I take my camera everywhere I go - even on simple walks to get lunch. Sometimes I get time to post these photos. Sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I put them into file folders called “MMDDYYphotodump” and then I forget about them. I just went through a few of these file folders and am pulling out some images of Western Massachusetts. I hope to do this more often in my blog. We’ll see.

The first photo is of the exterior of the Wistariahurst Museum. I took it on the afternoon that I went to hear a talk on Holyoke resident Anna Burns Sullivan. Sullivan was a prominent union organizer for the local mills in the late 30s and continued to be an activist until her death in 1983.

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Amy and Scott are headed up nawth via East River in New York. I’m told this afternoon we should start to see NYC skyline on Scott’s boatcam. I’ll be watching obsessively.

I wanted to show you some of the flowers in my garden. Some of them were donated to us by my lovely friend Robin. I was actually shocked to find what we had planted is actually growing and thriving and blooming! The yellow and purple flowers are from Robin. The red rosebush was planted before we lived there and comes back with a vengeance every year.

I grabbed photos of the massive mill fire on Sargeant Street on Monday, June 9. All of my photos can be found in this MassLive.com photo gallery.

My ladies and I took a day trip up north to take a dip. Earlier in the week, I had scouted out a spot in the Cold River in Charlemont. As we pulled up to the area, Brittnie, yelled out, “they’re naked!”

We spent the early afternoon dipping in the cool water of a small river. Rapids sang above us while we waded and chatted and co-existed peacefully with the nudity.

Afterwards, we headed over to Shelburne Falls for an early dinner at the West End Pub.

I have such highs during the weekends that it’s hard to get motivated to get ready for work this morning.

I went to the Holyoke Sox opening dinner last night and put up a couple of photos here.

Some things that are new:

- The Holyoke baseball franchise now has its own “dance team.”

- The mascot is a dog. His name is Big Red. The team still seems to be working through the color problem, since Big Red’s jersey is red and white.

- At least the team will be wearing blue. Presumably.

- I get that it’s the socks themselves that are blue, but I don’t get that the dog is still Big Red. I suppose I could have asked at the event, but everyone seemed so excited and happy, I didn’t want to rain on their parade. For the record, I’m wicked excited. Home opener is June 11th. Are you going?

Matt and I headed to City Hall on Tuesday to “apply” for a marriage license. I use quotes around “apply” because although that is the standard way that one might describing going to the City Clerk’s office with the intent to acquire a marriage license, there appears to be no application involved whatsoever.

There were papers to sign, but there was no real need to prove that we’re worthy of a marriage license. They didn’t even ask for any identification, a fact that chilled Matt and me to the bone.

Fact: We are the 100th couple to declare our intent to marry to the city in 2008.

We were way more prepared than I thought we’d be so that may have contributed to the quickness of the experience. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts no longer requires a blood test, so that wasn’t necessary. We did have to raise our right hands and swear that what we wrote down on the application was true. I think I said yes. Matthew confirmed later that he had replied “yup.”

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These past couple of weeks have found me doing a bunch of things - getting ready for vacation, planting things in our front and back, celebrating someone’s birthday, working, taking photos, going to picnics, successfully not getting too many bug bites in the process, visiting family, watching what I eat. I promise to have something up here on this blog soon (besides this pathetic post).