I couldn’t have said it better myself

This photo courtesy of MLB’s Facebook page. I thought this was expressed beautifully. It has been great week of friends, Halloween fun and Red Sox baseball. What an October!

One thing to say this morning….

World Series, here we come!!!!
(Photos from Red Sox Facebook page)

A Week of Ups and Downs

I’ve been away from the blogosphere a bit again this week and there’s a blog post inside me just bursting to get out.  This post may be a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, like my week has been, so strap in for a bumpy ride!

Ah, my boys from Boston!  Their week mirrors mine somewhat.  The Boston Red Sox are off to a rocky start again this year.  Current win-loss record is 2-5.  But what a win today was!  They were back home in Boston for the first game at Fenway Park this season.

(my archival photo from a game I attended in 2010)

They trampled the Tampa Bay Rays 12-2.  I know you don’t come here to read about sports, but I’m just making a connection here, so stick with me if you can.  They won only one game on their road trip, and we fans were feeling pretty low.  They returned home to Boston today and pulled off a colossal win against a big rival.  I may be speaking for myself here, but I’m feeling much better about my favorite team’s chances.

I began my week with my regular Monday blues.  This week at work was probably going to feel like a long one with the promise of our spring break upcoming.  As the week progressed, I started feeling more hopeful.  Then yesterday, SLAM! I had one of the worst days at work I’ve ever had.  But I got up and faced the day again today and was rewarded with assurances.  I came home to an awesome baseball game, and the knowledge that our big vacation is only days away.

I also came home to some new blooms I’d like to share with you.
More daffs:

The rhodo-azalea that had seemed locked in mid-bud is starting to come around:

And would you believe the bleeding hearts are beginning to bloom?

I only have these white ones so far, there’s no sign of buds on the pink yet.  I’m sure these were a case of plants being fooled by the abnormally warm weather last month.

Another new arrival in my yard:

Can you tell what that is?  I apologize for the poor focus, but I had to work pretty hard to bring you this picture.  We’ve got baby bunnies again!  That fuzzy oval in the top third of the shot is a bunny ear.  My daughter made the actual discovery a few days ago when she noticed the large pile of mama-bunny fur (the blurry pile in the foreground of that picture) well ensconced in the center of our raspberry bushes.  The little buns are burrowed fairly deep in the ground, so getting a recognizable shot was nearly impossible.  We had a frost last night, so I’m sure mama bunny knew what she was doing tucking them in that way.  From what I could see of those adorable little ears moving around, I think there are three little ones.

Those bunnies reminded me that I yet again I missed my blogoversary.  Those of you who have been reading from the beginning may remember that baby bunnies were the subject of my first few posts back when I started this blog in April of 2010.  April 6th was the actual blogoversary.  For those who may be interested in such things, I’ve had 28,623 views since my blog began, and my busiest day was February 28, 2012 with 201 views.  That was the day I posted the February Photo Hunt Wrap-Up.  My most commented upon post was the October Photo Hunt announcement. That was the “idiomatic” photo hunt that folks really seemed to enjoy.

I can tell you that I’ve really enjoyed bringing you my photos and stories for the last two years, and I’m so happy to have become part of a blog community.  As you can see from my blog’s numbers, I’m no super power blogger, but I’m really grateful for you, my faithful readers.

So this up-and-down week ends on a high note: a big Red Sox win, the end of the work week, and our cruise only days away!  We are off on another college visit tomorrow, and I have packing to do, so I don’t know how much time I’ll be spending in the blogosphere this weekend, but please know I’ll be thinking of you and hoping to do some blog-catching up in my spare time.  If we are friends on Facebook, I’ll probably post some pictures from my phone from the cruise while we are still in American waters.  Think I’ll be going a little photo-crazy this coming week?

Oh, and don’t forget to be working on this month’s photo hunt too! Show me your favorites – and maybe one of mine! 😉

Baseball & Blooms

I had a busy and enjoyable weekend, and I just thought I’d share a bit.

I went to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game today.  Game time temperature was forcast for 55° and in the shade of the grandstand, it felt much cooler.  Jennifer and I bundled up and enjoyed an exciting 3-2 Red Sox win. By the way, Jennifer’s site is all spiffed up and self-hosted now, so head over and have a peek sometime.  Here’s our view from our homeplate grandstand seats, taken with my iPod:

Yesterday, I managed to get some much needed yardwork done after I finished being distracted by taking photos of the additional blooms that have recently opened.  The rest of my daffies are now blooming:

The earlier of my rhododendrons has also completely opened up:

I hope you made the best of your weekend too!  Happy May!

Awesome Weekend, Part 1

A delicious luncheon with friends, a visit to Cape Cod, early birthday gifts and the Red Sox win three games in a row – how awesome is that? 

My weekend away began with a return visit to Pickity Place in Mason, NH.  It was delicious, as always.  You can click here to see what we had to eat.  Unfortunately, the wind was nasty cold and making the day seem quite bitter outside.  When we were there back in October, it was a mild fall day and things looked quite different.  Though my fingers felt like frozen claws, I couldn’t help snapping a few pics.

I thought this angel statue looked as chilly as I felt:

I enjoy the effort the folks at Pickity Place go to to set up little vignettes that go with the seasons:

This frog prince didn’t seem to mind the blustery wind:

Can you see me reflected in his gazing globe?

I did manage to find one more pretty sign of spring before my fingers shaped into the form of a claw from the cold:

The tiny buds remind me of lilacs, but this didn’t look like any lilac that I’ve ever seen.  Anyone know what it might be?

The Pickity kitty smartly stayed inside the gift shop on this day, quietly enjoying the goings-on outside from the warmth of the window:

I certainly did!  🙂

Awesome Weekend, Part 2, Cape Cod edition, coming soon!

Sights of Early Spring

Hi Everyone!  Sorry I’ve been a bit absent from the blog this week.  I’ve tried to keep up with reading all of you, but I haven’t posted myself since last weekend.  It has been a busy week, especially with waiting for my Red Sox to finally win a game during this first week of the baseball season.  That the win came against the Yankees made the win even sweeter – though I wish I didn’t have to wait through 6 losses to see it!  I did still manage to get outside a bit with my camera, so I wanted to share a few signs of spring I’ve managed to find.

This isn’t really a sign of spring, but I did buy a new bird feeder that seems to be more friendly to a variety of bird sizes:

It has easily accessible openings for birds, but it closes down when something heavier than a bird, like a big ol’ gray squirrel, lands on it.  The squirrels eat frustrating amounts of seed, so I’d prefer to not have them emptying this feeder.  I have another feeder in a near-by tree that I’ll maybe put some cereal or other squirrel treat in so they don’t get too upset with me.

The new suet-cake I hung next to the feeder has been attracting some new visitors – this one is sunflower seed, and it seems to be popular.  I’ve never had grackle stop by before now:

I guess these birds can be considered to be pests, but I’ve never had any issue with them.  I think the iridescent feathers are pretty.

The robins have been back around in fairly large flocks, but I haven’t gotten a nice picture just yet.  They are one of the first signs of spring around here (they seem to return in early March) so I wanted to include at least one picture in this post.  I didn’t get the nice red breast, but I thought this one looking like it was looking back at me was kind of cute:

In addition to having my eyes out for bird visitors, I’ve been scouring the yard looking for signs of growth.  Some of my favorite perennials are just beginning to reach for the light of day:

Bleeding Heart

Peony

Lupin

Daffodils… many daffodils are actually blooming right now, but it will be a couple weeks still before I see mine.  Mine are planted on the north side of my house, so it is generally late April before I have blooms.

I was experimenting with fill-flash trying to get a picture of rhododendron buds, possibly to be used for my photo hunt.  I wasn’t overly impressed with the shots I took, and wasn’t sure my flash actually fired. According to the EXIF data on this one, it didn’t:

I’ll keep trying; maybe these buds just aren’t too photogenic?  Maybe it’s me?  Anyway, for the heck of it, I took this picture to see if my flash was firing:

It fired there!  That got me thinking about this week’s Picture Inspiration prompt, which was: “The Shape of Surprise….As you continue your reflection seeking, this week study shape. You don’t need to show context or the object reflected, just pay attention to the shape, color, light of the reflection itself. Share your own shape of surprise this week in this reflection from your world.”

I can’t decide if I want to use this shot for my prompt submission or not.  Any thoughts about it?  I’ll keep looking for other shots too.

Tomorrow is the big Worldwide WordPress 5k.  Becky and I are planning to walk together; it should be fun to see our different blog posts about the day.  Today is actually looking like the nicer day of the weekend – I hope the weather holds out for our walk!

Happy Truck Day, Red Sox Fans!

 

Non Sequitur is a comic that I love for all of its observations on every day life.  Its look at life in small town Maine with recurring characters Cap’n Eddy, Flo the waitress, and Joe, single dad to two spirited girls, are some of my favorite strips.  Joe has recently returned to Maine (Flo is his mom) and is frequently surprised by our New England ways.

The above comic appeared last February on “Truck Day” – the day the Boston Red Sox equipment truck leaves Boston for spring training in Florida.  Baseball fans in New England do see the start of spring training as a symbolic end of winter, despite being far from out of the woods as far as winter weather goes.  We count down the days until pitchers and catchers report.  Soon baseball season will begin! 

Truck Day has become a bit of a little holiday in Red Sox Nation in recent years – check out this video  from last year if you don’t believe me!  In honor of this day, and with a bit of inspiration from Gerry , I thought I’d show you some of the paraphenalia  this fan has collected over the years.

My license plate.  Yep, my car is wicked dirty.

Teddy bear, banner and hat from all-important, curse-breaking 2004 World Series win.

My favorite blankie (and the dogs’ favorite too!) for curling up to watch t.v.

Some of my novelites, including earrings, key chain and Santa hat.

And some of the clothing

Obsessed? Noooooooo… well, ok, maybe a little! 😉

The Boston Red Sox, Baseball and Me

I hope the title of this post doesn’t turn some possible readers away, such as Yankees fans or those who don’t consider themselves followers of sports.  Its about more than the Sox, I promise!

This past Friday night, I attended a game at the beloved Fenway Park in Boston.

It was a horrible, embarrassing loss to bottom-feeders, the Kansas City Royals.  The experience got me thinking about my relationship with the Red Sox and how it has grown over the years.

As a child, I didn’t really pay much attention to sports.  My father was (and is) a big sports fan, so the Red Sox were always there in the background of my consciousness.  I wouldn’t call my dad a fanatic, but he would enjoy watching a game when they were available on Channel 38 from Boston – no fancy NESN (New England Sports Network, for those of you reading from out of the area) broadcasting virtually every game.  Sometimes my mom, sister and I would even decide to pick up a couple of Red Sox tickets for dad to go and see a game at Fenway. Tickets to those games were cheap and abundantly available in the 1980s.  I even remember the heartbreak of 1986, and the ball rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs, putting an end to the team’s World Series bid that year.

In the years that followed, as I went through college and then married and started a family of my own, the Red Sox were still there in the background.  The man I married is a rarity among men I believe; he doesn’t really follow sports!  Sure, he’ll watch a football game if he happens to be home on a Sunday in the fall, but it is really no big deal to him, so the Sox still hadn’t come to a forefront in this household.   It may sound sexist, but my children did not create a grand interest in sport either; my girls are dancers.  Sports are no big deal to them.  I would still glance at the paper from time to time to see how the Sox were doing.  Excitement about a title for the Sox seemed to be nowhere in sight.  The curse of 80+ years with no championship continued.

Then things started to change.  My sister got married in 2002 to a man who is a sports fanatic  really enjoys watching all kinds of sports.  A traditional guy in charge of his remote control in the house, sports are always on tv in their home. She began to chat with my mother and I about the Red Sox. In 2003, the Sox had something going.  A guy named Pedro was pitching the Sox to some victories and heating things up in the American League East.  Hopes were dashed in the American League Championships by that team from the Bronx. (They don’t deserve a link!)

2004 was quite the famous year.  I don’t have to say too much about it.  The 86 year drought ended. Call me a “bandwagon” fan, but that’s the year that I jumped in with both feet.  I became, as the movie “Fever Pitch”  proclaims, “the most pathetic creature on Earth, a Red Sox fan.”  Red Sox fever took over.  This is the Christmas card that I sent out that year:

The fact that this World Series victory not only ended “the curse” but came with a crushing collapse for the Yankees in the American League Championship, made it only that much sweeter for Sox fans everywhere.  We savored.

  Having something to follow and keep up with and feel a part of something special really helps a person get into a sport, I believe.  My sister watched, my mom started watching too, I watched.  I started watching regular season games on a fairly regular basis.  I started a new job in 2005 where I found people who enjoyed talking about the Red Sox.  I wanted to know more.  I watched games and I read: the newspaper, blogs, books.  I started to understand pitching rotations, in-field fly rules, ground rule doubles and ERA’s, terms that would have been foreign to my vocabulary a few years ago.  By 2007, I got really serious and decided it was time for me to go to Fenway!  I’ve lived in Massachusetts my entire life, yet I’d never been to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.  I felt it was a right of passage that I had earned.  In April of 2007, I went to my first game:

I fell in love with the atmosphere!  The sounds, the smells, the sights, the Green Monster!

And I have continued going back ever since.  I’ve been lucky enough to get to go to a least a couple games each year since 2007.  Jennifer is usually the one who accompanies me (hubby is yet to jump on that bandwagon), and she was the one who came with me this past Friday night, despite being absolutely exhausted from a business trip.  This trip was an example of the persistance of Red Sox fans.  Our team is wallowing around 4th place in the American League East this year.  Teams start losing and typically “bandwagon” fans start jumping off.  I’m not.  I’m planning to enjoy a good summer of baseball.  I admit to being so disappointed Friday night that I did not feel like singing “Sweet Caroline” in the 8th inning for the first time ever (Jennifer called me a sour puss!), but I’m not giving up hope on the season.  I will persist!  The Red Sox don’t always make it easy on their fans, but I think its great to have this something of which to feel a part.  When Sox fans talk, we say things like,”So who are we playing tonight?”  or “Who’s pitching for us tonight?” and its understood.  We may not be members of the Boston Red Sox, but they are our team.