Wait!

I want my weekend back!

Photo Per Day #13: Public Market

This morning, my girlfriend Yams, the kids and I headed down to one of my favorite places in the city: the Rochester Public Market. This 105 year old establishment was recently voted the Best Farmers' Market in the U.S. narrowly beating my cousin Toni's market in Davis, CA. (Note: Let's go there when I come visit!)

I love the sights. The crowds. The people watching. The vendors. The colors. The fresh veggies. The fruits. Pretty much everything but the parking.

Things That Make Me Happy

1. A CD player in my car!
2. Facilitating a meeting in my client's conference room while F-16s tear up the sky right outside our windows in preparation for an airshow at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. Intense. And, um, really hard to hear.
3. Spending a sunny afternoon walking around Boulder, having Chai tea at the Boulder Tea House, dipping my toes in the Boulder River and having dinner with my beautiful girlfriend Patricia and her husband Bruce: two of the nicest people on earth.
4. Enjoying a relaxing, sunshine-filled weekend in Westhampton Beach with my girlfriend Laura and her mom. Mai tais and lobster rolls by the beach. Margaritas overlooking the salt marsh, swan and setting sun. A cucumber gimlet at dinner. Swimming in the pool. Hanging at the beach. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. 
5. Running into a very pregnant Deirdre at the bakery early on Friday morning and spending the day with her, her husband, nanny and baby Fraser at the beach and pool. Great to catch up after a random, serendipitous sighting. 
6. Hustling into the city on Saturday night for a fabulous meal at Twisted Vine with my girlfriend Kim from DC. Prosecco. Wine. Oysters. Olives. Octopus. Delicious.
7. Spending a leisurely Sunday morning shoe shopping and trying on hats at the 77th street flea market before getting stuck on the LIE and almost missing my flight.  
8. Eight. Eight. I forget what eight is for. 
9. Meeting my ex-coworkers for rumritas on the beach at Marge's Lakeside Inn after work on Tuesday. 90 degrees at 6:00 p.m. Holy moly batman, we're not in the Hamptons anymore! Tons of bikini clad yahoos in cigarette boats anchored offshore -- partying. As dusk approached, they all motored away and the beach got quieter. A large, red harvest moon set over the lake. I got a drink in my hand, I got my toes in the sand . . . 
10. Going to the playground last night with my kids who are getting too old for playgrounds. Climbing the rock wall. Swinging on the swing set. And rolling down the hill in a race against Son #2. I didn't quite remember how dizzy that can make you. I could barely walk straight when we reached the basketball courts. 

On top of the world. I don't want summer to end!

You and Your Heart

A Jack Johnson song was playing last Saturday at the Crow's Nest as we ate lunch on the patio and watched the boats pass by.

Perfect music for a perfect summer day. Sunshine. Tubing. Swimming.

Now I can't stop listening to him as I sit in my sunshine-y office and write pages upon pages of copy for a client's website. And I love, love, love this client. So maybe I can inject a warm summer breeze into the mission critical, MIL-spec, JIT, lean six sigma gobbledygook that I'm spewing?

Cause you and your heart
Shouldn't feel so far apart
You can choose what you take
Why you gotta break and make it feel so hard

Be Very, Very Careful

I'm beginning to think that the National Weather Service has Rochester on a default mode of "hazardous" and they need to remind themselves to update the profile manually if on the off-chance it's, say, sunny. Otherwise, what would explain this?

Maybe they know that blazing sunshine is a hazard to our eyes which have now grown accustomed to winter darkness. Or perhaps they would like us to prepare for hammock-related accidents. It could happen.

Summer! Finally!

It's never too late for summer to begin! Yay! Four-day weekend!



(Insert jazz hands here.)

Mini-weekend: Day 16

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." --Diane Ackerman

Found that quote in the book Positivity that I read this afternoon while soaking up the sun in my hammock. I agree -- I want to live larger than ever before. Days like today make life worth living. It wasn't all fun and hammock. I even cleaned my room, chatted on the phone and did a few loads of wash. I could break out into some Karen Carpenter right about now. Relaxation + freshly laundered clothes = top of the world. (Doesn't take much, really.)

I also started the book Happy for No Reason which is less scientific than Positivity and has ties to The Secret so I'm prematurely thinking it may be more hogwash than substantive but what the hey? It appears to have more stories and that always bodes well for holding my interest at the very least. And one of the first chapters is called, "Practicing Happiness." As a six month practitioner of the mini-weekend, I'm loving the self-affirmation.

Now to incorporate all the positivity into my 13-hour work days. D'oh! First off: stop complaining!

Yours truly, Pollyanna Pittsford

Smokin' Sunday

Went to Charlotte Beach today for the Roc City Rib Fest. The lines for the top barbecue joint were an estimated 90 people deep so we just had ribs and pulled pork sandwiches from other vendors. Seriously not nearly as good as the hubby's barbecue dishes but fun nonetheless.

The best part for me was spending a couple of hours on the beach in the sunshine. Not the best photo as you can barely see the water and the sailboats are tiny specks but the sand between my toes felt divine.

The perfect Sunday.

OM Is Where the Heart Is

Son #1 enjoying the sunshine yesterday a.m.



He came home from VBS (i.e., vacation bible school) last night with a Bible verse from Matthew 19:26, "With God, all things are possible."

Son #1: Mama, do you believe that's true? Because I want to walk on water.

Sheesh! And I want to win the lottery!

Life is Good

Three visits from the Tooth Fairy in one week for Son #2. (So darned cute right now until those big honkers start growing in and he no longer looks like a sweet, little kid.)

Son #1 earned a yellow belt in karate last night. Yeah!

I had an Abbott's chocolate custard turtle for lunch while stopping, briefly, to enjoy the sunshine at the beach in Durand Eastman Park.

Hubby planted little flowers in our front "garden" yesterday.

All is well.

Memorial Day

Finally I can wear my white pumps again . . .

I took Friday off because it was (dare I say) a bit quiet at work and the kids were off from school. I slept in the hammock while soaking up the sunshine and chatted with my next door neighbor as the kids played.

Then my mom, sis and I flew to Greensboro on Saturday to hang with my brother and sister-in-law and meet their gorgeous, sweet, awesome, baby boy who made my heart swell. I have to say, what a great little city: beautiful neighborhoods, nice shops, cool relatives. I could totally live there. Maybe I could score a job at the Center for Creative Leadership? Not sure what I would do exactly but the topic of leadership is certainly one that is of great interest to me not only because I have slaved under some of the worst "leaders" on the planet but also because I have gladly served some of the best. Anyhoo, I digress.

While there -- just for a microsecond -- we somehow got on the topic of how we're all worth more dead than alive. I was thinking about it later that night. Menendez brothers aside, what keeps most families from killing each other? In addition to the fact that it would be horribly disturbing (as Lady Macbeth clearly demonstrated), life isn't about money at all: it's about love and relationships. You could have all of the money in the world but, without love, it's worthless. Conversely, one moment of pure love is worth more than gold.

Last night I had a date with Son #1. Just the two of us; his brother and dad went to the movies. We went to the Red Lobster (!) because he has been asking to go there for ages and we've been putting him off. As I was cracking our crab legs, he was dipping the crab meat in butter and repeatedly exclaiming how it was one of the best meals of his life (next to daddy's cooking). I couldn't help but think how blessed I was for these little moments in life -- just spending time with someone who is still capable of being in awe of the world.

So, yes, today it's back to work. But I'm extremely grateful to have had a four-day weekend filled with the people I love the most: my family.

Spring Glorious Spring!

There is a man outside my window right now using a Weed Whacker. It's music to my ears.

I just realized that the grass is green. And that there IS grass. And the sun is out. And the birds are chirping.

My boss thinks I'm nipping at a little something behind my desk.

But it's just spring!

It's a Marshmallow World

Today is one of those days when, just as you've had your taste of spring, it snows again. But it's that heavy fallen snow that clings to the tree branches and makes it feel like we're living in a Norman Rockwell painting. Breathtaking to say the least.

As Darlene Love would say, "Those are marshmallow clouds being friendly in the arms of the evergreen trees." Except in today's version the sun isn't red like a pumpkin head. Nope, there is not one iota of sunshine to be found in the the miles of colorless skies around here.

It's a monochrome world in the winter
When the sun can no longer be found
It's a toneless time, for my gray-filled rhyme
I brace for it all year round

But it sure beats rain!

Greetings from Delray Beach

Growing up, we were not encouraged to relax. "Don't just watch TV; fold some laundry while you're sitting there." It was truly decadent when we went up the stairs without carrying something that needed to go up.

Today, it's hard for me to simply go on vacation without feeling pangs of insecurity. As much as I love lounging in the sun, reading books, swimming in the ocean (which is, by the way, the perfect temp right now) and pretty much doing nothing, I feel guilty. Not that it stops me from doing it; it just stops me from fully enjoying it.

Yesterday, I noticed that I was practically levitating while I was on the beach. My body was so taut that it wasn't even sinking into the sand. I physically had to keep relaxing my body: one part at a time.

When my girlfriend told me that it might rain tomorrow, my initial thought was, "That would be kind of cool because I have a company valuation that I need to complete before Monday." And, yes, with only a small carry on to my name, I still brought the financials with me. No need to pack cute clothes when I can carry work with me.

The worst part is that I offered to cancel my trip last minute if my boss would pay the cancellation fee. Why? Because I think I need to drop dead first before I am entitled to a vacation. This was offered even after my acupuncturist told me last week that she could barely find a pulse and my vital signs were worse than in all the years she's known me.

So here's my prayer for continued sunshine tomorrow. A work-free day filled with solitude and gratitude.