Team Stefani Rides Again

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Which photo is the new me?
	A (Top)
	B (Middle)
	C (Bottom)
pollcode.com free polls

Team Stefani, in this case would be Mom & Dad. Dad was the photographer, constantly rolling his eyes at A) Mom's comments as she looked over his shoulder and more importantly B) the fact that one has to hold the button down on digital cameras, which frustrates his old-school photographer mind no end. Mom was in charge of hair & makeup, which since I don't wear makeup and my hair is, well, just there - she was responsible for making sure "I don't look goofy". And cowlick removal.

I'm not totally happy with my hair - it's too flat. I might have Simon or Steve take another photo some morning when I'm freshly shampooed and blown dry. Still, I think one of these photos will do for now - help me choose which one please?

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Scrap Lights

. From Graypants, these gorgeous lamps are made entirely from strips of repurposed cardboard boxes. Each is handmade and requires a 4-6 week lead time when ordering. Prices run from $219 to $479. They are made in accordance with UL regulations for indoor use and include a 40 watt clear lightbulb.

From their website:

seth and jonathan first crossed paths at kent state university in cleveland, honing abilities to endure long winters and earning degrees in architecture + design. now, eight years of collaboration and spirited adventure has landed them in seattle, where graypants, inc. was forged from a desire to make a difference through design. it’s also here that their great friend jon joined the team, bringing a fresh energetic spark and experience from north carolina and seattle.

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we strive to come up with designs and ideas that are thoughtful and have an impact, whether it be furniture, lighting, architecture or graphics. each one of our projects has a unique story and we try to explore new ideas to redefine how design can have a greater impact. most importantly, we have fun doing it! we enjoy collaborating with all walks of life – that is where we find true inspiration. we want to let the beauty of what we love be what we do.

New Letterpress Equipment

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I love the look of letterpressed paper. I used to follow a blog of a young woman who was given a free old letterpress machine - she just had to move it to her home. It was the size of a piano!

Now Lifestyle Crafts, a division of QuicKutz, offers a small home version. The website says it will be in stores this fall. I didn't see any pricing. I honestly don't have any desire to buy this, but I think it's really cool. (Never say never, right?) Seems like such a natural extension of the die cut machines, doesn't it?

Yay! YouTube comes through again.

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Feast Your Eyes

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.My Bazzill paper order arrived yesterday, right on schedule. Friends who have been through this with me before know the drill.

Unpack paper, checking against original order.

Leaving pristine paper in cellophane wrapping, stack like colors together.

Gaze adoringly at paper for 3 days minimum.

When one has a nice chunk of time, guaranteed to be interruption-free, unwrap paper and store it by color group in studio racks. Depending on what's already in the racks, this might necessitate an entire overhaul of the paper racks. Oh no, not that.

Enjoy being in the moment, as one with the paper.

Try not to hyperventilate.

Walk back into the studio multiple times throughout the next few days for the sole purpose of staring at all the lovely paper.

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A Most Productive Weekend

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This is the end result - a rainbow of Sticky Notes covers, scored, ready to use. I went through my paper racks Saturday morning and pulled out 3 sheets of every color. There are some colors of which I pulled more than 3 because either I knew I'd use it a lot (white, red) or because I had a lot of it available (yellow). I pull paper in increments of 3 because that's what my paper cutter cuts easily and effortlessly.

I knew this was going to be a lengthy process so I wanted to sit down on the job. I pulled two end tables from the living room to set my Dahle trimmer on. Perfect! Not only could I sit down, I could see the TV. :-) I now use my old Fiskars paper trimmer with a scoring blade, for scoring only.

First I cut the 8-1/2" x 11" sheets down to 7" x 11". Then I score each one twice, 3-1/4" from each side. Then I cut those sheets into 4 strips: 3-1/4", 3-1/4", 3-1/4" + a leftover strip.

I initially tried being neat & organized about it, then decided it was more efficient to just let the cut papers drop into a pile on the floor, to be sorted out later. I was like a carpenter with a table saw!

This is the pile of leftovers. After I was done I sorted them into the appropriate scrap drawer. Some colors have two drawers (light and dark, for instance).

I cannot adequately express how much I love paper and color!

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Did You Hear That?

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That, my friend, is the sound of my scanner purring and playing very nicely with my new laptop. They're friends! They like each other, they really like each other!

Our IT person showed me what she did but naturally I can't find it now. Everything she showed me looked familiar because I felt I've been over the hardware & software with a fine tooth comb for days - so it's all a blur to me now. I think she went into the properties of the printer and there was a message, "Hey, I have an idea - want me to download some new drivers for you?" She said yes and it did and voila! Don't ask me why I never did that or if I did, why I never got that message. I can't think about it anymore, my head hurts.

On an all too familiar note, she showed me a photo of herself taken with my laptop when she was taken by surprise, when she was messing around with the Scanners & Cameras area. I was telling her of my similar experience and as we were laughing and she showed me the photo, my first thought was, "I can blog that!" but I didn't ask her permission so I won't. It wasn't a goofy face like mine was, it was a serious-deep-in-study face.

She definitely has some Stefani Brownies coming in her very near future.

Anyway, I'm so happy about the scanner. I feel whole again.

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Time to Get Busy in My Favorite Way

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You could probably feel my palpable joy yesterday at 3:40 pm. For the first time since I returned to work from vacation, 1-1/2 weeks ago, I've felt relief at passing all my recent deadlines. Deep breath . . . exhale. Whew!

I returned from vacation to jump right into a 4-day audit. That was quickly followed up by filing 8 sales tax returns and yesterday at 3:40 concluded the conference call with The Bully and others reviewing their Accounts Receivable. (I hadn't spoken with The Bully in weeks because he stood me up on the last two scheduled calls, which was fine of course. But I was surprised at my reaction yesterday, "Oh yeah, this guy." I'd forgotten how he behaves. But he doesn't bother me in the least anymore.)

I was so happy to free up my brain, I had a little Facebook Party at my desk. Meaning, I poked around Facebook aimlessly, brainlessly, on company time. Par-tay.

Now I feel like I can really bear down on Pine Tree Designs work. I have a new shipment of paper coming in Monday. I have to order more notepads and glue this morning, but mostly I have to assemble a ton of stuff I have ready to go. I don't want to be the kind of person who works better with deadlines, but I suppose it's human nature a bit.

I finally received official confirmation that I've been accepted into this new show, The Finger Lakes Riesling Festival. I'd seen my name on their list of vendors on their website but it was still good to get their phone call and email yesterday.

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A Trio & Food Network Shows

.Check out the one on the right - I love how that turned out. That's the same design, with a stitch added down the center of each point. I've been doing that a lot lately - using an existing hole (the point) and stitching the other end using my needle on the fly, so to speak. I love the ol' what-happens-if-I-do-this thing.

* Edited to add: The two outside ones will have a little something in the center, like the middle one does. It's the only one that's finished.

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My BFF Tivo has been patiently holding a bunch of shows for me, since before vacation even. Last night I caught up on some Food Network shows. One of my new favorites is The Best Thing I Ever Ate, which features of a bunch of Food Network hosts/chefs talking about just that, with a different theme each week.

I also enjoy the Challenge series. I was so happy to see the episode I started watching last night featured one of our friends from Ace of Cakes, Anna, with Ben as her assistant. My first thought was, "Oh Anna, why put your sweet self through that stress??" I could only watch about half before I had to go to bed, but I did skip to the end to see if she won, because that's how I roll. But I will go back & watch the rest of the show tonight. Because that's also how I roll.

One of my all time favorite series is The Next Food Network Star. I am very happy to see last season's 2nd place winner, Adam Gertler, doing so well. (He was robbed last year - should have won!) Check out his armchair reviews of each episode of The Next Food Network Star - they make me laugh out loud sometimes!

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Before, After & Escape

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I show so many works-in-progress, I decided I need to show some finished products. This is a 3" x 3" Sticky Note pad.

This is what it looked like yesterday, you may recall.

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I highly recommend Pam Slim's Escape from Cubicle Nation always, but if you have some time, read this account of a young man following his dream.

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Good News, Bad News

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This variegated thread is shades of orange with some turquoise thrown in so I decided to stitch the outline part in turquoise. I accidentally started stitching that part around again and I decided I liked it better with double thread, giving a more defined look. I also accidentally discovered that stitching around twice looks better than stitching once with double thread. The double thread can twist and look disorganized and we know how I hate disorganization. Two Happy Accidents with one piece - that's pretty good bang for my buck.

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The bad news is my new laptop seems to have a hardware problem.

The good news is I can use my old laptop while it's being fixed. The bad news there is that it really feels slow compared to my lightning fast new one. The good news is - I can scan!

So I continued to work with FixYa.com over the weekend. I hooked up Steve's laptop to the Epson, installed the software without problem and could scan. So the problem, we concluded, lies with my laptop. I was told to repair the operating system so I went through that process carefully - and twice, it got stuck at the same place, unable to find one specific thing. The person I've been dealing with at FixYa.com suggested that means I have a bad sector on the hard drive or a faulty OS CD.

I wrote back that I decided at this point to take my laptop into work and have our IT person look at it because I felt I was getting in over my head. I can tell that English isn't this person's first language and by the name, I can't tell if it's a man or a woman. But the reply has me puzzled - I can't tell if this person feels insulted that I'm taking my laptop to someone else to be fixed - or if this person is insulting me!

He/she also says I need a good operating system CD and 3rd party software for marking bad sectors & correcting them - and an hour of patience. I replied that I have an hour; where do I get the other 2 things? No reply.

This morning I have another reply by a new person, telling me to ignore the suggestion about the software for bad sectors and asks me a few new questions, which I just answered. I'm still taking my laptop in to work today.

Steve seemed to think all along that I should have just taken it to work, but I'm still glad I went through this process. Obviously, if I knew then what I know now, my answer would be different. I still think this FixYa.com website is a good concept. I don't even think these guys are trying so hard to fix this so I'll pay my $12.95 - I think they are geeks who enjoy a challenge. The bad news is anyone can be an expert on this site, though they can't be doing it solely for the money. The good news is, the price is right for the consumer.

Moving on......

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Emotionally Exhausted

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I started the basement re-org this morning. It's been a big fat mess since Simon moved home last September - yes, that long! I need to make room for his stuff on a wall of shelves. Every time I go through my personal stuff on those shelves, I get rid of a bit more. This sort of surprises me a little bit because I'm not all that sentimental and I'm pretty big on purging.

Simon is more Mr. Slap Dash; it's easier to throw everything into boxes than actually sort out the stuff that can be trashed or recycled or donated. So I was feeling pretty good, sorting out his stuff, throwing away stuff, all proud of myself.

Then I came to one of my boxes on the shelves, of his artwork from elementary school. I was immediately reduced to a teary mess of sentimentalism. Who, me? Yep.

I love these 4 pieces! I was very proud of myself for keeping just the stuff I love, not every little thing. Then I came upon another box with a lot more stuff from his elementary school years. There were report cards and other "important" things but way too much every day stuff. Oh. Guess maybe I am a little bit one of Those Parents.

So I pulled a Simon and shoved it all back in the box to deal with another day.

Then I came to the box of his baby things with all of his adoption paperwork and mementos. I knew Simon hadn't seen most of that stuff and would totally appreciate them now, at age 21. As the universe sees fit . . . Simon came home just as I opened the box. You think I was teary above? Forget about it. I had not looked at most of this stuff in probably 19 years.

Simon was blown away, especially by the Korean stuff that arrived with him - books and trinkets. "This stuff is priceless, Mom!" Priceless to us, anyway, definitely. He read the paperwork from the Korean adoption agency telling us what kind of baby he was. I showed him the monthly reports I had to write during his first year with us. I'm sure our home studies are in there too - didn't really look for those. I know someday he'll go back and read every word of that stuff.

Mostly I think he felt shock & awe that I had kept so many things relating to his earliest years. He kept saying, "Mom - don't throw this out!" As if.

It was such an incredible experience, going through that stuff with him. I had no idea that was going to happen like that. (I would have started reorganizing the basement a lot sooner if I knew there were gems of moments like that awaiting me!)

The basement doesn't look that much better yet, but I did significant work behind the scenes. We threw out 2 large garbage bags of crap - even Simon threw out stuff including an old Super Soaker and an old remote controlled car, neither of which works. (That's pretty significant for him, he doesn't part with stuff easily, broken or not.) I cut up lots of cardboard for recycling. I turned on my mail for the Freecycle group I belong to so I can get rid of some stuff that way. And Simon took a few things into his room to "play" with. (I warned him I better not see those things reappearing helter skelter back in the shelving area.)

To show that I come by this purging thing genetically, just yesterday Mom emailed me to ask me if she could donate some leftover fabric we had from the tablecloths we made for my craft show booth tables - just 3 months ago. Waste not, want not. :-)

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Baby Hugging 101

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I Like Cake

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These photos of cakes were sent to me in an email yesterday titled, "Why Men Should Not be Allowed to Order Wedding Cakes". Kinda dumb title but the cakes are neat if you like unusual, and I do.

For off-roading enthusiasts. (Did I get the terminology right?)

This one stumps me. Ba-da-bing. G'night folks! I'll be here all week. Try the veal - and don't forget to tip your waitress!

In my book, you just can't beat the crew at Charm City Cakes. I see they have a new & improved website, complete with virtual tour. That sort of makes up for the less than successful attempt at finding Charm City Cakes when we were in Baltimore last summer. I knew we couldn't go in and tour - it's a working bakery. I just wanted to see the outside of the building. Dunno why, I just did.

Here's my newest favorite cake on their site! It's a replica of an iPhone/iTouch, complete with custom-to-the-couple apps. Gretchen, this one's for you!

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Scanner update: I really thought the second suggestion from FixYa.com website was going to be my salvation. A different expert suggested I uninstall all printer software - and reinstall from the Epson website, not the CD. Brilliant! Or not. Same result. So I replied to that guy, specifying every thing I did to see if I missed anything, asking him what to try next.

I know, I know, I work for a computer company (reseller). I always take our computers in to work to be fixed but because I'd have to haul the big-ass all-in-one printer in too, I've been trying to fix it myself. Besides seeing if FixYa.com comes up with an answer, Steve will look at it this weekend, which isn't as far away as it was when he offered a couple of days ago.

I checked out GeekSquad.com and prices "start" at $50. For that much money I'll see if I can pay one of our engineers under the table to come to my house. I have a pretty good relationship with them, could maybe throw in some brownies too, to sweeten the deal. :-) I have a feeling being asked to do favors, even for pay, is one of the banes of their existence though. I could also hire one through the company and pay the going rate. Cha-ching. Ouch. And there are other forums and live chats, so I'm not done with this. I just wish I was.

Starting tonight I'm forcing myself to move on to other projects. Last night I gave up in frustration and went to bed early so I could go into work early. I knew this was going to be the week from hell - back from vacation, straight into a week long audit. (One of our usual quarterly audits, same auditor, great to work with - just lots of unfulfilling work.) Then I've got The Bully trying to schedule a collections meeting. I was able to put him off until next Wednesday afternoon. I have 8 sales tax returns that must be filed no later than Monday. I'm highly motivated to go into work early today and Friday, otherwise I might have to go in Saturday and Steffie don't do Saturdays.

The good news - that crap will eventually be over and I should have a couple of smooth weeks before the Illinois sales tax auditor returns for a week in August.

I keep saying, it's a good thing I like my job. And honestly, I'm grateful to have a job, I really, really am.

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I know when my blog stats go through the roof that Bruce Jenner must have done something again. Sure enough, I checked the details and Google Images of Bruce Jenner is the most common referral. Then I happened to glance at my Live Feed over in the sidebar - filled with the Bruce Jenner entry hits. I've only had one new comment so far - that his bad face lift self looked like an older version of Ellen DeGeneres.

I didn't delve in too deeply, I think he just gave a new interview or two.

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Black Scallops

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I took this with my camera, as you can tell from the shadow of my arm appearing in the lower right corner. More about the scanner later. But first - aren't these cool?? I'm so happy with them. While sitting at a show earlier this year, staring at my wall of Sticky Notes, I decided I really like the stitching best on black or white so I've been focusing on those colors lately. I won't be doing these exclusively but this is what I've been working on lately. These lend themselves to a multitude of notepad covers which will provide all kinds of colors.

So about the scanner. Sunshyn left a comment yesterday about maybe I had switched to the Vista operating system and that's why my all-in-one Epson scanner is having difficulties. I was pretty sure I was using Windows XP but I did take a moment to confirm that. The reason I was momentarily confused is that I had originally thought my laptop was going to come with Vista, which was fine with me. I know you can pay for a downgrade to Windows XP because I've seen it on our customers' invoices. As I got started using my new laptop, I forgot about it - until I saw a Vista recovery CD in my laptop's CD collection. I asked the guy at work who purchased this for me. We both thought it was going to be Vista, but it's clearly XP.

Secondly, I took Sunshyn's advice and Googled my problem. First hit was FixYa.com with my exact problem listed! I thought I'd hit gold but the solution was to reinstall the software, which I've already done several times. I read a bunch more stuff and ended up posting my own problem. I can't find the info now to confirm, but I think you can pay one price for unlimited questions or a one-time price for one question, which you don't pay for ($12.99) until it's resolved (and you click accept). The categories range from soup to nuts - looks like a great site. You too, can be an expert, if so inclined & capable.

I eagerly checked my email later last night - the response was I should download new drivers from epson.com. Been there, done that. Still, I went through the download section meticulously, and downloaded everything listed under my Epson model for XP, even if it didn't look like it was related specifically to scanning. Still no change.

So I wrote back that information and added that I'd gone through the trouble shooting steps and where I got stuck there. Maybe that will yield something.

I cannot believe how stuck this is making me feel. I really need to move on with other projects but this is bugging me big-time. I used Steve's scanner this morning but it automatically sends the jpg to Snapfish or some stupid thing. I didn't want to deal with figuring out how to do it differently so I whipped out my digital camera and took the above shot.

Speaking of the digital camera - you may remember how pleased I was to see that I can stick my camera's memory card directly into my new laptop and voila - pictures! Note to self: don't forget to take the memory card out of the laptop and put it back in the camera, especially when you're on vacation. :-) Yup, that's what I did - left the memory card in the laptop in the motel room. Luckily the photographs I wanted to take weren't earth-shattering but it was a good lesson, one I have not forgotten since.

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GeoWeb

.I'm giving you fair warning - I just might be on a technological bender for a few days. I am in the middle of setting up my new Klic N Kut Groove, a computer driven die cut machine. I've only just begun so no time to get frustrated on that yet. Stay tuned.

However, my precious Epson Stylus Photo RX700 all-in-one is giving me fits! It worked perfectly with my old laptop, but with my new laptop, it performs all tasks flawlessly, except for scanning, the feature I use the most, naturally. I've installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, unplugged, plugged, prayed and swore. Even consulted the manual - gasp! Yeah, I was desperate.

Steve said he'd look at it this weekend and see what fresh eyes can figure out. Fine - but what about Me?? My Needs?? Now??

Thus the make-do webcam photo above. I have some new pieces to show you - several designs all stitched from the same pattern. The above one I stitched in the car on the way to Maine. I didn't think I liked it stitched in the variegated thread at first but when I tried it with different colors, it ended up looking so disorganized. Turns out I like this one quite a bit after all.

That led to stitching this - my first with 3 different colors on one piece. I stitched the green center with double thread to make it stand out more.

My "standard flower" design; I've stitched in several different color combinations. These 3 designs above were all stitched from the same pattern of spikes of 4 holes radiating out from the center.

I've been stitching bunches of these lately with more stitching in the center so there won't be much embellishing done.

I'll get the scanner situation squared away so we don't have to endure any more of these crappy photos. I was just so eager to get back to the art of the blog!

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Vacation Wrap-Up

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One of our days in Maine, we bought breakfast at a fast food place and found a place by the ocean to eat. It was raining so we ate in the car. The first family of ducks we saw had 4 parents and at least 2 dozen or more ducklings. There seemed to be such an unusually high number of ducklings that I said to Steve those adults must be running an orphanage.

Then we saw one lone duckling swim by. I couldn't look! I was afraid he was a straggler from the first group and they didn't know he was missing. Steve kept talking about him until I got him to understand, I was serious - I don't want to know about the duckling, stop giving me a play-by-play!

Then this second group swam by - with newborns! Turns out the straggler was more likely a scout for this second group. (It's hard to tell their size in the ocean unless there's another duck for reference.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Can you imagine how hard these little dudes have to paddle to get anywhere in the ocean current? I was so afraid the waves would wash them ashore and bash their little heads on the rocks but they were in control somehow. (I know, I'm hot & cold with visuals. Sorry.)

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We ended up coming home from Maine a couple of days early. We felt we'd had all the fun we wanted to in Maine and Boston and the idea of a 4-day weekend at home was very appealing. It was definitely the right thing to do - it's been fantastic. It's days like these that always heighten my desire to retire. Now. But alas.

Simon's girlfriend is on vacation with her family for a week. He's been so bored he's hanging out with me, I guess. He went grocery shopping with me the other day and managed to help me keep things within budget for a change. (His going with me usually has the opposite effect, as other parents can attest to, I'm sure.) We saw prepared chicken kabobs but he noted they were pretty expensive, "I bet we could make those ourselves." I assured him we could. He's a pretty good cook in the kitchen and loves to grill. He cut up the chicken and marinated it. I cut the veggies and we assembled them together and he manned the grill. We had to buy skewers because I didn't have enough left for some reason from back in the day - that's how long it's been since I made these.

I'll have to find other ways to capitalize on Simon's boredom this week. He already installed a new flag pole for me on the front of the house. Now, where's my list . . .

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You Tubes

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Being a relatively new Prius owner, I was vaguely aware of this commercial, mostly bummed that I didn't get this new model with the solar powered ventilation system. I liked the music and knew the commercial was all nature-y. I never really watched it closely until I saw this video on my friend Becky's Facebook page. It's people making up the scenery! I know, duh. This is cool stuff.

Becky also posted this video, which Simon was just telling me about earlier yesterday. I think it's making the rounds so maybe you've seen it, but it's too dang cute not to share. Simon was right - it's extra cute because there's an Asian baby in there. I watched this thing over and over.

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In other news I guess vacation is about over. I was at work (all night?!) in my dreams. Of course it was the irritating, nothing-makes-sense work, not the work I enjoy. I woke up too full of angst and annoyance to go back to sleep so I got up. At 5:00 am on my last vacation day. Ergggh. I figured it was better to get up and put some of this energy to work and maybe sneak in one last not-so-guilty pleasure - a nap!

Btw, I did go to bed around my normal bed time last night, for the last couple of nights actually. I had to chuckle, reminded as I was of how I used to make Simon go to bed early the last week of summer vacation before school started when he was little. He was as resentful of me then as I was of me now.

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Before & After

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The Before photo is one you are familiar with - I use it for everything. This is actually just a photo that Simon took with my digital camera because I asked him to and it turned out so good that I've been using it for years. Alas, I'm not so young, thin or curly anymore.

Here's the after - in my new cute glasses. I wanted a better picture in which to debut them but I could not resist playing with the laptop webcam after I finished my breakfast on the deck this morning. The dark part of the glasses is sort of a dark tortoise shell, outlined in light green. I love them. When I bought them I worried I'd get sick of them whenever I get out of my lime green phase but resistance was futile. Besides, if I get sick of them eventually, maybe that will motivate me to update my frames more often than I do, cheapskate that I am.

It was after I got my glasses that I realized my hair had gotten a little long so I made an appointment and told Maria that I needed a haircut to go with my new glasses to take me from cute to super cute. (I stopped perming my hair a couple of years ago, I think it was.)

The glasses look really spectacular when I'm wearing a green shirt. Simon told me I can't wear a green shirt every day, to which I replied, "Watch me." Turns out I was right in that green goes with pretty much everything I wear - turquoise, purple, red mostly.

This webcam kills me, by the way. I never would have gotten it except heck, it was only $25 additional - and I'm glad I did. Do I see a webcast in my future? Perhaps - but I sure can't think of anything interesting to talk about - or write about evidently.

If you look closely you can see Verona's green eyes staring out from within her black case. She loves coming outside with us. If I sit on the deck with the glass door open, just the screen door closed, she'll meow all day long. So the other day I decided that maybe it was time to try letting her loose on the deck to see what she would do. We never let our cats out, largely because we live on a rural road but cars that do go by, go by fast. Which is silly to say because even a slow car could kill an animal. They are indoor cats.

I thought, what if Verona takes to staying on the deck as well as Reggi took to being off leash at Ellison Park? So a couple of weeks ago, I opened the door and let Verona out. After she got over the shock, she strolled around like she owned the joint. She was way more bold than I thought she would be. She was originally a barn cat at Steve's sister-in-law's horse farm, but that was a lifetime ago. I let her roam around for a while then scooped her up. We won't be doing that again - too much risk. Surprisingly, she has not been trying to scoot out every time we open the door, which is what I feared - that once she got a taste of the good life, she'd be a rascal to keep inside.

I tried her on a leash a long time ago but that's never very successful, is it? Once we pulled Reggi's crate out on the deck and let Venus hang out in there - she liked it. So we'll probably do that for Verona sometime because these days she seems to like being outside far more than Venus does.

Meanwhile this black case works well. Verona started meowing the moment I pulled it out of the closet. I opened it and set it on the floor and she ran in. She sat on the table next to me meowing the entire time - until I took her picture. Now she's quiet as a mouse. Hmmmm.

By the way, I'm thrilled that this new laptop has whatever type of screen that I can use outside. It's a cloudy day but still, I could never do this with my old laptop. I always thought when I saw commercials or whatever of people using their laptops outside, it was bogus. Have I mentioned out much I love this new laptop?

One last thing, then I'll (mostly) stop being goofy with the webcam, I promise. When I first got the laptop I was setting things up, poking around. Hey, here's the webcam button - I wonder how this thing works?

A window not unlike this one popped open and scared the bejesus out of me!

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Doing Up Boston

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We spent Monday in Boston, doing all the touristy things. I told Steve there was a time in my life where I abhorred doing the tourist thing - too cliche or something. Over the years I've come to realize, it's the best way to see the interesting stuff. Duh. I realized that economies depend on tourists and recently I've also seen the light - that while saving is important, stimulating the economy is a necessary and good thing too. (Seriously, I thought saving money was 100% good and spending was 100% bad.)

We bought the boat/trolley tour package. That would be the Boston skyline from the boat, above. The boat tour is about 45 minutes long. You can get on and off the trolley all day long so we took our sweet time on that part. I highly recommend both. One surprising thing - the trolley drivers are very funny! I always think it takes a lot to make me laugh but our first guy was so funny I really didn't want to get off for fear of missing "the show". Our next guy was pretty funny and the 3rd guy just thought he was funny. All very entertaining stuff though and you really get to see a lot that you'd never get to see negotiating traffic on your own.

Photo from scottcabal at Trip Advisor.

We spent some time at the USS Constitution area. It's still a fully commissioned ship but it's open to the public, and it's closed on Mondays.

Photo from Wikipedia.

But we did tour the USS Cassin Young. This stuff is lost on me but it made Steve happy to see.

Photo from Stephco Cleaning website.

I loved this dramatic bridge every time we saw it and loved it even more when I learned from one of our trolley drivers that it's the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge and that Lenny Zakim was a civil rights leader. I took some photos but not as nice as this one. I did a little research on Lenny and the bridge and learned it was built as part of the Boston's Big Dig and it's the worlds widest cable-stayed bridge.

This was another of our favorite landmarks, the TD Northbank Garden. I'd forgotten until then that I'd watched a good number of Celtics games on TV with Dad during the Larry Bird years, played on the parquet floor of the old Boston Garden. And in more current news, I see my friend Bruce Springsteen played there this past April.

Other than Old Ironsides referenced earlier, the only other stop where we got off the trolley was at Quincy Market. It was lots of fun. I was relieved that Steve wanted to go here as much as I did. Besides the carts and kiosks seen here, there are brick & mortar stores and restaurants around the perimeter - we only went in a few. My heart was pounding throughout the Crate & Barrel store but I thought it would explode out of my chest when we happened upon a section displaying all things lime green. Wow. Nope, didn't buy a thing, though I considered a set of boxes - 3 shades of lime green, sort of a lacquer finish. I can't find them online unfortunately, to show you.

We had some lemonade and later stopped for ice cream - my first Death by Chocolate in quite a while, it was outstanding. We watched some street performers, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After we watched a 3-sibling circus type act, complete with a very believable "plant" in the audience, I asked Steve for a dollar to put in the hat because I only had big bills. He kind of rolled his eyes at me, I think.

Funny thing though - by the time we got to the naked silver lady, he seemed to be all on board with supporting street performers! Of his own volition, I saw him head over to her bowl to drop in some money. (She's not really naked, I just said that for effect.) When he dropped the money in, she broke her pose and did a bunch of cool robotic moves. When he got back to where I was standing, I was taking pictures and she kept motioning to Steve to come back so I could take a photo of him with her but he wouldn't budge. She looked sad.

Behind her a guy was playing drums on a bunch of overturned buckets and other plastic and metal containers. He took a break shortly after we arrived, which disappointed me. I wanted to watch more of him.

It was a long, full day - perfect weather - lots of fun!

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Stuffed French Toast

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Intriguing entry title, yes? There's a food photo coming but first, here are a couple of shots from our walk on the beach yesterday afternoon. We ate breakfast at The Egg & I, then spent the morning driving and walking around Ogunquit a bit. It was expectantly crowded for a Saturday 4th of July. A nice thunderstorm came through in the afternoon (we were hanging out in our motel room) and I said to Steve I would love to see an aerial shot of the crowds leaving the beach. Gradually, as dark clouds approached? Holding out until the last minute, getting soaked? Like little ants diving for cover?

This beach is right across the street from our hotel, so after dinner we walked along the sidewalk, amazed by the high tide. (This picture is also from our afternoon stroll, not high tide.) The tides are intriguing us so I'll have to do a bit more research on that. I found a schedule online that tells when high and low tides are each day. Interesting stuff.

We ate dinner last night at Ruby's Wood Grill. I had one of my favorite summer sandwiches, a BLT - but man, there was nothing dainty or light about this sandwich. I've never seen this much bacon on a BLT before. It was a bit fatty for this turkey bacon girl, but once I got rid of most of that and was just left with the thick cut smoky bacon on the sandwich, it was perfect. I couldn't eat all the fries, nor could Steve eat all his Buffalo fries with his burger. We skipped dessert and headed to the beach to walk off our dinner.

But this morning - here's the Stuffed French Toast I had that was To Die For. We headed out to a bagel place we'd seen listed on a map, but the line was out the door so we kept driving. We happened upon The Firefly Diner, which just opened 1 week ago yesterday. The Stuffed French Toast was their breakfast special, choice of strawberries, blueberries or blackberries. I had strawberry and Steve ordered the blueberry version. The waitress took our order then shortly thereafter we heard her tell her co-workers she had to go home and get (something) they were out of. It turns out it was her homemade fresh strawberry preserves that they put on this dish, along with cream cheese. It wasn't much of a wait, but even if it was, it was so worth it.

Unfortunately no one saw me take this photograph, thereby I didn't get to embarrass Steve, so that was a little disappointing. But I had not even tasted the food at this point - little did I know how outstanding the taste was going to be. When the waitress came over to check on us, I was gushing on about how fantastic this was, pointing out I usually finish eating before Steve but I purposely ate slowly because I didn't want it to end.

She brought out a jar of jelly she made to show me - it was kiwi with rum and bourbon (I think?) in it. It looked gorgeous, all green with black seeds. Now there's a PB & J that could kick your butt, huh?

She then sent the owner over so I could tell her how great the dish was. The family next to us turned around to see what we had eaten (too late!) that could be so good. She and I talked about our favorite cooking shows on The Food Network. I returned to going on and on about how great the food was and the family turned around again. I swear I could see their thought balloons, "Geez Louise, lady, we get it - you liked it. Simmer down."

The first time I had Stuffed French Toast was at an IHOP a year or two ago. Now I never pass it up given the opportunity. This homemade version was the best ever. As much as I like it, it never occurred to me until right now, that I could make this at home! Duh!

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Boston

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We stayed at the Hilton in the Financial District. Sounds perfect for an accounting person :-), but really, it was to be near the harbor. Isn't this headboard spectacular for stitching at night?? The story is a little different when I laid down to read, accidentally glancing straight up, "My retinas! My retinas!"


We ate dinner Thursday night in one of the few restaurants in the Financial District open for dinner, Mr. Dooley's Boston Tavern. It's a nice Irish pub, where I had Mexican quesadillas. Delish.


We had breakfast at Panera's and this was the view from our window seat. We walked over to the harbor right after breakfast.

I just had to take another photograph from the other side - that flag was huge!

We wandered around looking at stuff. I picked up a bunch of brochures that we can peruse and plan for another day in Boston during the week. It's only an hour away from York Beach, Maine, where we're staying.

We checked out the private yachts. I can't remember if it was this one or another one that was from The Caymans. La-de-dah.

And we ogled how the rich people live, pulling their boats (yachts?) right up to the door of their luxury condominiums. (Wikipedia tells me that yachts are typically 40' and larger.)

We will definitely hit up the Aquarium on our day in Boston.

I was impressed with how nice the walk is along the Harbor and now nice the seating is! I mean, maybe not super comfy but definitely durable and impressive.

The architecture is so amazing! This is where I always do what I like to call my Slack-Jawed Yokel impression for Steve, "Go-oolly, Vern - look at all them tall buildings they got around here." Nope, that never gets old.

We headed back to the hotel for one last pee break (TMI?) and checked out at noon. We then hit the road for Maine.

Note to my family: Driving from Boston to Maine, then back to a store at night, I was prompted to sing the State Line Song NINE times in one day. C'mon, that has to be a record, right? And I'm proud to report that Steve sings along now too. He doesn't punch the Hey quite properly but we can work on that.

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