Falling in Love, Again....

Corny title, I know.
I love music. I am moved by music. It makes me smile. It makes me dance. It lets me cry.
I've always loved it. As early as I can remember I've had a radio. When transistor radios came out I had to have one. When I was a young teen I had this boxy ugly radio that I listened to every single night as I went to sleep. And every night my Dad would come downstairs and turn it off after I fell asleep.
I used to spend my precious babysitting dollars ($.50 an hour) on new 45's. My sister Carol still has some of them in a shoe box on a shelf in her study. I had a record player that always seemed to have some amount of coinage taped on the arm because I never seemed to remember to buy a new needle, or couldn't find a new one when I wanted it.
I bought albums.....I still have many of them. One of the most played albums I ever had was Tapestry by Carol King. Just a couple of weeks ago Lynn took me to see Carol King along with James Taylor at Key Arena in Seattle. The seats were unbelievably uncomfortable. I think they designed them with jockey's in mind. It made me feel better every time a person of "average" size would squeeze into one near me and complain.
The concert was amazing. So many memories. They were both such graceful, gracious performers. Lynn has always had an incredible music memory. He can tell you who played in what band whenever. He was talking about some of the people playing with Carol and James and he mentioned the drummer. Since I had my handy dandy iPod Touch with me, I googled the guy. Yep, he had played with several bands we had seen in the past. It was kind of fun doing this search so I googled some other artists. For some unknown reason, I plugged in Nicolette Larson. Turns out she was married to the drummer on the stage. Okay, that was weird.
In our 40 years of coupleness we have seen many, many concerts. Sharing a love of music has been a strong bond for us.
Which brings me to this post. I have always loved Mary Chapin Carpenter. We have seen her many times in concert and I have bought everything she has recorded. Then she kind of disappeared about a year or so ago. Turns out she had a pulmonary embolism. She is recovered now and just released a new CD. To iTunes I went and downloaded it. It is GREAT!!!! While I was listening to it, I cruised through some other names in music that I really like. Up popped Chris Young. He is amazing. He won Nashville Star a couple of years ago. And he had a 3 track CD available, which I immediately downloaded. And I have been listening to two of them over and over and over...and falling in love with his voice, again.

More things I've learned, while waiting.....

In Chicago. Well, at least I am in the airport in Chicago. Lynn is going via Detroit and will get into Bellingham a few hours before me. If my flight into Seattle is on time, and his flight to Bellingham is at all delayed (which seems to happen quite frequently on Horizon), then I might try to squeeze onto his flight. And those of you who know me, know that "squeezing" onto anything could be a struggle. The American Eagle jet I flew here on had one seat, an aisle and then two seats. I had the window seat assigned on the two seat side. When I boarded there was a couple in that row, she in the single seat and he next to my seat. Now, wouldn't you think they would offer me the single seat and she sit next to him? They spoke a foreign language and had a bit of a discussion, of which I'm quite sure my "size" was a part of. Of course when I get my nails done in a salon where they only speak Korean, I always think they are talking about me too - it's always about me......LOL. Anyway once the plane was in the air, the gentleman moved to the empty two seat row behind us, so we were all comfortable enough. I slept most of the way, so I guess we were comfortable.
I get to lounge into first class for the next leg - YEAH!
I'm really having to learn about internet access while traveling. When I was in SeaTac, it was a free access. In the hotel in New York it was $16.95 PER DAY to have access in the room. In Cooperstown it was free, in Syracuse it was free, and now at this airport I had to subscribe to some service for $9.95 a month, though I can quit anytime. It said this was the server that Starbucks uses, so I will be checking out access from there.
It will be so great to be home, into my own bed, my own shower, my kitties and of course my grandkids! I hope my iris that were on the verge of blooming before I left, still have some style to them.
I need to start preparing for my quilt lecture and trunk show I am doing in two weeks. I'm actually looking forward to getting back into the sewing room to prepare. So hopefully I will again have some photos to share with you all.
Catch up with you all when I'm back on the west coast.

Things I've Learned

This Week

1) No matter the state, every Subway shop you walk into, they all smell the same....kinda comforting.

2) Doing your laundry in a laundromat isn't so bad.

3) Our country has areas that are amazingly beautiful ( I sort of knew this, but nice to have it reaffirmed)

4) After sharing a king sized bed for a couple of years, sharing a queen may be nice for sharing but not too nice for sleeping.

5) Cars that start by pushing a button instead of a key are weird.

6) Cuban good is sooooooo good.

7) The original Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute is round (more on this in a future blog)

8) Harlem is very clean

Good Morning from Cooperstown New York!!

I always feel like a blog entry is somehow incomplete without a photo, but I wanted to touch base with those of you still following along here.
Yep, I'm in upstate New York and it is gorgeous. Beautiful, green, lush, charming. We are staying at the Cooper Inn which was a private residence when built in 1812. We have a wonderful room in the front corner, lots of windows, just lovely. Our drive up from the city was so easy with the GPS in the rental car. I would have enjoyed maybe two more days there. My friend Connie and I bought a two day bus pass and traveled around the sound end one day and then the north end the next. If I did have another day I would have gone back up to Central Park and rented a bike to travel through the park that way. I would have liked to spend a couple of hours sitting at Rockefeller Center just watching the people coming and going, especially since the sun was out. We didn't see any "shows" but what my friends spent going to 3 shows is what we paid to rent the car to come up here, and I am sure I'm getting more out of this!
Today Lynn is spending the day at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and I'm going to do some laundry and drive around a bit. See if I can find that quilt shop I remember from last time we were here. And if I recall there was a nice yarn shop somewhere nearby.
Yes, I'm taking lots of photos to be posted after I get home. Which is Wednesday evening.
I will be popping in here again while here, so thanks for stopping by!!