vacation

Today I am running around the apartment in a pre-vacation prep frenzy all while trying to get things done for work as well. This is because tomorrow (in the wee hours of the morning) we're setting off for a road trip to visit my parents. The joy of this trip is that it is a whole week long. It will be glorious. But it also means I will probably be taking a week's vacation from posting pictures to this blog. Don't fear, I can assure you I will come home with many to share!

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend in the meantime!

Our destination:

it's done!

Finally, after weeks of poking at it, I was able to finish the last pieces of the redesign on my website. The original design got a bit visually overwhelming for me, so I went back to the basics with this re-do. I am sure it will evolve some more over time, but for now it's good enough to roll out!

packing differences

from our dishwasher

from our window

red carpet

waffles and toast

For whatever reason, this feels a bit like my grandma's kitchen to me. What reminds you of your grandma's kitchen?

PS- I actually replaced the top picture 3 different times before I found the right composition that I liked.
And now I'm glad I kept at it!

farmer's market

This past weekend I finally got a chance to visit the Farmer's Market in town with friends. I grew up picking produce at little stands by the road and frequenting a place the locals call Central Market. (if you're ever in Lancaster County, PA you really must pay it a visit) I believe this is from which my fondness for farmer's markets stems. It can be a bit overwhelming, so many options, so many stands selling what appears to be the same thing... but it's so fun! And it's wonderful to watch the seasons change through the produce, as corn comes in late summer and pumpkins begin to welcome fall.
I tried my best to be sensible and not get carried away with myself. We came home with one onion, three tomatoes (which have been lovely lunchtime snacks, sprinkled in salt and sugar), 1/2 dozen ears of butter and sugar corn (quite delicious at dinner last night), green beans and a jar of raw honey (a great addition to my morning tea). That qualifies as a successful trip to me!


On a side note: A little web tip for you. Ever have unusually long URLs that you would like to shorten when copying and pasting to send to someone? Try TinyURL. It's pretty nifty!

Edited to add: I almost forgot! I also got peaches (they came recommended, thanks Becky!) and they are delicious as well!

psa (public service annoucement)

Sigh.

It is with a bit of a heavy heart that I feel the need to give a bit of a warning to all of you. Don't believe everything you read (on the internet) and take blogs with a grain of salt. I will not bore you with the details, nor the drama, but in summary: I had been following a blog for the past few months of a girl with Cystic Fibrosis who was awaiting a transplant, got one and then was having a horrid time recovering from it.

Over the weekend it broke that the blog was a farce. There was no girl with CF, no girl struggling through a painful recovery, no girl receiving our thoughts and prayers. Just a very sad, twisted mind behind it all, seeking attention. It has sent a shock wave through the online CF community in more ways than one. I don't really care to dwell on that drama, and hope to move forward like so many other readers of that blog (there were daily updates so many of us were checking each morning to see how she was).

But I did feel the need to heed my own advice and so have only put links on the side bars to blogs that I can verify (people who are my friends or those whom have proven themselves valid from outside sources). I will be careful to link to sites who have a good reputation as far as I can tell, but please don't take my word for it. And if in the future, you have doubts to anything I link to, please let me know. I don't care to be part of a web of false information (as can so easily happen via internet).

On a lighter note:

This is courtesy of my lovely husband, who took it upon reaching the summit of Grays (or Torreys - can't remember which) a fourteener in Colorado.

When it comes to CF I would much rather dwell on pictures like this than on the drama unearthed this past weekend.

across the way

One of the funny things about living in the city, is how close you are to other people. Everyday I walk into my office, adjust the blinds to suit the amount of light I need, and get a little glimpse into the apartment across from us. I've been told it's owned by the design firm below and used as a "spare" office when needed. So from time to time I see a light on, or a person walking across the room. A few times there has been a light left on and it acts as a little nightlight for us, though not the most efficient, I'm sure.


I do like the hanging light fixture. Wonder where it came from?

a latin lesson

I don't remember everything from my years of high school Latin classes, but I do remember that there are 3 main types of columns: Ionic, Doric and Corinthian. If my memory serves me correctly, these would be classified as Corinthian.



Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris (that's about as much of the Aeneid I can recite without having to look it up)

yum!

He made me pancakes on Sunday. They were wonderful. Thick enough to soak up the syrup, but not too cake-y. I think he's perfected the art of breakfast. Now if I could just find him a double griddle, we could have bacon at the same time!

post office

I took a trip to the post office this morning and along my way back I had a little fun with the camera. Maybe I should walk to the post office more often!


I would ask if you could guess what this is, but the color pretty much gives it away.

magazine collage

iMac appreciation

I just have to take a moment to let you know how much I'm enjoying our iMac. This past weekend my kind husband helped me install Parallels. Okay, more like he installed it and I watched, doing my best to understand what the forums had to say about it all. What a marvelous thing (once we got over a few hiccups)!

Just to give you some background, there are a few things for my job that require me to work in Windows. I was previously working in Boot Camp all day because of this. And while this was fine, it was unfortunate not to be able to take full advantage of our Mac. Parallels allows you to open a virtual machine with in Mac and run Windows applications. This enables me to boot into Mac, use all the fun Mac features in Leopard while still accessing Windows if I need to during the day.

My new joy is using Spaces. Can I tell you how awesome it is?
(this is apparently nothing new as Linux has had it for years, but I'm not savvy enough to know Linux)
I can organize my work into four spaces. Let me show you!

Space 1 and Space 2:





Space 3 and 4:





How cool is that? (very) And it's a simple Ctrl+arrow key to move between the spaces. It's so much nicer than trying to manage like 10 different windows between all my apps and browser tabs. As you can tell I'm enamored.

I think back to my college days with my Gateway laptop and just shake my head. I had no clue what the possibilities could be! I've learned so much in the past 4 years thanks to a patient, live-in IT guy (aka: my husband) and a job that forces me outside of my "only Word and Internet" comfort zone.

Go visit your nearest Apple store and see for yourself! Just you wait, one of these days an iPod Touch is going to make it's home here too.

storms

It stormed pretty magnificently last night. Enough to make the tornado sirens go off and cause us to scurry down our back stairwell to the basement. I got a few shots with my new remote, using a shutter delay.

Notice the lightning strikes up in the corner?

And again in this one!

stained glass