Saturday, September 26, 2009

Before and after...

For the past two weeks we've been undergoing a renovation of our yard. When we moved into the house, just over two years ago, the interlocking bricks always caused us a problem. As you can see from the pictures below, the wood that surrounded the interlocking bricks was higher than the bricks themselves (or more specifically, the bricks dropped over time). The problem with that was that we would have a "swimming pool" effect whenever it would rain. That whole area would fill up with water.

The other, more serious, problem was that the entire backyard was graded *towards* the house, not away from it. So when we would get a heavy rain, the water had nowhere to go except towards our house and some water would make its way into the basement. Lovely.

So this year we decided to fix the problem. Excuse the massive weeds in the pictures, we stopped looking after the bricks when we decided to go ahead with the project. ;)














































Now for the 'after' pictures - this was all done in nine days.

Ignore the dead grass in the pictures, the guys were going back and forth over the grass with their wheelbarrow and flattened it. Not to mention the 18 days of no rain...

Too bad the guys don't have a website because:

(a) I would link to them
(b) I would recommend them to anyone



























Thursday, September 24, 2009

Jewish Haikus

Lacking fins or tail
The gefilte fish swims with
Great difficulty.

Beyond valium,
Peace is knowing one's child
Is an internist.

On Passover we
Opened the door for Elijah
Now our cat is gone.

After the warm rain
The sweet smell of camellias
Did you wipe your feet?

Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
Of her friend's disease.

Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
To the seventh grade.

Testing the warm milk
On her wrist, she sighs softly.
But her son is forty.

The sparkling blue sea
Reminds me to wait an hour
After my sandwich.

Like a bonsai tree,
Is your terrible posture
At my dinner table.

Jews on safari --
Map, compass, elephant gun,
Hard sucking candies.

The same kimono
The top geishas are wearing:
I got it at Loehmann's.

Mom, please! There is no
Need to put that dinner roll
In your pocketbook.

Seven-foot Jews in
The NBA slam-dunking!
My alarm clock rings ..

Sorry I’m not home
To take your call. At the tone
Please state your bad news.

Is one Nobel Prize
So much to ask from a child
After all I’ve done?

Today, mild schvitzing.
Tomorrow, so hot you'll plotz.
Five-day forecast: feh

Yenta, Shmeer, Gevalt,
Shlemiel, Shlimazl, Meshuganah
Oy! To be fluent!

Quietly murmured
At Saturday synagogue services,
Yanks 3, Red Sox 5.

A lovely nose ring,
Excuse me while I put my
Head in the oven.

Hard to tell,
White yarmulke or
Male-pattern baldness

Friday, September 18, 2009

L'shana tova

Wishing everyone a very sweet and happy new year!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tell me a story...

...it doesn't have to be true, just entertaining. :P

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Three years...

This month starts my third (and final) bracelet. I chose this charm as it corresponded with our three year LIDiversary, and what is more fitting than a cake with three candles in it? I *had* to get it, didn't I? ;)




We've both been feeling down as we approached our three year LIDiversary and we knew we didn't want to be alone, so we invited some of our very good friends Lisa and Craig and Mark and Michelle over for veggie matzah lasagna, salmon and (what else) cake. Mmmm. (Those that weren't able to come here tonight were dearly missed.)

The day was made all the sweeter when we were able to Skype and talk to Nic, Tim and Zubin, though Zubin really didn't want any of it. ;)

Some of the highlights of the evening were when Sienna told everyone that she's "two point five" years old. How cute is that? Drinking "Golden Flow" orange juice...tasty. Having a wonderful time with wonderful people who feel more like family than friends.

I don't think we could have made it through the last three years of this interminable wait without all of you, both near and far.

The funny thing is, Josh never wanted me to start a blog in the first place. I can't imagine going through this wait without the incredibly strong friendships we've made because of it...or how crazy we'd be without it.

Thanks to Red Sand for tweaking the image so I could put it on our LIDiversary cake.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Friday, September 04, 2009

Just because...

...Josh came home with three dozen roses. *sigh*

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Deuce's check-up

If you remember this post, you'll know the problems that we had with Deuce earlier this year.

We took him to the vet on Sunday because he missed the litterbox at some point overnight on Friday. Now that normally wouldn't be a big deal, but since we were told at his last checkup that he had stage one kidney disease, we wanted this checked out. He was eating and acting his normal self, but still it was very unlike him to miss the box. One thing that Deuce has *always* done, even as a kitten, he gets very hyper when he uses his box and tears out of there like a bat out of hell when he's finished. Josh thought that he might have missed the box because he got hyper and jumped out before he was done. :P

When we took him in, the vet did her examination downstairs, since he's always less than thrilled to be there. When she came back, she told us that Deuce was very good during the examination, almost to the point of being cuddly. At this point, I thought for sure he was sick, I mean, he doesn't let them touch him without trying to tear their faces off let his opinion be known.

She told us that they couldn't do the urinalysis on him, apparently he was 'empty', and they also didn't want to collect it in case they nick him...they wouldn't know if he had blood in his urine or if they had nicked him. It makes sense, but we got 'stuck' with the job of collecting it. YAY! ;)

When we got home we Josh had to wash out the litter box, dry it and we were given plastic beads to put at the bottom of the box. Apparently these beads mimic the feel of litter and are supposed to fool the cat. Sorry, but he's smarter than that. I put him in the box, rubbed his paws on the beads and he immediately jumped out. It didn't feel the same to him, plus she didn't give us very many...he's used to a rather full box.

Over the next 24 hours I kept putting him in the box, rubbing his paws on the beads, and again he would jump out several times. He got upset at one point, and just lay down inside his box. Poor kitty. :(

I ended up staying up until 4:00am Monday morning, waiting for Deuce to pee, with no luck. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but the vet told us that we had to collect the sample and run it over to them within an hour of Deuce producing it, or it wouldn't be good. I could go into details about it, but I'm not sure if you really want the history of cat pee. ;)

He *finally* decided to use the box 24 hours later - just as I was going to take a nap. I'm sure he was tired of the crazy lady me constantly putting him in there.

Long story short, we got the results of all his tests Tuesday evening. Apparently all his bloodwork and urinalysis came back 'normal', and now they're questioning if he really has kidney disease after all. He has to go back in six months for a complete blood workup, but for now, he seems to be in great health!