AAM Monday: Project Life Week 25

A lot of this week's photos concentrate on a trip we took to Baltimore. We have always donated used books to various sites but this year some of the sites either closed (greedy landlords) or had other issues. We were so happy when we found that the Baltimore Sun had found space for those non profits to store their books between sales etc. A fun day which included an Ethiopian lunch. 

Wordless Wednesday: It's Baltimore, hon!

Source: Library of Congress

Wordless Wednesday: It's Baltimore, hon

looking at Camden Yards

Five on Friday: November 6, 2015

A mixed week with a lot of good  and a couple of doses of crazy. Fortunately, none of the crazy belongs to us! Not my circus, not my monkeys. It's always good to remember that.

1. I absolutely love the fall. I love the shorter days, the cooler air, the falling leaves. Fall is the best season in my opinion.

2. Wednesday night I had a chance to visit with my old Artist Way friends in Baltimore. Two of them have a gallery showing and I was invited to the opening night. It's good to see people getting ahead by hard work and perseverance.

3. Not a lot of cooking done round here since we got back from the beach. However, if the temperatures continue to drop, I'm in the mood for some cooking and stocking up the freezer.

4. I heard this song the other night on the radio and I'd love to go to her show in DC. I'm not sure I'm up to that kind of thing any more but I'm willing to try!  maybe they have an old ladies section at the 9:30 club. LOL

5. I really hope that I can finish up my Southwest trip photos and maybe even get a book layout done. I saw my friend's Shutterfly book and the images really looked good on black. I've never tried that so maybe with a narrow white border?

In any case, have a great weekend and make sure to do something fun for yourself!

Wordless Wednesday May 28, 2014

Bawlmer, hon - 2000

Travel With Me Tuesday: Bawlmer, Hon

It wasn't far, but it had been a long time since I went north to Baltimore. As my dh reminded me, I had been to Baltimore quite recently, but he was counting the train station at BWI. That's not the city, hon.  Driving up to meet him at Gertrudes for brunch, I had to rely on GPS since the way to get there did not seem to be in my brain any more. I had a general idea but oh surprise! there was a game at Camden Yards. Yes, I thought.... How 'bout the Oooos, hon...but that didn't get my  past the happy crowds.  GPS did.

Here I am in one of those images that appear in your camera as a surprise. No. I wasn't going incognito, I just appeared!

Then this one is not me. Just someone waiting for a friend no doubt or tired of the walk from the parking lot. You never know, do you.

Most of the point of the visit. We have, from top to bottom, his Eggs Benedict with Crabcake, our friend's Shrimp Po-Boy, and my Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and Cheesy Hominy. Not grits, hominy.  All dishes were pronounced quite good but I will say that grits would have been a better potato substitute for me, but now I know. Those cheesy hominy bits were a tad heavy.

We didn't visit the Museum as our CA friend had a flight to catch to take him home back home for a few days. He crosses the country A LOT. We did have a stroll round the gift shop and while I didn't buy anything, I fell in love with this old fashioned dress. Embroidery on the blouse and the jumper. Totally adorable and while I have two granddaughters who could wear this neither of them have mothers that would bother. Totally foreign to their life styles. So I just enjoyed looking at it and imagined a different little girl wearing this as she went out to brunch with her Mommy and Nana. Brunch where you sit down and display your well taught manners. I have two who did this and it was a great treat.

Wasn't it a beautiful day?  One of those gems that seem to pop up between our still chilly April. A day to luxuriate in friends, food and warm sunshine. A perfect Sunday.

And yes, I had fun playing around with different frames for this post!

It's Market Time plus More

Trying for an early start to the JFX Market in Baltimore. It's a 25 mile drive but I can stop at Costco and Walmart on the same trip. Yes, I come home beat but it's worth it and it's a fun shopping day. At least that's what I think before I go.

It's probably early for the pea man but he may have some other goodie. He is one of the people that gets a serious line, and well worth the time it is. btw, it's hard to shop AND take photos but I had to capture this man a few years ago.

I have been searching for the cheap mini blinds to replace some old ones. Darn if I can find the 3 sizes I have. Of course, three sets of windows that are the same size, have three different sizes of blinds.  The solution would be to get all of the windows the same size blind, remove the old hardware, fill in the holes, paint and start anew. That's why I'm off to Walmart to hope for the sizes I am now using.

My wonderful new cleaning women really really clean, and the one assistant scrubbed the shit out of them. With all the time in direct sun, I have one broken blade, at least, on one side of a blind on each set. So right now, the broken blinds vamoosed into the trash, and the remaining blind is pulled up. Period.  Thinking about a totally different solution to my windows wears my brain out. I may wait to ask my on friend who is a great decorator.

But the market and all its goodies calls.  I even have a red shopping cart to haul the loot back to my car. I am so set!

Flashback Friday: Baltimore, hon

Back in 2000, my husband-to-be and I looked at many house in Baltimore. We wanted a rental but we also wanted one we might be interested in living in...some day. On a beautiful December day, we looked and looked all over the Canton area. Nothing we wanted but there was the iconic Sip&Bite, still there...still feeding all sorts. So where did we have dinner that beautiful cold evening??? You got it, hon.

Sip&Bite

If you want diner food and diner atmosphere, this is the place for you. Some Greek touches, but still the basics since 1948.  24hrs a day, but just not Tuesday.

Flashback Friday 11 03 11

Shortly after dh and I were married, we realized we needed to have some investments to minimize our taxes. We decided to invest in a piece of rental property in Baltimore as we had friends who were quite successful in renting her old place when they married.  We did a lot of looking and there were a lot of fixer-uppers, but we really didn't have that kind of free time or really that kind of energy.

We finally found this little gem of a 1920 bungalow. It had some issues, leaks on the slate roof, and some water in the basement, but we also looked at it as ...Could we conceive of living there if...if what we never determined. We were still weighing our options as to where we would live...stay in my house or move into a larger city. DC was too expensive which was hard for dh to believe but he hadn't kept up with the housing market. Baltimore was a whole new ballgame for him, tho I was pretty familiar with it from a former job, and my time commuting to Notre Dame. 

 

It wasn't easy to actually get the purchase made with very different methods and attitudes in the city. We certainly qualified but getting it done was - a challenge. Little did we know that we would look back and see that this really was the easy part. Getting things done only 20+ miles away turned out to be a real hassle. 

Having a friend find a tenants for us was a big mistake. We had disasters for tenants. All of them. The final family had promise but turned out to be professional 'issue' people. The wife knew tenants' rights backwards and forwards and really made an issue out of everything.  By this point, we only wanted out of the picture, but getting these tenants out became such a legal %#&#  I thought my dh would lose it big time.  In the end, they were gone and we easily sold the house just 4 years after owning it. We made a good profit but it seriously put us emotionally out of thinking about being landlords again.  I hope the buyer is happy in that house 5 years down the road. I occasionally feel wistful about a sweet little house but am so glad that it's history for us now.

December Daily December 2

Thursday, I thought I was going to an altered box exhibit in Baltimore but oh my. Do I have a story.

I had gone to Hampden first to see a shop there but couldn't find a parking space. So I wandered down to 34th Street and saw the lights a bit early as it was only dusk. By the time I left and was driving down to the Pratt Library it was dark and absolute rush hour traffic. I know Baltimore pretty well but not all the one way streets. It was a bit of a nightmare but I still had time. Finally I got to the parking garage, dashed up to the library and found out...I was a week early.

All was not lost as it was the night they light the Washington Monument and so I had a great evening, all on my own, and saw fire works at a reasonable time. 7:30p.m. Things always work out.

Wordless Wednesday 10 10 27

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Wordless Wednesday

Yesterday at HouseWerks

Another day, hon'

I'm hoping it will be a quiet day. We had a very full day yesterday with two parties, one across the bay and the other nearer to Washington. It is rare, very very rare, that I ever nap. However after getting home betwixt events and feeding the cat, I totally conked out. I slept sound for a full hour, deep rem sleep! DH nearly had to wake me up to go out again.

So today, while I had planned to go up to the Farmers' Market in Baltimore, I realized I just needed to stay home and be still. Tho we have three markets today right here in Annapolis, so if the urge strikes, I can still get a market 'fix'. But Baltimore? not today, hon'.

Trip to the Trains

Last week, before the daily rains came, I met up with some Artist Way peeps to visit the B&O Railroad Museum. Now we here know what that is...Baltimore and Ohio. The museum, which is in the old round house, is normally a pricey one ($14 for adults) but last Tuesday it was Free. That's the best price.


Even better was seeing the museum through a toddler's eyes. Little Ben reminded us all of the joy in seeing the new and wondersome in all. He ventured across the tracks and taught himself the way to take his tiny feet across the gaps. He liked the sounds in the exhibits of whistles, and toots but even better in his mind were the stones and the bits of bark outside.


Anyone who thinks a little one is high maintenance just hasn't let that child BE a child.


We watched a couple of hovering, rule imposing parents and grandparents that day. Us? we let Ben be Ben and had a good hour or more of just sit in the sun chat time. That's a great treat for any adult, especially a Mom.

Sweet Saturday

Last night was a great time with my Artist Way peeps where we altered books for an exhibit the Pratt Library is having. We enjoyed ourselves so much that no one, NO ONE, took pictures. That's a real first for our group. We do have a round 2 coming up to complete the books so maybe someone will stop making art to document the process. It certainly is a full moon week.

Today I have a whole week ahead of me - on my own. Despite forgetting my birthday ON the day, my dh had ordered my gift which arrived yesterday.



There is still a bit of fiddling to do to get the cable box and the dvd player in a different location but that'll happen. We aren't sure if we want to make/buy a platform to raise the tv up so that all the crapola can go underneath it. We'll see. I seriously want to do something about the stained glass window in the hallway which is directly opposite that tv wall. It appeals to everyone but me, mostly because it has always interfered with watching a tv in the daytime. Upscale problem, huh? So sometimes I prop a piece of cardboard up against it, and sometimes I just wait till it gets dark.

Maybe the Sebastian has a better idea about dealing with that afternoon sun.

Baltimore Birds..no, not THOSE birds

Not the Baltimore Orioles (the baseball team) but a phenomenon of chimney swifts who fly into these industrial sized chimneys for a period during the early fall. They sleep in the chimneys at night having flown in as a tremendous group at dusk. The Baltimore Bird Club (aka the BBC !) watches and counts these birds each year.



Thanks for filming this and sharing it Roberta!


CHIMNEY SWIFTS AT DUSK, DRUID HILL PARK CONSERVATORY (GREENHOUSE) Join the BBC SwiftWatch Team for "Swift Night Out" as Chimney Swifts pour into the Conservatory chimney. Swifts are counted and results, nationwide, are listed at Chimneyswifts . Baltimore has some of the highest counts in the nation. Come at 7:15 if the weather is cloudy or gray. (the date for this was Sept 14 but as of Sept 18 they were still flying in. No frost yet.)

In addition to the conservatory, you can try these locations - Mill Center at 3000 Chestnut Street and/or the Freestate Bookbindery at 3110 Elm Avenue, Baltimore.

Love Friday and Flashback Friday

Ok two birds with one stone.

I'm loving Friday because I had a good day yesterday with my bi-weekly tutoring in the a.m. These prisoners try so hard that the two hours goes really fast. I had worried about that but despite their status, they pay attention and work so hard, you are rooting for them.

Afterward, I went up to the edge of Baltimore, the area of dumps and all sorts of toxic waste landfills to take some pictures. You know you don't want to go down the road marked Quarantine Road. There is an area of the city called Fairfield and I suppose in a far far distant past (Civil War era?) it might have been a fair field with a view of the growing city to the north. But in the days I first saw it, it was a nearly abandoned group of houses literally in the shadow of BP gas storage tanks. People still lived there.

Located in the southeastern portion of the city, Fairfield is a heavy industrial area housing petroleum firms, chemical plants, trucking depots, asphalt manufacturing facilities and a number of other industrial and service companies. Within the boundaries of Fairfield are two small communities--Old Fairfield and Wagners Point; and located just outside are two other neighborhoods--Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. EPA records 1996

Apparently this area was bustling in the 1940s with both a shipyard and a steelworks.



Many of the workers had been recruited from the mining regions of the south, and their descendents still lived in the area in the 80s though the jobs were long gone.


I would love to know more about this area and see pictures as I first saw it. Today? Only the two churches remain and the place has the feel of the ghosts who lived, worked and died there.


So loving Friday that only ghosts remain in this toxic area and a flashback to the days when we just didn't know what the price was for so many of those 'good' jobs.

Oh so addictive

I really don't even like these but when they are present, I find myself going back for a 2nd, thinking about a 3rd....


So for a taste of a truly Maryland special - Berger Cookies- that you can now reproduce fairly accurately at home, try this saga on the King Arthur flour site.

"The John"

P2290158-2
Originally uploaded by Maggie Neely

The place not the person.... posted by Maggie Neeley .

This is a pic from one of my Artist Way buds. She works at this prestigious place but she's really normal. Well, no she's not but ...

Check out her pictures at the Maggie Neely link above as she has a good handle on the look of Baltimore.