Our Weekend in the Philadelphia Suburbs

We are home from our weekend trip to Philadelphia. We visited friends in the Philadelphia suburbs. We wined and dined and partied. We had a wonderful time!

Here are some photos I took of some of our favorite people and some of our favorite places.



This is the little town of Ambler, PA. We had lunch here with our best-ever nextdoor neighbors. These are our neighbors outside KC's Alley after lunch.



This is my husband and me during lunch at KC's Alley.



This is the old Ambler Theater, where we loved to go to movies. It's a real, old-fashioned neighborhood movie palace that was completely renovated.



Tomorrow I will post more pictures of some of the beautiful old stone houses and historical buildings in our old neighborhood.

Guess Where I Am Going This Weekend!

Back to Philadelphia! The city where I lived for sixteen years... the best years of my life. My husband was transferred there for his job in 1989. We came as strangers, but we found so many good friends, wonderful neighbors, great restaurants, a bustling, cultural city, and beautiful surrounding areas (Bucks County, the Brandywine Valley, New Hope, etc.)

We felt at home there. I thrived there. I became a different person there. I had grown up fairly sheltered in the Midwest, went to college in the Midwest, and had always lived in the Midwest. I became an "east coaster". I learned to love so many things there. We traveled a lot with good friends while we lived there.... Israel, Greece, Turkey, France, Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean. So many wonderful memories!

We are going back to visit our traveling friends. They are having an engagement party for their daughter. I don't think we will go back to see our house there. I still get too emotional when I see it and realize it's not mine anymore.

I will post some photos next week. Please forgive my gushing... I'm way too emotional!

We Live in "Interesting Times"

"May you live in interesting times". I remember my mom telling us about that old blessing/curse. Interesting times, indeed. I think they are upon us!

The stock market is tanking. Our personal investments are tanking with it. Auto makers are going bankrupt. Banks are failing. Today we heard that two malls near us are going bankrupt. Our local airport is cutting back on flights. In Ohio, a whole town is afraid of failing because DHL is pulling out with thousands of jobs. Unemployment is rising every day. Many families are losing their homes. Many more families' homes are now worth less than the amount of their mortgage.

Where is all this going to end? Will we have boarded up malls and ghost towns? It sure looks that way. Many of us have seen places that resemble ghost towns: the old rubber plants in Akron, the old GE plant in Cincinnati, old auto manufacturing plants in Michigan, old steel mills in Pennsylvania. Acres and acres of abandoned buildings. Is this our future?

I don't mean to sound depressing. I hope our new president can turn things around. It might be beyond anyone's ability to fix, though. I don't understand what the government is doing. I hear that $750 billion in "bail out" money has gone unaccounted for. I don't understand why AIG is being given taxpayers' money. It seems that a combination of greed and stupidity is ruining our country.

On the news here, they keep talking about "financial survival guides" for families. It seems we are all going to have to go into crisis mode in our own lives. Growing our own food. Making our own clothes. Certainly, giving up $4.00 lattes. Up until now, we and our kids have seen endless images of "lifestyles of the rich and famous". I read about one celebrity buying a brief case for over $46,000! Many "ordinary" people want to emulate these lifestyles. We have to get realistic. I think that the times, they are a-changin'.

My mom always told us stories about growing up during the Depression. If any one wants to see a little of what that was like, you can see the "Kitt Kittredge" movie. It's basically a kids' movie, but it shows how a family copes during the Depression. My mom says it brought back a lot of memories for her.

Rambling On and On

One day last week I was sitting on the swing outside, and i noticed the sprinkler next door. The sun was shining on the water drops, and it just looked so pretty. I've been in a very contemplative mood, not able to get anything done but daydream. When I was in first grade, my teacher wrote on my report card that I was daydreaming too much. That hasn't changed.

I am going back to Philadelphia this weekend to share a special occasion with special friends. As I have written before, I am still homesick for Philadelphia and all my friends there. Going back is always bittersweet. It's such a joy to be there, but it's always in the back of my mind that it's no longer my home. I loved my house there. This is a photo I took on our deck, which was surrounded by trees. It was one of those houses that you never want to leave.



I moved here to be close to my family. It is good to be near my mom, my sister, and my three nieces. I am getting to know my nieces in a way I never could have from a distance. This photo is my youngest niece, last week when I took her to her dance class. I wish I could have my family and my friends and my home in Philadelphia all at once. But I can't. So, I am living here and I visit there as often as I can.

I Hate Football!

It seems there is no end to it! Game after game after game after game... ALL WEEKEND LONG! I hate the look of it... overpaid behemoths running around, smashing into each other. I hate the sound of it... the incessant roar of the crowd, and the incomprehensible babbling of the commentators. I hate their fancy, shiny, inhuman looking uniforms. I hate the phoniness of the astroturf.

If I'm going to watch football at all, it should be like it was in the old days. Real mud and grass stains on the uniforms, guys scrambling and slipping around in real mud, old fashioned leather helmets. It at least looked somewhat picturesque. Now, it's all shiny and corporate looking... and boring!

What's Been Going On at Our House

My husband works in his at-home office, with his able assistant, Katie. (Note the broken arm.)



I work on making things out of quilt squares. I finally finished my first pillow. I'm going for a vintage look.
What do you think?

Tick... tick... tick...

I feel like we are counting down the days until winter. I heard this morning that there are blizzard conditions in the upper midwest, with up to ten inches of snow expected. We have been having highs in the 70s, but next week they are predicted to drop into the 40s.


So far, November here has been delightful. Everything is sunny and golden. The air smells of dry leaves and wood fires.
Before long, it will be gray and cold and the trees will be bare. Then we will just have to find some things to like about winter.