Last couple of months can simply be categorized as the busiest months I have had between work and more work, there wasn't much time to do anything else. Blogging pretty much was nonexistent.

Whats new in the last couple of months?

Work was work, it simply is. Summer is a great time to really focus uninterrupted by meeting to really design, plan and implement some really cool stuff.  So, work was work.

My neighbor had a tree trimmed. More than two cords of fantastic maple wood and it was left all for me. Thanks G! Love you for that! Over several days of arm numbing physical labor I moved and stacked them little logs onto my deck. The bright side is that I get to buy an axe or rent a wood splitter and have a wood chopping party! I have not yet bought the axe and I wonder if I can just go in to Home Depot or Lowes and say "I want an axe". I wonder if I will directed to customer service to 'register' that axe. Or perhaps, an axe is not such a terrible weapon to own. Somehow, I feel scared owing something like that! Upcoming in another couple weeks, I am holding a wood chopping party! Let me know you can (er... want to) help... I am going to need it for chopping two cords of wood. Of course, food and drinks are on the house! :)

Over the last months, one thing that has really worked out well, is the wine tasting! Yes! Almost every Saturday, I have found myself wandering over to Winchester's Spirited Gourmet to taste some incredible wines. I will blog over the next few days/weeks for the wines that I did taste and like. Interesting thing about The Spirited Gourmet is that they are finally getting together the wine diary of sorts in place where consumers can log in their wish lists, the order lists, and more over review wines as they taste them. NOW, if only they got their ducks in the row and actually allow my login to work, life would be great! DUH!

Talking about wine, my favorite store Bermans (in Lexington, MA) has finally gotten off its butt (sorry!) and got its first revamped website up. I think it is live, but _not_ alive and not even close to the full potential it can be! There is a wealth of knowledge there and can make so much difference to bringing that knowledge to the people who want it. Plus it can cater to the average wine buyer who simply wants a case of good reds!

So, between Bermans and Spirited Gourment, the jury is still out on which one I really like! Almost need a fusion of the two! It is like having two great knowledge bases, each almost complimenting each other.

Travel notes: My car is seeing more miles that it ever did in the past two months. It saw a trip to New York (my sisters place), Lake Taghkanic State Park, and couple of towns around Massachusetts. I have not flown around too much, but never say never. There is a trip to Nashville, TN just around the corner for work.

Oh yes! I turned 36! On September 8th, I celebrated my birthday.

Never expected the month to be this busy, but it did. With family travelling and me traveling and all sorts of events and activities, it was one extraordinarily fun and incredibly action-packed and exhausting month.

First week of July, my sister and two nephews visited, whilst my brother-in-law was travelling in India. We crammed loads of activities, perhaps one-too-many. But it was fun. We spent a day at Crane Beach in the warm waters and nephews spent time building castles and moats until the tide came in. On another day we spent with my sisters friend's family in a neighboring town. We made papermache heads but did not have time to see them baked and paint on them. But we did have fun getting our hands into the papermache gooeeeiiness. Then we spent half a day painting on porcelain toys. It was something I have wanted to do forever and it is in my town. Duh! I resisted doing anything until the nephews arrived. We had fun picking the toys to paint on. Of course, both the kids wanted to paint on a car. Trouble being there was only one car! Oh well! The elder settled for a Dinosaur. My sister picked a fluted bowl and I picked an oval plate. We selected paints and the painted for hours. I think we stopped when our stomachs started to rumble. The toys were painted and left it to be finish glazing or firing et. al. I thought it maybe interesting to combine a bit of home furniture shopping with entertainment for kids, so we made a trip to Jordans at N.Reading. I simply love it there. I remember spending hours (yep.. hours) at the liquid fireworks, waiting for friends. Kids loved it. They also loved the trapeze. Perhaps, most surprising, they were completely and utterly entertained in the store itself. As we wandered through the living room and sofas and office furniture, the kids were happy to pounce and pitter-patter around. At the office furniture, they managed to act as sales folks, except they kept 'selling' me everything for free. Personally, I did not mind, but the portly gent who was the sales person sounded a tad miffed. On one of the office desk chairs, the kids found the automated back massage..... ahh.... ohhhh... I didddn't wwaannntt tooo leaavve. Yet another day we spent it at the childrens museum. I had never been there and boy! was I ready for a treat. We got there mid morning and we left at closing time. It was just so much fun. It caters to all levels of kids and also brought out the kid in my sister and me. I could not have imagined a more perfect week with my sister and nephews...... ah! I did not know what lay ahead!

Talk about family travelling, my aunt and uncle have a schedule that would shame the most ardent campaign managers. My aunt is travelling for the newest arrival and addition to the family; little baby boy Cormac, a good solid Irish name for a good solid little lad. This little one is the third in my cousins growing family. My other uncle and cousin traveled from Washington D.C. to meet up with all the family. This cousin from DC I have not met since 1997. Wow! She has grown up to quite a lady! I remember a little child in pig tails! Anyways, back to my aunt! She is in my town, the dashes off to New York. Her husband, my uncle meanwhile goes to Tampa to meet his youngest son, and then returns to New York. There is some gettogether with family there. They come back to home town and then go to San Jose for more family meets and then head to Vancouver, and from there to an Alaskan Cruise. Back from there to home town. All this in 3 weeks! Wow! I am now just exhausted writing about it all. Go Aunty Go! Go Uncle Go! Awesome!

That was it I thought about travels and trips. But, in all this, we heard news from my father and that family and friends expressed their desire that either my sister or me travel to India. My sister opted to go. So, I planned a trip down to New York. It would be a trip for me to see the nephews again and deliver the ready procelain toys that we painted. Earlier I mentioned that I could not have expected a more perfect week with nephews and my sister. But, the trip to New York was equally, if not more prefect. It was a working trip for me. So, the working days were working and I took couple of days completely off. It made sense. With kids we made trips to the Bronx zoo, Kettletown State park (Connecticut), Science Fair at little ones school, watched some disneys classic animation on their ridiculously fantastic TV (btw: I want it!) and just hanging out.

In all this work still managed to be center stage. Goes to show, I can work from practically anywhere. Give me my laptop, a great bandwidth internet connection and I am so good to go! I am so ready for doing major releases in the first week of August and also plan for subquent quick fire design, development and releases.

All in all.... a rambling of millions of things with family and friends and work and play! All in all, one heck of a month.

The past few days have been miserably hot and horrid in New England. It is sometimes hard to believe that just few months ago we had 2 feet of snow lying on the ground and now the ground temperature is somewhere in the 90+ deg. What is a tad worrying is that we have not reached the height of summer as yet, which at current rate promises to be one miserable mess of a weather.

Thankfully, I have a fantastic home, with a basement, that stays at 62 deg (psst... it is where all the wine is stored, hic!) in there. I really don't start the air conditioner or the fan upstairs. Why use, if I don't really need it! So, I am hibernating in my basement with my laptop. Thank goodness for wireless access point, I have great signal even in the basement. 

I know it is too dang hot, when both Duke and Princess (*my littie kitties), have been sprawled in front of me on the cold concreted basement floor. I had to move all the food and water (er... for the cats) to the basement, because I saw they refused to go up!  I also realize how 'long' the kitties can really stretch..... dang! Both the little ones can bundle into little furry balls of about 6-9 inchs diameter, but when the occassion (such as hot weather) calls for it, they can stretch up to almost 2 feet from nose to hind leg paw! Wow, call about elasticity! Princess who always.... I mean always sleeps like a royality, is stretched and sprawled like a little drunken minx!

I want rain.... goodness sakes some rain, pleeeaaassseee!