Aftermath

Seaside NJ on the bay side

It was bad for New Jersey.     Many lost homes, a few perished including children, the saddest of all.
One couple we know spent two days on top of their kitchen table as water poured into their house. Being elderly they knew hypothermia would get them if they tried to walk thru that water.
It got suddenly very cold.. unusual  as during hurricanes the weather is always hot and very clammy.

 Homes were dragged out to sea, in one town a whole block of homes burnt down because transformers blew up. Beautiful shore front restaurants are gone.
Mantaloking, a very upscale town on the pennisula is on fire as gas line exploded and the roads to the town are impassable because they are under the ocean.  These are multi million dollar homes of the rich and very famous as well as the homes of "regular' people.
Some places are unreachable due to water and we just don't know what is going on there.
The little island near me is badly battered and changed as is , I hear, most of the NJ coastline.
 Trees are uprooted, blown over and cracked. Boats cracked up and lost.
 Millions are without power. Many of us operating on generators. Stores are closed, roads closed, no traffic lights, gas stations mostly closed.

 Schools are closed until further notice and streets closed by the bay until they drain and washed out bridges are repaired and man, do we have a ton of those.
The hard headed who stayed on the barrier island, Long Beach Island and the pennisulas are being rescued and I hear helicopters flying back and forth from the air force base to the island all day long now. Not sure what is going on.
Governor Christie is keeping on top of things, however.

We just got some power back so I may not know as much regional news as those outside do. That was a hard part during the storm as I forgot D batteries for the radio!!!

 I spent yesterday at my daughter's house around the corner as they have a fireplace and it was cold and no heat in my house anyway. Trying to get it working today, but, no luck yet. I have a space heater going and I turn that on a bit , then off,as I am afraid of them really

My old fish never flooded out!The large ones are 15  years old having been bought as tiny fry for 10 cents a piece! Now they are gorgeous long fan tailed beauties in orange, white and yellow. Glad they weathered the storm.

 My little street was one of the only streets that did not flood at all! Thank you for prayers as I know that is why.  So I want to thank  God for his care and mercy during this time and all of you for your continued prayers and thoughts. They mean the world to me, more so than I can tell you and helped me stay strong when times got rough.

It is also why the thick pine barrens which surround me on 3 sides also gave a lot of protection as the winds stayed high and while the trees swayed badly (what a bad poor description that is!) my house never shuddered even once and the number of trees that came down in this little neighborhood is relatively small and damage relatively small compared to other places.
 In the Perfect Storm, which this little house also weathered, the walls shook and swayed badly.

I did hear a report by Whitley Strieber who wrote the book on which the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"  was based and he was saying the reason for this kind of freakish storm was that the gulf stream has moved farther north and that we can expect these things to happen again and perhaps worse if it does not move back farther south.  " Go South Young Stream.. Go South!!"

The store shelves here for miles around are empty. There is not a battery or water to be found anywhere.
So prepare  because these things happen quickly and then it is too late to get in what you may need. Not everything comes with a warning.
Now comes the job of cleaning up the yard and the ponds which is nothing compared to what some have to do.
I am okay so far and I thank you for your love and concern. It means so very much to me and I will never forget it.

With Love, 

How to Post Transparent Gifs or Png on Blogger and remove drop shadow on pictures

click to enlarge

If you host your gifs and pngs using the picture uploader on Blogger, be sure to set your image background to transparent. Otherwise your images, signatures, etc will have a background , border and/ or shadow around them.  Set border around images to transparent as well in your template.
 

You will have to go inside the html template to remove shadows,etc from them if you don't find it on the template "Customize".
Always , always save your blog first before you change anything!

Once you find the shadow and moz opacity, just set all the numbers to zero.
You will see something that looks like this:

}

.post-body img, .post-body .tr-caption-container, .Profile img, .Image img,
.BlogList .item-thumbnail img {
  padding: $(image.border.small.size);

  background: $(image.background.color);
  border: 1px solid $(image.border.color);

  -moz-box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
  -webkit-box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
}

This is what controls your image shadow on the blog. If you set a background, all images will have a background.
My images are set to have no background and no border and no shadow.
Set all the numbers  to zero and you will remove the shadow.
NOTE: You dont have to go inside the template if you can access the shadow through customize!
The higher the last (4th from left) number,  the darker the shadow around  your photos and images.
If you have no background set for your images and still get a background, then you will have to host them elsewhere like Photobucket or Image Shack.

If you are unsure, I will be happy to help.

She's Here

Sandy has  made land fall not far  south of me at Cape May at 6:00 Pm right on schedule, ramming the coast with 90 mph winds. Poor beautiful Cape May, a gorgeous Victorian resort town on the cape of New Jersey. Very popular with tourists from Canada and even President Lincoln stayed there.
Will post as electricity allows.

Sandy Update

downtown AC by boardwalk flooding

Atlantic City is flooded! Entire city has water now.
Huge surges and 30 foot waves are pounding the Atlantic coast. Beaches and dunes are being decimated and our dunes are huge. It is thought that by tonight all the dunes will be gone.

Sandy will hit at 6PM .. just a little over one hour to go.

Long Island has 175,000 without power as of now.
My lights are flickering on and off.
Winds are now  up to 86MPH.


Video by Atlantic City earlier this morning:

It's BAD!!!

Hi, Still have power but the wind is crazy.
Worse yet the barrier islands are breaching! This is horrible news as it means no defense against the Atlantic and the full brunt of the storm.

The bay looks like the ocean and the waves are huge.
 Trees around me, which are very tall are almost bent in half. The storm, as of now is headed right at us here. We will, they say, take a direct hit from this monster.
But God might have other plans.
 Whatever they are, it will be what will be.

Here is the report from CBS in Philly, "PHILADELPHIA (CBS) —
The latest models have Sandy making landfall along the coast of South Jersey on Monday evening between 8 and 10 p.m.

“This storm is HISTORIC,” said CBS 3 meteorologist Katie Fehlinger on her Twitter page. CBS 3 meteorologists say this is the “worst case scenario” as it will make landfall very close to high tide and say the storm pressure is currently stronger than the Long Island Express Hurricane of 1938. Pressure as of 11 a.m. was down to 943mb and the storm was located 205 miles southeast of Atlantic City. Maximum winds were at 90 mph and it is moving north – northwest.
 “It is accelerating and making the turn toward the coast,” said CBS 3 meteorologist Kathy Orr. The National Hurricane Center issued a powerful warning stating,
“Sandy expected to bring life-threatening story surge and coastal hurricane winds plus heavy Appalachian snows.” “This is the worst-case scenario,” said Louis Uccellini, NOAA.
 In New Jersey, the dunes have already been breached in Beach Haven and other shore towns.
 In Ocean City, New Jersey, officials say during this morning’s high tide, the Ocean met the bay.
 Officials say, “We’ve never seen anything like it.”


We have one relative who would not leave the pennisula at all. They live right on the ocean. One block down from the beach. No amount of persuasion would move them. They had until noon today to evacuate then the bridges close and only God knows what will happen now. Prayers for the East Coast please. So many elderly retired folks along the water.

Sandy is Coming

We are under mandatory evacuation now from Gov Christie.
Anyone within 1000 feet of the bay, all on the barrier island and along the rivers must leave, no choice.. by noon Monday.
I am just over that.  1000 feet is just a tad over 3 blocks (Mid West city blocks). I am within walking distance but not right on the shore line.
Our town runs from the mainland out to the Barrier Island so we are a bay/ocean town with our own town beaches, etc.

You can see I have put up my hurricane flag on the blog here. I will be praying for everyone on the mid Atlantic coast as Sandy bears down on us. It is already raining on and off and the winds began to pick up quite a lot last night. Leaves are flying off trees. Also the temperature dropped suddenly last night. When I opened the front door a blast of colder air and wind came barreling inside.
UPDATE: THE CAVALRY ARRIVED WITH HELP!!
 Since I am so close to the bay we are hoping the barrier island remains intact, if it breaches in a storm the Atlantic is on the door step.
I posted photos of last years hurricane and the flood waters all over the place.  It was not as bad as this is supposed to be.  I was here during the perfect storm in the early 90's too and we survived. G-d has been good to us here.

The map on the right is where I am.  Those of you who said you would love to live on the shore will see why I said it is not always all it is cracked up to be. It has some serious drawbacks and hurricanes , nor 'easters and etc are the biggies.
If you don't hear from me for a while, it will probably be due to power outage and hopefully not that I floated off to France or something.

Happy Week everyone!

Thoughts by the Bay

Just doing a bit of blog housekeeping and thinking about how to change things a bit. I have already made a few changes. Do you have a blinkie or graphic link for your blog?

The bay in the morning

If you do, would you share it with me so I can use it as a link to your site?

But Please.. only the small 150 X 20 kind as you can see in the side bar----> under Blog Friends.
The huge ones take up too much room. So if it is  uniform it will look better.

 I might make a separate page for links but, I think for now they will stay on the front page.
 
Please let me know if you have on that you wish to share with me.
I will be searching sites today for some  that are already up and I have one or two  I already put up.

Sandy the storm is headed our way and I am hoping it will just veer off and leave us alone.  We don't need that much rain and it can be a huge problem for the pond outback which is apt to overflow. I will have to sandbag it  I think as the sides are way too low.   If not I will lose the fish.
Since I"ve had the larger ones forover 15 years now  that would be awful.
Today is gray and cloudy. No sunshine peeking out at all and the weather is becoming a bit warmer and humid as it always does when a hurricane or tropical storm is lurking about.
Photo can be enlarged .. just click on it.


 

My Kitchen Table

 I  thought I would show you my little dining space in the kitchen.
You can click on any photo to make it larger.

 Here is a new centerpiece for my table.
The sunflowers are gone until next summer.

My table is round, dark oak in a Victorian style with press back chairs.

My kitchen table

The pictures on the wall are framed in   oak and are quite large and very heavy.

Amish Girls on the wall

This is a lazy Susan made by my uncle for my mother many years ago. I love it and still use it. It is all hand inlayed. He also made me an inlaid game table when I was married. It was lost years ago, sadly.

Dainty Drinks

 

 


A boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do and Garfield likes to drink his water from a goblet.
I suspect the reason is that it is easier to reach and he is not a young man anymore
It means I have to be diligent to keep it filled to the brim or it gets knocked over, but no, I don't mind at all.
This kitty is one of the nicest cats I have ever known.  Just have to brag about this little guy a bit.
He is always by my side, night and day.

SkyView

 A peek at the fall sky this week:

Bright Fall Day

Crocheting

I've been working on a double bed sized afghan for the Famous Anonymous Kid.
It is a light apple green which the photo does not show correctly at all.
It looks discolored here.
 It is a shell stitch pattern.
It will sport a wide white border all around.
I had made her a blanket when she was born that had the alphabet on it and she uses it to this day but it is crib sized and has seen better days. So this one is well underway and should be done soon.
Here is a photo of it in progress. It is already quite large.
Also, I am working on more headers for this blog.


Now, tell me, what are you up to?

Friday Doings

Rain all night long but this afternoon a touch of
sunshine is peeking through the fall colored leaves and promising a nicer day to come. I think it might be lying though, since the weather man says more rain but we will see. After school today the Famous Anonymous kid and I will be preparing tomorrows lunch and dinner together. I will be having dinner at their house tonight which is around 125 steps from my house, just around the corner.
I hope you all have a beautiful weekend whatever you do or don't do!

Gone on Before

It is still Thursday but I was thinking that it has been one year since we lost Elizabeth.
I had a habit of visiting her site from time to time but, now the graphics are down. Site remains but the graphics are just missing.
I burst into tears. It was final, so awfully final.
Well, Elizabeth, you are remembered as are so many other bloggers who have gone on before us.
For all those who have gone ahead of us:

I am standing by the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze

and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength,

and I stand and watch

until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud

just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!

Gone where? Gone from my sight – that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar

as she was when she left my side

and just as able to bear her load of living freight

to the places of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,

‘There she goes! ‘ ,

there are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :

‘Here she comes!’

Another Day

Joining Toni in her meme....

1. If you could live in any other time period, which would you pick?  
I think the 1950's. Would be fun. First thing I would do is head to the corner malt shop and plop down 25¢ for  a chocolate ice cream soda with vanilla ice cream!
I would pop a nickel in the juke box and hear some tunes.

2. What is your favorite topic to write on your blog other than a meme?   
Just about anything. Nothing favorite in particular.
My most popular posts in terms of viewers are the Hello Kitty posts. I get  hundreds of hits on that.

3. Could you adjust to life in another country?
No. If it isn't America it isn't home to me. I would probably do alright in England or Wales or Scotland or Israel  perhaps . I could handle Canada which is a very cool place to be and maybe Australia but I am such a rabid American it wouldn't be easy to go overseas really.

4. If you could study anything, what would it be?  Japanese and art classes.

5. What is your favorite possession that cost less than $15?
My kids made me gifts when they were small. Those are the best things I have. 

6. Which color do you wear most often?
Blue

7. What has been your “theme song”, or favorite song this past summer?
None really.  I like the new theme song for the new Bond film.. Skyfall.

8. What's the most romantic thing that's ever been said to you?
I have no idea. If it had been said I'd recall. and I don't. So probably nothing.


9. What would be your dream birthday cake?
 One of my grandmothers pies.

10. What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
1.Traveled across the USA
2. Flown with student pilots from state to state.  Flown when they have to stall the engine in midair.

That's all folks!







 

Cristoforo Columbo

Cristoforo Colombo

Today is Columbus Day. I miss the parades they used to have. We learned it like this:
"In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." In the three ships,  Santa Maria, Nina and Pinta!

Some say  he was a Sephardic converso..  a Jewish person who converted to Catholicism, like the families of  Fidel Castro and the dancer from West Side Story Rita Moreno.
Sephardim.. the plural of Sephardic .. are Jewish people who ended up in Spain, Portugal and Italy too.  

 Oy vey.. Fidel ??   That gives me agita!
Well they say it.. who knows.
As for Cristoforo.. he was just a nice Italian boy in search of  a trade
route.

 Happy Columbus Day and have a lovely weekend.

p.s. if you don't know what agita is.. it is Italian slang for upset tummy. It's a Jersey thing.

Simple Woman's Daybook

Taking part in Simple Woman's Daybook.


FOR TODAY ........

Outside my window... It is sunny and bright, cool at 58° and autumn like. Geese are heading south overhead They are calling out to one another as they go.

I am thinking...Of this post and how much I enjoy using little graphics.

I am thankful...That I got some exercise this past week using a wheel chair and pushing myself all over the place. Talk about labor intensive! But I was out and about and thankful for it.

In the kitchen...Making a baked potato for my lunch. I put butter and plain yogurt on it rather than sour cream.

I am wearing...A huge hooded sweatshirt with the name and logo of the Famous Anonymous Kid's old Soccer team.

I am creating... I will be working on new winter mouse-over graphics for the above "home, food, radio" etc.

I am going...I hope to visit AC Moore or Michael's sometime soon to buy some moss for a centerpiece I made for the table. I used white Hydrangea and it replaces the sunflowers in my white tureen. I will post a photo when it is finished.

I am reading..."In the Company of Others" by Jan Karon..slowly as I am tired early lately and I like reading at night.

I am learning.. That whatever you go through is for your ultimate good and education.  Learning to love my life whatever my situation.

Around the house...The ponds must be cleaned one last time before a cold snap. I used to do it myself, now I need help. It involves rinsing out the filter pads and that's about it. My filters are home made from large rubber tubs that hold a bottom layer of rock and bio-balls (which create a living environment that cleans water) and pads of thick filter material that strain out matter.

A favorite quote for today...Is from Mishlei(Proverbs) "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Fear God and depart from evil. It shall be health to your insides, and marrow to your bones."

One of my favorite things...Calm, quiet evenings in any season.

Have a lovely rest of the day.

End of the Week Thoughts

Unconscious Mutterings for Friday....

1. Desire :::"That's My Desire" (song)
2. Paint ::the town red
3. Sides :: Take
4. Gauze :: bandage
5. Telegraph :: Hill
6. Slip :: Fall
7. Recommend :: Movies
8. Amused :: Not
9. Sorted :: Out
10. Canvas :: Sails

Have a wonderful weekend.