Blinking

Today two different things got me going down “Memory Lane”.

The first one was a message on my orkut page, from someone I have not heard of for maybe more than 10 years. It was not more than a simple hello from the past but it did make me smile.

The second thing was related to work, I am doing a project that involves scanning and reproducing an old photo and I wanted to test my Scanner capabilities in order to access if I can give the printer the photo already scanned and this way make things less expensive for my client.

So I went and dig a little brown bag of old photos, I have but just a very small fraction of my life in pictures, due to my travels I made myself keep just essentials (you cannot believe how heavy paper can get).

I moved here in late 2000 and by 2001 my mom came visit for Mother’s Day, and again in 2002, yeah,,,,,  I know I was spoiled! I could not resist posting these two photos, they are so much: “Mom takes Manhattan”

 The first one was taken in 2002, we still had grass on our backyard, there is no fence around it, Matisse was just a 6 months old pup and the garage was still the ugly “rose” color! 

Time truly flies!

Just because

Tornado Relief In Iowa

Stirred NOT shaked

It came so fast I did not have time to save even my first sentence.

Again it was a fierce storm; it came with a vengeance, the sky got dark and in a matter of minutes was coming down like a waterfall. At one time beautiful and scary, I still flinch at each time lightning flashes and even knowing the thunder will follow don’t stop me to again close my eyes.

The power blinked twice so we just turn the machines off until it felt the worst was gone.

I have seen many storms, the tropical ones in Brasil always deserved respect but this year here it seems they are more frequent and of course more damaging. I cannot exactly explain what it does to me. I am not exactly afraid but still I cannot say I watch them without getting stirred.

Color me HAPPY

Pink has never been my color. I do wear it in the baby hue version and I even have a favorite ring with a pink quartz but let me tell you since yesterday I have been tickled pink.

I had heard He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed use the expression many times, I always found it cute, but was never sure I experience the feeling. I went to the printer yesterday, to pick up the menus I designed for da Capo and the owner said: “They came out pretty good, and by the way your files were great, you did such a fantastic job I wish all my jobs were this easy”

If you read a post called Spring Cleaning back in May you will remember I have not done this kind of work in a long time and must say the amount of anxiety related to this job was by no means small. I did the best I know but send the files to the printer expecting to hear she found problems with it.

I have to say I am beyond delighted that she did not find any problems with it, she find it great and even asked if I would be interested in doing some work for her! How awesome is this?

Purple was never my color but I have to say I am past being tickled pink I must be a bright purple right about NOW!

 

Updated Landscape

Mad birds!

Since last saturday we can hear they are mad, there must have been a lot of relocanting nests going on!

Not much sleep here!

It has been an eventful weekend.

Where should I start?

Following a simple idea let’s do it from the beginning.

We were supposed to have a dear friend visiting us this past weekend, it has been too long since his last visit and I was really looking forward to this one since we had some awesome plans. Unfortunately  problems at work got in the way and  he had to cancel. Oh well I know he will come soon and we will have a jolly good time. But I digress.

He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed knew I was disappointed and suggested going out for breakfast Saturday morning so the day did start pretty well.

After breakfast we run a couple of errands (one of them being going to deposit a check from a client YUUUUPIE) then we got all set to go have fun at the rodeo happening at a town close by.

We often work weekends so it felt like a mini vacation and also a bit like being in a movie, since I love the whole small town Carnival plus rodeo stuff. Between us we took almost a hundred pictures, sure some of them miss the bull or the cowboy; they can be just so quick! We drunk ice cold lemonades and cheer the cowboys loudly.

Since morning it was hot and humid but half way thru the rodeo the dark clouds started to appear and the winds pick up quite a bit. The rain came hard and fast, everybody running for cover and we waited half an hour until was ok to be able to walk to our car without being soaked wet.

On the way back we stopped by a client to have pizza and went to check on a new client project but it did not feel like work.

On the way back we did see some damage caused by the storm and people at the pizza place were talking about power cables being down. At my front garden I could see some hollyhocks and delphiniums that had suffered from the high winds but I was totally unprepared when He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed let the dogs out the backyard and said: “You better come see this”

Where we used to have a huge maple tree now we had half, the enormous trunk split and the part that fell managed to hit another tree at the back and took that one down too. The branches reach all the way thru the fence and the Subway store next door!

I always knew it was a big tree but before half of it was down I did not realize the size of the beast!

I know we are lucky, I know it could have been much worse if it had hit the roof or any part of the house, I keep repeating it to myself every time I look at the backyard and see this surreal view. We are lucky.

I also know we are lucky we were not here when it happened. Let’s say I am easily scared by loud noises.

Yesterday was a full work day, we clear branches that were hanging over the fence, we move them around in the yard and we start the long process of taking fences down so the guy that will do the job of taking down the remaining of the tree and removal of the whole of it can get his equipment in. It is a painful job to break away the concrete of the posts footings, maybe because we put them in ourselves.

He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is very good at this sort of stuff, he really knows what he is doing and this time was even better about giving me directions. I try to be useful but sometimes all I can do is handle him the tools, at one point I took a 5 minute break and he kept working so I asked him “Do you want anything?”

He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed: “A 20 year’s old body!”

Hey smarty pants who doesn’t?

It was over 6PM when we call it a day, mostly because by them we both were barely able to move, we took a shower at the basement bathroom (sure the one upstairs had a plugged shower drain, as they say when it rains it pours, but not down the drain!)

He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed was a mind reader and agree to walk across the street and have dinner at the Mexican restaurant, I was way too exhausted to cook, apart from the whole thing of now not being able to let the dogs out back since we removed a part of the fence, using the grill gets to be a nuisance because of having to close the door all the time.

We went to bed early, agree about getting up earlier today and when I turn off the lights He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed told me softly: “If you hear a big noise during the night just run for the hallway or the bathroom, they will be the safest places”.

Do you think I slept much after that?

HOT!HOT!HOT!

Actually it is even worse now, from the time I took this picture to now it went up to 103.9F

Not even 9 yet, I can only imagine what will be by 2PM , but I wil try to ignore it!

I am showing the two versions, so if you need to know in celsius without using any brain cells.

Peony Explosion

To Like and to Love

My bug had his second surgery yesterday; he is one unhappy pup right now. Although according to the vet this time should not be as bad as the last time he seems to be in worse shape. He did sleep almost thru the night, thank God for strong medication but it is easy to see he is beyond miserable. I hate to see him walking around the house with this broken look, even his ears hang different, actually his whole body language gives me the impression he is rather very depressed.

The only good thing out of this is it does remind me why I choose He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, because he could not be more caring, he talks to Jack in a comforting voice, he made sure Jack had a nice pillow on the living room floor so he would not attempt to jump on the coffee table to be close to us, he was the first to get  out of bed to take him for a walk since for a week Jack is not to go to the backyard. Actually even before taking Jack to the vet he was the one to make a point on spending time with him at the backyard playing ball, knowing the poor thing will not have much play time for the next week, he also gave Jack a bath the night before also knowing it will be another 2 weeks before he can have another.

There are many reasons why I love He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed even if sometimes marriage seems to be related to the Mafia, they seem to be involved with waste management business in the sense that it is very much like “ I deal with your crap and you deal with my crap”  deal; and also because eventually people do get hurt.

Days like today when I have the chance to see the best in him renew my belief that I not only love him I actually like him a lot.

Eye Candy

It has not been a very eventful weekend. He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed got his picture on the local newspaper, kinda nice being recognized by the volunteer work he does for almost eight years. He sure deserves some nice words but at first was very shy about the whole thing, actually one of my friends called to congratulate him after she saw the picture on the paper e even a neighbor from down our street stop him when he took the dogs out for a walk and he is just not comfortable with the attention. Sometimes I forget how bashful he can get.   Which is somehow endearing, in a way I cannot fully explain but simply is.

Friday we both got our eyes examined, yeah,,, mmm,kay,,, we both need stronger glasses but that was expected , what was NOT expected was THE-MOST-EXPENSIVE-EYEDROPS EVAR prescription I got!

I mean when I mentioned to the optician (not sure if it is the proper name) that I feel like I have sand in my eyes most of the time, he simply smiled and said he had the solution, and wrote the prescription. Did he mention it would cost over 100 bucks? And did he mention it comes in a doll size bottle, FOR OVER 100 BUCKS?

I mean by now I have very good eyes but need something for my high blood pressure and He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed heart attack. The eye drops will cost more than my new lenses, since I am keeping the same frames. I actually told He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed to return them but he said I should try them.

I have never been so careful to get eye drops in my eyes like I am now, not wanting to waste any precious medicine I even use a mirror to be able to help my aim. Maybe it did not cost an arm and a leg but how about an eyeball?