Perfection In One Day

First of all, thank you for your kind support and commisseration about my work situations in my last post.  Please be assured that everything that can be done has been done, even if to no avail.  Though I'm guessing that now you can appreciate more than ever why I am dreading next week, when we have to return to the building to work five days a week.  At least being at home some of the time gave me some space and a buffer.  Oh well

ANYWAY, the important thing here is to share some of our weekend with you.  This past weekend, both the NJ Sheep and Wool Festival and the Lehigh Valley Fiber Festival returned to in-person events.  I love going to the NJ one, but this year just didn't get myself together to go.  

Instead, since it sounded as if the weather would cooperate, The Tim and I planned an outing where Hamlet could join us.  So we got into the car and headed a bit northwest to the Andorra Meadow - about 20 minutes away on a Saturday with little traffic that early in the morning.  It's a little more than 2-mile trail that ends up in a meadow.  We hadn't been there before, so we were exploring as well.

Me to The Tim: We can tell people we went for a hike, and found some fungi(s).

The Tim: [crickets]

In any case, it was wonderful, and Hamlet had a great time!  For the whole time we were there, we ran into only two other people (and of course Hamlet made sure that they petted him).  It was perfect.

Apparently, the grasses were very tasty.  The Tim and I did not sample them, but Hamlet took his time doing a tasting all along the way.

In the photo above, Hamlet is right in front of a log that was blocking the trail and required one to go over it.  I went over first, and then Hamlet lept over it, "just like Lassie!" (OK, that's what we told him - in reality, I pulled, and The Tim pushed and lifted.)  Then The Tim joined us and we continued along.

I always love seeing little wild daisies like these:

And seeing these little berries pleased me!

This was in the meadow, where they had these little houses scattered all around.

Just look at that sky!  And if you saw these photos and didn't know where you were, who would think that less than a mile away was a major road with stores and houses?

On the way home, we passed a corner where one side of the street had a place called Pete's Pierogies, and the other side of the street had Murphy's Tavern.  We decided that was the best corner in town, since it would cover all of our needs ... 😊

The day finished up with some knitting and reading in the afternoon, and then The Tim made a pizza for dinner.  We watched some shows we'd recorded and just relaxed.  There aren't many days that are that perfect, but Saturday turned out to be one of them.

As we were walking around on such a lovely day, it struck me that it was the same kind of day that it was here on September 11, 2001 - a little bit cool, very sunny, and the kind of day that made you smile and believe that nothing could go wrong.  And it made me think once again how lucky I am to be able to still be here, enjoying those kinds of days, when so many never had that privilege, through no fault of their own.

Birthday Recap

Well, it's two weeks after the fact, but I thought I'd share some pictures from my  birthday.  I had a really great one this year.  Even if people on Facebook were tired of hearing about it (courtesy of Carol, who counted down with several updates every day), I was happy to receive many happy wishes there, as well as here on the blog.

I took the day off for my birthday, as did The Tim.  But the day before, my co-workers surprised me with a little party of cookies, tea, and a pretty bouquet of tulips.  I just think that's so nice, especially since The Evil Boss gave me grief for wanting to take a day off for my birthday last year!

The morning of my birthday, The Tim bought us breakfast:

The sight of this box made me sooo happy!  Even more so when I looked inside:

Our plan for the day had depended on the weather: if it was a nice day, I wanted to go hiking; if it was a rainy day, I wanted to stay put and watch movies all day.  Well, it was a gorgeous day - if a little too warm for me - and we packed ourselves and Dug into the car, and headed to Pennypack Park, in northeast Philadelphia.  It's a huge place, with horse trails, picnic areas, etc., and we followed a combination of one of the horse and hiking trails.

Hard to believe that less than 1/2 mile from here is a major traffic major artery of the city:

Dug encountered some honking geese (I think they were warning others of a DOG and PEOPLE!), and found it quite intriguing:

You may notice that Dug's leash looks like a piece of rope.  That's because it is ... we spent all kinds of time getting organized, attaching poop bags to his leash, and other related things.  When we got out of the car, we realized we forgot the leash altogether!  Fortunately, there was a length of rope in the trunk of the car, and Dug is not really rambunctious on the leash.  But still ...

We saw some people riding horses.  Dug didn't seem too interested (actually, he was more interested in what the horses left behind, if you know what I mean), and the horses kind of gave him a look as if to say, "What a shrimp!"

We took each others' pictures with our pup:

And after about 2 hours, we headed home to take a break before going out to dinner.  After dinner, we had cake, ice cream, and presents, including a skein of Bridget sock yarn, and this book.

The next day I had a couple of doctor's appts, and that Friday we headed to West Virginia to get together with the family for St. Patrick's Day, so it was a fun and especially nice birthday week!  With all of that, and your wishes, I really think that this birthday was particularly great.

Though I am of the belief that birthdays in general are always great.  They certainly are better than the alternative, as far as I'm concerned ...