It has been ten years.  Ten long, often arduous years.  Most of those years have been filled with challenges, not just for me but for my country.  It’s been ten years and I can still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing that Tuesday morning when the world changed.   I was the reason the wage tax office found out so soon.  It was my first temp job after college.  We normally watched the Today show and I asked if I could switch it.  I did and saw smoke coming out of one of the World Trade Center towers.  No one knew, at that point, what was going on and why on earth a plane (for that was the report) had hit the towers.  A tragic and terrible accident we all thought.  That is, of course, until the second plane hit the second tower.  I can remember watching shock as they show the plane hitting the tower.  It was no accident.  Who was doing this and why?  What else was going to happen?  Was it over?   They were talking to the Pentagon correspondent when the image shook and there were loud noises.  We saw that live.  It took a few minutes to discover that the Pentagon had been hit by a plane as well.  Reports were going out that many planes – 16, 11, etc. – were unaccounted for.  The network was reporting rumors and no one had a clue.  My memory loses track of the order of events.  I know that there was news of a plane crash in Shanksville, PA near Stoystown and Jennerstown.  I went to summer church camp near Stoystown and Jennerstown.  I didn’t understand that.  We knew by then it was terrorists, but I knew there was nothing in that area that could be considered a target.  It was mostly farm country and small towns.  I don’t know if they were looking at the first tower live when it happened, but I remember watching it fall.  I know the cameras were showing a live feed when the second tower fell.  Thousands were dead.  I knew it.  I can remember seeing images of dust and smoke and hearing the horrible sound of firefighter locators.  Well, the sound is horrible to me now.  I can’t hear it without going back to those scenes.  I don’t think we got any work done that day.  I don’t remember when the news came out about the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93, but I can remember admiring them.  They knew they were all dead and they were the first of us to fight the war on terror.  I think they were the ones who gave many courage and hope that we (and by we I mean ordinary people) all could do something to make a difference and save lives when the time came.  It saddens me to know that their memorial is not fully funded.  I also admire the first responders who went into that very dangerous situation to try to save lives.  They did save many people, but many of them lost their lives as well.  I’ve always known that they have a courage and compassion that I lack.  I admire them, but truly it was the passengers on that doomed plane who defeated the terrorists who gave me the hope that in that type of situation that I could do something to make a difference.

The overwhelming support shown by the entire country can still make me smile.  All the people who traveled both great and small distances to help New York and DC recover and rebuild.  The money that was raised for the families of the victims.  I can remember a business owner who worked in the Towers who was late that day because he was taking his child to school coming on the air and promising to give money to the families of his employees.  I don’t recall his name, but I do hope he kept that promise.  I can remember the emotions of the President and the other political leaders and all the events held to raise money to help.   We didn’t break, we got back up, and today we still stand as a proud nation.

I know that it saddens me to know that there are those who believe that the whole thing was a sham.  That our government did it intentionally.  Were things missed leading up to it? Yes.  Are those misses more glaringly obvious after the fact than before the attack?  Most definitely.  No one I know had ever considered that a jet plane would be used as a bomb instead of as someplace to get hostages.  It seems obvious now, but not then.  I was old enough then to know and remember and the common man just did not consider that.  I can not speak for the terrorists and Al Qaeda who obviously did think of it nor for the people who were employed to stop terrorism since I did not know any at the time.  I think it is a real credit to our leaders, our intelligence agencies, and our military that in the past ten years we have not had another major terrorist attack on our soil and I certainly pray that the rest of the day goes by without incident.  It is also a credit to our allies who have assisted us – many of whom have also suffered from terrorist attacks in the past ten years.  It is a battle, I know, between law enforcement and terrorists to see who can win each day and I pray that each day law enforcement wins.  Killing people may get attention to a cause, but it leaves holes in many lives.  One day another terrorist may try something similar to the attacks on September 11th and my sister or my brother-in-law might just be flying the plane or be a passenger on the plane.  I know they both would fight but as little as I see them I don’t want to lose them.  No longer will the majority of pilots and crew co-operate with terrorists since we now know that hostages and negotiations are not the number one uses for planes.  We have  the memories of the brave people on Flight 93 to thank for that.  One of my favorite songs is “One Last Time” by Dusty Drake:

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Day 1 – your favorite song
Day 2 – your favorite movie
Day 3 – your favorite television program
Day 4 – your favorite book
Day 5 – your favorite quote
Day 6 – 20 of my favorite things
Day 7 – a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 – a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 – a photo you took
Day 10 – a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 – a photo of you recently
Day 12 – something you are OCD about
Day 13 – a fictional book
Day 14 – a non-fictional book
Day 15 – your dream house
Day 16 – a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 – an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 – my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 – a talent of yours
Day 20 – a hobby of yours
Day 21 – a recipe
Day 22 – a website
Day 23 – a youtube video
Day 24 – where I live
Day 25 – your day, in great detail
Day 26 – your week, in great detail
Day 27 – my worst habit
Day 28 – what’s in my handbag/purse
Day 29 – hopes,dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 – a dream for the future

Day 1 – your favorite song

This one changes all the time depending on what I’m listening to. Right now it’s “Get Back Up” by TobyMac.

One of my all time favorite songs is “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood.

September 11, 2001 is a day I will never, ever forget.  I know what I was doing and where I was when it all happened.  Do you?

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I try not to get down and depressed.  It’s a lot easier these days with my medications.  I try not to think about the things I know worry me.  Today, well really, this past week, one of them keeps haunting me.  I’ve been trying to catch up on Facebook.  Working 12.5 hour days with 45 minute commutes makes it hard to keep up.  I have some people whose profiles I check daily (yeah that’s me – the stalker) and I always look at my top news, but I no longer read every post every day.  I always come home to 300+ new posts.  I do need to sleep sometime people!  Anyways, I’ve been checking up on people’s profiles and pictures.  Most of my friends have families – kids, fiances, husbands, etc.  Some of them I’ve seen get married (or have seen the pictures) and watched their kids grow (in pictures if not in person).  I can imagine their futures, to some extent.  *shrug*  I’m not trying to say I know what’s going to happen or that I’m detailed or anything.  I’m not that stalkerish!

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I’ve been irritated with the management here for quite some while.  There are lights in the parking lot which have been out since we moved in in Dec 2008.  I have complained about them every month for over a year.  I have heard several different stories as to why they haven’t been fixed.  There is one light on one of the buildings around the parking lot which does shine on part of it. It’s been going on and off on a semi regular basis for several weeks.  I have repeatedly explained to them that I get home from work at about 1 am and do not feel safe walking from my car in the dark through the parking lot.  They do practically nothing about it.

We had a large snowstorm that began on a Friday.  Saturday morning at around midnight we lost power.  Less than a half hour later it came back on.  The heat, however, did not.  I called at around 3:35 am the emergency line and someone said he’d come in a look at it first thing in the morning.  I woke up late morning to discover that not only did I not have heat, I also did not have hot water.  I waited several hours and called the office.  No answer. I called the emergency line and they said maintenance would call me with an update.  On Sunday we called back and were told again that we would be called.  The heat came back on, but they never called.  I still do not understand why we lost heat for over 24 hours when we had power.  They never plowed the parking lot that day.  My father and Kathy came over and dug me out.  That was what? Saturday the 7th?  Well, I was unable to park in the lot on Wednesday.  I got out of the lot after helping a woman get her car unstuck.  After deciding that it wasn’t worth trying to go to work, I drove back to the parking lot.  Someone else was stuck.  I had to park at the Foodland and walk back to my apartment.  I was told that the plow was broken.  The following week, on Tuesday, after trying to get up the parking lot to a parking space.  While backing down I got stuck in the driveway.  Half of my car was in a snow drift along the driveway.  I couldn’t get out.  AAA had to come and pull me out.  Two or three days later I got stuck in the driveway again.  This time a nice young man who lived in the complex got me out.  It did snow several times during this period of time, but I couldn’t tell that they plowed that week.  Also, do you know how hard it is to walk up a snow covered parking lot at night in the dark?  Not easy.  It doesn’t stop there.  The sidewalks that I would have to walk from the parking lot to my apartment and vice-versa?  Completely covered.  They did not do any type of plowing until Friday.  This past Friday.  Almost three weeks later. And they also only did the flats.  They have never plowed the stairs in my memory.  It was plowed earlier this week…on Wednesday.  Thursday morning I found one of the residents out with his son using a garden shovel to clear the other sidewalk.  The area from the porch of my building to the main sidewalk was not plowed.

Remember how I got pulled out from the snow two Tuesdays ago?  It did some damage to the car. I knew that it messed up the alignment and I thought that was causing the noises the care was making.  I didn’t realize until I was driving home from work one Wednesday night that it was more than that. I stopped on my way because the car was making horrible noises and I didn’t know why. I was scared.  I had never heard those noises before. I checked the tires that I thought was causing the problem and saw nothing. I called Dad and he told me that I would be okay to go home but after a false start I checked all the tires.  The driver’s rear wheel was completely flat. Great. Another AAA call in one day over a week.  Same dispatcher.  *sigh*  Two new tires and an alignment on Friday and further alignment issues to be dealt with in three weeks.  Close to $400 because they couldn’t effectively plow the parking lot.

The neighbors aren’t very nice.  Loud R & B or Hip Hop music playing during the day so loud that I can hear it in my bedroom.  The same people who bitched at Tom and threatened him for playing the acoustic guitar on a Saturday afternoon while I was at work.  Laundry left in the basement laundry room for months and counting.  Children’s shoes in front of the door from the stairwell to the apartment doors.  I asked the woman across the hall to please have her children not leave them in front of the door.  She basically told me I could have moved them myself since I didn’t have groceries at the moment. I felt like giving her a piece of my mind and telling her that the next time I got home from work and found them I’d pound on her door then instead of doing it when we were both home and awake.  Or maybe I’ll just take the shoes and toss them out into the snow.

One night we found a used syringe outside the building.  It was over a month ago and it was the last straw.

I’ve given up on trying to get management to do anything.  The things that they said they’d address they do not.  They tell stories which aren’t true and don’t do the things that they say they will.  They do not call me when they say they will.  I’m sick of it.  Just sick of it. I cannot wait until we move out.

Ack! September 23! Wow, it’s been quite a long time and there is so much that I want to blog about. I’m not sure what to update you on first, but I know it will take a series of blog posts, so bear with me. I’m not excactly sure how I’m going to do this. I might type them all up tonight and schedule them to post a day at a time or a couple a day or I might just spam you. But trust me, they’re coming.

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Here are some of the pictures I took at the wedding.  It was at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, PA on August 15, 2009.  The first two are of some flowers I took pics of at the ceremony site.

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