18 Years Ago Today...

I married this terrific man! We spent this day together as partners in business, tonight we go to dinner as husband and wife.

Facing a Monday

While I very much miss the faces of the friends I would see each day in the office, I do miss some of them very much, it was a comfort today to spend some time photographing the faces that were hanging on the walls on the backyard where I was working.

Time...

Time is interesting. Can't imagine how I was able to have any life at all while working up to 9 hours-a-day in an office, reading work e-mails around the clock and acting as on-call manager a couple times a month. Now I work part-time yet find I have very little time to lay around, there's always something to do. The lesson so far is that I wasted my time trying to get everything done so I could do nothing, now I just do and do and do, taking breaks to do nothing when the spirit moves me!
Here is the Flatiron Building as a backdrop for the Fifth Avenue Building clock, a close-up of the clock faces on the Met Life Tower and speaking of faces, here's one atop the Flatiron.

Bright Moments and Rainy Days

I really would not have thought that not being in a newsroom, knowing every in and out of the days events around the world, would be when I felt most in touch with the world around me.
We went to fix the irrigation system, on one of the most lovely rooftop gardens I have seen, where the tomatoes were ripe for the picking, the client was not around town just then to enjoy so told us to take. On the table, right, some for home, two others were washed with the hose and eaten right there, they were delicious!
Anna, the daughter of our dear friend Ames was married on Saturday in a tent, during tremendous rain from the hurricane moving up the coast. Can you see the smile on that beautiful face, this woman we have watched grow up, as she stepped full of joy and bare foot to take the hand of her Bryan. Many of us were bare foot, ankle deep in water, and barely notice that for the happy tears.
I never thought I would gain so much by giving up what looked like so much...

BEEing

Yes, we have all seen close-ups of bees but mine is in the garden of a rooftop on Fifth Avenue! I guess what I am really bragging about is that I was able to get so close without having him flying away.
That day I also got to see this fountain that my husband built, stone by stone, just beautiful isn't it?
I have had such varied views of the Empire State Building so far, I think this is one of my favorites.
It is so strange to be living so differently than I did just a month ago, and this time last year I was just back from three weeks in Beijing covering the Olympics.
One day a time, I am so looking foward!

A New Tired - A New Invisible

I've learned in the last two days what putting in full, physical days are all about. I snipped, pushed, dug, sweat, banged myself up good on a metal stairway and can still say, I don't miss working in the office! I am so grateful to have this chance, an opportunity to see what life is like from this angle, and I suspect it not the last angle I will see.
One very interesting similarity between this and being a working journalist is the invisibility it affords, maybe even more so since I am not just moving around the scene of a convention or Olympics, I am moving through the lives of people. The feeling is that same, that I am playing in the background.
Now instead of doing service to report the news I am doing what my husband calls quiet service to the plant world.
Today we finished up an irrigation job in the backyard of a townhouse then we went to increase the water for some plants living high above Park Ave. Big Exhale...

Sadness

No one should have this happened to them, it is unfair. There is no way to keep it from happening for as long as people act as if the way to make a point is to kill other people, but I really want to yell 'it is not fair!'
I will try today to not get react if I think someone does me wrong, in honor of everyone being hurt and killed because someone thinks they (or someone next to them) did them wrong.
http://news.aol.com/article/two-ap-journalists-wounded-in/613997

Yes!

I took my first class at the New York Botanical Garden this week, a two-day intensive "Terrace Gardening." It was great! At first when the instructor said there would be homework and a mail-in final I thought, I am out of here! As she got started I stopped thinking about not wanting to do the work, switched to but not being able to do it, after all I don't know anything about design, I don't know what plants are good with others, their color, whether or not they grow up or over, I can't draw to scale etc. etc. etc. Well I did the homework, it took me hours but enjoyed every minute of it. It seems that knowing the best image, having to pick it in the blink of an eye, editing picture stories, figuring out the puzzle of a 24/7 work schedule for 30 plus people, translated pretty well to the work. It's not perfect but good enough to get me psyched and looking forward to proudly sending in my final exam. Here's proof of the homework, a view from a lunch spot in the Garden and a grass-eye view that I enjoyed.

Friday No Longer Fried-day

We had a great day of lesson today in low-voltage lighting today at Storr Tractor in New Jersey. Such nice, knowledgeable people at a lovely facility. From left are Win (one of the gardeners Chris works with), Ayana, Rodney, Chris and teacher/expert Art.

Intersecting Points

This corner of bamboo meeting steel was my visual today of how it feels just now. I am so grateful that my life is allowing me to experience such lovely crossovers.

Glad the ladies were Freed from North Korea

...and especially glad that I didn't hear about it until I got home, showered and was having a cold glass of orange juice.

Here's where I was, with a view of Central Park from yet another angle. The Dakota looks different from above doesn't it? Interesting how this look for Chris was completely normal up there in the blazing sun as we pulled wires under paving in preparation for low voltage lighting.

I am glad to be taking and posting images, I love pictures!

Not The News

This week I have really enjoyed watching the news OR NOT ! I missed face time with some of my friends which I guess my husband (top) knew would be the case, he arranged for a group to come have dinner with us. Tim was the movie star covering his face; Shahrz was the one who supplied Chris with the e-mail addresses so he could surprise me; Jim, sitting here with Liz, was celebrating his birthday, then my favorite, Benny laughing himself to ghost!