I Love New York Travel

Photo taken from the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. There was a trolley we could explore. It was stationary, but it made for a cool photo shot. :)

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been creating and submitting resumes and writing samples like a crazy person! It took me three to four days to get everything complete, whew. Finding more freelance jobs is just as much hard work as doing them! I’ve gotten a few assignments from some independent contractors, which is very nice. So far, I’ve done stuff on designer eyeglasses and Argan Shampoo, and hope more roll in.

I went over my debts today, listing everything in a cool new app that helps you pay off debt, using the snowball system. If everything remains status quo, I’ll be out of debt in about 2 years. That’s a long time to be paying for a kitchen and a car…. I’m praying I can get it paid off in one year or so, Lord willing!

Anyway, I am more hopeful than I was last month. God is my provider and He’ll help me. I need to tow the line and do everything I know to do. Onward!

Well, I don’t know if that’s the proper name for these formations. They are calcite, the offspring of a chemical reaction between limestone and water. I took the photo when we visited Howe Caverns this week. Most of the formation we saw were the typical elongated, swirly stalactites, but these appealed to me because they were so different. They look like puddles, frozen in time.

Some of the formations are absolutely exquisite. It’s truly amazing what water can do, both its beauty and destructive force. Taking photos in the cavern, however, was quite the arduous task. I did poorly. The light in the caves is very low, and I didn’t want to use my flash because it produced garish, ugly photos. I had to stand SO VERY still, not even breathing, when I took photos. Only about 1/3 of them came out! Nothing really suitable for desktops wallpaper, except a shot of the Roman Cathedral Pipe Organ and the kids standing outside by the huge Howe Caverns sign on the lawn. If you’d like to see the photos and read about our visit, keep an eye on my NewYorkTraveler.net blog, as I will be publishing my post there this week.

As a lover of history, I found the museum at the Trinity Church in Manhattan fascinating. It’s a small museum, containing few artifacts but many wordy displays on the history of the church and some of her prominent members. I liked this particular display, because it talks about “the beginning” of the church. I already know a little bit of the background– I have an old newspaper clipping from the 1930s. At that time, a lawsuit was presented against Trinity Church by a family who believed they still owned the rights to that land parcel in Manhattan. The family claimed that the land had never been sold to Trinity, only leased. The family claimed that they owned the land because it had been passed down to them by a Dutch ancestor, Anneke Jans, who had owned it as far back as 1664.

As expected, the government sided with Trinity Church and the church inherited the property. The display here does not make mention of the lawsuit or the contest; it merely mentions that the land had once been farmland.

The entire thing is fascinating to me. All the little decisions in life that we sometimes deem as so insignificant, to later have incredible repercussions. Think about the Anneke jans, who’d married Mr. Jans in Holland. They migrated here and bought a little land to farm. Small decision, right? Then, Mr, Jans died and Anneke went up to Albany to live in a Dutch community. Simple decision, right? She owned the Manhattan land, still, but didn’t do anything with it until she left it to her descendants in her will. Simple decision, right? The descendants leased it to Trinity Church and allowed them to build on it. Simple decision, right? Just so many simple decisions!!

Anyway, I know I’m rambling. But this is why i find history so compelling. OK, back to modern day and clipping pottery barn coupons. WHo knows who I’ll meet when I make the “simple decision” to go shopping! lol