It’s that time of year again! Just a little gratitude can unlock the great fullness of love.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday full of love and plenty.
Happy Thanksgiving!”
Being Grateful for What We Have
Category: Scenic Photography
My First Stress Eating Experience
We had a wonderful time last night. LD had made a variety of home-cooked dishes, including meatballs, the “lacy” chicken, roasted veggies, pasta, cookies, and even brownies, in advance of our guests. We had a problem where some of the meatballs and sauce that were being refrigerated started seeping out onto various drawers and things while the cookies were baking, so we had to remove any item that got touched as well as a lot of drawers and shelves and had to wash them down and clean them. It took a little bit of time but any crises were thankfully averted as the cookies balking in the oven at the time didn’t burn.
I think I was feeling a little worried out about the whole situation since there seemed to be too much going on. I discover that I struggle under those circumstances. I suppose I prefer to have control over things and like to act in a measured, linear manner. I don’t seem to do well with a lot of spontaneous things happening all it once, it stresses me out. Even worse, I was reportedly stress eating, which is something I don’t recall ever doing. or at least not to my knowledge or ever noticed before. Go figure!
But because of how exceptional our visitors were, all the worrying and worrying-about was in vain. Although I had some concerns about our visitor’s son, let’s just say that I thought he might be a bit ‘boisterous’, he turned out to be a lot of fun and quite lovely. We even ended up playing a game of Air Hockey in the game room while his mother was playing Ms. Pacman and he was really good. Overall, it was a beautiful get-together with lots of interesting chat, especially after the son found the iPad and started making music on it to pass the time. Even Carson was intrigued and came out of hiding to watch and listen to him play as he sat on the beanbag lounge (something he’s been taking to do a lot lately), and watched and listened to him play. Oh, I almost forgot, we also fired up the jukebox and played a few tunes as well. Yeah, we can be pretty retro nostalgic here!
Needless to say we have quite a few leftovers to eat!
Today’s image is a beach shot from the other day when it was 70 degrees F outside and we decided to hit the beach for a few.
Circadian Rhythm Out Of Syncing
My circadian rhythm is all messed up now. Now waking up and 4:30 AM is pretty normal for now.
Taking advantage of the nice weather I went ahead and made a task list for myself of all the fall cleanup things I wanted to accomplish before the weather turns colder.
I disconnected the back hose and shut off the water line to it and stored the housing in the basement. I dug up a bunch of our tubers and stored them like I did last year so I can replant them in the spring. I raked and picked up a bunch of leaves, mostly ones near the utilities so that they weren’t obstructed. I still need to put some things away back under the sink but I finish that up once the dishwasher is totally installed. Did a bunch more of getting that ready today working with the plumber, it’s almost done. Speaking of new appliances, I fired up the new oven for the first time last night, just a simple bake. It worked like a charm. I may end up changing some of the defaults like the volume tone and certain other things, but generally it rocks. Once that’s in I’ll go ahead and replace the side screen door with it’s winter glass pane equivalent,
I heard about a simple pasta sauce recipe I want to try that sounds super duper easy. Marcella Hazan’s recipe is so basic that it only requires a can of whole peeled tomatoes, 5 tablespoons of butter, a dash of salt, and an onion cut in half. Throw it all in a pan and let it simmer for 45 minutes uncovered. Supposedly it’s pretty good. I need to try this real soon.
I started that new book I mentioned the other day. So far I’m digging it. I do find those people so fascinating, even though they lived over 3500 years ago.
For the latest Gametime I’ve been hooked on Stars Align, a cute little puzzle game that made me think!
I suppose one more try on the Powerball. Right? I got my numbers in again for tonight.
Contented by Chrysanthemums
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell.”
A Little Sparkle to Brighten the Day
This afternoon we took a little ride over to the Sanctuary. We actually had not been there in quite a while. It was nice to visit with our animal friends for a while, and of course, the various goats! Other than that, it was another low key day. Afterwards I pretty just wanted to veg in front of the tv so that’s what I did. However, I plan to be much more productive tomorrow running errands, replacing the screens to glass panes in the doors because it’s starting to get colder now, and a bunch of other little things.
Oh, one cool thing that I was able to figure out yesterday morning, is streaming from the phone straight to the tv, so we were able to watch an educational medical conference that LD was interested in, right on the tv instead of looking at the little phone screen or computer screen, and we didn’t have to huddle over a little screen to watch it.
Pumpkin Spice and a Bivalent Booster
Went down to get my bivalent shot. Easy peasy lemonade squeezy. Before that I grabbed this pic of some of the pumpkins we have laying about. I have decided to call it “Pumpkin Spice.”
Watch List: Took a chance on Blonde on Netflix, a fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe. I wanted to see what the buzz was about. My verdict? So-so. It started out pretty good but then, I don’t know, I started to lose interest. For one, it’s too long and also since a bunch of it is fictionalized you’re not sure what really happened or not. While I don’t doubt that some of that stuff happened I would have preferred a more factual representation. Just my two cents. The lead actress does do a great job though.
Sunday Rest Day
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.”
– Emily Brontë
I booked my bivalent vaccine shot for Friday afternoon this morning. Should be pretty easy and it is time for me to get it done, so there’s that. We went to LD’s workplace in Wellesley later in the day, and while we were there, she spotted this magnificent tree, which I had to photograph. The light coming through was simply a lucky coincidence of being in the right place at the right time! This picture just screams Autumn to me. Other than that, today has been a pretty low key day, which is what we planned. Just some simple errand runs, some television watching getting caught up on some shows, sitting out in the warm sun. Like I said, low ley Sunday. I did finally get my haircut yesterday, I feel so much lighter!
Lavallette Visit Year 2
Spent a few days down in Lavallette, NJ at a Airbnb, in fact the same one we stayed in last year at this time. It’s a great location and a pretty good place to hang out. We had a some family stay overnight with us at the beach house and I do think they all had a fun time. We were able to see two sunsets (all three days had gorgeous weather), a full moon one night, and even whales breaching right off the shore. It was quite the sight to see, especially since they were so close to the shoreline. There’s a picture out there of one literally right next to a surfer, like he could touch it with his hand, it was that close. Had some good food (some takeout but we also made some stuff and gobbled that all down over the time stayed). We were able to enjoy the takeout meals while seeing the sunset at the end of a neighboring pier. The following night, we had our guests picked up by driving them to the JBJ rest stop area so that we wouldn’t have to travel all the way back to the Airbnb because we were spending an additional night. There were some amazing pictures taken there of LD belting out the hits with the guests. It was a really fun time. Maybe I’ll add some more pictures from this trip at a later time but these are some good ones for now. I’m a bit tired!
We had a late checkout in the morning, so we took our time, ate breakfast on the beach at a local coffee house we like called Lava Java, and enjoyed a little more time at the beach as the sun was feeling quite wonderful. As we were about to return to Boston, we decided to take a detour and visit our old friend Chris and his two young girls in Yonkers, New York. There was a park right next door where we could all hang for a bit outside and the kids could play in the meantime. Beautiful looking children too. Quite the weekend! Then the long ride back home last night. I had to get back because I had CPR training down at HQ this morning so I didn’t want to miss that. Needless to say I am certified once again.
Trolley Square in Autumn and Long Weekend Travels
We’ve decided to take a trip for this long weekend we have in store. In fact, it happens to be a place that we visited around this time about two years ago. Long time readers may remember but I did list it as my second favorite location in a certain state. Anyways, they’ll be updates after I get back as I’m not bringing the Chromebook on this particular trip. There could be some updates on my socials in the meantime, Speaking of meantime, enjoy this picture of autumn from the Somerville/Cambridge line along the bike path that cuts through both cities. I used to bike this route on my way to work all the time, back when I worked in that area. Happening upon this scene I knew I had to capture it. The wagon like thing in the center is basically an artwork that depicts some of the tools that the locals used to make things in that area back in the day, In the early 1900s, the corner of Massachusetts and Cameron Avenues in North Cambridge is where trolleys for the original Boston street car system were stored and repaired. A hundred years later, the site has been given new life as a development named Trolley Square. So there you go! Be well and I’ll update soon.
Getting In on the Dynamic Island Craze
Yes, I have an flagship Samsung Android phone but I wanted to see what the buzz is all about with this new iPhone 14 feature called Dynamic Island. Just my luck someone has recreated it for Android and you can get it from the Google Play store here if you want to try it out. I do kind of like it, but I know its just some gimmick. I’ll keep it for a while and see how it goes.
Gametime: Currently trying to get through Dying Dreams.
A Reverie of the Girl Crying in the Window
We’ve spent the last few days starting to return some of the tables and chairs to the people who were so kind as to let us borrow them; they were very useful, but we’ll be keeping a few just a little while longer because this weekend is a smaller, more private gathering, and this time, a goat will be involved, if you can believe that! I don’t think that it could compare to Lenny to me, but we’ll see! We’ll be using some the games that we didn’t get to and such that we used for the party for this small group of folks who couldn’t make the main event.
Lately I’ve been having thoughts of when I was little and a couple that keep coming up is with me and my sister. I can remember a friend asking me to come over his house and I was game to do it. My sister who was quite young at the time kept crying and didn’t want me to go. maybe we were playing together at the time or something, I don’t know. Anyways I can remember being sort of adamant that I was going to go. I can remember reaching the front gate to the driveway and looking back at the house and in the window I could see my sister crying. She really didn’t want me to go, and I debated staying in my head but ultimately I went anyway. I mean, he had the latest KISS record Double Platinum at the time and I wanted to listen to it! The friend I was visiting lived over by the Powerhouse so it was only a 10 minute walk. But I never forgot the crying. I always felt something changed a little but between us after that, but that can’t be. I actually mentioned this to my sister today and she laughed about it. Didn’t remember, and of course nothing changed. (Right?) I also had thoughts of us walking each other back and forth to school one year, the one year where it overlapped in such a way that we were in the same elementary school at the same time but in different grades. I think I was in 6th and see must have been in 1st.
I miss those days, looking back now.
And today’s photo is one of those lovely sunset images that everyone seems to enjoy. This one is from Rock Harbor, which is in Orleans, Massachusetts. One of our favorite places, and I’m sure you can tell why.
Scituate Light at Sunset / Party Almost Set
The new bathroom is finished and ready! The snacks are in house! The food is ordered and on the way! The props and other accoutrements are almost ready! The tables and chairs are in and ready to be set up! This is going to be great!
Party New England Style
The party plans are coming apace! Hard to believe the time is almost here. More planning yesterday and today. Tomorrow I’m due to make a big supply run with some helpers. The weather looks to be gorgeous this weekend for the event so I couldn’t be happier about that. The props should be arriving this afternoon for the selfie station. Got what I think is a pretty good assortment of different things, yes there probably will be a bunch of photos taken at this event. I won’t post many of them here but there will be lots I am sure. Might be good to grab some candid ones too. Just have to work on getting the final food stuff together and arranging the space! This will be the first time hosting almost 20 guests at one time, could be a bit daunting!
Party Preps!
Getting sooner to the big party day. I went ahead yesterday and mowed all the lawns, might go over it again next week just to make it sure it looks all pristine. Working on getting the food and decorations together for the big day. All the invites have gone out and just about everyone that was invited is due to come. Not going to lie, I do feel a little nervous, but it’s all going to be a good time. Working on getting the propane tanks full as well, for possible grilling but also the outdoor space heater just for the off chance that it might be a chilly day, but hopefully the weather will be good all around. Also been messing around with my tripod for the selfie station. It’s been forever since I missed with it so I’m a little rusty. Decided to go with the DSLR to get some real high quality photos instead of or in addition to cell phone pics. Really want to make this a time to remember for the folks who are kind enough to join us in the celebration.
LD remembered a great place for the food that we’ll be offering. Super psyched to dig into that. Making me hungry just thinking about it. Might also need to take a trip down to Providence RI to pick up some very special snacks.
Getting a little ahead of myself – today is really about nailing down the specifics and planning. So to that end we were able to accomplish the following things today: visiting a bunch of places to see if we could get things that are on our list of things needed to get, pumpkins and mums for fall decorations. To that end we visited a couple of places and even a local farm. Really need to narrow down the rest of the list today and get everything locked down and ready!
Two of the Three Sisters
Drove to drop off 2 blank CDs in Walpole to someone online who asked for them in a social media group that we belong to. Got a bunch of free stuff off of there that was useful so just sort of giving back. I’m looking for some stuff for the game room that I’m hoping will show up on there at some point.
Made an appointment to take my mom to get her drivers license renewed at the end of the month at the local AAA office, forget going to the RMV! It took a while to get one, you basically have to keep clicking online every 10 minutes or so and hope you bump someone else out of the way. In hindsight now I’m realizing it may be a little tough to be able to make it there on time but I’m going to try.
We got these special lily bulbs from LD’s garden lady friend yesterday. I’ve been soaking them overnight to be able to put them in the ground today. For some reason the lady said they should go in as soon as possible. Just need to find a spot where they’ll actually fit. We have too many things growing! I eventually decided to put split them up a bit, putting some in the main round area and then the rest out toward the back corner of the back yard. Fingers crossed they come up next year!
Here’s a pic I took of two of the three sisters lighthouses in Orleans. These gals were replaced by the Nauset Light that’s there now but they saved these ladies and set them further inland and used to adorn a park now. Thanks to Lighthouses around the World for featuring me!
Thanks for the Feature Raw_Boston!
Thanks Raw_Boston for featuring some of my work!
A Case of the Mondays
For the start of the week I finally decided to swap in some new hydroponics. The lettuces we had growing there were mostly used up by now, from me either eating them or giving away some of the leaves for a friend’s Guinea Pig pets. So this time around I’m mostly going with herbs such as chives, mint, parsley, lemon basil and oregano. Also had an extra spot so I stuck in a mini cherry tomato. If it all goes to plan they should start sprouting in a bout a week or so. I find that herbs and lettuce do the best in this little hydroponic garden of ours.
Been trying a new meal kit delivery service but so far this one hasn’t been impressive. It seems like they are all kind of the same after a while. They generally start out good but sooner or later, something goes awry with the shipping or you just get bored with the choices. I did learn how to cook a bunch of things though so it has been somewhat educational for me and given me skills that I can use to cook up own own creations or even just recreate some recipes that they’ve shown me in the past.
Would like to try to get through a bunch of little things tonight. Work is changing their communication systems over to Google from Zimbra so I need to go through some setup and change a couple of passwords and such for that to work. Set up 2FA, all that fun stuff. I’ve been putting it off because I had changing settings but if I don’t do it by early October I won’t be able to log in. Speaking of work, they’re also changing up their CPR scheduling so we all have to take that again in a month or so even though we just had it a few months ago but that’s cool.
I caught some of some local documentary yesterday entitled Chet’s Last Call which was about a Boston dive club just above another dive bar called the Penalty Box where Mafia guys hung out across from the Boston Garden in the 80s that hosted local bands. It was sort of a dedication to the bar’s owner, named Chet, who gave a lot of these groups a chance. This was 20 years before I had gotten interested in the local scene so most of this was before my time but some famous type groups who did play there were the Beastie Boys, Hüsker Dü, Bim Skala Bim and the Mighty Bosstones. It was sort of interesting, it definitely was a very different time. Anyways it got me in a Boston remembrance state of mind so I’m reposting this photo from Beacon Hill. I also spent some time at the gym to watch LD do her swimming thing. She invited me to see her do her thing so I obliged. She’s doing great and loves it so much. I found my old ‘All the Feels’ shirt so I wore that trying to make a statement.
Which brings to mind my next point. Is this blog getting stale? Feel like I really haven’t put up any interesting content in a while.
Went (Yacht Club) Clubbing
Earlier in the day started watching an old movie that was on cable called The Three Faces of Eve (1957). You’ve probably heard of it. I thought it was going to be hokey but I found myself actually enjoying watching it. By early afternoon LD was jonesing to get in some beach time so we headed over to Rexhame for a few. It was actually pretty busy and a lot warmer there than we expected. After a few hours of relaxation there we grabbed a late lunch over at Snug Harbor and ate it while watching the sights along the Duxbury Yacht Club.
You Can Feel The Fall Crispness in the Air
I can definitely feel the autumn coming in the air as I head out there in the early mornings. Feels good though. The new bathroom is coming along really nice – I am actually impressed at how it all came together so quickly. There’s still more to do aesthetically but basically it’s ready to go for the most part. In the early evening we tried a Greek place I’ve been wanting to try for a while for some take out. It was actually pretty good, but the service could have been better.
A Reverence for the Schooners
The schooner has served as the iconic representation of Cape Ann’s seafaring history for more than three centuries. These sailing boats are quick and skillful, capturing the interest of both tourists and locals. On a schooner, sailing is thrilling! Its power and splendor are unmatched by any other kind of watercraft. When you board a schooner, it’s impossible not to feel a strong connection to the countless brave fishermen who risked it along the eastern shores!
What did you do today?
Love for Schooners
A pretty good Saturday as far as Saturdays go. I saw a coffee table on someone’s curb in the neighboring town in the morning that they were trying to get rid of (the wonders of the Internet to get the word out). I recall my mother stating she was searching for a coffee table for her outdoor back deck, and I believe this one will work out rather well. Therefore, we went and picked it up. I’ll deliver it there on Tuesday and see if she digs it. This one is a little bit smaller and nicer than the free one I gave her the last time, which is fine but in retrospect is just a little bit too big for the space. I think she will like it.
I grilled a bunch of salmon and corn in the afternoon for this picnic that our other friend couple had invited us to. It took place in Milton at Houghton’s Pond. Thought we’d give it a go even though we weren’t sure whether we’d be all that into it, but actually once we got there and started hanging out it was actually a rather enjoyable and fun time! So, glad we went. As we were leaving we came upon these two super cute dogs and petted them. There were a bunch of dogs there all day and all were very cute, such as Spaniels, long haired Dachshunds, and a bunch of other dogs that all have very short legs!
Today’s photo is from the Gloucester Schooner fest from a few years back. It’s that time of year again, and so looking at this has inspired me to go check it out again this year, tomorrow in fact. I’m going to try to get some good shots by climbing up on some high rocks so wish me luck and hope I don’t break anything!
Think I might try to watch that new Elvis movie tonight on HBO Max. I’m not a huge Elvis fan but I’ve heard it was a pretty good movie, so maybe. Can only watch so many Dateline reruns.
Love Waking Up to Early Morning Sunsets
High point today was watching LD work on her swimming strokes over at the pool at the gym, doing laps and such. She’s become quite the expert! So proud of her! Enjoy this lighthouse pic of the Nauset that I took a little while back as the sun was starting to rise in the early hours of the morning.
A Couple of Rainy Day Activities
Going through some of my archives and I came across this picture I took of the Castle Hill Lighthouse in Newport, RI that I thought was pretty cool so I thought I’d post it up and see what folks think of it.
Heading over to the supermarket this morning I noticed some chips that I had seen mentioned on the Phantom Gourmet the other day in my channel surfing. They are Lays chips but with flavors taken from other snacks, such as Lays chips with cool ranch Doritos flavor, and one with Cheetos. I picked up those two. They also have Funyuns and Fritos flavors but I didn’t see those. These are supposedly only available for a limited time. I’ve thus far tried the Doritos flavored and it’s pretty good, especially if you like cool ranch flavor.
Like I mentioned in the previous post I started reading a book about the two kids really (at the time) who created Doom and basically started the first player shooter sensation. It’s a pretty amazing read and I highly recommend it. It came out in 2003 so it’s not pricey. Having lived through and experienced many of the same things at the time growing up that these kids did made me really soak up this book. Brought back memories in the 80s of buying computer magazines at the time that had program code in it’s pages that you’d have to type in in order to play the games. And of course, I’d always make a typo somewhere so it wouldn’t work and I’d have to painstakingly try to find where it was, and the code was always a confusing mess of letters and numbers. Anyone remember that? I had totally forgotten all about doing that back in the day!
A Case of the Mondays
The picture says it all. More later? Since today was a rainy day finally I got off to finishing The Gift of Rumi: Experiencing the Wisdom of the Sufi Master. Now I’m off to read Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture so as you can see my reading tastes are quite varied!