Things That Make Me Happy...Snapshot Edition

By request from Jana J, Things that make me happy.
From Left to Right, Top to bottom:
1. The love of my life - my husband Felipe. 2. My favorite spot in Central Park (well really all of Central Park makes me happy). 3. Jazz music, I love it (also, music in general...). 4. Dinner at my favorite restaurant - Virage. 5. Yes, Diet Coke. 6. Thanksgiving, it's my favorite holiday. 7. The view of the Mediterranean Sea from my in-law's apartment in Vilassar de Mar, Spain (traveling in general makes me happy!). 8. My family. 9. My friends (I wish I had one photo with every friend, or could include them all...there just isn't enough space!) 10. Taking pictures...I could spend all day with my camera, wandering around.

Tick Tock.

I've been passing the time on my couch trying to get over a bad cold...sorry for the lack of posts, my recuperation hasn't been very snapshot worthy ;)

Stripes and Shapes

I started out this morning with a bright and clear sunny sky. As I stood at the bus stop, the sun gave a striking light.


This evening I went to Hayko's for rug weaving and saw a beautiful kilim that he had rolled up. I am totally in love with the brilliant colors and the shapes of this rug.

Get Well Stickies!

So the story goes like this - I left work on Monday evening sneezing. A lot. And I thought, man - my allergies are horrible! Went to a Birthday happy hour for Felipe, and then about an hour later it hit me. Hard. I had a rapid onset rhinovirus. Well, to be less dramatic, I got a cold.

Jump to Tuesday morning. I woke up after a miserable night of sleep and dragged myself in to work (I knew it wasn't the flu, so there was no hesitation in that respect). I had a candidate visiting and I needed to make arrangements for him to be taken around during the day. Felipe told me to go home early, and after the 16th sneeze in a row (okay, dramatics here again) and two hours of tying up loose ends - I went home.

The first sticky I saw was the one Felipe had left for me on the bathroom door....rest and recover my energies. I certainly would! The second was the 'get better soon' sticky that was on the bedroom door. And the last, one of the best of all was waiting for me on my pillow - besitos-quil. I must say, the FDA should look into this. It was far superior to any Nyquil or Dayquil product! Needless to say, I slept for another three hours and have been working my strength back up! Thanks to my wonderful husband for the super sweet notes :D

Warning: Rant Below
I went back to work today, with the aid of some cough suppressants and expectorants and seemed to make it through. One thing I have realized is that I really dislike it when people on the bus look at me with disdain or flinch with terror every time I cough. I will have you know that I am covering my mouth with four layers of folded handkerchief and my hands - these flinchers are more likely to become ill from the bar they just handled on the back of the bus seat than my own coughing. I will also let it be publicly known that I do not carry the bubonic plague, tuberculosis, leprosy or the dreaded swine flu (see also these). Okay, rant done.

Thanks for all the get well wishes!

Sticking with a Little Bit of Color

Red Doors and Wrought Iron

I took this photo today while walking down Central Park West on my way to Dizzy's Club for another great show (Marian McPartland - you'll see a post about her tomorrow). The color struck me, and so I stopped. Funny thing, I was looking up "Wrought Iron" and as it turns out, most of what we see from the current day isn't truly wrought iron - it's a steel made to look like wrought iron. I would bet the metal adornments on this door are the true wrought iron though, as they are on an old church - Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, which was built before 1969, when wrought iron production ceased in the United States (the building was completed in 1904). Bet you didn't think you'd learn about wrought iron today did you?

A Big Boy Hat

Pardon the fuzzy quality of this snapshot...it was taken on my iPhone....

Saw a cute young "gentleman" by the park today...kind of dancing around in his crocs, with a messenger bag at his side and a Fedora on his head.

More posts to come this week...my mom's in town visiting and so we'll be around town I'm sure!

Miscellany

miscellany |ˈmisəˌlānē; miˈselənē|
noun ( pl. -nies)
a group or collection of different items; a mixture

Here are some pics from around the city the last few days. Just a few things that caught my eye.


Upper East side, 66th Street.


33rd Street near Madison Avenue.


Along 5th Avenue and Central Park.

Things to Make Me Feel Better

I've had several difficult days this last couple of weeks. Thursday I came home after work and had the pleasant surprise of two people wanting to cheer me up! It had been just an awful day, and I was angry, upset, sad, and frustrated. When I got home I had the surprise of a gift from Grace, my younger sister, who had sent me a card along with two of my dad's books that I had to leave behind in Milwaukee. The card inside said "I hope this brightens your day" and indeed it did. In addition to that nice surprise, when Felipe arrived home he had brought me some beautiful yellow spider mums to help cheer me up. Together, I was feeling much better than earlier that day.

Here are a couple more photos:


This book is great. It's got a wealth of phrases for correspondence, which is really great as I am trying this year to improve my writing (letters and notes to others, writing on this blog, and also writing in my journal).

The book has such useful phrase as:
"I thank my good star that ---" (for good fortune)
"I cannot refrain from expressing my admiring appreciation of ---" (Courtesy/congratulatory)

and so on!

And then there is the Enchanting Stories:


This is a story book that was "owned" by my dad when he was a very young kid:

Farmer's Market

Today I went to the Farmer's Market in Lincoln Square and picked out a few herbs to grow in the windowsill in our living room. So now I have fresh rosemary, lavender (more for smell and decoration than for cooking), basil, tarragon (for yummy chicken!), and oregano. I didn't have the time for planning to grow the herbs from scratch this year. And I am really looking forward to some caterpillar free herbs this year!