see postings on facebook 11 17 2018

i haven't posted anything in awhile mainly because i spend most of my posting time on facebook.
so any of my followers can catch up on my postings there

the thursday lunch run to Popik's Place - thur. sept 15th, 2016

me at the local hot dog stand last thur sept 15th called "Popiks Place" on Terrill rd. in  Scotch Plains NJ
Steve Popik sells only the best quality Sebrits he can get. so most thursdays when my aunt has come for lunch i usually go at her request around the corner to Steve's stand to pick up lunch.
Steve has had this stand for over 16 years. and he has managed to support his family of 5 this business

the interesting thing though this particular thur is that the guy ahead of me who was a new customer to the stand kept trying to "check me out" out of the corner of his eye.
now this was not the kind of look that said "i know your a cd and it's obvious" but rather the "checkin' me out" kind of look when guys are trying not to be to obvious. *giggle* needless to say since it was a bright sunny day and we were out in the harsh sun so i was kind of flattered.

although my aunt has seen me dressed as diana usually on our lunch day  i usually dress as my male self but this particular day for some reason i was compelled to dress as diana. maybe it was because i had gone back to the ocean Grove beach the day before as diana. so i was on one of those multi day rolls in which i get to dress for 3-4 days straight. i have learned not to fight it but rather to go along with it if i can that day. it is sort of like getting caught in a "run" in the ocean it becomes easier to swim with the run that across or against it.

Ocean Grove beach and dinner day - wed. sept 14th, 2016

i decided that while the weather was still nice and after the heat wave somewhat cooled down it was time to head to the Ocean Grove beach.

although the prediction was for and afternoon storm it turned out to be very nice with winds from the south until about 5:30 whe all a sudden the wind shifted out of the north blowing sand at me. (due to this i have had to use a previous year photo but it is the same bathing suit and beach scene) so i decided i had had enough and when and changed out of my one piece maillot bathing suit because i was getting chilled. and although i had a wind barrier with my i felt it was to late in the day to put it up. besides i had finished most of the goodies in the lunch bag by now. so off i went first driving to the north end of town and then walking on up to the north end of Asbury park hoping to find an open restaurant now that it was out of season and the middle of the week.

i ended up at Mcloon's which is in the former Howard Johnson's restaurant building.
i decided that the burgers there were better than a local irish pub / sports bar called Clancy's over at the gates of Ocean Grove. but that Clancy's has a broader plain food like soups and sandwiches than McLoon's.
while there i noticed a couple 2 tables away (we were out on the boardwalk dining area) .
she had on a gorgeous white dress with a verrry low cut back. but it had the most beautiful daisys stitched to the cross straps on the back. upon mentioning it to the waitress she too had the same thought's about how pretty it was.  the girl later as she was leaving thanked me for my complement and said she had only taken her jacket off to somewhat tease the guy who was doing a small clown act on the boardwalk near the resturant. :-) lucky us or we would have never seen how lovely the dress was. :-)
the evening turned out somewhat cool but lovely with only literally 2-3 drops of rain and nothing more.

all to soon the evening ended as i needed to get on the road to make the 50 mile drive back up north.
i so miss having a house to stay in in Ocean Grove as my famialy rented the top floor of our friends lovely queen ann victorian house with it's tower room view of the ocean. *sigh* when my mom got sick she could no longer make the stairs and in more recent times our friend the owners mom passed and the daughter renovated so at this point in my life that is no longer an option *sigh* after spending about 30 summers there on long weekends it was my home away from home. but i was lucky and blessed to have the use of it for all that time. maybe some day if the economy ever improves it would be nice to have a verrry small cottage that i personally could maintain....

all in all it was a lovely day!

Movie night and Dairy Queen Friday July 15th, 2016

me at the Plainfield NJ Dairy Queen on So. Ave. Plfd. after attending the Scotch Plains NJ movie night on the village green this evening (Friday night). I  had to go to the movie as it was "Cars" :-) i even got to wear my new coral colored shawl like cami cover up. what more could i have asked for even brought my dinner and ate under the stars during the movie!
still it was a new step for me because the mayor runs the movies and although his wife knows that i am a transgender cd and saw me 2 weeks before at a previous event i hadn't stayed long. but he doesn't know of diana . this time i arrived verry early as he was setting up and set my lawn chair right in the middle of the green he does know my male self  Dave verrry well since i am the historical society  president in town and on a town committee for a project he has us doing. the historic building is next to town hall and owned by the township in which we docent the tours and maintain the artifacts.

sorry about the infrequent posting as many times i post these days on facebook. but since i often go to places by my self i don't usually have anyone to take  a photo of me. and if i am out and about as diana then i don't usually have the energy to post  stuff to the computer * sigh*

the nose piercing and previous ear lobe stories - July 14th, 2016

fri may 29th , 2016 I decided to pierce my nose. see if you can see the sparkly adornment. :-)

about 10 years ago on the first set of ear piercings at clairs store in the mall i  ended up with an ear lobe infection courtesy of their "cleaning" solution (my ear Dr had suggested the mall was cheaper than he very large medical group he works for... accept it cost me a second visit for some cipro drops to heal it...)
 so i decided to do the second set my self so that i can have danglers in the first set and studs in the second set. i used the 14kt gold starter earings to "drill" the holes. i cleaned them real well in 70% Ethel alcohol and proceeded to "drill" them slowly through. then each day i cleaned them with Alcohol until healed. even though i knew enough about using the alcohol on the first set i figured clairs must know what they are talking about   since they do the piercings and supply the cleaning solution... later i found out that they rarely keep their young help more than 3 months LOL
that was about 2 years ago and usually wear the pink sapphire studs in the upper holes. this works better since the backs don't usually get caught on shop aprons like they did in the lower original holes.
the interesting thing is that the left ear i had to redo the second hole at week 4 when i realized it was a bit low LOL really anoying when looking in the merrior but somehow missed that on the original 2nd piercing!

so with that experience in mind and a bit concerned about the cleanliness of any local piercing shops i decided to once again use the 14kt gold starter earring for the nose piercing and after the alcohol cleaning proceeded to slowly "drill" it through. i'll admit i do have a somewhat high tolerance for pain as i don't usually use nova-cane for fillings jn my teeth but then again i have a rather skilled verrry gentile dentist.
after i drilled it through i realized i had a new delema since i hadn't bought a dose stud to insert and the earing has a pointy back so i couldn't sleep with it.  so a quick drive to Hot topic store in the mall in Bridgewater NJ 15 miles away before they closed and bought a pack of nose studs and the ocean salt spray to clean it with. upon returning home i cleaned the surgical steel nose stud and did the quick swap *whew* it went in.
one thing i figured out on the 2nd ear lobe piercing was that the use of a cotton ball as Clairs suggested was a no no. as the pieces of cotton "hair" get caught on the prongs and post of the stud and remain to collect bacteria. i now believe that is why the first piercing 10 years ago got infected.  ever since i can't have a earring back from a post stud touch the back of that ear lobe. i had the 14kt pink sapphire posts extended so the backs don't touch the ear lobe. ironicly the cheep fishhooks don't seem to bother it. go figure...

so back to the subsequent piercings the second set on the ears i changed out to the longer posts about the 2nd to 3rd day after piercing and removed to inspect  and clean in alcohol every day. (i know it goes against everything they tell you! but I didn't have a problem this time)

now we come to the nose piercing a bit trickier to clean and with just a ball on the other end it tried to "soda straw" itself out for the first week. lucky there were more in the pack since i lost it as i was up on a ladder cleaning the gutters. finally after about 4-6 weeks it decided to sort of "lock in"
unfortunately i decided to remove it to attend a cousin's (a nun) social event  for about 5 hours. egads it was a challenge getting it back in . i had to use the starter earring to sort of "gauge " the opening to reinsert the nose stud.

NOTE it is now  July 14th  it has now been about 11 weeks since the initial piercing. and it seems to have for the most part "settled in".  to me it looks better along with the earrings than by itself so even as my male self i have been wearing the studs and the nose piercing combined.

and on a second NOTE from Dave the male self: it seems as though the Diana soul has taken another step forward and  claimed another piece from the David  soul's male self 50/50 agreement. she keeps threatening to take over, but that was not the 50/50 agreement we had to SHARE the one human body. *sigh*
but as far as Diana is concerned she feels  it completes one more phase in her take over by insisting on  having these 5 piercings! she keeps forgetting that if she does a complete take over she will "kill off" the male souls' self. the problem is that the Dave soul likes both selves and can live with that but the Diana soul is getting greedy wanting more and more time and body as time goes on.

Happy New Year! tue jan 1 2016

first i want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

here i am cooking my family's traditional New Years Day meal baked pork chops on a bed of sour craut. one starts by browning the pork chops then putting them on a bed of rinsed sour craut (removes some of the salt) add another layer of sour craut then sprinkel some brown sugar over add 2 cups of water to cover chops , cover and bake for 2 hours at 350.

and vola there you have it baked pork cops yum yum!

Happy New Year!

hugs
Diana

Merry Christmas everone Dec. 25th, 2015

i hope everyone had  a Merry Christmas!

 

believe it or not it was 65 degrees here in nj hence the summer dressy short sleeve blouse.
the 3rd photo shows my dangly Christmas earrings and sparkly hair pin

Santa was good to me Diana this year he brought me a new coat for my casual look.

i am sure as the winter wears on i'll get chance to use it. :-)

hugs to all
Diana

sunbathing on a piecefull sunday sept 20, 2015

the weather was sooooo beautiful herein nj with the humidity below 40% and cloudless blue skys almost like so. calf. weather. and since i already taken down and put away my pool for the season i decided to get some more use out of my newer bathing suit by sunbathing on the patio.

that and run some garden RR trains.

a beautiful day in nj to run trains.  the locals and the tourists were pulled by the Forney type engine past bird point! it looks as though they have brought some liquid refreshment in the keg car.

hope everyone else had such a lovely day!

hugs
Diana

an interesting eveing at the local church fair sunday septumber 6, 2015

i am soooo excited i must share this with others. i went to the local Italian labor day fest at my church. and as i was sitting eating a family sat down next to me at one of the large community tables as it is like a carnival with rides and such. when i turned to glance to my right i started chatting with this family. who said i looked familiar. when i mentioned i had 2 selves their eyes lightened up and the child's mom's (yes that is correct plural) introduced me to their teen child who currently is male. suddenly the conversation changed to the transgender topic and it turns out their son is planning on transitioning. we had a great conversation till it was time to leave where we exchanged phone numbers for future info. this was sooooo cooool. smile emoticon it was the last thing i would have thought possible this evening as i had attempted to blend is as usual the photo shows what i had worn for the evening. a tiny bit dressy since it was a sunday evening.

a sort of continuation from yesterday monday june 14, it becomes 2 full days as diana2015

this is sort of the remainder of yesterdays story.

first yesterday turned out to be pretty good in that  first after eplaining the delay in the meeting due to being transgendered and  not wanting to confuse the meeting she proceeds to tell me  she has a transgindered cousen as well as a goood friend fellow teacher who is also transgendered cd in nj so it would have been no big deal had i stayedin diana mode *sigh*
next i returned home about 8pm and changed back into diana  mode adding the makeup this time and quickly headed out the door LOL before there wdre any other interuptions. first i went to dollar tree store for a few things i forgot yesterday.  next to target store checked out the bathing suits ( one piece malliots ) and drooled over the bikini's *sigh*  then onto walmart in the same mall  for a few basic staples and got sidetracked to you guessed it the bathing suits. tried on a malliot but the back just wasn't makein' it for me. finally home for a verrry late dinner cooked on the grill between the thunderstorms.

today i got up and felt the complusion that it was once again going to be a diana day.  yep there's no getting around it as it just slows my day down when i end up in indicison between male mode and diana mode. it is easier when i can to just go with the flow. sort of like being caught in a rip tide you just have to swim parrille with it untill you get past it
since it has been warm and muggy for a few  days here i was able to wear my white jeans skirt and a tank top with lace trim and brown sandels. (if it is not cute ,and pretty  i don't wear it!)
so out i went finaly this afternoon late to pick up spomething from wendy's  as mondays and thurs i usually don't cook. chatted with the grill lady who admired my mauve toe nail polish and out fit.  then down the street to the a & p food store for some mike which   grew to a few other things and finaly back home to eat dinnner now at 8:30 gratefull to have had 2 days in a row as diana (considdering i sleep in grirlly chemises it becomes 2 full days as diana. woooo whooo!
higs diana

the diana day that almost was...sunday june 14, 2015

ever have a day when you are all dressed to go out and the phone rings..... 

hi this is ......  today is the only day i have to cordinate to drop off the antique keyboard so that the keyboard restorerer that we both sending  antique keyboards to can pick them up next week. i can be there in an hour.....
Grrrrrr.....

lucky i don't have my makeup on yet but everything else was done hair, jewelery, outfit, lucky just clear on the nails.

now although most of my friends and neighbors and members of the historical society all know that i am transgendered but not changing and many have seen me dressed it still becomes a problem for those who don't know me. *sigh*

the worst part about it is that the rest of the week is my crunch time at work and even though i am the owner i don't wear nice pretty clothes on the job because since i repair band instruments it seems that it never fails that when i am asked to check for dents in trombone hand slides ( the most delicate part of the trombone) the student allways seems to leave spit/moisture ect in the instrument. then when i hold it up to the light to look for the dents yep you guessed it the moisture rolls out on my shoes. over the years i have learned to jump back when this happens since i have been sidetracked with the conversation with the teacher. 
or there is the trumpet scene with the excess valve oil applied to a sticking valve with a dent in the valve casing  that now gets on my hands or worse drips on my clothes. hence i wear the "uniform" dark slax and a white golf shirt.
when i say crunch time it is like being in a toy shop at christmas.
the purches orders at the bd of ed close out on july 1st or the money is lost. but the teachers don't get the instruments returned from the student till the 2nd to 3rd week of june. *sigh* no one wants to understand that it is physically imposable to have it both ways . if i work off just a guesstimate i loose and eat labor due to unforeseen problems with each instrument. there is no way one can pick up instruments at the school , do the work and type the invoices all in a week. the bus adminastrator wouldn't work under those conditions in fact sometimes they hold off on approvals for 3 - 6 months.

so today was supposed to be a diana day people have told me "now that your dad has passed you,'ll have more time to be diana." yea really ? ha it seems it has given me less time in fact while my dad was alive i got to dress more often even having sunday or other days dinner with him as diana. he seem to look forward to my diana days. *sigh*

and you know how hard it is to change back again after an hour of waiting for someone to show up. *sigh* as the best part of the day is ruined waiting around in male atire. *sigh*

well i have said my peace.

hugs
Diana

me and my friend Suzanne C. April 30, 2015

with the good weather having finally arrived, (i think mother nature kept hitting the snooze alarm LOL)  i am once again starting to do some social things.

my friend  Suzanne C. came down today from Boston on business. it is hard to believe it has been several years since she was here last!

we decided that since time was of the essence we'd meet once again  were we did the last time at houlihans restaurant in bridgewater NJ for coffee and desert.

since it was later in the evening the restaurant section had thinned out but the hostess was kind enough to let us sit at a table in the now empty dinning room.
3-1/2 hours went by like minutes and our conversation was as if we had meet last week instead of several years ago when she was last here on business.

Suzanne had this "killer -stop traffic "dress on and looked picture perfect as always!
we have many other interests in common so we are never short on conversation. ie we both have a red hobby convertible sports car that gets put away and covered up for the winter.

the best part was the waitress was attentive but left us alone to chatter away. :-)
sadly the hours had flown as if they were minutes and it was time to leave before our carriages turned into pumpkins.
we said our goodbys and headed on our way the richer for each other company!

hugs
Diana

taps for my dad Dec. 29th 2014

Sadly my dad passed on as of last tue.
we had an honor guard from the army at the interment today with me as bugler (on trumpet). i used the newly acquired bach which dad had gotten chance to try last spring  the day i bought it.

you see my dad gave me my 1st trumpet lesson when i was age 9. being a second generation trumpet player it was an honor to play taps for my dad.
in fact, in my view, i felt that had if i had not played it would have been dishonorable.
my dad had done this detail many times and said that echo taps was much harder emotionally to play for. (we didn't do echo) the indoor mausoleum at st gerts in Colonia has quite an echo so i was placed at the entrance foyer entering the mausoleum chapel. i am proud to say that with Gods help i was able to play honorably.

Building the garden rail road "the Frog Hallow and Bird point Rail Road" sept - oct. 2014

 in sept due to the fact that i had to stay close to my dad after he broke his shoulder this past summer while grazing for cookies in the kitchen... i decided to actually start building a G scale garden rail road.
i had bought a starter set from a friends garage sale. it had a small engine, several extra cars, a power pack and a lot of track which was designed to be used ether indoor or out door.
so labor day i started ripping out the excess ivy near the waterfall pond dad built many years ago.
first i had to level the ground this took 10 wheelbarrow loads of dirt which my neighbor supplied when a tree fell several years ago leaving a pile of dirt he was getting rid of. next he used his pick up truck to get 3/4 of a ton of gravel dust for the ballast. this meant offloading another 12 wheelbarrows of gravel dust 100 feet out to the pond area. then there was the removing of two 8" tree roots and of course there ose one at each end of where i wanted to place the track LOL. lucky we had a warm fall because one night after dinner using my neighbors contractors light i kept working till the sun came up LOL! after much hard work the rail road was up and running.

i called it the "Frog Hallow and Bird Point Rail Road" because it starts near the pond where we have dwarf and frog statues and goes  30' up to the bird bath via a dog leg near the old fire pit.

the blue dwarf cottage on the right dad built quite awhile ago for the pond from a small artists picture in an advertisement in a magazine

as one can see i have acquired 2 more engines a Forney with sound and a Mogul.

Dad did get to see the trains running in late Oct.

Diana

a crazy 2 weeks july 25th 2014

not much to write about in diana land as there hasn't been to much time to be diana since my dad  (89) fell 2 weeks ago and broke his dextro humorius ( upper right arm near the shoulder). the poor guy is soooo right handed so that it has effected his confidence in his balance. so i have haried a college guy up the street  to help me guide my dad from the bed to the chair.

as if that isn't enough the top of the gas stove just sort of crumbled yesterday.
so i had to call and order another stove.

in the middle of all this the neighbor's main water valve broke off in his hand creating a gueiser. requiring a call the the water co to shut off the main valve . next the fire dept arrived to pump out the basement which now had calf deep water.

so anyone reading can see why i have had no diana time.

catching up on my blogs due to to much time spent shoveling snow this past winter! May 14 2014

i can't believe i haven't done an entry since 3/4 or rather almost a year ago!
 i think mainly due to theharsh winter we had. i spent way to much time shoveling snow and was just to exhausted to do any entries!
i had taken some photos with the good intention of posting them but they just sort of piled up on my desk until i finally filed them. now i will have to dig them back out
so i thought i'd better at least jot down a note or two!

 

 this was in the late fall at the local cvs pharmacy store. i really like this shawl but rarely get to wear it at the temp outside must be not to hot or to cold to wear it.

 

welcome to my workshop and studio area. i was sooooo pleased because i had decided to clean up the clutter on the table and put the shop tree there this year!

here are the decorations on my 1929 ford 2dr dad's 1930 ford roadster is in the foreground. it is funny how while i was changing 2 inner tubes how the job escalated into 2 months instead of 2 days! it started with a broken spoke i found after i changed the first tube. these are factory welded spokes so off to my neighbors shop and his mig welder. the job tube by tube and wheel by wheel just dragged. hence it was time to decorate the car before returning it to the storage garage!

the new holiday apron! i just loved the cute lil' bow bow on the front!

me in front of our christmas tree. 

(note the outfit is pre snow and super cold weather)

it was sooooo cold this past winter...

 that we had icicles forming from the bottom of the door growing upward!

this is after christmas when it got soooo cold  so out came the boots and warmer outfits. this must have been on one of the slightly warmer days as i don't have a really heavy long coat on.

and finally toward the end of the winter when no one including the gg's cared about fashion all they cared about was staying warm!

one of my christmas gifts which i picked out and i   paid half and dad the other half was a early christmas gift  a dslr camera.

now i have been drooling for 5 years waiting for a clearance sale. which target stores finally discounted for about half price. i had to call 5 stores to find one still in stock. the self timer on this camera is verrrry easy to use so i just set it on the decons bench accross from where i am standing and in 10 seconds it takes the photo.

i have soooo missed using my slrs since the demise of film but swore i would no longer buy cannon products due to the lack of support of replacement parts.  the ae1 was a great camera but they sold it to the public and tossed us out of the nest like baby birds. and when they came out with their dslr they chose to use the poorer body the reble instead of the better body the ae1 . therefore the lenses were no longer useable on the newer dslr

yet pentax and nikon  still used their same mounts and older lenses could be used. 

like from the pentax k 1000 but there are less places selling the pentax which brought me back to the nikon 5000 series.

i really love the ease of use of this camera. the auto settings which i thought i'd never use iare very good hence i almost never revert back to the manual settings.

my other great gift which i picked out and contributed to was a small acetylene and oxygen tank set from harbor freight stores  i combined this with the jeweler's torch set from smiths called the "little torch" so that i could do more efficient silver - solder ( high temp soldering sort of brazing) of brass musical instrument keys.

although the tips are verrry small the number 3 tip still puts out welding temps of 6000 degrees for a btu use of over 1200 which is more than enough for the silver alloy rod . the coolest part is it ie designed to use any yes any bottled gas source along with bottled welding oxygen. many jewelers use city or propaine yet the refrigeration repair techs use acetylene like i am using. it is different than welding on steel as one needs to keep the flame back a bit instead of in close as in welding. but with all the import instruments coming in the country i can no longer obtain some of the key parts for saxes so now i can do a high strength repair of a broken key assembley and not tur the job away.

so that is all the news for now and it is time to go to sleep.

hugs diana

finally back to the pool! july 26th 2013

well the heat wave along with the constant humid drizzly weather we have had has finally broke. yeaaaa! today was 80 degrees , sunny and a light breeze so i  could finally get to the pool in the next town.

although we who were born in nj are somewhat used to humid - hot (80-90 degrees) in july and aug. we are not used to a whole month of 90- 100 degree days with constant drizzle and super sticky humidity. when the sun was out it was to hot for the pool as the water was even to warm and when the sun went in and it cooled a bit then we had drizzle and sticky humidity. finally today and thur the weather cooled down to 80 degrees with a slight breeze. we were told that the cause of this was a   Bermuda weather mass that stalled and tried to push the currents east to west instead of the usual west to east. when this happened the entire east coast from florida to cape cod ended up with the unusually hot super sticky humidity and drizzel. yuch! usually way up north in the north east it is much cooler in the summer than in nj. but not this july!

i live only about 10 miles west of the elizabeth port which means that we see sea gulls since we are closer than one might realize to salt water (sort of the bay). this means we are still effected by the off shore currents which can change as the land heats up by the afternoon.

the other reason i couldn't go to the pool if anyone read my last log entry is that last week i needed to let the swelling subside on my face due to the yellow jacket sting on my left cheek bone area which had swelled my left eye almost shut. i am happy to report after the dr put me on a somewhat high dose of prednisone that the swelling has subsided. yeaaaa! :-) i can tell you i was not very pretty last week. forget the eye make up i couldn't find my eye lid to even apply any make up!

 although this is a photo from a past year (since i was by my self today with no one to take my photo) it is the same bathing suit, hair and pool! so i looked exactly the same.

this pool now has adult swim for the last hour of each day which makes it really nice . in fact there were only a few people there besides the life guards.

afterwords i stopped at wendys (the order taker was nice enough to take my photo) for a soda 

and the A & P food store for the evening meal of salmon which i shared as diana with my dad.

the facial bee sting july 14th 2013

sunday while mowing my lawn i got stung by a yellow jacket on the left cheek bone.

i iced it heavily used adville and took a small amount of antihistamine ( a full does puts me in a fog the next day)

well monday with my eye almost swollen shut it was off to the allergist who who ordered prednisone and when i protested he said "  without it the swelling will get worse before it gets better" agggghhh

buy now i looked like a chipmunk on the left side of the face and i know it'll take at least 3-4 days to go down *sigh* still i know it could have been soooo much worse and i consider myself lucky in spite of it all.

believe me it is not a pretty sight and  make up is not going to help this situation!

  there isn't enough makeup in the whole world to cover this much facial swelling!

so i guess that leaves out diana time and diana at the pool for the next week or so grrrr!

but as i said i know it could have been soooo much worse and i still consider myself lucky in spite of it all.

sunday april 7th,2013

this is me headed to the diginity church meeting on the way out to the car i went across the street to chat with my neighbor. upon seeing her beautiful easter flowers i asked her to take my photo in front of the flowers. the weather being verrry nice finally but breezy ment all i could think of was how to keep my wig hair from being blown away. i guess with all the hair spray i used everything stayed in place! but the setting just screemed out "kodak moment" LOL.

the next stop was on to touch base with the historic site that i am president of this year. the building is open for tours on the first sunday of each month. thee wee 2 docents that knew of Diana and had seen photos of diana but had never seen the elusive diana in person. LOL of course there had to me one more docent on that didn't know of diana.... oh well.... but it worked out well.

from there it was onto the bakery to pick up goody's from the swiss pastry shop in scotch plains nj. for the social hour after the mass service of dignity.
the owner John is a master pastry chef who throughout the years during his training in the late 1950's has made cakes for several verrrrry well known people from around the world when they came to the ny area.
he only uses real ingredients no substitutions ie real dark chocolate  not coco, and real wip cream not crisco icing  ect. amongst his specialties include chocolate, cinaman, and aprocot rugala .
he always teases me that he prefers it when diana comes in instead of dave.

finally i was on my way up to maplewood to the service.


on the way home i stopped at manny's texas weiner resturant ( a full menu diner) also in maplewood nj for a bite to eat ( a verrry late lunch at about dinner time LOL) the usual waitress who is related to the owner was off but i ordered a burger anyway. (ignor the date stamp as the photo is newer - april 2011 -  then stated due to  a blond moment with the camera settings. LOL )

then it was home to cook dinner for dad and me ( as diana) in spite of the verrry late lunch i found i could still find room for some home made meat loaf. dad has been verrry accepting and gracious about me being dressed as diana. although he will ask were dave is LOL. i just tell him that dave felt it was time for him to have a prettier dinner companion LOL  i am soooo lucky to have such a understanding and loving dad!

hope everyone had a great day with great weather like we had!

hugs


  Diana

post storm sandy repairs march 26th - april 2th 2013

just some info to bring everyone up to date in our repairs since storm sandy.

5 months after storm sandy our roof is repaired, the canopy and gutter replaced, and
the town removed the stump and filled the hole. Yea!
 due to afternoon drissel it took the roofers 3 days just to work on what you see in this photo (the front roof area only)

( the second photo is what it looked like during the storm )
a friend of mine asked if i was really just trying to hide from the tax man. LOL


of course the town crew and the roofers all appeared at the same days. LOL

the cool stump tool drills and breaks up the stump (due to the natural gas line right under the stump)
but using this tool only took about 15 mins

the following week the other company came to install the front canopy and front gutter. and the town also arrived to pick up the stump pieces. what are the odds...