NBC is back!

Yay! We will have our local NBC affliate back on air soon, after almost a month off due to contract negotiations (or fighting, if you will). This makes me happy :)

Autumn

Vienna 030
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the changing of the temperature from Indian Summer to the crispness of Fall. The leaves change color and start to fall to the ground, there is a crunch of leaves when you walk, and the air starts to cool.

Fall has sped past me this year - I haven't taken the time to enjoy it, and snow is starting to threaten. I need to take some time this weekend to enjoy the little bit of Fall left before Winter takes over completely.

Clarity Noelle

Charity Noelle
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Congrats to new parents Jen and Nate (for the third time)! Clarity Noelle is beautiful!

Musical Weekend

Scythian 002
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

I had a very musical weekend. Friday night I met up with some friends to see Scythian, one of the headliners from the 2008 Dayton Celtic Festival. They were great this year on the big stage, playing to a massive crowd, so I wondered about their ability to translate to a smaller, more intimate crowd. I didn't need to worry, because they were great! They guys were lots of fun, interacting with the crowd both before and after their sets. They put on a very entertaining show.



Saturday night I went to Covington to meet up with my sister to see her boyfriend play in the house band at a restaurant in the Main Strasse area called Dee Felice. The restaurant is New Orlean's themed, and the band plays big band and jazz music, as well as a few New Orlean's staples. My sister's boyfriend was the youngest guy in the band by at least 40 years. We had a great time listening to the band and eating great food. I had the Blackend Sea Scallops, which were wonderful and a nice glass of red wine to complement the meal.

Iced Coffee Weather?

Is it iced coffee weather where you live?

http://isiticedcoffeeweather.com/

Sadly, when I tried out my old zip in Prague, I got an "Eh?". Apparently this only works for US zip codes.

In my neck of the woods, it is a definite "NO". I quite agree.

Carole King

Carole King 007
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

First off, the power came on Sunday afternoon, one week after it went off. Hooray!

Monday night, I attended a Carole King concert with my mom, aunts, two cousins, and one of my mom's good friends. It was a fun girls night out, although I worked late so I barely made it on time.

We sat up in the balcony, so the photos are kind of blurry (plus, we weren't actually supposed to be taking them anyway).

I have loved Carole King's music for a long long time. My mom is a huge fan, so I grew up listening to "Tapestry" on vinyl. When I was in the first grade, my school put on a production of "Really Rosie", which Carole did the music for. Even when I was in college, listening to "Tapestry" and belting out "I Feel the Earth Move" on the drive to Athens with my mom was a huge tradition.

Needless to say, I was very excited.

Carole was excellent. She put on a great show, including old favorites and some new songs. She rocked out on guitar and tickled the ivories. She laughed, joked, and kept everyone thoroughly entertained. What an experience.

One of the last

We are going on 4 days without power now.

It sucks. We are fortunate enough to have water (and even hot water!), so showering is not an issue, although it is kind of tricky in the dark.

In the big picture, we are lucky. We have friends who kindly took in our perishables, we have a surplus of propane camping lanterns and headlamps so that we can get around comfortably, we are back at work, and we have some great weather right now. We are not flooded, as are the Hurricane victims in Galveston. We are mildly inconvenienced.

It still sucks, though. Word is power should be restored by the weekend. I think we will be one of the last to get it back.

Remnants of Ike

Ike 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

You wouldn't think that Hurricane Ike would hit Ohio, being that we border Canada, and it hit Texas pretty hard, but you would be wrong. We didn't get any rain (at least in my part of SW Ohio), but we did get the worst windstorm in 20 years. Trees are down all over. This is one of my neighbor's houses. My office actually closed, so I'm at Panera checking my email and such, because we are one of the 300,000 in the area without power. Our power went out Sunday around 2:30. It was an interesting night. I'm happy that my dad is such an outdoorsman, because we had good lighting with all the Coleman camping lamps we have.

We didn't have any trees down, but a big limb did come down and hit my dad's car. Fortunately, there was minimal damage--a dent, but nothing serious.

Greek Festival

Greek Festival 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Last weekend, my sister came up from Cinci. We all went to the Greek Festival on Saturday night, and had a good time. We ate Trigonia (spinach and cheese!), gyros, and Greek veggie pizza (from Dominos). We drank greek coffee and beer. We met up with my aunts and cousins, and got to watch the kids dancing. We even toured the Greek Orthodox Church! It is beautiful. It reminded me a bit of St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague--very ornate with beautiful stained glass. My dad said it reminded him of the Church of the Infant of Prague. It makes me nostalgic--and excited to go back for a visit in February.

These pictures aren't of the best quality because I took them with my cell phone camera.









It's officially festival season in Southwest Ohio. This weekend we have the taste of the Miami Valley and Urban nights downtown, and I intend to take full advantage of them. I may try to get out to the Renaissance festival on Sunday.

Kawaii!

Originally uploaded by poco++

This is too cute! I'm sure one could make a very funny LOL cat with this photo, but I don't have the creativity to do so.

I love kittens.