What I'm about to write might seem out of place in this blog, but I hope readers will indulge me and read on. Today is September 11, 2011. In just over 8 hours, many Americans will observe a moment of silence, as we remember the day 10 years ago that changed our lives and our nation's landscape forever.
For me, September 11, 2001 started out as just another day. I was on my way to work in my office on the perimeter of the Scottsdale Airport. I had the radio on in my car, and usual, I was frustrated with morning commute traffic. Instead of stopping at the local Starbucks, which I did nearly every morning on my way to work, for some unknown reason, I pulled into a neighborhood sandwich & coffee shop. As I walked in, the girl behind the counter commented that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. I remember thinking, and I believe I even said; "it's probably foggy in New York, and some guy in a little plane got lost". The shop had no tv, and I honestly didn't think any more of it. I just figured some private pilot got lost or confused, and hit the skyscraper. No big deal, right?
Less than 5 minutes later I walked into my office. The hallway was still dark, but I could hear voices. Loud voices sounding worried and rushed. Instead of going into my own office, I turned the corner into the call center area in time to watch the second airplane hit the WTC, almost as if in slow motion. Could I be seeing what I thought I'd just seen? Could a jet really hit the World Trade Center? And why? The sky looked clear. I didn't see any fog. How does a jet hit a skyscraper on a clear and cloudless morning?
And suddenly our phones went crazy. In September 2001 I worked as the director of training and development for a software company that designed, implemented and maintained crew lodging and transportation software for airline crews. Our largest customer was a US based freight company, for whom we assisted hundreds of crewmembers each day. Because we held hotel rooms world wide, and because aviation in the US came to a complete standstill, it seemed that everyone was calling us looking for help accommodating their crewmembers who'd been stranded. The callers were polite but obviously anxious and they needed help quickly.
I don't know how many calls we took that day. I don't remember who we called to come in and help us field the calls. I don't remember what time I left my office late that night. I don't remember who I spoke with that day, or even that week. I do remember someone ordering pizza's to be delivered for lunch. I also remember feeling ice cold that day and for many days after. And living in Phoenix Arizona, September's aren't cold. But I was. From the inside out, I just felt cold.
The following Summer I met a commercial airline pilot that I would eventually fall in love with and marry. He's a great pilot, a professional, someone whose skill and judgement I trust implicitly. I've often told him that he somehow becomes part of his airplane when he's in the cockpit. I can't explain that, it's just a feeling I get when I see him flying, whether it's the Boeing 777 he fly's for Continental or our little Cessna 150.
I can't say that I never worry about Keith on his trips. In our early years, when I'd drop him off at the airport for a trip to Tel Aviv Israel, I'd have to stop to get through a panic attack brought about by my fears for his safety there. Even now, whether it's a hurricane on the east coast or a frigid winter in Beijing, I worry about my husband. But weather and city safety are small potatos compared with the worries I and other pilots' wives have about the possibility of a repeat of the events of September 11, 2001.
Today my husband is in Hong Kong. He'll leave there late tonight, returning home tomorrow evening. And from the time he boards his plane, until I hear his voice shortly after landing in Newark, New Jersey - I will track his flight online and hope and pray for his safety, just as I do for every single flight he takes.
I pray that we never again experience the sort of violation our nation experienced that September day 10 years ago. I pray that no spouse, parent, child or sibling has to again lose a loved one at the hands of religious fanatics. I hope that we as a nation never take our safety and security so lightly that we become complacent and again fall victim to madmen.
More than anything, I pray that time somehow eases the pain of that September day and that we as a nation can someday watch September 11th pass as just another date on the calendar. But today won't be that day. Today we will remember, and mourn again the loss of so many innocent lives, and perhaps, our greater innocence in general.
God Bless America
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Promises, promises, promises
Okay I'm busted. I promised to post at least once a week. Well what I actually said was that I'd try. But you know how it is, life happens ... and the best laid plans seldom work out as planned.
Take last week for example; I'd wrapped up my last order of the year, and even printed up a couple of Christmas gifts for family friends. My husband had surprised me with an overnight visit to a local resort/spa to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary and I'd managed to enjoy a relatively quiet celebration of my birthday (no, I'm not tellin what number, you can forget that). It was finally time to close my office door and shut down for the Christmas/New Year holiday, it was time to relax and ease out of 2010.
I was even looking forward to a little hit -n- run trip to Texas to visit my BFF when our world got turned upside down by a health crisis for my much loved mother-in-law. After a brief hospital stay she's back on her feet, and is staying at our house for a few days while husband Keith travels to Hong Kong. Ya know, there's just nothing like a family health crisis to make you appreciate your own health, not to mention whatever time you may be blessed to spend with those you love.
It's now 5 days before Christmas. The gifts are wrapped, the stockings are hung, the tree is lit, the manger scene is in place on the mantle, and all the ingredients for the dozens of Christmas cookies I'd planned to bake are sitting in the kitchen. If only I could muster up the energy to actually mix it all up and bake those cookies! It's not as if I haven't tried, I've even managed to put out a couple dozen cookies. Just not the dozens I'd envisioned when I shopped for the mountain of "essentials" two weeks ago. Ah well, there's still time, right?
Well in between cookie recipe's I've been thinking about new products for 2011, and I'm thinking bibs. Baby bibs go with onezies like peanut butter goes with jelly ... they're made for each other. I've found a manufacturer here in the US that produces a nice quality white cotton/terry bib trimmed in colorful fabric piping. They stand up well to color and heat setting, and they wash up really well, something that's probably most important to busy parents.
In addition to the bibs, La Petite Pilot will introduce new t-shirts for toddlers, teens and adults. Our new designs are fun, colorful, sometimes a little irreverant, maybe even border-line suggestive. They get people talking, that's all I know for sure.
And in January, Keith and I will attend both the 2011 Gift Mart, where I hope to meet gift shop buyers from all over the world, as well as ISS, the International Sportswear Show. ISS is the biggest tradeshow out there for our kind of business. We're both so excited to be able to attend this important tradeshow where we look forward to meeting vendors and other decorated apparel producers alike.
The future looks bright and exciting, and La Petite Pilot is poised for even greater success. Stay tuned for more design and product news, as well as new photos! Until then, may your holidays be filled with the laughter and love of friends and family.
From our house to yours,
A Very Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Inheritance and Legacy
A comment by my bff has me thinking about the things we inherit and the legacy we leave behind. Since no one gets out of here alive, I think at some point it's only natural to consider what we've done with our lives and what we will leave those we love with when we depart this world.
As a young girl, the only thing I cared to inherit was a beautiful glass-fronted bookcase handmade by my maternal grandfather. I'd watched the tender love and care he'd put into making the piece, and he and I shared a love of books. He'd actually made the bookcase as a place of honor for the many first and second edition printings of classics by authors he admired such as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne and Alexander Dumas. An appreciation which he passed on to me at an early age. When other little girls were being read bedtime story's from Little Golden Books, Pop was reading to me from Verne's "Around The World In Eighty Days". And when in his late 80's he died, I inherited his collection of books ... but not the beloved bookcase which housed them. That honor went to his daughter - my mother.
Growing up, I'd made casual comments to my mother about "Pops bookcase" someday being mine, and she'd assured me it would be so. Over the years, my mother inherited other bits and pieces from my grandparents life; a gilt music box with a faded little yellow canary atop, a brass stamp box that once had pride of place on my grandmother's desk, a beautiful Mahogany Duncan Pfyfe card table, as fashionable and timeless today as it was in the 1920's. Long after the passing of my beloved grandparents, these items served to remind me of happy days in their home; be it reading with my grandfather, or picking raspberries and putting up preserves with my grandmother.
Today Pop's bookcase showcases my favorite books along with my darling husbands' airplane collection, while grandma's Duncan Pfyfe table graces the entance to our home. The brass stamp box is once again filled with stamps, and sits ready in my office, and the little yellow canary, even more faded today, adorns a shelf where it serves as a daily reminder of the gracious and gifted woman I called Grandma.
There have been many other things I inherited from my mother and her parents, as well as my father's mother. But some of the best things I inherited, aren't "things" at all. In addition to inheriting Pops love of books and reading, I think I inherited his love of gardening and beating the birds to the best berries! From Grandma I believe I inherited my appreciation for a pretty table (bff and I joke that we are "dish whores") and my ability to spend hours wandering the aisles of stores such as Home Goods just admiring pretty dishes and linens.
Books may be enjoyable to read, furniture can make a home comfortable, and while jewelry adorns a hand, and money buys many things, the thing I've inherited that I value the most is the legacy of appreciating kindness, honesty, courage and fairness. My maternal grandparents embodied all four of these, and they reminded my siblings and me of the importance of these qualities at every opportunity.
We will each of us meet many people on the road through our lives, some will be dishonest, some will take advantage of our kindness, some may even rob us of our courage momentarily. I choose to believe that these poor souls are simply misguided or lost, and I try my best to feel pity for them. And then I remember a favorite quote (author unknown) on our refrigerator door that reads;
"In the end, it will not be our beliefs that are judged, it will be our actions and intentions. So believe what you wish, but be careful of what you do and why you do it."
Words my Grandma and Pop lived by every single day, and a gift I inherited that is more valuable than any book or bauble ever could be.
What will your children inherit from you, that will outlast mere "things"?
What will your legacy be?
Lori
As a young girl, the only thing I cared to inherit was a beautiful glass-fronted bookcase handmade by my maternal grandfather. I'd watched the tender love and care he'd put into making the piece, and he and I shared a love of books. He'd actually made the bookcase as a place of honor for the many first and second edition printings of classics by authors he admired such as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne and Alexander Dumas. An appreciation which he passed on to me at an early age. When other little girls were being read bedtime story's from Little Golden Books, Pop was reading to me from Verne's "Around The World In Eighty Days". And when in his late 80's he died, I inherited his collection of books ... but not the beloved bookcase which housed them. That honor went to his daughter - my mother.
Growing up, I'd made casual comments to my mother about "Pops bookcase" someday being mine, and she'd assured me it would be so. Over the years, my mother inherited other bits and pieces from my grandparents life; a gilt music box with a faded little yellow canary atop, a brass stamp box that once had pride of place on my grandmother's desk, a beautiful Mahogany Duncan Pfyfe card table, as fashionable and timeless today as it was in the 1920's. Long after the passing of my beloved grandparents, these items served to remind me of happy days in their home; be it reading with my grandfather, or picking raspberries and putting up preserves with my grandmother.
Today Pop's bookcase showcases my favorite books along with my darling husbands' airplane collection, while grandma's Duncan Pfyfe table graces the entance to our home. The brass stamp box is once again filled with stamps, and sits ready in my office, and the little yellow canary, even more faded today, adorns a shelf where it serves as a daily reminder of the gracious and gifted woman I called Grandma.
There have been many other things I inherited from my mother and her parents, as well as my father's mother. But some of the best things I inherited, aren't "things" at all. In addition to inheriting Pops love of books and reading, I think I inherited his love of gardening and beating the birds to the best berries! From Grandma I believe I inherited my appreciation for a pretty table (bff and I joke that we are "dish whores") and my ability to spend hours wandering the aisles of stores such as Home Goods just admiring pretty dishes and linens.
Books may be enjoyable to read, furniture can make a home comfortable, and while jewelry adorns a hand, and money buys many things, the thing I've inherited that I value the most is the legacy of appreciating kindness, honesty, courage and fairness. My maternal grandparents embodied all four of these, and they reminded my siblings and me of the importance of these qualities at every opportunity.
We will each of us meet many people on the road through our lives, some will be dishonest, some will take advantage of our kindness, some may even rob us of our courage momentarily. I choose to believe that these poor souls are simply misguided or lost, and I try my best to feel pity for them. And then I remember a favorite quote (author unknown) on our refrigerator door that reads;
"In the end, it will not be our beliefs that are judged, it will be our actions and intentions. So believe what you wish, but be careful of what you do and why you do it."
Words my Grandma and Pop lived by every single day, and a gift I inherited that is more valuable than any book or bauble ever could be.
What will your children inherit from you, that will outlast mere "things"?
What will your legacy be?
Lori
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Summer Day
I've always thought that two of the prettiest words in the English language are SUMMER DAY. When I think of summer days gone by, I remember laying in the grass behind my Ohio home listening to the bees buzzing in the Tulips, and the birds in the Cherry tree while I watched airplanes floating lazily through the cloudless summer sky. I remember trips to the neighborhood swim & tennis club, riding bikes with neighborhood friends, and collecting coffee cans full of flowers to present with a smile to my mother as she hung our laundry on the backyard line.
Sometimes I think how nice it would be to go back to those carefree summer days of childhood, when my toughest decision was what color ribbon I should tie around my pigtails. And then I think; WHAT? And miss all the fun I'm having right here, right now?? Not on your life!!!
In late February my darling husband surprised me by building me a raised garden bed just like those described in the wonderful book "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. I planted two varieties of tomato's, onions, bib lettuce, arugula, dill, rosemary, green peppers, basil, thyme, lavender, chocolate mint, strawberries, and marigolds. In the days that followed, I planted beets and two types of zucchini plants as well as cherry tomato's, both runner and bush beans and purple peppers of all things! And then I started on the flowers (a story for another day)!
What started with the intention of being a simple summer garden of bits and bobs, soon turned into something far bigger and much more joyous, and drew my husband and the apple of his eye - my 11 year old stepdaughter Chloe - out of the house into the garden. Chloe's favorite part of gardening is picking (and eating) the strawberries and cherry tomato's. She laughs with glee as she teases her father that she's eaten more than him, though she always saves at least one of something for daddy.
Husband Keith seems to be getting a kick out of how much I'm enjoying my days of leisure as a lady farmer, and is always game to let me try out a new garden-fresh ingredient at dinner. His current favorites are the sliced then grilled eight-ball zucchini drizzled with Tuscan olive oil, and the pesto I make with homegrown lemon basil. Needless to say, he also has yet to turn down my
lavender-infused Creme Brulee (made from scratch, and with homegrown lavender of course)!
Now my summer days are filled with the sound of birds fighting over figs in the tree in the orchard, bees buzzing through the French lavender and pots over-flowing with Vinca and pink Wand Flower, and the happy sight and sound of my family enjoying the fruits of my labor.
Go back to the summers of my childhood? Not a chance ... not when I'm having the time of my life!!
A word from the blog owner; please note that comments, while always welcome, are always moderated. No comments appear without my review and consent.
Wishing you a bee-buzzing, bloom filled, beautiful Summer Day!
Wishing you a bee-buzzing, bloom filled, beautiful Summer Day!
Lori
Saturday, October 31, 2009
55 days and counting
A little birdy told me that it's 55 days till Christmas and time for me to get serious about gift shopping. If your time's limited (and whose isn't?) why not consider mail order gift shopping?
This year one of my favorite online shopping destinations is http://www.wisteria.com/, and one of my absolute must-give-gifts is sure to be their Angel Wings Mug (www.wisteria.com/Angel-Wings-Mug-New/productinfo/W2811/) along with my favorite cocoa mix or tea bags.
I'm also totally loving the Groovy Gooseneck USB Light over at http://www.delight.com/ (www.delight.com/Groovy-Gooseneck-USB-light) that's small enough to pack into a laptop case but big enough to get the job done ... and all for well under $20.
Some of the other online emporiums I turn to for my Christmas gift giving include;
http://www.fredflare.com/ (Bacon dental floss anyone?)
http://www.redenvelope.com/ (love, love love their "100 Good Wishes" candle set)
http://www.restorationhardware.com/ (the Matchbox Musicbox is an adorable find)
Got someone on your list that always seems too tough to shop for? Check out what the brilliant mind behind http://www.giftgenius.com/ has to offer. Simply choose the holiday and the recipient and the gift genius makes suggestions running the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime.
And if all else fails ... you can't possibly go wrong with a handmade one-of-a-kind T-shirt from La Petite Pilot. Whether the gift recipient is a Vegan with a wicked sense of humor or your great aunt Grace, I can offer you dozens of design choices sure to fit the personality of even the pickiest gift recipient. Give me a call at 623-330-0301 and lets talk T-shirts today!
55 Days and counting ...
Lori
This year one of my favorite online shopping destinations is http://www.wisteria.com/, and one of my absolute must-give-gifts is sure to be their Angel Wings Mug (www.wisteria.com/Angel-Wings-Mug-New/productinfo/W2811/) along with my favorite cocoa mix or tea bags.
I'm also totally loving the Groovy Gooseneck USB Light over at http://www.delight.com/ (www.delight.com/Groovy-Gooseneck-USB-light) that's small enough to pack into a laptop case but big enough to get the job done ... and all for well under $20.
Some of the other online emporiums I turn to for my Christmas gift giving include;
http://www.fredflare.com/ (Bacon dental floss anyone?)
http://www.redenvelope.com/ (love, love love their "100 Good Wishes" candle set)
http://www.restorationhardware.com/ (the Matchbox Musicbox is an adorable find)
Got someone on your list that always seems too tough to shop for? Check out what the brilliant mind behind http://www.giftgenius.com/ has to offer. Simply choose the holiday and the recipient and the gift genius makes suggestions running the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime.
And if all else fails ... you can't possibly go wrong with a handmade one-of-a-kind T-shirt from La Petite Pilot. Whether the gift recipient is a Vegan with a wicked sense of humor or your great aunt Grace, I can offer you dozens of design choices sure to fit the personality of even the pickiest gift recipient. Give me a call at 623-330-0301 and lets talk T-shirts today!
55 Days and counting ...
Lori
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