Random Fact #1452

A cat's short term memory is 20 times longer than yours.

xoxo

Monday, Monday

Today it was back to the salt mines, back to the rat race, back to the SSDD . . . choose your favorite cliche.  However, this past weekend was a ladies' weekend.  My lovely mom and my Aunt Darlene spent the weekend with me in Pittsburgh.  My mom usually makes a trip over to see me when le husband is away at work.  Sometimes she gets my dad to come and sometimes it's one or more of her sisters.  But whoever joins her, it's always a good time. 

When it's just the ladies, we do get to do some fun shopping.  While I'm a person who loves to shop, even if it's just window shopping, my mom is not quite as avid a shopper.  However, when she's with me, she does a very good job; even comes armed with coupons!  Aunt Darlene on the other hand, can rival anyone when it comes to power-shopping.  I take her to Pamela's for breakfast; she's fueled and ready to go!  While I'd love to share with you some of our great finds this weekend, I've been sworn to secrecy.  Dad it wasn't mom who invoked the secrecy rule, it was Aunt Darlene and you won't get any more out of me than that!

We did manage to get some exercise in other than miles of walking while shopping.  We did some serious armchair point guarding.  I'm sure my neighbors thought I was have a wild party with all the noise coming out of our house on Saturday night, but it was just us ladies enjoying a little March Madness!

Then there was the food, ugh!  The "ugh" has nothing to do with the yummyness of the food, but is a comment on the quantity of food consumed.  Let me just say that we'll all be living on carrot sticks this week to make up for it!

So this morning I got up and headed off to my day job and the lovely ladies headed back to Ohio.  Thanks for another fun weekend ladies . . . looking forward to the next time!

xoxo

Spring?

OK it's the middle of March and it's in the mid-seventies in Pittsburgh?!  Like everywhere else, we are having some crazy weather here.  While I really want to embrace the beautiful warm weather we're having and break out all my warm weather clothing . . .  the pessimist side of me is still waiting for that other shoe to drop.  That March snow storm that dumps a ton of snow.  The optimist side says I should enjoy the early Spring and dust off those golf clubs!

While it's not officially Spring on the calendar, all the signs are pointing to Springtime.  Our Harry Lauder Walking Stick (I refer to it as our curlicue tree!) gets these green fuzzy dangly things all over it in the Spring.  By the way, I think the official gardening term for green fuzzy dangly things is "catkins". It looks like someone decorated it just for Spring.

The hardwoods are also starting to bud.

Daffodils are coming up in the yard.



The ice skating ring outside my office at PPG Place is now being dismantled . . . it's been melting all week!

But while you're breaking out your flip flops, here are a couple of reminders of what our Harry Lauder Walking Stick and the neighborhood looked like a year ago at this time!!

Enjoy the warm weather!

xoxo

I'm a Fan

Recently le husband turned me on to The Black Keys.  I know, I know . . . where have I been?  I will freely admit to being behind the curve when it comes to music.  Thanks to my mom, my taste in music ranges from classical to heavy metal (probably my brother's influence growing up!).  However, le husband is the guy who keeps me somewhat current; even though I drive him crazy because I can't remember who sings what! 

One of my new favorite songs is Lonely Boy by The Black Keys.  These guys are from Akron, Ohio . . . right up the road from where I grew up.  In this video of Lonely Boy (not actually a Black Key singing) check out the dance moves.  Hey shout out to cousin Mark; you will recognize that second move as one you and I were pretty good at back in the day!!  One of these days, you and I will break out our moves.  I think we should wait until one of the kids is getting married and see if we can't embarrass them!

Anyway, have a listen to a couple of the Black Keys songs.  Let me know what  you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_426RiwST8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yCIDkFI7ew&feature=related

xoxo

A Squirrel, a Chipmunk and a Fox

I thought I'd share a couple of photos of a Colorado squirrel that I recently took while on vacation.  When I spotted this guy, I immediately noticed how different he looks from the squirrels in my neighborhood.  Dare I say that this guy is much cuter?  Not to offend my local squirrels, but come on, this guy puts my local squirrels to shame.  He has those great highlighted eyes and nose that just pop out at you.  Also his general shape is rounder and fluffier . . . maybe I can relate to that since I'm round and fluffy! 

I was surprised that this guy let me get within about 4 feet of him and didn't budge.  Very cute.

Now on to our chipmunk encounter.  Le Husband and I were skiing down a trail that had tall pine trees lining either side, it was bright and sunny, beautifully groomed snow and I was in the zone . . .  when out of nowhere comes one of the biggest chipmunks I've ever seen.  He was hauling ass (sorry but there's no better way to put it) right across the ski slope carrying a pine cone in his mouth!  Now I'm sure you're thinking that the altitude must have been messing with my head, but I am totally serious.  I came really close to running the guy over and immediately stopped and burst out laughing.  Le Husband stopped immediately as well and said "Did you see that?!!"  I've never experienced any local wild life on the slopes and of course Le Husband was not filming this particular ski run so we don't even have video evidence.  Apparently he was late for an important date on the other side of the slope!

My last encounter with Colorado wildlife (other than the human variety) was spotting a beautiful and large fox on the hillside directly outside of our condo.  Of course at the time I spotted this fox, I was on the phone with this lovely older gentleman who owned the condo we were staying in.  He had called to see if we were enjoying our visit and was in the middle of a story about how much his grandchildren loved staying at the condo.  My fellow vacationers were involved in various acts of watching TV, reading or looking at their computer when I began to frantically wave my free arm and point at the hill outside the condo.  After determining that I was indeed trying to communicate with them and was not having some bazaar seizure, they all gathered around the sliding glass door to check out the impressive fox.  Of course by the time I was able to politely extricate myself from the phone call, the fox was long gone.  Did anyone think to grab my camera and snap a photo . . . nope!  You'll just have to trust me that he was one very good looking fox!

xoxo

Ahh Vacation

I can't believe it's been over a week since we got home from our vacation in Breckenridge, Colorado.  Le Husband and I headed out West with our very dear friends, Dave, Tina and their adorable son, Henry.  Le Husband has been skiing now for two complete seasons and was definitely ready for something more challenging than the local bump where he learned to ski!   

Here is a shot heading into the mountains. There was a storm front moving through . . . gee can you tell where it starts?

We stayed at a great ski in/ski out condo on the Four O'Clock ski run (Appropriately named since it looks like the L.I.E. at rush hour come 4 o'clock when the lifts stop running!) and we skied down to the snowflake lift to start our days.  Here are a couple of photos of part of the gang heading out to ski.  How cute is Henry . . . we love that kid!

Le Husband looked great and was definitely easy to spot on the mountain.  That growth out of his helmet was his Go Pro.  We now have some great video of the skiing experience thanks to his and Dave's helmet cameras!  (Romayne and/or Tina said they look like Teletubbies!)

Here's Dave heading out on his snow board.  Both Dave and Henry ski and snowboard . . . yes they are talented guys!!

The altitude was between 10,000 and 13,000 feet.  You think you're doing great until you reach a catwalk on the mountain and have to pole and skate across it . . . pole, skate, pole, skate, stop and suck in air. . . continue and repeat until reaching the downhill slope!  It's funny how gentle these slopes look when you photograph them from a distance; not so when you are actually on them!

We all carried trail maps, but also found it helpful to have these big maps at the top of the ski lifts.  Here's Le Husband and our good friend Romayne charting a course for us.

Speaking of Romayne, she is a good friend of ours from back in our New Jersey days when I worked at that Corn Fairy place.  She is now a pilot and is based in Denver, so she got to come up and spend a couple of days with us.  As always Miss Romayne, it was wonderful seeing you! 

Needless to say we all had a wonderful time!  I'll end this post with a panorama photo looking out at the range across from Breckenridge.  Just beautiful.

xoxo