random reflections

Rocky

My niece, Stephanie, has a puppy. Well, he’s a little big for my definition of puppy, but he’s just a year old and FULL of enthusiasm. I call him "the leaper and the licker." He excels at both, But you gotta admit he’s one good looking dog – and his owner’s one good looking girl! Spending time with Stephanie, my brother, and my other niece, Julie, was the icing on the cake last weekend.

Rochester Rhinos

Matt, Tracy, and I went to our first Rochester Rhinos soccer game at the new Paetec Park last night. As we entered the gate ushers were handing out while envelopes. Both Tracy and I took one. Matt passed. Mine had a crisp, new $20 bill in it. Tracy’s had a $2 off coupon. What a surprise!

The game was a lot less exciting. Pretty boring soccer—and they wonder why they’re having trouble filling the seats. I’ve seen better executed high school soccer. They tied the last place team from Toronto. But it was a lovely evening for sitting outside, the new Paetec Park is really nice, and dinner was almost free.

New York City

I love New York City. I really don’t care what I do there. Everything is alive and so different from my everyday existence. Lucky me, my college roommate lives in Manhattan, and I got to spend last weekend with her in NYC. We walked through Central Park to the East side

and spent an hour or so at the Whitney Museum at the Edward Hopper exhibit. My favorite painting was one of his self-portraits, but I liked a lot of his landscapes as well. On the way out, we stopped to look at Joseph Stella’s “The Brooklyn Bridge:  Variations on an Old Theme.” It inspired us to grab the subway and walk across the Brookyn Bride ourselves. Here we are:

Here’s one of the many great views of Manhattan from the bridge.

And the bridge itself.

The weather was so perfect:  warm and beautifully clear. We spent some time wandering up Broadway and got tickets for a hilarious musical called “The Drowsy Chaperone.” Relaxed, fun, always interesting . . . I love NYC.

Off Again!

I'm off tomorrow to visit my brother in Hyde Park, NY and then into NYC to spend two days with my college roommate. Haven't been in NYC since 2001 so I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be glad to spend two nights with my brother as well. Think this is the last of the road trips for the summer. Hard to believe August will be half over when I get back on Monday.

Finder's Keepers

I’ve finished taking a class at BPS with Robin Johnson who created the Memory Dock products. I’d been eyeing them ever since someone posted the website on the 2peas message board long before the products were even available. I was a little reluctant to invest in more organizational products, but I have not been disappointed. I have gone through (again) the better part of 25+ years of photographs and have a very clear sense of what I am going to do with them. While I was in Atlanta I purchased several Archiver photograph albums and binders. I have already finished putting two sets of photographs in  albums and should soon be ready to start on the next sets. The Memory Dock for photographs and Robin’s system for keeping track of what you have will insure that I will never again have a set of photographs where I cannot identify the people in the pictures. All the pictures I had printed from our trip are filed and journaling cards completed. When I decide how to organize them (scrapbooks or photograph albums) I’ll be all set.

Friday night I organized the Memory Dock Creative Planner and decorated the front. Once again, the journaling pages, sketch pages, lists (grocery and other) should keep me right on track. Not that I wasn’t pretty well organized before, but it’s even better now. I know I will really appreciate all this come September when I have a lot less time on my hands.