40th Anniversary

What a lovely weekend this has been. David and I have celebrated our 40th Anniversary with most of our children with us. Unfortuantely Amy and Stephen were unable to join us, however, we know they were with us in spirit! The "youngins" sponsored the Kiddush at the synagogue, which was such a lovely surprise. There were many of the usual treats but what made it very special were the large bowls of cereal that were placed on the tables. This was definitely a novel treat and specially done for David who loves a bowl of cereal after services! David did the Haftorah and was superb! Then back to the house for soup and summer rolls, a definite "Jewish" tradition after synagogue! More details to follow! Saturday night we celebrated New Year's Eve early with Marlene, Mandeep, Matthew, Rachel, Grammie, Grandma, Rebecca, Steve and Talia. What fun; each person was given several letters of the alaphabet and asked to prepare food using those letters. Very delicious. Appetizers, Baby articchokes and carrot, swiss chard, hmm, I have forgotten D for the moment, edamame, fuiji apples, forgot G, hummus, Islandic Scotch, apricot jam cake, kugel, long grain rice, Matthew's rugelach, forgot N, O and P, quiona, red cabbage, salmon, Tofu stir fry (which we did not make because we had so much food!) no U or V, walnut pie with chocolate chips! We ignored the rest of the letters. It was a lot of fun! Lots of leftovers for the rest of the weekend!

GPS

Well those of you who know me well know that I have been kvetching (complaining) over getting a gps for months. I had purchased a system for my Palm realized I had to download maps, etc, basically it seemed like a major project. So, for my birthday David encouraged me to pick out the gps of my dreams! What a cool gift. Well, after reading many reviews I decided on the TomTom GO 920T. Talk about bells and whistles, for instance you can speak where you want to go into the unit and it will take you there rather than have to punch in the numbers. One of the major benefits of a gps system that is not part of the equipment of your car is that you can use it while you are driving. A definite benefit since there are times when I'm with David in his car and we want to see alternate routes and you can't put in the address you are looking for while the car is going. A safety standard I'm sure but frustrating when you are sure you're getting further and further from your destination! So, the activity for today will be to get familiar with the capabilities of this fun new device! I am totally psyched!

Snow No-Show Just Ice and Mess

Well, we have once again wasted a perfectly good snow storm. The media has been talking about nothing else for the past 2 days, 3-5" with sleet and freezing rain. Then it was 2-4" with sleet and freezing rain. Well, actually, in was about an inch, with lots of sleet and freezing rain. The accomplishment of the week was making room in the garage for my car AND the door closes! Wow, talk about miracles. Well it should give my car the opportunity to slide down the driveway so I can get out tomorrow. In our family the tradition is to cook or bake on a snowy day. I made stuffed cabbage however it is more like a casserole than actually stuffed cabbage. I was so concerned that Grammie would want to eat some tonight. I thought having dinner ready for tomorrow night would be a real plus. The good news is we did not eat it tonight. Well the weather report for the weekend is more snow so we'll see what happens with that storm! I haven't heard any numbers yet!

Birthday Celebrations

Well, today was another birthday with many special wishes from family and friends! The good wishes started with Amy and Marlene calling from London yesterday and then singing happy birthday...definitely a warm fuzzy! Today I awoke to kind wishes from David, a lovely tzedakah (Charity) box from Grammie with a Mah Jongg motif! So I think this means if I have a good day at Mah Jongg I should remember those who haven't and put some money in the box! There was an email from Mal and Tina with HB wishes! Minerva stopped by with a lovely scarf, friends left musical wishes on the phone, then dinner in a great, local Thai restaurant with David along with an anthirum plant. David's gift is a GPS, I just need to do the homework to figure out which one I should get. Any help on this topic would be appreciated! The evening ended with a voicemail from Phil and Kendra and a long conversation with Matt and Rachel! One of my best birthday's yet!

Superest Super Sunday Hits Stamford!

Super Sunday is the phone-a-thon day for the Stamford Jewish Federation! Hundreds of people are called starting at 9:15 in the morning and running until 9:00pm. When we got up this morning and saw snow on the ground we knew we were in for a great day. We were right, we raised over $360,000 in pledges, that is $100,000 over last year and 40,000 over the year before! Let me tell you, the phones were blazing! it was a wonderful feeling to be part of this dedicated community of volunteers dialing for dollars! Wow, how will we top this next year? Not to worry, we will!

Visit to the Musuem of the American Indian

Might not have the name of this musuem correct, however, I'm sure you get the picture! Not always easy to figure out a place to visit in DC that will prove interesting to all. One of the suggestions was the American Indian musuem so we decided to give it a try. The building was beautiful; inside was a display of women's outfits. Very beautiful decirated with beads, shark's teeth, etc. We were told that young men save the teeth from the sharks they have killed; when they decide to get married the future bride sews the teeth on her dress. Could look bad if he doesn't get enough. Also watched a native of Guatemla weave some of her stories. Very interesting and the finished product was beautiful.