Choosing Holyoke as a place to make our home has been a wonderful decision so far. And it’s a decision made even more wonderful when friends buy houses within walking distance. Jennifer and Scott celebrated their recent purchase with a housewarming yesterday — it included delicious pancakes and the music of The Primate Fiasco. Photos here.
daily life, food and drink, holyoke, music, photography, western mass | kristen September 8, 2008 | 
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One of our tenants is painting the side of our house to help pay off some of her rent. For some reason the previous owners decided to paint the house a few years ago using paint that was not meant for brick. Over the course of the summer, the tenants have been chipping away at the paint, filling in holes with cement and reconstructing bad bricks. One day we discovered that an advertisement used to be painted on the side of the house. This must have been from when the storefront was a grocery store many decades ago. We thought it was pretty neat. But I still like the after photo better.
holyoke, home improvement, photography, western mass | kristen September 4, 2008 | Comments (3)
I have yet to get a proper photo of Molly using her spider-like skills to get down from our balcony, but I did catch this photo of her waiting for me to leave so that when I was out of view she could shimmy down. Sure enough, as soon as I came back upstairs after grabbing this shot, she had traded places with me and was looking up at me from the yard. I didn’t catch that shot, because I was just too exasperated. In this photo she is likely spying on some birds.
daily life, holyoke, pets, western mass | kristen August 22, 2008 | Comments (3)
Remember when I blogged about our neighbor’s wall that crumbled to the ground? Well, A few days after that someone was reconstructing the wall. The same guy quoted us a price for part of our stone wall and less than a week later we’ve got a nice looking retaining wall (for not a ton of money). We haven’t done the front of our house yet, but the section he did complete was in danger of collapsing. I think our front retaining wall has at least another year left before it starts to look bad. First photo is before, second photo is during, and third photo is after.
holyoke, home improvement, western mass | kristen August 21, 2008 | Comments (4)
Last night, our neighborhood watch group took a tour around the ward. Much of it seemed like a photo opportunity for the sheriff and chief of police, but it was also a good chance for us to finally mingle with some of our neighbors. I posted photos of the Ward 4 walk at MassLive.com.
P.S. Here’s a better link: Gallery view
daily life, holyoke, western mass | kristen August 7, 2008 | Comments (0)
I’m currently recovering from a somewhat crazy week. It started at the vet where we took all three cats to get shots. Molly and Luddie were perfectly manageable, but Miles went into a possessed state when the vet put his hands on him. The vet and the technician ended up having to put on heavy-duty gloves and corner him with a net. When they finally got the shot in him and put him back into the cardboard cat carrier (it’s my fault that he wasn’t in a carrier of his own so we had to get one from the vet), the bottom fell out of it. So, they had to do it all over again. Miles weighs 18 lbs, by the way.
holyoke, pop culture, western mass | kristen August 1, 2008 | Comments (7)
This weekend has been terrible for my breathing. Allergy meds, advair and my puffer are all at close range, but the air quality is still taking its toll. On top of that, air conditioning has been drying out the bedroom and giving me a stuffed-up nose.
It’s a good thing my husband is so awesome. He just went to Sears to pick up an air purifier for our bedroom.
daily life, western mass | kristen July 20, 2008 | Comments (3)
This weekend has been terrible for my breathing. Allergy meds, advair and my puffer are all at close range, but the air quality is still taking its toll. On top of that, air conditioning has been drying out the bedroom and giving me a stuffed-up nose.
It’s a good thing my husband is so awesome. He just went to Sears to pick up an air purifier for our bedroom.
ReStore Home Improvement Center is located on Albany Street in Springfield, Mass. Next door is a salon called Gasoline Alley, which is owned by Michelle Scibelli and has been in existence for eleven years. It’s named after the stretch of Albany St. known as. . . Gasoline Alley.
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.
daily life, holyoke, photography, western mass, workplace | kristen June 20, 2008 | Comments (1)