Freaky Friday Fragments

Happy Halloween! I saw an ad for Best Buy last night while watching The Biggest Loser, and while they didn't say ho-ho-ho or the ever popular 'happy holidays', there were Christmas lights twinkling, snow falling and the sound of bells in the background. On October 30th. They didn't even wait for Halloween.

Our local supermarket is also confused, and it seems they've kind of just waved the white flag on this whole holiday season. In a single aisle you can find Halloween candy on one side, Christmas lights and assorted decor on the facing side, and running down the middle are Thanksgiving napkins and turkey related paper goods.

One question-why???? I just do not understand why this is necessary in October. Christmas especially, but even Thanksgiving is late this year. We have a solid month to shop?? for Thanksgiving once Halloween ends, so why???

Hunting was a theme in this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. It's funny how strongly people feel about hunting. Most hunters I know are the most responsible of gun owners, and most eat what they kill. With all the talk of hormones and gobbledy-gook injected into our food, hunting is truly getting back to basics. You know where your meat comes from if you hunt.

Unless we're all going vegetarian, our meat is killed in some form or fashion, oftentimes much less humanely than by a hunter's bow or bullet. I think the 'gun debate' in our country has lost all perspective. I'm still waiting for a real discussion about the mental health crisis in our country which, if not at the root of our most recent tragedies, is certainly a factor in nearly all of them.

In happier news I had a facial yesterday. I need to have my skin looking ten years younger by January-ha! Is that possible? I'll let ya know.

I fi-na-lly got Daughter1's car booked with a mover. You're relieved I know. Getting a car from the East Coast to the West Coast within a very narrow window of time has been a teensy tiny bit stressful. But!...her belongings and her vehicle will be collected next week and on their way. I'm pretty sure I'll sleep easier once this portion of the 'wedding planning' is behind us.

Lastly, this video surfaced on YouTube and is making its way round social media. This occurred just up the road so to speak, not far from the mall where I shop, a couple of little towns over from where I live. Hubs and I saw something very similar in our backyard the first year we lived here. The bears reminded us of the way brothers sometimes wrestle. Experts consulted believe the two in the video were likely worked up about a girl-bear. Anyway, it's a pretty incredible snapshot of suburban NJ wildlife. Creation never ceases to amaze-

If you've got fragments from your week to share, hop over to Half Past Kissin' Time and add your link to the party. Enjoy your Friday everyone!

And Merry Christmas! Happy Halloween! Don't eat too much turkey!

Friday Fragments

It's Friday, so why not?

It's been a pretty quiet week round here.  I've been catching up on some at-home projects that I'll share at some point, but not today. It's hard to blog when you're keeping most of the wedding details hush hush.

On Wednesday hubs worked from home and we met his sister and her family for lunch. They were passing through and we were a convenient stop. It was fun to catch up in person.

My neighborhood book club met last night and that's always a nice way to spend an evening. We read a  book called Alex: The Commandant Camille Verhoeven Trilogy. The author is French so this is a translation, and the second in a series. It's dark and some of it was hard to read, but the writing is excellent and the characters intriguing. If you liked The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, then you would probably like this one too. It's written with that same combination of tension, subtle wit, and melancholy as the Stieg Larsson series. Except the names are easier to pronounce-ha!

Normally in the summer we read a little lighter fare, but not this summer.  We've read Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer set in Sudan, recounting the horrific tale of a 12 year old girl sold as a slave into an Arab family. Not light. Or easy to read. But real. Then in July we read Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller, which in typical Jodi Picoult fashion is full of twists and turns and shades of gray. It's a modern story intermingled with a story set in Nazi Germany so yeah, also not really light.

We're home again this weekend which makes two in a row, so whoohoo! We're having three couples over on Saturday for a barbecue and so far the weather looks like it will cooperate. It's gorgeous out there today.  Everyone is bringing something which is my favorite kind of party, but I'm doing the main, an appetizer, and dessert. I think this party may be the excuse I need to make a peach cobbler.  The peaches are so good this year, unlike the tomatoes which have had too much rain. Jersey tomatoes are late.

And finally there's this...

Just taking care of his weekend banking.

He walked right in front of my car early this morning, across a main street in our little town. I was on my way home from boot camp, so it was early and not a lot of traffic, but still...we don't normally see them in the middle of town.  I followed him into the bank, but he was on to me and slipped through the hedges to the Burger King next door.

Judging from the size of him, I'd say this was not his first trip to the BK. They really are beautiful creatures and amazing to see up close. It pays to get up early and exercise...if I'd slept in I'd have missed it.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Another Pleasant Valley 'Monday'

I was sitting here drinking my coffee wondering how to make sense of all my weekend words when hubs yelled from the kitchen that a bear was having breakfast in our rubbish bin.

Let me tell you, nothing focuses a person quite like a bear in the driveway.  

Actually, hubs would say in my case the opposite is true and I lose all focus when a bear is nearby.   Whatever. Normally he leaves for work at o'dark thirty and I'm the one wheeling the bin all the way down our very long driveway and I'm the one making the long walk all the way back up the driveway.

Thankfully hubs had an out of the office event today so he was still at home when the excitement happened. You might laugh,  but we drove the car to the end of the driveway to repack the bin.  After Smokey mozied on up into the next door neighbor's yard (yes, they often mozy) we lost sight of him.  Having the means to make a quick getaway seemed wise...what if he comes back for that  steak bone he dropped?

So anyway, the weekend...it was nice.  Autumn officially made her grand entrance on Saturday but it wasn't until Sunday the weather got with the program.  It was gray and humid on Saturday so we lounged in our pjs and then went out to lunch.  Hubs had a gift card to spend at Dick's Sporting Goods so we popped in there too.  Does anyone else feel motivated to work out harder and more often when they see all the cute work out clothes available now?

After we ate and shopped we went to the movies and saw The Words with Bradley Cooper, Dennis Quaid and Jeremy Irons.  Here' my .02-

the ending-huh?
Bradley Cooper's People magazine title is well deserved.

That's all.

Sunday afternoon we headed to a nearby Oktoberfest celebration.  What a gorgeous day...blue skies and the perfect temperature!

I'm not a beer drinker but I do love the music and the atmosphere and pretending we're in Munich instead of North Jersey.

And latkes with applesauce, let's not forget that.

Hubs wore his authentic German hat and brought his authentic German stein and we planted ourselves at a table in the sun and enjoyed the day.  Various people came and went from this table and we made friends with all of them.

The first couple who sat down beside us were world travelers and have already emailed me their write up of a trip across France from north to south and another from south to north. I never turn down a good travel tip. Another couple joined us and I was dying to ask the man if people told him he looked like Steven Tyler, but wasn't sure if he'd take that as a compliment or not. Would you take that as a compliment?  I intended it that way-he had the boyish good looks but I don't think he had the crazy or probably the vocal chords either.

These folks were at the table behind us and I needed a picture of this gentleman's hat. He told us the fur piece on top cost $6000.

Hmmm...is that true or is that the Spaten talking?  Either way, it was fabulous!   I think this one is badger, but I'm pretty sure if I could catch one of the groundhogs in our yard hubs could have something similar for free.   

Later in the afternoon another couple joined our table along with their adorable little girl.  My hubs and the other hubs hit it off like long lost friends and guess what?  We're going to their daughter's 1st birthday party next weekend.  

It sounds a little crazy, but as it turns out they live not too far from us.   Maybe it was the magical fall feeling in the air, but when you're friendly people are usually friendly back.  

Our Oktoberfest was held on the grounds of a local ski resort so at the end of the day we all took advantage of the free gondola ride and rode to the top of the mountain together. I was going to take pictures but I forgot this gondola was for skiers and had no seats.

Why is it always so windy on these things?

It's been well established on my blog here, here, and here how I feel about this sort of thing, and no way was I taking my hand off the rail. Hubs kept trying to use logic on me, saying things like in France I was thousands of feet higher, but you know what? When you're up in the air, you're up in the air and it doesn't matter if you're 1500 feet or 15,000 feet, you're still not on the ground. Right?

He finally wrestled the camera from around my clenched fist and snapped some photos.

It's not the Alps, but still beautiful in its own way.  

7 on 7

7 on 7 is really just a nice way of saying I have seven miscellaneous and completely unrelated thoughts to share today and it's the 7th of November ergo, 7 on 7.

1. Does anyone actually ever say ergo?

2. Sunday morning I made my way down the stairs to begin my normal routine of choosing a coffee cup, doling out the dog's meds, putting food and water in her bowl and letting her out back. Standing at my kitchen sink I glanced to the left to see if the little family of deer were on the hillside as they are most mornings when I felt something approaching from the other side of the yard.

As my grandma would say, "Land sakes alive!"

A ginormous, and by ginormous I mean HUGE!, bear strolled right under my kitchen window. It is possible I may have freaked just a wee bit. Naturally the camera was in my purse (aka the Black Hole) so by the time I'd recovered sufficiently to yell for hubs to come see, dug out the camera, focused (remember this was pre-coffee), calmed the dog so that she didn't go thru the glass door in her attempt to ge up close and personal with the bear, I only got two lousy pictures. Hubs said the animal practically sat on our furniture and I could have a whole album of pictures if I hadn't been so nuts, but honestly this freaked me out a little. I've never seen one so close to the house and I kept thinking if I'd gone out the garage door as I sometimes do I might have come face to face with him. Shudder.

They are magnificent creatures. He paid us not one iota of attention, just lumbered across the patio, around the firepit and up the hill into the woods. This little episode served as my cardio workout for the day. To quote my hubs, "You handled that well." ahem.

3. In other exciting weekend news hubs coined a new expression. He'd seen some photos of himself and he hates the way his eyebrows look in pictures. Why yes, I am writing a blog post discussing my husbands eyebrows but he's okay with that. Anyway, because they are so gray fair they are sometimes more noticeable than he would like in pictures. We were discussing this very thing on our way to dinner Saturday night and he was lamenting that he looked old. I disagreed but he said no, he was right, that he was having an 'age spurt' Ha. Kinda like the reverse of a growth spurt. Glad to know there's a name for it.

4. I bet you can't wait to be empty nesters and have conversations like this one with your spouse can you? And I ask you-

Does a man who rips dead trees from the side of a very steep hill while deer sleep nearby and a bear lurks who knows where look old?

5. Want to know another interesting topic of conversation we explored en route to dinner on Saturday night? Chapstick. We both agree that there is a narcotic in chapstick that makes it addicting. The more you use the more you feel the need to use. Your thoughts? About chapstick I mean, not about our pathetic mid life conversations.

6. Saturday afternoon we went shopping. Correction, hubs went shopping and I held the coat and commented on the fact that even when a store has a suit sale which is buy one get one free he manages to select the most expensive suit in the store so really, are we actually getting a deal?

Anyway, it was a little chilly here but I was wearing wedges with the toe open because in spite of the chill, I was warm. I chalk that up to my 'age spurt'. Plus I was not ready to put on my old boots...I'm due for some new fall boots or cute shoes to wear with jeans but I've put off shopping for something so far. Hubs told me to just go buy a new pair but raise your hand if you're the mom and you tend to put yourself at the bottom of the list when it comes to buying.

In my head is an ever growing list of things coming up in the immediate and/or the not so distant future-holidays, travel, furnace repair, huge trees being removed from the yard today, college expenses, blah blah blah. Now I know that my buying a new pair of shoes and a college tuition payment do not exactly fall into the same category but if you're a mom I think you know what I mean. Hubs said this is not Appalachia and I need shoes with toes. Period.

7. Finally, I couldn't sleep on Wednesday night and in a moment of middle of the night activity I signed up for twitter. I cannot get my photo to load to my profile and I don't really know what in the world I'm doing but I'm going to figure it out as I go along. I don't know how often I'll 'tweet' because I think we all know brevity is not my forte. You can follow me at Daleyjoy if you are into twitter...and if you are, send me your link (name?) so I can follow you too.

Happy Monday!

Black Bear Black Bear what do you see?

I see a big dog barking at me.

And a lady in her sweats who hasn't had her coffee and thinks its far too early for this much excitement.

I've mentioned here several times that we see quite a few bear around these parts. I am sure a few of you wonder if that is not my over active imagination at work since I have yet to produce evidence.

Well hold on to your hats because today is your lucky day.

I let my dog out into the backyard as I normally do when I get up and then I got busy gathering all the cardboard recycling to carry to the curb. I stayed up too late and hadn't had my coffee yet so everything was still a little bit fuzzy and it was most definitely far too early for all the furious barking my dog was doing. She sees lots of critters in and around our yard and she doesn't usually bark. She pants and runs and paces and pants some more, but barking? No. This morning she was riled up good and was using her angry bark which is something we rarely hear. Delivery men are often the recipient of the angry bark. And if you're the criminal type rest assured she will give you her angry bark, but her pals scampering around the woods do not get the angry bark.

I walked around to the back yard to get her and what do I see but a friendly black bear lumbering down the hillside on the opposite side of the fence. fyi- I actually have no way of knowing whether or not he's friendly but he didn't growl or pounce so in my book that qualifies as friendly. Friendly is a relative term when you're discussing bears. And notice I said opposite side of the fence...can I get an amen here?

The bear paid my pup no attention whatsoever and thankfully Dixie was her normal good girl self and came when I called. Hmmm...perhaps she sensed that while she may stand a chance with a groundhog she would not come out a winner in a confrontation with a bear. Actually my dog is big and black and I'm pretty sure she just wanted to play but luckily the bear did not.

He mozied on up the street and paid no attention to the recycling by the curb. Now, had he been out yesterday he'd have had his normal field day in the rubbish bins within reach but today he just looked sleepy.

It is an amazing thing to see a bear in your driveway....

From inside the safety of your own house of course.

If you're looking for the questions to the weekly Hodgpodge you'll find them here.

Eating and Sleeping...it's a vicious cycle

It seems like a lot of my posts lately have revolved around the hodgepodge so I thought I'd take today to talk about this and that. You know, as opposed to random stuff. Its not really that there is anything too exciting to talk about, yet talk I will.

I cooked dinner Tuesday night. That sounds so lame but honestly we haven't had too many home cooked meals around here lately. Hubs has had dinner out 11 of the past 21 nights. I've been with him for a few of those but many were work related...like tonite. Tuesday night I made meatloaf which is one of his favorites so he was a happy camper.

A happy tired camper. We got into bed Tuesday night and I looked at the clock which read, are you ready...8:58. I suspect many of you had not even managed to get your toddlers into bed at that hour. Quite often we're having dinner at that hour. Somebody needs a vacation in the worst way. Thankfully he will be taking all of next week off.

Some friends invited us out to dinner this coming weekend but we're going to have them come to our house for a cook out instead. I hope we can stay awake.

This past Monday night we met some other friends for dinner. Are you seeing a pattern...we eat and we sleep. This has been our life in recent weeks.

Anyway, these were not just any old friends. These were special friends. Friends who came all the way from England to eat dinner with us. Okay, not really but still, they were in a nearby town so we met for dinner in a lovely Greek restaurant. The restaurant is known mostly for its seafood dishes and the fish are kept on ice for you to peruse and select. For the record, I don't necessarily need to see the actual fish that will be cooked prior to its appearing on my dinner plate. We had a lovely evening catching up and comparing notes on our college aged children and life in general. Incidentally, hubs had grilled octopus for a starter...a few people in the Hodgepodge this week said they wouldn't touch it but I say don't knock it til you've tried it. It's tasty!

My neighbor and I carpool to a Bible Study on Tuesday mornings. When I pulled into her driveway this week she showed me the spot where, just a few nights before, she'd seen a bear lay down and go to sleep. Yes. In their driveway. They really do make themselves at home in our neck of the woods. There's going to be a bear hunt for the first time in five years in our area this December. I hate to think about it but the female population is out of control, especially right where we live. Incidentally our dog will be staying indoors and she'll be donning a bright orange vest when we have to take her out of doors. Wouldn't want someone to mistake her lovely black coat for a potential living room rug.

Speaking of bears, did anyone watch Sarah Palin's Alaska on Sunday evening? No matter your feelings about her I've got to think the Alaskan tourism industry will be booming after the series ends. The scenery was spectacular and there is such a sense of adventure there. I'd love to go to Alaska but hmmm....do I want to go with my hubs? We are not always on the same page when it comes to outdoor adventure.

In other exciting news, I discovered today that I've been driving around without my license. I put it in an evening purse the weekend before I went down to my moms and I never put it back into my wallet. I drove all the way to my moms and back without it. And then around town here for a few days too. Oops.

This time next week we'll be preparing fabulous turkey dinners...our dinner will be followed by a power nap. I told you people...its a vicious cycle.

October skies

I normally answer the Random Dozen on Wednesdays and because this week was Lid's birthday she asked folks to submit questions as her birthday gift.

I'm sure it's a struggle to come up with twelve random questions on a weekly basis and she deserved a break on her birthday.

Several of the questions this week were similar to ones I recently answered in a Q & A here and several others had a birthday theme.

I think we can all agree I've exhausted the subject of birthdays on my blog recently so I'm going to take the day off and talk about something else.

Like fall.

Now there's a topic that hasn't been mentioned much anywhere recently.

I never used to talk about the weather but it seems like I pretty much give a weather report at least once a week here.

Such is the life of an empty nester with no job, too much time on her hands, and all that blank Internet paper to fill.

Who else here loves fall?

Our backyard is woods pretty much as far as the eye can see.

We have a flat grassy back lawn with a big rock wall all the way round then a steep hill behind that is covered in woods.

I have never actually fully explored these woods but my hubs did go all the way to the top one day and said the view down the other side is a little bit like The Lion King.

Except of course without the lions.

Although, apparently there are mountain lions here and bobcats too, but no lions of the Simba variety because hey, this is NJ.

The main reason I don't venture up into our woods is because we have bear living there.

We know this because we see them on a regular basis.

Just yesterday my neighbor and I were emailing back and forth about something and she added, 'oh, and I just saw the baby bear run up your driveway.'

We see him pretty often and recently we saw two teenage brother bears having a little wrestling match right at the edge of our woods.

It was like a slap fest and was very cute and super entertaining to watch but only because we were sitting safely in our kitchen.

And no, I did not get close enough to actually verify the gender but they behaved exactly like two teenage brothers so we're going with that.

Anyway, this time of year is my favorite and I love watching the trees turn.

Our backyard gets a little more golden every day and I never get tired of looking at the color.

This particular little section of trees is just beautiful...

Incidentally, this photo is au natural and by that I mean no photo shop.

For one thing it wasn't necessary and for 2. I don't know how.

How about that sky?

We snapped this on Saturday just before heading out to meet up with friends who'd invited us to the local high school football game.

It was a positively gorgeous day (there's your weather update) and hubs and I racked our brains and concluded we hadn't been to a high school game since the early 80's.

I know.

Some of you reading here weren't even born in the early 80's.

Keep in mind that my own girls attended an International School in the UK and the school did not have a football team.

Well, they had a futbol team but not a football team if you know what I mean so no games.

Plenty of matches though.

Okay, I'll stop.

I learned something about myself last weekend.

I discovered that I can get all caught up in a high school game even when I no longer have kids that age living at home.

Nor do I need to know a single player on the team or even the parent of a player on the team.

My stomach was in an absolute knot by the end of the game which we won in the very last seconds.

By we I mean our town's high school to which I have zero connection but still...Go us!

We got home just in time to turn on the Tennessee-LSU game and I think we just won't talk about that.

I can't remember a crazier ending to a game...Tennessee was celebrating their most unlikely win when they were called back for a do-over because they had too many players on the field.

Agghhh!

We lost.

And by we I mean Tennessee, a team I adopted thru marriage but hey, I dare you to go to just one game in their stadium and then tell me it doesn't rank right up there as one of the most fun afternoons of your life.

Over 100,000 screaming fans dressed in a blaze of orange....

it doesn't get more 'fall' than that.

Bears, and Boxes, and Boys! Oh My!

Y'all there was a ginormous bear in my yard last night. Oh my word you cannot believe how positively humongous he was. I need to run get the thesaurus because seriously, there are not enough great big adjectives to do it justice. Where is the photo you might ask? Well you know what? It's dark up here in the NJ countryside. And bears are also dark. Pretty sure God came up with that whole camouflage thing for their protection except I'm kind of wondering what in the world could take out a bear this size. A cannon maybe? Did I tell you he was colossal? Behemoth in fact. (Thank you Mr. Roget).

My hubs had a business dinner last night...a lovely Italian meal whilst I was home eating a scrumptious supper of microwave popcorn but, I digress...anyway, he got home a little before 10 and when he came in the house he asked what had happened to the bird feeder. I said I had no idea, that it was fine this afternoon. He went to the kitchen door and as he prepared to step outside he whisper yelled (effective in this case) to GET THE CAMERA! THERE'S A BEAR!!! I was on it for once and came up to the door and looked out into the pitch blackness and saw... nothing. At first. Once my eyes focused I took a step back inside. He was gargantuan. Hubs went all the way out to the deck railing but it occurred to me how fast a bear can move when he wants to and I hung back. I mean he was going after the finch food and even the squirrels, possum, and chipmunks don't bother with that. He must have been really really hungry.

Note to self-do not let the dog out in the pitch black night without a reconnaissance mission first.

I took two pictures before he lumbered on up into the woods and I'd post them for you but essentially they are two fuzzy black squares. My photography skills amaze even me.

I did snap a picture this morning of the bird feeder. Goodbye my beautiful yellow finches...it's come down to you or us and I'm gonna choose us.

On to an exciting note of another kind...boxes. I recently won a giveaway and my prize arrived in the post yesterday. In the mail. Sorry. Some habits die hard. Anyway, I won a drawing over at Chaos Theory. Courtney is an American grad student in Budapest so go say hi. Budapest is an amazing city and Courtney posts some beautiful pictures in between her studies. In fact part of the prize was a lovely photograph of their Parliament building...

and a gorgeous scarf...I can't wait to wear it because the colors are mine. Thanks again Courtney!

And finally...boys. I suppose I should say men but that didn't complete the alliteration so boys it is. Yesterday I was catching up on some blog reading after being out of town for a few days and it dawned on me that three of my very favorite blogs are written by men boys. So here's a little link love on this beautiful Tuesday morning...and no, these are not compensated endorsements, just some of my own personal faves...

Billy Coffey-maybe my favorite blog...it's like getting a short story every single morning. He is a gifted writer and has a book coming out later this year.

Pete Wilson-a preacher in Nashville who is sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful and always completely transparent. Great discussions occur in the comments here too.

Jon Acuff-hilarious. Seriously funny. Except on Wednesdays when he is seriously serious. His website, Stuff Christians Like, is also the name of his recently published book available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and local Christian bookstores. I'm a huge fan.

So there you have it. Oh, and I'm playing Bunco today which would also have worked in my post title but eh, not as exciting as bears, boxes and boys now is it?