Laundry

I've been doing my own laundry since I was a teenager, this is probably one of my least favorite household chores, along with cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, cleaning up after the kitties, doing dishes, loading and unloading the dishwasher, grocery shopping. Okay I guess I am not a fan of any household chores. But I digress.

I have some friends who really enjoy laundry and take pride in being able to get out those really tough stains. Before they were home owners my brother and sister in law would bring their laundry to my parents each Saturday. This would be a day long adventure for them, they'd come in with two baskets and for some reason 8 hours later they were still working on the laundry. I couldn't understand that, especially when if I were in a real hurry I would just throw a weeks worth of laundry in all together and wash everything on the cold cycle. Everything still comes out clean. Right?

So over the last 20 + years I suspect I have done approximately 2, 400 loads of laundry. In my parents basement, in the college dorm, the laundromat, and my own home. Once during my graduate school days I spent a Friday evening at the laundromat with my hypnotherapy text book. Yes, it's true I took a class on hypnotherapy, and as a graduate student I had no life so I did my laundry on Friday evenings. It was during one of these evenings that a male patron loudly asked to all who waited patiently for our clothes to finish spinning or drying "Does this tiny bra belong to any of you?" Mortified I looked up to see this "gentleman" holding one of my very tiny bras. And what did I do I looked up quickly and said "Nope not mine." And that Friday night I lost one of my bras. I am however very proud to say that in all of my years of doing my laundry I have NEVER lost a sock. That is a true story.

Good Books and Poker

Several years ago my friend K. thought it would be a good idea to start a book group, she thought it would be a good way to force her to read (it hasn't). So we formed a little group, and over the years have read a total of 54 books to this point. We've had a few that have been out of the park home runs and a few that well none of us have finished and we've wondered why did we chose that one? We've shared some great meals, laughed a lot and have had some amazing conversations. Our friend G. does like to remind us from time to time to stay on task that we are a book club NOT a social club, it is hard with 8 women not to get off topic and really just enjoy each others company.

A few months ago K probably craving more social time and less book time thought it would be fun if a few of us got together to play cards. So we set up our first Poker night. Okay not really we set up our first Eucre night, none of us knew how to play Poker. Truth is we are not really great Eucre players either. The conversation during a Eucre game go something like this.

K - Who remembers how to keep score?

Silence

L - Well I think I do. Yeah, I do were good to go.

C - Who dealt again and what's trump?

M - I dealt and remember C you are my partner - I just put down the Left bower.

G - Oh Okay

K - Are you two cheating?

Lots of idle chit chat about what's going on in our lives, work, food. Boy that Shack pizza is good tonight. Is Shack pizza ever bad?

M - Whose turn is it?

Lots of laughter

C - M did you deal that?

M - Yes

C - Okay pick it up

More Laughter

C- You know we would all be shot in Western times.

It takes us about 90 minutes to play one round, but we have a lot of laughs doing it. I'm thankful for both my book club and my "poker" club.

Spring!

I love spring, it is by far my favorite time of the year. Why? Well for one it means that winter is along way off. I live in NY state, in a part of NY state that sees a lot of snow, a LOT of snow, although this year folks have remarked on what an unremarkable winter it has been, that we actually only had 7 weeks of snow and that people are moving back to NY state because of our wonderful weather. I enjoy living in a part of the country where we do actually experience 4 distinct seasons, and I have to say that this spring for some reason has been especially beautiful. I love taking pictures, I have a camera with me at all times, and many times I stop to try to capture the beauty of the seasons, but I've realized lately that it is difficult to capture the true beauty of spring, and that sometimes it is better to just stop and enjoy it.

Those pink trees are my favorite and I find myself giggling as I look at them and stand in amazement at their beauty. Scripture does tell us though that beauty is fleeting, and before we know it those crazy colors have turned to green and we barely give those trees a second look. Slow down, stop and look at the trees.

Seriously, Why I am starting another blog?

This is the second blog I've started, the first one I thought I would dedicate more to family and my photography but I realized that after having it for two years I had only updated it 5 times. I have since deleted all my posts, however I have kept my url for the site because I like it and I may go back and use it more for my photography, but no longer for family photos. I'll save those for Facebook.

I've noticed something lately about the blog world, everyone has one and there are lots of really talented people out there with amazing blogs, unfortunately there is also a lot of junk. Hopefully this will fall somewhere in between.

So who am I and why am I starting another blog? I'm a lover of life, and enjoy good cups of coffee, being surrounded by my amazing family and friends. I am passionate about my faith in Christ. I'm a full time college administrator - where I assist students in trying to "figure out what they should do for the rest of their lives" in my free time you can find me curled up reading good books, often several at a time, trying to grow flowers in my garden and taking pictures of anything and everything.

I've noticed lately that there are lots of blogs about food. This will not be one of them. I have a hard time finding my way around my kitchen and if it were not for the resale value of my house I probably wouldn't have one. I am a master of the microwave however and I have begun to master the crock pot. I've been known to whip up some tasty baked goods from time to time but these instances are few and far between.

Again I'm not sure how or for what purpose I will utilize this blog but I'm a keen observer of things around me and I'd love to tell you about it.