Thanksgiving and Beyond...

Lots of leaves... tempted to jump in!

Hello Friends! Well, it's been an interesting week or so. Things both good and bad have been happening. I don't want to go into the bad, so I'll share the good things instead. 


Thanksgiving was nice! I appreciate you asking about it, Shannon. I shared a meal with Keith's lovely family, and after most people napped, Keith, Kyle and I went for a post meal walk. It's one of my favorite things to do... and it was a beautiful day out for walking, too. It was brisk, but sunny, and there were some nice clouds in the sky to make the photos interesting!


I also entered a photo of mine into a contest where the goal was to take a picture from a low angle of perspective. I got into the top 8 out of over 130 photos! Here it is...

Got into the top 8 of the #JSLayLowChallenge on Instagram

Oh, but I jumped ahead. Here are some photos from Thanksgiving...

I also took a lot of photos before all the leaves dropped... I know I shared a few with you in the last post, but as there are basically no leaves left outside, other than in piles on the ground, these will most likely be the last ones...

I've also been keeping tabs on a little squirrel that I named Bun Bun. He somehow lost most of his tail, and so he looks a bit like a bunny now! Luckily, he's been gaining weight from all the maple seeds and acorns that he's been gobbling up. He's a real cutie!

He's just the cutest! I love him. He feels quite comfortable hanging out in our back porch area. I love finding him nibbling seeds on the back steps. Unlike the other squirrels, he doesn't have a long, bushy tail to keep the rain off of him, so he stays under the porch, or close to the tree when it's raining.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, and are getting into the Christmas spirit. Even if you don't celebrate the holiday, it's definitely a time of year when our hearts seem to expand just a little more, and hopefully, we all share love just a little more readily... the world needs more love, doesn't it?

New York in Autumn

I forgot to share with you all my visit to NYC with K to see my sister and some friends... it was a beautiful day there, too! My sister is visiting for a month (November) to get some work done, and also to see her friends, and me. :-) She brought along our friend, Lucy, and her new baby, M! She's soooo cute!!

Taken by my sister, S. Me next to K, in sunglasses.

M, up close. Isn't she adorable?

The leaves in the park were glorious, and we were all snapping away! 

K and I had gotten there earlier than they did, so we trekked through Central Park and had lunch at Caffe Grazie, a two-story restaurant along the east edge of upper Central Park. It was cozy, and the service was nice, and at the end of our meal, my sister and Lucy showed up! 

A Kir Royale at Caffe Grazie

Hilariously, we were all supposed to meet up at the Neue Gallery, but when K & I found out that it was $20 to get in, we figured we'd eat lunch then meet up with the ladies after... only to discover that they didn't plan to go in, either, they just wanted to go to Cafe Sabarsky, inside! Soooo... we left Caffe Grazie and stood in line to get into Cafe Sabarsky! It took a while... that place is hoppin'! 

Kaiser Melange, at Sabarsky... mmm....

The draw there is the authentic German food, and the (for us, at least) the Kaiser Melange, a cup of Viennese coffee with hand-whipped cream on top! It was soooo good. Perfect for such a chilly day. K tried the spiced, mulled wine and liked it a lot. I tasted it, too, and it was yummy! A few people got lunch (those who didn't eat with us previously) and K & I got desserts. Sooo good! I highly recommend a visit to this place the next time you're on the Upper East Side.


Afterwards, we crossed Central Park (again! boy, were my feet hurting...) and saw boat races, people walking their dogs, and enjoying the fall sunshine. It was nice.

Tiny sailboats on the pond

K admiring the foliage above

Marisol, Sharlene, Lucy and Keith under a tunnel

Bridges

Afterwards, we made our way towards a meeting place/dinner location that wasn't too far away, though it was far ENOUGH for my aching dogs. We wound up at another Italian restaurant for wine and appetizers, which turned into dinner.

Delicious wine from the wine bar

I can't recall the name of the wine bar, but it was cozy, and we had fun! After we finished our food and wine, we all left, K & I for the Port Authority bus terminal, and everyone else for Brooklyn. I had a lot of fun, and enjoyed meeting Marlowe for the first time that day. She's a real sweetheart... she fell asleep while K was holding her, giving Lucy a break, which was the cutest thing ever! :-) I think he was a little smitten with her. Well, who wouldn't be?

Keeping in Touch

Hello Friends. I don't want to always start out my increasingly sporadic posts with apologies... but I do feel a bit out of touch these days. It seems that my life is about work, and though I enjoy it, I'm not finding much time for myself lately. When I'm not working, I'm doing chores, or lately, trying to heal from a cold. 


I take a lot of photos on my walks to and from work, however, so that's something. It will have to be enough for now, as I don't have the energy for much more. 


The holidays are approaching, and Bethlehem is readying itself: Christmas trees are being attached to all the light posts along the streets, lights are being put up (if not yet turned on) in the downtown area, there have been one or two wreaths that have shed their fall leaves for holly berries... the evidence is out there! Christmas is coming! (I'm totally not prepared for it, although I've picked up a few presents during the year for one or two individuals... yay, me!)

This squirrel narrowly escaped a hawk!

The hawk that's standing on the corner of this house, see?

Squirrel's eye view

The squirrels are running around, eating everything they can find and getting plumper by the day. There are still amazingly colored trees everywhere, which is lovely. It helps to stave off the winter blues that are lurking around the corner. I've been making lots of soups at home: vegan split pea (which is so delicious that I've made it twice!), vegan mushroom barley, and a chicken noodle soup because though we don't eat chicken often, we had some left over from a dish I made for a party, so I used it up in the soup. I love home made soups in the cold weather months... it's just so warming! Especially with some fresh buttered French bread on the side! Talk about comfort foods! (Wish I had French butter to go with it, as their butter tastes SOOOOO much better than anything I've found here.)

Every day I walk under this brilliant maple tree.

I miss my blogger friends these days. It was at this time last year that I was really posting a lot of creative posts, since I was home all the time, trying to find things to do and share. I hope you understand that I want to blog more.... I've just been at a loss to gather up the energy! However, there are events coming up which I'm planning on blogging about, as they should be fun and creative, too! Until then, I hope you'll keep in touch!


If you have an iPhone, you can check out my Instagram pictures.... My nickname there is the same as my Twitter name: Sunkitten. Hope to see you there, if not here, in the future!


xox

An Interesting Weekend...

Hello Friends. This was an unusual weekend that just passed. It started with an unseasonal winter storm watch, which turned into a warning. A big snow system was supposed to move into the area starting Saturday morning. No one really seemed to accept it as a possibility, though, which I think is funny. I was certain it was coming in, because so far, the weather predictions in this area have mostly been reliable.


It started out on Friday, with sun, fall foliage everywhere, and plans for a Halloween party after a day at a bonsai class in New Jersey. Fun, with no drama built into the plans. The predictions for snow came, and we figured that it would maybe drop an inch or two on us, which would melt away fairly quickly. So we headed out on Saturday morning, early, as our class started at 9 am and was almost an hour away. (We thought.)

At left is what it looked like when we left in the morning... what was falling looks like rain, but it was actually a giant slushy, sprinkled on us by the powers that be. It sort of looked like snow, but after landing, it was like rain... it's called rain/snow. Ha ha. 


As we got up to the All Shapes Nursery for our bonsai class, it was actually snowing, and had accumulated about an inch of snow or maybe a little more, and was looking like it was going to be an interesting return trip back to PA.


At one point, I came out of the greenhouse to go to the main house to use the restroom, and below is what I found outside!

Fall trees with snow...

It was a winter wonderland, somehow! In October! Now, in class, we'd been hearing that tick tick tick of snowfall on the plastic sheeting above us. However, as the plastic wasn't transparent, we couldn't tell if it was actually snow or rain falling. I found out it was snow when we came out for our break. THEN, as we were back in class, we'd hear swoooshhhh.... as sheets of built up snow slid off of the roof, sections at a time. Tick tick tick swooooshhh.... tick tick tick tick tick swoooooshhhh.... my mind kept noticing that it wasn't stopping. Although the class was interesting and fun, part of me was worried. We'd brought my Mini out to Jersey, and there was a snow storm going on outside. Were we going to be able to get OUT of here? That was the question of the day.

The snow-covered trees beside the road

A leaf trapped in snow on the roof above

The leaves on the ground outside , after some snowfall

Outside of the greenhouse we were in

So while all this snow was building up, we were actually cozy inside the greenhouse, learning how to control little plants and make them look like old miniature trees... it was really fun!

K was especially adept at it. He saw what he wanted, and he made it happen. His tree looks amazing! I was in awe, actually. Mine started out with good intentions, but didn't turn out quite so nice.

How my tree started out

It could be that I was distracted by the snow. Or I'm just not cut out for the Japanese art of bonsai. I don't know. I'm a fair gardener, but apparently that's where the talent ends!


Anyway, there were all kinds of lovely bonsai trees in there with us for inspiration...

Look at that trunk! 

Love all the greenery at the base

Very exotic! The yellow flowers belong to it

Like a rainforest floor... so cool

A ficus made special

 After the class was over, we used the restroom, and came out to leave. Everyone had gone except for a guy in his BMW, which K had to help push to get through the thick snow in the parking lot. Well, guess what? He also had to push the Mini. Once out of the parking lot, and then twice more after we got onto the long, unpaved road leading out of the nursery... it was a long road... and K didn't get to ride down it. After the last push, he told me to go down to the road, and not to stop, so he had to run about fifty yards in the snow behind me!

The road from the nursery

Roads weren't quite plowed

Our backyard when we returned

Neighbor's power was out, luckily ours wasn't

 I won't describe the harrowing trip back to Bethlehem. Let's just say it wasn't the most relaxing trip. Then when we got back, we thought we'd be out of power, but we got so lucky! Most of the area had no power... the downtown area was mostly out of power, but the block my work sits on was fine! And our apartment had power, also... though most people we know didn't have any power. It was COLD, too. Especially that night. People stayed with others who had power, or stayed in the booked up hotels and motels. It's been crazy. The next day, I had to go in to work, and here are a few things that I saw along the way....

 It was a mixture of autumn and winter, dramatically juxtaposed. I had a lot of fun photographing the variety of foliage and snow. (Though my fingers and hands got really cold in the process!) It's been so cold that the snow hasn't actually all melted yet. There were downed tree branches on every street, and the power still hasn't been restored to everyone's homes. It's pretty crazy. The weight of the snow on the still-cloaked trees caused lots of branches to break off from the weight, and there was a lot of property damage as a result. No one has cable, and a lot of people don't have phone service, either. It's so wild that one day of rampant nature can do so much to disrupt our lives.... and yet... it's so beautiful, don't you think? 


xox