hitting the road...or the sky

I'm getting out of New York for a bit. Time to go to hotter places. I never do the right thing when it comes to seasons and staying in nice weather. I tend to go north for the winter and south for the summer. How does that happen? Well, this time I am heading to Jamaica! Going with the family and a group from church. I will be down there for a week and then plan to spend a few days in WV before coming back to the city. I look forward to a nice time. I don't think I will have internet access, so there will be no blog until I get back, but I'm sure to have beautiful pictures and stories to tell. Bon voyage!

drenched demitasse

I got caught out in the rain yesterday. It had been a beautiful day and I was not expecting anything else. I was trying to get home by walking to the subway station when the thunder crashed and the rain started pouring down. As luck would have it, I was passing by one of my favorite little restaurants when it hit. I took this as a sign that it wasn't quite time for me to go home and be productive, so I ducked into the restaurant to wait out the storm. They had the front wall of doors opened up so I could sit just inside -protected from the water as I watched it come down. The storm hit so suddenly that a couple of the outside tables didn't have a chance to get cleared off as their patrons ran for drier lands. The poor little coffee cup sat filling with rain water until the storm settled down and I could continue on my way.

Oh no!

Say it ain't so...

Freshly ground coffee... spread across the floor... a tear in my eye...

New York apartments just aren't big enough to do everything I need to do. Sadly as I was unplugging the grinder and plugging in the coffee maker, a little bump caused a chain reaction with the toaster oven and the dish resting on top of it, which slide onto the counter, sending the coffee to the floor. What a sad moment. With the help of a friend on the phone I did not scrape the coffee off the top of the pile and use it anyway. I mustered up all my will power and mixed it up on the floor before I was too tempted. Thank goodness I had all ready taken out what I needed for my one cup. And thank goodness I had only ground enough beans for 4 cups instead of 18.

Wedding Bells

The past few months have been very exciting for my family. Not two weeks ago, we welcomed baby Joel into the world. He is the first of the grandchildren for my parents, so we are all very excited. But before that, at the end of May, we had a wedding in the family. Jared and Alma Lee tied the knot in a beautiful southern ceremony down in Tennessee. The entire family was there - it was so nice to see everyone and all be together for a short time. Unfortunately we were so busy that we didn't get to socialize with each other the way we would have liked to, but that's the way those kind of things are. Rushing around doing our nails, having lunch, rehearse for this, pick up that... time flies and before you know it - time to go home! I guess big events usually are like that. Months and months of planning - days of stress - then 'boom' and it's over. No matter how stressed we get - it all works out in the end, right?

As I said before - the wedding was really beautiful. Both Stacy and I got to be bridesmaids where we bonded while planning our future weddings (no time soon - be reminded of our continuing man crisis) and Ben was the Best Man. I also got to play a little clarinet at the opening (for the parents to come down the aisle). The ceremony was followed by many many pictures and a quaint reception before the couple raced out of the hall, unwrapped the car, and escaped to their Parisian honeymoon.

a walk across

Brooklyn Bridge, New York

Flower Power

I've had a lot of fun with my nice camera that I got last year. I still don't feel like I know how to use it to its fullest (or even its half-fullest), but it is fun to play with and I am learning as I go. I am lucky that I have an uncle who is also in to photography and has been able to guide me along and help me out with equipment. I learned quickly that the photo world is all about more and more and better equipment. It is never-ending. All of my money could easily be spent on cameras, lenses, stands, cases, etc.

A while back, I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I went last year and had to go again to try to catch the cherry blossoms. We were able to see some and they were so beautiful. It's hard to catch them at just the right time, but we came close. They have many different variety there, so I think there is always something blooming and something not blooming. I got a lot of great pictures while I was there, but oddly enough, my favorites were not of the cherry blossoms, but of other flowers! Oh well...maybe I'm just not in a 'pink' mood.
I have been playing around with taking close-up pictures. I have a few filters to put on my lens that really lets me get in there. Here are a couple of flower shots I took that day with the filters.