PHOTOS of Hurricane Irene

FINALLY! I know, I know, anyone reading this is saying, "Gloria is finally posting hurricane photos NOW? It took her long enough!"
I am sorry for the delay and hope you are still interested in seeing them! My son took these photos when he went on the following day after Hurrican Irene. Let's see, the hurricane was on Sunday, September 28th, and he took most of these the following day. We were so lucky that not one tree or branch came down on our property. The good Lord was REALLY protecting us.
We were without power for five days... from Sunday through Thursday (we got our power back Thurs night). Believe it or not, parts of the power outage were fun... we did everything outside, grilling our food, and we played Monopoly and Jenga and Poker too!! We had fun and it was great quality time with my son. Very, very special...
Well, for four days, that is. I will be totally honest to let you know that on the fifth day, things started to get stressful and we were REALLY getting on each others' nerves!! LOL! So much for bonding time. Now I know: four days, GREAT; five days, UH-OH. Keep that in mind for any black-outs you may experience in the future. ;)

Well, let me show the photos now...
I wanted to show this one -- of our cat, Little Buddy, relaxing and taking a nap in my son's room... Isn't she cute?

The day after the hurricane, my son went in to Burger King in the next town to get us something and when he saw the loooooong line, he said forget it! Do you believe that line??

A couple more of the next town over from us...

And here starts the photos of the downed trees and downed wires in our town...

This is the shopping center in our town, not bad at all, only one tree...

More of our town...

This is our town's Senior Center. My son just drove in there to see how it fared, and it fared very well!

More of the downed trees and wires in our town...

And here is a bright spot: this is a little bush/tree I bought this Spring in honor of my mother (she passed away almost six years ago) because it is supposed to have blue-ish flowers (her favorite color) and after the hurricane, I was SHOCKED to see its first little flower! I think it was a sign from my Mom that she was protecting us the whole time during the hurricane. :)

And this was the best part of the "black out" that we had after the hurricane: my son would go in the morning to the next town and get us coffee and delicious, soft, fresh, buttered sesame bagels from Dunkin Donuts!

And, when our lights came back on, we celebrated with a few fireworks...

Thank you for visting and, again, thanks to all of you who worried about my son and I and left such nice comments on my previous two posts. I appreciate all of you!!! xxoo

Best,

Gloria

We made it through Hurricane Irene!

Thank you all for your comments in my previous post! You are all so nice and I appreciate it!
Well, I wanted to just do a short post to let you all know that my son and I are OK. We just got our power back late last night. Trust me, being without electricity for five days really STINKS.
I will be back in a day or so and post all the photos we took of the downed trees on the roads near us. My son and I were VERY LUCKY that there weren't any trees that came down on our property. Thank you, God.
Take care everyone and I will post soon, and I will start visiting all of YOU soon again too! I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend also.
Best,
Gloria

Bracing for Hurricane Irene!

We are all getting ready here in the New England area for Hurricane Irene!

I, for one, will admit that I am nervous. I live in the 'country' -- a rural area -- and I am always worried about falling trees for a regular storm, nevermind a HURRICANE! I have had numerous trees fall on my property over the years during a storm, some small, some HUGE. So I have been praying and praying that no large trees fall during this hurricane -- specifically on my HOUSE. I don't mind if they fall on the property and I have to have someone come with a chain saw to take them away.... but, please Lord, don't let them fall on the house! It is supposed to hit us on Sunday. The news in my area say it will start to hit Saturday around Midnight (which officially will be Sunday the 28th); with the brunt of it coming on Sunday late morning/afternoon. That's the latest news anyway, as of Friday night.

So I wanted to do this post to say: I hope anyone who is in Hurricane Irene's path stays safe! May the good Lord be with you!

I heard on the news that NYC is even suspending the subways on Saturday/Sunday! WOW! As many of you know from reading my blog (and are tired of hearing me say!) -- I am originally from Brooklyn, and I can tell you that I NEVER remember them stopping the trains for ANYTHING! Even if it was the worst snowstorm, the subway would still be running! So that just goes to show how seriously the Tri-State/New England area is taking this.

I have some 'hurricane' tips that I got from the internet -- but I am TOO LAZY to post them here now. (See, I have TOLD YOU in previous posts that I am lazy!!)

BUT: If anyone out there wants to know what I've discovered, please leave a comment here and I will email you with my findings or update my post. BUT, I think that anyone who will be affected by Hurricane Irene might have already investigated on their own with what they should be doing. But if you are like me and are saying, "Well, what do YOU know? Do you know something I don't know??!" -- then please feel free to let me know, and I will share. Email me or leave a comment. I just don't want to BORE people here with "tips" you might already know.

Well, I hope that all involved with Hurricane Irene will be safe. Now I have to concentrate on completing my list: the first item on my list for Saturday afternoon is "securing/storing away" all of my stuff outside (chairs, table, umbrella, hanging plants, flower pots, etc.) and do a lot of other stuff to get ready! (Yes, I am a "last minute" type of person with doing stuff.)

Although the hurricane will only last a day, our problem is then having to deal with a power outage. Hence, the other items on my list: fill some containers with water, get non-perishable foods together, flashlights ready, etc. I did go shopping today with my son and there was not ONE jar of peanut butter left (no kidding), nor individual water bottles (although we were able to get gallon jugs of water (Poland Spring brand, our favorite). The bread shelf was pretty bare, as well as the paper plates shelf, plus very few BATTERIES! I was not able to get extra "D" batteries that I wanted to have on hand. And, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the cans of tuna were all gone! We prefer Bumble Bee, and there was literally not ONE CAN LEFT of that brand! That was one thing that really surprised me. ALL brands of tuna were gone, except for a few straggler cans.

But don't worry about us, as we were able to purchase: Devil Dogs, potato chips, Cheese Doodles, soda, Ritz crackers, Saltines, Nutella, chocolate chip cookies, peanuts, and I have an opened Reduced-Fat Skippy Peanut Butter (my favorite! -- remember: I couldn't get any "new" jar of peanut butter!) and an assortment of other non-perishables. HEY! Please don't judge my son and I that we think "non-perishables" are GOODY type products. ;)

In my defense, I DID buy a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna (there were only a handful left!), PLUS a couple of cans of green beans and one can of B&M Bakes Beans -- that's 'canned goods' in my opinion. :)

And so, to end, I hope everyone in the path of Hurricane Irene is as ready as I am... or, FINISH getting ready on Saturday, as I will. :)

Best,

Gloria

P.S. I mentioned A LOT of my favorite brand-named products in this post. But please know, I certainly am NOT getting any compensation from these companies! These are just my favorites.

My Stoop!

Greetings -- I wanted to show these little birds that I have on my "stoop" at my side door. As many of you know, I'm from NY and I lived in an apt. my whole life before moving to CT. We did always come up on weekends though. But when we lived in Brooklyn, we'd sit on our stoop outside. My son, when he was younger, loved sitting on the "stoop." And we miss it!

But I still have a stoop at my side door! And yes, over the years that we've been here, we've sat on our little stoop. It's only one step but, it IS still a STOOP!! Ha-ha!

Hey, you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the girl. :)

Anyway, I wanted to show these little birds on our stoop, that I bought months ago that I blogged about at the time. The funny thing is that when I purchased them and showed a photo from online when I ordered them, they looked so tiny (click here after finishing this post to see), and yet they are quite big, as you can see below! I wanted to paint them but, because I am LAZY, I never did. :)

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Best, Gloria

p.s. I just bought the yellow flowers the other day. Aren't those Autumn MUMS?? Am I wrong in thinking that this is a little early to have these flowers out for sale, since it's still Summer??!

Movie Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

If you have any plans to see a movie this Summer, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is the one to see. You are in for a treat, it was superb! The film will keep your interest every moment on the screen. I just read that it "conquered" the box office, making $54 million this debut weekend!

All of the actors do a fine job. The movie is set in San Francisco and involves Dr. Will Rodman (played by James Franco), who is a medical researcher/scientist for a large pharma research company called Gen~Sys. Will's boss, Steven Jacobs (played by David Oyelowo) is just interested in the business' bottom line: making money. John Lithgow also stars in the movie and does a great job as Will's father. The supporting actors did an outstanding job, each and every one of them! I REALLY don't want to tell you a lot about the movie. I didn't know a lot going in, and I am happy that I didn't. I think that makes the film all the more enjoyable.

Freida Pinto plays Caroline, Dr. Will Rodman's girlfriend (she is also the vet who takes care of Caesar):

The Gen~Sys boss, Steven Jacobs, played by David Oyelowo:

And here's one of "Caesar" -- British actor Andy Serkis did the motion-capture acting for the role of Caesar. This is the most amazing aspect of the whole film. It was fascinating to watch, and the fact that it was an actor that did the work for the motion capture of Caesar for this movie is a wonder!

All in all, this movie, with the special effects, was spectacular. I would love to see it again.

Oh, and two more things!

(1) If possible, try not to watch any trailers on this. The movie will be more enjoyable for you... you will be surprised at everything (because, unfortunately, they show a lot of the special effects in the trailer) and,

(2) When you THINK the movie is over, the screen goes blank, DO NOT GET UP! People started to leave and then in a few moments, there was ONE LAST SCENE. And it's an important one! So remember, stay until all the credits start to run.

Please let me know if any of you see it -- Enjoy!

Best,

Gloria

Note: Photos courtesy of Google Images.

After the Storm...

Greetings! It's been SO long since I've done a post! I hope everyone has been well and enjoying their Summer.

Earlier this week, we had a small storm here, and when my son looked outside, the sky was ORANGE! Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. It was really amazing. He went outside and took some photos, and here's what he got. Hope you enjoy! (And take note of that orange sky!)

If you look at the bottom of the next photo, you can see the "blue" of the sky, sneaking up...

Sorry, you will have to tilt your head to the LEFT to see these! :)

And here's a 'self photo' taken by the photographer. :)

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Best,

Gloria