This Perfectly Imperfect Life

Local September 11th Memorial destroyed in the recent storm. Posted via My Palm Centro.

I noticed this spider last week in the evening on our patio! Hubby says it is a Wolf Spider! Gives me the icks but it is neat to watch it make the web each night! I named it Wolfie and took this pic last night!

Yesterday I also switched out some of the books on the back of the couch with late Summer and Fall ones like Sunflowers for VanGogh (rght), Country Roads (lft) and The County Store (cntr), not to mention the Organic Gardening book on the little end table with the Tomato Plants on the cover! (Books are a BIG part of our home, in case you had not noticed by now!) Sorry, I thought this pic came out better!!!

This is my knitting basket in the living room, which I referenced in my last post. Each season, I switch out the skeins with other colors appropriate for the new season! I always do it a little ahead of time to get me inspired! (Sitting to the right of the basket is a UFO from last Fall! I cannot believe nearly a year has passed already!)

In order to make room in our bedroom and catch the overflow from the basket in the living room, I designated a shelf in the linen clost for yarn! Now I only have 1 basket of scraps in the bedroom!

Afternoon naptime!

Visited a new dentist today. I do NOT like going to the dentist. And this place was a real peach. Nuff said! After having some soup at Panera, Mom and I went over to AC Moore (in the same plaza). I wanted to take a look at the new Fall and Halloween merch. As soon as I started seeing Scarecrows, Sunflowers and Pumpkins and caught a whiff of Pumpkin Spice potporri, I felt my entire being relax to the point I nearly cried! (Fall and Halloween are my FAVORITE time of year!) I picked up 5 packets of Seeds, only 33cents ea, (Autumn Beauty Sunflowers, Nasturtiums, Snapdragons and Old Fashioned Garden Mix) a Yellow Ribbon to tie to the porch (for our Nephew in law who went bk to Iraq) for 60cents, a tiny vine Pumpkin for $2 and all sorts of yarn skeins for $1, $2.49 and $2.99! (12 skeins of yarn for about $27! Original price would have been well over $60 or $70!) Total purchase? $33 and change! The smile it all gave me? Priceless!

This weekend we are hosting an Open House from 11am to 4pm Sat and Sun because Management thought it would be a good idea since we have 5 apts available / for rent right now and 3 more in addition to those as of Sept 1st! Only our current Tenants have come so far today! The weather is PERFECT for being outside, not stuck doing this! 80 degrees, no humidity, sunshine and a nice breeze! Ugh! Problem is, in NJ right now, most people looking to move cannot because they do not have the money so they are stuck or they have great credit and buying homes for what they would pay in rent or they just cannot afford to live in NJ anymore so they are moving out of state! That is why we have all these open apartments! It is not a good time to try and fill them! There is just no interest what so ever! We are lucky to get 1 to 3 calls a week now! We had waiting lists in 2006 and 2007 and we were getting a few dozen calls a week up through Halloween last year! But I have learned to play poker!

This beauty popped open yesterday!

My own Sunflowers?!

From one of our local fav bfast spots! (Sorry, I thought this pics came out better!!!)

The tomato's are from my garden, the cucumbers and zuccini are from my brother-in-laws. I chopped the ripe ones up for cucumber and tomato salad to go with dinner. (Just drizzle with olive oil mixed with red wine garlic vinegar and balsamic vinegar and seasoned with pepper). Tomorrow I'll use the left overs mixed with bagged salad greens to go with dinner. Very satisfying to cook with ingriedients that you, yourself have grown!

Our mini drought ended today with much violent gusto! Started with a thoroughly soaking storm about 5am this morning. After 10am, the sky started looking odd again & it was hard to breathe, humid and hot. By noon it was storming again, this time with hail! We were at the laundrymat when I took this pic. It stormed for about an hour. Once we left, before 2p, it was nasty hot and humid again, but as we made our way down the highway back home, we drove right into wind and dark clouds! Shortly after getting the laundry and grocceries into the house, all hell broke lose! We lost power for over an hour. 3 people got struck by lightning on Sandy Hook and 1 died, not 5 minutes from here! It stormed strait until after 5pm! Sirens streaking by in different directions throughout. The air is very cool and lovely now, so at least I have been able to open all the windows! Strange, the storms seemed to have brought the crickets to the front and back yards! Unrelated thought: I am worried about o...

From left to right- My sis in law Annie, our Grand Niece AnnaBella (her grand daughter), our Grand Niece Emily (also her grand daughter) and our Nephew George (her son and Emilys father). Yesterday was Emily's 1st Bday party and getting to see AnnaBella was a bonus since we didn't know our Niece Alicia (her mom) had come up from South Carolina!

These are the pretty little girly dresses I picked out for our Grand Niece Emily and her 1st Bday party yesterday! At 1 yr old (last month) she loves dresses and books! All the ladies present loved the dresses, including her mom, so I did good!

I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that this beautiful little 8 yr old boy is gone! I cannot get the image of his grief riddled and stickened parents, our friends, out of my mind, especially his mother. I close my eyes and shake my head, as if the last 36+ hrs have been a devastating nightmare. These are good people, good parents! A good family! Good, normal, beautiful kids! Their daughter nearly died this winter when her strep infection went into her blood and lymph nodes! Now this?! Why?! How can this be justified? How can God justify this one?! I am sorry but there is no "Better Place" for a little boy than with his parents, siblings, family and friends. Last night was the wake, today was the funeral, burial svc and gathering afterwards. I am exhausted. And sad.

This is 1 of the last pics I took before we left the cabin this afternoon, the view from the kitchen. Sigh. I cried 4 the 1st time since this past Wednesday, on the porch, looking out at the mountains because I did not want to leave, not the cabin, not Pennsylvania. NJ is not home 4 me anymore. The grass is not greener in PA, but my soul is. My entire being has been at peace these past few days. Hubby promised we will go bk soon and if we cannot buy the cabin and sis-in-law sells it, we will find our own place that I will love just as much with views just as amazing.

Hubbys Marine Corps pic from when he was just 19 years old!

On our way out to the fireworks!

From the coziest place in our world!