Pennsylvania...

I live on Long Island, New York State. I visit Pennsylvania often. Why?? Well, it's a real coincidence.

My husband grew up in PA and moved to Long Island in 1970. Basically, his entire adult life has been in NY. His parents, sister and sister's family all still live there.

My younger sister met a man from PA, coincidently same area, got married and moved there 10 years ago.

My brother's wife's sister, married and moved there, and then my brother and his wife followed. They have two kids. So, at this point I have quiet an extended family, all living in the Philadelphia area.

This gets crazier!

My son, fresh out of college, has friends who moved to the same area. What?? We are talking about, within 15 minutes of the extended family. My son decides to move there to live with his friends. Now, I'm not upset. Why would I be? My sister, my brother, my in-laws, neices and nephews all live near him.

My husband and I are now traveling to PA every other week.

My father-in-law has been in the hospitial for the last 6 months. It's been a roller-coaster of emotions. He is 84 years old so... he gets better, then worse, then better. We keep running back and forth. We run there to help my mother-in-law. Then we see my sister and brother (this includes their entire families too). We see my husband's sister and her family.

Now we went to see my son's new house. He moved in with 5 other friends in the Conshohokon area. It's an up-coming "in" kind of place, I understand. Cool. He's happy, so that's all I care about. He's still looking for a "real" job.

We have had a hectic week. We went to the hospital, out to dinner, helped my mother-in-law buy a new tv, visited my son, cooked a dinner, slept on a sofa bed two nights, had dinner with my sister-in-law, ran to the hospital again, had lunch with family, dinner, took pictures, went to the hospital again, said good-bye.

We spent 4 hours in traffic to get home (the Outerbridge was closed due to an accident). And now I'm home!

Okay....now for the July 4th weekend! We have no plans, and wow, that feels good!

Quiet Sunday

Daisy Plants in my garden.

Stayed home today.

It was a beautiful, quiet day, with a cool breeze coming off the water...quite breezy actually. Weather reports said it was very hot , but I wouldn't have guessed. My sister and her family left for PA (their home) so my husband and I just relaxed after having company for three days. It was hectic and we needed a rest. It was non-stop entertaining, we had a lot of fun, and we are alone again.

Digital Photo in RAW format

My Tevas on the beach. This is the first photo I've taken in the RAW (Nef) file mode with my Nikon D70. I wanted to try this newer way to take photos in digital photography. This photo is totally untouched.

My sister Linda, her husband and their son, came to visit for the weekend . Of course, we took them to the beach and it was a beautiful day!!!

I took many photos but only a few in the RAW format. (It does take up more space on the memory chip.) I'll let you know about my experience with this new format soon.

My Birthday

I just celebrated my birthday. Time is going too fast. I still feel like the little girl in the photo.

My birthday comes at the perfect time, beginning of summer. It was always more than just my birthday. It was the end of school, no more homework and start of warmer weather, freedom, and all those good summer memories.

I still had that when I grew up and I was teaching. I never worked in the summer. What has changed for me now is that I'm retired, it doesn't have the same feeling of release, of relief from stress that it used to have.

Oh well, it still feels good. I made it this far in life. I have my health, my two kids, and a good husband. What more can I ask for anyway?

My Birthday..back in the 1950s. That's me in the center, surrounded by my siblings, cousins and friends. I would post a more recent picture, but I thought this was more interesting.

Sunset, June 20, 2005

Another spectacular sunset as seen from Fire Island

Light is turning to a warm glow.

The moon is rising as the sun sets.

Early evening...an unfortunate end to the life of a horseshoe crab.

A Streetcar Named Desire and the Paris Letter

Two plays in one day...A Streetcar Named Desire and the Paris Letter

My husband and I belong to Roundabout Theatre. It is a theatre company that produces 7 plays a year and we get to see all seven. It's unusual that we see two in one day but we had to change one date and decided that we could make it a double-header...after all we'd be in the city anyway.

We've been members for the last 8 years and upgrade our seats each year. We now sit within the first 5 rows, ususally center. I'm addicted and won't quite as long as I can afford to buy tickets. The whole trip into the city is not difficult for us. I drive in and go over the 59th St. (Queensborough) bridge. We park in a garage right on 2nd Ave so we're not driving through the city in traffic. The parking garages are less expensive further away from Broadway and we like to walk anyway. The train into the city would be just as expensive. We walk to the theater district. We do eat in nice restaurants; there are so many of them, but if we don't want to spend too much on food, there are plenty of inexpensive,"pub" type places where we can get sandwiches and salads.

The plays:

Streetcar is a classic story so I won't go into story details. I loved it. The actors were wonderful. The critics did not rave about it but a play like this, that has been done so many times, cannot be compared to previous productions. After all, there will never be another Marlon Brando, so stop comparing already! The cast was wonderful...such raw emotion...and it was all done live, just for me. That's what I love about theater.

The Paris Letter: A new play. Basically this story is about the struggle of a gay man, throughout his life, with being gay. It spans the years from the 1960 to the present time.

I really enjoyed the play. If you are gay, you must see it!

Even though I am "straight" I could relate this to other struggles in life, and so could the theater audience...the struggle to do what is right, what society expects, what makes you happy and the resposibilities to the people around you.

It is about love and repect and desire.

The actors did an excellent job. I did think the play started off slowly and I began to lose interest but by the second act I was involved and wanted more. I quess it is not a play for everyone, especially if you find two men kissing makes you uncomfortable.

I am happy that I got to see this play.

Please write if you have questions about it and I would be happy to answer!

Accepted to the Mirror Project

My three photos were accepted to the MIrror Project:

First Picture

Second Picture

Third Picture

Why not enter yourself? It was fun and took about one week before being accepted. Pictures do have to be smaller so read the requirements. I had to crop and resize mine. Have fun!!!

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS...

For more photos of Long Island, check out my new photo site:

Alida's Photos

Very calm, very warm, another perfect night

River at night, June 14th

Another Sunset..I have to stop doing this!

Sun just going under...

June 14, calm night, another beautiful sunset. The bay was surprisingly calm after the windy afternoon. We took a quick ride after dinner to watch the sunset. Spectacular!

Rober Moses Causeway and Bridge

Robert Moses Bridge

A great website about this bridge and the roadway leading to the beach:

Click here!

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy-It grows wild everywhere on Long Island.

I usually have to go on "poison ivy" patrol around my property to remove it. I wear a long sleeved shirt, and garden gloves covered with disposable latex gloves. I hunt for the ivy and carefully pull it out close to the roots, being careful it doesn't snap out and touch my face.

I deposit it carefully into the garbage pail. My shirt goes right into the washing machine and gets washed separately!

Do I sound paranoid? I know, but I have to be careful.

Long Island clam boat

Homan's Creek

Swimming capacity??

The Mirror Project

The Mirror Project...my self-portrait in a chandeliere.

Faucet handle...

An iron...

The Mirror Project

My recent entry to the Mirror Project.

My bathroom, two mirrors and me to infinity...
This is the third group I've submitted a photo to. I'm discovering a whole new area of the internet: Photo Blogs
It is so fascinating to see what other people are including in their web pages... lots of photos to view...

....a moment of time, frozen, seen through the eyes of another person...interesting!

You can see Manhattan.

You can see Manhattan.
Originally uploaded by Alida's Photos.

I was just testing out the program "flickr" and wanted to see how it works. I posted this picture in the "guess where in NYC" group after I read about it in the NY Times. There are many groups in "flickr" that cover a variety of topics. "Flickr" is good, especially for groups and contacts, but so far I like "Picasa" better for posting pictures to this blog. (Flickr also has a monthly limit for uploading.) Well, I'll keep playing with both and see how this works out. Maybe I'm missing something? If any of you have an opinion about this, I would appreciate your comments. And, oh, I'll tell you where this is after some additions quesses.....

What is Photo Friday?

Photo Friday is a weekly event. Each week a new word, or concept is given and participants submit a photo to represent that topic.

Week of June 10, 2005: Nerdy

This is my first entry. If you want to participate, click the title above or the link on the right.

For Photo Friday: "Nerdy"

For Photo Friday: "Nerdy"

Week of June 10, 2005

My cousin and I, about 11 and 12 years old in the early 1960s, dressed up for the holidays.

June 8th, Fire Island, National Seashore

Today, June 8th, at the water's edge. There are no crowds. This area of the beach does not have a ferry or many homes. The only way to get here is by private boat or walking from other Fire Island towns.

Empty beach

Looking west, no crowds...

Alone on the Beach

We have the beach all to ourselves for today....

Pine Trees growing in the sand...

Beach pines, either pitch pine or scrub pine, healthy and slow growing...

Sunset sail, June 7th

We were invited to take a sunset sail after dinner with our friend Dave. How could we refuse? The weather was perfect, warm and pleasant. There was a wonderful breeze, maybe just a little too gusty for a small power boat, but perfect for sailing.

The Great South Bay was basically empty of pleasure boats, as you can see from the photos. There aren't many boat out there on a weeknight.

We sailed to the National Seashore on Fire Island, also empty. We walked on the beach for awhile and saw deer and then the most unusual sunset. The sun was very large and didn't look round. It looked oval or oblong. Very strange!

We then sailed home. Perfect night!

Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them larger.

Beautiful night, beautiful weather...

Sunset sail, evening of June 7th...

Wild flowers...

Wild flowers in bloom in the sand on Fire Island.

Spectacular sunset!

Sunset through the reeds, as seen from Fire Island.

Unique setting sun....

The sun looked unusually shaped and very large. I looked for the very young crescent moon that was scheduled to be out near Venus after sunset, but it was not visible due to the slight haze.

After dark...

Returning from our sail...Good night!

Monday, the weather changes on the bay...

Monday, June 6th, early afternoon...the weather was still fair and pleasant...

Barret Beach in the Fog

By late afternoon the fog was rolling in, the temperature was down and everything was still...

A new week begins...buy theatre tickets.

Okay, enough about the bathroom. It's done!

We had friends over for dinner and took them boating this weekend. We don't usually like to go out on the bay on the weekends because of the increase in boat traffic. Sunday is the day most working people get to enjoy the water and that's when we don't want to be out there. During the week, the bay is ours. We like to think of it as an extension of our backyard.

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Tickets go on sale today for a Broadway play, The Odd Couple, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. This is definitely something we want to see.

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It is also time to start walking again. New week, new goals!

Friday night...

It's Friday night and we have no plans...that's not our usual routine. It is almost strange to not have plans....What's on television? Nothing probably. Maybe we'll watch a movie. Sometimes we play "disc jockey." "DJ" to you younger people. Yeah, it sounds silly but it's fun to do. We each choose a song to play. We take turns. Put on the CDs and have fun. Sometimes we dance, or sing along with the music. I like to dance. We listen to music we haven't heard in awhile.....Friday night, no plans......

After photos of the bathroom...

Another "after" photo......Although the toilet looks pink in this photo, it really is a beige color and looks great with the gold. The color is HC-8 from Benjamin Moore.

This project began two weeks ago and it was just finished today...finally! Three days were spent just scaping off wallpaper and washing the walls. Then the spackling began. Sanding was the biggest mess, even though we covered everything. The old radiator covers (house was built in 1964 and I did not want a major renovation since this is a quest bathroom) needed a good sanding and painting with rust-preventive paint. So I covered the walls and floor, sanded using a belt sander and then spray painted with Rust-0-leum paint. The removable parts were taken outside for that. The spackling needed to be done over a few times since we are not professionals. Then the celing needed to be painted and all ceiling fixtures covered and then cleaned afterward. Then the primer coat was done. Finally the gold color was applied being careful of the white trim. The white trim was last but probably shouldn't have been. Very carefully I needed to go around the ceiling and window and door without smearing paint on the gold. After this all dried, I needed to clean, clean, clean. Dust and paint was everywhere! The window was washed and blinds replaced. Floor was washed and using a scraper, every paint chip and bit of glue, removed. Last finite touch-ups with paint and then the shower stall, cleaned. I washed and oiled the cabinets outside and cleaned all the inside areas and drawers....threw out all the unwanted "junk" and expired medications...lined the drawers and cabinets with Rubbermaid liner.

It's done and I think it looks great but next time I'll hire a professional painter. The project began on a rainy weekend so we thought it was no big deal but we also worked on beautiful days when we could have been out on the boat. At night we were too exhausted to do anything but relax. When I think of how many times we were on and off the ladder and climbing over "stuff" I realized that we could have gotten hurt so easily. Would it have been worth it then?

There is something so satisfing though, with doing a job well done. I guess I miss that now that I'm retired. Work gave me that feeling of accomplishment that I guess I miss in some way. I think I'll write about my job some other time.

The bathroom project...

"After" picture, complete with artwork. I "recycled" art that I had and found a new place for the birdhouses. I was thinking of hanging pictures of birds but that was too contrite. I decided to add the cats since that is what we sometimes see under the birdhouses. The cats, figure and picture, are whimsical.

"After" picture of the bathroom...finally!

Primer coat is on....