2010 - Is It Over Already?

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
I began teaching violin at Infinity Visual & Performing Arts

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Not much of a resolution making sort of person, but I did pinky swear with a few friends that 2011 will be the year we're more positive.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousin, Rachel, had a baby girl in May.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My Grandfather died October 5th. He had been sick since this summer, but took quite a turn that first weekend of the month. Just by chance I was able to be there in the room with my family when he died. In an odd way, being there helped bring a lot more closure than I've had when other family members have died.

5. What countries did you visit?
Matt and I went to Hamilton, Ontario to see Star Wars In Concert on our 6th wedding anniversary.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
The feeling like I can move forward with things I want to do.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Losing some fear to do the things I want to do.

8. What was your biggest failure?
Still not saying no enough.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I'm still a pretty healthy gal.

10. What was the best thing you bought?
PlayStation 3, which enabled us to "cut the cord" on the upper tiers of cable.

11. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Matt still gets high marks.

12. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
It would not be polite to name names.

13. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage and house related stuff such as replacing the foundation on the backside of our house, fixing the furnace, and having to get our sewer line roto-rootered twice.

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Signing up for a Zumba certification class that will take place in February 2011.

15. What song will always remind you of 2010?
The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition



16. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? I am happier. I feel more even going into the New Year than last year.
b) thinner or fatter? I think I gained a couple pounds from where I was last year. Hard to say since I KNOW I gained some "holiday weight" over the holidays last year.
c) richer or poorer? Edging toward a little poorer after some hard home maintenance costs over the last year.  We're still on course though to try to purchase a car to replace my beloved Toyota Tercel.

17. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I think I should have written more.  I had a nice streak going at the beginning of the year, but lost focus.  I always wish I had taken more time to read, and that continues.  You know it's bad when you have a monthly magazine that you still haven't read and the next issue is probably in the mail today.

18. What do you wish you’d done less of?
I wish I had stressed less.

19. How did you spend Christmas?
We went to Cheektowaga for Christmas Eve dinner with my family.  Much to my joyous excitement, Matt gave me my big Christmas gift of tickets to see New Kids On The Block/Backstreet Boys with Ali in Pittsburgh this June.  After opening presents, we headed off to Midnight Mass at Queen of Martyrs where the service actually began at 10pm and only lasted 42 minutes.  We left Christmas morning after eggs, toast, and copious amounts of coffee to come back to Jamestown for Christmas day with Matt's parents.

20. Did you fall in love in 2010?
I stayed in love.

21. What was your favorite TV program?
Paranormal State, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Psychic Kids, and the news.

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No. I'm not big on hate because it wastes so much energy. There are people who disappoint me, but I don't hate them.

23. What did you want and get?
Some pure joy.

24. What did you want and not get?
That sense that I can change some things in order to be more happy

25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I worked and later went to the Brick Room for dinner with Matt, TJ Maxx, and then ice cream at The Big Dipper. I turned 34.

26. Who did you miss?
I was sorting Christmas decorations when I came across a box from my grandmother's house that hadn't been opened since she died 5 years ago.  When I opened it, all the linens smelled like her house and reminded me of how much I still miss her.

27. Good Things About 2010 (a list)

Icicle Dreams - Christmas 2010

I've already put together this holiday season's music mix which is kind of odd and possibly frightening if you know my past aversions to doing anything holiday-ish before Thanksgiving. I chalk it up to sorting through all our Christmas tree ornaments and decorations recently to why this mix came to be.

1. Weezer - We Wish You A Merry Christmas
2. The Three Wise Men (XTC) - Thanks For Christmas
3. Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
4. Snow Patrol - When I Get Home For Christmas
5. The Autumns - She Whispers The Winter Snow
6. Stars - Winter Bones
7. Elk City - Deer Crossing
8. Glasvegas - A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss)
9. Regina Spektor - 20 Years of Snow
10. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Mr. Heatmiser
11. The Format - Holly Jolly Christmas
12. Great Big Sea - Seven Joys Of Mary
13. Pink Martini - A Snow Globe Christmas

Theme this year is Christmas-themed music with some songs that merely mention snow/winter thrown in to round it out. I will mention that this is the first time that beloved/detested Mariah Carey song has found its way onto any holiday mix by me. Have you seen Love Actually?  Like love, Christmas IS all around us, or at least that's what all the retail establishments are hoping you believe. 

Happy (ridiculously early) Christmas.

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be...

I had the discussion with some friends not long ago about what we wanted to be "when we grew up." Of course, that always leads to the inevitable, "I'm still asking myself that question every day because I STILL haven't grown up!"

Even if you're fairly satisfied in your job, I think it's always good to look back at where you thought you would go in life and the dreams you had as a child. Consider it a lesson in grounding yourself, perhaps?

So my list of all the things I thought I could be was so varied that I thought it might be fun to list them all off:

1. Witch - Some of the first books I read on my own were about a little girl witch, Dorrie .I think I thought I could become a witch too and make potions to help people. It wasn't until years later that I learned that there were actual witches in this world
2. Artist - My mom signed me up for a variety of art classes through  Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery's Creative Workshop when I was younger.  Most of them involved some sort of water color painting and drawing.  There might have been one class where we made pottery items, but I could be confusing that with art class in middle school.  My mom was an enthusiastic supporter of some of the stuff I produced which I suppose led me to believe that maybe I could do that art thing.
3. Ghost Investigator - Before I became afraid of everything bloody, violent, and gory in films, tv, and books, I read many books about the paranormal.  After I exhausted the children's section of the library, I moved onto the rest of the library to find books with ghost stories and other horrors.  I think my idea about becoming a ghost investigator was primarily fueled by seeing Ghostbusters.
4. Meteorologist - Meteorologist Kevin Williams visited my school when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. He had footage of tornadoes and other weather phenomena.  It looked exciting and something I could
5. Archeologist - The Indiana Jones movies are solely to blame here although my parents did have a habit of taking me to every historic village they came across while on vacations.  I still love history.
6. Musician - Before the next notion came about, I decided that maybe I could be violinist professionally because how cool would it be to play violin in an orchestra and get paid for it??
7. Music Teacher - The performer idea track was derailed when the idea to become a music teacher was presented to me just before 8th grade.  I think it sounded reasonable and something I might like to do so I spent the next 6 years of my life dedicating my studies toward this goal.
8. Music Historian- Almost 3/4 of the way through my freshman year in college, I realized that maybe I didn't want to be a music teacher.  I loved music and thought perhaps the music history route was the way to go.  I even met with the music history department head at Baldwin-Wallace College to try to feel him out for what possible careers in that field could be.
9. Radio Music Director - Ultimately, I switched majors to broadcasting with thoughts that maybe I could be a music director for a radio station since I had so much fun doing it in high school.
10. Radio Programmer - That led to thinking maybe I could program a whole station.
11. Radio News Person - And then I took that news writing course my Junior year in college at Buffalo State and it was all over from there.

What were some of your dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up?  How true did you remain to those dreams?

When Summer Lingers Into Autumn

The mild weather when I took my dogs out this morning brought up a favorite Fall memory of one of those freak warm weather days in the middle of October. Sure, this is still late September but the idea we're supposed reach the mid-80s today is odd.

Anyway, this one day it was sunny and the projected high was 75-degrees. For once, we didn't mind going outside for gym class. I think our phys ed teachers liked to make us run around the track in super cold weather as a way to build character. I used their penchant for cold-weather exercise later in December to ask to walk around the track with my friend, Sue, instead of playing endless rounds of volleyball. Of course, our teachers didn't know it was so she could smoke as we walked, but that's another story.

On this one October day, the sun was terrifically warm and made the yellow leaves still clinging to the trees around the school property glow. A good breeze rustled fallen leaves around the tennis courts where we smacked balls at each other with rackets that had seen better days. For 42 minutes of class time, it was the best day ever.

Tomorrow we'll be back to Autumn and I'll be dragging out my hoodie to keep me warm. Today I'm wearing short sleeves and capris. Happy Summer-Autumn in the meantime!

Pre-Labor Day Summer Wrap-Up

The unofficial end to summer is this weekend. I'm currently scanning RADAR and several weather websites in an attempt to divine whether we're going to get so much rain that the city's Labor Day Festival, which I help organize, has to be postponed until Monday. Fingers are crossed right now.

So what about the rest of this summer?

- We took a 4-day weekend to the Midwest. A stop in Chicago was made for dinner at Hop Leaf with friends. A fantastic party in Pontiac came next with a theme of "Video Games." I went as Princess Peach.

- Matt and I spent our 6th wedding anniversary in Hamilton, Ontario to see "Star Wars In Concert." It was a fabulous performance that we capped off by having dinner at La Bella Sicilia's which is where we held our rehearsal dinner. I also convinced Matt that we needed frozen custard from Fran Ceil's.

- We took in a lecture by Ed Kashi at Chautauqua Institution courtesy of our friends from Kodak who were there for Photography week.

- An evening of Bellini's and Ballet was had with friends at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute.

- My two young violin students showed up regularly for the rest of the summer. I'm hoping they come back to the program this Fall.

- Matt scored tickets to see an Abba tribute band perform at Chautauqua Institution. It was surprisingly good and revived my appreciation for that Swedish pop band.

- I was asked to play violin in the pit orchestra for Lucille Ball Little Theatre's production of "Chicago" in October. Rehearsals started this past weekend.

- We met up with Len and Ali in Cleveland for the "Dog Days of Summer" at Great Lakes Brewing Company.  After admiring lots of people's dogs and having some food/beer, we headed downtown for more beverages at Flannery's.  Before heading back to Jamestown, we walked around downtown and I showed Ali and Len Tower City Mall.

- We celebrated Ali and Len's 10th wedding anniversary with them, family, and friends in the cool middle-of-nowhere log cabin where Len's mom and step-dad live.

- I earnestly started clearing out a lot of my clothes that don't fit or I haven't worn in awhile. I also started a consignment account at a local shop to try to sell some of things I no longer wanted.

The Fall, which eventually turns into my "slow time" at work, is shaping up to be rather busy. There's Labor Day Festival this Sunday (unless it gets rained out), Local Music Showcase, WRFA fundraiser at Southern Tier Brewing Company, my mom's 60th birthday, "Chicago," Jamestown Community Orchestra concert, Halloween Fun Fest, pierogi party, and when we get to November I'll finally get a 2-week vacation. Just doing my best to hang in there until then!

2010 Summer Run Down Thus Far...

I'm going to say summer started at the end of April because we've had some seriously nice weather these past few months. So what have we been up to? Ready, steady, GO!

- A Dos De Mayo Party at Shannon Mac's house kicked off the season. There was delicious food made by one of the chefs from Hutch's Restaurant in Buffalo, a DJ, and a slip'n slide on a hill.

- "This Week In Metal" was revived on WRFA-LP (podcasts available). Leonard Barren and Julia Tesla can be heard weekly giving you random cool facts with a metal theme.

- I played in the Spring concert for the Jamestown Community orchestra. We rocked out to Chuck Mangione's "The Children of Sanchez."

- The foundation on the south side of our house was replaced so that we no longer feared the back-end of house falling over because of crumbling blocks.

- Memorial Day weekend my parents visited, installed a motion detector light on the back of our house and went on the Chautauqua Art Trail. We all watched the Memorial Day parade down Lakeview Avenue and later hung out at a friend's house on Chautauqua Lake.

- We attended the Yassou! Greek Festival with friends and some of us attempted to drink the Southern Tier Brewing Opa! kegs dry.

- We celebrated the marriage of NickDean and Lori in Bemus Point. It was a super hot and muggy day that was met with lots of chair rocking on the front porch of the Hotel Lenhart.

- A orange tiger-striped cat we named McKinley came to live at our house. Matt wrote the whole story here.

- We revisited our high school years by attending Forte's Surprise Prom Party - Enchanted Shipwreck Under The Sea.

- More hanging out on Chautauqua Lake for Fourth of July.

- Spent as much time as possible hanging out with Shannon who was in town from Pontiac, Illinois. Plenty of beer was consumed.

- In theory, I began teaching violin lessons at the Infinity Performing Arts Center. Of the two students I have, one had car trouble and the other forgot to show up. We'll see how the second week goes!

- We joined some cousins in Rochester to head off to the wineries for much merriment. Crowning touch on that visit, besides all the excellent food consumed, was clogging a Wegmans' aisle while looking at beer.

And that's just through this past weekend! Stay tuned...

Stay by Allie Larkin

Some time ago I noticed there was this lady named Allie who was commenting on my blog. I initially confused her for my other friend, Ali, until I clicked on the link for her blog.

That's where I learned about Stay. Who wouldn't be suckered in by a romantic comedy that involves a puppeh? And bonus?? It's set mostly in Rochester!



Even though my parents were visiting me at the time, I refused to put down the book until I devoured it all in one day. I laughed as I recited passages to my mom about the trials and tribulations Van goes through as she welcomes her new dog, Joe, into her home. It's an entertaining read that has some real poignant moments.

Please check out Stay when it comes out June 10th!

Time Changes

My main computer went kablooey this weekend while Matt was trying to do a back-up of it, so I've been using our laptop for the past day. I haven't looked at files on it in about two years, so I started going through old pictures.

If I ever wondered if those zumba classes, change of diet, change of jobs, and general change in a lot of areas of my life were having any affect on me...

Here I am with my friend, Lynn, outside Mojo's after a concert in September 2006:














Here I am in Allen Park just before Memorial Day weekend this year:














For those wondering, that's what losing over 20 pounds looks like on a 5'2 lady.

The Say - Latest Editorial

I wrote "The Say" editorial in the latest edition of the Chautauqua Region Word.

The hot topic this time was the new Jamestown Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. It's a topic/story that I hope to see more of in the news over the coming months and years because if the recommendations are able to be enacted it could create some very positive changes in the Jamestown housing market.

Dreaming of the Millennium Falcon.. again

Last night I had another Star Wars themed dream. I blame this one solely on the fabulous fact that I had just bought the tickets for Matt and I to go see Star Wars: In Concert in Hamilton, Ontario in July.

In this one, I was on the Death Star hanging out near the Millennium Falcon waiting for Luke to get his ass back to the ship so we could take off before it was time to blow up the place. I ran across a group of emo/rave kids who were totally unconcerned about their impending doom as I encouraged them to take refuge in the Falcon. I sighed as they stood agape, watching various star ships start whizzing above the Death Star is pre-battle formations.

"They don't get that this place is gonna blow up pretty soon," I grumbled. "And where the hell is Luke? Can it really take that long to kill off the Emperor and then drag his dad's dead body back here? I mean, c'mon.. really."

And end dream. No. I didn't make any of that up. Still comes in a distant second to the dream of the chill party on the Millennium Falcon with R2D2 and Han Solo.

Sunday Reading on the Porch

No better way to end the weekend than with a hot cuppa tea and a good book on the couch on the front porch. I am surrounded by windows that are full of leafy green trees. My dogs don't seem to mind the change from sitting inside. I consider myself lucky to have a working light and a blanket as the sun goes down.

Fixing Foundations - Staging

Some staging materials have arrived for fixing our foundation.

This Week In Metal

Starting next week, a weekly bit called "This Week in Metal" will begin airing on WRFA-LP.

The segment is the brain child of Occasional Truth blogger, Len. He asked me to voice part of it, which I was happy to oblige. Here's hoping I don't massacre the pronunciations of too many metal-related names!

Tune to 107.9 FM in Jamestown or listen online.

Garbage Plates & Southern Tier Beer

Homemade garbage plates by candle light with a 2X IPA by Southern Tier Brewing Co.

Winter Garden Comes Down

I got a text just as my Zumba class was ending this morning that the Winter Garden Theatre was being demolished so I walked up North Main Street to have a look. I spent about an hour and a half in the cold (with a stop off to Labyrinth to get some coffee to keep me warm) watching the building being crumbled away. Most of the facade and part of the interior is down for now. Work stopped for the Sabres game.

The Census: Getting Our Slice of the Federal Pie

I had the pleasure of writing the feature article for the latest issue of the Chautauqua Region Word. The downloadable PDF is here.

I've been living in Census Central, it seems, for the past few months. Promotional materials have filled the trunk of one of our cars, thwarting me whenever I made my weekly trip to Wegmans and forgot, once again, that I was competing for space with posters, water bottles, and other knick-knacks. Unexpected meetings have been added to my work agenda so I could listen to and share ideas for how to get the word out about the Census.

The guy leading the cause for our area has been Matt, so I really and truly couldn't get away from it. I watched him and other people on the committee turn an awareness campaign into something that resembled what I had seen him do on the political side of his job. It was heavy on grassroots and so far seems to have had some good results based on the Census Participation Map that shows Jamestown at 73% for Mail Participation rate.

To get the full story, pick up a paper copy of the Word or click over here.

Singleton Cooking

Matt is out of town so I made myself spinach salad and spiral mac n cheese. You bet I plated that! The salad has a homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing because I didn't have any spinach salad dressing on hand. Well, I didn't want to take the risk that jar that said it expired in February might still be good.

Fortunately, Matt will be back tomorrow to cook us dinner so no more box dinner stuff!

Life With A Bubble Boy

Matt and I had been dating a few years before his allergies started showing up and wrecking havoc with his life and somewhat with mine. It's to the point where we joke that we should just get him a bubble and be done with it all.

His sensitivity to corn, and thus corn-derived products, has changed up our grocery shopping habits once again, but I think this one could be beneficial to us both.

I knew that a lot of products had corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup in them, but I guess I didn't realize to what extent. Something as simple as ketchup has both ingredients. Even "healthy" cereals like Bran Flakes have HFCS!

Fortunately, with the natural food movement and desire by some of the population to get away from the easy sugar of HFCS, there are now more products that are sweetened "naturally" either using cane sugar, honey, or fruit-based sweeteners. Naturally, they tend to cost more.

Either way, if it switching to these products helps keep the hives away for Matt and we see benefits in terms of our waistlines, I'll be happy.

Easter Monday Morning Quarterbacking

We did the Easter thing with my family yesterday and on the way up to Buffalo, I mused over why I never quite got why this was such a major holiday. It comes down to a lot of things for me.

First off, when you're raised Catholic, you have four weeks where you're deprived of eating meat on Fridays. I didn't care for fish as a kid, so I ended up eating a lot of macaroni and cheese on Fridays or deep fried shrimp. Fortunately, the mac'n cheese was homemade by the Parkside Diner, so I never got tired of that meal. Then after, all the fasting we finally got to eat meat on Easter Day. Hooray! Except in my family, that means fresh kielbasa and borscht. I've never really enjoyed fresh kielbasa and there was one Easter where I figured if I ate it really fast, I wouldn't be able to taste it. That didn't work out so well and the floor didn't appreciate it either when I upheaved it later. I don't think I have to explain the horror that is borscht. Fortunately, my family has added smoked kielbasa to the Easter offerings as well as ham, so dinner is not dreaded so much.

Going back to religion, I was pretty straight-forward thinking on some issues as a kid. I didn't understand what the big celebration was over the death and rising of Christ. My 9-year old train of thought went sort of like this:

"So, Jesus was a good guy and he got killed for it? And you're telling me he raised from the dead? Okay, I get there being ghosts and angels and stuff but, dude, he's STILL DEAD. Like, it's not like Jesus can hang out and ride bikes with us or climb trees. And we're supposed to super happy about this??? There's still lots of bad people out there, so I dunno if it was worth it."

I know. It's hard to reason with 9-year olds. Plus, I always thought it a bit macabre that not only were we celebrating some revered guy's death, but some of our main icons were of the guy nailed to a couple pieces of wood. Um. Hello? I don't want bloodied, beat-up guy all in my face. Thanks Mr. Jesus for the nightmares as a kid. Add to that the extended church service just because it was a major holy day and my love for Easter was very small.

Getting away from the controversial stuff, Easter falls during a time of year in Western New York that can be either wonderful or snowing. Inevitably, my mom would have picked out a cute, frilly dress for me to wear for Easter. As a kid, I would wear it and shiver because a warm sweater and slacks would have been a better match for the weather. Just try keeping your toes warm in white patent leather shoes when the temperature is 40 degrees!

It wouldn't be fair to not mention to the positive things about Easter. Of course, the candy was always a thrill as a kid. Ham for dinner also was a huge plus once I discovered the delights of Miller's Horseradish spread on each slice. Naturally, time with my family in Buffalo was and still is the biggest plus to the Easter Holiday. So Happy Dyngus Day to everyone!

Good Friday at Spragues

We decided to spend Good Friday by making the trek out to Sprague's Maple Farms in Portville, NY. The weather is a little nuts with it being 85 degrees and it's only April 2nd. We hope to make a return trip out here sometime with some of our friends who haven't experienced this maple syrup heaven.