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I have been looking at this book for the last couple of Monday nights at Borders. It is divided into sections (comedy, romance, Sci Fi, etc) and each section starts in the 1930's or so. It's fun to read about all those movies. So many of my favorites are listed.

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This afternoon Paul, Marley and I went letterboxing. We started off at Springfield St. Cemetery in Feeding Hills. The clue was Jane Chatfield November 22 1881 to August 21 1935. Under the tree. That was it. Do you know how big Springfield St. Cemetery is? Anyhow, we walked around there for about an hour and a half and never found it. We gave up for now (to be continued later with Paul and I eventually checking every grave stone), and headed out to Southwick to look for another letterbox. This one was on the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail in Southwick near the CT state line.


It took us a while to find the trail, but the rest was rather easy. Except for the fact that you had to cross a swamp on 2x6 boards. That was a little scary.


We found the letterbox hidden underneath a rotted out tree. I love this hobby!

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I must have had a premonition.

On 6/30/09 I took a picture of this Doctor's box "thing" that was hanging on the wall near the back door of my work. Yesterday when I went in to work, it was gone and the hole boarded up. Today the hole was plastered over. I couldn't believe it! I don't know what they did with it. I know it was very old and none of the doctors used it anymore, but it was a piece of nostalgia, and now it's gone. Sad!

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Marley is getting to be a pro at feeding Mason.

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So thankful for family. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Today I made these carrots for Thanksgiving. Kristen's mother-in-law gave me this recipe years ago. My family really likes them. I usually only make them on holidays as they take some time to make, but are SO worth it (even I eat them and I don't like cooked carrots!).

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Last night at Borders Paul bought this DVD for $5.99. It was released in 1982 and we saw it at the movies but I really didn't remember much of it. It is a haunting story of a Holocaust survivor. We watched it this morning (I have today and tomorrow off to get ready for Thanksgiving). It was worth watching, but now I have to get to work vacuuming, etc.!

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This is Minnie in her new bed. Every now and then she gets in Izzy's bed, but it is amazing how she remembers that this is her bed. I think she likes it here.

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Mason loves it when Mark kisses his face. I wish you could hear him laugh. It is so cute.

Note Minnie in her new bed that Paul and Marley bought for her yesterday!

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Well, Minnie has been with us for four days and so far so good. There have been no fights, just a lot of growling and hissing, but things are getting better. They seem to be getting more used to each other. They are still nervous and skittish but not as bad. Tonight will be the first night that Minnie doesn't stay in the bathroom. We'll see how things go!

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This past Tuesday a wonderful lady passed away. Helen was a volunteer in my office. She volunteered for over 20 years and "retired" in August of 2008. Helen was there every Tuesday like clock work. She took her work very seriously. There was no extra talking or fooling around. She said "good morning" and then got to work. We had lunch with her and then she stayed until about 3 o'clock. I knew her for 12 years. She loved us (she told us all the time) and we loved her. She was an inspiration to all of us. It was very hard for her to have to retire. The work she did has never been caught up since she left. One of my co-workers posted her obituary over her desk so people coming into our office would know of Helen's passing. She nick-named her Hawkeye because of her keen eye if something was not right with her work. As Cindy wrote, "Rest in peace Hawkeye."

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Tonight we went to my aunt Dot's house to set up her new cable box. She loves watching O'Reilly and with the changes that Comcast made she wasn't able to get it without getting an adapter box. Paul had a lot of stuff out on the floor while he was working on the TV. Dot's cat Zeus loved it. I haven't seen him this playful in years!

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On Tuesday night (the first night that Minnie was with us) she spent the night in our upstairs bathroom. She was also there all day Wednesday and until we got home from church on Wednesday night. She made herself comfortable on the hassock tonight. There is still a lot of low growling going on!

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Today Paul and I went to the Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center and adopted Minnie. You can read about it on Debbie's Blog.

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Getting ready for a crop on Saturday. This page is going to be about Kris and Toby's new house.

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This afternoon Paul, Marley and I went letterboxing. I wanted to take Marley to the place where I had come upon the first letterbox. We needed to stamp it in our book, and also there was another letterbox, placed by the same person, in this cemetery that we hadn't found yet. We planned this day back when we found our first letterbox in Southwick, and all of us have been looking forward to it. What luck that it was a beautiful, warm day. Even though I had told Marley where it was, she read the directions as we walked towards it. This one was called Pushing Up Daisies (apropos for a cemetery). The second was called Moody Butterfly. It was a hand carved butterfly stamp from Nigeria. We didn't know where this was, so Marley read the directions and eventually we found it. Marley said this was the spookiest cemetery she had ever been in. She wasn't scared, though. In fact, she told us that she loved walking through old cemeteries.



We headed up to Greenfield. I had directions to another letterbox but, unfortunately, it was getting dark and we never did find the one we were looking for. That will have to be for another day.

If you are interested in letterboxing, go here.

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Today we went on a Letterboxing hunt. We were going to LL Bean in S. Windsor, CT to get new boots for Paul, so I went on to the Letterboxing site to see what letterboxes were in the area. I found one in the same town. This one was called "Connecticut River Valley The Door" and it explained about a historic style of doorway that developed in the Connecticut River Valley in New England in the
mid-eighteenth century.

This first picture was where it lead us, describing that this door was one of 11 original doors of this type still on the houses which they were built for. It is the Ebenezer Grant House in So. Windsor.


The letterbox was located just down the steet in a cemetery behind the Board of Education office. It had a hand-made stamp of a Connecticut Valley doorway. It was beautiful!



If you are interested in letterboxing, go here.

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Friday night with Mason and Marley. She is already a good babysitter. He loves to watch her!

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This is what Marley's poor Lincoln Log Town looked like after a few days of being exposed to Izzy (the cat).

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For Veteran's Day, Marley's 3rd grade class had an assignment: write a paragraph about a person they know in a military uniform.


This is what she wrote:
This is my Great-Grandpa David Waite. He was only 17 when he joined the Navy. He was in the Navy from November 1944 until July 1946. He was a member of the forward crew on the USS Sirona. The Sirona was one of over 100 ships in Tokyo Bay getting ready to invade Japan when Japan surrendered and the war was over.

Thank you to all of our veterans!

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How cute is that smile. Mason was five months old this past Sunday.

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Christmas has come to Borders. A little early don't you think?

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Marley spent the evening making this Lincoln Log western town.

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Today we found our first letterbox. After Marley's game this morning we went on our first adventure. There are several close to us and we chose to look for the one on the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail in Southwick at the remains of an old homestead. I had gone on to letterbox.org and printed out the "clues" to find it. This one was called the "Gift Box." Marley was so excited. She read the directions to us in the car and also as we were looking for it. The directions were perfect and we were so excited when we found it. We weren't exactly organized today, though, and after we found the letterbox and went to put our stamp in their journal, we realized that we had left our stamp at home. Good thing we weren't too far. Paul and Marley explored a little while I went home to get our stamp. I think this is going to be a fun little hobby. We were talking about some of the other letterboxes in the area that we want to look for and Marley said, "Don't do too many without me!"

Here are a few more pictures of our adventure:







If you are interested in letterboxing, go here.

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Tonight we babysat for Mason. He is really starting to get to know his "Baba."

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We are ready to start finding letterboxes. (See Post 300 which explains how I found out about letterboxing). Tonight we got our stamp and our sketch book. Our trail name is "Izzy's Crew". I can't wait to start. To learn more about Letterboxing, go here.

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The Prims and Daisies during music time. They really get into it!

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Voting for mayor tonight.

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With the time change yesterday, by the time we got to Borders tonight after work it was already dark out :(

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Kris and Toby invited us for dinner today, albeit with an ulterior motive - cleaning out the craft room. Kristen thought the little sun room off the living room would make a good craft room for her and Marley, so when they moved in everything craft-wise got put in that room, and basically it has stayed that way. Tonight we took everything out of the room (no easy feat!) and put it all in the dining room. Then we started putting things back in, organized. We didn't get too far, but it was at least a start.

P.S. When I was young, I had a friend who lived in that house with her grandmother. Her name was Janie and I spent a lot of time in that house. We used to hang out in the sun room. The big shelf type thing on one wall had a thick pad on it - and we used to play games there.