One Day of Bliss at Home

Not long ago I came to the realization that since we've moved to Eastford Karlo and I hardly spend any of our free time together. Back in Andover we spent nearly every waking moment together, minus the little time that Karlo spent on outdoor up-keep. But now I almost never see him. The grounds take an enormous amount of his time. He spends hours upon hours cutting the grass, chopping wood, and fixing all his necessary equipment. When he does come inside, he can usually be found in the basement tinkering with his motorcycles, ATV, or now with the new router. Despite the fact that I NEVER find myself without a dozen things to do in the house, I still miss my husband.

To remedy this problem, I decided that it would be fun to pretend that we were ‘going away’ when in fact we were staying home — a sort of ‘vacation at home.’ This is something that I always wanted to do, but never did. So we deemed Saturday as our ‘vacation day.’ No chores were allowed and we were to spend the entire day together, as if we were on vacation. After all, we live in a nicer place that we would ever stay in on a real vacation so why not enjoy it?

Saturday was the best day we’ve had since we moved in. We lingered in bed later than we normally do with no pressures of having to get up to get busy on our projects. We did yoga together and then enjoyed my now-famous Belgian waffles. I even baked some bread! We took a nice leisurely hike with dogs, sipped tea in our sitting room, and played some pool. We even went out to stroll around downtown Putnam after dark just to test out my camera. The night ended with a some cuddling on the couch in front of the fire, a big bowl of popcorn, and a chick flick. I never wanted that day to end . . .

I had my new camera at my side for most of the day, not only to document this very rare occasion, but also to test it out. I uploaded a few pics from the day, with captions either explaining what we were doing or camera specifics.

Click here to view the slide show from the glorious day. If you want to read the rather long captions you may have to increase the seconds delay.

I look forward to our next ‘stay at home weekend getaway.’

My Unexpected Grateful List

Yesterday I asked Lisa if she was going to suggest a ‘list’ for us to blog about. She said she couldn’t come up with anything other than a list of Things to be Grateful For and she thought that was a cop out. I guess she was right. I mean everybody is essentially grateful for the same things . . . We are grateful for our good health, the roofs over our heads, our family & friends, the jobs that pay our bills . . . . boring. So I decided to come up with a list of some unexpected things that I’m grateful for.

1. I’m grateful that I’m never expected to pick up dog poo.
2. I’m grateful that Karlo watches Charlie Brown specials with me.
3. I’m grateful that Karlo only bruised my rib and didn’t break my back.
4. I’m grateful that our doggies love me more.
5. I’m grateful that Karlo agrees that popcorn and ice cream is a perfectly acceptable dinner.
6. I’m grateful that my artificial Christmas tree doesn’t make me break out into hives (like real trees do).
7. I’m grateful that Karlo will watch What Not To Wear with me and then pretend that he’s Clinton when we are shopping.
8. I’m grateful that Karlo dances with me despite the fact that he has to wear ‘gay’ shoes.
9. I’m grateful that the FedEx and UPS guys know where Eastford is.
10. And mostly, I’m grateful that my family doesn’t expect me to cook a turkey. In fact, they would probably be more terrified to eat it than I am to attempt to cook it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Happy Charlie Brown Special Day

Almost as exciting as the holiday itself, tonight the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special will air. I’m not sure what I like more, watching Snoopy on TV or celebrating the actual holidays. I can’t think of many things that warm my heart more than Snoopy does. When I was decorating our Christmas tree this weekend I couldn’t help but think about my father’s never-ending question of, “When are you going to grow out of this Snoopy thing?” I think it’s safe to say the answer to that question is NEVER. Not one part of me felt childish or silly as I hung dozens upon dozens of Snoopy ornaments on the tree. I thought back to all the spectacularly decorated trees that I’ve seen in high-end department stores or classy hotels. I always marveled at their beauty, but I wouldn’t trade them for my Snoopy tree. Nothing beats a Snoopy tree!

I’m So Ashamed

One of the more exciting parts of my weekend involved my new camera arriving. I’ve been trying really hard to hold back from buying another camera for a long time, but I finally caved. I decided to sell my old one on eBay and since it successfully sold (for more than I expected) I treated myself to a new purchase. I’ve been chatting with a cyber friend regarding me buying a real DSLR. She insists that I should and I my response is always, “I don’t deserve one.” Not because I think my photographic talents don’t warrant a ‘real’ camera, but because I know myself better and I know that I won’t use it enough to justify the expense. Here’s a great example . . . I got my brand new camera, couldn’t wait to play with it and learn all about its features, but notice the great pictures at the top of this blog to show off its capabilities. That’s right, I’ve got nothing to show for it. Didn’t take a single picture. OK, maybe I took one, but it wasn’t very good and only sent it to our publisher (don’t ask).

It’s downright depressing to get a new camera in November. It has to be one of the dreariest months of the year. Everything is brown and dead outside. Nothing is pretty. Not to mention the fact that it’s too cold for me to be outdoors without mittens on. So my new camera is going to hibernate for a while before I really break it in. But in case you’re curious, this is what I got:
I’m hoping to use it to get some great action shots of the hounds snoozing this winter.

Thursday’s Highlights

Yesterday was a busy day and I didn’t get a chance to blog. What was I doing? I spent a couple of hours playing with an early Christmas present. My career Santa brought an early delivery. I got the new Adobe CS4. Probably only two of my loyal readers even know what that is. It’s new software and being the software geek that I am, I got totally sucked into it. The day flew by.

In addition to my new software, I got some other new items yesterday – not quite as exciting as the software and not quite ‘for me.’ My Mini also got an early Christmas present and is now sporting four new tires. I can’t think of many more un-gratifying purchases. I really dislike spending lots of money to replace something that I already had. If you’re going to spend a few hundred or even thousand dollars, you should really get MORE than you had before. But in this case I feel like I just lost $400 out of my wallet. I can’t tell the difference between new tires and bald tires and let’s face it, that car will see as little snow as possible so I don’t think I’ll actually ‘feel’ the difference. All I felt yesterday was the annoyance of driving back from the shop and having one of my warning indicator lights start flashing on the dash. Come to find out it was the “your tire pressure is too low or you have a flat tire” indicator. Now should THAT happen with four new tires professionally installed? Uuugh. Luckily Karlo fixed everything so I didn’t have to drive all the way back.

And lastly, last night was our big meeting with the wetlands commission. Just like the tire purchase couldn’t be anymore un-gratifying, enduring that meeting couldn’t be any more unappealing. Firstly, the room was freezing cold and I had to sit my boney butt on a metal folding chair until they called us up. It was boring as can be to sit through some engineer’s presentation. The whole while I’m thinking, “Are we expected to give a formal presentation?” The good news is that we were not expected to give a formal presentation. The bad news is that we are ‘guilty by association.’ Their first question was, “Is this the former Holtzshu residence?” My first thought was, “uh oh, we’re in trouble.” Let’s just say that Rick didn’t make many friends on the wetlands commission and our pond caused 2 years of grief to lots of people. Can they really hold this against us? I did my best to charm them all and now we wait . . .

Karma

Do you believe in Karma? I think I do. There is at least some sort of mystical balancing system in the universe. For instance, within two weeks of stealing Karlo’s new iTouch, I lost my Sansa MP3 player. The universe was trying to tell me that I’m either not meant to own more than my fair share of MP3 players or I shouldn’t have stolen Karlo’s new toy.

My latest brush of Karma is even stranger. A few weeks ago I made a purchase on Ebay. I bought a wholesale lot of necklaces – blanks that I can add my own pendants to. I bought this lot along with several other products from the same seller and although all the other products were fine, these necklaces were very disappointing. Almost half of them broke when I tried to work with them. Instead of writing back and demanding my money back (like I should have) I went to the store and bought some special glue to fix them myself. I also left some neutral feedback on Ebay. It wasn’t negative feedback, just neutral, but I did state my disappointment with the quality of the product. I gave the seller good marks for quick shipping, communication, and whatever else was on the report card and yet I still felt guilty for my small complaint, which was crazy. What is the point of this rating system if you’re not going to be honest?

Two nights ago I went into my craft room to gather all the broken necklaces to repair them. I had two piles on the table – one pile of ‘broken for sure’ necklaces and another pile of untested ones. I knew that half of the untested ones would break so I figured I might as well grab those now to test and fix them all at once. I went from the craft room, to our bedroom, to the kitchen to get busy. Only problem was that when I arrived in the kitchen I only had one pile of necklaces. The untested ones disappeared somewhere between the second and first floor of the house. What the . . .?? I retraced my steps and combed over every inch of all three rooms. I even added a few extra rooms that I swear I didn’t enter. Two nights of searching and I still haven’t found the necklaces. All because I complained on EBay. I am going to be very careful about everything I do from now on. This is getting scary.

Top 5 Favorite Magazines

This week Lisa suggested a Top 5 Magazine list. I think I can handle this one. Not sure I can rank them in order because I love them all equally. Here they are:

1. Yoga Journal – When I originally subscribed to this magazine it was more for research purposes. I thought I could use some material for my YogaDudes website and blog. But lately my love for yoga has grown and now I savor every article and explore every ad. It always offers something uplifting.
2. Body & Soul – This is just an all around feel good magazine. I love that it always talks about ways to live a better, healthy, and more fulfilled life. I’m always interested in the products they showcase and the tips they offer.
3. National Geographic Adventure – Made for Paula & Karlo, this is really our printed Bucket List in magazine form. I love opening the pages to all kinds of wild adventures and wonder what we will do next.
4. National Geographic Traveler – Another great source for Bucket List ideas. Not only do I love to read about places to travel to, but I truly appreciate the awesome photography that nobody does like National Geographic. I savor every page.
5. Outside – This is our very dangerous ‘gotta have this cool new gear’ magazine. Not only do we need ideas of where to travel and what to do, but we also need to keep on top of all the cool things that go along with adventure sports.
6. And just to add an additional one that will surprise you . . . just because Karlo and I were just talking about this over the weekend and laughing at the fact that I love to read his Popular Mechanics magazines. I really think I should have been born a boy!
   

Isn’t it amazing how much you can tell about a person by their list of favorite magazines? And the best part of subscribing to all these magazines is the cool “Happiness Collages” that result from them. I recently got back to making one collage for every magazine that I get every month. This is the best, most relaxing, most uplifting thing that I do for myself. One of these days I’ll scan some of my favorites and share.