Happy Anniversary

This weekend was hard. This week begins with our anniversary. I am grateful to God for giving me an amazing man to share my life with it. 

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Three

A third death happened this week – my friend’s sister – just 48 years old. It’s a lot of wakes and funerals this week.

I’m a little bit beat and feel just out of it.

Happy Birthday in heaven to my brother, Phil.

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Two Deaths….Is a Third Inevitable?

Two friends died this week…..and it’s just the beginning of the week. I have never experienced a time when just one person I know dies – it’s always three. So I am avoiding the phone because I don’t want to hear any more bad news this week.

The first person who passed was my friends husband. He was so young and they have young children. Besides being a great husband and father, he was a real good guy. I had so many deep discussions with him about his children. He always looked at his children as if they were the greatest gift he received. Even when his kids upset him, he still looked at them with love and kindness.

And tonight one of my neighbors rang the bell because another neighbor passed. I loved her dearly.

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St. Patty’s Day Weekend

I love when St. Patrick’s Day falls on the weekend. 

St. Patrick’s Day is my second favorite holiday – it’s stress free and everyone loves to celebrate.  It’s going to be a busy weekend with guests, baking soda bread, celebrating and more celebrating…… after all it’s great to be Irish!

There are a lot of events going on around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and NYC so go and celebrate! 

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Earrings I Love

 I found the Dotted Poppy Etsy Shop a few months ago. The owner, Deb is the mother of a blogger that I read often, Kate of the Small Things Blog.  I noticed that Deb creates earrings similiar to those at Anthropologie. The earrings are light, comfortable and don’t turn. I purchased a few pairs for myself and friends. Besides having great earrings, Deb ships fast and has the cutest packaging too!

These are my most recent purchase: 

 The Dotted Poppy doesn’t know the Queen of the Click.

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John Quaglione is the Problem

John Quaglione do politicians start out as good people who want to help the community or are they just people who are looking to use the system for their own benefit?

Last Spring, freight trucks started using our residential block regularly instead of the streets which were designed to handle the weight of these trucks. The foundations on our 1950’s built Bay Ridge homes are cracking because they can’t handle that amount of vibration.  My neighbors told me there were signs at the end of the street that deterred that type of traffic, but they have since been removed. I contacted 311 and the following day the call was closed (the reason: there are no signs there…..311 isn’t always effective).  I wrote to Marty Golden’s Office and explained the issue and asked for help to get the signs restored. 

Initially communication from John Quaglione at Golden’s office was good. Here’s his e-mail to me:
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John Quaglione – Bay Ridge

When I saw last week’s Brooklyn Paper, the ‘Twitter’ story caught my attention. I recognized the names involved, but I don’t know either man that well. As I read the story, I was annoyed that these two men argued over the littlest thing: Quaglione’s garbage and recyclying weren’t picked up. Now of course that is not pleasant, but here’s why it was SO Annoying -> John Quaglione has worked in Senator Martin Golden’s office for 15 years and has contact to everyone (info from comments of this article), but decided it would be a good idea to complain about the lack of service on twitter.

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Dear Senator Golden

I contacted Senator Marty Golden’s office in June 2012. I exchanged several e-mails with Ray Riley/ John Quaglione at Martin Golden’s office. I thought Riley was a much older man because he took a long time replying to an e-mail and didn’t follow up. When I called the Golden’s office and left a message with the admin for Riley, I did not get a call back. Eight months later and these two office employees are blocking access to Mr. Golden. NOT ONCE DID SENATOR GOLDEN STEP IN.  He’s the person who was elected to this position – not his staff. All e-mails from both workers are CC’d to each other and not Golden. I wrote again to Golden and just get them. The twitter account and facebook account are also run by these men so they deleted my fb message and ignore twitter tweets. You can see my problem here and although I reported it to Golden in November 2012 – no follow up happened.

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Kind Words from a Former Student

I don’t love Facebook, but if I don’t  go on there, then I will miss the kind words that my former students share with me. This student has a job lined up at Boeing after graduation this June too – he’s amazing! And I am grateful and blessed.

Here’s the video he shared:

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Found a Lump on My Cat’s Hind Leg

I wrote about Herb a few days ago and then saw many people had found my site while searching for “found a lump on my cat’s leg.”  I am going to expand on what I wrote so this can help other cat owners who have found a bump on their cats leg.

Fourteen years ago Lee found Herb abandoned outside of a subway station. Lee put Herb in his coat and brought him home.  Herb  had a lot of broken bones, but was after a visit to the vet, he was pieced up and came home to a house with dogs. Herb loved the dogs as soon as he met them. This picture was taken 14 years ago on the day Herb became part of our life.

Two weeks ago, while Lee was petting our cat, Herb and he found a lump on Herb’s back leg. Herb is a Bombay kitty,  weighs 9lbs and is pretty active.

Herb is a very sweet cat and looks at Lee with such adoring eyes (like this picture below)

Lee was able to push on the lump a bit and it felt strange. I did not touch it because I assumed it was cancer and  I didn’t want it to burst on the inside (which it can do it).  I am cutting this post here and posting the picture of the cat leg lumps under the cut because it is kind of gross and you may not want to see unless you have a cat with a lump.

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I Love Stormy Days

There’s something beautiful about the way it looks right before a storm.

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn 3/1/13

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Dooce Sold Her House and Begins a New Chapter in Life

Dooce Blogger, Heather Armstrong sold her Mansion. The Federal Heights, Salt Lake City house was originally listed for $1,595,000 in July 2012, but was reduced to $1,475,000 and then to $1,390,000. I guess the housing market hasn’t improved in Utah like it has in Brooklyn. I was curious about what the actual offer on the home was because Utah looks like a nice place to retire to someday. As of 2/28/13, Zillow now lists the home at $1,182,810 but the home probably went for a little more than that because when we purchased our home, Zillow listed it for a little lower than we purchased it for. The 9 bedroom – 9 bathroom home looks comfortable and luxurious. I can imagine how hard it must be to give up a dream home.

The home was originally listed with one realtor who kept her address private. But then the home went to MLS multiple listings service and her address was all over the web. It doesn’t matter now as they have moved.

Where did Dooce and her girls move to? They will probably stay in the Salt Lake City area because Heather’s family is there. There seems to be a lot of nice affordable homes in the area as well. I wish them luck in starting their new home and I look forward to see her modern decorating style in the new place.

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