There is beauty all around.......

If it works, I will be posting photos of our three Boston homes. The first one is on Vincent Avenue in Belmont, the second one is on Hurd Road in Belmont, and the last one is our Oak Street house in Needham. A couple of weekends ago, Paul and I took a drive down memory lane. We visited each of our old neighborhoods in Boston and couldn't believe how unchanged they were. The only thing that was different was that the houses seemed soooo much smaller than we remember them. It is hard to believe that in each house we hosted our annual New Year's Day chili-bakeoff, multi-family Thanksgiving dinners, the neighborhood Halloween Party, Christmas caroling parties for the neighborhood, family Christmas talent shows, 4th of July lobster/clam bake and baseball game. It seems as if each house was filled with wonderful friends and family most of the year. None of the houses could have been over 2200 square feet, if that, and yet we always managed to squeeze in lots and lots of our dear friends. The kitchens were small, but we produced some pretty memorable meals in them----food to feed an army. Never once did we say, "can't do it here, our house is too small." And our friends were the same way about opening up their homes to us. One neighbor hosted all the kids and made sugar cookies each Christmas, we had a blow-out New Year's Eve at another house, and many, many game nights with friends. Such fun times, and we hope to recreate those in our New York City condo which may rival all of them for being the smallest. I hope the lesson we have learned over time is that size really doesn't matter!

Toasted or plain?

It really doesn't matter.  The New York bagel has many things to recommend it.  First, all bagels are advertised as "jumbo."  Second, the seeds are on the top AND the bottom so it doesn't matter which side you choose to eat first.  Third, at our bagel place, a "baker's dozen" is 15, not 13.  How great is that!   I won't even go into how wonderful the cream cheese is because there really aren't words to describe its creaminess.   Words echoed around our apartment nearly everyday, "Let go of my bagel!"  Sorry Eggos, you are history.

(For you readers,  this post was re-created since I lost the original bagel post.  Blogging isn't as easy as some of you have led me to believe.  But I am working on it.)

Help!

How in the heck do I attach a photo to a blog!  This happened by accident after an hour of uploading, transferring, searching, eating a bag of chips, and almost swearing.  At least my feet are comfortable.  

These Shoes Are Made For Walking

And that's just what I do.  Today I walked over four miles for my work-out and then put in another two just doing the local errands.   Walking in Central Park is wonderful and since I walk at the same time everyday,  I am seeing many of the same people each morning and that makes me feel even more at home.  I have great running shoes, but until Mother's Day, I really didn't have any great walking shoes.  Paul bought me these great shoes made by Ecco that are so comfortable and while kind of dorky, they are kind of cute, too.  We also walk to church so it is handy to have a pair of shoes that will tuck into my handbag when I change into my dress shoes.   I know this is a boring post, but I have already spent an hour trying to figure out how to download the photo of my shoes.    So I am frustrated and not feeling too clever.   I'll do better next time.  Happy trails.  

Where everybody knows your name

I cried three times today. Once when I went into the temple and two people recognized me. Once when the guy at the post office handed me my package and said, "it's nice to see you, jan." Third, when I earned frequent shopper points at the Duane Reed (drugstore). How can you be feeling lonely when people know your name! That's great and I earned a $5.00 coupon on my next purchase at the Duane Reed.
On my way back from the temple I stopped and picked up a few things at Whole Foods, sat in Central Park and ate part of my baguette, listened to my IPOD, and thought, "look at me living in New York!" Cheers!

Running, but not catching up

I was going to try and recap the whole month that I have been here, but it is impossible, so I will start from tomorrow and maybe then I can stay ahead of the game! Actually, I need to share our weekend travels. We took the train to Boston and spent two days there visiting old friends, old homes, old towns, old memories. And it was great. It is amazing to return to a place and find that friendships have only grown stronger even after a 23 year absence. We drove through Needham and discovered that the ladies are still living in our Oak Street house. The peonies that I planted are still going strong, but they took out the huge hedge in the back. Our Belmont houses on Vincent Avenue and Hurd Road look very similar, just a change in paint color is about all we could detect. Linda's donuts was closed, but we are still carrying around the evidence of our many stops at her place. The ride home down the coast was beautiful and I was reminded once again how much I love New England.

You know you are in New York when....

You are standing on the corner waiting to cross the street and you hear the honk of a car horn, then more honking, and then yelling. The cab driver gets out, grabs a baseball bat and starts beating on the other guys car. No one really looks, no one even bats an eye. The light changes, the cabbie jumps in his car, and we all cross the street as if nothing had happened.