It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

I often "mark" or delineate my life by certain points. Moving to Pittsburgh 18 years ago next month is one. Getting married, having J, and my company (old job) moving locations were others.

Five years ago last month, I was laid off. In several and great ways that marked the end of one life and the beginning of another. When I try to remember events, I often ask myself if they came before or after that. I had wanted to write a post to mark that five-year anniversary, but did not get around to it. I am quite certain I will remember that date for years to come, though that it was Friday the 13th is probably a bigger reason. Regardless, for several years, much of my blog was colored by that loss.

Just a few weeks after that gut-punching, life-changing event, I was affected more profoundly by the death of two children, Kate and Peter. I have written about that over the years as well. Today marks five years since their tragic passing. I never go more than a week or so without thinking of them or their mother Amy. For the first year or two, I thought of them daily.

Five years ago this month, another tragedy happened, the death of three Pittsburgh police officers. I can honestly say I don't think of that too much, but at the time, that weighed on me heavily, and made me view the work of officers in a different light.

But even though I will remember 2009 for mostly sad things, I also have a handful of wonderful memories and events that also linger in my mind. That was the year both the Steelers and the Pens won their championships. When your two favorite teams do that within four months of each other, it is just amazingly wonderful. I remember the final moments of both games. I especially remember standing on a ladder to watch the SB parade. I also remember the palpable joy and excitement around town and the constant wearing of championship shirts.

Personally 2009 (and several years after) allowed me to spend time with my daughter. We lived at the park, worked on reading skills, and just were together. It was great. We even took a family vacation, which I uncharacteristically planned months ahead of time, before the job loss. If I could turn back time, I would definitely go to those moments. I want my little girl back sometimes!

Maybe years down the road, I will no longer think of things before and after that period in my life. In fact, now that I celebrated one year at the current job, a job I still really like and that in many ways I feel as if I have had for years, I find myself using that as a new "marking" point. I cannot say how long I will be there (due mostly to funding issues), but I am hopeful that having gone through 2009, I can get through a lot, and find the positive.

I wish I had a profound quote to end on, but I got nothing. Have a good one!

Let's build something together!

That is one of my favorite slogan's (Or is that a tagline? Over a year removed from a design firm, and I can no longer remember). It belongs to Lowe's, although I am more of a Home Depot gal. But suffice it to say if someone handed me a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot (or Lowe's), I would be ecstatic. If I had $10,000 to spend, you could hear my shouts of joy from miles away. The things I could do with that money. Well, the things I could have Brian do with that money anyway. I love walking around Home Depot and admiring the fancy bathroom sinks and tubs. I look at the lighting and think about where I would put each fixture. I touch textured and colorful tiles and wistfully look at the fancy kitchen cabinets. I admire the various carpet styles and blinds. I look at the fancy front-loading washer and wonder what it must be like to have a steam dryer. I even look longingly at the vacuum cleaners because I can no longer buy a replacement filter for my eight year old mo...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

If only I had taken pictures of my detoured drive

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...

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