express yourself...halloween style

Welcome....off with your head


traditional


whimsical


spooky


tacky


quaint


homey


red neck


countryish


pumpkiny


elegant


creative


ghostly


ho-hum


Martha Stewarty


clueless

mmmm.......brains

my friend chip

Chip atop the lion's head on the patio

Chip and I share some common interests besides the place we call home. We both like the outdoors and embellished clothing. We are both camera shy (hence the barely visible Chip in the pictures); he doesn't like to sit for a close-up. We both like to sit on the patio. And Chip has also been busy putting food by for the winter.


look closely to see Chip in the very center of the picture

wishin' and hopin'

and dreamin' bout my dreamhouse at the end of the Castle Creek cul-de-sac.


my house on Garrison Road

Now that I've put these two houses next to one another, I can see that my dream house kind of looks like my house squashed out flatter and in a more subdued shade. I love my house most from the outside. I've lived here twenty years and it still brings a thrill to drive by and see my house. But it is an older home and inside could use a facelift. So I dream about that modern kitchen, those huge walk-in closets and all that open space. Wishin' and hopin' and dreamin'.

a slap on the wrist

I wanted to take you on a tour of my favorite store. Being the naive girl that I am, I didn't know picture taking was not allowed inside the store. Armed with my camera I had taken two pictures of the outside of my store before stepping inside and snapping a pic of the produce department. Immediately an employee (or should I say associate) appeared before me. "Ma'am, you aren't allowed to take pictures in here. It's against our policy". Red-faced I replied " I'm sorry. I didn't know. I just wanted to take a few pictures of my favorite grocery store for my blog". "Well, you can ask the manager for special permission but I'm sure but she will say no" she told me. Emboldened by my new pursuit of blogging, I actually went to the service desk and asked to see the manager. She was called to the front of the store and told me "No. I'm sorry. It's just our policy". In the past this encounter would have left me scarred for days. As I shopped I did wonder if there were eyes on me who had witnessed my slap on the wrist and now thought less of me.




So I can't show you the coffee shop, the olive bar, the brick-oven bakery or the patisserie. You won't be able to see the Nature's Way section, the seasonal decorations or the very large kitchen shop that features china, cookbooks, linens and fine cookware. I can't show you the live music ensembles that entertain Friday evening shoppers from the balcony as they browse the prepared foods, meat shop, deli and fish market. You will have to imagine how the samples of the featured meal of the week from the quarterly store magazine, the cheese shop and Nature's Way taste. You won't be with me when I pick up my prescription, watch a mother drop off her child to play while she shops or select a movie from the Redbox. Being the law-abiding citizen that I am I won't show you that one picture I did take of the produce department.



That's OK, Wegman's. I forgive you because you are the one thing in WNY that I would miss the most if I were ever to move away. I know that you forgive me too. Didn't you select me as one of your top fifty customers three years ago and lavish gifts on me? A food gift basket, fifty dollar gift card and a bottle of your fine lemon olive oil. I know you love me as much as I love you. Doesn't Danny travel the world to bring me the best food products every country has to offer?

Do you know that there is a Wegman's in Rochester that has an entire Godiva chocolate shoppe inside of it? I can't show you that either.

yin and yang

aka Sam and Smudge

twilight

I have led a happy life. If you were to ask me though what some of the happiest moments have been, I wouldn't tell you about my wedding or the day my son was born. The day of my wedding I was terrified. Not of getting married. I wanted to be with B more than anything. But of the wedding itself. My terror shows in my face in our wedding pictures. I never dreamed of my special day when I was a teen, never sought the spotlight. Never had a high school graduation party, a college graduation party, a wedding shower. In my whole life up to that point I had only had one day where I was in the spotlight, where the focus was me. That was my eighth birthday party. I grew up in a very small town in central Illinois. There were maybe twenty children in my class. My mom had suggested that I bring a friend home from school on my birthday. After walking from the north end of town to the south end where I lived, I opened the door to shouts of "Surprise". All the girls in my class had been invited to my party. But that wasn't my happiest day either.

The day my son was born was miraculous. I remember every detail of that day vividly. I lay in the hospital bed that night, unable to sleep, bursting with the knowledge that I had just had I baby. I just had a baby. I just had a baby. The thought swirled in my head. Though nearly every day since his birth that child has filled my life with happiness, that still wasn't the happiest day of my life .

My favorite time of day is twilight. When I catch a glimpse of that golden light sneaking across my kitchen table through my west-facing window, I slow down. I am filled with a melancholy contentment. A peaceful, reflective feeling meanders through my veins. I am content for this moment. The sky deepens to a neon pink, then an orange glow. I begin to panic. A deep ache washes over me for the day that is drawing to close. I believe it is these fleeting moments of contentment that are my happiest times.

I have other moments like these that have etched themselves in my mind. When I was a teen I had a small cake baking business. Many of the inhabitants of my small town would order cakes for those special occasions from me, especially my animal-shaped birthday cakes. One evening I was home alone cleaning the kitchen after baking a turtle-shaped cake. I was standing at the sink with the window up, my hands in dishwater and a breeze caressing my face. "At the Zoo" was quietly playing from the tan and white transistor radio that was propped in the window. As the breeze lifted a lock of my hair that feeling washed over me. I am content. I am completely at peace this moment. That feeling has revisited me later in life. Once as I sat atop the roof of our garage pounding nails in shingles along with B. Again motoring along the highway through Nebraska in our racing green Triumph Spitfire, top down, B at my side, wind lashing my hair into my eyes. Sharing popcorn with toddler J on the rusty green front porch glider while thrilling to a sudden summer rainstorm. Crouched by the front yard flower bed pulling weeds with sunshine soaking into my skin.




I have found that I'm not my happiest when I am happy, but when I am content. I have always preferred tragedy to comedy, quirky to mundane. Maybe I prefer contentment to happiness. Tonight when those first rays of twilight make me squint, I'll stop my dinner preparations for just a moment. I'll stand in the light with a glass of wine and I'll think "I am content". "I am content."

song 2 for #2 or 22

got my head checked... by a jumbo jet


it wasn't easy...but nothing is no



woo hoo

I miss attending Fisher football games.

Go Cardinals

the surprise october storm

October 12th was the second anniversary of the surprise October storm. It was an unseasonably cold day. It started to flurry around lunchtime while I was at work. It continued to snow throughout the afternoon. I could look out the window of our eighth floor office in the Larkin Building and see the Niagara section of the thruway below. By four thirty the cars were creeping along so I decided to take the back streets on my drive home.
The trees were fully leaved as it was early enough in the fall that they had barely started to turn color. The snow kept falling and accumulating on the trees weighing the branches down. As I was driving I saw whole trees had that fallen across the road in places. Policeman with flares were turning back drivers on Cayuga Road because it was impassable. After dodging the trees and inching through the deepening snow, I pulled into my garage.


my garage the following morning

On foot I headed toward my backyard because I could see that one of the main branches of one of our big maples had broken right off the tree and had fallen onto our fence crushing it to the ground. I had almost made it back to the tree when "crack" I heard another branch preparing to snap off. With my heart pounding in my chest I high-tailed it back to the house as the bough crashed to the ground behind me. Safe inside the house I called B to tell him that he had better head home soon or he may not make it.


the used-to-be very full maple in the backyard

All evening the eerie non-stop popping and crackling continued. We lost electricity so having nothing else to do, we walked from window to window calling out "There goes another one" or "That one sounded like a whole tree". It fact, it was a half of a tree. The large maple on the side of our house that had always produced a pinkish fall leaf that filled our living room with a beautiful pink glow on sunny fall days had spilt right down the middle. Half had fallen onto our neighbor's driveway across the top of their car. Power lines were down everywhere. Trees criss-crossed all the roads. Cars were abandoned. We stayed up late into the night staring out our windows in disbelief. We were unwilling to go upstairs to bed for fear of being crushed. All the animals that make their homes in the trees were fearful also. It was strange to see squirrels frantically racing around the yard and hearing birds chirping in the middle of the night.


the tree that split in half


our neighbor's car is hidden under that pile of tree branches


here it is


In the morning we couldn't make coffee or cook breakfast because we have an electric stove. Word on the street literally was that our fantastic grocery store, Wegman's, had back-up generators and they were the only business in the entire area that was open on that Friday. We trudged through the two feet of snow, crawling over trees and making our way past the abandoned vehicles. The line for coffee at Wegman's was about fifty people long. Just regular coffee. No lattes or cappuccinos were being served that day. We stood in the line and shared our stories with other folks. Some people from the nearby office park had been stranded in their buildings overnight and were buying toothbrushes and changes of underwear. Wegman's saved us. We were among the 350,000 families who had no power but we were able to sit upstairs in the warm dining area and use our laptops and recharge our phones at our oasis in the storm.
We were without power and phone for nearly a week. By Monday most of the major roads were cleared enough to go to work but I had to dress in the dark fumbling for two shoes that matched each morning that week and couldn't dry my hair.


on the road in front of our house preparing for a trip to Wegmans


another red car just down the street


The trees were devastated. Over 57,000 of Buffalo's trees were lost to the storm. Those that hadn't toppled had to removed because they had lost over fifty percent of their canopy. To this day trees that were damaged in the storm are still being removed. But efforts are being taken to replace 30,000 of those trees through programs such as ReTree and ReLeaf. Our grass grows better since our trees were stripped of their branches. Our fence has been repaired. Our trees are starting to repair themselves.


view of our house from the street


a head-on view from the street

B and I didn't live in Buffalo when it experienced the Blizzard of 77 and Mayor Jimmy Griffin told everyone to stay in their houses with a six-pack. I have experienced a Buffalo snow storm though and had to sleep on the floor of my cubicle as did all the rest of my co-workers. Nearly thirty years after that first memorable storm, I became a part of Buffalo's history having lived through the Surprise October Storm.

the baking bug

I got bit by the baking bug on Sunday. Autumn always does that to me. Pumpkins and apples call to me. Since I'm dieting I looked to WW for a recipe. Praline Pumpkin Cake. Sounds yummy. When I bake I never have to worry about who is going to eat it. I take it to work, put out the e-mail and it is usually gone by lunchtime. This delish cake was no exception.

a trip to the market

View of Ellicott Creek from Main Street

Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful. The temperature was 70, the weather was sunny. The sky was unbelievably, breathtaking blue. A trip to the farmer's market was in order. So many of the Saturday mornings this summer had been gray and drizzly for the market. I grabbed my tote and set off walking the block and a half to Main Street. I'm so lucky to live in such a cute village and to be able to walk nearly anywhere I need to go. I crossed the Main Street bridge over Ellicott Creek and less than a block down was the entrance to the market.


Farmer's Market at the Watermill just down the hill to the right


I can hardly wait to see what's in store for me today


golden corn and shiny red apples


sunny yellow sunflowers


a sweet-voiced folk singer serenading the shoppers



a cornucopia of vegetables

I savored the sights and aromas of wines, maple syrup, honey, handmade soaps and chocolates and pastas, breads and relishes. I selected green peppers, red onions, zucchini and amazing Chow chocolate bars. Milk chocolate with smoky sea salt and dark chocolate with curry. I had already tried the white chocolate with cardamom and dark chocolate with pink peppercorn. With a light heart and heavy tote I walked back up the hill through Glen Park to Main Street.


the residents of Glen Park


a view of Glen Falls