Scarecrow Contest - 1980s

Peddler's Village, Pennsylvania - mid 1980's scarecrow contest. Mom, Aunt Al, Mary and I went here a few times in the 80's, twice in the fall to see the cool scarecrows. My other cousin Janet was with us once. I don't remember my brother being there. Maybe he was one time. I'm in the one picture looking at the bear outside one of the many great small shops in this village. My favourite was the one with lots of stickers, stationary and cards. The kitchen items store was good too. We ate in a nice restraunt there. The last time that I was here was in the early 90s on my own. It was more fun with my family though.

These 3 are my favourite scarecrows. I am very scared of spiders but thought that this one was cool. I often think about going back there someday but my driving anxiety plus the cost of gas has kept me from doing so. A visit to Aunt Al in Bordentown, NJ is definitely a goal for me in overcoming that anxiety. It's an hour drive which is beyond my 10 mile comfort zone. My brother wants to go to the flea market near her house next month. It's been about 9 years since I last drove down there.

Snoopy T-Shirts

My mom and I saw a cool Peanuts T-shirt in Kohl's the other day but it was in the men's section. It was a Halloween one. I'm thinking of going back there and getting one in a small for her. It would be too big for me. These are the 3 Snoopy shirts that I do have. I only wear them with a pair of sweatshorts or sweatpants to sleep in though. I did see another cool one in the JC Penney's flyer a couple of months ago. Snoopy was doing his dance of joy surrounded by some cupcakes. Yummy, I'd be happy too. I was tempted to go there and get it even though it was in the girl's department but did not. I do have a Scooby one in XL from that department. I used the money towards a book for mom instead. I just love character shirts.

Our Basement - 1980s

This is the basement of our old apartment in the 1980's. The bottom one is from before my room was down there. I can't remember for sure what year Mark got his basement bedroom. It might've been 1982. It was 1984 for mine. We had our own living room area too. Dad had his own little section as well and there was the laundry area also. My favorite blue couch that used to be in our real living room was part of what seemed like our own apartment down there. Mark is playing a game with our friend Kim - I think it was backgammon.

I loved my pink carpet but by 1990 it got ruined by a flood. Many people would consider paneling cheesy, but I like it and wish that we had some in our current apartment. My grandma at the farm crocheted the blanket and a matching pillow that's on my bed. That photo is from the late 80's when my Beatles/McCartney/Wings phase began. I had such posters on my wall. Elvis is on the wall of our living room outside of my bedroom.

The photo of me in front of the shelves with my stuffed animals and jewelry box is from about 1985. I no longer have the jewelry box and many of the stuffed animals but wish that I did. I do have my Kermit and Piggy which I'm glad that I was smart enough to keep. I have the 2 raccoons and the doll as well.

I'm not sure what my brother is doing in our living room in the top photo. I'll have to look at the original photo and see if I can figure this out. Whenever I scan anything it makes the image less clear and smaller. I like the photo of him in his room from 1986. He has a Haley's Comet bandana hanging on the wall. He still has it in a storage tote.

That apartment is in my dreams alot, probably because it felt more like home which this one that we've been living in since late 1993 never has. Mark is always complaining that this place is a mess and it's true that it needs some major improvements like painting of the downstairs walls but we haven't been able to fit this into our budget. We'd still be living at the old place had my dad not moved back to his mom's house next door after my parents got divorced. Mom didn't want to stay in that neighborhood so now we are on the other side of town. She had married the boy next door.

US Open 2011 Photos

I haven't been here in so long because of going to the US Open, being sick for a week afterwards and my brother's computer giving him problems. I'm going to have so much catching up to do with all my blog friends. I have started my picture project of this event and just wanted to share some of the better ones with you all. It seems like I am a bit obsessive with the picture taking when I'm at these matches but for every 10 photos I take only a couple come out good. The first 3 are of my favourite player, Austria's Jurgen Melzer. I kind of semi stalked him after the match and got the one of him with a couple of other people having their photo taken with him. The Juan Carlos Ferrero ones didn't come out that great because it was night time. You aren't really supposed to use a flash while they are playing. The bottom photo is of the guy who first got me into tennis 5 years ago - Tommy Haas. I missed part of his match because I was watching all of the Petzschner 5 set one - should've left after the 4th.

Because of Hurricane Irene our power was out for 4 days and we were unable to recharge our batteries until Wednesday night. If I had been more conservative with the picture taking on Monday my 2 batteries probably would have lasted all of the first 2 days but they were dead by Tuesday afternoon. I had a regular 35mm camera and film with me just in case this happened but unfortunately wasn't even able to use it because I forgot that it takes a special battery and had waited until we got to the tennis center to put batteries in it - it takes 1 lithium, not AA. If I had grabbed our 80's camera too, I could have at least used this even though there isn't any zoom on it, not that the zoom on the 90s one is that good.

At first in the bus terminal - we couldn't take the train because service of New Jersey transit was suspended- I bought 2 of those disposable digital cameras at one store. They were kind of expensive- 45.oo for 2. I went into another store, saw the 4 pack of film which I bought then returned the disposable ones which I totally regret now. I obviously was not thinking clearly during this whole day. It turns out that it would have been cheaper to get like 6 of those disposable ones than it was the way that I did things. I had all the film put on a discs so I'd be able to send the best shots to the computer than to Walgreens photo to have printed out. I had put off looking at them because I feared that there would be alot of crappy shots which turned out to be right. Very disappointing.

This whole camera incident feels like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone as does the fact that we were the only block in our small town to actually lose power during that Hurricane. We had to throw out like 80.00 worth of meats and dairy products. I'm just glad that I was smart enough to think to charge all our batteries on Saturday so at least we were able to take digital photos on Monday and part of Tuesday. It's been like 6 years since I've last used a regular camera. I didn't go digital until the end 0f 2008. I can't believe that I resisted the technology for so long. And I also looked into the bus schedule on Saturday because I was afraid that the trains might not be running. We had to walk 15 minutes to the bus stop which we wound up doing for the 5 days. We weren't even sure when the trains starting running again. The money that I saved on parking in the train lot wound up going towards the film but that was only a small portion of what I wound up throwing away because of the power outage. Things could have been much worse so I shouldn't even complain. We didn't get the flooding like many towns in Jersey did. And thank goodness that New York had their subway system up and running in time for us to get out to Queens to attend this event.

I hope that everyone has been well lately. I will have much more on our US Open experience in the future. It's nice to be back here. I'm looking forward to reading and commenting on your posts.

Just a Quick Post About the US Open - For Now

I have so much that I'd like to write about my 2011 US Open experience only I feel too darn sick to even be on the computer now so I will just make this a brief post. This is a picture taken at one of the booths at the tennis center. My brother and I entered a contest to win a Citizen watch and the chance to meet Kim Clijsters. The weather was wonderful all week, thank goodness. I should just be greatful that it was and that we even got to be there but I can't help but be upset about the fact that we lost power in just our 2 blocks in my small town for 4 days because of Hurricane Irene so we couldn't recharge our camera batteries until Wednesday night. I took alot of pictures on Monday and by the time of my main guy Melzer's match on Tuesday afternoon the battery was getting weaker so I wasn't able to take that many of him. Oh how I wish that I had been more conservative with the picture taking at other matches. More about this topic next time. I was so close to going myself for a 6th day on Saturday. The guy at the ticket booth said that there weren't any tickets available when I asked on Thursday night but to come back on 8:30 that morning. If I hadn't gotten this awful cold I definitely would've been there. I got sick after this event last year too which sucks but it was worth all the suffering that I'm going through now.

I did read some of my emails and comments on my posts and would like to thank Chelly, Pam, Darrin and all my other blog friends for their kind words and I certainly will respond to you all as soon as I'm feeling better. I'm looking forward to reading your posts too. I've missed everyone here. Hope that you all have been well these days.