Cloud formation

Tags

clouds, pictures, postaday2014, traffic

When we were driving back home the other day, we were still in Jersey at that point and we were sitting in traffic, I was wondering out loud, “why is everyone on the Jersey turnpike?” and my eyes turned up to the sky and the clouds right off a little to my left struck me. Actually it was the small chunk of pristine white in the midst of the off-white fluff that caught my eye and I felt compelled to take a picture.

I love watching clouds and this particular grouping of clouds is a favorite; the spectrum of whites and grays is visually interesting and appealing and I like how the light blue sky peeks out in strategic areas. The small pop of green in the bottom, in my opinion, really makes the picture. Just my opinion. Taking pictures is fun. 🙂

Jack’s antics and pathways in the garden

Tags

bunnies, garden, Jack, pets, postaday2014

Whenever we get home, my husband and I are so happy to see our children, but as I said last week, we both seriously miss our Jack as well. Saturday morning when I let him outside, I saw the bunny outsmart him a few times running around in the garden. It made me think of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd with Jack being Elmer Fudd.

As I was working outside in the back; I couldn’t help but stop quite often to watch Jack gallop, prance and jump trying to find his elusive prey. I had to take pictures of his pathways and craziness; he takes his job seriously as chief hunter and predator. His backyard is his and woe to those who trespass, at least that is how he feels about it. The resident bunny isn’t on the same page, he brazenly goes about his business or her business. Do bunnies stay together after mating? Maybe we have a couple cohabiting and their children have gone off to make their lives elsewhere. I found two empty burrows or nests; so there were definitely babies just this past spring, same as last year. I had thought that the nests last year were a fluke and that the mother hadn’t quite been aware that Jack was ever present, but apparently the bunny doesn’t fear jack’s perpetual presence. Our bunny has nerves of steel because Jack really wants to get it.

You might not see Jack in all of the pictures, but he was in there at some point. He has his routes well mapped out and he goes in between the plants, ducking beneath Hostas leaves, trying to be stealthy while he searches for his bunny. He is very diligent with his perimeter patrols. He is quite the hoot, our little Jack.

Transformers:Age of Extinction: Movie Review

Tags

movie, postaday2014, Transformers

My husband and I needed a movie after the long week that we had and Transformers actually, believe it or not, has become a piece of nostalgia for us. When we hear the word Transformers; we immediately think of our son when he was 4, 5, 6 and up until 8 or 9 loving the autobots, the dinobots and singing the song “Transformers; robots in disguise”.

So even if the movies as a franchise are geared to a much younger crowd, we don’t care. I do remember that the last Transformer movie was awful, but we still saw it, so I didn’t go into seeing this one with high expectations of storyline or acting. Hooray for us, we were both happily surprised.

We are both fans of Mark Wahlberg and of Stanley Tucci. I know that Kelsey Grammar is in the movie but he didn’t effect me as much. Technically you can’t really count the Transformers as actors, but the voice overs are really good. The banter between the autobots is pretty witty and entertaining; I definitely had a few chuckles.

After the movie, I felt as if I had run a marathon; Michael Bay made the action super intense, not just in terms of the robots fighting each other but man on man scenes, I couldn’t help but physically get into it with my legs flailing out and my hands flailing, I actually hurt myself accidentally.

Stanley Tucci was a present just for me or at least I think so; who ever wrote his lines and the brilliance that he brings towards turning a phrase made me laugh out loud quite a few times.

My husband and I had a lot of fun enjoying the escape and we came home after food shopping and I made us shrimp scampi; after sautéing the shrimp, I deglazed the pan with lemon juice and chicken stock while scraping up the bits of the pan left from the caramelizing of the shrimp, I then threw minced garlic, about six or seven cloves and let that meld together after which I added three tablespoons of butter. Meanwhile the angel hair pasta was boiling away, once it was drained, I made sure to keep a little of the pasta water. I added the shrimp and the pasta to the sauce and then stirred in a ton of freshly chopped parsley. I must add that during the entire sautéing process, I salt and pepper the shrimp as I sauté them in batches so that after everything is said and done, I don’t need to add anymore salt. I added a ladle of pasta water and it was done. Our daughter went out, so it was the three of us and we enjoyed it. There are some leftovers for her as of now and hopefully later on as well.

Browsing through the Merrifield Garden Center

Tags

France, gardens, nursery, plants, postaday2014

Last night, while at the restaurant, Abby knowing how much I love gardening, told me that just across the street was the Merrifield Garden Center and it was one of the best that she had ever visited. So today I decided to go see for myself and the moment that I set foot on the grounds, I heard the familiar clicking of a sprinkler head sending bursts of water to an entire area of evergreens and I was transported back to my uncle’s house in Begles, France because every morning and every evening that sound was part of our auditory environment; just like the morning doves. When we were little my uncle would bring my cousin, my sister and I with him when he would go make the rounds at the main nursery in Castets-en-Dorthe; the smaller nursery at the house was really for visitors and daily traffic. The big business was at Castets. We loved to roam around the property playing hide and seek, we spent quite a few hours getting lost amongst the hedges and the rose bushes. The nursery is still in business; my cousin has expanded both operations and he is doing very well.

Merrield Garden Center gave me much needed plant love if that makes any sense. As I was strolling down each aisle gazing at the plants, I was taking mental notes and also thinking, I have this, I have that, that one has gone crazy, maybe I need another one of those. I also liked how they had their plants laid out; those in full sun and the great variety of plants in full and partial shade. I got a few ideas from their selection. The only thing that I have to keep in mind is that down here; the danger of frost is much less than up where we are and our frost is quite unforgiving so I would have to be very mindful of which plants I pick to put in my shaded areas.

Even just slowly walking around inhaling the various smells of evergreen, ivy, and pine just freshly watered, made me smile. For a few moments I forgot that there was a major road just behind me and that I was surrounded by concrete and tar. The wonderful scents of Foxglove, roses, dianthus, and asters plus a myriad of others wasn’t overwhelming in the slightest, perhaps it was due to the breeze mixed in with the spray of the sprinklers, but it definitely made me think of a scent that should be bottled.

I am itching to get back to my plot of a garden. Something to look forward to, hooray!

Meeting new people

Tags

conversation, postaday2014, Restaurant, sunflowers

Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers and have always been. I had fallen in love with the sunflower during one of our many, many road trips from Paris down to Bordeaux when I was little. The scenery from the car window was meadow upon meadow of sunflowers for as far as the eye could see and I have always associated the sunflower with the feeling of anticipation of seeing my family in Bordeaux after a long year of separation.

During the summer trip that our daughter and I took in 2012, we were driven down to Bordeaux from Rouen with our cousins Francoise and Nicolas and I was so excited to show our daughter the magnificent fields of sunflowers. She was as impressed as I had been when I first saw them all those years ago. The pictures that I had taken from the back of Nicolas’s car doesn’t do the flower the justice it deserves, so I found some other images to show how cheerful, beautiful and uplifting these flowers truly are.

The reason why I am writing about sunflowers is because last night my husband and I went out to a restaurant with a very lovely colleague that my husband has just started working with on a new project. The restaurant that was chosen for our dinner is called the Sunflower Vegetarian restaurant close by in Vienna Virginia.

I always get nervous upon meeting new people; I don’t know why, it isn’t as if I have ever had a bad experience before, but I get the butterflies in my stomach and I worry if I am going to talk too much or not enough or I won’t have anything to contribute to the conversation. Well last night I had nothing to worry about because Abby, that is her name, was so easy to talk to, very open and so very interesting. The conversation never fell into a lull, I had a really good time. So much so that I didn’t even pay attention to what we were eating; the conversation was that lively and interesting. My husband took care of the ordering and I took a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it all tasted good and I was satiated at the end. I was having too much fun with the table conversation.

I can never take really warm, welcoming and friendly people for granted. Anytime that I have the chance to spend time and converse with them is a plus in my life. We truly are social creatures.

Daily prompt: City Planners

Tags

children, postaday2014, school, towns

If you could clone one element from another city you’ve visited — a building, a cultural institution, a common street food, etc. — and bring it back to your own hometown, what would it be?

When my husband and I moved to Blandford twenty years ago; it was initially to provide help and support to his mother and grandmother and then we saw the benefits of what a small town could provide our children during their formative years.

We saw a small town with a strong sense of community, a brand new school, a pretty town park, a Historical Society, a Town Hall, a library and an adorable General Store. It seemed to be everything that small town Americana was supposed to be and we embraced it.

Sadly after we bought our house that I love with all of my heart; the school right behind our house was deemed to be superfluous to the district’s needs and was closed. We fought that decision tooth and nail, but in the end we still lost so we decided to take our children to another school district where they flourished because luckily that school and its teachers were amazing.

So if I were to do just one thing to change our town, it would be to clone that amazing other school and put it where Blandford’s old school is, to provide the town’s children a wonderful facility with amazing teachers.

What the regional school district failed to appreciate when they made their decision to close Blandford’s school wasn’t just the harm they did to the children, but the longterm harm they did to the town itself. Our town become much smaller the day it lost its school. Schools represent children, the future and investment in opportunities and by shutting our school we were given the message that the future wasn’t important for Blandford.

So there we are, the one thing needed to be cloned and inserted in my small town is a school; sadly, not an easy thing to accomplish.

Discovering a new area in Virginia

Tags

pictures, postaday2014, travel, Virginia

My husband’s new client has taken us to a new part of Virginia; not far from Reston, but it definitely has a distinct flavor different from my usual environment.

The area is called the Mosaic District in Fairfax county. It is a microcosm of boutiques, organic markets and old fashioned services such as an outstanding barber shop, a gorgeous tea shop and a wonderful stationary store.

The area is tiny, when I left the hotel to walk the perimeter, I quickly found my way back to the front of the hotel and not only because I walk really, really fast. It is perhaps four square blocks of real estate or 16 blocks in total. What was the most striking to me is when I walked past the last block of the Mosaic District; I was reunited with the flavor of Reston Virginia because it actually isn’t too far away. If I remember the drive correctly, we are about six exits farther away down the highway.

I do like this small haven of creative and eclectic shops and restaurants; it feels like a little vacation getaway hidden away, yet in plain sight.

Daily prompt: Sleepy time

Tags

insomnia, postaday2014, procrastination, sleep

More and more of us go to bed too late because of sleep procrastination. What are the nighttime rituals that keep you up before finally dozing off?

I recognize that I am incredibly lucky in the sleep department; if I want to go to sleep, all I need to do is get comfortable, close my eyes and off to sleep I go. I know that my ability to go to sleep is a luxury that apparently, if I listen to the almost constant barrage of commercials dedicated to sleep remedies, few ever know.

Having qualified my relationship with sleep; I confess that I am guilty of sleep procrastination at times. I love my t.v and there are times when my husband and I have a lot of catching up to do with our favorite programs so instead of rolling over to sleep, I make the conscience decision to stay awake to catch up with my stories. I have noticed that playing my favorite card games on my iPad is the easiest way that I can stay awake to finish watching my shows. I know this because the minute that I put away my iPad away to charge overnight. I inevitably fall asleep even as I fight against it.

All of the other things that may impede other people from sleeping such as light, noise, movement don’t bother me at all. The only physical thing that can get in the way of falling asleep is if I am too hot, like sweating hot or shivering cold, other then that sleep is never far away.

I have been woken up by my stomach being empty on occasion and all that it takes is a quick bite and I can fall back to sleep very easily. Which brings me to the sad thought that there are so many who sleep poorly each and every night because they are poverty stricken and either suffer from being too hot, too cold and/or going to bed hungry.

In a more just world, I am sure that we would come together as a society to work on eradicating those horrendous living conditions so that everyone can at least fall asleep in a comfortable environment with their hunger assuaged. That is my wish for the world.

World Cup in Brazil

Tags

postaday2014, soccer, sports, World Cup

Vive la France!!!
Normally I never watch soccer or le football, but it is the World Cup and the United States in still in it, but I am super excited that France is in the lead of its Group, Group E. They have 6 points and today they are playing Ecuador so I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will beat them and keep their top position within their Group. France has more points than Germany at this point so I am hoping that it continues in that vein. From what I gather Germany is pretty tough to beat, but what do I know. All I know is that historically France and sports don’t normally come together in things that come to mind when you think of France, so it would be nice if they won something big like the World Cup. For once, a nice little trophy on the nation’s mantle, all shiny, it would be nice. 😀

Hooray for France!!!

p.s I hope that I didn’t jinx them 😦

It’s just so good to be home

Tags

Jack, plants, postaday2014, summer

Our son and daughter have been taking excellent care of Jack and have gotten him very spry on his tippy toes. His sense of balance has much improved over the past several weeks, the adorable little baby boy. It was so refreshing to spend most of the day outside watering the plants, pruning my roses and other spent plants such as the bleeding hearts and chives. The weather was perfect, a constant breeze, the temperature in the mid 70’s, it doesn’t get better then this.

I didn’t expect the red roses to be in bloom just yet, it was a happy surprise, and I was equally surprised to see the deep red peonies open and in bloom. I forget that we are almost at the end of June; time is passing too quickly. I wonder if it is all of the mileage that my husband and I have been putting under our belts that has sped the clock. I still feel as if it were still June 1st, instead of the first day of summer.

Happy Summer! Happy Summer solstice 😀