24 years of Naomi

Last summer with Maya

 

6 years old at Disney World

5 with Spud

prom

wedding day with Maya

3 months

15 playing soccer

wedding

Pardon my dust!

living room of the dust free house that we didn't buy

I've been busy with the den. The settee will go outside this week along with the table. Need to find a nice chaise. Lights will be added when other house is sold

Den has some blank spaces. I am going to frame my Audubon print Snowy Owl which will fill the middle here

And if we did not have enough bedrooms, I made another in the basement yesterday surrounding the space with shoji screens. Guests will be treated to seeing prints of Toddler Sue though one of these is actually Toddler Shanna

One disadvantage of all the windows we have now is that the sun highlights the dust, which piles up at an amazing rate. One of the houses we looked at this summer had as a selling point being dust free as all incoming air was filtered through ultra high efficiency filters as a child there had severe allergies. The house was beautiful perched high on a hill overlooking a pretty landscape with a huge deck, large windows. It cost way less than this house but was far away from the kids and about everything else. Despite every room looking fresh out of House Beautiful, the kitchen was ugly and small. It could be remodeled but I didn't know where the needed space would  coming from. It had an indoor sauna, hot tub and Jacuzzi.

We were treated to gale force winds again yesterday making going outside not inviting. No matter, I kept busy inside and I had 2 sets of guests. Josh and Allie came for lunch. It was her 18 month birthday. At the doctor's visit today, she was found to be off the charts for weight, height, and head size. She will be a big girl. Steve had gone earlier to pick up stuff at the Italian place. Taste treat that I served later at our House of Cards viewing: caramel cheddar cheese served on a slice of apple on a cinnamon cracker. For lunch: cappocola and provolone on just out of the oven asiago cheese bread with sweet hot pepper cheese spread. Allie had her own mix of sweet potatoes, avocados and chicken.

Josh had fixed the broken bed frame for us so I was able to set up the bed pictured. I also started on my baroque corner full of over the top frilly stuff my biological grandma favored. Photo when I am done.

And spring will come this week: a long run this morning in the beautiful sun. I was actually considerably speedier than usual. I came across the chow owners with half of their chows. We were at the park with the sign cautioning us about coyotes. She said we will hear them soon. They come right up to their windows and stare at their dogs (though the chows would give them a battle but the pug would be easy prey). And how haven't I noticed deer as she said they are all over our neighborhood? I see them on my running road but not in the neighborhood. She does have the large buffer woods in her backyard whereas we are in the middle so maybe we just don't see what she does.

Today's project: select a photo  from our Italian trip to convert into a glass cutting board. Should I go with a photo of red peppers from the Rialto market that will match my kitchen perfectly? Or go for a more specific Italian scene (red peppers are found everywhere).

Sleeping with Ira Glass

We will get a visit soon from this one

I am a Google Earth junkie. This is our house that we are trying to sell in September of last year. They have a program that will show your house over the years

From a different angle. I knew it must be early September as the black eyed Susans are still in bloom. Note garage covered with wild grape. I've been hacking them away. Please someone, Buy Me!!!

Our new house taken 3 years ago. The biggest tree is gone, a Bradord pear though now the house is more visible. Too bad as they are so pretty in spring. They must have installed the sprinkler system after this photo as grass is much greener now than anyone else's

Insomnia is my constant frenemy. What I am finding is that I will sleep to the sounds of movies and TV shows thus listening to podcasts, This American Life, in particular, will lull me to sleep. I thought I could remain in the same bed as Steve as I do have headphones and he is fairly deaf but the light of the old phone keeps him up so off to another room. The podcasts are interesting and informative though sometimes depressing: corrupt police forces, evil Guatemalan governments and the ilk. I will listen usually to a full one and fall asleep sometimes in the middle of the second. Thus there are plenty of episodes I haven't heard completely. Ira Glass is the creator and announcer. I have no idea what he looks like and no, I haven't slept with him literally: just his voice. His voice isn't particularly soothing, probably grating would best describe it, but yay for him for creating this show. Josh listens to this during his long commutes and also to Radio Lab, which I guess I should get too as I am running out of episodes (20 years worth).

So I fall asleep with earphones still in my ear. I keep the volume very low to preserve my ears. Yesterday at 5:15 am, I am awakened with a siren blasting at full sound!!!!!@#$#&!!!!!directly into my ears.

Turns out it was an Amber alert. Someone stole a kid somewhere in Michigan and everyone is to find a certain car. I wasn't the only one awakened by this but I bet everyone else didn't have on headphones. Meanwhile I had left the iPhone that I use for everything else back with Steve. He will be so mad at me. But his phone woke him up so he didn't hear my phone.

The Amber alert only has gone off once before. We were travelling across an isolated area of Oregon (what a huge state; I had grossly underestimated the time it would take to cross a small corner of it) and the siren went off with a news flash on how somebody in San Diego had kidnapped his girlfriend's teenage daughter. WTF! NW Oregon is quite away from San Diego. Later he and the girl were found in a wilderness in Montana so he crossed Oregon at some point. The mom was dead. He had only wanted the girl in the first place. Not sure what happened to the current Michigan girl.

After a run in the cold, I put away all the junk I rescued the day before from the old house. The junk removal people were very helpful back at the Money Pit and the painter is becoming more efficient. Small objects will be recycled or thrown away but they removed the big stuff. The other day I tried to give this clock below to the charity folks. It was too disgusting for them but I have since cleaned it up and will find a home for it here.

 Steve is off buying more Italian goodies. Some will be for the Easter Brunch I am having for our big family. I will take a day off of running and instead entertain Josh and Allie and later, start a House of Cards, season 3 binge watch.

Lost but they are found, part II

My missing rose!

Now each of my breakfast nook windows shows a Sue-made stained glass creation. I could even center the rose as it has a hangar though poorly applied

The cold air return from our living room at the old house. At the rate our painter works, the cost to remove the wallpaper would be way more than the cost of a new one. I wish I never agreed to the wallpaper removal project. Will convert this into 'art' of some sort. Note how well it matches our sofa, which Steve hates so much.

My largest project. It used to hang in the master bedroom window of our very first house. The green matched our Marimekko bedspread (it was the 70s) The house we are currently trying to sell really didn't have a suitable window to hang it in so it stayed in the garage for the past 32 years. And Steve drove the car into it one day so it is bent and broken.  It does look pretty when the light shines through it. Someday it will be fixed....

Amidst my pity part the other day, Steve called to say that the glass rose was found sandwiched between 2 ancient computers in the garage. (we have quite the computer graveyard..Steve resists taking them to the tech recycling programs as they contain sensitive things). He said it was badly damaged though to me, it doesn't look that bad.

Also found, some of my missing coasters though my Joan Miro ones are still missing. I think I might have given them to someone (who probably threw them away). Too bad. They looked really cool. I had bought them in Barcelona along with my ceramic dragon that is the centerpiece of Parc Guell that now crawls the wall of my guest bathroom along with my Oaxacan painted animal collection from my trips to San Diego.

As I type this, the trash haulers should be at our house ridding us of big things that we can't taken away ourselves. Little unwanted things will continue to fill our weekly trash. I went there yesterday to finalize what goes. The painter stopped by and I had expressed dissatisfaction on how slowly things are getting done, particularly the wallpaper which he had promised would go quickly. Now he denies he ever said that. He did take away some of our stuff for his personal use (good, less stuff for us to pay for) though he must be a hoarder. And Steve shared with me some other outrageous things he has done so far. If things don't get better, Steve has resigned himself to doing the work himself. He is a good painter. Meanwhile I have a carload of stuff to unload today. The objects become less and less desirable as time goes on. I have to keep asking myself: When did I ever use this? When will I ever use it? Steve to his credit, kept the sighing to a minimum. I had thrown a lot away.

Winter continues at this late date. I ran through snow flurries yesterday though I was comfortable. I saw a lone turkey. It is even colder today but it pretty and sunny.

Where the buffalo and the freiers roam

I went blanket crazy in the late 70s. This was for our first house which was mainly orange.
 I made another full sized blanket for my new in-laws only to have it consumed in flames in 1982.
 I made a baby quilt for my cousin's baby and then 2 baby blankets for Shanna

the downfall of using an iPhone: no telephoto lenses though there are some snap ons I am considering.
These are buffalo outside the plastic surgeon's office I visited the other day. My son in law works in the
 same set
of offices where years ago, he met Shanna

 

Back in the day when 90 minutes of running had me covering much greater distances
 than these days, I would go on one of my routes, past the shaggy Scottish cow, past
the Sichuan pheasant farm, the miniature horse farm , a pig farm (very smelly when
 there was an east wind)and of course these buffalo (or their grandparents). In another
 direction, a bird farm full of pheasants, peacocks, and black swans. Excepting the
 buffalo, almost all these farms are gone replaced by encroaching development.

 

Where I live now should be more promising animal wise as there are many very lightly
travelled roads surrounded by deep forests and fields. I heard but did not see a peacock
 the other day ( a pet, they wouldn't live long on their own here), gold finches (lots of
 them back at the Money Pit but as they are back, I had Steve retrieve my finch feeder
plus a purple finch was outside my window here). I went by a place yesterday where
 I know there were peacocks as it is the orchard I took Tess to apple picking in the fall
but all their cute animals are being kept elsewhere. I interrupted a vulture with the older
 deer carcass (carrion must prefer older to newer as the fairly fresh deer has not been
 touched) and he could barely get off the ground to escape me. It is feast or famine
for vultures. They will eat so much sometimes, they can't fly but if they really, really
 have to, they can vomit on command. Bird rescuers have had their efforts to help
injured vultures rewarded with this vomit, which must be the most disgusting stuff ever.

 

It is cold and snowy contributing to my pity party along with a few other very petty
things. First up, the breaking of my commemorative 1950 engraved photoelectric
 glass etching of the Corning Glass Works. Steve had put this in the middle of a
 pile of papers I was retrieving way high above my head (he forgets I don't have
 his reach). It crashed to the ground and shattered into a zillion pieces, As I didn't
even know I had this until two days ago, I shouldn't feel a loss but I do. My daffodils,
 barely a week old, are all ugly. Then there is my nails.

I finally found some time for a mani-pedi. They were very busy so I waited
more than a half hour but as I was in a massage chair reading very tacky magazines,
 no problem. It was good to be massaged after an especially long run yesterday to
 make up for my sloth earlier in the week. The manicure was not very good though
 and the polish already started to slide off one of the nails. They are very pretty if you
 don't look too closely. Then there is the painter ( and the f***ing Money Pit). He
gave us a bid some time ago that was so high, we didn't even return his call. He
messaged our contractor that he was willing to work with us and accept a
reasonable hourly rate. Fine. We'd have him paint until we had enough.
The other day, he said it would be easy to remove the orange and blue wallpaper.
I hesitated because I liked it and it is in very good shape but I have to consider
the buyer. Well guess what? It is not easy to remove. Progress is slow and thus
 expensive. This painter must be one of only people in the world who does not have
 a cell phone. Thus when his wife needs to talk to him, she calls Steve.

 

I feel like a freier, a Yiddish word spelled various ways meaning a sucker. A freier
is persuaded to let someone in front of them with presumably just one thing which
 turns out to be a very full cart. The concept Don't be a freier!!! is the unofficial motto
 of Israel according to a podcast I listened to the other night with people risking their
 lives not to let anyone in in traffic making the Masshole drivers of Boston seem
chivalrous. And the trash hauler comes tomorrow so final decisions need to be made
today on what stays or goes, which just puts me in a funk all by itself.

 

I will brave the cold and wind soon. Running usually puts me in a better mood so
 here's hoping.

 

HGTV math

This was the model my parents chose to build in 1961. You will have to embiggen (per Elephant's Child) to see what $30K got you in those days (and my parents added a bunch of extras increasing the price 33%) but some of the state of the art features include Formica. Would NOT be a selling point today. The oak floors in every room except the kitchen, bath and foyer would be a plus but in most rooms, it was covered up with carpet.. The house we are trying to sell also had its oak floors covered only with orange shag carpet.

This is their house in 2005. I sold it as is in a very run down state after my father died in 2004 to flippers. Then the market dropped. It was finally sold just last year

We watch a lot of HGTV which is Canadian based. One can tell that from how they pronounce 'about' (aboot versus abowt here in Michigan just a river crossing away) and talk about en suites, a term we never use to describe 'master bath'. What all the house hunters want? Open concept, stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops, dark hardwood, walk-in closets, back splashes, dual sinks, rain head showers, and recessed lights. What are negatives for houses? Formica, 'defined space' (opposite of open concepts), vinyl floors, paneling (a plus for 60s homes)any bathroom tile that is NOT beige, fiberglass anything, brass anything, popcorn ceilings, space age light features, anything other than wood on kitchen floors, wood trim of any sort and wall paper particularly floral. Josh's first house actually was on House Hunters. That episode featured his sellers tired of the house he bought and them deciding between 3 houses. His house's brief moment of glory, however negative, but Naomi taped over the show with probably her vampire shows. The best show is Property Brothers featuring cute twins, one an expert in real estate, the other in remodeling. Somehow they are able to convert a rundown house into house beautiful in usually just 15% of the purchase price (which is high in Canada though labor to fix up these houses must be low). They run through the math for these renovations. Almost always, they get twice what they put into in return. You are left thinking, well if they double their return, maybe we should keep renovating which is precisely what the advertisers want you to think. I am always cynical.

The more you spend; the more you save.

Here in the real world at the Money Pit, we have to consider everything. There were obvious things we had to do or the house would not sell at all or ever pass inspection. We are now entering the less obvious phase of cosmetics. What does our mythical buyer want and for how cheaply can this be delivered? It makes my head spin. Our painter who lives 45 minutes away prefers 10 hour shifts which Steve is supervising (he is the one so hell bent on moving).

When the work is finished, I will post before and after photos.

Things that were lost but now they are found

My brother at one. Seems to be recovering from chickenpox

My mom on her wedding day. My aunt, to the right of my mom has asked me in the past for this photo. It just surfaced today

Some of the things that we have recovered deep in our cupboards and closets because of this move that we haven't seen in years or didn't know they existed: manuscripts of novels written by my grandma and grandpa; old slides, my diploma, various photos, my father's baby book and some movies. Still some things are missing in action, notably a stained glass piece I made years ago.

We had purchased a super 8 mm movie camera right before Shanna's birth though we did not film her birth. It took 3 minutes at a time.  We had reels and reels of these that once we retired, had converted to dvds. Around the time Shanna was one, a friend asked me to film her son's first birthday party which we did. I got it developed but never showed it to her. She had asked me if I still had it. Nope, hadn't seen it in years. I felt very bad about this About 6 weeks ago, Steve found an unmarked reel deep in the cupboard. We had it converted into a dvd along with a film of Steve's basketball, softball and both of us playing racquet ball. At the tail end of the strip was the missing birthday party, just in time to give her a copy for her Big Birthday. Her baby has 3 kids of his own. Time does fly.

The orange and blue wallpaper is gone. Painting has begun. We spent several hours at the Money Pit yesterday preparing stuff for the charity folks to be picked up. This weekend, trash haulers show up.

Yesterday, my new Italian-American friend and I spent some time at the Italian market buying lots of tasty treats. It was fun trying new things. And the large cannoli were on sale, Yay. Strange food item there (not Italian): Peeps flavored marshmallow milk. And today, Tessa in the morning joined by Shanna and Daniel in he afternoon. Too rainy and windy for anyone to go outside.

And my first flowers of the year (too lazy to photograph them) 3 croci!

Reconstructing Sue

 

Interesting birdhouse on my bike ride the other day



I had Steve buy 3 dozen daffodils to celebrate spring the other day. They looked very pathetic as they were completely closed up. I would not have bought them. But after 24 hours, they mostly opened. Three days later,  all of them are open. They looked cool with the sun filtering through them this morning

My pug vase holds a dozen of them

Allie at the waterpark this weekend

This is the tentative plan for my Picasso-esque  chest: come fall (maybe November), my left breast will be reduced 30-40% and lifted to line up with my fossilized right breast. The tricky part is recontouring the right breast to look reasonable as there is no breast tissue left whatsoever underneath the incision. He will suck fat out of my abdomen and inject it into my breast. He said it might take several sessions. All of this is out-patient but the downside is the recovery time. 2-3 weeks with a drain sticking out and no exercise. No biking for at least a month and no running for even longer. This is why I am putting it off so long. Maybe he can suck out a little (a lot!!!) extra fat? But it should be easier to fit into clothes without having this one oversized breast. And I would no longer be lop-sided. I think I will do it even though I will have scars. They wouldn't show even if I wore a cleavage revealing top.

What did I do yesterday? Absolutely nothing. It looked so nice out but all morning it was in the low 20s. This wouldn't bother me to run (it wasn't much warmer when I went out this morning) but biking has a different temperature range. I didn't even fix up the house (though this morning I was back to rearranging stuff and collecting even more stuff from the old house). I did spend time handwashing my crystal and antique plates and then watching junk TV. Some of the TV wasn't junk. I watched the Armenian Holocaust documentary as it is the 100 year anniversary of it. So heart breaking. And caused by people who follow a religion they say is of peace. Not peace as their basic tenet seems to be Death to Infidels!!!!! The Armenians are Christians (their church older than Catholicism), which is the main reason they were killed. The Detroit area is home to a large group of Armenians. One of my best friends growing up was one. I keep putting off getting together with her as I seem to be always busy..but once we finally get the old house on the market....I will breathe a sigh of relief.

Celebrations

Miss Tess and her purple birthday cupcake. Guess what her favorite color is?

The last few days have been busy. Gone were my plans to finally deal with my nails. Maybe towards the end of next week? Yesterday was Tessa's birthday and I was having the Moms over. I got up early to shred vegetables and marinate shrimp. Everything would have to be done several hours before they came over.

The first day of spring: it was very pretty and I did have time to go for a long run. Usually I don't see anyone else on the road but yesterday my footsteps seemed to have a strange echo and then I heard heavy breathing, not my own....

Back to making dinner: Thai noodle salad with grilled shrimp (would be served cold) on 86 year old Wedgewood plates
coconut jasmine rice with peas
green curried cauliflower
Korean scallion pancakes (thank-you Trader Joe)

The Moms would bring dessert, salad and appetizers and plenty of wine

I had scheduled this before Shanna scheduled a family party for Tessa. Yes I knew it was her birthday but I assumed it would be earlier in the day. Fortunately now she lives close-by so I could go for part of it. Lots of Syrian treats there, my favorite being the pomegranate meat pies and hummus. Josh and Julie were up north somewhere but Maya and Naomi came along with Tessa's paternal cousins.

The Moms were fun. Lots of interesting conversations and trip recounts. Though all of them have seen the house before, two of them came over 2 days after I moved in so not much was set up. We've now been here 6 weeks so more is being finished. This past week I have been concentrating on my den. The settee we have in it now will go out on the front porch and hopefully be replaced by a chaise. Also we need to recover some of our lamps from the other house (not until it is sold as some rooms have no overhead lighting there).

thoughtful house warming gift from one of the Moms

Morning light looks cool filtering through the ruby glass collection

Thai noodle salad on my antique plates. I love my multicolored bamboo placemats

It is so pretty out but too cold for my hoped for bike ride. At least we missed Ultima, the snow storm that hit the NE. I did ride Friday and heard the peepers, a wonderful spring song though they were quiet yesterday morning. Maybe the frogs only sing when it is above 40. Tomorrow I go for my plastic surgery consult to learn what can be done about my sorry looking chest. I guess I could run today but I am tired..

Rots of Rock

The cliffs surrounding Bonassola, Italy were made of this friable green marble

One of the pieces I brought back. In the water, there were polished stones of this. I took back some for my rock garden. (collecting rocks for souvenirs is sort of crazy)I need to recover these before I sell the house

Aside from the piles and piles of landscaping rocks, inside the Rock Shoppe we visited the other day, were fancy rocks and stones which I guess are called 'minerals'. I spent many an hour as a child inside of Rock and Mineral stores as my father was a collector. He had a marble table in the living room covered with his favorite specimens. I learned their names at an early age. My first college boyfriend was a geology major. My father quizzed him on the rocks. He hardly knew any of them so my father was quite disdainful. Over the years, my father would occasionally try to engage the grandkids by giving them some of his smaller specimens which I uncovered during the move.

Where are his rocks? I assume the best pieces were stolen by the squatter living in his house at his death. Or maybe he sold them earlier. Looking at the prices at the Rock Shoppe, his would have been worth quite a bit. He of course didn't pay anything for them. He had stuff to trade.. There was a glass tank at work to make windshields. Over time, artificial rubies would form on the sides and the tank would have to be sledgehammered open. He used these very crude rubies for trade. He also had a supply of pyrite fossilized sea shells uncovered in the building of the Ohio Turnpike. I am not sure how he got them.

My favorite rock was a huge chunk of rose quartz. In the Black Hills, there were chunks of this all over the place. I remember the parking lots were covered with mica. He also had a huge geode full of amethyst crystals. That would have been nice to have. Amethyst comes from the Greek for 'not drunk' as the stones presumably protected one from drunkenness.

This was to be my biking day but the weatherman lied. Maybe if the temp climbs another ten degrees, I will go out. Instead I finished hanging stuff in the den and entertained Maya.

Missing the Aurorae

Many parts of the state were treated with views of the Northern Lights two nights ago. I finally am in an area where I have a clear view of the horizon on every side except maybe south. However I forgot to stay up and the displays were weak south of the thumb area anyway. This is from Lake Superior Photos

I didn't miss the sunrise this morning however

I think I have seen the Northern Lights only once. I was in an area about 50 miles north of where I am now and I was facing north but I don't remember any colors so maybe I was just seeing heat lightning. News sources said due to electromagnetic storms, northern lights were going to be visible further south than usual. My hair dresser, further south than me, witnessed a green glow, not as spectacular as the many photos posted by those in points north. The pretty ones started midline in the state.

My breakfast nook juts from the back of our house surrounded on 3 sides with windows. The patio is there and someday I hope it to be covered with flowers. This is one of my favorite parts of the house as I love light. The other morning however I entered it and found 3 things that immediately put me in bad mood. First, coffee grounds all over the floor. Steve in haste to go to The Money Pit left a trash bag balanced badly. Second, gale force winds lifted our air conditioner cover and it was barely hanging on to a bush meaning I had to go out ASAP and rescue it. And considerably more annoying, at the construction site due north of us, the workers were burning construction waste, which they often do but with the gale force winds, the fire was about to be out of control billowing smoke and cinders into our yard. Do I go out to speak to these clueless idiots? Nope I called the fire marshal who promised to give them a lecture. And by the time I finished my run, the fire was out. And the next day, they invested in a trash container for their waste so no more fires. But I am afraid to go near them as they probably know I am the snitch.

I later contacted the head of the neighborhood association in part because he sent us a bill for dues even though we paid these dues prorated at closing (yep the title company had paid him). But I wondered about the open fire rules in our neighborhood covenant which I know is restrictive on many issues (garage doors must be kept closed, no fences, no parking on the curb etc). Township rules say construction sites must have a burn permit and they can only burn clean wood, no treated stuff and must do it only during favorable weather. The smoke was black so I am guessing something wasn't clean and the weather wasn't favorable. The e-mailed reply I received was filled with grammatical errors.   I had to laugh. Back when we were about to purchase the Moose and Squirrel house, our young annoying realtor gave us some condescending speech about how our new neighbors won't be like the great unwashed back at the old hood (where he grew up); these people were apt to be professionals like physicians and hold doctorates so they would have different expectations, etc than the uneducated barbarians that I am used to. This was based on the fact that the new neighborhood's house values were 30% higher than  the old (though the taxes were less so it would be cheaper to live there). Well in this neighborhood, the values are about 120%  higher and even more so for our neighborhood association head. This does not translate into him knowing how to write a coherent sentence. And our neighborhood was full of doctors and people with advanced degrees. And with whom did he think we worked? Just love it when the young lecture me on how to behave.

That day I did run despite the strong winds. My path was mostly perpendicular to the winds and the dense forest cuts out a lot of the force. But the creaking trees were sort of eerie. I could see that some of them were knocked over and hoped that one would not topple onto me.

The big melt is almost over though the ground is still frozen so I can't rescue my patio stuff just yet. I saw the first crane of the season hearing it first (they can be heard a mile away..such a primitive sound). Woodpeckers were at work attracting mates. Yep they do peck at trees to get food but in the spring, they drum incessantly. Josh was treated with a couple weeks of a pileated woodpecker (my favorite kind)hammering at his metal chimney vent back at his old house. And then the shadow of the first vulture swooping over my yard (clean-up on aisle one, my running route, dear vulture).

We picked up Fiona the Dragon (name on the tag just happened to be Josh's favorite girl's name though he was not allowed to call his daughter that) to deliver to Josh later that day to have birthday dinner with him and Allie. And yesterday, due to a school holiday, all of Shanna's kids could come over to play.