Birthdays, Train Trips, and Weekends

Hello! I just wanted to check in before we leave our house to walk to 30th Street Station here in Philadelphia for our overnight trip to New York. I didn't mean to be gone for so long, but this week brought more things going on than I had originally planned, and this was my first chance to write a post.

Milo the Koodle had a wonderful birthday on Monday - and has loved being spoiled a bit extra all week long. He is my Birthday Buddy, and it's fun to celebrate with him.

I had my birthday party (just us and the kitties, as usual) last night, and we had a good time. I also had a lovely day, since it was much warmer than March 14 usually is, so I was able to get outside and have an extra enjoyable walk. I was also doing some things in preparation for today and the weekend, but it was all stuff I wanted to do, and I was not on a tight schedule, so it was a lovely, quiet, pretty day.

Once we arrive in NYC later this morning, we are planning to visit the American Museum of Natural History for a couple of hours, since we can't check in to our hotel until 4 p.m. So we'll spend some time there, and then have a late lunch/early dinner, check in to our hotel and freshen up, and then head to the theater to see "Merrily We Roll Along." Talk about a full day! Then tomorrow, we plan to just head out for a nice long walk wherever our noses take us before making our way back to the Moynihan station to come home.

Of course, the combination of a change to our usual routines, and walking around outside for longer than usual will mean that we will need the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday to recover, LOL! But Sunday we will celebrate St. Patrick's Day altogether, without anyone having to be at work, so that will be the best. 

I hope your weekend is a good one, whether you are traveling, staying home, or even just staying in the house being cozy. I can't believe that Spring starts on Tuesday! After days of 60s-70s (F) degree weather, they are saying here that the first day of spring should have a high temperature of 45 degrees (F) - so I'm sure a lot of people will have a shock to their system. (Face it, we all know people who think that once the first day of spring shows up, they can put away all of their winter gear. As if.)

So enjoy, and hopefully I'll have some tales to tell about our trip the next time I show up here.

Back to the Unfortunate Reality of My Reality

Ugh.  Today is back to work.  I have come to the conclusion that I don't mind working as much as I mind my crap job.  And my incredibly rude - and often just plain mean - co-workers.  It's bad enough on any given day, but after four days off, it's just insulting, you know??  :-)

Oh well, such is life.  Since I can't afford to retire, and I have no other prospects, it's time to suck it up and enjoy the other parts of my life as much as I can.  That's what I did for four wonderful days.

Last Thursday was my birthday, and in keeping with my personal tradition, since I had accrued some vacation, I took Thursday and Friday off.  I will admit that I am always surprised these days when I consciously think about how old I am.  This was my 63rd birthday, and of course that always comes after your 62nd birthday, right?  I guess part of it is that I have outlived my father by ten years at this point, and if I am lucky enough to live for a few more years, I will outlive my mother as well.   That just seems weird, but then again, I'm glad to still be here!

The Tim baked me a birthday cake, which looked really yummy.  He placed it on a table where I warned him that it could either a) be knocked onto the floor by the kitties, and/or b) be reachable and therefore eatable by Hamlet.  He responded in a way that made me sound like a crazy person, so I left the issue alone.  You can see where this is going, right?  Thursday afternoon at one point, I came into the living room and thought, hm, what's different?  Well, the cake was on the floor, and half-eaten by a very pleased doggie!  When The Tim got hom from work, he said, "Gee, I guess I should have put it someplace else."  YA THINK????  Anyway, we had birthday candles to blow out in some Rita's Water Ice, and another cake was baked the next day which was placed out of reach, and best of all, no sick dog!

Friday, I had an occupational therapy appt in the morning and then headed to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned.  Then Hamlet and I went for a long walk, since it was a lovely day.  Thursday was also perfect weather-wise, and I took a long walk with him in the morning, and then a really wonderful long walk myself in the afternoon.  I couldn't believe that it was so nice for two days in a row when I was actually home from work!  Usually the days I'm home are the ones with terrible weather. 

Saturday was also nice, but really really windy!  I walked over to Loop to get some double-pointed needles in the early afternoon.  Friday evening I had started to try and pick up stitches and start knitting the sleeves on my Neverender sweater.  After a few rounds, I frogged what I had knit and just decided that the needles I was using were making me miserable.  They were a really old pair that I'd had for years, from when I started knitting and there was not a lot of choice in different types of needles.  They had some kind of covering that almost felt like rubber, and it was making it truly difficult to move the stitches around.  Fortunately, Loop had a good variety, and I came home with a set of Knitter's Pride wood needles, which so far are working really well.

Yesterday was of course, St. Patrick's Day, so I went to church first thing (growing up we *always* went to church on St. Patrick's Day, and then if it was a school day, my parents would let us stay home).  Then I did a small amount (emphasis on "small amount") of cleaning, and then baked some Irish Soda Bread, which turned out really well.  For dinner we had a vegetarian shepherd's pie and some Guinness.  The only thing I didn't get to do yesterday was any knitting, but I still had a really enjoyable day with Hamlet and the kitties.

It felt good to do my own thing without being sick or having other problems for a change.  It would have been nice if The Tim could have taken a day off as well, but we had a good Saturday together, and enjoyed our evenings.  (For all I know, he might have been relieved to not have a day off with me, since he had quite a few over the last months, LOL.)

So, though I am not necessarily thrilled that it's Monday and that I have to be back at work, I'm glad to still be here for my 63rd year, to see what might happen going forward.  Here's hoping that it will be more enjoyable than the latter part of the year before!

Hope your week is off to a good start.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,

the foresight to know where you are going,

and the insight to know when you have gone too far.

Have a lovely day and may St. Patrick send blessings your way!

Greenery!

This week's Ten on Tuesday topic is:  Ten Favorite Things That Are Green, in honor of St. Patrick's Day this coming Sunday.  I couldn't wait to participate in this one, because a) green is my favorite color, b) St. Patrick's Day is one of my very most favorite holidays, and c) I haven't gotten my act together in time to participate for the last few weeks.  So here you go!

1.  Shamrocks.  I mean, if we are talking St. Patrick's Day, you gotta go for the shamrock.  

2.  Ireland.  Truly.  There is a reason it's called The Emerald Isle.  Granted, not every single inch is green, that would just be impossible, but you see a lot of it when you are there.

3.  Jetsam's eyes.  They particularly stand out against his charcoal gray fur.  He is a beautiful kitty with a very expressive face.

4.  Christmas trees!  (Did you really think I'd leave out something related to one of my other very most favorite holidays???)

5.  Fresh herbs, like basil, parsely, oregano, rosemary - well you get my drift.  I don't just love seeing them, and think they are tasty, but some of them have the best scents!

6.  My favorite water bottle.  It's about three years old now, but I love it too much to think of replacing it, and it's still in pretty good shape!  (Plus it has ladybugs on it!)

7.  Yarn!  If you ever visited me, and saw my yarn stash, you would wonder if I realized there were other colors out there ... granted, it's not all the same shade of green ...

8.  Veggies.  OK, there are other colors of veggies besides green, but the green ones are some of the very best - I'm even a person who loves Brussels sprouts!

9.  My new shawl!  Except you have to wait for a separate post to see it ...

[Photo not available]

10.  The Barnes & Noble sign.  

 

This may seem like an odd choice, but it actually plays a huge part in our lives here at Chez Ravell'd Sleave.  When we first moved to Philadelphia, we moved here because The Tim had a job in publishing.  After approximately 10 years at that job, he was unceremoniously laid off (long story, but not mine to tell).  Fortunately, he was hired at Barnes & Noble, and the rest, as they say, is history.  I know some see it as one of the evil-empire big-box stores, and I can appreciate that.  But I can tell you that it is thanks to B&N that we have been able pay our mortgage as well as our other bills. So I am a big fan and supporter. 

:-)

And I know there are only supposed to be ten things, but with baseball season so close to starting, it's worth remembering that baseball fields have a lot of green too ...

 

[GO PHILLIES]

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May you have warm words on a cold evening,

A full moon on a dark night,

And the road downhill all the way to your door.

- Irish Blessing