Near

I have been near my computer all day. Tuesdays are longer days for me in that I work at BPG until lunch and then I head over to the church and work there until 5pm or so. I take my laptop into the building because it has been too cold to leave out in the car. I keep it near me.

I also keep it near me because of the 2013 DC stolen laptop experience. I have panic attacks when I can't find something important. (Things listed under this category are my phone, my wallet, and my glasses. All are thing I have misplaced and then had said panic attack before finding them minutes later.)

At the church I work at my desk and use my laptop. You could say, it's near me there too.

After my day at work, I came home and had to shovel the driveway. It was covered in a nice coat of heavy, wet snow topped by a thin layer of ice.

I have heard more people wish they were on a cruise or in a sunny location today than all the days this winter combined.

Even though we had a lovely, sunny day yesterday.

Back to shoveling snow, or what I do best.

I did not have my laptop near me while I was shoveling.

I will end with this thought; we are one day closer to Spring. It is near. I could feel it in the air outside while I was shoveling.

oh to be back under the Tuscan sun

It was five years ago that we took our Mediterranean cruise. I never got around to posting all of the pictures on my blog (surprise?) and only got through a couple of days talking about it.

Now, five years later, I'm taking time each day to look at the photos that I carefully labeled and placed in albums.

Plural.

I took six hundred photos in fourteen days.

All of them are in three photo albums.

Then I made a scrapbook that highlights each day. 

We were in Tuscany on this day. We took an excursion to a vineyard. 

The story for that day was:

Jenny & I had to use the ladies room, so while we were doing that John and Bill were discussing the idea of bringing a bottle of wine with us to drink on the bus. It was a long ride back to the ship from the vineyard. 

They went to Diego (our driver) and asked him if it was okay to do that. He said yes and John went to go get the wine while Bill went to go get the "cups". (Cups because what else were we going to drink out of? The wine glasses from the vineyard?)

They met back up. Diego was standing over by the bus in a suspicious looking stance. He called John & Bill over to him. Cautiously they walked over to where Diego was standing.

Diego was busy wiping out four wine glasses that he had swiped from the vineyard! He told Bill and John that drinking out of cups was no good. 

When Jenny & I came out of the restroom, John and Bill were waiting to tell us their tale.

When we got back to the ship we took a photo with Diego and Simona (our guide) and our wine glasses.

Sadly, only one glass made it back to the States in one piece. 

I would post these photos, but they are on the back-up hard drive that we (Bill) have yet to connect to my laptop. 

retirement and friends

We drove to Detroit today for a retirement party. Bill's former boss (when Bill was in Operations) Ron has retired to Traverse City with his wife, Cindy.

We've known Ron and Cindy as long as we've known John. 

Since I don't think I've ever blogged about this before, I will now:

   Jenny and I have known each other since college. We met in one of our Historic Preservation classes. We found out it was a small world when we discovered that she is from Birmingham, Michigan which happened to be where Bill was living at that time. Since then, Jenny and I have been friends. 

I have blogged about Jenny before, she and John host the annual Halloween parties that we go to. They also host the holiday parties for work and Jenny hosts a cookie party that I have attended off and on the past few years.

We met John when they were dating. They had gone out to New York City and we were still living in Toms River. We met up with them for dinner and a show, Spam-A-Lot, which was amazing! (Side note: we saw David Hyde-Pierce, Hank Azaria, and Tim Curry!)

Shortly after that, they were engaged. Then, six years ago to this day, we packed up and moved to GR. I made it to Jenny's shower, bachelorette party and we were at their wedding that year.

Then, in 2007 the four of us went on the Mediterranean cruise. 

In 2009, we went to St. Joe for Jenny's birthday and a wine tour (I managed to blog, albeit briefly, here).

Needless to say, we've done a lot with Jenny and John and I consider them close friends.


But this started out for Cindy and Ron, so good luck to them as they relax with family in TC. I'm sure I'll get to see them in the spring when Quota heads there for the annual conference!

my cameo

For those of you who are car enthusiasts, no I did not mean Camaro.

Nor did I mean a cameo appearance.

I mean the kind of pendant that hangs around a neck. It's typically a silhouette. They are carved out of shells, coral, or stone.

We visited the Donadio Cameo factory (by the way, if you click the link, choose Inglese) when we were on our Mediterranean cruise. The factory is between Naples and Pompeii. They explained the process of making cameos, and how most of the carving now is done with lasers. They are still carving them by hand at Donadio (or at least that's how I understood it, have you ever taken a tour in another country? Their interpretations into English aren't always correct.)

Bill bought one for me. By comparison, it was small, but I liked it best out of all the choices. It's a blue-ish green. I don't wear it too often and I don't wear my hair in a bun (that's just a reference to being "old-fashioned") when I wear my cameo. Hair-do aside, I don't have too many outfits that it goes with.

Not that it matters.

I'm way off track.

I wore it today. It reminds me of our trip and not wearing it that often brings more meaning.

I'm blogging about this now because I never finished blogging about our cruise. Since I wore it today, I thought I would reminisce and share the story of my cameo. 

*Editor's Note: I've been seeing a lot of photos being posted via Instagram. So I just added it on Bill's phone, took this picture to post and may be addicted...

scarves

I like scarves. I have blogged about a few that I crocheted here. But I don't think I've ever explained my love of scarves.


I don't know when it unofficially started. But officially I started hunting for scarves after our Mediterranean cruise.


In Barcelona, on our way to dinner, we saw a man selling scarves. It seemed the European thing to do, so Jenny picked out a pink scarf and I picked out the bright, lime green scarf. We paid a few Euros for them. From then on I was determined to find scarves for a good bargain.

I bought a silk scarf in Venice. It goes from a light shade of gray to darker.


Then when I was in New York City with the young adults, even though it was May and should have been warm, it was literally freezing. I told Sami if we saw any scarves I wanted to buy one. Sure enough we found them. Well, Sami found them, and much like a cartoon, yanked me into the store. That's where I bought my pink one for $10.


The light blue one came next. Last year in the Atlanta airport I spotted it and bought it on our way home from Savannah. I paid $10.


Then came the dark blue one. This one was purchased by Bill for me for Christmas. It came all the way from Jacques Penney. 

The last two, the gray one in the center and the dark brown one, I just received this last weekend from Jenny. She bought them for me in Doha. 

I've learned how to tie them in a couple of different ways too.

I like scarves.


What colors should I look for next?

Tuscany

Well drat.

I was going to post pictures from our cruise since I never finished four years ago. Now I know why. They're not on this computer. They're on the hard drive for the Mac.

The hard drive which is collecting dust because we never replaced it after giving our Mac to my parents so they could join the twenty-first century.

I have all the photos printed and in an album. And in a scrapbook. They're available in my Walgreens online account.

Four years ago we were in Tuscany. Enjoying good food and good wine.

The best story from that day was while Jenny and I were using the restrooms Bill and John had a little adventure.

They had been discussing taking wine with us on the long bus ride back to the ship. Together, they went over to Diego the bus driver and asked him if we were "allowed" to drink on the bus. Diego said sure so John said, "You go find some cups, I'll get the wine" and they broke off.

When they came back together a few moments later (Jenny and I were still waiting in line and had no idea what was going on), Diego called them over to the bus. The way he was standing suggested he was trying to hide something. John and Bill carefully approached him (this was Italy after all).

Diego was wiping out wine glasses with paper towels. He had swiped them from the vineyard because he didn't want us drinking wine out of plastic cups!!

There is a photo of the four of us holding our "hot" wine glasses with Diego and Simona (our guide) when we got back to the ship.

Of course we tried to bring the glasses back to the U.S. with us, but only one made it. Our suitcases were a little stuffed by the end of the trip. And knowing how gentle the people are who handle the luggage, it's really no surprise that three of them were broken.

just another Tuesday

Bill and I went and voted this morning. Did you?

There were three offices up for election and one proposal. There was no one in line when we got there, so it took all of four minutes. Two of those were spent telling the nice volunteer what our names were. He wasn't doing a very good job reading our driver's licenses. He called me Eunice.

As we left, we thanked them for volunteering.

It's a rainy, dark day here.

Four years ago we were on our cruise in the Mediterranean. Since it's Tuesday, we were in Villefranche. I blogged about the first two days of the cruise and then never finished... but you can check out that stop!

Kermit the Frog is going to be on Ellen tomorrow. Two weeks until the new Muppet movie is out in theaters!

I ran my errands and worked. My office is still a small disaster.

It's just another Tuesday...

soup

One of my favorite soups to make is a Tuscan white bean and garlic. I made it last night for dinner and it was souper yummy. It's really easy to make and is nice and creamy (once it's blended). I decided to find this recipe after I had this soup on our cruise. That seems like it happened ages ago, yet it was barely three and a half years ago.

The night that we left Dubrovnik, Croatia, Bill and I chose to go to Portofino for my "birthday" dinner (that is after all why we took the cruise, I milked that birthday...) instead of eating in the dining room. We ate a lot, and I remember every bite being delicious. That was also the first time I had ever had roasted garlic, another recipe I looked up immediately when we returned home.

The funny story about the soup is that our waitress (Melissa who was from South Africa and was wonderful) brought that course out, set the soup down in front of me, gave Bill his Tiger Shrimp Risotto and walked away. My bowl had five beans in it. That was it. As I was pondering whether this soup was clear and was about to put my spoon in it (I maybe had a few glasses of wine by this point), she brought out a little gravy boat that was filled with the broth. We all laughed and she told us that she does that with people who she knows can take a joke, but that she had people who ate the beans before she could get back to the table with the broth.

Maybe it was more the experience of eating the soup, rather than the taste alone (although I remember really liking it) that urged me to look up a similar recipe. Should I share it?? Is anyone interested? Hm, I just looked for a photo online and also checked the recipes from google (rather Goodsearch; use Goodsearch and select your favorite charity/non-profit to receive money for every click -then use google for better results) and the soup recipes that show up are quite different than mine!

A contest

Bill and I had a contest. We took turns taking black and white photos on the cruise. The best one will win a spot over the fireplace. Three are from Venice, the one is from Rome.

Which one do you choose?

Dinner for twelve

Before I go any further, I would like to introduce you to our dinner companions and our wait staff. Pictured at right on our first night are (l-r): Bill, Emily, Mario, Jenny & John. Mario is from Romania. He was our assistant waiter. He took care of making sure our wine glasses were always full, that our spot was nary a crumb, and that if we needed more water or bread he would provide. The first night at dinner, it was only the four of us. Then a couple sat down: Raymond & Cecelia. They are from Canada by way of Hong Kong. Then a few minutes later, another couple sat down, Michael & Carol. They were also from Canada by way of Hong Kong. The other four seats sat empty for two more nights. Then two young ladies showed up. They had missed the ship when it set sail out of Barcelona due to flight delays. Would you like to guess where they were from? Yup, Canada, by way of Asia. They actually changed seatings, so we only ran into them when walking around the ship.

Here we are pictured with Raymond and Cecelia. They were very nice and we enjoyed their dinner company very much.

The following night, Jenny, John, Bill and I went to Chops Grille, one of the two restaurants on the ship. We can't say we had good service and the food was only so-so. However, that night the mysterious couple came and ate dinner and they never showed up again! (we can only guess that they were Asian, however they were from California.)



Here Jenny and I are pictured with our waiter, Bernadeth. She is from the Philippines. She was awesome! Well, both of them were. They would do anything for us. We miss having them there to unfold our napkins in our laps every night. Yes, they spoiled us. They didn't want us doing anything. Bill often got his dessert taken away for cleaning his crumbs off from his spot! I would get two desserts. I don't know if I gained any weight or not. I go to the doctor next week. I'll let you know! I did weigh myself on the ship on Day 2, (and I wanted to bring that scale home with me!) so I have an idea. Of course that food poisoning "diet" before we left, really helped! We did walk a lot on the ship, two miles almost every day.

I digress, Bernadeth and Mario were amazing. They took excellent care of us. Mario finished his contract and went home to Romania. He has a girlfriend that he's going to get serious about, and Bernadeth will have two weeks off for Christmas. She has two children who are living with her mother, while she works.

Back on dry land

We made it back. There is much to share! I have over 600 pictures... so um, it may be awhile before I get them on here (no, not all 600). I was loading them into Walgreens last night so I can print them and our internet went down. I plan on working on that again tonight. I will also post a few pictures so you can see the beginnings of our trip. Travel-wise, everything was very smooth for us (not so for our friends Jenny & John. They're still waiting for one piece of luggage). Of course the flights were very long, but at least on the cross-Atlantic flight we had video screens. (thank goodness, my last trans-atlantic was ten years ago and they didn't have those then!) I watched; "Hairspray", "The Mask", and "Dodgeball" on the way over and "Cars" on the way back.

Our favorite saying became, "I'm done!" It referenced many different things, mostly being done with stupid people (like the woman who stopped in the middle of the cafe to take a sip of her coffee, right in front of John who plowed into her). Unfortunately we kept "running" into those people. I can't tell you how many times we took the stairs several flights to avoid the elevators and the people who only went up one floor. We got our exercise!

Our weather was fantastic. It only rained one day, in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We heard the cruise before ours had rain everyday. We lucked out. It actually rained in Santorini too, but we were already on the boat. Every one of our guides mentioned global warming. It was a bit disconcerting to me to hear how much it is effecting the entire world. *

I will start at the beginning in the next blog and go from there!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

*Editor's note: I realize that global means the entire world. What I mean by this is how much it is in the news everywhere, just like it is here in the U.S. It is not merely a story being talked about locally, but is a serious concern and is being just as recognized everywhere, as it were, globally.

Bon Voyage!

I'll be back in a few weeks. I'll have stories and plenty of pictures to share. I am so excited!!! I got a pedicure on Thursday for the cruise. I was able to cross off that as one of the things on my list of 30 things to do for my 30th birthday. The countdown is getting closer. And now for the fun part, for your reading pleasure here is our schedule (say it like shedule all British-like)

the Sailing Itinerary:

Date Port

Nov. 5 Barcelona, Spain
Nov. 6 Nice, France
Nov. 7 Florence/Pisa, Italy
Nov. 8 Naples, Italy
Nov. 9 Cruising
Nov. 10 Venice, Italy
Nov. 11 Venice, Italy
Nov. 12 Dubrovnik, Croatia
Nov. 13 Cruising
Nov. 14 Santorini, Greece
Nov. 15 Athens, Greece
Nov. 16 Cruising
Nov. 17 Rome

Bon Voyage!