The only drawback to starting a blog...

is feeling guiltier and guiltier as time passes with no new posts.  Not that anyone is breathlessly awaiting new posts, but a blog isn't a blog unless it's active which means the blogger needs to be active and I just haven't been doing too much lately.

And, I started this post a week ago, only to have my laptop get a virus and go to the doctor and my netbook refusing to upload pictures to my blog.

But even though this is a post sort of about nothing, I will persevere.  I seem to continue taking photos when I'm out and about and decided I'd just go ahead and post the nicest ones.  Plus I made up a new recipe last night (read a week ago now) and will post that too.  At least this won't be a real "wordy" post cause I don't have a lot of stuff to describe, explain, rave about, etc.  I'll just add little comments to the pictures.

The picture on the left was taken on 3/22 at 1:15 p.m.  The picture on the right was taken on 3/22 at 1:40 p.m.  The weather this winter/spring has been all over the map.  This particular day, it started and stopped snowing about 5 times.  The snowing picture doesn't make it clear but it snowed heavily when it snowed.

The picture above is one I took while standing in my kitchen looking through the pass through into the dining area and on out my two dining room windows.  I love this view!

 These four pictures are from a letterboxing adventure that Johnny and I enjoyed while he was here for spring break (early April).  The weather wasn't very cooperative for the whole week he was here but we had this one pretty (albeit, chilly) day and decided to take advantage of it. 

We found clues to lead us to two letterboxes - one in Kenova (the top 2 pictures) and one out at Beech Fork Lake (the bottom 2 pics).  Both were fun - the Kenova one we almost didn't find because it was in a snuff box and we figured someone had just tossed it there.  But Johnny decided we'd better open it and make sure and there it was!  That's the Ohio River we're walking alongside.

The Beech Fork lake letterbox was hidden up on the top of this hill.  In the pictures it doesn't look all that high I guess, but I sure got winded and tired legs while climbing up it.  Made me decide I'd better get busy and do more walking if I'm going to tackle any more trips traipsing around Europe!  Anyway, it was quite an enjoyable day.  And the whole week was enjoyable really even though we sure didn't seem to do too much.  I told Johnny I was going to be embarrassed if people asked "oh, what all did you do?" and I'd have to say "ummmm...."  But we did some of our favorite "eatings" - spaghetti and meatballs, meatball subs, Hillbilly hotdogs (where Johnny actually tried a little sauce and slaw on his!), pancakes at Tudor's, etc.  And, incredibly enough, he had never seen any Wallace and Grommit movies so we watched the ones that were available on Netflix and he really got a kick out of them.  I also introduced him to the only electronic game I've ever become addicted to - "The Simpson Tapped Out" and that was pretty much an instant hit with him.  We played that and had great discussions about it and, of course, also played Crazy Eights.  So all in all, quite a pleasant visit.  And I probably mentioned on a previous post that Heather and Sophia brought him all the way to Huntington so I had the really wonderful bonus of having them here Friday even through Sunday late morning.

I wimped out on driving Johnny all the way back (since I had just driven over and back for my birthday party three weeks earlier) but did agree to drive further to meet her than I normally do.  We decided to meet in Cumberland and had a nice lunch there and a little walk around their historic downtown which was a very pleasant surprise for me.  I may just have to go back and explore when I have more time for it.  These two pictures are a couple of the buildings there.

And then these next photos are just from a couple of gorgeous days in early May when I took a couple of nice walks.  The sky was truly this shade of blue, leaves were green, flowers were blooming - Huntington is really at its best in spring, I think.

The first two were taken on what I call "Church Avenue" - where all the beautiful old churches are located.

And then these show the Cabell County Courthouse - you can just barely see the dome on the left but I took it anyway cause I loved all the green leafy trees against the blue sky.

 Just look at that sky!!!

These sort of unappetizing pictures are from my experiment with white beans and pasta.  I think I've probably done it before but if so, it didn't turn out as good as this time.  I really enjoyed this one and even wrote down a little of what I was doing as I put it together so I would remember it.  I've posted a recipe in my recipe collection.  The picture of the finished dish almost didn't get taken cause I had eaten most of it before I suddenly thought "darn it - I wanted to take a picture of it!

 

After the ball is over....

the nice times rolled on.  My friends got on the road back to WV Sunday morning and Heather and I took off for her house where I spent the night.  It was nice being there and seeing the new deck, all the various animals, chickens, goats, etc.  Two of their goats had just had babies - one goat had one and the other had twins which is fairly unusual apparently.  They sure were cute, but the poor mama of the twins looked pretty done in!  I have to confess to being so worn out by the weekend's festivities that I really don't remember all that much about Sunday except that it was nice being there.  And since I seemed to be starving to death, I convinced Heather that we should go to this place up the road where they have fried chicken that I'm sure is quite unhealthy but I like it.  We brought it back to the house and I ate three pieces which I've never done and wolfed it down like I was afraid someone was going to take it away from me.

Monday was real nice.  Heather had told me she wanted us to go to Frederick, MD and poke around in the historic section of town so we did that.  Lots and lots of shops although being Monday, a lot of them were closed which was a disappointment.  I'd like to go back sometime on another day.  But we had a wonderful lunch at a place called the Tasting Room.  Delicious food and a nice glass of wine.  Then we walked down a street of delightful old row houses with such a pretty church midway.  Came across a little store (actually not so little) that had all kinds of neat things.  The other shops we had been in were clothing stores and that's fine but I don't really enjoy shopping for clothes.  This was sort of a gift-type shop with all kinds of neat things.  Walked back to the car and after all the treating Heather had done for me, I treated us to a Starbucks - last of the big spenders!

I took some pictures of the row houses and the church so here they are.

Well, actually - this is the first photo - Heather and Sophia had just given their wee puppies a bath.  Took me four tries to get a picture of Sophia where she wasn't posing but I thought this one turned out pretty nice.

She's a sweetie - that's for sure.  I feel kind of guilty I didn't get a a picture of Johnny but I'll get some of him when he comes here for spring break! 

Now, the buildings...

 These skinny ones would be just perfect for a little old lady, don't you think?  Maybe for my 80th birthday...

 This little garden tucked away made me think of Florence (which I've been thinking about a lot lately.)

 This one with the red door is probably the one for me.  I told Heather she was going to have to watch the real estate ads and be sure and let me know when one became available...as if I could afford one!  But I sure like the looks of them.

And on such a grey day, this very clean, very white church was just so pretty.

Monday evening I was again so wiped out that it sort of passed in a blur.  Actually, it's only been the last day or two that I began to feel like I wasn't going to fall asleep walking around.  I imagine it was partly the time change.  Why we still do that is beyond me!

I left Monday afternoon to go down to January and Maggie's delightful little house and spent the night there which was nice.  I loved my Saturday party but it wasn't really for "visiting" so it was nice to have an overnight with each of the kids.  I took these pictures as I left Heather's.  Maybe their theme song should be "oh give me a home where the chickens (and turkeys!) roam..."

This is one very large Tom.  A little bedraggled here and there - apparently part of his tail got run over at some point.  But he has great long wattles and gobbles pretty much all the time and is just kind of a loveable grand old man.

And here's some of the free range brood.  They all seem to get along beautifully and when Alex whistles, they gather round!

I got to January and Maggie's in time to enjoy some delicious pulled chicken bar-b-q that January had made along with ruffled potato chips.  You might wonder why I mention the chips but it's because I have been seriously addicted to them all my life and since losing weight have tried not to eat them except for occasionally when I'm getting a sandwich at a restaurant.  And...ruffles are my favorite.  So that was a little feast for me.  We were all fairly tired out (the girls had worked all day and I was still somewhat in zombie mode) so it was a relatively early night but nice to spend some time with them.

I drove over to Chris's on Monday to spend the night there before heading home.  He took half a day off.  We went to the container store which there are none of here in WV.  Well, at least not Huntington and they're fun to browse through.  There was a Crate and Barrel at the same small mall and they have such nice but fairly overpriced stuff.  We had dinner at a place called Chees-tique which started out as a cheese shop and then expanded into including a small restaurant.  Tasty food and nice wine.

And that is pretty much it.  Seeing all the kids after the party was a nice way to come down from the party high and I got home to Huntington nice and early in spite of driving through various blizzard type squalls once I got into West Virginia.

Now my next big excitement will be Heather, Sophia and Johnny coming here to bring Johnny over for spring break.  I've been pondering what he and I will do for entertainment and going to Cincinnati or to Columbus keep coming to mind but I'd hate for the poor guy to think he spent his whole spring break in a car!

Happy Birthday to Me! Part 1

First of all, I had to take a picture of my cards - I think this is the most birthday cards I've ever received in my life!  So, in addition to all the big, special treats, all the greetings were very enjoyable too.

I meant to post as the weekend progressed like I do on my trips, but I was just having too much fun.  So this will be a fairly brief (what?  me brief?!) summary of the weekend and a bunch of pictures.

So, we left Huntington Friday morning (Jamie was sick and couldn't join us which was a disappointment) in a 2-car "convoy".  Main reason for 2 cars was because I was going to stay longer and everyone else had things they had to get back home for.  Our trip was totally uneventful which was nice and we got to Chris's apartment relatively early.  He had outdone himself getting everything clean and shiny and if he's anything like me, it had to be a pleasure for him to show it off.  I had told him that for our non-party meals, I wanted to try and eat at places that would be new to my friends so Friday night we went to El Pollo Rico (which is porobably spelled incorrectly).  I love going there - it's very plain, very simple, relatively cheap and has really delicious, fire roasted chicken, French fries and cole slaw.  And that's it - the only thing to decide is how much chicken you want and what to drink.  Hopefully they enjoyed it.

After dinner we took off for our home away from home and it was probably bigger than my apartment!  Four bedrooms (yes, FOUR).  Being the birthday girl, I got one with a king-sized bed with its own bathroom.  Then there were two rooms with two queen sized beds in each room and they shared a bathroom "suite" that had a big double vanity and then a shower and commode on each side of the vanity area (with a door that closed on each).  The fourth room was either exactly the same as mine or slightly smaller, I'm not sure.  So the ladies assigned a number to each room and we wrote 1, 2, and 3 on separate bits of paper and they each drew one out of a bag and slept in that room.  But it was pretty amazing that there could be four of us and not only did no one share a bed, but no one shared a room!   Chris had a bouquet of happy birthday balloons for me (another first), two boxes of  Nordstrom truffles and a bottle of delicious bubbly.  Oh and a box of dark chocolate covered strawberries.  What a guy.  And, of course, the whole suite was because Heather has a time share and got the suite through that.  There was even a nice balcony we could step out on and see the Potomac River and far away, the Washington monument.  Very nice...

Saturday was our sightseeing day and first on the agenda was a personal tour of the National Cathedral with Chris as our tour guide.  This is his 18th year serving as a docent at the cathedral and the amount of knowledge he has on the tip of his tongue never ceases to amaze me.  If you ever decide to visit the cathedral, you should try and get one of his tours. :)  It's a beautiful place and so impressive.  Everything is hand-carved stone, hand-wrought ironwork, hand stitched needlepoint embroideries, etc.  Chris pointed out some of the damage done to the cathedral by the earthquake last year - huge pieces of stonework toppled from the high towers all lined up down on the ground waiting to be resituated.  As with the actual building of the cathedral itself (which went on for over 100 years), the repairs for the earthquake damage are all being done through donations from companies, organizations, and private citizens.  If this is of any interest to anyone reading this, you might want to check out the cathedral's website at http://www.nationalcathedral.org/dcquake/ . 

I took lots of pictures, most of which I've posted here before but who knows where they are and anyway, I bet these are nicer because of the very nice day we had.

The first one is a group picture Chris took and I think it's pretty amazing that we all look all right.

The rest are of the interior first and then a few outside shots.  It's really a beautiful building.  Oh, and if you want to know, the picture shows from left to right:  Brenda, Peggy, me, and Cindy.

And outside...

It was a beautiful day Saturday as you can see from the pictures and after we finished at the cathedral, we had lunch at a Pot-Belly sandwich shop which was another spot I enjoy and we don't have in Huntington.  I think that was pretty much a hit with everyone and then we went to Arlington Cemetery.  With all my trips to DC, I've never been there.  Peggy's dad is buried there and she's visited several times.  After she found the grave and we all enjoyed the beautiful views of various DC landmarks from the hills of the cemetery, we trekked up to the tomb of the unknown soldier, another beautifully situated monument.

We made a short trip to the Air Force Memorial which is one of my favorites - it's beautiful itself and the views are stunning.

I think that was about all our "official" sight-seeing.  When we got back to the hotel, we went out wandering around all the neat shops and enjoying the harbor area on the river.  There's a really neat piece of art right at the river's edge.  It's called "The Awakening" and on Saturday, it was crawling with kids.  I went out again Sunday morning and no one was there so you can see it both ways.

Then it was back to the hotel to gear up for my official birthday party to take place at an "unknown" destination. If you scroll down to the next post, you'll find my party post - mostly pictures.