Finally a Mild Sunny day!

We drove out to my daughter's house, then she and her fiance and kids went to the Men's Wearhouse in Merrillville so the guys could get fitted for tuxedos. After that we went to eat, back to the house and then home. It was an enjoyable day.

Friday...more digging

We didn't leave until 10 pm. We dug out all the pipe from the septic tank to the house and replaced it. A family member who is a plumber came to help. Then we moved into the basement. First the floor was jackhammered. Then dug. There we found the problem. Tree roots had grown into the plumbing, under the basement floor. The roots were so thick they burst the pipes (there were cracks in them). So the floor was jackhammered back to the floor drain and the pipe replaced. The hole still needs to be filled in. Maybe Sunday.

The septic tank and trench leading to the house

The trench, with the old pipe. My daughter and her guy are looking at something, probably roots

The tank was getting pumped out. It smelled better out here lol

In the basement, new pipe going in

Digging

Today we drove out to my daughter's house to help dig out her septic system. Well, no, we weren't digging in poo. We are digging out the pipe from the tank to the house. We also removed the dirt from the top of the tank. It rained this morning, so we were digging in sticky, heavy clay. My daughter's guy came to help too. He and my hubby did most of the digging. We need to go back tomorrow to finish.

Deep River Park...nature walk with my daughter and friends

 Deep River Park

 Saw Mill

 Saw Mill

 Looking out from the Saw Mill

 Something growing in the woods

 Signs along one of the nature trails

 Chickadee

Osage Orange tree

Late winter in northwest Indiana just looks brown. Brown tree trunks, brown bushes, brown leaves on the ground and brown dirt. We enjoyed the walk anyway...fresh air, mild weather finally after such a cold March. We plan to return once things start growing and the leaves are on the trees.

Happy Easter weekend everyone

Today looks like it will be pretty nice, a bit warmer than it has been. I'm meeting my daughter and her boyfriend and we going for a walk on the nature trails in Deep River Park. If I get any good pictures I might post one or two later.

I made another count-down ticker. I hope this visit puts a visa in his hands.

Reflections on an exciting year

I just read an amazing post by my friend, you can read it here I am an adventurer. Bravo to living and following dreams! And she is right, you are not too fat, too old, nor too poor to follow them. I am sitting here jamming with my wireless headset, listening to Albanian music and remembering. Remembering this summer when I threw caution and bank book to the wind and flew to Pristina, Kosovo (Albanian - Prishtinë, Kosova or Kosovë) in Europe to marry my sweetheart. We had met online the beginning of the year, and as crazy as it sounds, I didn't care, because we knew we were for each other.

I was nervous....my first flight outside the USA, and a 15 hour flight with 3 hops and 4 airports. Chicago > Brussels > Budapest > Prishtina, and I only speak English. My fears were unfounded though, because all I needed to do was follow the "Transfer" signs. Everyone in the service industry speaks English and umpteen other languages. Announcements were always in three languages including English. Finally the long flight was behind me and there he was, standing in the doorway of the airport. The rest is history, our story.

We spent a wonderful 6 weeks together. We walked all over Prishtina (because his car broke down forever on day 3). We drank coffee together in coffee shops (they are all over Prishtina) and shared stories about our life experiences. We walked along Mother Theresa Boulevard at night and listened to live bands. We walked all the way down to the statue of Skanderbeg. We shopped together and cooked together and chatted with family (even though I only know maybe 5 words in Albanian). We got married at the Municipality in Prishtina. Then we went by tour bus to Albania. We swam in the Adriatic Sea. We walked under night skies so dark I could see the Milky Way. We bruised our feet on rocky back roads in Velipoja and sat on the balcony of our room to catch the cool night air. We came back to Kosovo and time was coming to a close. Leaving was hard, so hard. But I had all the documents to bring to the immigration lawyer. I left with bags stuffed to the gills with gifts, clothes, a cup and saucer set from Turkey, a gjezve from Slovenia for making coffee, and a tepsija (pan for baking burek), and my hubby's Albanian-English dictionary.

Me in front of the statue of the great Albanian warrior, George Kastrioti Skanderbeg (Albanian - Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu)

My Adventurer friend often speaks of dancing like no one is watching. I did, and I am. Literally, my heart is dancing, and I grab my little weights and and I dance to one my favorite Alban Skenderaj songs  It's a great workout song. I pick up a few more Albanian words and surprise hubby. And then I get back to work, so I can afford to bring my hubby to me.

 Coffee set, tiny spoons, bag of finely ground coffee and a gjezve for cooking it

 Tepsija - this is a very small one! But it had to fit in my luggage LOL

 Napkins from places where we ate and food labels. I love Jeta burgers! I don't know what they put on them but I order them with everything. I love burek, too, and mantia me mish, and it's a yogurt-lover's paradise over there! Lots and lots of yogurt, all kinds and flavors. And Dannon, too LOL!!

 Yummy so sinfully yummy almond sugar cookies drenched in syrup

Kosovo has very good spring water!

Gifts from my new family. I used the cam on my laptop to take the picture. You can see it reflected in the glass.

Diten e mir

Mystery Solved

I always wondered about this tapestry. I've had it for years, not sure how I aquired it, but it must have been from a yard sale. I couldn't figure out where it was from, until I was watching TV in Kosovo with my new hubby. Wait----I have that pattern. "What?" See, the covering on the lecturn in front of that speaker! I have that pattern on a weaving at home! I think. So when I came home (sadly leaving hubby behind while we jump through the immigration hoops) I took some pictures. Hubby said yes, it is handmade Albanian! Pictures on the internet showed some weavings with the exact same black border, sort of a stepped zigzag.

And here is a close-up

I knew it was special, I just didn't know why LOL!

B-day

My daughter and her bf took me and my other daughter to dinner at Don Pablo's for my B-day. We had a lot of fun!

It was a set-up! The waitress stuck this on my head. And I had two mango margaritas.

Just another day....

But I do remember my dad, and my past hubby, the father of my girls, and honor them. Happy Father's Day!

Easter Dinner

This post is a little late. We had a great time, good food. My camera did an absolutely horrible job. It's the one on my new phone. Maybe I need to fiddle with the settings. Or maybe the problem is that I did fiddle with them. Anyway, here's a really bad picture, taken by my younger daughter. I took one of her but it came out too blurry. To make matters worse, my blouse was wrinkled. Geez like I couldn't have looked down and straightened it out. Well, I was having too much fun. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Left to right, daughter's bf, me and daughter

Daughter's bf cooked dinner. It was yummy. He's an engineer and he showed us lots of 3D drawings and finished projects he's done.

Happy Easter!

It's a beautiful spring day. Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and the sun was shining brightly but now there are thin clouds. Younger daughter and I will be joining older daughter and bf for a cookout this afternoon, in Hebron. I was wished Happy Easter by my friend in Europe :-)

Some of the Good Times

Dad got to visit just about all of the states. I think the only one he never saw was Alaska. When he was a boy his parents traveled and camped everywhere, national parks, camp grounds. Dad had lots of childhood memories. His dad also built a cottage in Wisconsin. Dad helped. I think he said he was 16 at the time. Dad loved the outdoors. He fished and trapped for fur, which he tanned himself and sold. Dad and his good friend Mike used to run a trap line which they checked before school, maybe after, too, but I don't remember. That's when there were more woods here. At one time Dad and his friends built a log cabin in the woods behind the university here in town. Then it was found, I think by the National Guard, who have a location near the same woods. They used it for practice and burned it down. Dad never took me into the woods, even though most of them are still there, between the university and the expressway. He said they were often wet and hard to navigate.

When Dad brought me here, we landed at the airport and his parents picked us up. They had been staying at the cottage in Wisconsin. They drove up to their house here in town, but we didn't even go inside! Grandma went in to drop off laundry and pick up clean clothes, then we headed back to Wisconsin. It was a 4 hour drive.

Times at the cottage were most wonderful to me. It was paradise. We could fish on the pier with our morning coffee. I never fished before, ever. Grandpa taught me how. Across the Slough were trees. No cottages were ever built there because it was swampy there. We spent many lazy summer weekends there, and even a winter night each year for the fireman's ball.

Well, since the family no longer owns the cottage, it's safe for me to mention publicly that it was near Briggsville, Wisconsin. Since Grandpa was a retired fireman, he was friends with the volunteer firemen in Briggsville. In the middle of winter they had a fireman's ball, and Grandpa and Grandma were always invited. Well, my first winter in the Midwest after moving from California was a real trip. My so called "coat" had no lining. My only shoes were dress shoes. Dad had to take me shopping because I was freezing my @ss off! And my toes.

The early 1970's were like a mini ice age. The snow and ice packed up on the sidewalks 6 inches thick. And Wisconsin---well---it's a LOT colder than Indiana! We spent the night in the old cottage. I say "old" because it was the first one and it wasn't finished on the inside. There was no insulation. But it wouldn't have mattered much because it had been closed for the winter and everything inside was 5 degrees below zero just like outside. The only heat was a Ben Franklin stove in the corner of the living room, which is the reason that was the first cottage. The new cottage was (is) all electric and well insulated.

Anyway, after melting quite a bit snow for washing and warming up by the fire, it did become tolerable. I don't remember much about the evening other than dining at the Pheasant Inn. We were seated near the door, and every time it opened I was hit by a whoosh of 5 below zero air! That night we slept on freezing beds. I was shivering so much I think I hovered above it. If I had to do it again I would have brought a sleeping bag!

The old cottage in Wisconsin, October 1970

Grandma and Grandpa always had company. The "payment" was that you had to write in the log. I think Dad was the one who started the logs as a fishing journal (there were several books by the time I got there). In case you are wondering, that's a canoe on the porch and a jon boat (flat bottomed) under the porch. Thankfully, when the cottage caught fire, everyone got out safely. It was so drafty the smoke didn't build up, but there was no time to grab the log books. Grandpa and Grandma, fireman friend, wife and son all were safe. It was reported that Grandpa and his friend were hopping all over in their underwear shouting directions to the volunteers, who gave it their all but alas it burned to the ground. Even the cars were blistered from the heat. I have to figure out what year that happened. It might have been in the early 1980's. The new logs might tell.

Thankfully Grandpa had it insured for much more than its worth, so he had a new cottage built with the same plans that Dad had drawn up for the first cottage. Dad's floor plan was so good that several of the cottages along the Menominee Slough have the same floor plan. The cottage has since become a larger residence (as noted by "flying" over in Google Earth). But in any case, the new cottage was much more livable, with thick insulation and all electric appliances. Instead of the open porch you see above, it was enclosed, with giant windows all across the front. It was a wonderful place to sit and look at the Slough in the sparkling morning. Usually a deer would wander by and stop for a drink, or we would hear Loons or Sandhill Cranes. It was the best of times.

Check back soon for more stories.