How To Vacation in Upstate New York

The last weekend in July, Al and I traveled to Cortland, NY to visit his mom and stepdad. Katherine took a job up there and has been living there since March. It's a cute, little town that is not very different from parts of Indiana. In fact, a lot of the countryside looks like southern Indiana with more hills. When most people hear NY, they don't think of countryside, but instead think of noise and busyness. Cortland is quite the opposite. It's quiet, old-school, a little run-down in parts, and adorable.

We arrived in Syracuse on Friday afternoon and stopped off to have lunch at a fine NY eatery: Burger King. We were really hungry and I really, really wanted a chicken sandwich! :) After lunch we headed to Cortland, where I proceeded to take a nap until dinner. Traveling is tiring! We had dinner at an Italian restaurant (of which there are many). I had scallops fra diavolo, which I would normally love, but the scallops didn't taste as I had hoped. The sauce was different than I expected, but it was a good different.

On Saturday, we headed towards Cooperstown, baseball capital of the world. It was a bit of a drive out there (a little over 2 hours) and we chose a bad weekend to go. It was induction weekend, so it was packed to the gills. We spent some time walking down, then back up main street, before stopping in at the farmer's market. Here, we were able to get a ton of veggies and desserts to be consumed that evening. Before leaving we stopped off and had some true to NY pizza. Later that evening we had steak, potatoes, fresh veggies, and tomatoes for dinner. We had strawberry rhubarb pie and blueberry crumb pie for dessert while we played Conga (a Cranium spin-off). Before that though, we had to make playdough, as all the clay in the house was crystallized! Al and his mom made it, while Brent and I watched. We ended with some fabulous light green playdough. 

On Sunday we attended church and met a lot of the folks we'd been hearing about all weekend. It's a very old-style church with nothing but friendly people. We spent the afternoon at Treman (pronounced Tremain) State Park in Ithaca hiking the gorgeous gorges. We were hoping to wade a little in Buttermilk Falls, but it was dry. However, we were very glad to have stumbled upon Treman. It was positively breathtaking at times. We stopped in at Wegmans for snacks and headed back home for dinner at The Hollywood. Some of the best stuffed shells ever!

Monday was a quick trip to the nature conservatory, a pop in at the Bling Store, and lunch at Pita Gourmet. Then it was off to the Syracuse airport to find out that our plane was severely delayed and we would miss our connecting flight. We had the choice to fly out that night and hope to get a hotel in Washington Dulles or to stay at the Best Western and take a 5:40 am flight to Philly then Indy. We chose the BW, which might not have been the best, but it worked. Instead of being home at midnight, we were home at 11am. Needless to say I fell asleep at 7 that night. Again traveling is tiring!!

All in all, it was a great trip! It was funny seeing the folks and playing with the pups. Milo sure does miss Alex. It's very cute to watch him follow him around the house. Lots of thanks to Katherine and Brent for opening their home to us. We really enjoyed our time spent in Cortland!!

Happy Visiting!
--Am

How To Twitter...or Is It Tweet?

Two months ago, I broke down and joined the Twitter using the name @AmberCharkov. Not even a week after that, I had jumped on the HootSuite. I was very apprehensive to join because I just didn't understand it and didn't think I needed another form of communication. I mean, I had Facebook. Wasn't that enough? I had no idea what I was missing out on!

One Allison Ackmann (@AllisonAckmann) (a friend and coworker) has been saying I needed to get on it. It started at subtle hints and ended with her going to get the entire office on Twitter if it was the last thing she'd do. So, one slow week at work, I took the last half hour of the day to get myself signed up on the Twitter. The first weekend I had Twitter, I was obsessed! I had to read every update that came across my screen. If I missed any, I would go back and read them to catch myself up. This was fairly easy, as I wasn't following many people. OCD much? YES! It's just like the blogs I follow. Right now, I follow enough that I could catch up on a week's worth of missed blogs during a Saturday. So, I become a little tentative to add many new blogs. I feel like if I don't see everything, I'm going to miss out on something. Geez, what did I do before I didn't join this blogging and tweeting world? However, with the twitter world, I've realized that I'm not going to be able see everything and that half the stuff out there isn't that important. I can let pieces of twitter information slide.

I did realize that it's a great way to communicate and to get your voice out there. You can post anything from what you ate for breakfast to an article on abortion. It can be as laid-back or as serious as you want it to be. I started by mostly replying to treats or re-tweeting (RT) what others wrote. This made it easier to get into the swing of things and took off some of the pressure. The hashtag (#) was something of a mystery to me, but it's really quite simple to use. You use it when you have a certain topic you're talking about or something you want to get across. A good example would be: Nothing will ever be as good as Veronica Mars. #KristenBell #VeronicaMars #ilovetv. See?! I also find you get more followers by following more people. It helps make connections and get your name out there.

I opted for the HootSuite because it was easier to re-tweet than using the original platform. I can't compare it to other platforms because I have no experience with them, but it works well for me. I like that I can see people who have mentioned me, re-tweeted me, sent me a message, and my tweets in addition to the tweets of my followers. I would definitely recommend it!


All in all it's a great tool for information and can be a good way to stay up-to-date. Of course, you should only follow those people that you want. And if someone turns out to be annoying (ie tweeting a shit-ton), then you unfollow them. It's impersonal enough that no one's feelings get hurt. However, here are some of my fave tweeters: @ClairBrsoman, @AllisonAckmann, @BellaTrella26, @NicoleWTHR, @David_Boreanaz, @RIPorSOL, @MS_Living, @threadless, @HeartlandTMP, @TheMommyologist, @TheChrisAngel, @WestCoastTacos

Don't forget to start following me--@AmberCharkov!

Happy Following!
--Am

How To Knock on Wood

Ever since Al and I got our second dog, Dodger, we decided we needed a fence. We were able to train Daisie from running away, but not Dodger. He loves people and other dogs, so if he sees one, he's a goner. We got him May of 2010 (or was it June?). And then when we got Diego (January 2011), we really decided we needed a fence. We hated tying them up, and it made me quite nervous waiting to see if Dodger was going to bolt. So, we sent in the proposal for a fence to our HOA and got started on the fence. Of course we called 811 (call before you dig) to make sure we wouldn't be hitting anything, and we waited the standard 30 days for the HOA to approve.

Al thought it would take a day to put in the posts and another day to put up the braces and the panels. Boy was he mistaken! The one-man auger rented from Home Depot did not do the trick. He spent forever on one post before he called in some reinforcements (our neighbor, Bruce). With his help, they were able to put up seven posts (of 32) in a span of 4 hours. Our ground is a rocky, clay substance that made it difficult to tap into. Al was beat. You could see the look of frustration on his face. He thought about renting a two-man auger, but found something better. Through the help of my dad, his buddy had someone come to the house with a bobcat and a much needed post-hole-digging attachment. WOOHOO!! The posts were dug and set in concrete in less than a day thanks to Steve and my dad (and of course the HARD work of my wonderful man).

On the weekend following, we ventured the cabin for some fun, but came home to a task that had to start as soon as we go home (which was 9:00 pm). At 10:00 pm on Saturday, Al began assembling the gate. Circular saw a-going and everything. I thought we would have had a violation of noise ordinance filed against us, but nothing yet! On Sunday, we were thankful enough to have friends over to help with the fence (and teach me the inner workings of my sewing machine). With the help of Regan, Al got one side of the fence completed. Not the whole thing like he was hoping, but it was all braced and 1/3 completed. Over the next couple of days, he was able to get the remaining sides up and we've been enjoying it ever since!!  

 dodger enjoying the fence

 al standing against his creation

 view from the outside

 my soon-to-be food producer 

 

tiki torch - first time used in 3 years

 thank you card and gift for Steve

I want to give a BIG shout out to my wonderful husband for all of his work on this. Not only did I get a sturdy fence, but I also got a snazzy garden spot! Thanks babe...you're the best!!

Happy Fencing!

--Am