The Boyle Wedding

Kate & Ryan were married last weekend and Stan & I were there. This will be a short post because I just want to try to upload my video of the Boyles' first kiss. Then I'll do a longer post later in the week to talk about the wedding and Stan's & my whole trip. Egad.

Meanwhile, here's the "First Kiss."

It's a Loonnngggg Winter

Well, today is April 1 and the 18" of snow (or so) that's still here is melting pretty quickly ... right now. It's around 55 degrees and it's raining off and on but tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 40s again. At least it's better than a week ago when it was 5 degrees when Stan got up.

VERY little is newsy around here. I'm actually rather bored and am considering looking for a part-time job doing anything that will get me out of the house. I'm not too interested yet but am thinking about it. I'd probably be pretty content if I could cross-stitch many hours every day but my hands won't let me: tendonitis in my right thumb really cuts down on the amount of time I can spend with a needle in my hand.

I do have to show off what I'm calling our Impatiens Gargantua. This is a "volunteer" plant that simply came up in a pot that Stan had under some timed fluorescent bulbs in the basement. He didn't even know what kind of plant it was. I identified it as an impatiens, but then it just kept growing. It's about 2-2 1/2' tall now. And it now has shoots growing off at several levels and some of them are flowering, while the blossoms on the top of this tall beauty just keep on coming. By the time it's warm enough to put it outside, this plant will be a shrub! I didn't know that impatiens could grow in this way, especially the height thing. But it seems to like the window it's now in so we hope to keep it growing.

So now we're heading out West to both visit Stan's daughter and attend our niece's wedding. This should be a nice visit even if it isn't the best weather season yet. Stan finally said that he really wanted to go more like June but he'd not said a word prior to yesterday. Sigh. We haven't seen his daughter in over 2 years so it's time, regardless the season. I'm looking forward to the trip.

I'll think about my future ... in the future.

Drawer Pulls Redux

Well, I think it worked. The muy expensivo new hardware did update the dresser set as much as it could and I think it looks pretty good. You be the judge.





We're both pretty happy with the change. Like I said, the quality of the pieces is a level I can't afford at current prices. Stan showed me the original price of the chest-on-chest: $169.95. That was in 1961!

My sister Amber asked if the lamp ever made it to Elise & Pedro's--I had tons of trouble getting it from NY to FL. We finally took it down in Stan's bag, swathed in bubble wrap. It made it in one piece, but there was no way to get the shade there too. So I have a perfectly good lampshade tucked (as much as you can tuck something that size--they are truly obnoxious!) into a closet. And Elise got a shade that she likes for the lamp, a beautiful wine-red color. Fitting, don't you think?

Today my goal is to stay alive. This upper respiratory thing both Stan & I have is really a killer. I'm pretty sure mine morphed into a sinus infection. (I think his did too but he won't do anything about it for at least another week--anything as in, see a doctor.) I have an annual check-up scheduled for tomorrow so I'll ask then for antibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed.

Florida in January

We're back from our Florida trip and I'm currently watching it snow ... again. In FL, of course, there was no snow. And that was nice. Very nice. No jacket needed. Sun warm enough to really enjoy sitting in. Too cool for getting into the pool but warm enough to sit outside next to it.

Stan & I haven't done a southern vacation for several years. Last time was our 2d trip to Tiamo, a lovely resort on South Andros in the Bahamas. Stan loved bonefishing and I loved snorkeling and sunning. But Tiamo would cost about $7K for a week now, far far far beyond what we're willing to spend. Next southern winter trip may be a 1-2 month rental in FL; I'm thinking Homossassa area (1 hr north of Tampa) or the Sebring area (about an hour east of Tampa). I'm going to have fun looking!

We went to an NHL game while in Tampa: the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. the Buffalo Sabres. It was a ton of fun, especially since Pedro had tickets that got us into the free-food-schmooze area that's used by many corporations. What an amazing smorgasbord!! Good food, free wine/beer, great desserts AND a pro hockey game! I just don't think you can ask for more in one night. Luckily the uber-wicked cold that Stan got didn't really check in until the next day ... and I didn't get my own update of it until we got home. Both of us would be more than happy to be the first volunteers in line for head transplants, or even just exchanges for sinuses.

Kyrin was a perfect child as usual. She has grown so much since we saw her in December! One month and she's a rootin' tootin' toddler.

I'm sure I know the model for the Energizer Bunny! She's getting ever cuter as her own darling personality infuses her looks. This picture was taken on our trip to Tampa's excellent aquarium. All of us had a good time.

The last photo is of Pedro playing "monkey man" (he created the name, not me!).

Pedro & Elise had their kitchen floor retiled while we were there and none of us thought about the fact we wouldn't be able to walk on it for a night! So Pedro got into the cabinets for things like plates and silverware--we hadn't planned to order out but had to. (It was a good thing we had the hockey game the next night because the stove was still in the family room!) He did a great job balancing! Stan & I have to say again how much we enjoyed the visit and say a giant thank you to Pedro & Elise.

Drawer Pulls

I know, I know, a weird topic for a blog. But my morning was not fun and all because of drawer pulls. I "inherited" a very nice dresser set when I moved in with Stan--he & his first wife had bought it in the '60s and it's made with the quality that was readily available back then. Both my dresser and the "chest on chest" style highboy (Stan's) are completely solid wood, maple to be exact. And they're in remarkably good shape--a few nicks but I don't notice them often and I'm the one they have to please!

But they're not too fashionable. How can a dresser set be fashionable, you might ask. I don't know how to answer that except to say that this one looks like it's a few years out of style. So I thought I might use some of my royalties to get a new set. Well, I can't afford it. Not unless I want to spend $3K for a set. Anything that's solid wood these days is priced in the stratosphere. So I had this brilliant idea to update the set by getting new drawer pulls. How much could that cost? Certainly not what a whole new good quality set would.

I found a terrific site cleverly labeled knobsandhardware.com that has more drawer pulls than anyone could imagine. They're not cheap. AND I had an additional problem: because of the age of the set, they have pulls that are a somewhat unusual size in this day & age. There are 10 handle-style drawer pulls and 12 knobs for the smaller drawers. The 10 big ones use 2 screws to hold them on and the screws are 6" apart. That's what makes them unusual. Before I found the Web site I'd looked at Lowes and all handles there have 3-4" spaces between the screws. So I was ecstatic when I found that I actually had a selection of 6"-spaced pulls. And they all had matching knobs. So I selected and ordered ($350+ for the order!!!! But still cheaper than a new dresser.) and the hardware arrived yesterday.

I went to put them on, pretty excited at getting a new look this easily--no moving furniture, no having to get rid of old furniture that Stan would surely want to hang onto. And then I discovered that the stupid drawer KNOBS were put on with 2 screws too. HEAVY gnashing of teeth! Who on god's green earth would think to look at knobs before ordering replacements just in case the old ones use 2 screws? Obviously not me. More heavy gnashing. And more. And more.

So I just ordered another $72 worth of brass: plates to go behind the knobs to cover up the extra holes. I'm not taking anything out of their individual plastic packages until the plates arrive and I see if they'll do the job. If I have to send everything back it'll cost a fortune--those drawer pulls must weigh 20 lbs. If the plates do work, I'll be sure to take before & after photos and you all (all 1 of you interested reader out there) can tell me if I accomplished the seemingly simple task of updating my bedroom.

Just one other whine and I'll go away. I made a very neat lamp for Elise's house. She & Pedro have a bar in their home (Pedro's dad built it) so I took a clear glass lamp I've had for ages and filled it with wine corks. It looks pretty cool.

I even had on hand a box big enough to ship it WITH lampshade, only to discover that FedEx (cheapest way at Mailboxes Plus) would cost $55 and USPS would be $33. Aha, said brilliant Starla, never one to be overcome by surprise disappointments. I can take the box to FL on the plane, checking it as luggage. Not so, said JetBlue. No boxes allowed at all.

So the shade won't get shipped or checked or sent or anything. But Stan is willing to put the lamp, already bubblewrapped, into his checked bag, wrapping it in his jeans for extra cushioning. It'll be interesting to see if it makes it to FL.

My dentist won't have much work in the future if I gnash my teeth down to nubbins!

Queen for a Night (or Two)

I stayed in this amazing building on Tuesday and Wednesday nights this week. (More description far below.) I was in Philly at Rosemont College to present a workshop on my favorite topic, Teaching As Performance. It was a great workshop: I was asked to do something different from group-work-with-reports so I came up with the idea to do demos of both bad teaching and good teaching. The workshop participants got to play bad students in the second demo. They were challenging! But it was truly fun to model behavior I'd talked about, and I do believe that I've done in my own classes just about everything I did there. What fun. I gave out my own evaluation forms and asked "The strongest characteristic of the presenter was ______." There were two common responses: enthusiasm and confidence. Even better than that, however, were the answers to the question: "One thing I will remember from this workshop is ______." I'm happy to report that those answers were all over the map. That says to me that I didn't beat any one thing to death. One of the nicest comments was that I kept the participant's attention all day. And for me it was a LONG day!

A nice little anecdote for my workshop war stories is that there was a fire drill halfway through my first presentation. I recovered from that, got everyone back on track, and then some maintenance worker decided to move a large metal ladder and a 4x4 metal platform off the stage behind where I was talking ... WITH the curtains open. Did he not hear me or see me ... and the 60 workshop participants? I finally asked him if he could find another time to do that job and he went away. I have to say it was funny even at the time.

So I came home sort of optimistic because I met a corporate librarian who works for a giant drug company and she thinks my workshop would make a good Continuing Ed. "course" for the Medical Library Association. So I'm beginning to complete their application form and since she's head of their marketing division, I believe I'll get some great support. Wow.

I bought myself a reward on the way home. It's a lovely chocolate brown watch: dark brown metal mesh band with a brown watch face that's sort of marbly-reflect-y like abalone shell. It supposedly has 4 small diamonds marking the 12, 3, 6, 9 spots; I'm not sure I believe they're diamonds. But I think it's pretty classy and will figure out something to wear with it at my next gig.

That has put me in a great mood for the last few days. I'm even beginning to work on creating my own Web page. I have one on the college's server but I'm not sure I really want to update it. I'm thinking I'd rather be my own creator. I'm really a dumbo about this so it'll take me forever to get a good page together. A big part of this goal is to get my brochure Web-accessible. The drug co. librarian asked me to send her the brochure as an e-mail attachment and she'll print it and distribute it, so I know I can do that and it comes through all right. But boy, I'd love to tell people to go to http://..... You know, give myself a bit more of a tech-savvy look (all smoke and mirrors so far but maybe I'll get better).

Now. As for the castle above, it's "Main Building" on the Rosemont campus, a small Catholic college near Bryn Mawr and Villanova. There's no "the" before the title, which sounds strange to me, but what do I know. I was told that its original name was Rotholla, supposedly the Celtic word for "house" or "home" or "stone house," something like that. Google doesn't come up with anything close under that spelling so who knows. Anyway it was the SUMMER house of a wealthy family around the turn of the last century, it being 10 degrees cooler in Rosemont than in the heart of Philadelphia. "The Sisters" bought the place in the '20s and began the college with it as their only building. Now there's quite a nice little college there. Little as in miniscule--I just looked it up and there are 400 women students. My.

Large portions of the house have been kept in their original design with incredible woodwork and more leaded glass than you can shake a stick at. I wouldn't be surprised if one window was a Tiffany; it certainly was the right color blue. An elegant dining room is on the first floor and each of those round towers contains a room that's connected to the dining room; in one there's a grand piano and the other holds a round dining table for eight. There were at least two lovely chandeliers in that area; I can't remember for sure if the round rooms had them also but I think so. Several giant fireplaces were surrounded by sculptured rock or wood, and a beautiful main staircase split into two that continue up to the third floor with overlooking gorgeous woodwork bannisters all the way up in an open hallway. As big and overly sumptuous as it was, I could definitely see a family living there, particularly in the summer with its veranda and upholstered window seats for rainy days. Very beautiful.

My room was much quainter, with a single bed! When is the last time YOU saw or better, slept in a SINGLE bed? Verrrrrry old furniture in that room. But no drinking glass in the bathroom (spotless) or hangers. Odd. And since I was the only one in the building on both nights, very quiet! A nice stay but I missed having tea in the morning. So I was probably only a princess for two nights, or maybe even a mere lady-in-waiting. I would have liked the gown.

Eve of the Eve

I borrowed the title from a note from stepdaughter Linda; I think it's a nice name for Dec. 23. But I'm feeling pretty blue today. It's just me and Stan for Christmas, no other family here. Even Stan said yesterday, "I was just thinking it was a lot more fun when Jane and Dan were here." Now they're in Omaha, Elise, Kyrin & Pedro are up from Tampa and visiting his folks in Oswego (we'll visit them Dec. 26, weather permitting), Linda & Art are in Heber City, and Lana is in Austin, TX. Such a spread-out family sounds impressive--and it really is--but it's not as much fun on traditional family holidays. Since they are so far apart we'll only see them together at chance occurrences like weddings, or god forbid, funerals. So on other holidays we all travel as much as we can afford to. And I know that statistically there's apparently more people who visit relatives at Thanksgiving, I can get along alone with Stan on that holiday. This is the one that's harder. Maybe next year Stan will consider going to one of their houses for Christmas .....

Meanwhile, the weather is as gray as my mood. It's 43 degrees in Plattsburgh and our icicles, which were pretty impressive, are mostly melted. That's a good thing (in Martha-speak). Stan was up on the roof all afternoon yesterday shoveling off the snow. Nearly killed himself, the over-zealous idiot. But we do know that when the rain comes tonight it won't add weight to the roof because the snow is gone from it. That's Stan sometimes, safe but stupid. He keeps forgetting he's not 35 anymore!

Well, I did my treadmill like a good girl. Now I'm off to the showers. And maybe I'll make another batch of Spritz cookies, my favorites.