decided to go for a bike ride. I did one of may favorite loops and arrived home with 18.4 miles on my cyclometer and feeling really good.

Today I got my grocery shopping done before heading to church where I served as a substitute deacon. In the early afternoon I went for a nice walk for an hour with my friend Patti. She used to teach with me at Longridge, but switched schools this year and I miss seeing her on a daily basis, so it was good to catch up today.

The Buffalo Bills failed to instill much hope in the faithful today with a loss to Miami. It could be a long football season here in Western New York!

I have been knitting on a shawl, using the pattern and yarn that Corey gave me for my birthday and it is coming along very nicely. I do need to pay attention to what I am knitting, so cheering during football games or tennis matches has slowed my progress.

I came home from school on Friday to discover that the stump in our front yard had been ground out. Now the town needs to return and fill in the hole and put some grass seed in.

Got a full week of school coming up, but I am optimistic because we got off to a very good start.

Hope all is well.

And We're Off!

2010-09-09T20:10:00.002-04:00

9:00 AM arrived and the school bus doors opened and the children spewed forth, and most seemed excited to be back to school! It was a wonderful start to our new school year. We only had tears from a couple of Pre-K students (and a couple of Pre-K parents) but most kids settled in nicely. I had one kindergartner start to cry when she realized that her classroom teacher was leaving when the class came into the gym, but I brought her around in a few minutes with an exercise song called "Put Your Finger On"!

My day at school just flew by and it was great to see so many of my students again. I got enough hugs today to make up for the ones I missed over the summer!

NFL football starts tonight and I do enjoy watching football on TV. I have my pool sheet filled out and am hoping for the best.

Time to go, as kick-off is just a few minutes away. I will attempt to knit while watching the game!

Hope all is well.

Last Day of Summer Vacation!

2010-09-06T17:46:00.006-04:00

Labor Day marks the last day of summer vacation and it has been a great vacation time. I got to travel, see many family members and friends, and spend a lot of quality time with Jim. I think I have now chronicled all of our travels in this blog, so if you are wondering where we've been, just check the recent posts.

Today we had a memorable last day of summer vacation by going to Chimney Bluffs State Park, just east of Sodus Bay. On our way to Chimney Bluffs we took a slight detour to see Maxwell Creek Farm, from where we get our weekly produce delivery.

We went drove past many apple orchards and the trees were just heavy with apples. It was a beautiful sight!

Here are some photos from our Chimney Bluffs hike. We walked to the beach level and then walked to the end of the park and then returned on the bluff trail, above the water level. It was a delightful hike!

It was an interesting place and a very manageable trip from home.

Last night we had Bob, Sally, Liz and Ryan here for dinner. It was good to see Liz and Ryan again (it was good to see Bob and Sally too, as usual!).

Here is photo of all of my canned peaches. 31 quarts and 7 pints!

We've talked to both Tucker and Corey in the past couple of days. Tucker and Alison are knee-deep in free apples and peaches from an abandoned orchard. Corey got a haircut, see the photo below!

So when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning, it is not an alarm for just Jim. I will have to haul myself out of bed and get back into the school routine. No more having a casual breakfast and attempting to do the crossword puzzle. I have meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday and then the children arrive on Thursday.

Hope all is well with you.

I'm Back!

2010-09-04T19:59:00.011-04:00

OK, so I have not been good at all about updating this blog. Jim blames Facebook~but who knows! He reminded me that I never put anything up here about our wonderful trip to the Mediterranean Sea/Rome. (I did put photos up on Facebook.)

So here is a glimpse of our trip to Rome and our 7 day cruise around the Mediterranean Sea. We spent 2 days in Rome before the cruise and 3 days after. We cruised with Holland America and our ports of call were Cannes, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Tunisia, and Sicily. The cruise started and ended in Rome. The photos may be a bit out of order because sometimes we had 2 cameras going. Enjoy!

We'd love to go back to Rome because there is so much to see. We'd highly recommend the Holland America cruise. They took real good care of us, the ports were all very interesting and the sea was fairly calm.

Hope all is well with you.

RAGBRAI Review

2010-08-08T07:43:00.012-04:00

Now that we have been home for a week, I guess it is time for a review of our trip to Iowa for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, or RAGBRAI as it is fondly called.

This year's ride was one of the flattest and shortest in its 38 year history. But that is not to say that there were not long days on the bikes, or any hills, just ask anyone who rode the first or last day about the hills.

Our group this year numbered 7, some veteran riders and some RAGBRAI virgins. Bob and Sally joined Jim and I in that veteran group. In the virgin group we had Bob's boss/colleague at RIT, Jim, and Kim and Shaun. Kim is a friend of Liz's from college and Shaun is her boyfriend. We had great fun sharing the ride with newbies, who seemed to make the most of their first RAGBRAI experience.

The ride started in Sioux City, Iowa, right on the Missouri River and ended in Dubuque, on the Mississippi River. Here are the photo highlights from our 494 mile journey.

Rear wheels in the Missouri River, Sioux City, Iowa.

Sioux City all decked out for the RAGBRAI riders.

Early morning fog on Sunday.

One of the many unique bikes that people attempt to ride across the state.

Jim buying us our daily Smoothies.

Wind turbines were regular spectators along the roads in the western part of the state.

We relaxed at a local symphony concert in Storm Lake. Comfortable seats, a/c, and great music.

A mid-morning snack.

Receiving our well-earned patches at the halfway point of the additional century loop, named the Karras Loop.

Resting at 65 miles into our 100 mile day.

The Grotto in West Bend, Iowa. A tribute to one man's drive, determination and devotion.

Typical campground view!

Farm-equipment on display in one of the pass-through towns. Us city folks are most impressed!

Warm welcomes were received in all the towns.

Clear Lake was the perfect place to cool off on a 94 degree day!

Relaxing in camp.

Farm Pond fun! Later, Kim paid her $5 and had fun swinging!

Yummy fresh-picked corn, another mid-morning snack.

Chicken, lots of chicken! Good fuel for the last 20 miles.

If you look carefully on the corn, you can see the shadows of Jim and me on our bikes early one morning.

A tornado of bikes in Parkersburg, the town that was destroyed by a major tornado in May of 2008.

Cool, misting fan is a refreshing treat!

The water park in Waterloo was on our "Things to Do" list when we arrived in this town.

A toast with dill pickle juice~it's supposed to help with muscle recovery!

Kim and Shaun arriving at our campsite after a morning of riding in the rain.

Our perfect rainy day campsite, under the grandstands at the Fair grounds.

Another unique bike.

Beautiful, rolling farmlands.

The reward at the top of Potter Hill!

The approach to Dubuque and the Mississippi River.

The congratulatory banner.

A Dixie-style band to entertain us as we made our way to the dip-site on the Mississippi.

One happy group of riders, with our front wheels in the Mississippi.

Busy place!

One more group photo along the Mississippi River, celebrating another successful crossing of the great state of Iowa.

My 1600 training miles really paid off for me as I was able to ride across Iowa and enjoy all that the ride had to offer. Once again, the state of Iowa was so welcoming and made our adventure a wonderful vacation.

Hope all is well. I think I will go for a quick bike ride!

Michigan Photo Album

2010-08-02T08:37:00.012-04:00

Two good days of driving and we made it home from Iowa around 3 PM yesterday. We got unpacked and started an assault on the mountain of laundry that we brought home with us. We downloaded all of our photos and will now give you a highlight tour of our time with some of Jim's family in the Upper Peninsula. We drove there with Grandma and camped at Uncle Bob's former campground.

We crammed Grandma into the back seat and packed stuff in around her!

We had a great campsite with a view of North Manistique Lake.

Jeannie drove up from Tennessee and many of Jim's cousins and some of their children joined us for a week of good family fun. In addition to spending time around the camp and lake, we took 3 excursions away from the lake.

Our first trip was to the historic Log Flume in Grand Marias. Years ago, when the logging industry was booming in the U.P., harvested logs were pushed over the edge of this huge sand dune, down a flume, and into Lake Superior, where the logs were then collected and transported to a mill. The flume is no longer in place but the sand dune still provides a dramatic plunge to the lake and is a tourist attraction for hardy souls who like a good physical challenge.

The dune rises 300 feet above the lake, and the route down or up is a 500 foot trail, a really steep hike.

The technique for getting to the water is to do a controlled run, digging your heels into the sand, allowing yourself to slide down as you run. It was an amazing feeling to glissade down the sand slope with the expansive lake extending the view to the horizon.

Once down to the water, we walked along the shore looking for beautiful rocks.

However, putting pretty rocks in your pocket was a bad choice because then you had to carry them back up the dune! The climb up required using your hands and feet to get yourself up. It was hard work and took me about 10 minutes to get to the top.
What a great adventure this was! I know that Tucker and Corey would have loved it!

Our next excursion was to Taquamenon Falls State Park. We have been here before, but many, many years ago! There is an upper falls and a lower falls with a 4-5 mile trail between them. The water going down the river is rootbeer-colored from the tannin in the water.

Our last excursion away from camp was to Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island is a 90 minute car drive and 20 minute ferry ride from camp. We had a cool, fun, ride on the fast-speed ferry.

Pete and Mary rented a tandem for our 8 mile ride around the island.

Here is Jim riding along with Jeannie and Betina, also on a tandem.

A view of the famous Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.

Biking with the cousins was a great activity, followed by lunch and shopping before taking the ferry back to our car.

Our time at camp was filled with family-time activities. A campfire, fireworks, a night-time pontoon boat ride, games and laughter and family dinners were some of the fun things we did.

Uncle Bob has had a large garden in previous years, but this summer just left the raspberry bushes standing and there was a bumper crop while we were there. Every morning Jim got up and walked to the garden and picked a bowl of raspberries for our breakfast cereal. What a treat!

Aunt Jackie hosted a family BBQ at her house and we were joined their by all of her children (more cousins!). The food and family were all fantastic!

Grandma led us on a hike to the school house she attended as a little girl.

On our last night, Pete cooked us dinner of raspberry pancakes with his homemade syrup. Both were delicious!

So that is the highlight reel for our Michigan trip. Tomorrow I will try to get a blog post from our RAGBRAI trip.

Hope all is well.

RAGBRAI - Day 4

2010-07-28T16:14:00.002-04:00

I am sitting in the air-conditioned library in Charles City Iowa, in a comfortable seat and not having to pedal!

We have had 4 terrific days of riding, with good weather, OK winds, and wonderful scenery. The first day was hilly, the second day we added the Karras Loop to the 80 mile day to get to 100 miles and yesterday was a hot riding day as the temps rose into the 90's. We spent last night in Clear Lake, Iowa and the lake was a lifesaver. We stood in the water for a while, letting the water lap away the heat of the day. Many bikers just parked their bikes near the beach and jumped into the water in their biking clothes! There was a delightful breeze off the lake which kept us comfortable and we really missed it when we walked back to our campsite.

Today we had a short day, only 54 miles, and got an early start so we arrived in Charles City around 10:30 AM. Jim and I found a campsite in the shade and spread out our stuff to claim enough space for the other's in our small group to set up tents.

Last night we read of threats of a thunder storm and we hoped it would happen because when we climbed into the tent to try to sleep at 9:30 PM, it was still 85 degrees with 78 % humidity. Being in the tent was like being in a sweatbox! But we fell asleep because we had ridden 66 miles that day. Around 2:00 AM we awoke to rain hitting our tent, lightening illuminating the tent and thunder filling the silence of a sleeping campground. It rained hard for about an hour with an impressive sound and light show, then the storms moved on and we went back to sleep.

The roads were still wet when we started out this morning, but that did not pose a problem and dried out fairly quickly.

So far today my food intake has included a banana, cinammon/apple/nut french toast, gatorade, a fruit smoothie, a handful of almonds, a handful of raisens, a chicken kebob, pasta salad, and 2 shnickerdoodles. Tonight we will go to a local church that is having a Taco Bar for dinner. You can imagine how much I got to eat on my 100 mile day!!

Tomorrow we ride 82 miles to Waterloo, where there is a big water park. I am hoping we can play there during the afternoon!

I guess that is all for now. I have a time limit on this library computer.

Hope all is well.

My Stole

2010-07-14T21:24:00.004-04:00

My pink cloud of a stole is completed and I am thrilled with how it looks. Check it out for yourself.

Today I started a secret knitting project so I cannot share any details. And, Corey, I have not forgotten your afghan, it is too darn hot to knit on that!

Yesterday I went on a bike ride with Sally and Pam down along the lake shore all the way over to Culver Road.
We looped around SeaBreeze, dropping down to the Irondequoit Bay Bridge and then up a new bike trail to Durand Blvd. As we were biking west on Pattonwood Drive, I felt like I was riding on a bumpy road and looked down to discover a flat tire~ on my rear wheel! So we stopped, found a place in the shade, and started the process to replace the tube. I got the wheel off, no problem, but then had quite a wrestling match trying to get the tire off the wheel. That tire had never been off the wheel and it was not coming off willingly. One guy who was riding by stopped to help and together we were able to get the tire irons under the edge of the tire enough to get it off the rim. By now the sweat it pouring off of me and I had to mop up with my bandana before I could continue to replace the tube. One good aspect of having this flat tire was that I got to try my new CO2 cartridge inflation system, which eliminates having to pump up the tire. Once we figured out how to use the cartridge, it was super fast~whooosh~and the tire was properly inflated! I like it! The only problem with this system is that I now have a useless CO2 cartridge. I have to see if the bike shops have a way to recycle the spent cartridges. Sally had a time deadline so could not stay around while I fixed my tire, which was fine, especially since 3 guys stopped to help us, and Pam and I were not even looking like damsels in distress! Pam and I continued on our ride, heading to Schallers for lunch. The sky was getting darker and darker as we approached Schallers and while we were eating our cheeseburgers on hard rolls, the rain came along with the thunder and lightening! And then it rained some more, so we sat in the restaurant. Sally had driven back to Schallers in her car to warn us of these storms and told us to sit tight because the rain should not last long. Well, an hour or more later, we called Pam's Jim and he came and rescued us! What a day on the bikes!

On Monday I picked up my Maxwell Creek Farm share and was thrilled to find more sugar snap peas and blueberries among other things. Here is a photo of our share.

Tonight we rode our bikes to Spencerport to have dinner with friends, Steve and Julie. We enjoyed the company and the food at The Taste of Texas BBQ.

Hope all is well.

I'm Back!

2010-07-11T20:13:00.006-04:00

I know that it has been awhile since I have updated The Empty Nest blog, so this will be a overview of the past couple of weeks. I have lost some of my enthusiasm for doing this~Jim blames it on my activity on Facebook~ but maybe I can get back into the writing routine. Some people have told me that they do enjoy reading this and would miss it if I stopped so I will give it a go again.

I'll do this re-cap as a photo journal with captions. Here goes. Let me start with our Fourth of July trip to Jenny Lake. Gram and GrandDad were there (of course!) along with brother Jim, MaryAnne, and Zach. Corey joined us to, to fill the table on the porch!

Morning at Jenny Lake

Real men do dishes!

Jim caught fish every night we went out!

Niece HannahLyn came to town for the weekend. Here she is helping Corey and Grandma to make dinner. I was the brains behind the meal, they did all the work!

Abbotts, a Rochester classic!

Sunset at the beach.

Going canoeing on the canal.

Launching the boat.

Taking Grandma for a ride.

Dinner at the Villages.

Finished knitting my stole! This is a pre-blocked photo.

Soaking the stole.

Help blocking (stretching/shaping) the stole. Will be ready to model tomorrow!

Today I set a new personal best mark for bicycling. Jim and I went for a ride and we averaged 16.6 mph!!! That is fast, for me! We went 24.4 miles and were cruising. I am looking forward to RAGBRAI!

HannahLyn leaves tomorrow after a wonderful 4 day visit. We were thrilled to get to spend some time with her.

Hope all is well.

Top Ten Bike Ride

2010-06-25T20:04:00.002-04:00

Now I have been on a lot of bike rides, hundreds, perhaps thousands and today I went on a ride that made my Top Ten list of bike rides.

After leaving school at 10:40 AM for the last time this school year, I headed east on the Thruway to Jenny Lake. I made a stop in Syracuse to go for a short ride with Corey. I told him that I had about an hour to ride and that I did not need to do all the hills in Syracuse in that hour. So he took me on a great ride that included 3 good hills, a bakery and a yarn store!! A bakery and a yarn store~ that boy earned major points for that ride. My cyclometer wasn't working but we think we went about 10 miles but they were great miles! So, thanks Corey for a great ride and thanks for waiting for me at the top of the hills! We also made a stop at the Clark Reservation State Park to look at a very pretty glacial formed lake. It was a great ride.

I got to Jenny Lake about 5;30 PM, arriving about an hour after Jim, Maryanne and Zach. I arrived in time for a great meatloaf dinner with fresh green beans from Maryanne's garden. And later tonight I will have some Adirondack Bear Paw ice-cream for a bedtime snack. That should allow for very sweet dreams.

Time to go for a walk.

Hope all is well.

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T20:57:00.004-04:00

Happy Father's Day, Dad! A girl couldn't ask for a better Dad. You've been there for me and my family whenever we have needed you! Love You!

It's been a while since I have written, but mostly it's been a lot of work and things going on in the evening have prevented me from sitting at the computer at night.

Here is a photo of last weeks Maxwell Creek farm share.

The strawberries were again yummy, but the best treat was the super-fresh sugar snap peas~and we had enough for 2 dinners. The challenge this week was what to do with swiss chard. After an internet search I found a recipe where the swiss chard was an important ingredient in a sauce for pasta. So I made that tonight for dinner and it was a keeper recipe. Grandma and Corey joined us for dinner and it was well received by all.

Today we had an early start as Jim and Corey were running in the 5K race at Frontier Field and I was a volunteer who was supposed to report at 6:30 AM!! Jim and Corey ran well enough to win the Father/Son category once again. That is a Father's Day gift that means the most to Jim.

When we left the house this morning, Jim put my bike in the car and as soon as my volunteering responsibilities were over and I saw Jim and Corey cross the finish line I changed into my biking clothes and rode out of Frontier Field, in search of my 1, 000th biking mile of this year! Yesterday I rode 34 miles, heading west to Brockport. Today I left Frontier Field and headed south on the Genesee River trail to the Canal trail. From there I rode to Fairport and then home. Once Jim got home, he jumped on his bike (because the race was not enough exercise!) and rode on the Canal trail to meet me. Somewhere between Fairport and Pittsford I rode my 1,000th mile. I look forward to school being finished so I can ride more regularly.

Friday night we went to retirement party for a music teacher at Odyssey who was an important part of both boys' lives. The party was held at a gorgeous home on the lake in Irondequoit and we got to see many friends and other teachers from Odyssey. We didn't stay as long as we would have liked because I needed to be at the Redwings baseball game because my school was having a family night there and I was one of the organizers. Some of our students and parents held the big flag for the national anthem. It was a great night to be at the ballpark and a good time was had by all.

Saturday I recruited Jim and Corey to help pick strawberries and in no time we had picked 4 quarts and 3 pints.

This is my last week of school. We have the children for 3.5 days but we have 4.5 days left. I can hardly wait for summer vacation!

We talked to Tucker tonight and his garden is recovering from a big hail storm.

Hope all is well.

Fun with Produce!

2010-06-10T18:50:00.004-04:00

Monday afternoon I picked up our second delivery of our CSA produce. Here is a photo of what we got this week.

From the top left, we have field greens, kale, rhubarb, garlic scapes, a head of lettuce, strawberries and asparagus.

We have eaten more asparagus in the past 2 weeks than in any other time in our lives! Corey helped us discover that when we grill the asparagus it tasted a bit like whatever we last cooked on the grill (burgers, steak, etc.)! Corey and Jim also discovered that asparagus can be very useful when trying to keep the baked beans from getting all over the rest of the food on the plate!

I had to do some research to see how I could use the kale and I came across a Four Cheese and Kale pizza recipe. This looked and sounded good so that is what I made for dinner tonight. I chopped up the last 3 spears of asparagus and a few of the garlic scapes and sauteed them with the kale. This went on top of the pizza crust along with a 6-cheese Italian mix from Sargento. It was delicious and a keeper of a recipe!

This weekend I will buy/pick some more local strawberries and make a Rhubarb and Strawberry Crisp. This CSA produce share has been a wonderful gift from Tucker and Corey.

While Corey was home he pulled out the horseshoes and played a bunch of games with his friends and Jim. This first photo documents that accuracy is important and the second one shows Corey in action.

Tomorrow is Field Day at school and I think we are ready. The weather is supposed to be good and we have a good number of volunteers scheduled to come in to help. This has been a crazy week at school preparing for Field Day, going in early and staying late.

Tomorrow (June 11) is my Mom's birthday.Happy Birthday, Mom! I am so glad that most of the year we live close so that we can be an active part of each other's life. Have a good day.

Hope all is well.

Sunday Summary

2010-06-06T16:35:00.006-04:00

Corey has been home with us since Tuesday and it has been nice to have him in the house again.

Wednesday was a beautiful weather day and Corey rode his bike over to school at the end of my day and we took my 15 mile route back home. We had a great ride together!

Jim ran in the Corporate Challenge this past Thursday night and was generally pleased with his effort. I didn't walk or run this year because that was my night to volunteer at the hospital gift shop.

Friday night Jim and I walked in our local Relay for Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. My school had a team for the second year and we were once again the top fundraising team! Jim and I walked 7 miles, 28 laps around the track, before leaving around 11 PM, when the rain got steady and heavy. A bunch of other teachers (young teachers!) were planning to spend the night at the track, with at least one person from our team on the track all night. Mother Nature had other plans though, and when heavy thunderstorms rolled in around 1 AM, everyone had to move into the school gym. With no weather reprieve in sight, the event was shut down at 2 AM. I did not know this however and when I returned to the track at 6 AM, my whole team was gone and only a nice pile trash remained where our tents had been! It was a great event though and a good fundraiser for a great cause. We enjoyed seeing some folks that we haven't seen in a while as well as spending some time with my teacher friends in a social setting. Here are some photos from our Relay for Life.

Yesterday we 3 took a short bike ride to Lugia's for an ice cream cone! Here is our annual photo with Corey at Lugia's!

Last night we had hoped to go to Hose 22 for dinner, having heard good things about this place. When we arrived shortly after 7 PM we were told that the wait for a table was an hour, which was more than we were willing to wait so we ended up at Capriani's in the plaza just on the other side of the O'Rourke bridge. We had a good meal. As we were driving around to find a restaurant, the clouds were very unusual, and since I usually always have my camera with me, I took their picture. Fortunately, nothing serious developed from these clouds.

We rented the movie Invictus last night and it was very good. It was about how Nelson Mandela worked to improve the national rugby team in South Africa.

This morning dawned cold and rainy, 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. I went to church because my bell choir was ringing and we played a beautiful piece with a cello.

We 3 had hoped to take another bike ride together today, but we decided to be fair weather riders and stay home! We certainly have and can ride in the rain, but prefer not to!

Corey will be going back to Syracuse tomorrow, but doesn't start his job for another week, so he may do some hiking with a friend.

There has been a major change in our front yard and that is the result of having the huge maple tree taken down. Back in January when a huge limb fell out of our neighbor's tree, falling across the road and missing me in my car by seconds, we decided to ask the town to look at our tree which was of the same age as the neighbors tree. The town took down our neighbor's tree shortly after the limb fell because the tree was starting to rot in places. The town agreed that our tree was in a similar situation and said a crew would come by and take it down. Corey awoke on Thursday morning to the chainsaw gang hard at work on the old maple. In retrospect, it may have been better if we had warned him that this might be happening!! So here is a before and after photo.

The front yard is now more open and much brighter. More light comes into the house when we have the front door open and we are thinking that we should have less leaves to rake in the fall! The town is supposed to be back to grind out the stump and then plant some grass/weed seed! Jim tried to count the rings in the stump and came with with 55!

This is Field Day week at school, with the actual event being on Friday, June 11th. If you have any influence over the weather, it would certainly be nice to have a good weather day on the 11th. I love Field Day, but it is a lot of work getting to it, but always worth it!

Hope all is well.

Memorable Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T21:16:00.008-04:00

We had a rather memorable Memorial Day weekend, in a good way.

Since Corey qualified to run in the NCAA Regional Track and Field Meet in Greensboro this weekend, we decided to make the trip. Fortunately for us, he was scheduled to run his 5k race on Saturday evening at 8:30, allowing us plenty of time to drive down from home. We left here after I got out of school on Friday and drove about 5 hours where we spent the night in Waynesburg, PA, just south of Pittsburgh. Saturday morning we got an early start and continued our southern trek through West Virginia, Virginia and into North Carolina. To break up the morning of driving and to stretch our legs, we made a quick stop at the New River Bridge, a National Park facility which shows the natural history of the area and has a great wooden staircase leading down into the New River Gorge for an impressive view of the interstate bridge.

We arrived in Greensboro in the middle of the afternoon, checked into our hotel and then went to find Corey in his downtown hotel. We spent a bit of time with him before he needed to start his pre-race routine. Jim and I walked around until we found a diner for a light supper. We then went to the track where we got to see a bunch of races before and after Corey's race. Unfortunately, Corey didn't run as well as he hoped but he finished higher than his seeding, but that was little consolation to him. We were proud of him for making it to this major NCAA meet and were glad to share the event with him.

Once Corey and his teammates got back to their hotel and got cleaned up we took Corey and 4 of his friends out for a late dinner, at least it was late for us old people (11 PM!). We enjoyed a meal at a local brew pub and since Corey is now 21, we could buy him a beer!

Corey and his team flew home early on Sunday morning and we started our drive home. We took a different route north, stopping in Richmond to see Terry. She made us a nice lunch and then took us to an old cemetery in Richmond which overlooks the James River, where Terry goes kayaking. It was a good tour and we were glad to see where Terry lives. Thanks Terry for the hospitality!

We spent Sunday night in Frederick, MD. We ate dinner at a local Italian restaurant in downtown Frederick. After eating we were walking around and discovered a lovely linear park along the Carroll Creek, running right through downtown. We walked up and down the walkways on each side of the creek, enjoying all the sights along the way. What a gem for Frederick!

Monday we got an early start because we planned to stop and hike on the Appalachian Trail. We drove to Duncannon, PA, where the trail drops down into the town of Duncannon. Jim and Maw came down here in 2005 to meet Michal was he was hiking the trail. We found a place to park, near where the trail came out of the woods to meet the road. The first 1/2 mile was pretty much steep uphill until we came to a rocky outcropping which provided us with great views of the Susquehanna River valley. We continued up a bit more before the trail leveled out on top of the ridge-line. After a while, we turned around and headed back to the car. Along the way we met up with other day-hikers, section hikers and thru-hikers. We took the car into town, where we stopped for lunch at the hiker's haven called the Doyle Hotel. This place charges $25 a night for a room and hot shower. You can eat at the bar, which is where we had lunch. We got talking to the woman who owns and runs the hotel and told her that Michal has stayed with her during his thru-hike. Once we pinpointed the year he hiked (thanks Jeannie!), this woman looked him up in her collection of 3-ring notebooks and found the photo that she had of him!! She said she tried to get photos of all the thru-hikers, but misses one or two! We were thrilled to see Michal's picture and to listen to the other hikers talking in the bar. We hope to be two of those thru-hikers when we retire.

We continued our drive home arriving before 6 PM. 1500 miles in 72 hours! That is quite a road trip and gave me the summer vacation fever.

Jim got back in the car late this afternoon and went to Syracuse to bring Corey home for a few days. It will be nice to have him around, and maybe even do some biking with him.

This afternoon I picked up our first delivery from Maxwell Creek Farm, a CSA, community supported agriculture farm. Here is a photo of what we got this week. We already ate the strawberries and they were yummy!

Here are a bunch of photos from our weekend. Hopefully from my narrative, you can figure out what they are.

Hope all is well.

Happy Birthday, Corey!

2010-05-26T19:57:00.004-04:00

Happy Birthday to Corey! 21 years old today and they have been 21 wonderful years! We will have to celebrate when we see you this weekend. We'll bring your "21" driver's license with us! Here is an old photo of Corey from early in his running career!

We're having a heat wave here and today it took its toll on me. I rode my bike to school and decided to do my 15 mile route before school, when it was only 65 degrees, which was a great decision. Then it started to heat up and I was outside all day with my classes. By the time I started home, it was 90 degrees. I thought I would ride a little longer than the most direct route home and that proved to be difficult. With about 3 miles to go, I felt awful and the ride seemed like a lot of work. I pulled into the driveway with 23 miles, and needed 2 glasses of water, a glass of iced tea and a small snack before I started to feel more normal. I thought I was drinking a lot of water while at school today, but apparently I will need do get even more in me if it is this hot again tomorrow. But now that we've had dinner at the Villages, and I have cooled down, I am feeling much better.

Last night and tonight I planted all the flowers and myrtle ground cover that I bought on Sunday and now the challenge is to make sure that those tender, new plants get enough water. I think for now I will have to water in the AM and PM.

Next Tuesday we get our first delivery of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce. After this first week, our regular, weekly deliver date will be Mondays. The farm where this produce is coming from has posted the tentative produce list for our first delivery and it includes: asparagus, head lettuce, rhubarb, mixed baby salad greens, radishes, spinach, baby turnips and kohlrabi. Now, there are a couple of things on that list that are not usually part of our diet, but we are planning on being adventuresome and giving them a try. Watch for a photo of our first produce share. You may remember that this CSA share was a gift from Tucker and Corey and we are looking forward to all the good things that we will get for the next 18 weeks.

Dancing With the Stars ended last night, just the way I hoped, with Derek and Nicole winning! Of course, with the champion being named just before 11 PM, I did not stay up to see it. Thank goodness for the internet, where I can re-live the moment.

Time to knit. I am about 1/3 of the way through my latest shawl, which I hope to have done for our summer cruise. This shawl is really a stole, or as Jim describes it, a really wide scarf. I am very comfortable with the pattern and still love the light pink fluff that I am knitting it with.

Hope all is well with you.

Greensboro Bound

2010-05-22T19:15:00.003-04:00

Corey has qualified for the NCAA Regional Track Meet in Greensboro, NC next weekend! He is very excited about this opportunity and we are so happy for him. Go Corey!

I am hoping to get this entry written without falling asleep! Jim and I took a 43 mile bike ride today and the hills kicked my butt! Jim is really tired too, so I think even though we rode lots of miles in Florida, they were all flat miles so didn't do much for our climbing muscles. We rode to the United Methodist Church in Rush, NY, where we (mostly me) went shopping at the Shepherd's Market, a gathering of local shepherds who sell their sheep's fleeces, fiber and handspun yarn. It is a small market, but I knew most of the shepherds because they belong to the spinning guild. While I was looking at what was for sale, Jim enjoyed watching a demonstration of a sock knitting machine. He made sure that I knew it only takes 25 minutes to knit a pair of socks with that machine!! It was almost a 22 mile ride to the Shepherds market, and we included a stop for lunch in Rush, before heading home. It was a great ride, and it is good to be tired, because it means I was working hard.

On Friday night, June 4th, through Saturday morning, June 5th, I will be walking in the Greece Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. This is a national event, so you may have a Relay for Life in your area. If you would like to sponsor me for this night of walking, please click here. I thank you in advance for any donation you may choose to give.

We were at the Villages last night for dinner and we have 3 more dates next week. Because Grandma was in Tennessee for almost 2 weeks, she has a lot of meal credits which must be used by the end of the month, so we are doing what we can to help her out!! It is like going to a restaurant because the menu changes every night, however the percentage of gray-haired folks is higher than most restaurants!

Tomorrow night we are having a Ponty's dinner with Gram and GrandDad before they head to camp for the summer. As you may have figured out, I have not been cooking many dinners lately, and that is fine with me!

Tomorrow Jim works at the Lilac 10K race and then we will get another bike ride in the afternoon. I hope to do some yard work since none got done today. Plus, I have a mountain of ironing to do tomorrow night.

So it appears that I have not fallen asleep at the keyboard, which is a good thing. Having the Yankees on TV has helped keep me awake.

No photos from our ride today, but here are some more beauties from our trip to Florida.

Hope all is well.

Home!

2010-05-17T20:22:00.006-04:00

We left Naples, Florida in the rain yesterday afternoon and arrived home at 12:30 AM today. And, yes, we are both pretty tired today!

Our last 2.5 days at the Naples Grande Beach Resort were as wonderful as the first 2 days. Friday morning we took another bike ride, this time heading south of Naples, and including some sightseeing stops. One of the travel magazines for this area advertised a show of some of Princess Diana's dresses at a local art gallery. Jim planned a stop at this gallery shortly into our ride, where we joined a local group of Red Hat Society ladies to view about 2 dozen of Lady Di's beautiful dresses. It was a great show and I was most impressed to read that she wore most of these dresses multiple times. We then continued south where the roads took us by some of the mansions of the very rich! What fun! We stopped for a walk out the famous Naples Pier before lunching at a sister-resort of the Naples Grande, where could use our food allowance. We needed to be back from our bike ride in time to clean up before heading to the spa where had booked massages for each of us. A massage was a wonderful treat, and was covered by the activity allowance that was part of Jim's award.

Friday night was the Awards Dinner and it was a lovely affair. Each of the 20 award recipients was honored and their achievements were highlighted. Jim's boss made a video to highlight the reasons Jim won this award and the video was entertaining, but also genuine and heartfelt. I was extra proud to be Jim's wife that evening.

Saturday was Everglades Day and the whole group boarded a tour bus for the hour drive to Everglades City, where we boarded airboats for a tour of the Mangrove forests. We had never been on an airboat and my initial thought was that they were a noisy way to get around. Well, they are noisy, but with some headphones for ear protection, I got a real rush when we were flying over the open waters and though the narrow passageways at 40 mph! We did see 2 alligators and a couple of manatees along with several birds native to that area. But by far, my favorite part of the airboat ride was flying across the water at high speeds!

Saturday afternoon we took another bike ride and then spent the late afternoon around the pool. A late dinner at the Strip Club (the hotel's steak house) completed another great day in paradise.

Sunday was our last day, but we didn't fly out until 6 PM so we went for another 43 mile bike ride, arriving at the bike shop to return the bikes just before the rain started. All together we bike over 154 miles in 4 days, a total we are quite pleased with. We returned to the pool for lunch and a couple more turns down the water slide. The rain started up again, just as it was time for us to clean up and pack up.

We said good bye to the Naples Grande after a wonderful vacation that was relaxing, refreshing, and most of all, fun! Thanks J & J!

Here are some photos from our trip.

Naples, Florida

2010-05-13T21:22:00.005-04:00

We are in Naples, Florida at the Naples Grande Beach Resort and life is good! Jim won an award at work and the prize was an all-expenses paid trip to this resort!

We left home early Wednesday morning (42 degrees) and arrived in sunny Florida five hours later (86 degrees!).

We spent Wednesday exploring the facilities and grounds of this resort area and it is soooo beautiful. In the evening there was a welcome reception for the 20 winners of this award and their guests. There are winners from around the country and Canada. The reception was held near one of the pools where the flowering trees and bushes are in full bloom and the gentle breeze kept us cool. We ate dinner at the hotel's steak house and had a great meal.

Today we took a taxi to a local bike store where we had reserved two road bikes for the rest of our stay. We rented really nice Specialized Bikes and were given some good info about good local biking routes, so off we went. We rode north, through Bonita Springs to Fort Myers, where we stopped for cold drinks and a sit-down rest at a local beach. We returned the way we came with an added stop at a state park on the Gulf coast. We rode back to the hotel where there are bike racks in the parking garage. We rode a total of 43 really flat miles! The only hills were where the road went over a bridge! It was a great ride, even though it was pretty hot by the time we got back.

Lunch was poolside and from there we walked the boardwalk to the beach area. Neither of us was interested in spending too much more time in the direct sun, so we took a quick swim in the
Gulf, and then walked back to the hotel pool where we did the water slide a few times. Love the water slide! Jim went for a quick run (because 43 miles on the bike was not enough exercise!) while I napped in the shade by the pool!

Tonight the whole group took a 2 hour dinner cruise out into the Gulf of Mexico. We had a nice meal on the boat and continue to enjoy making new friends with the other award winners. There was a nice sunset but the real eye candy during the cruise was all the multi-million dollar homes along the shoreline! Such opulence! Such extravagance! Living in one of those homes is a lifestyle I cannot even imagine, but it sure was fun to be amazed by these homes.

This trip was advertised as an "all-expenses paid" trip and we have not had to open our wallets for anything. We have been given a very generous daily food allowance as well as an activity allowance. We will use our activity money to rent kayaks and to get massages.

So tomorrow we will do more biking in the morning, to try to get some miles in before it really heats up, and then I am not sure what we will do in the afternoon. Tomorrow night is the awards dinner, where my shawl will make its debut!

Here are two photos. I would include more, but the technology is not working right this evening!

So that is all for now. Hope all is well, wherever you are.

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T20:57:00.006-04:00

Happy Mother's Day to my mother and mother-in-law! I am one lucky person to have you both in my life. Both my boys remembered me this day and I say "thank you " to both Tucker and Corey. Tucker called from Colorado and we had a nice chat. Jim and I stopped in to see Corey in Syracuse on our way home from Jenny Lake and he fed us lunch, including some warm, delicious, blueberry muffins that he made from scratch!
If you click Corey's photo, you can make it bigger and really see how nicely his mustache is coming in!

So we went to Jenny Lake this weekend to help Gram and GrandDad open camp for the season. Here is a photo story of our weekend. We awoke to a rainy Saturday morning, but during the first break from showers, Jim and GrandDad started the outside work, including putting in the dock.

Because there had been some construction in the camp over the fall and winter, I took down all the curtains in the camp and ran them through the dryer with no heat. It was amazing all the dust that was in the dryer trap after each load. Gram and I worked hard getting bedrooms cleaned.
Liz K. along with Kim and Shaun arrived for a visit in time for lunch. They brought the nice weather with them. Liz is part of our New Year's group at Jenny Lake and was thrilled by seeing the lake unfrozen and greenery all around! She also enjoyed the indoor plumbing!
We took a hike to the outlet where the beavers have been busy.
There were lots of spring flowers in bloom.
Liz was the first one in the lake this season! I'm not sure it really counts when you only get your ankles wet!
But all that hiking was exhausting so we relaxed in the sunshine. They all headed back to Saratoga shortly after this rest.
With the company gone, the rain returned, but we were rewarded with not one rainbow, but if you look closely in the upper right hand corner of this photo, you can see a second rainbow. We didn't see it when I was taking the photo, only later, when we were home looking at the photos on the computer!
We left camp around 9:30 this morning, drove about 1.5 miles until we met this obstacle across the road! Yikes! We had to turn around, return to camp to warm Gram and GrandDad who were leaving shortly, and then take an alternate route!

We came home and are now looking forward to our upcoming Florida trip! Especially since we drove home today through snow!

Hope all is well.

Pedicure

2010-05-05T20:38:00.005-04:00

In anticipation of our vacation to Florida, I had a pedicure this afternoon. I invited some of my friends to join me and we had a fun time. Sally, Diane and Sherri met me at Solutions Spa and we were all able to have our pedicure together in one room. It felt sooo good and now my feet look better than ever!

We all agreed that we needed to do that again someday~and not wait too long!

I've been able to ride my bike to work two days this week, which is a real treat, especially when I can take my 15 mile route home after school. Today, because of my pedicure, I had to come right home, but I rode a little extra before school because it was a nice cool morning for riding. I did get caught in the rain going to school on Monday, but I had some "quick-dry" pants on so I wasn't walking around in wet clothes all day.

Tomorrow it is one of my volunteer days at the hospital gift shop and then up to Jenny Lake to open camp this weekend.

Happy Birthday to Alison and Joanie on Thursday!

Hope all is well.

A Beautiful Day in Maryland

2010-05-01T20:51:00.005-04:00

What a great day to be at a festival! Sally and I left Westminster at 7:45 AM and we were walking onto the grounds of the Howard County Fair Grounds for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival by 8:30. It was once again a delightful, fibery day! We were surrounded by yarn, roving, sheep, alpacas, llamas, knitting and weaving supplies, and lamb. Here are a bunch of photos from our day.

The day was sunny and hot! When we weren't in one of the animal or vendor barns, we were seeking out some shade.

Liz joined us in time to have a late lunch. Sally and I indulged in some lamb, which was delicious. We all bought some yarn and I added to my roving supply. I also bought a very light weight silver shawl pin to go on my Seascape shawl.

Sally and I both had knit new sweaters for this festival. Well, actually mine was knit for the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, but it was so cold that weekend that my new sweater was hidden under several other layers. So today it made its festival debut. But it was so hot that we had our sweaters off shortly after arriving! Here we are wearing our new sweaters, standing in the lobby of our hotel.

Liz drove back to our hotel with us and joined us for dinner. It was a bonus to see her.

Sally and I will head home tomorrow, hopefully not hitting too much rain.

Corey runs in the Big East Track meet tomorrow in Cincinnati. Good Luck, Corey!

Hope all is well.

On the Road

2010-04-30T20:48:00.004-04:00

I'm filing this report from Westminster, Maryland, where I am poised to attend the 37th annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Sally has made the trip with me and I am glad to have her company.

We left before 8 o'clock this morning with our bikes on top of the Beetle. We had an uneventful drive to Gettysburg National Park where we took our bike off the roof of the car, changed into our biking clothes and rode 18 miles around the national park. Here are some photos from our ride.

It was a perfect day for riding, sunny and in the mid-80's with a gentle breeze! We followed the national park's Auto Route tour and for the most part we were riding on park roads with minimal traffic. I love to visit this park because when Tucker was younger, it was one of his favorite places. I can remember his enthusiastic verbal re-creation of the battles that took place here~ his passion was so evident! He couldn't get enough of the the monuments and the various landmarks in this historic area.

After our ride we continued south and east from Gettysburg to Westminster, MD. We got settled into our hotel and got cleaned up before heading to downtown Westminster where we ate a delicious meal at an Irish Pub. Here is a photo of Sally in the seat of honor at our table!

And yes, that is a Corona into which she is squeezing a lime!

The forecast for tomorrow is perfect for walking around the sheep and wool festival. Sally and I each have hand-knit sweaters to wear in the morning while the air is still cool, but I am sure will have them back in the car before too long. Liz is planning on driving up from DC and spending the afternoon and evening with us. That should be fun.

If I am not too tired tomorrow night, I will post some photos from the festival.

Hope all is well.

Happy Birthday, Maw

2010-04-25T21:03:00.003-04:00

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and I must have done something right to get such a great mother-in-law! Happy Birthday, Maw!

Yesterday Jim and I went on a nice 37 mile bike ride that included 2 bridge crossings, 3 bike paths, lunch at Schallers, and two quick social stops to visit with friends! All in all a great ride!

This weekend was our church's centennial celebration weekend and we participated in two of the festivities. Saturday night we attended the Centennial dinner and enjoyed talking with pastors that used to be at Bethany as well as church members that we don't get to chat with very often. Rev. Ferguson and his wife, Donna were our table mates and we were honored to be at their table. Rev. Ferguson was at Bethany for 22 years~he married us and baptized both of our boys, so he has been an important person in our lives. It was good to see him again.

This morning we attended the big Centennial worship service. My bell choir joined up with the teenage bell choir and we rang a beautiful piece for an introit. With 2 bell choirs ringing, it was an impressive sound. The rest of the service was led by our former pastors, full-time and interim, and it was joyous service.

Tonight we hosted a birthday dinner for Grandma, and Gram and GrandDad joined us too. Also joining us, was Rev. Peter and Anne Durkee. Rev. Durkee was an interim pastor at Bethany and he and his wife were staying at Gram and GrandDad's house. It was fun to have them here with us.

Back to school tomorrow after a great spring break! I guess I can make it now until the end of June. Especially when I remember our Florida trip in the middle of May!

I am excited to be able to start watching Dancing with the Stars again. I refused to watch it while Kate Gosselin was on, but since she has been voted off, I can now enjoy that show again.

Tomorrow night it is dinner at the Villages and then we will go pay our respects to the Glavin family.

Hope all is well.

DC Photos and more

2010-04-23T20:58:00.006-04:00

As promised, here are some photos from my Washington, DC trip, with brief captions.

These first 5 pictures are from my solo ride on the Mount Vernon trail. I have no photos from when Liz and I rode the southern part of this trail because we were under time constraints and were riding too fast! I rode north on the trail from Alexandria, VA to see some of the memorials and monuments for which Washington, DC is famous.

Sunday night I went out to dinner with Liz and Ryan. Apparently the flash on my camera was in the OFF position so this is the best of the 2 photos I took that night. We had a nice dinner at a good chili place.

On Monday I moved from Alexandria to Herndon, VA so I could ride the W&OD trail, a railroad bed converted to a multi-use paved trail. The following photos are from my 2 days of riding and are typical scenes along the 45 mile route.

I took this picture in the town of Purcellville, the western terminus of the trail. I liked the island in the middle of the trail with arrows directing the bikers to turn around and go back the way they came!

So if you ever find yourself in DC with your bike or a willingness to rent one, I would highly recommend the Mount Vernon Trail and the W & OD Trail.

Tuesday night I met Liz and her friend Melissa at the Nationals Baseball Park for game between the Nationals and the Colorado Rockies. It was a fun evening inspite of the fact that there were very few people at the game and that the home team was losing 10-0 at the third inning! The Nationals scored a few runs but were still losing 10-4 when we left at the 7th inning. I never did see the final score. I took the Metro (subway) into DC and that was a great way to travel. Here are three photos from the ballpark.

It was Free T-Shirt Tuesday at the game, so we all put on our Nationals shirts to support the team (and to keep warm!).

I've been home for a couple of days and have gotten lots of little chores done around the house, which always feels good. Yesterday (Thursday), Jim and I went for a bike ride during his lunch hour which was fun. We had dinner at the Villages on Thursday night.

Today I went shopping and out to lunch with Gram and we had a good time.

Tomorrow we have a 35 mile bike ride planned and in the evening we will be going to church for the Centennial Dinner. On Sunday there is a big Centennial Worship Service planned that includes some former pastors coming back to help with the service. 100 years is a wonderful milestone for a church.

The Rochester running community got some sad news today~Pete Glavin passed away after a 16 month battle with brain cancer. His contribution and dedication to running in Rochester (and beyond) has been unmatched and he will be missed for who he was and all the good he did.

Hope all is well.

Herndon, Virginia

2010-04-19T15:53:00.002-04:00

Hi from Herndon, VA! i intended to bring our laptop from home so I could update the blog more often, but I left it home by mistake. But there is a computer in the lobby of this hotel so I will take advantage of its availability.

I drove to Washington, DC on Saturday and drove through some light rain and snow in NY and PA. But the sun was out by the time I reached Maryland. I was a few miles south of Frederick, MD on I-270 when the 2 lanes of traffic came to a stand-still. Some times we were parked for 10 minutes without moving and then we would crawl ahead 10 feet. This delay ended up extending my trip by 90 minutes, but I used part of that time to call both Tucker and Corey and talk to them! Thanks guys for helping me pass the time! The traffic eventually was reduced to one lane along the shoulder of the road as we went around what looked like a very bad accident.

But the GPS got me to my hotel in the Old Town Section of Alexandria, VA. and I unloaded my luggage and bike to my spacious, quiet room. I walked about a mile into the tourist section of Old Town and found an Italian restaurant that could seat me right away and I enjoyed a good pasta dinner and a glass of sangria! Liz and I touched base about our biking on Sunday.

Sunday morning we met outside my hotel at 9 and were biking on the Mount Vernon Bike Trail 15 minutes later. It was a cool, windy morning, but we had a great ride south to the Mount Vernon estate, where we did a quick turn around and headed back to Alexandria. The trail was fun to ride and when we returned to my hotel, we had done 22 miles! Liz put her bike back in the car and went home and I took a short rest in my room, before heading back out on the Mount Vernon Trail, this time heading north towards DC.

I included a ride across the George Washington Memorial Bridge so I could ride around some of the monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington monument and the WWII monument. By the time I returned to my hotel, my cyclometer registered 42 miles, my longest ride of the year!

Liz and Ryan picked me up for dinner and we went to a restaurant in Old Town that was famous for their chili, which we all ended up having in one from or another. Ryan has his straight up in a bowl, Liz had her's over spaghetti and I had mine over tater tots! It was delicious and I could not remember the last time I had tater tots! I enjoyed meeting and getting to know Ryan. He seems like a great guy! I have a photo of us all from dinner, but because I am writing this on a hotel computer, the photos will have to wait until I get home.

Today was a sunny and warmer day. I moved from Alexandria to Herndon, VA, about 40 minutes from DC, and close to Dulles Airport, although I have not been aware of planes overhead.

This hotel is quite close to the middle of the Washington & Old Dominion bike trail. This 45 mile trail goes from Purcellville, VA to Arlington and Herndon, is near the middle. So this morning I rode from Herndon to Purcellville, about 27 miles, had lunch at a local diner, and then rode back, for a total of 55 miles! The trail was paved and well marked with mile markers and historical markers. Because it is a rail to trail bike trail, the uphills and downhills are gradual. Tomorrow I will head east on the trail to finish it. It is supposed to be another good riding day.

Now it is time to grab a shower and a quick rest and then find some dinner.

Hope all is well with you.

Tax Day

2010-04-15T20:36:00.003-04:00

Happy Tax Day! Hope your taxes are all safely filed with the IRS. Are you one of the lucky ones awaiting a refund?

I rode my Trek bike to school today with the hope that I could take a long ride home. In spite of a few threatening sprinkles around lunch time, I was able to take a great 15 mile loop home from school. I left school, worked my way through some residential neighborhoods until I got to the Holy Sepulcher cemetery. I rode through the cemetery to Lake Ave, north on Lake Ave, until I picked up the River Trail. I cruised down the River Trail, took a connecting road to the Parkway bike trail, and then took the 390 bike trail home. It was a great ride, with little traffic. I look forward to doing this again in the last couple months of school.

Spring break is next week and as you might imagine, I can hardly wait. Up until a day ago, I really had no plans. Jim has pretty much dedicated his vacation time for the year, so he couldn't take time off. I didn't really want to fly anywhere and I need to be back in town by April 24. I also thought it would be fun to do some biking somewhere new, but I wanted to go on paved trails. When we were discussing this with Bob and Sally, they strongly suggested the bike trails around Washington, DC. There are enough trails around the DC area to keep me busy for a few days, plus I can see Liz! So tonight I made some hotel reservations and will be leaving on Saturday morning and coming home on either Wednesday or Thursday of next week. The weather in DC looks favorable and it should be pretty down there at this time of year. So watch for some blog posts from our nations' capital!

It is Scooterville time at school and it is one of my students' favorite activities. I transform the gym into a small town and the children travel around on Scooters. Scooterville includes a bank, carwash, YMCA, McDonalds, Wegmans, a school, a gas station, a playground, a library, an ice cream parlor and a tennis court. The children can earn a Scooterville Driver's License if they play safely and nicely and they are wildly excited when they get their little green license! It is such fun for me to watch the kids get completely immersed in the world of make believe. Here is a photo from Scooterville.

Happy Birthday to nephew Michal!

Time to go write a packing list!

Hope all is well.

Catch-up Time

2010-04-11T19:12:00.003-04:00

I don't know if I am losing my blogging mojo or if I just don't think there is anything to write about, but this is about the longest I have gone without writing something! So I will catch-up.

First off, I neglected to publish a photo of my wonderful birthday cake that Mom made for me. It was a lemon ice-cream cake roll and it was yummy! Mom made the lemon ice-cream and it was quite lemony, just the way I like it. Thanks again Mom!

Last week was filled with the usual stuff, work and evenings out. We did go to GEVA to see the show Two Trains Running and we enjoyed it. We have one more GEVA show to see in May and that completes our season.

This was another good weekend for biking. The temps were not as hot as last weekend, which made it all the more pleasant. Jim joined me yesterday and today for two 25 mile rides. Yesterday we went west and today we went east. Today we rode the Canal trail out to Lock 32 and we took this photo of the small rapids that are normally in the canal when the canal is not filled and it shows why there is a need for a lock in this particular place.
Last weekend we rode our bikes on the new bike trail along the Lake Ontario Parkway. This trail connects the 390 bike trail to the River trail and it was a great ride. Here is a photo of Jim on the new trail.
When I think back to last weekend, Easter weekend, I realized that maybe I didn't write anything because we were so busy. Bob and Joanie were in town and Corey and his roommate, Mike came for Easter dinner so there was a lot going on. It was good to see everyone and share a delicious Easter dinner.

We feel like Santa has brought us Christmas in April because the UPS man has been delivering boxes of gifts all week. Because Jim is celebrating his 35th anniversary with Johnson and Johnson, he was allowed to select 3000 points-worth of gifts from this huge website that had thousands of different items. I will post a photo of all the gifts once the final gift arrives tomorrow. But here is picture of my new waffle iron in use on Saturday morning. The waffles were a great way to start our day.
It is report card time at school and I have spent a lot of time this weekend writing up comments for about 120 children. I may end up with carpal tunnel problems before I am through! On the bright side, it is time for Scooterville in my gym, starting on Tuesday, and it is one of children's most favorite activities.

Corey called sometime this past week to tell us that some video he shot was featured on Wheel of Fortune. Apparently the company he interned at last summer was hired by a local Bed and Breakfast to do some filming of the B&B. Corey saw the video on Wheel because a stay at that B&B was one of the prizes being given away! He was super excited to see his work on national TV.

I guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.

Spring Time Photo Essay

2010-04-02T20:57:00.002-04:00

Signs of Spring

Laundry drying outside.

Blue-ettes

Crocuses

Bike rides (30.4 miles today!)

Door opened to the Mexican Room.

Hope your weather is as good as we had today.

Hope all is well.

Saturday and Sunday

2010-03-28T19:08:00.003-04:00

There seems to be a fair amount to report, so here goes.

Saturday was a fun day~I started the day by going to a Young Life Baskets and Brunch fundraiser with Sherri. There were over 1oo baskets in which you could put one or more of your raffle tickets. After a nice brunch the winning number for each basket was drawn and the winner given the basket of goodies. My streak continues, I did not win. However, Sherri's good luck streak continues as she won 2!! One of her baskets had a BBQ theme and was filled with lots of accessories and food items that you might use at a BBQ. The other basket was filled with picnic/party supplies so I told Sherri I expected to be invited over for a BBQ party! Last year when I went to this event, I was the highest bidder at the Silent Auction, on a pretty necklace. I bid on another necklace this year, but didn't love it enough to follow up my bid. I did win the floral centerpiece which was a treat. The overall theme for this year's Baskets and Brunch was "Shoes" so each of the centerpieces was an arrangement in a fancy dress shoe. It is cute. Overall, it was a fun morning and I was glad to spend some time with Sherri.

Late Saturday afternoon GrandDad and I left for Syracuse to watch West Virginia play Kentucky in the Elite Eight level of March Madness. It was another great game and it was fun to share it with GrandDad. Here are a couple of pictures from our time at the Carrier Dome.

We got home from the game at 11:30 PM, which was much more reasonable than the 2 AM arrival on Friday morning! Today I'm still feeling the effects of 2 late nights, even though I slept pretty good last night.

Today I started my broccoli seeds, hoping for sprouts. Here are some photos from the starting process:
The seeds will hopefully germinate (?) on the wet paper towels in this plastic dish.
Less than a tablespoon of seeds go in the dish.

The covered dish is in the window for some daylight. I hope this works. Broccoli sprouts have many health benefits and I love to have them on my salads and sandwiches.

Corey raced at Stanford University in California and had a good 5K race. Jim raced in Boston this weekend at the National Masters Indoor Track Meet and brought home 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals! So it was a good running weekend for the Robinson family from coast to coast!

Congratulations to the RIT men's hockey team who had 2 upset win this weekend to earn a spot in the NCAA Frozen Four! Go Tigers!

Short week at school coming up because we have Good Friday off. Busy week ahead as we are out every night!

Hope all is well.

Friday Fatigue

2010-03-26T21:37:00.003-04:00

Today was a challenge at work. Not because of the usual kid challenges, but because of the fact that I got less than 5 hours of sleep last night. Jim and I (along with Bob and Sally) attended the NCAA East Regional Sweet Sixteen play-off games in Syracuse. The first game was between West Virginia and Washington. West Virginia won fairly easily in a sloppy game. But that game took a backseat to the Cornell vs. Kentucky late game (10:05 tip-off). Cornell, a 12th seed, had a definite home court advantage over number one seed Kentucky. We watched the Carrier Dome steadily become a sea of red as more and more Cornell fans filled the stands. By 10 o'clock the crowd was on their feet and cheering wildly for the underdogs. And Cornell fought a good game but came up a bit short when the final buzzer sounded. It was awesome to be in that arena and feel the love that the Cornell faithful had for their team. And who doesn't love to cheer for the underdog. It was a great night at the NCAA games.

However, I didn't get home until after 2 AM, and was in bed by 2:30. I had the alarm set for 7:40, but the phone woke me up at 7:12, so it was a really short night.

Jim stayed the night in Syracuse, in Corey's apartment, last night after the games because he was catching a ride from there to Boston for the National Masters Indoor Track Meet this weekend. I heard from him late this afternoon, saying that he took 3rd place in the 3000, which is pretty good since he hasn't been able to train quite the way he would have wanted to in recent weeks. He still has to run the mile and the 800 later this weekend.

The Syracuse team lost last night in a messy game. I'm glad I was not watching it at home. So it has been a good run for the Orange, just ended a bit sooner than we would have liked.

Tomorrow morning I am going with Sherri to a Young Life fundraiser called Baskets and Brunch. There are about 100 baskets filled with a variety of stuff that get raffled off. Last year the only thing I won was a beautiful necklace that I won in a silent auction because I made sure I was the last one to bid on it! Hopefully this year I will win a basket! Sherri has had good luck with winning the baskets.

Tomorrow night I will go back to Syracuse to see the Elite Eight game between Kentucky and West Virginia. I will cheer for Kentucky because they are about the only team I still have in my 2 brackets! GrandDad is going with me because Jim is in Boston.

Our seats are as high up in the Carrier Dome as possible! We are in row T, and as the usher told Jim, T stands for "Top!" Actually the seats have some advantages. First there is a foot-wide shelf behind the seats to put coats, food and drinks on. No one is dumping beverages on you in their excitement and you can stand up anytime you want without bothering anyone behind you! Here are a couple of photos from last night:

You may be able to see how much red there was in the Carrier Dome last night.

I am falling asleep at the keyboard here so I am going to bed.

Hope all is well.

Go 'Cuse!

2010-03-21T21:27:00.003-04:00

It has been a great weekend of basketball and in spite of sitting and watching a lot of basketball on TV I have managed to do other things this weekend.

But first off some congratulations to the Syracuse, Cornell and Purdue teams for their big wins today. I included Cornell and Purdue here because Bob and Sally were over tonight with an early birthday cake for me and we got to celebrate their teams winning too. Syracuse looked good today even with their big man out with an injury and their second big man sitting for a good chunk of the first half with 3 fouls. They play Butler on Thursday in Salt Lake City, but we will have to get updates on the game while we are at the Carrier Dome for the East Regional Play-off games, where Kentucky will play Cornell in one of those games. I will have to cheer for Kentucky (sorry Sally) because I have them going all the way in one of my brackets. Of course I had Kansas winning it all in my other bracket, and that can't happen now that Northern Iowa upset them yesterday. I do love college basketball and March Madness!

So would you rather read about knitting or basketball?! I have done a lot of knitting on my pink shawl while watching the Madness and must have 9 inches or so done on it.

Yesterday I went to my spinning guild meeting for a couple of hours and it was great to have some dedicated spinning time. Maybe I would spin more if my wheel was back in the living room where it lived for a long time.

I got home in time to get outside for a 15.5 mile bike ride. The sun was out but the wind was colder than I anticipated and I never really warmed up until I turned around and headed east, back home. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good I felt on the bike and the pace I was keeping. I did ride my cruiser bike (Roxie) to school 3 days last week and on

Saturday when I got on my new Trek, the riding seemed almost effortless! I do love both of my bikes and they each serve a great purpose.

Last night my bell choir played a concert at church along with the 3 other bell choirs at church and we did OK. Most of us in the choir would prefer not to do these concerts but the director says it is good for us!

So Sally made me a white cake with the frosting that goes on top of a German Chocolate cake (coconut and nuts) and it was yummy. Plus there is enough left over to enjoy it the rest of the week. Thanks Sally!

Back to school tomorrow. I am part of the planning committee for our Jump Rope for Heart event at school on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how generous our community is with their charitable donations during this economic time.

Hope all is well.

Dinner on the Porch

2010-03-18T20:27:00.003-04:00

Ahh, the sweetness of a beautiful spring day. Actually this is the second perfect spring day in a row and the forecasters are predicting more for tomorrow. When I got home from school today, I opened the door to the porch (the Mexican Room) and was blasted with a wave of hot air, so I left the door opened to let some of the free heat into the house! By dinner time it was still a lovely temp out there so we carried our dinner plates out there and ate off of tray tables! It was delightful!

Yesterday and today I rode my bike to and from school. It has been a bit cool in the morning, but by the return ride, I didn't need to wear my jacket. I may try to ride again tomorrow.

The progress on my newest shawl is coming nicely. Here is an in-progress photo:

March Madness has started and so far it has been great basketball. I can easily knit and watch the games, so that is a good thing. Syracuse plays tomorrow night, so we will be cheering for them even though we won't be at the game.

Our sympathies go out to the Grivetti family as they mourn the death of one of their dogs, Jazz. Jazz got in a tussle with a coyote and lost that battle.

Hope all is well.

Monday Musings

2010-03-15T21:29:00.003-04:00

March Madness! I love March Madness, or as one of my colleagues calls it, Marge Madness, and now that the teams have been announced I have to give serious consideration to my picks in the bracket. I will be in 2 pools, one at school and another through a friend in DC. My track record in these pools is pitiful, but that doesn't deter me from throwing down $5 and entering a pool. I love to watch any of the games and love to circle the winners on my bracket. My heart would love to pick Syracuse to win the whole thing, but my brain questions that decision, especially since one of the SU players has been injured and will probably miss the first 2 games of the tournament.

We have tickets to see some regional NCAA games at Syracuse next week and it should be fun. Syracuse won't be playing there, but I believe we may get to see Kentucky play. It should be good basketball.

Enough about basketball, and on to my knitting. I took a few days off from knitting once my shawl was completed, but I was itching to start another shawl of a different pattern. I found a pattern that I liked in a book I borrowed from the Knitting Guild library so I bought some beautiful Kidsilk Haze yarn, a 70 % mohair and 30% silk blend. It is so incredibly soft and fluffy. Instead of being a triangular shawl, this will be a stole- styled shawl, like a really wide scarf. The color is a pale pink and I think it will be lovely. I'll take some photos in the near future, but I can tell you that I have knit about 3 inches and I already love it!

In other knitting news, nephew Zach asked me to knit him one of the Olympic hats so I will have to get just a bit more yarn for that. I have quite a bit left over from the first Olympic hat I made, but not quite enough of the blue.

We had a nice visit with Corey. He took Jim's car back to school so he could go out to some local dairy farms to film a documentary that he is working on for a school project.

We talked to Tucker over the weekend and he had a great trip on the Salt River. And with Alison's help, his aquaponics experiment survived his absence.

This week has all the usual evening activities, with the added bonus of dinner with Grandma at the Villages.

Tomorrow is a big day for our dear friend, Liz. Little Elizabeth turns 30 (that is the last time I will announce your age in the blog, Liz!)! We have had the honor and pleasure of being part of her life for these 30 years and have loved every minute (well, with the exception of a couple, but we won't get into that right now)! So Happy Birthday Liz! We love ya! Also, tomorrow is Andrew J's birthday, but I don't know how old he is! But I'm sure it is older than I think he should be. So Happy Birthday to Andrew too.

Since I have no photos of current happenings around here, I will leave you with a photo from Tucker's time in Mexico. He looks like he is ready for the north shore of Oahu!

Hope all is well.

Corey's Home!!!

2010-03-12T19:59:00.004-05:00

It is Spring Break at Syracuse University and Corey has come home for a few days! He got a ride to Fairport and we picked him up there tonight. So far, he has kept his 3 course meal off the new living room furniture.

It was a usual week filled with work and evenings out. Monday night I went to the Rochester Knitting Guild meeting where I had the opportunity to debut my finished shawl. Now Jim told me that my shawl looked nice but it did not compare to a room full of knitters ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over my shawl! The local knitting community has validated my efforts. I am already looking for another shawl pattern to start knitting. Here are a couple of photos from the guild meeting, thanks to my photographer, Sally.

This last shawl photo is a close-up of the lace pattern.

Tonight we went to a fund-raiser spaghetti dinner for the young son of a runner friend of Jim's. The boy needs some pretty serious medical procedures, which will be done at an out-of-town hospital so this dinner was held to defray some of the costs. There seemed to be a good turn-out when we were there. We took Gram and GrandDad with us to add to the success of the dinner.

Tomorrow night we will be going to the RIT Hockey play-off game with Corey, Bob and Sally. We will do an early dinner beforehand.

Guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.

Shawl Update

2010-03-07T20:28:00.003-05:00

Are you sick of reading about my shawl? Well, if you are, skip past the photos and maybe you will get to something that interests you more. This weekend has been about finishing up my shawl. After trying a couple of finishes on the top edge of the shawl, and not liking either of them, I sought out the advice of an employee and lace knitter extrordinaire at one of our local yarn stores. She said that I could leave the upper edge just the way it was and it would allow the shawl to hang the way it was supposed to hang, so that is what I did. Here is a photo of my pre-blocked shawl on the living room rug.

The next step was to soak it in lukewarm water for 20 minutes.

Then I had to lay it out and shape it. I use gingham check fabric so I can measure things by counting the one inch squares.
My next blog entry will have a photo of the finished product.

Corey, in-spite of all this shawl talk, I have been working on your afghan!

Jim raced in an indoor track meet at RIT today and was pleased with his 800 meters race time. He has now registered to run in the National Masters Indoor Track Meet in Boston later in March.

Last night we went to a restaurant that was new to us, Brio Mediterranean Bistro on Monroe Ave. It is next door to the place where Jim buys his running shoes, MedVed, so we've been aware of it. Then I learned that a former colleague works there, so we decided to give it a try and had a very nice meal and would go back again. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Talked to both Tucker and Corey this weekend. Tucker called to say that he was off for a 5 day trip on the Salt River in Arizona. Corey ran in Boston on Saturday and had an OK race. Both boys are doing well and it was good to hear from them.

I recently joined Facebook and am learning my way around that social site. I did this with the approval of both boys!

Back to school tomorrow and I start my gymnastics unit with my students~always a favorite!

Hope all is well.

Bind-Off Boogie

2010-03-05T21:34:00.003-05:00

Hip, Hip, Hooray! Tonight I finished doing the picot edge bind-off on my shawl, binding off all 485 stitches!!! And it looks great if I do say so myself. Where are the photos, you might ask. Well, I still need to do an applied I-cord on the neck edge to add stability to that edge, so the shawl is not finished yet, but it is getting darn close! I have to go on YouTube and find some video tutorials on how to do applied I-cord, which stands for idiot-cord, and then I can start that last part of the knitting.

So I have some photos to share from Jeannie. The first 2 are from Michal's annual Christmas tree bonfire. This major pyro event had to be postponed a few times because of all the rain and snow that Tennessee has received. The first photo is of the 600-plus trees that were collected, awaiting the light of the match. The second photo is of Michal, Elizabeth and an unknown friend (unknown to me, I am assuming that Michal and Elizabeth know that person!).

Jeannie sent us this next photo after Bob and Joanie visited Jeannie and Mark on their way home from Florida. In spite of the cooler weather that Bob and Joanie experienced in Florida, they both still look like they got a bit of a tan!

Speaking of Florida, Jim and I will be taking a 5-day, all expenses paid trip to Naples, Florida in May. How come? Because Jim is the recipient of a big award at work and the award is being presented at the Ritz-Carleton in Naples, where we will be guests for those 5 days! I am very proud of him, and am sooooo glad that he asked me to be his guest! Maybe I will wear my new shawl at the presentation dinner!

This has been a fairly typical week around here. The usual nights out, but nothing really noteworthy happening. Our snow should melt pretty good in the next few days because the forecast is for sunny skies and temps in the 40's. I took my car to the carwash on my way to work this morning, so it is ready to shine in the sun!

Corey is in Boston to run in the IC4A Championships at Boston University. Jim thinks that stands for the Inter-Collegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America. Good Luck, Corey!

Tucker called tonight to tell us that he is headed out on a 5 day trip down the Salt River in Arizona. Tucker now has a blog that chronicles his adventures with Aquaponics. Curious? Click Here for a link to that blog.

I'm headed over to YouTube now. Wish me luck.

Hope all is well.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2010-02-28T20:06:00.003-05:00

I have been such a spectator this weekend and it has been great!

Of course, the Olympics have continued to be spectacular. There has always been a good story to go along with each event. And today the USA/Canada hockey game did not disappoint. Although I would have preferred that the Americans won, I am still very happy for our neighbors to the north. Now, I write this as the Closing Ceremonies are being broadcast. There has been a wonderful re-cap of all the events, which is fun to watch.

Last night Jim and I went to the RIT hockey game versus Canisius College with Gram and GrandDad.
The RIT team beat Canisius 8-0 on Friday night, but last night we saw a more competitive game with RIT coming out on top 5-4. From the hockey arena, we went back to Gram and GrandDad's to watch Syracuse play their arch rival, Villanova, in basketball. This game was a sell-out in the Carrier Dome with 34, 616 tickets being sold. Corey had one of those tickets. To show the importance of this game, Corey wore his orange pants! We got home to see the second half of the basketball game and Syracuse put on a real show and soundly beat Villanova! Corey said the celebration in Syracuse continued on through the night once the final buzzer sounded to end the actual game!

So today we wrap up the Olympics. But to keep me from getting in to a sports-withdrawl funk, Jim reminded me that March Madness is right around the corner!

We had Gram, GrandDad, and Grandma here for dinner tonight. I made Wegman's ribs and they were delicious. Corey called while we were finishing dessert and we passed the phone around so he could talk to everyone.

Here is a photo of how much snow we got. If you are having trouble reading the tape measure, the snow depth is a hair under 19 inches~a very respectable snow storm!
I see from my poll about cleaning behind your sofa, that there our cleaning priorities cover a fairly wide spectrum!

My seascape shawl is progressing nicely. I have 4 more rows of 485 stitches each and then will finish off the bottom edge with some nice picot edging. Then there is an i-cord that I need to knit onto the top edge to stabilize the edge that goes around my neck. I can hardly wait to finish knitting this and then block it to see the lace patterns pop right out.

Have a good week.

Hope all is well.

Snow Day!

2010-02-26T14:32:00.003-05:00

Finally, the weather forecasters were right on! Yesterday at school when other teachers were getting their hopes up for a snow day, I was reluctant to jump on that band wagon. The weather people had been wrong so many times before about the severity of storms that I just did not want to get excited and then be disappointed. But this morning at 5:34, the phone rang and there was my call saying that schools were closed! Yippee!!

A snow day is such a joy because it is a blank page, a clean slate. I had a whole day to do whatever I wanted to do. Usually, if I have a day off, I've known about it for a while and have a bunch of things that I have to do, or have planned to do. But a snow day has nothing planned because the plan was to be at school!

So, what have I been doing? Well, I tried to go back to sleep but that is difficult after doing the Dance of Joy at 5:34 AM! I've stripped the bed, did the laundry, rode my bike, did some exercises, cleaned up (myself and the kitchen), knit, knit some more, wrote a letter, did some computer work, talked to my mother and mother-in-law, ate lunch, started cooking some ham and bean soup, and readied myself to go out and attack the snow in the driveway.

This is the view I got when I opened the garage door.

This beautiful drift arched its way over the walk to the side door.

But I was not intimidated by the snow, instead I was up for the challenge. So I started my first pass down the driveway with our trusty snowblower and realized that cleaning out the driveway was going to be a long-distance event, not a sprint (all you runners understand what I mean by that!).
Almost an hour later, I finished the job!
It was snowing while I was snowblowing, and stopped for a short bit when I came in , but I see that it is once again snowing, those big, heavy flakes.

We had some pretty good winds with this storm, but the temps have been hovering right around the freezing mark.

I very recently signed up on Facebook, mostly because I wanted to be able to see all the photos that family and friends are posting on that site. I have a lot to learn about Facebook, but I sure can see how it can waste a lot of time!

Speaking of time, it is time to go watch the USA hockey team play their semi-final game! USA! USA! USA! I have been loving the Olympics and I will really miss them when the flame goes out on Sunday.

Hope all is well.

Ottawa

2010-02-20T21:12:00.009-05:00

Here is our report from our annual trip to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We left Rochester on Thursday morning and had an uneventful, under 5 hour drive to the Canadian capital city. We quickly dropped our luggage at our hotel, the Chateau Laurier, grabbed our skates and headed for the frozen Rideau Canal. We skated down to Dow's Lake, enjoying the lack of skaters on the ice. We did the whole skating route, about 14 kilometers, taking in the Urban Art show and documenting our progress on the ice.

We returned to the Chateau and our lovely room.
We had a nice dinner at the Cornerstone Bar and Grill and were able to watch the Canadian Olympic Curling team do their thing. After dinner we walked to the park where the ice sculptures are on display and were once again so impressed by the ice creations created by talented artists.

We skated again on Friday morning, ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant before heading over to Hull, Quebec to visit the Snow Playground. This is a nice walk as we walk by the imposing National Art gallery building, and then over an old wooden pedestrian bridge over the Ottawa River. From the bridge there are great views up and down the river as well as a great view back to the Parliament building. Because we were at the Snow Playground on a Friday afternoon, the crowds were small which let us do the snow slides without waiting in line! I love the snow slides! You walk up the back of the slides, sit on your butt, and slide down an icy luge-style shoot! It is great fun! Here are a couple of photos that Jim took of me on one of the slides.

From the slides, we toured the impressive snow sculptures. Here are photos of 2 of my favorite sculptures.

Sally and Bob arrived on Friday night, along with friends of theirs, Dianne and Terry. We went to a seafood place for dinner and had a good meal and good conversation.
Today we all were skating shortly after 9AM, while it was snowing, which made the skating a bit more challenging. However, by the time we went down and around Dows Lake the snow removal equipment was out on the ice, making for a very pleasant skate back towards the hotel.

Jim and I left Ottawa shortly before noon, heading to Scranton, PA, where we are spending the night. Tomorrow we will make the 2 hour drive to New York City, where Corey is running in the Big East Indoor Track Championships. We will drive back home after Corey races. We are looking forward to seeing him run, as we don't get the chance much anymore.

Hope all is well.

New Furniture!

2010-02-17T20:24:00.004-05:00

During the only snow storm that we've had this winter our new living room furniture was delivered, but the delivery guys took good care of our furniture as they brought it in the house.

But before they could bring in the new, it was out with the old.

And then I vacuumed several years' worth of dust out from behind the old sofa. How often do you pull out your sofa and vacuum behind it? Take the poll in the sidebar and compare your housekeeping priorities with those of others!

After taking off the front door, the new sofa was brought in.

That was followed by the 2 chairs, wrapped up against the elements.

Here is a photo of Jim watching the Olympics while enjoying one of the new chairs. The chair that Jim is in is a swivel rocker and the chair near the computer is just a swivel chair.

And here I am on the new sofa with my knitting. We are both very happy with how the furniture looks in our living room, especially knowing that I am not Martha Stewart! Plus, all three pieces are very comfy!

And our old sofa looks so cold and lonely out by the curb waiting for the next trash pick-up.
So that is enough new stuff for a while! I think we have done our fair share of stimulating the economy.

Tucker just called and he and Alison are back in Cortez. It will be nice to be able to call, text or e-mail with him when we want.

We have been staying up way too late watching the Olympics. I just love all the competitions. I sometimes get frustrated with the NBC coverage, too much fluff and not enough of the events, but I watch whatever they are showing.

Hope all is well.

Hats Off to a New Refrigerator

2010-02-16T20:37:00.003-05:00

Today our new energy-efficient refrigerator was delivered and our 21 year old energy sucker was hauled away. This new model has a light in the refrigerator and in the freezer! The light in our old refrigerator stopped working (and the problem was not the bulb!) about 5 years ago and I had forgotten how bright a refrigerator can be. The light in the freezer is a nice bonus. So here are 2 photos of our new appliance.

The title of this entry is Hats Off to a New Refrigerator, because the new refrigerator is not the most exciting new thing in our house, at least to me. My new hand-knit hat is!

If this hat looks vaguely familiar it is because it is a replica of the hats that Team USA wore in the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics. While watching that ceremony, I thought the hats were fun and cute. On Saturday morning I looked on Ravelry (a knitting community website) and sure enough a woman had charted out the pattern for this hat and it was a free pattern. So off I went to one of my local yarn stores and bought some red, white and blue yarn. I cast on in the mid-afternoon and completed the hat (tassels and all) on Monday night! The pattern included a couple of new techniques for me so it was a good mental challenge. I love the hat and will wear it proudly.

This afternoon Sally and I went to the Memorial Art Gallery to see the Kimono exhibit and it was interesting and beautiful. There were about 100 kimonos on display, and each one was a piece of art in its own right. Kimonos for men, women and children were featured and we enjoyed reading about each one. It was a good field trip.

Stayed tuned to this blog because tomorrow we get our long-awaited living room furniture delivered! I'll post pics here.

Hope all is well.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T19:29:00.006-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope someone was sweet to you today!

We went to Syracuse today to watch the red-hot basketball team and unfortunately, they were not red-hot today. They lost to Louisville and probably deserved to lose as they did not play particularly well. It was fun to be part of a crowd numbering 31, 053~the largest crowd for an on-campus NCAA game this year. That record will be broken when SU plays Villanova in 2 weeks. That game is sold-out with 34,000 people expected. We had lunch with Corey and then walked to the game from his apartment. After the game, we returned to his place where we watched some Olympic coverage before heading home.

Not sure where this past week has gone. Monday night I went to the Knitting Guild meeting with Sally. On Tuesday I took Gram and GrandDad to the airport for their trip to Florida. Wednesday night I had bell rehearsal and Thursday Jim came home from his business trip and I worked at the hospital gift shop. Friday and Saturday nights we have been watching the Olympics~wasn't the Opening Ceremony wonderful?! I loved the music, the dancing, and the pageantry!

Most of my free time has been spent knitting on my shawl. It took me three tries to get a series of 5 rows correct~and remember each of those rows has 485 little stitches in it!

Recently one of the local health foundations offered to give all of my 401 students a hat and mittens to encourage them to play outside during our February recess. The hats and mittens were made from a beautiful deep purple fleece and the kids loved them. Here is a photo of some of my students standing in the courtyard of our school modeling their new winter accessories. One of the school custodians took the photo from the roof for me!

Tucker called tonight from Mexico saying that he and Alison were spending their last night south of the border. Tomorrow they will be able to turn in some vehicle documents they were required to have and then drive across the border. They have had a wonderful trip.

Corey raced yesterday in Boston and ran the mile in 4:11.40!! Another PR for him. Next weekend he will run the 3K in the Big East meet in NYC.

I have this coming week off from school and as you might imagine, I am really looking forward to a break from school. On Tuesday we are getting our new refrigerator delivered. We decided to take advantage of the stimulus money for purchasing new energy efficient appliances. We bought a Maytag refrigerator with a slide-out freezer on the bottom. I will put a photo in the blog once it is in place. On Wednesday we get our new living room furniture delivered. I will get a photo of that in here too in the near future. So I'm sure this week-off will fly by!

Hope all is well.

Halftime Blog

2010-02-07T19:58:00.004-05:00

Halftime at the Super Bowl and my team is losing :( But the game is only half over, so maybe the second half will be more to my liking!

Jim left for New Jersey for work this afternoon and called to say he had an uneventful trip~sunny, dry roads and light traffic.

We had a low-key weekend as Jim recovered from his vacation and then packed up for his work trip. Friday night we went to Taste of Texas BBQ. We toasted Jim's Mexico trip with dos cervesas!

Today I looked at new refrigerators, hoping to replace our 21 year old fridge sometime next week when there is a stimulus money offered for the purchase of energy efficient appliances. I was looking at the models with the freezer on the bottom and split doors on the top. However, when I actually measured when I got home, our current refrigerator is only 32 inches wide and most of the split models I looked at were 33 inches wide. So I guess it is back to one door on top.

Tonight I made a veggie pizza on an Indian flatbread and it was yummy. I topped the flat bread with tomato sauce, garlic, parm cheese, spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, broccoli and some mozzarella cheese to glue it all together. It was sooooo delicious! I have one more flatbread so I can have this taste treat another night. Here is a picture of my Super Bowl Super Pizza!

For as long as I can remember, Jim has brought me daffodils on Ground Hog's Day. Well, he was away this year on Ground Hog's Day so I figured I was out of luck. As you can see below, I wasn't out of luck. He brought me some yellow daisies (because he couldn't get daffodils) and they are bright and cheerful on my kitchen table.

We got a note from Tucker saying that they were having a great time traveling around Mexico with some friends. They had been whale watching and were heading for a great surfing town where they planned on hanging ten!

So I will leave you with a couple more Mexico photos from Jim's trip.

Hope all is well.

Return from Baja

2010-02-04T20:34:00.005-05:00

Jim got home from Baja on Wednesday afternoon and has wonderful stories and photos of his time with Tucker and Alison in Mexico. So here are some photos from his trip with brief captions. If you want the stories, you will have to talk to him. It is good to have him home!

This first photo is of Alison, Tucker and another friend, spotting whales in the ocean at sunset.

And speaking of the sunset. . . .

The sunrises proved to equally impressive.

Tucker and Alison having a nice outdoor breakfast.

This is the beach house they stayed in on the ocean side of Baja.

A nice hike to an overlook.

More good Mexican food!

Tucker hooked into a big one while deep sea fishing.

Tucker and the guide with his catch, a nice Dorado fish.

Partial view of the place they stayed in Cabo Pulmo (Sea of Cortez side).

As you can see, there was no snow or cold weather for them to deal with and I believe they were reveling in the nice weather! Maybe I will put some more photos in the blog in the near future.

Corey had some nice news earlier this week and that is that he is named Scholar Athlete for the week at SU! Click here for a link to the SU page with the announcement. What was really cool was that friends of ours were at the recent SU basketball game where Corey was announced as the Scholar Athlete for the week and they got to see his picture up on the big screen!

We have no real plans for the weekend. Jim will probably still be recovering from his trip home (he spent a night in the Chicago airport) and from jet lag, trying to get ready for his business trip to New Jersey next week. Me, I'll probably be trying to knit 485 stitches without making a mistake!

Hope all is well.

Sunny Sunday

2010-01-31T18:27:00.003-05:00

Sunday evening, getting ready for another week of school. . . .

So here is a first for my blog, embedded video! Corey raced in Boston yesterday and had a great race. He ran the 3000 meter race and finished 3rd overall, and first for the SU men! Plus his time of 8 minutes and 7 seconds was his best time in this distance by 20 seconds! This morning he sent me a link to a video of his race and I now present that video to you. Click on the arrow in the middle of the video screen and you can see Corey's race. You will see Corey at the starting line, but once the race starts he is at the back of the pack and out of the camera's view for a while. But watch until the end and you will see him make his move and have a strong finish in third! Way to go, Corey!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Yesterday was a cold, cold day. It was 7 degrees when I got up in the morning.

I had some errands to run, so bundled up and was most thankful for the heated seats in my car! I got my 60 inch circular needle for my shawl and now that I have worked up to 485 stitches, I am very glad I purchased that long needle. I also went to a store called Cook's World, a place that was new to me. I found an electric tea kettle that was marked down to half price, so I bought it. It works beautifully and heats a cup water for tea very quickly. I moved the blender to the basement since we rarely use it and put the new kettle in its place on the counter.

Last night Bob picked me up to go to the RIT hockey game and when we walked up to the entrance to the arena we were met with signs that said the game was sold out!! I was so disappointed! So Bob brought me home and I wrote report card comments for a couple of hours. RIT lost the game and when I learned that I didn't feel so bad about missing the game.

This morning dawned clear and cold, but the promise of warmer temps was in the forecast so after a leisurely breakfast, I loaded the XC skis into the Beetle and drove to Mendon Ponds Park. There was just enough snow to make the skiing just fine. I skied for just over an hour an enjoyed the winter exercise under sunny skies and with very few people around. Here are 3 photos from my ski trip.

The SU basketball team eeked out a win yesterday, so I will no longer be talking about how good they are. Corey got us tickets to the Feb. 14th game at SU so we can cheer on the team in person.

Got one quick e-mail from Jim saying that he tried surfing and that it was hard! He said he did manage to stand up on the board and ride a wave in a few times! Did I mention that it was 7 degrees here!!!

Thanks to Corey for telling me how to embed that video. That college tuition is really paying off!

Hope all is well.

Friday Update

2010-01-29T20:22:00.003-05:00

Friday night~12 degrees outside and I am taking a break from my knitting to update the blog. I have been spending lots of time knitting on my shawl and I love how it is coming along. I am 150 rows into 206 rows, which are followed by some edging, so although I am making good progress, I still have a ways to go. I currently have 312 stitches on the 40 inch circular needle and will need to get a longer needle if I want to manage the 485 stitches that the shawl ends with . So here is a photo of my progress.
The name of this shawl pattern is Seascape Shawl and for the photo, I stretched out one section of the shawl to show the the different shell patterns that I have completed so far. Starting from the top there is the Cone Shell Lace, then the Sand Dollar Lace, followed by the Scallop Shell Lace and at the bottom, the Starfish Lace.

So on to other things for you non-knitters. It is very cold here, not a lot of snow though. The lake effect has been pumping out some heavy periods of snow, but I think the wind has blown it all away. I took this photo last night when I got home from school when a band of Lake Huron lake effect snow and another band of Lake Ontario lake effect snow were giving us the double whammy!

Jim is in Mexico with Tucker and Alison. The only e-mail I have received from them mentioned snorkeling and fishing! They are off the grid, so I really don't expect to hear much from them.

Corey is in Boston this weekend to run in an indoor track meet. On a related Syracuse note, have you noticed how well the SU basketball team is doing so far this year? They have been fun to watch. Hopefully this comment won't jinx them!

Tomorrow night I am going to the RIT hockey game with Bob as Sally is also out of town. The game should be interesting because there is a Make the Rink Pink promotion which is raising funds for cancer research. RIT is encouraging its fans to wear pink instead of the usual brown and orange and the players will be wearing pink jerseys! I'll get some photos! I don't know if I can convince Bob to wear pink, but I will try!

Good Luck to our Tennessee family as they are getting hit with a big winter storm with lots of snow!

Hope all is well.

Memorial Service

2010-01-24T20:23:00.005-05:00

A Memorial Service was held for Jim's Dad on Thursday, January 21st and it was a beautiful celebration of his life. Jeanne, Michal, Terry and Jim all wrote and read very moving tributes to Porge. Corey and Tucker sang two Grateful Dead songs, Ripple and Bird Song, in honor and memory of their grandfather. If you would like to see and hear their musical tribute, click here. About one minute into this YouTube video, it gets a little jiggly. That is because I was crying too much to keep the camera steady and Jim had to take over as videographer!

Many of Jim's relatives came into town for this service and it brought us great comfort and joy to be surrounded by so many family members who had so many fond memories of Porge. After the service all these family members were joined by many friends for a meal and a chance to share memories at our house. It ended up being a very joyful celebration and a reminder of how many lives Porge touched. Here are some photos from the party here at our house.

We are very grateful to all of our friends and family who helped to make this event such a success. We love you all.

Friday morning we all went to say one final good bye to Porge, husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, son, uncle, brother and all around good guy.

This weekend, Jeanne, Jim and I took advantage of some beautifully frozen ice at Canal Ponds and went for a skate. Jeanne had to wear Jim's skates and he wore Porge's old skates, but we all had a great time!
So tomorrow we return to our everyday lives of jobs and responsibilities, knowing that we all have one more guardian angel watching over us.

Hope all is well.

A Life Well-Led

2010-01-19T23:05:00.006-05:00

Jim's father, my father-in-law, George (or Porge as we lovingly called him) , passed away on Friday, January 15, 2010. He was receiving Hospice Care at the time and went peacefully.

I have always felt fortunate to have had this man as a father-in-law. He welcomed me into the family and treated me like one of his own children. He was an amazing grandfather to our two boys and the children of his other children. He lived a full, rich life for 93 years.

On Thursday we will celebrate his life in a Memorial Service. Extended family members from around the country are making the trip to Western New York to remember this man that made them laugh and gave them many fond memories.

George, one of those people whose actions spoke louder than their words and those actions reflected the love he had for his family and the world around him.

Hope all is well with you.

Hospice

2010-01-12T20:15:00.002-05:00

Today Grandpa has started to receive hospice care at the hospital. He went into the hospital yesterday because of shortness of breath and his severe back pain. Because of his frail condition and his many medical issues, the medical staff and his doctor said that there was really nothing left to do except keep him comfortable. Grandpa did not want to live this way and was ready to have it end.

Grandma signed some hospice paperwork this afternoon and Grandpa was moved to another floor of the hospital where he could receive hospice care. Jim met with a hospice coordinator and both he and Grandma will meet with that person again tomorrow morning.

We were over to visit him tonight and he probably doesn't know that we were there. He is receiving morphine to ease his breathing and to control his pain.

Please keep him and Grandma in your prayers.

Sunday Summary

2010-01-10T18:43:00.004-05:00

Here is the reason that it has been a week since my last blog entry.

This is the start of a shawl for me to wear on our Mediterranean Cruise this summer. This pattern is called the Seascape Shawl and it features sections of lace made to look like different kinds of shells. So far I have completed the Cone Shell Lace and the Sand Dollar Lace. I am currently working on the Scallop Shell Lace and I have an extra stitch so I am unknitting a row (208 stitches) to find my mistake. I like knitting lace but do not like when I have made a mistake and have to go back to find it. The white lines you may see in the photo are lifelines and they are lengths of string through a row so that if things really go wrong I can rip back to that row and pick up the stitches on the string and start over from there. It is a great idea, but I hope I don't have to use them. I have been putting a lifeline in every 10 rows. I love knitting on this shawl and would do nothing else if my conscience did not prevail!

So, other things have been happening around here. Corey and Tucker have returned to places that they now call home and Tucker has made the trip to Mexico. Corey had a haircut before he went back to school and here is a self-portrait he took for me since he had the haircut just an hour before he went back to SU and I was at school.

Friday night we saw the movie Up in the Air, with George Clooney and we both really enjoyed it. I can see why it has received so many award nominations. Of course, put a smiling George Clooney in a suit and I would watch him pick up garbage!

While Tucker was home and doing some work in the basement, he discovered a small leak in some pressure valve on our hot water heater. So Jim replaced the valve on Saturday morning, but the dripping has continued, so he is continuing his search for the cause. We may end up calling a plumber in the near future. When one lives in a house that is 75 years old, simple projects sometimes bring a never ending sequence of things that need to be fixed or replaced.
Saturday night we went to the RIT hockey game with Bob and Sally and cheered the RIT Tigers on to a 2-0 win.

This morning I went to church and worked as a substitute deacon. When I got home, Jim had lunch waiting and my XC boots were warming in front of a heat vent. We planned to go XC skiing so after a soup and sandwich lunch we decided to try skiing at Greece Canal Park. For my first time out this season, I was looking for some fairly easy skiing and the Greece Canal Park was perfect. We skied for 75 minutes and enjoyed the trails. For the most part we skied on trails that people had been hiking on, instead of tracked trails but the sun was shining and there were very few people out there so it was a great time. Here are some photos from our ski.

So, that is all to report around here.

Hope all is well.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T19:49:00.004-05:00

Happy 2010!

It sure is hard to find time to update this blog when the boys are in town!

Once again, we welcomed the new year at Jenny Lake with our hardiest of friends, Bob, Sally and Liz. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and once the fire was started in the wood burning stove in camp, we started shoveling a hockey rink with a large loop around it on the ice. And we had some great hockey games during our time at camp. And I have the bruises to show for it. Liz and others may have similar souvenirs from the games!

On New Year's Eve a group of us went to Saratoga to watch Bob, Corey and Liz's friend, Kim run in the First Night 5 K. Jim was not feeling well so bowed out of the race and kept the fire going at camp. Corey had a good run and came across the finish line first!

I love the steam that is coming off Corey and the second and third place finishers after the race in this next photo.

We brought the new year in by doing a midnight skate with glow necklaces giving us all a festive look as we skated around the lake. There was a spotlight of a full moon overhead, with thin, high clouds providing a few snow flakes to make the start of the new year seem almost magical.

Corey and I collaborated to make this photo greeting for the New Year!

Hope all is well.