Now Don't Get Me Started

If It's January

2012-01-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

If it's January, it's time for Hubby and I to go to the beach!! We've always loved being at the beach in the off-season, mainly because neither of us can stand the traffic and crowds. Also, we like to swim and the water in New England is pretty cold all the way into August......so when it's hot, we'd rather go to a lake so we don't fry on the beach with no way to cool off.

A tradition of going to the beach in the cold was started on our third date, when I dragged Hubby to my favorite seafood place in the middle of March. The temperature was about 10 degrees, and yet we still went out onto the beach. I wouldn't really call it a walk on the beach, as we lasted about 3 minutes. We just thought it would be romantic....and it was!

Nowadays, we go to the beach for rest and relaxation and to clear our minds and enjoy some time together.

We're bent over because the wind was so strong, we'd set the camera for automatic and by the time it was ready to take the shot, the wind would blow the camera over!

Having Fun the 4-year-old Way

2012-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

We babysat our four year old Granddaughter Emily tonight....and this is what we did:

Elsie is here!

2012-01-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

Our third grandchild - Elsie Imogen, was born today at 10:58 am. 7 lbs. 5 oz. 20 inches long. The happy family is doing well!

One more day

2012-01-25T16:06:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe there will be a new little life in our midst tomorrow.   Hubby's daughter, Wendy, is having our second granddaughter tomorrow.

Baby Elsie is showing her temperamental side before she's even been born.   She is situated bum-first, and despite some attempts at manipulating her into turning around, she has stubbornly decided to stay bum-first.

Doctors don't like to deliver babies bum-first (I can imagine that neither do the mothers!) so they have scheduled a C-section for Wendy.

This will be something new for us.   Our first granddaughter arrived in the middle of the night. I got the excited phone call from my son saying that Emily Deacy had been born!   Followed by a photo on my phone of Emily receiving her first bath.   I was working at the summer camp at the time, and I went in to work for a 1/2 day, then hurried over to the hospital to be there when visiting hours started at 11am.   It was a beautiful time for me to go. No one else was there, and I got my fill of holding my very first grandchild in my arms.

Our grandson Noah arrived very early in the morning.   We thought it would be the same situation as Emily......waiting (sleeping) at home and getting a call when he was born. Instead we received a call from our son-in-law saying Wendy was in active labor and the grandparents could all come to the hospital. So Hubby and I got dressed, made mugs of coffee, and went and sat in the waiting room until Noah was born.   We were excited that we got to see him and hold him only an hour after he was born.

This time, we'll get to the hospital around 10am, as Wendy's C-section is scheduled for 10:30.   We'll wait until Elsie is born, and hopefully get to see her and hold her as soon as Wendy is out of recovery.

No matter what, we are filled with excitement over a new grandchild. It never gets old. My grandmother had 25 grandchildren, and I bet the birth of each and every one of them was special.

That Darn Cat!

2012-01-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

Oreo is the head of our household.....or at least that's what he likes to think. He's actually a very nice cat. Very friendly, very affectionate.

Of course, he has to be on your lap AT ALL TIMES!!!

He's got the usual annoying cat habits.......walking in front of you while you're trying to go down the stairs......harrassing you until you fill his bowl with food, even if there's already food there.

In addition, he has a couple of other annoying Oreo tricks......puking on the rugs and furniture, shedding ten million pounds of cat fur on every surface in our household.....and clawing our furniture to smithereens.

At the condo, we had a couch and recliner with an open weave sort of fabric, and he just demolished it.   Scratching posts you say? Of course we've given him scratching posts. AND I cut his claws as often as possible.   But he still loves to scratch the furniture. Between that and the fur, which stuck into that open weave fabric and wouldn't come out for any reason, we decided our best course of action when we moved was to throw it in the dumpster.

When we moved into the house, I bought a couch with micro-fiber. BEST THING EVER INVENTED!   For some reason, he doesn't seem to care about scratching it. And the fur just sits on top of the fabric and allows me vacuum is up with ease.

Someone gave us one of those glider chairs and it was made of that same stupid open-weave fabric. It didn't take long for our little friend to demolish it.

Can you see the lovely hole in the middle of the seat back? What you can't see is tons of fur stuck in that fabric.

So Hubby and I went to Joann Fabric this afternoon and I spent the rest of the day doing this:

$9 in fabric and a few hours work. See how you like that, Mr. Oreo!

The most expensive cookies ever

2012-01-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

I've loved the show Cake Boss since it started. I love the cakes, but I love the family interaction even more. Hubby was kind enough to get me the New Cake Boss cookbook for Christmas.

It's actually an instruction manual on how to become a great baker. He takes you step-by-step on the proper way to measure, mix and bake. He even explains why you need the right kind of pans for each type of baking.

I decided to start off with the first recipe in the book. Buddy says you should do that, because each recipe teaches you skills to build onto the next recipe you do.

So I began with Butter Cookies. Buddy says you should use a cookie sheet with no sides, and it should not have stuff baked on from other baking. Of course, I had to go out and buy a new cookie sheet. ($20 at Bed, Bath and Beyond, but I had a coupon and a gift card!)

Next was the ingredients. Buddy says to use only the ingredients he lists, and not to substitute. I needed cake flour, not all-purpose flour. ($3 for a very small bag). I needed x-large egg whites (.20 cents more than regular eggs). I needed almond paste. ($3 for a small package). And I needed a whole pound of real butter (more expensive than fake butter). The only thing I had in the house I didn't need to buy was sugar.

I followed the instructions carefully, measuring each ingredient precisely. You're supposed to have one of those big, free-standing mixers, but of course I don't. So I used a hand mixer. It was hard going, but I managed to get the dough made. I decided to make really small, bite-size cookies. Buddy says you're supposed to use a pastry bag and make them all cute and of equal size, but I didn't have a pastry bag either.

So they came out looking like this:

They're not as pretty as Buddy's cookies, but they tasted really good. With all those fine ingredients, they damn well better have tasted good!

Next, Buddy's ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookies. mmmmmmm!

It's always something, ain't it?

2012-01-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

When we bought our house, the first thing everyone said to us was, "you'll be working on that thing for the next 30 years."   And we knew they were right.   We went into it knowing what having a new house entails.

Of course, that doesn't make it any easier when the House Gods throw a curve ball your way.   When we went through the fiasco of the propane tank I thought our home-heating woes were finally over. We had a nice new oil company who were happy that we now had their propane tank on our property, they'd delivered us a nice big tank of oil, and their technician had come out and cleaned our furnace.   All set, right?

Well.........there was the tiny problem of the technician looking at our oil tank and saying, "I'm not happy" with the fact that our tank was sitting on blocks.   I just brushed that off.   Who cares, right? That tank's been sitting there for years and it's never been a problem.

Well, apparently it was a problem for our oil company. Their "policy" is not to have a tank on blocks. It's a "safety issue".   When I called to have them come top off our oil before the price went up, they let me know that it had been noted that our tank was on blocks and they wouldn't deliver until their engineer came and "assessed" it.

I could see $$$$ dancing in their heads.   How much would it be? $100??? $1000???

Luckily for us, the engineer who came was very nice. "Are you handy?" he asks my Hubby. "Sure...I can be."   "So just throw some concret under there and make the blocks into a slab. That'll do it."

Now, Hubby and I have never used concrete....but how hard could it be?   Turns out....not very.   The hardest part was figuring out how many cubic feet was under our furnace. After that it was cake.

We trucked on down to our local Home Cheapo, bought five 60 pound bags of concrete, a trowel, and a big plastic tray to mix it in.   Total: less than $25.

A couple of 2x4's from Hubby's stash in the basement, some rocks to hold the boards in place and we were ready to go

Some water and some mixing

Shovel it all in there

spread it all out

And voila!

Now we just wait for it to dry, call back the oil company, get their okay, and we're on our way.

NOTE: Although I am not pictured, I did take a turn mixing cement. I do draw the line, however, on lying on the cold, wet basement floor. Thanks, Hubby!

Sometimes the Old Fashioned Way works Best

2012-01-08T06:18:00.000-08:00

Working to find the right pieces of furniture and accessories for our house has been fun.   I'm a big proponent of buying things used.....for two reasons. 1) I believe there's just too much "stuff" in the world, and we should do our best to recycle rather than buying all new things.   2) I'm too cheap to go out and buy a living room set for $1000 when I can get the exact same thing, in great condition, for $200.

So I spend some time on Freecycle and Craigslist looking for the things I want or need for the house. And I've done pretty well.   Sometimes you have to be patient until the right thing comes along.

I've been watching for a kitchen set. I wanted a round table with a leaf to make it bigger, and a pedestal support so we could sit more people around it.   And I found just the right thing on Craigslist.

The legs of the chairs could use some fixing up....the people I bought it from have kids and dogs. But other than that, it's a pretty nice table.

The table we had been using was one that had been left here by the previous owners. We had no use for it so I put it on Freecycle.    We didn't get a single bite.

So I put it under "free stuff" on Craigslist.   I got a bite or two, but nobody followed through.

I even mentioned it on Facebook.   Nothing.

Finally, Hubby put it on the front lawn with a sign saying "free".   And sometime during the day, someone took it.

Sometimes, all the technology in the world doesn't work as well as doing things the old-fashioned way.

The Right Way to Start 2012

2012-01-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I have quite a love for the ocean. It gives us peace, calms us, centers us. It seems to have become a tradition now for us to start our New Year at the ocean. Here is a pictorial story of our trip to the Marginal Way in Perkins Cove, Maine.

Last Day of 2011

2011-12-31T07:19:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of 2011. Sorry, folks, but I do have to do an end-of-the-year recap.

This will always be the year "We bought a house." It's been a very exciting time in our lives, and a period in time I will never forget. I'm proud of the fact that we took an idea, a desire, and made it happen. There were some naysayers who thought that in this economy we'd never sell our condo. But we ignored that negativity, and it sold in three weeks. Who would have thought we could find a house we liked and could afford in the six weeks given us until our condo closed? But we did.

And we've been so very happy here. My dreams of a big yard and BBQ's has come true. As has dreams of having all our children together. And most of all, I've enjoyed being hostess to family and friends. It's been a blast.

We also had some very important weddings this year. My son Nick married his wonderful girlfriend Kelly in a ceremony in September.

Hubby's daughter Wendy married her boyfriend Allen in May:

And my niece Jessica married Kyle on the Fourth of July. Emily was the flower girl.

We did have some times of sorrow this year, as we all do. Hubby lost his lovely Mom in April.

And in between all this excitement, we had our usual adventures.

We went to watch our daughter Jamie play football

One of those games was in Montreal, so we made what has become a yearly trek

Our plan had been to go to Niagara Falls for our fifth wedding anniversary. We decided to buy a house instead. But we did manage to steal away for a weekend in Booth Bay Harbor, ME.

And interspersed in all of this was the usual joys of life.

Grandchildren's birthday parties

Some trips to the beach

A trip to Boston

Backyard BBQ's

Our own headline show at the Bull Run

A Red Sox Game

The Topsfield Fair

And so many, many more moments that were special in their own ways. It's been a wonderful year. I have more blessings than I can count. It's hard to believe another year is over.

And already, we have something special to anticipate in 2012. Our second grand-daughter will be born the end of January.

I wonder what other exciting adventures the New Year will bring?

Long Live the King

2011-12-26T07:05:00.000-08:00

It started out innocently enough.   My sister wanted to send out an email to help my father out. She decided to be cute about it:

As personal secretary to the King of Danville, I am writing to announce that lunch on Christmas will be at 1pm.   King Dad requires B.Y.O.F......bring your own food. Rumor has it Steve is bringing Nachos! yum!

I, unfortunately, simply replied with "Okey dokey".

My brother John replied with:

Could you please convey my allegiance to the King and convey to him that we will have our royal asses to The land of Danville prior to the 1:00 start of the Royal Christmas luncheon and that we will be bringing a loaf of meat. Your loyal subject, Sir John of Methuen

My brother Steve chimed in with:

Indeed the earl of Salisbury is bringing southwestern fare to the feast.... The dessert shall remain a surprise until the proscribed time.

Me: Sheesh.....now I'm kind of embarrassed that my only response was "okey dokey".

Chris: I wasn't gonna say anything...Steve is the Earl of Salisbury...John is Sir John of Methuen...and I'm the King's friggin' secretary???? What the????

Me:   And somehow I ended out married to the Court Jester!

Daughter-in-Law Kara: I believe I, Lady of Naylor Manor, may have violated a sacred law as I contacted the King Himself earlier this week. My punishment shall be to act as the King's dessert tester, hereby ensuring no dessert has been poisoned before it graces the King's lips. I am humbly bringing vegetarian fare but promise it will be hearty enough for those looking forward to the loaf of meat.

Daughter Jamie: And I, the Adorable Troll of Naylor Manor, shall remove any offenders of untasty desserts as well as the unfortunate body of The Lady of Naylor Manor. Good day!

And then it continued into the next day:

Steve: I, the earl of Salisbury wish to rain pestilence down upon the fish of Miami..... Any takers for this quest??? (Our New England Patriots were playing Saturday vs. the Miami Dolphins)

John: I believe The Knight Brady of Gillette had taken care of the lowly Fish of Miami.

Me: The Duchess of Salem and the Court Jester were in the exalted presence of The Lord and Lady of Methuen as we viewed The Knight of Gillette and his mighty henchmen annihilate the Lowly Fish of Miami. And it was good.

Not one to let a good joke die, my brother John finished it off with a special Christmas Gift for the King of Danville.

Christmas........the way life should be

2011-12-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

I've spent some serious time this year mulling over the idea of Christmas. Working in retail, I've come into closer-than-I-want-to contact with the public. And this holiday season, I've noticed more than ever how much Christmas stresses everyone out.

I guess I'm not sure why. I think I've come to the conclusion that most of the time people are as stressed as they want to let themselves be. They want to go crazy trying to make everyone happy, or they think they have to live up to everyone else's idea of what Christmas should be.

Sure, I understand wanting everyone to be happy. I'd like all my friends and family to be happy too. But most of the time, you have no control over whether or not someone else is really happy or not. Happiness comes from within, and the things that you do might make someone feel a little better, but it won't bring them true happiness.

And why should you have to live up to someone else's idea of what a perfect Christmas should be? I'm not saying be selfish, but a certain amount of flexibility makes the world go 'round.

Happiness at Christmas for me is being together with family and friends. I can skip the cards, the gifts, the baking, etc. But being together with the ones I love is what makes the holidays special for me.

And so, I've done my best to create my perfect Christmas around me. I've worked it out so I get to see all of my family. We don't necessarily get together right on Christmas day. In fact, we've had four Christmas gatherings so far and we haven't even had Christmas Day yet. Add into that a couple or three gatherings of friends, and my Christmas season is the happiest I've had yet.

This year has been especially blissful for me. I've always dreamed of having a houseful of family and friends, of hosting my loved ones and seeing them all together in my home. This year I was able to do that. And it's been wonderful.

My dearest wish for all my friends and family is to find your true happiness at Christmas. To focus on the way you wish Christmas to be, and to make your own dreams come true.

Merry Christmas to all my loved ones!!

A Night of Christmas Carols

2011-12-22T19:16:00.000-08:00

For the past several years, Hubby has played Christmas Carols at the Java Room with his friend Betsi. This year, they added friend Trude on saxaphone.

Hubby really loves playing the piano - and loves playing Christmas carols even more.

Our friend Betsi has a beautiful voice - perfect for singing some of the prettier carols.

Trude did a wonderful job on the saxophone. I'm pretty sure she hadn't done Christmas carols with the sax before.

The crowd was happy and sang along.

Hubby's biggest fan loves when he plays "Dominic the Donkey" - especially when she gets to help out with the jingle bells.

I wish I'd thought to take a video of Betsi singing......but here's a little of Trude on the sax.

Another new craft

2011-12-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

You never know what kind of things you're going to do when you have a new sewing machine. I figured I'd make some crafts and some clothes and maybe start learning how to quilt.

But my daughter Jamie asked if I'd be able to monogram something for her. Her friend is a nurse, and also on her football team. Jamie wanted something unique to give her for Christmas, and came up with the idea of giving her scrubs monogrammed with the football team name and her friends name and player number.

At first I thought, "This is going to be a fiasco." I was nervous about trying it, because I didn't want to ruin the scrubs my daughter had paid good money for.

But they didn't come out too badly, did they?

Family Gathering

2011-12-18T05:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our second family gathering for Christmas. Hubby and I are just reveling in our new house and new ability to host family and friends.

Last Sunday we had Hubby's kids over. Unfortunately, it we didn't think to break out the camera. We had daughter Wendy and her husband Allen and our grandson Noah. Wendy is 7 1/2 months pregnant, so we kind of had our new grand-daughter Elsie there too! And we also had son Kenny and his partner Matthew. I made a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey and fixin's. We had a wonderful time.

Yesterday we had my kids for a Christmas gathering. We enjoyed my son Doug, his wife Kara and our grand-daughter Emily. Daughter Jamie and her boyfriend Don. And son Nick, unfortunately without his new wife Kelly who was feeling under the weather. This time we all brought something to eat. And although we only took a couple of pictures, we did manage to get this lovely video.

It amazes me that Emily knows so many songs and remembers all the words. I think this is one of her favorite Christmas carols. Hubby was in heaven sitting at the piano with his grand-daughter. If he has anything to do with it, all his grandchildren will be as musical as he is. Emily gets her musical skill from her Mom and her Nana.

Emily-isms

2011-12-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

It's always such a joy to spend time with our grand-daughter Emily. She is adorable, smart, funny and full of energy.   This past weekend, we took her to Charmingfare Farm for their Santa Christmas party.

While I wasn't overly impressed in what the farm had to offer for their Christmas party, Emily enjoyed it immensely, which was all that mattered.

The part that was even more fun was driving to the farm and back.   On the way up, she regaled us with a concert of all the Christmas songs she's learned in preschool. She was pretty impressed that Pepere and I know the words!

After she'd sung all the songs she knew, she wanted to sing the "song about how many days are left" which I thought must be a song she'd learned in school. Eventually, we figured out it was "The 12 Days of Christmas."   Pepere and I struggled through it, trying to remember each verse, and Emily kept right along with us, singing out a resounding "FIVE GOLDEN RINGS" each time.

After that, she decided we should make up our own 12 days of Christmas song.   It started out, "on the ONEth day of Christmas" and we chose something for each verse.   Emily put on the voice of the teacher, "Now .....who would like to chose what should be for number 6?   Pepere! You're turn!!"   When I chose seven silly monkeys hanging from a tree, that was deemed "not pretty enough" so I had to change it to seven pink monkeys.

I was pretty impressed that she not only remembered what we'd chosen for each verse, when we got to the end of each verse, she knew without fail what the next number should be.

My favorite quote of the day came on the ride home.   It was very cold on Saturday, and we were all pretty cold when we left the farm.   When we drove by a lake, I told Emily that was a lake where Pepere and I had taken our canoe.    "You have a canoe? Can I go in the canoe with you some time?" she asked.    I said, "Yes, but we have to wait until the summer when it's warm."

She says, "But Memere, it's warm now."

"Emily, remember how cold we just were? It's cold outside."

"No, it's warm."

So I sang, "Baby, it's cold outside."

And in perfect pitch, she sang right back, " Sweetheart, it's warm outside!"

Nothing says Love like putting up a Christmas tree together

2011-12-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

I've always loved a real Christmas tree.   Somehow the fake ones don't evoke the sense of tradition and Christmas spirit tht the real ones do.

Luckily for me, Hubby loves a real tree as well. There was never any fighting or discussion over real vs. fake. Also, we are both pretty easy-going about lights - there's no controversy over twinkle vs. big bulbs or white vs. colored lights.

When we got married 5 years ago, we were able to meld our ornaments and our personal tastes and always ended out with a tree we loved.

This year, of course, we're putting up a tree in our new house. We both feel extra-specially excited about it.

Following tradition, we went to the place around the corner to pick a tree. We were both pretty shocked over the prices. Instead of the usual $40-$50 per tree, we were seeing $60-$70.   Way over our price range.   We walked around and eventually did find a tree for $40.    Actually, it was really $35, but we gave them $40 cause the proceeds go to charity. Also because usually we talk them down and pay less than they're asking, so we thought we could make up for it a little.

Anyway, we brought our tree home, and for the first time, we struggled to get the tree to stay up in the stand.    Neither of us were being very nice about it. Cranky was a word used more than once. But eventually we got it up.

And Hubby surprised me with this:

Isn't he a sweet romantic?

Our Yearly Tradition

2011-12-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

Ever since I've lived in Salem, I've gone to the annual Christmas Parade. It's a tradition I've always enjoyed. When my kids were young, I'd dress them up in winter coats, hats, mittens, boots and we'd stand and wave at the people on the floats.

As they got older, we joined in the parade as members of boy scouts, girl scouts, PTA, sports teams. Probably the last time one of my kids participated was when my son, as a high school senior, joined the float celebrating their undefeated, state championship football team.

Even after the kids had left the house and no longer came with me, I always went to watch the parade. It's such an old-time tradition, and, after being a resident of the town for 25 years, I knew a lot of people in the parade.

Recently, it's been our pleasure to bring my niece Laura and my grand-daughter Emily to the parade. They both love it, and love being together.

This year was different. Our new house is right on the parade route. Emily couldn't make it - the poor thing is sick. But Laura still wanted to come, and we met up with some friends to watch.

Our "crew" includes my friend's daughter Ashley, her dad Red, my friend Sylvie, my friend Debbie, Sylvie's husband Jim, me and Laura. Hubby was manning the camera. We are standing in front of the fire station because Ashley's husband is a firefighter, and is newly arrived back from Iraq.

Lancaster school was the school my children attended. I think they had the best float in the parade.

Girl Scouts always have a place in my heart.

Ashley's husband is on the float of veterans newly returned from Iraq.

Our Salem High marching band.

And of course, Santa and the Mrs.

My New Craft

2011-11-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

My friend Kay, whom I work with, is a "stamper". She makes all her own cards. We went over to her place a few weeks ago, and she has a whole room downstairs filled with stamping materials: paper, stamps, punches, rolling stampers, etc, etc.

I was quite envious. I love craft paper. I've been scrapbooking for about 12 years now. Stamping is one step away from scrapping.

So she's turned me on to this new craft. I joined her stamp club. Every month I HAVE to buy at least $15 worth of stamping materials. 10 or 12 other women do the same. And every once in a while, I get to be the hostess for the month, and earn free stuff and hostess gifts.

I tried out my new "talent" on two cards for my daughter and my sister. They're very basic, as I don't really have any materials yet.....but here they are:

Another Home Improvement Project

2011-11-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

Our new house has a mudroom off the kitchen. It was in very sad condition. The roof leaked, the lights didn't work, the floor was a disaster.

Hubby took care of the roof. And he also installed a new ceiling light and fixed the electricity so the ceiling light and the porch light both worked.

Then it was my turn.

The very sad floor:

The stained ceiling. This one is only a partially "before" picture because that is the new light fixture. The old one was falling apart, rusted and had no glass covering.

If these tiles look familiar....well.....they are. They are the same as the tiles I put into the bathroom. 6 boxes of these tiles were given to me by my brother. "Free for Me!!"

Now that the ceiling and floor look so nice, I've decided I want to paint the walls. It's paneling but I'll paint right over it with a nice bright color.

Our New Addition

2011-11-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

My Hubby is a musician......and a musician without a piano is like a day without sunshine.

One of the first things he wanted to do when we bought the new house was get a piano.........

and he did!

Watch out Cake Boss!

2011-11-25T15:04:00.000-08:00

My baby daughter is turning 30 years old this weekend. We always celebrate her birthday on Thanksgiving because she was, after all, a Turkey baby.

She plays women's football, so I created this lovely cake just for her. You can't see it in the picture but there is a replica of her team's logo in the middle of the cake, and all the players and the line markers are "30".

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:21:00.000-08:00

My Dad did most of the work of cooking for our Thanksgiving feast. Then my brother John carved the turkey and we all helped serve it up.

Of course, Dad had to do some quality control taste-testing of the turkey.

Nick, Kelly, Courtney, Sammi and Lloyd wait patiently for the food to come out.

Steve passes some food to Doug.

Ruth and Paul are replete after their holiday meal.

Sammi enjoyed her dinner.

Laura played a little Barbie dolls with the little kids.

Kara leads Ciera, Emily and Hailey in a sing-along.

Jamie and I took the kids on the traditional after-dinner walk. When I was a girl, we took a walk after dinner to avoid doing dishes.

Aren't these little faces sweet?

Professional or Casual?

2011-11-22T05:19:00.000-08:00

My company recently merged with another division of the same company.   I don't consider it a merger....it seems more like a takeover.   Because we've made a whole bunch of changes...changes made so that we line up with the way the other division does things. I'm pretty sure they haven't changed anything to line up with our way of doing things.

We have new insurance, different holidays, a different sick time and vacation time structure, and we are going to be selling some different products.   New computer programs are right around the corner. And now the latest change..........our dress code.

Up until now, our offices have been "business casual".   Which means pants, skirts, blouses, sweaters, and capris in the summer. Something like this:

And the men could look something like this: (oh!!! How I wish the men looked like that!!!)

Since I'd worked in child care all my life, it was hard enough putting together any kind of business wardrobe.

Now, we have to look more like this:

Power suits, collared shirts, blazers, stockings, etc.

I sincerely have nothing that fits into this category. I don't know how I'm going to do this. I don't have the money, or the shopping inclination, to get a whole new wardrobe by January 1.

Our other option is to buy and wear company logo shirts. So I'm thinking my one pair of black dress slacks worn every day, and a couple of logo shirts alternating every other day. Won't I look pretty?

What I saw at the Movies

2011-11-19T06:18:00.000-08:00

Last night Hubby took me to the movies. We don't go very often. It's pretty expensive, even with discount tickets from work. And we do have to get some movie theater popcorn. All in all, it cost the two of us $30 last night.

The movie was fun. Lighthearted. We had a good time, although the movie wasn't as much fun as the first one. I did like listening to the little kids in the theater laughing.

What I did find interesting and pretty entertaining was the other people at the theater. When we got there, the parking lot was packed. Hubby thought all those people were there to see the opening night of Happy Feet. I told him no, it was the opening weekend for one of the Twilight movies.

Yes, the place was packed with teenage girls. Waiting in long lines to get in to see the Twilight movie.

I guess that's not so unusual. What I thought was amusing was that at least 3/4 of the people waiting in line were doing this:

Now I ask you, as a curmudgeony old lady, what is the point of going out with your friends if you are going to stand next to each other and text other friends? If you wanted to socialize with the other friends, why didn't you just stay home and hang out with them? Aren't the people you went to the theater with good enough to chat with? You have to text other friends, who couldn't be bothered to come out to the movies with you?

Or are they texting the people standing right next to them?

Visiting friends

2011-11-18T04:49:00.000-08:00

I had the great good fortune to have all my girlfriends over for dinner on Wednesday night.

I have six friends who were Girl Scout leaders at the same time I was back in the 90's.   Now that all our girls are grown (and some are married -and some have made us grandmothers!!) we were worried that we wouldn't see each other anymore, and that we'd lose touch.

So we started having dinner out once a month. And we've been doing it for at least 7 or 8 years. We love getting together and talking about our lives - our families, our jobs, our vacations and adventures. Sometimes there are only 3 of us there, sometimes all 7 - but we always have a great time.

This month, I offered to have everyone come to my house.   Only one friend had seen the inside of it, and I thought it would be fun to be "the hostess".

And it was soooo much fun!   At first, they'd talked about everyone bringing something.   But I sent them an email asking if they'd allow me to cook and serve them a meal.   And they agreed.

It was the first time in ten years I've been able to have a real "dinner party".   When we were living in the condo and I had people over, we had to have pizza or something similar because I didn't have room at the table for a lot of people.

This time, I took my good dishes out of storage, set a pretty table, cleaned the house, lit some candles and created an inviting ambience.

And we had a wonderful time.   I'm thinking we might have started a new trend.   We so enjoyed being able to relax, and my guests were able to stay as long as they wanted.   In a restaurant, you're limited. So next month Sue is going to have a Christmas dinner at her house - and maybe we'll continue visiting each other's homes instead of going to restaurants.

I loved being the hostess and can't wait to do it again.

Playground Play

2011-11-13T15:01:00.000-08:00

Today we got to bring Emily to the local playground.

She strikes a pose for Pepere's camera before we enter the park.

The twisty slide is the best.

But this one was fun too.

Memere pulled back for the big swing push.

And Pepere gets the shot.

HERE........

SHE............

COMES!!!!

Love the swings!

Phew! Pepere fits in the train caboose. But can he get back out?

Memere says, "I'm not trying that caboose!! No way!"

As always, Emily made herself a little friend.

They both love the twisty slide.

Auntie J joined us after a while. She likes the slide too.

We finished off the day with purple ice cream at Hawksies. A perfect Sunday afternoon.

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T16:38:00.000-08:00

It's a wonderful thing when Hubby and I have an extra day off. Most of the time we have to be at work 6 days a week, and Sunday is our only full day off.

This week I was blessed to have Veteran's Day off. Hubby took it as his floating holiday and we decided to spend it doing something we enjoy, rather than staying home and doing chores.

One of the things we most enjoy is eating! So we went to our favorite breakfast place, Parker's Maple Barn.

Parker's is about an hour's ride from our house, so we only go there occasionally. If it was in my town, we'd be there every weekend.

On the way, we travel through Nashua, and traffic was stopped just as we got to the intersection at Main St. We were lucky enough to get to see this:

It brightened up our day, and reminded us why we had the day off.

I'm going to be a curmudgeony old lady

2011-11-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

As a person who is impatient to begin with, I find that the older I get, the more impatient I am. I want to be able to go out into the world and do the things I need to do with NO other people around.   NO traffic. NO lines. NO problems with computers. Just let me do my thing.

Yesterday I simply wanted to pick up my photos from Walgreens. I got there AT 8:30 when the store opened, went straight to the photo counter - and there was already someone there checking out!!

How is that possible? How could she have gotten all the way through the store, and have 8 things in her basket, when the store JUST opened?   And of course, because it was 8:30 in the morning, and usually no one is there to shop yet, they only had the one register open.

Now certainly, I'm patient enough to wait behind ONE person.   However, this person was not only trying to buy 8 items with 8 different coupons, she couldn't figure out how to make the coupons work to her ultimate advantage.

So she started out buying each item as a separate transaction, then wanted to use TWO coupons with each item. When she found out she couldn't do that, she decided to return some of the items.   ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME??

I go in the morning because it's quiet(er) but that does put me on a deadline to get to work on time.   And this woman was screwing with that!!!!   Not-for-nothing, but she was a SS, and could easily have done her business anytime during the day.

This morning, I needed to deposit a $15 rebate check into the bank.   We've gotten so spoiled with direct deposit and debit cards, we never go to the bank anymore.   But this was a paper check.   There was really no rush - I wasn't desperate for the $15 - but I figured I'd swing over to the bank before work and deposit it in the ATM machine.

I get to the bank, and the drive-up ATM is closed because they are working on the roof right over it. I start to pull into the other lane so I can go to the drive-up window (this is another place that opens at 8:30 and I am there at 8:30 on the dot) and a guy in a truck cuts me off and gets to the drive-up window first.

Hell and damnation!!!!   I pull in behind him and wait seven minutes!!!! before I finally back out of the line, swing around the bank, get out of the car, walk into the lobby and use the ATM machine there.

Coming back out, the guy from the drive-thru almost hits me with his truck.

And we wonder why we're all grumpy?

I'm A Dinosaur

2011-10-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

After Saturday night's storm, we were happy to go to The Java Room on Sunday morning, where Hubby had a gig scheduled to play piano for a Jazz Brunch.

We laughed on the way at the sight of LINES of cars snaking out of Dunkin' Donut parking lots. Literally 20 or 30 cards in the drive-thru line.   Seriously? You are that desperate for coffee that you'd sit in this hours-long line? Although, to give people credit, if they had no power, they probably had nothing else to do.

When we got to the Java Room, it was packed full with more people than we've ever seen there.   There was a long line from the counter out the door.   These people were willing to wait in a long line high-priced coffee.

Inside, most of the tables were taken. But I found a nice spot to sit with my Sunday newspaper. I always spend the two hours that Hubby plays piano relaxing and reading the paper.

As I was reading, I became aware that there was much table-moving and jockeying for position. A gentleman came over and asked to share my table. I looked over and saw several vacant tables.  And that's when I realized that most of the crowd had come for the internet connections.   Every table had multiple laptops on them, and people were jockeying for plugs to plug in their beloved devices.

While I sat calmly reading my old-fashioned, real paper paper.

October Snowstorm

2011-10-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

So it seems as if the dusting of snow we got on Thursday night was just a precursor of things to come. We were hit last night with our first Nor'easter of the season. The snow was extremely wet and extremely heavy.

Sadly, most of our trees are now on the ground in the backyard, in pieces.

The trees formed a wonderful coccoon in the summertime. Our yard was shady almost all day. It breaks my heart to see the destruction.

And to add insult to injury:

My First Sewing Project

2011-10-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Now that I finally got the sewing room up and running, I figured it was time to make a project. The living room is kind of blah - brown paneled walls, beige rug, off-white curtains - so I figured it could use a splash of pizazz. So I covered my boring beige pillows:

Made some matching table runners

And Hubby had the idea to insert fabric in some coasters that are made to put photographs in.

It's nice to have a little color in the room.

Let it snow????

2011-10-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

Who thought I'd be posting a photo like this so soon?

Scrapping and card-making

2011-10-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've missed tremendously is scrapbooking.   I started about 15 years ago when scrapbooking wasn't really heard of around New England.   A woman who moved here from the mid-west, where scrapbooking was rampant, opened a store in our town.   She did so because she missed it and scrapbooking hadn't been heard of in these parts.

I started out with a 40th anniversary book for my parents.   My sister and brothers and sister-in-law helped out, and I was hooked.

I've made books for my two sons.   My daughter has lots of pages we made together for her Girl Scout and Softball adventures. But I've never made a book for my daughter that includes her birthdays and graduation, etc, like I made for my sons.

Now that I have a craft room, I fully intend to make her a book.   And just to jump-start my interest, my friend Kay invited the girls from work over to scrap and stamp.   Kay makes beautiful stamped cards.   She offered to let us use all her stamps, punches, etc. and she'd teach us some techniques. She has a room all set up in her basement with more materials than you'd ever want.

So last night we went to Kay's, had some dinner, a few glasses of wine, and had a ball cutting, creating and pasting.   I made a stamped card, and a page for Jamie's book.

Now I just have to take that enthusiasm and transfer it to my craft room and keep on working on that book.

No game....so party instead

2011-10-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

Our New England Patriots had a "bye" week this week. A perfect opportunity to invite the family over for a belated birthday celebration for Hubby and his son Kenny. We had Kenny, his partner Matthew, Hubby's daughter Wendy and her husband Allen, and our grandson Noah. We also invited my kids, and Nick and Kelly came. We didn't immediately realize it was Kelly's birthday this Thursday, so we included her in our horrendous version of "Happy Birthday", but we'll have to send her a card later this week.

Hubby made some delicious spinach lasagna, and some eggplant parmesan, and I made home-made mac and cheese for the first time. Finishing it off was apple cheesecake and yellow birthday cake with chocolate frosting.

Hubby got a chance to play with Noah.

Reading him "A Very Hungry Caterpillar"

and blowing bubbles.

We interrupt this rain for a Sunshine break!

2011-10-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Our New England Fall weather has sadly consisted of rain, rain, and ....oh yes, rain. Usually I can roll with it, but for some reason this time the rain has made me grumpy, grouchy and frankly, no fun to be around.

This Saturday I did not have to work. Which will not be the case for the next FOUR - yes, count 'em - four Saturdays.

The sun came out, and that, coupled with a non-working Saturday, was a good enough reason to take a day off from chores, housework and renovating and spend the day at the beach.

Hubby took me first to Route 1A in Rye, where there's a beautiful walkway along the ocean. He found what is probably the last beach rose of summer - ahhhhhh, love the smell! And I made a little rock formation to commemorate our visit.

Then we headed on down to North Hampton beach. It was low tide. I couldn't resist taking of my shoes and enjoying the surf.

Gotta love the "castaway" look.

Dark clouds rolled in and created a dramatic sky. It wasn't raining though, so we headed to Newburyport.

We walked the boardwalk and checked out the Junk Barn. As we got into the car, the raindrops began to fall.

Who cares?

Partying with Friends

2011-10-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

Every month, my girlfriends and I get togethet to eat and talk. These are all ladies I did Girl Scouts with for years. Now that we no longer have girls in scouts, we don't want to lose touch. Thus the monthly dinners began. This month was Carol's birthday. It was a biggie (I won't post which one but it starts with a 7 and ends in an 0.)

Carol's a beautiful lady, inside and out. We love her so much and have so much fun with her. I hope I have her love of life when I get to be her age!

Happy Birthday, Carol!

Making Strides 2011

2011-10-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today was our fourth time joining in the Making Strides Walkathon to combat Breast Cancer.

The first year, we walked with my Mom, in celebration of her overcoming breast cancer. By the following year, my Mom was too sick to walk, so a few hardy souls walked for her. And the next year, we were walking in her memory.

Our team:

My Mom's friend Claire, my Dad, my Hubby, my niece Jessica, Me, my daughter Jamie, Jessica's husband Kyle, my niece Samantha, my nephew Marc, my sister Chris and Marc's girlfriend Courtney.

My Dad and my Hubby - they enjoy each other's company.

Everyone says I'm looking more and more like my Dad.

My nephew Marc had his appendix taken out on Tuesday night, and insisted on walking. "Grandma was in much worse shape, and she walked," he said.

Lots of people took the opporunity to get silly.

The crowd was pretty impressive.

My Dad did a great job. It was a 3-mile walk. He's been walking every day and has lost about 40 pounds.

It was a beautiful day to walk. It was a little bit emotional, but mostly we enjoyed the great weather and the company of family.

Our little team raised over $1100. We did it in memory of my Mom. May she rest in peace, in heaven with her sisters - she's flying with the angels now.

Finally! It's done.....sorta

2011-10-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Today I hung the last picture, put down the rug, and my craft room is open for business.

I'm so pleased with the overall look of the place. I think it's a place where I can be comfortable. I surrounded myself with things I like.

The hand-stenciled bureau was given to me by Aunt Izzy.

I already started to scrapbook even before the room was finished. The collage on the wall is one I did and gave to Hubby to commemorate our traveling adventures.

My brand-new sewing machine, that I haven't even had a chance to try out yet! I'm anxious to do so!!

Just got this rug today off Craigslist. The woman said her mother hand-made this rug in the 1950's. I loved the colors and the ambiance it lends to the room.

This is the reason I have to say "sorta" when I said the room was finished. I put these shelves in the closet, but now I want some louvered doors. There are two closets, so brand new ones would be about $100. I'm keeping my eye out on Craigslist for some used ones.

Some of the cross-stitch I made over the years. The one on the right is the "Serenity Prayer" cross-stitched by my paternal grandmother.

I'm so happy my room is done. Now I have someplace to go and putter, create and enjoy. It was a joy to re-do the room. What a feeling of accomplishment!

Let the Sunshine drive the Grumpies away

2011-10-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me how much the weather affects people, including me.   We've had some pretty rainy weather this month in New England. And yesterday, it finally got to me.

I know it wasn't just the weather, but it certainly was a contributing factor.   I was grumpy. I was grumbly, and I didn't want to be cajoled out of it.   I was wallowing in my grumpiness.

Waking up today to see sunshine and a bright blue sky has already improved my attitude. I have to work a 1/2 day today, which usually makes me grumpy.   But I'll whip through that time, and then Hubby and I have the rest of the day with no plans.

Tomorrow includes the Making Strides Against Cancer walkathon and a birthday dinner for Hubby at my brother's house while we watch the Patriots game.

Sounds like I have nothing left to be grumpy about.

9-day week

2011-10-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

Since we've bought our house, we've realized how very precious our weekends are.   In the past, two days off was fine - it took me all of an hour to clean the whole condo. Most of the time, I could knock off cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping during my 1/2 day off during the week, leaving the whole weekend for fun.

Now we own a house.   And as everyone told us, there is ALWAYS something to do. Always some sort of chores around the house to keep us busy.   We've tried really hard to make sure we make time for fun on the weekend, but as they say, you gotta make hay while the sun shines. So on this beautiful Columbus Day weekend, we worked our asses off.

Now Hubby has come up with an ingenious solution.   The 9-day week.   Most major companies don't like hearing about cutting the work-week to four days.   With the 9-day week, we'd keep our usual 5 days of work. And we could also continue to have two weekend days for chores.

BUT - we'd also have two more days for fun!   Our new week would be: Sunday (chores), Funday, (fun) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (work), Playday (fun) Saturday. (chores).

What do you think? Are you in???

You Gotta Love Tammi!

2011-10-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

When Hubby gave me a GPS for Christmas last year, I was a bit.......surprised.   After all, I work for AAA.   Giving people directions is our business. And I work in the Auto Travel department, so I make our famous "Trip Tiks" every day.

The GPS he gave me is a Tom-Tom, and since she has a female voice, we call her Tammi.   Tammi is fairly patient with us, although when we don't follow her directions, she can get kind of insistent. "In 500 yards, go left.   Left! I SAID left!   Dammit. Now turn the damn car around and go where I told you!"

I've found out that there is a time and place for both Trip Tiks and GPS's.   I like having the Trip Tik, with all the directions mapped out, the time it will take to get there, etc.   But there are certain instances when a GPS comes in handy.

Case in point:    Today we drove down to Boston to visit my stepson.   We've been there before and, each time, we've gotten lost.    I carefully made out a map, checked it, examined it, and printed out a large map of the "problem area" where we've taken a wrong turn before.

And we got there no problem.   However, I made the rookie mistake of assuming we could get back out of Boston the same way we'd gotten in.   I should have dredged up the memory of taking Son #2 into Boston for his college orientation.   We followed the directions in the college hand-book on how to get in.   There were no directions on how to get out, and we ASSumed we could just follow the directions in reverse.

No, no, NO!   Boston is a maze of one-way streets, alleys, 5 or 6-way intersections, and multiple lane roads.   Without precise instructions, you are guaranteed to get lost. And on that college trip, it took us 3 HOURS to find our way back to the highway for home.

Once again today, we tried to return the way we'd come in, and we quickly realized we weren't going the way we wanted. Turns out the street we were on became a one-way street halfway through, and dumped us onto another street.

We immediatley pulled over, fired up Tammi, and she directed us quickly back onto the road we belonged on. It was fast, simple and accurate.

A belated thanks to Hubby for the wonderful Christmas gift.   It's come in handy more than once.

Oh my Aching Back!

2011-10-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

It started on Tuesday with the vacuuming up of the water in the basement. You know that semi-bent-over position you need to maintain to use a shop-vac?

And then, because I hated to waste a day off just vacuuming the basement every hour or so, I decided to paint the floor of my craft room. Which I've been wanting to do for some time. And it came out nice. But still........same bent-over position.

Then comes today. It's absolutely gorgeous out today. 75 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. Probably the last warm weekend of the year. So I figured it would be the perfect day to scrub the front porch floor and stairs, and put some sealant on it for the winter.

Same bent-over position.

Hopefully, it'll all be worthwhile later on when Hubby treats me to this:

Topsfield Fair

2011-10-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I played hooky today and went to the Topsfield Fair. We certainly picked the right day, as yesterday the weather was so bad they closed the fair early, and today was bright and sunny.

This little guy looks like our cat, Oreo.

Hubby would make a great cartoon character.

We got a lesson in spinning. Now Hubby wants an alpaca farm, along with some sheep and some angora rabbits, so we can make our own yarn.

The BMX Bike show was pretty darn exciting.

Hubby and I

Shy little calf.

My son Nick and his new Bride Kelly love Alpalcas

Hubby makes a new friend

Here's how you make an iron pointy thing.

More friends for Hubby

A winning flower display

Hubby could win a prize for his photography

These chicks are just minutes old

Hats, anyone?

Hubby and I were much too chicken to go on any of the rides

We saw Robinson's Racing Pigs, racing ducks, a comedy cooking show, all sorts of farm animals, every kind of food, games, a 1665 lb pumpkin, tons of other fruits and veggies, and we ate stuffed cabbage, cheese fries, fried dough and kettle corn. I call that a really, really good time.

Damn the %$%&* Rain!!!

2011-10-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

It didn't just rain last night. It poured. It was a freakin' deluge.  All. night. long.   And.....all morning long.

When we bought the house, the previous owners assured us that the only time they had water in the basement was during the Mother's Day Flood of 2006.   And I say.....you lying bastards. Perhaps the fact that they left us their wet vac should have been a clue.

Hubby leaves before me in the morning.   When I got up, I thought it might be a good idea to check the basement.   Good idea (or bad idea, depending upon your perpective).

The basement had water in it.   Now, don't get me wrong. There's water, and then there's water. And our basement just had water.   Still, you don't want to take off and leave for work for 8 or 9 hours and let the water just continue to rise up.

So I called in sick, and I've spent the day sucking water up with the wet vac.   Once the wet vac is full, it's too heavy for me to lift and empty outside, so I scooped the water out of the vac, and dumped it in the washing machine, which I then set on the spin cycle so the water would drain.   I'm sure by the time this is over, I'll need a new washer.

(Actually, I just put a load of laundry in. I thought the machine might appreciate doing the job for which it was intended.)

And since I didn't want to waste my time between stints of vacuuming up water, I thought it would be an opportune time for me to paint the floor in my craft room.   Unfortunately, painting a floor and sucking water from a floor require the same bent-over position.    I'm going to look like a pretzel when I get up tomorrow.

So now it's time to contact people about What We Should Do.   Cause I'm sure not spending the rest of my life vacuuming up the basement floor every time it rains hard.   We'll check into a sump pump, and some sort of sealant for the floors and walls.

I'm going to say this now, and I'm sure I'll say it again. "Ahh! The joys of home-ownership!"

Rain, rain, go away.....but if you're not going to, we'll still have fun.

2011-10-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Rain seems to be the name of the game here in New England for the past week or so.   Hubby and I learned a long time ago that we can't let a little rain stop us from enjoying our precious free time together.   I have quite a few photos with spots on the lens of the camera and our hair plastered to our heads....but big smiles on our faces.

This weekend was one of those weekends. Yesterday's activity was indoors (see previous post) but today's activity was outside.

Hubby has been wanting to take me to the Fruitlands Museum.   With the added incentive of a juried craft fair on the grounds, yesterday was the day to go.   In the rain.

Fruitlands Museum is a small place in Harvard, Massachusetts.   It's comprised of three buildings; one is a Native American Museum, one is a Replica Shaker House, and one is the house where Amos Bronson Alcott tried to create a Utopian society.

All of that was pretty interesting.   But what I found much more interesting was the juried craft fair.   Juried artwork means it has been judged by a committee and found that it meets certain criteria. Therefore, juried art is more than just your average crafter putting stuff out on a table for sale.

The items were beautiful. There was jewelry, there was pottery, there was glasswork, woodwork, etc.   And all of it was so finely made. It made me wish I had the time and talent to create such beautiful things.

We walked around and gawked at all the wonderful things.   Usually, Hubby will buy me a pair of earrings at a craft fair, but when the little boy who was minding his mom's booth quoted us the price on a pair of silver earrings, we moved along without buying.

It didn't matter though. We loved seeing all the unique artwork, and perhaps getting a tiny bit of inspiration for projects of our own.

Studio-hopping

2011-10-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

We spent the afternoon today in Lowell at the Western Avenue Studio doing the Open Studio Tour.   This place is an old mill building that has been converted into artists' studios.

There were over 200 artisans there allowing us to wander through their studios and enjoy looking at their work.   We were amazed at the amount of people there.

It was interesting to see the variety and beauty of the artwork. It also gave us so much incentive to go home and work on our own projects.

Now I'm more determined than ever to finish my craft room and set it up so I can use it.   Finding the time to paint the floor is proving to be a challenge.

However, next Monday is Columbus Day. I am not working but Hubby is.....so that might be the day.   Unless I get a better offer!!

Decisions, Decisions

2011-09-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

The renovation of my craft room has gone fairly slowly. It's really a winter project, but I am anxious to get it done so I can use the room. Summer is such a busy time, and if the weather is nice we'd rather be doing stuff outside. So a project that could have been done in a weekend is being stretched for many weeks.

We've both agreed that we don't intend to do all our renovations at once. We know it's going to take us years to "complete".....although we've been assured by everyone who owns a house that it's never complete!

But, as I said, I'd really like to get it finished so I can move my new sewing machine in, and set up a scrapbooking table.

The point I'm stuck on right now is the floor. I've painted the walls a very pretty lilac, and the woodwork looks great painted bright white. Right now, the floor had been painted a brick red. Obviously, it needs to be painted over.

And that's my sticking point. I'm terrible with colors. I'm not good at envisioning what will look nice. Even with scrapbooking, I can't picture a page completed. I have to build it one element at a time.

At first, I wanted to paint the floor either dark green or dark purple. I put the choices out on Facebook, and everyone said dark purple. I got some purple color swatches and mused about it for much too long.

When I announced to the girls at work yesterday that I was finally buying my floor paint, and showed them the swatch, they were all appalled. Much too purple!! was the consensus.

So now they had me second-guessing myself. And I can't of admitted that I hadn't been sure about the purple all along - they yea, it was probably going to be "too purple".

They suggested Taupe. I wasn't sure exactly what Taupe was, and after going to the paint store, I'm still not sure. The young man hovering over me at Home Depot couldn't really help me either.

So I pulled a whole mess of swatches and brought them back to work with me to show the girls. I'm not sure if they were happy with my selections, but I seriously pulled every swatch that was even close to what I thought Taupe might be.

These swatches look much greener than they did in the store. The hard thing about colors is that they look different no matter which way you turn them. Sometimes more green, sometimes more brown.

Hubby suggested buying those little "samples" of several different colors and painting them on the floor. I hate the fact that they charge you for those paint samples and I really hate to give in to spending useless money like that.

Bottom line is.....I am bound and determined to paint that floor on Saturday. Given that, I guess I have a decision to make!

The Beauty of Fall

2011-09-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Despite the "Hot and Muggys" we've had the past few days, fall has hit New England as far as decorating goes. We haven't seen very many colored leaves yet, but everyone seems to have started putting out fall flowers and Halloween decorations. For the first time in many years, I'm able to join in the fun of making my house look pretty.

Hubby has been hauling rocks all summer to create a stone wall for me. I love the look of a stone wall. He's going to take the fence down when the wall is ready to stand on its own.

(Notice the propane tank on the side of the house waiting to be picked up)

We still have Impatiens, but I got some beautiful bright yellow Mums.

Eventually, I want to have an English Garden in the front of the house so it will be bursting with color. Right now, I'm so grateful that I get to make my house look pretty with these gorgeous flowers.

Apple Picking

2011-09-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

For the third year, we took Emily apple-picking. It's a tradition we love and hope to continue for many years.

We walked around looking for nice red apples close enough to the ground for Emily to reach.

Memere likes teaching her to "shine it up" on her shirt. This year, she commented that a couple of apples on the tree were already shiny, and we decided it was squirrels and their fluffy tails that shined them up for us.

I had to laugh because Emily would eat one side of the apple until she got to the core, and then that apple was done. Nothing I said could convince her to turn it around and eat the other side of the apple.

Pepere enjoyed the apples too.

Emily thought it was pretty funny to sit on a pumpkin for a photo op.

The "bumpy" pumpkins made Emily sad.

Memere enjoying her favorite part - the hot cider donuts and cold apple cider. Emily didn't want to try the donuts (WHAT? She can't be MY grand-daughter!) but she did like eating popcorn.

A beautiful girl.....inside AND out!

Sometimes you just have to be silly.

Then it was time to go to Memere and Pepere's house to make pies with our newly picked apples.

Pepere shows Emily how to make the dough.

And how to put the apples into the pie.

There may have been a few too many apples in this pie.

Memere and Emily peel the apples. I love what she says at the end of this video.

She gets pretty good on the apple peeler towards the end.

Emily has her own method for filling the pie shell.

Hurray for the "Soft Touch"

2011-09-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

After fussing all night long over my Propane Problem (see previous post), I decided to take the soft touch approach to the problem. Rather than jump right in with threats of lawyers, etc, I would try to sweet-talk them.   And it worked.

I spoke with the supervisor of the Customer Service Dept, Jessica, and explained to her my "predicament".   That I thought one propane tank was the same as another and didn't realize that each company had their own tanks until the night before our closing, when it became imperitive for me to have my propane turned on. (so far, all true)

And that when I called her company they told me I had to wait until the propane tank was empty before they could retrieve it (true) and that I would have to sign up with an account in order to hold onto the tank until it was empty. (all true).    They never, ever indicated that signing up for that account would lock me into being their customer for a year.

When she asked why I'd gone with Haffners, I said it was because they were in-town, and that I knew some people who worked for Haffners (a small fib) and that it was no reflection on their company and that "I just know your company is excellent as well."

And now I was between a rock and a hard place, because Haffners had already put their own tank in and put propane in it and now it can't be moved and now I have a propane tank from Energy North sitting in my driveway, and GOSH....."I just don't know what to do now".   (I might have sniffed back an imaginary tear.)

Jessica's listened to my story, and said she'd have to "look into it" and get back to me. Two hours later, Melanie (?) called and said that since it was such a new account, they could waive the fee for me and there would be no repurcussions.   AND, if things didn't work out with Haffners they would be happy to have me back!   I checked to be sure they'd still be picking the tank up - which they will.

And once again, you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar!

Damn the Propane Bastards

2011-09-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

Even though we've been living in our new house for almost three months, the surprises keep on coming. (See previous post)

Our house is heated with oil.   I successfully had our first tank of oil delivered - ouch! But it was something I expected, so no big deal.   I was surprised, however, to find out it will be the end of October before they can come clean our furnace.   Hubby and I are kind of hesitant about turning on the heat without a professional checking out the furnace first, so we're just praying for warm-ish weather until October 24th.

We also have a propane tank which is used for our stove and hot water heater. Before we moved in, I called the fuel places in the area, and determined that Haffner's had the best prices.   The company the old owners had was Energy North.

When I called to find out about switching companies, I was told by both companies that we would have to keep the propane tank from Energy North until the propane was used up, as they do not want to move tanks with propane in them.   Makes sense.

The night before we moved in, I called Energy North to find out about having the propane turned back on and having someone come and see if there were pilot lights to be lit, and make sure everything was working okay.   Unfortunately, they knew at that point that I was switching to another company. They did send someone, and everything worked out so we could move in.

Yesterday, I was finally able to have Haffner's come and switch tanks.   When I told the guy that the old company was Energy North, he said to be careful, that they don't take kindly to having customers leave them, that they'd probably say there'd be a charge to come get their tank, and that if they refused to come get it, I should threaten them with calling the Fire Dept., who would force them to come get the tank.

I called and the lady put me on hold for 5 minutes or so, and then came back and told me I can't leave them because I signed a 1-year contract!!   I said, no, I did not and she insisted she had it with my signature on it. I said I had no copy of that contract, that I never had any intention of being their customer and that I was not honoring any 1-year agreement. She then proceeded to tell me that if I broke the contract I would have to pay a $300 fee!

At this point, boiling mad, I told her there was no way I was paying a fee, that they should come get their tank and that she should send me a copy of the contract before I decided what to do.

And that's where it stands.   I will definitely fight with them tooth and nail over this. If I signed anything, it was an agreement to let them come on my property and turn my propane on.

If a threat of getting my lawyer involved (anyone know a good lawyer?) doesn't work, I will tell them to leave the tank here in the backyard for a year, I won't buy any propane from them and that will fulfill my contract.

Let's do it right

2011-09-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

One of the scariest things about buying a new house was the mortgage payment.   Of course it was quite a bit more than our condo mortgage.   And I'm not new at this, so I made sure to figure into the budget things like oil, propane and water bills.

One of the things I thought about was electricity. The bill at our condo was usually anywhere from $30/month to $40, depending on how much we ran the air conditioners.   I knew when we bought the new house, the bill would go up. We do have an electric dryer, and Hubby runs a de-humidifier in the basement, but otherwise, I figured we wouldn't really be using much more than at the condo.   So I decided to use $50 as an average for our electric bill.

The first bill we got was a partial bill for $38.    Then, the second month, we got a bill for $93!   I almost had a heart attack. Unfortunately, I somehow got onto "paperless billing" and all they send you in the email is the amount.   If you want to see the whole bill, you have to go online and look at it. And since I didn't have a paper bill, and didn't know the account number, I couldn't see how much electricity they were saying we'd been using.   I pay my bills online through the bank, and the account number is *****'d out, apparently so no one will steal it.

I grudgingly paid the bill, whilst discussing with Hubby ways of saving on energy, ie, not leaving the computer on 24/7.

This month I got a bill for $134!!!   WHAT???   Now I'm figuring something's wrong. They must be reading the meter wrong, or not reading the meter at all and just guessing. Or perhaps our resident mouse is having wild parties during the day while we're gone.

I finally called the electric company and explained the dilemna. She looked up my account by my address and gave me the account number.   I told her I was quite appalled at how much my bill was.   And she says, "Well, your last month bill was only $50."    HUH?    "No, my last bill was $93."   She says, "That was a double bill, because you didn't pay the month before."    Hmmmmm......"Yes, I did."

"Oh wait a moment here," she says. "Let me check something.   It looks like your payments have been going into your OLD account."   (aka our condo)

I had no idea that when you have a new residence, you get a new account number. I thought your account number would follow you wherever you went.   I don't know how they were applying that money to our old account, since I'd closed it.   However, the nice lady quickly moved the money from the old account to the new one.

And now, instead of having to pay $134 this month, I have a credit of $5.

I wonder how long it would have gone on before they shut off my electricity for non-payment?

Noah's Third Birthday

2011-09-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

For the finale of our marathon party weekend, we celebrated our grandson Noah's third birthday. In typical boy fashion, he adores anything with wheels. He was pretty happy with his gifts.

The Lightening McQueen cake his Mom and Dad made for him.

He and his cousin Dylan had a wonderful time playing with his new toys and chasing each other around the yard.

His other passion is music, just like his Grandpa (aka my Hubby). In fact, he was very happy with Hubby's gift of a couple of Beatles CDs.

And for the piece de resistance, he received this gift from his Mom and Dad.

The Wedding!

2011-09-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

My son Nick was married today. He and his new wife Kelly created their own wedding at Bear Brook State Park. The decorations, table decor, and centerpieces were all made by hand with scrapbooking paper.

They rented a beautiful pavilion.

My daughter Jamie and Nick's friend Greg went early to help set things up.

The flowers in the centerpieces, as well as Kelly's bouquet, were hand-made from the scrapbooking paper as well.

Nick and I spent a few minutes before the wedding waiting for the bride to arrive.

Kelly's hand-made paper flower bouquet.

The Bride and Groom say their "I do's"

The exchange of rings

The happy couple are now married!

Nick and Kelly with my Dad

Waiting for the professional photographer

My three children, Doug, Nick and Jamie

Doug, Nick, Jamie with Kara and Emily

And now ALL my children

Doug, Kara and Emily

Nick and Kelly and

Jamie

And the family including Hubby and I and my Dad.

Nick's new in-laws

Kelly's Mom and Dad, Bob and Gayle

and her sister Lorie

The bouquet was unbelievable

Jamie used some of her football skills to make off with the mailbox full of wedding cards.

First Dance

Aunt Izzy was looking for a dance partner so Jamie obliged

The new couple had a dessert bar of home-made pastries, so they chose to have a small single layer wedding cake.

They were very nice to each other during the cake-feeding time.

I'm so proud of them for the beautiful job they did. The wedding was beautiful, the food was great, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

I wish them lots of love in the years to come.

Fun At Fenway

2011-09-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I had the great good fortune of winning four tickets to the Red Sox game last night. My company, AAA, had their annual meeting last week, and I psychically (sp?) made the company president announce my raffle ticket number to win!

I very rarely go to Red Sox games, the cost being the major factor. The tickets I won were worth $50 apiece. Add into that the cost of parking and food, and it's just way too far beyond our budget.

So winning these tickets was very exciting for me.

We drove our car to Sullivan Square, where we could get on Boston's "T" - the subway. We got off around the corner from Fenway Park, and walked past the iconic Citgo sign, which can be seen in right field from inside the park.

Fenway is steeped in tradition. Ted Williams was selling creamy Root Beer long before Paul Newman thought of selling salad dressing.

We got there early to soak up the ambiance before the game started.

Looking down from the Grandstand, you could watch the entertainment below.

Fenway has had a capacity crowd for something like ten years, including people who buy standing room only tickets.

Jamie and I eagerly awaiting the start of the game.

This was Hubby's first game since his Dad brought him in 1967.

He was hoping Jim Longborg was pitching.

He made sure to enjoy the experience with a Fenway Frank and a Beer!

Jamie brought her friend Skippy to the game.

Jamie cheers on a play.

It was a bit chilly so we had to snuggle.

It was exciting to watch the great Jonathan Papelbon pitch almost perfect strikes to close out the game.

The Red Sox won 4-3 in a very important game versus the Tampa Bay Rays. The two Rays fans sitting next to us did not appreciate our excitement over the victory, nor our scathing remarks about the Rays!

It's always very exciting when the home team wins!!

Family Reunion

2011-09-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, we had our 18th Annual Bergeron Family Reunion. It's truly one of my most favorite days of the year. I love seeing all my cousins, their children.....and now their children's children!

We spend most of the day just like this.....sitting, chatting, catching up and enjoying each others company.

Everyone brings their own food and drinks.........and some folks bring games, like this "corn-hole".

Lots and lots of kids come.....these guys are my brother Steve's Step-grandchildren.

These two are the oldest and youngest members of the family....My Uncle Chanel is 83 years old, and Alex (his great-grandson!) is 8 months old.

Me with just a few of my 25 cousins. Two cousins, Ann and Ruth, came all the way from Ohio!

We had a stunningly beautiful day, with much laughter, joy and love.

A Day of Thanks

2011-09-11T05:33:00.000-07:00

Every person around the world knows what day this is.    9/11.   A day that will live infamy.   Everyone's thoughts and prayers are centered around the events of 10 years ago.   As they should be.

But today is also a day to celebrate life.   To celebrate the freedoms afforded us by the brave men and women who put their lives on the line to prevent another 9/11.

Today happens to be our annual family reunion.   It's always the first Sunday after Labor Day, and this year that happens to fall on 9/11.   Which gives us the opportunity to enjoy those freedoms.   To be together with family we don't get to see......to enjoy the bright sunshine, the food, the laughs, the joy of being together.   And to thank God that we are the lucky ones.

My New Baby Has Arrived!

2011-09-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Sewing has always been a big part of my life. I learned from my Mom, who learned from her Mom. My grandmother was so good at sewing, she would go "downtown" and look in all the store windows at the latest fashions, come home and, without a pattern, re-create those fashions.

My Mom sewed many, many outfits for my sister and I, she sewed a lot of her own clothes, she sewed wedding dresses and coats, and she sewed all her own outfits when she and my father began square-dancing. One year for Christmas she even made my sister and I a whole box of clothes for Barbie and Ken.

I learned so much from my Mom that I remember taking sewing classes in middle school and telling the teacher a thing or two about how to sew! I sewed clothes for myself, lots of baby clothes and outfits for all my children, and even made a few things for my grand-daughter.

The last time I bought a sewing machine was 1978. It was the first thing my then-husband and I purchased "on credit". We bought it at the Singer Sewing Machine Store after much deliberation. That machine lasted me 32 years. Last year, it kicked the bucket, and it was determined that it wasn't worth the money it would cost to fix it.

Hubby offered me a new sewing machine for my birthday in June, and we decided we'd put it off until after we moved and were set up in the new house. I'm still working in putting together my sewing room, but an opportunity presented itself that I just couldn't pass up. My friend Joan posted on her blog "Quilting on a Budget" a fantastic offer from Amazon for a sewing machine. The original price was $449 - and it was $152, plus another $15 rebate - and no shipping!

Brother CS6000i Sew Advance Sew Affordable 60-Stitch Computerized Free-Arm Sewing Machine

My baby came today and I am amazed at what it can do. It can make all these stitches!

It came with lots of extra accesories, including quilting foot and extra-large area in case you have a lot of fabric.

The challenge will be that this machine is computerized, including automatic threading. I'm going to have to spend some time reading the manual before I can even thread the thing! But what a fun way for me relax. Thanks, Hubby for the great birthday gift!

Hubby's New Roof

2011-09-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me give HUGE kudos to Hubby, who overcame his fear of heights and actually went up a ladder onto the porch roof to replace the roof. I'm so proud of him!

Apparently, the previous owners put the shingles on going the wrong way, so the water just drained right into the ceiling of the back porch/mudroom. So one of the first things we needed to do was replace that roof. Luckily for us, the previous owners left some tarpaper and JUST enough shingles to do the job. Since every project requires a trip to Lowe's, Hubby went and bought some roofing nails.

For a guy afraid of heights, he shouldn't have bought the $20 ladder from Craig's List, since it was missing a rung. I would have sprung for an extra $10 or so to have a complete ladder.

Demo is always the fun part.

He seemed to be doing fine..............

Then THIS happened!

I have no idea why he made that face, but I thought it was hilarious. Sorry, Hubby!

Nice clean roof, ready to re-shingle.

He LOVES when I take a bunch of photos of him sweating.

Ta-da! complete roof. Yes, he did trim the edges afterwards.

Good Job, Hubby! Thanks!

Mandatory Day Off

2011-09-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

I "had" to take a day off this week. It was one of those "use it or lose it" situations. I had one vacation day left to use before mid-September. Hubby graciously took a day off with me and we headed to Boston.

The main reason we went is because they were doing a vinyl record exhibit at the Institute for Contemporary Art, and we used that as a springboard to spend the day in the city.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this "Post Office". What a great way to recycle an ice cream truck! They were selling stamps and whatever out of this truck.

The Institute for Contemporary Art was right on the Harbor. The view was gorgeous.

Too bad I thought the exhibit was stupid. I thought it was going to be record covers and interesting tidbits about different recording artists, etc. Yea....not so much! It was really just "artwork" (and I use that term loosely) that people had created with records. The first thing we saw when we went in there was a stack of records almost to the ceiling, with broken records all around the base. This was a sculpture. (???)

The one thing they had that I enjoyed was some turntables and records that you could just listen to. I had forgotten how encompassing it could be to put on a pair of headphones and block out the world while you listened.

This is me listening to Carole King's "You've Got a Friend".

After the ICA, we headed over to the Boston Common. School mustn't have started yet in Boston, because the playground was packed.

We really enjoy going to the famous Frog Pond. These little guys are the guardians of the pond.

The fountain in the middle created some beautiful rainbows. It was fun to see kids enjoying the water.

And some bigger kids enjoying as well!

From the Common we walked over to the Public Gardens. This is Romeo and Juliet.

It always fascinates me to see such beautiful gardens amidst the skyscrapers.

This is Hubby's dream............

From the Public Gardens we walked all the way to the Prudential Center, which is the home of the Cheesecake Factory!! Mmmmmmmm!

And finally, we walked over to the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade and saw a free concert. It was the music of Tchaikovsky from The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. The Boston Ballet had some dancers there performing while the orchestra played.

All in all, a very nice day!

And it's over

2011-08-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

The Great Hurricane of 2011 - Irene- is over. As usual, the media made more of it than it turned out to be. I'm not saying there weren't places that were devastated by the storm. But in our area, it turned out to be....not so much.

We got lots of rain.

Luckily, our basement just got a tiny bit of water. Hubby was on top of it with his wet-vac like spots on a leopard. And we (meaning he....since the basement is "his territory") had put everything up on pallets. So no damage there.

A few limbs came down in the yard.

(Just ignore that shed....it looked like that before the storm)

I guess you can't see how the wind is whipping the tree around....but take my word for it.....it did.

We never lost power, but we'd heard that the next street over had lost their power, so we took a walk after the rain stopped. Sure enough, the next street and all the streets for the length of our walk had no power. We didn't see much more than tree limbs down. I took this picture because it amused me.....it looks like little tree-lets sprouting up all over this lawn.

We walked to the sound of generators - after the Great Ice Storm of 2008 many, many people have them in their homes.

All in all, we were very lucky, and I'm glad our new house weathered the storm so well.

Preparing for Irene

2011-08-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Two months into living in our new house, and we get to prepare for a hurricane.

Hurricanes are fairly rare in our neck of the woods.   Usually by the time they get to us, they're down-graded to a "Tropical Storm".   Our last real hurricane was "Bob", which hit our area in 1991.   Before that was "Gloria" in 1985.   Luckily for us, we get them only once every 10 years or so.

Hurricane Irene is expected to hit us tomorrow. So today will be a day of preparation.   Mostly moving things that are outside, inside.   When we were living in our condo, we didn't even think about any of that stuff.   Now we do.

So our canoe and accessories go in the shed, as will our grill - after we finish our BBQ today with Hubby's family.   Yup - good timing.   A BBQ with a dozen people on the eve of the hurricane.   Could've been worse....we could have scheduled it for tomorrow.

We also have a bunch of lawn chairs, hanging plants, wind-chimes, etc, etc that will come in just to be safe. No need for projectiles flying everywhere.

We'll make sure we have plenty of candles....our flashlight will be ready. We have no idea if our house is prone to electrical outages or not.   We do live fairly close to the center of town and very close to a fire station....so perhaps we'll be lucky enough to have power restored quickly if it does go out.

And finally, we'll keep an eye on our basement.   With 10" of rain predicted, we stand a decent chance of getting water in the basement.   We knew about it when we bought the house.   We were told they'd only had water during the Great Mother's Day Floods of 2006.      We have a wet-vac.....as long as we don't lose power.

Good luck to all those in Irene's path.   I'll be the crazy lady outside taking photos of the wind, rain and chaos.

Me? A hostess?

2011-08-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

For the past 9 years, I lived in a condo the size of a closet.   Seriously....the whole place was 660 square feet. And it had TWO bedrooms. So you can just imagine the size of my living room/kitchen.

We could literally only invite four people over at a time because that's how many people we could fit at the kitchen table. If we were lucky, we could squeeze 6 people in if we weren't planning on eating.

And forget about having friends or relatives over for a BBQ.   After two stolen grills, we gave up on even having a BBQ for just the two of us.

Thus the reason for getting a house. We needed ROOM!! Room to have company over, room to do projects, room to have a grill and picnic table in the yard.

Our dream came true in June, and we've been busy organizing, unpacking and fixing up since then.

So when I organized a trip to see "Footloose" with some friends and family, it never occurred to me to invite them over for a meal either before or after.   One of my friends sent an email asking the particulars about time and place, and she casually asked if we were going to go for a meal.

And it dawned on me that I could have them over!   I could be a hostess! I could invite friends and family over! Have a cookout!! Enjoy my new HOME!

And so I did.   Someone brought margaritas, someone brought dessert, I cooked on the grill, we ate, we drank........and we had a very, very fine time.

Freecycle!

2011-08-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

My new favorite thing is Freecycle! I mentioned before that it's a website that lets you post either something you want, or something you want to give away. Among others, my friend Joan told me about it.

That's right.........GIVE away.   Because, as the name states, everything is free.   No money changes hands, no swaps....just free stuff given and received.

I've said for quite some time now that I firmly believe that we could close all the retail stores in the world and just swap everything with each other and everyone would be perfectly happy. And I still hold that to be true.

So far, the only thing I've gotten from Freecycle is the Spirograph.   And I gave away a box full of DVD's.   I didn't list all the DVD names in my post....just said I had 23 DVD's. And I got about a dozen people who emailed for the chance to have them! Unknown DVD's.   Sweet.

So tonight I put up a post for a Leaf Blower. Hubby loves to rake (I know....but I married him). The people who sold us the house left us all kinds of yard tools, including the Leaf Blower.    It's in three pieces, I don't know how to put it together, don't know if all the pieces are there, and I don't know if it works. And that's how I listed it in the post.

Three hours later, I have three offers to pick up the leaf blower.   I just love this website!

Four Years Old!

2011-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

As promised, some photos and video of Emily's 4th Birthday Party.

Pushing cousin Lily on the swings.

Her Princess Aurora cake:

All dressed up with shoes and princess dolls:

The Princess Castle Bouncy House;

Emmy had fun sticking her finger in and eating hunks of cake!

Kelly and Nick's Shower

2011-08-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today was my son and his fiancee's wedding shower.   I can't believe I left the camera at home!

The shower was put on by Kelly's sister and it was just lovely.   She had shower games with prizes, and fantastic food. Kelly opened many beautiful gifts.   Some random tidbits:

*   Nick absolutely did not want to be there.   He dropped Kelly off, came in to say hi, then took off!

* My ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law were there.   Kind of strange, but I've always gotten along with them and divorcing their son and brother did nothing to change that.

* The cake was a "cake boss" style cake, made to look like a cooking pot with modeling chocolate kitchen accessories on top.

* My sister-in-law Angie's Mustang rolled down the driveway and nicked the side of Kelly's mother's car.   Some time after Angie had gotten there, she stood up and was looking out the window, and suddenly said, "Hey, where'd my car go?"    There was a small amount of damage to Kelly's mother's car.

* Emily had a great time at the shower. She found the "toy room" and brought out her old favorite Thomas trains to play with.   She also gave everyone at the party one of her goldfish crackers, and dug through the M and M bowl to make everyone a handful of "rainbow M and M's.....one each of red, orange, yellow, green and blue."   I asked about purple and she informed me, "They don't MAKE purple, Memere!"

Tomorrow is Emily's birthday party. I'll be sure to bring the camera.

Maine Botanical Garden

2011-08-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

These were rocks designed to give you a foot massage. They start out big and you follow the path as the stones get smaller and smaller.

I've never actually seen a frog on a lily pad before.

Boothbay Hahbah

2011-08-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I enjoyed a short but wonderful vacation in Boothbay Harbor, ME

The first day was a bit overcast and misty out.

My dream garden.......someday

The pier where we got on our seal-watch boat.

Sailboat classes outside the Aquarium

Met a new friend at the Aquarium

We loved our seal-watching boat ride.

Sweet Lighthouse - Too bad they're all automated now....we could totally be lighthouse-keepers.

Again on the boat.....so much fun!

Our view from the back of our B and B.

Love the colors on the kayaks.

Embracing my eight-year-old self

2011-08-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

I spent some time perusing Toys R Us the other day, looking for ideas for a birthday gift for my grand-daughter. And I came upon Spirograph.

Does anyone remember Spirograph? We had one when I was a kid, and I remember enjoying it so much. I figured it was a bit too hard for my 4 year old grand-daughter to do, but as I was looking at the reviews, I noticed something interesting.

The "new" Spirograph is made by Hasbro. And ALL the reviews commented about how it was cheaply made, difficult to use, and just not as good as the "old" Spirograph.

So I did a bit of research, and found that the Vintage Spirograph from 1966 was made by Kenner. According to Wikipedia, the Kenner Company was bought out by Hasbro in 2000. I don't know what they did to the Spirograph, but apparently people don't like it much.

I decided I really wanted to find a vintage Spirograph and my searches led me to EBay.   There were quite a few on there. Unfortunately, most of them seemed interested in selling to collectors who were worried about whether there were creases on the box cover or whether the original paper was included. I put a bid into a couple of them, but was quickly outbid.

Heck, I just wanted a set that had most of the plastic parts.   So I turned to my new, fun addiction..... Freecycle.   Anyone use this website?    It's for trading items completely for free. No money exchanges hands. You put your stuff up locally so there's no shipping.

It's amazing the kinds of things people put up and also what people are looking for. Just today was a TV, some clothes, cinder blocks, wood, etc. I find it fascinating that people have so much stuff, they'd rather just give it away for free than have it hanging around in their house.

So I posted that I wanted a Vintage Spirograph.....and within a day I got a response.   Someone had a SUPER Spirograph and I could come and get it!

Only one little curved piece is missing. Everything else is there including the instruction book, little push pins, cardboard to stick the pins in, and design guide.

Unfortunately, as was expected, the pens don't work anymore. It took me awhile to find something that would work. I used skinny markers, although colored pens would work much better.

A first pathetic attempt:

I'd forgotten how hard these are to do! It got a little better as time went on:

The Super Spirograph has pieces to make cool shapes, not just circles. I did this one using a square. Too bad I messed up the middle!

I'm going to have fun practicing this art. I'm going to need some colored pens first, though.

Balance

2011-08-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

After the first three frantic weeks or so after we moved into the house, we determined that it would be wise if we tempered some of the housework, un-packing and small renovating with some fun activities.

After all, summer is only a couple of short months, and it would be over before we knew it.

This weekend was the epitome of balance.

Friday night we went out to a coffee house and listened to friends play music. FUN

Saturday morning, Hubby finished moving things out of the storage unit while I finished putting down tile in the bathroom. WORK

Saturday afternoon we went canoeing and had a picnic at a local lake. FUN

Sunday morning Hubby mowed the lawn and worked in the yard while I did grocery shopping and did laundry. WORK

Sunday evening we had friends over for a BBQ and musical jam. FUN

I went to work this morning feeling like we'd had a pleasant and productive weekend. YEAH!

A New-ish, clean Bathroom....AHHHH

2011-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of the least attractive things about our new house was the bathroom. The tile in the tub was all moldy, the wallpaper was yuck, the medicine cabinet was an old, rusty, metal one. And the floor was 1970's orange linoleum, ripped near the sink.

I already showed you the new wallpaper, medicine cabinet, and newly grouted tub tiles. Here for your viewing pleasure is the newly tiled bathroom floor.

BEFORE

AFTER

Thanks to my brother John and his wife Ruth for the free floor tiles.

Or Not......

2011-07-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I rhapsodized about my Aunt Izzy, who at the age of 84 is hauling rocks in from the woods and creating her beautiful garden.

Today I found out was 84 can really be like.

A Sweet Little Old Lady fell in our office today.   She's 81 years old. She had her little cane, and some great big rubber soled shoes. She simply turned from the counter, stumbled, and fell across the room.

We all saw it happening, we all gasped, but of course, no one could get to her quickly enough to grab her.

She fell forward, and I thought she hit her head on the doorjamb.   I rushed over, calling over my shoulder for a co-worker to dial 911.

The poor sweet lady was laying flat on her back, moaning.   I asked if she'd hit her head, and she said no. (Thank God).   But she hit her shoulder and couldn't move her arm.

We spent the next hour with EMT's and medics. They gave her morphine so they could move her arm, got her onto a gurney and carted her away.

The whole time, she kept kicking herself (figuratively) for being so clumsy.   "I'm so independent", she said more than once.   I'm sure she was concerned about how this was going to effect her ability to live alone and take care of herself.

My heart broke for her. She was so helpless, lying there. I gave her what comfort I could, but she was understandably very distraught.   Unfortunately, we probably won't get to find out how she made out.

I hope she's okay.

When I'm 84.......

2011-07-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

We went to visit my sweet old Aunty Izzy tonight.   I've mentioned her before. She lives around the corner from us and we've kind of become her surrogate family......even though we really are family.   What I mean is....Aunty Izzy has no siblings, no living children and no grandchildren.   She is actually my father's sister-in-law, and my father's brother passed away 25 years ago.

So we kind of adopted her.....or she adopted us.   Either way, we stay in touch with her, help her out when she'll let us, and invite her to all our holidays and family functions.

We went over to her place tonight to pick up a few pieces of furniture she had for us.   And she showed us her garden.

Singlehandedly, behind her elderly housing unit, she created the most magnificent garden I've ever seen. It stretches on forever and is filled with all kind of plants.   In between are little walkways, birdbaths, cute little signs and a wishing well.   And surrounding the entire thing is a rock wall.   That she built. All by herself. Every single rock dug up from the ground and hauled in from the woods behind her building.

And in the front of the building....the same thing. Only these rocks she had to haul from the back all the way to the front!

I'm amazed that at her age ....84.....she has the energy and stamina to make such lovely surroundings for herself.   My hats off to her.   And I hope I can follow in her footsteps.

Shaping Up

2011-07-28T05:20:00.000-07:00

It's been such a pleasure for Hubby and I to make our new house into a home. Hubby felt like we were "home" when we put the refrigerator magnets up on the fridge!
I feel like we've settled in now that our living room finally looks homey, with new curtains and photos on the wall:

And even Oreo has found his favorite places to relax:

I had to find something new to do with my "knick-knacks". I'm not a knick-knack person, but I do have a few pieces that have sentimental value......penguins that people have given me. And four angels, one each representing my Mom, my Memere, my Aunt Terry and my Mother-in-Law.

It's sort of an old-fashioned style shelf, but I'm sort of an old-fashioned kind of girl.

Americana

2011-07-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

Finally, Hubby and I spent some time doing fun summer things.   The house was pretty much eating up all our time, in our zeal to start doing things to fix it up so quickly.

After three weeks of non-stop cleaning, organizing, fixing, re-arranging, tearing down, putting up......we realized we still need to take time to enjoy life or summer will slide right by us.

So...besides our lovely canoe day, Hubby and I spent yesterday having a cook-out/pool party at my brother's house.

And it was everything a summer day should be.   It was hot (sultry) out.   My brother had just put up a new pool (with a tiny bit of help from us). We sat by the pool, then jumped in, then sat some more, then jumped in some more.

And my brother, who's a fabulous grill-cook, made us some steak tips, chicken and sausages on the grill. There was corn on the cob, potato and macaroni salads, and potato chips.

After letting that digest, we had a round of watermelon.   Then topped it all off with chocolate ganache cake and strawberry/rhubarb pie.

We chatted and visited until dark, then headed home relaxed, cooled-off, full of food, and happy.

Perfect summer day.

A Tropical Heat Wave

2011-07-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Along with the rest of the country, New Hampshire is experiencing a tropical heat wave. I suppose it wasn't the best time to move out of our air-conditioned condo into a house that has air-conditioning in the bedroom only.

Don't get me wrong....I'm SO happy we made the move and I LOVE the new house.   But heat and me don't get along.

I have vacation days I need to use up before September, and since Hubby and I have been a bit busy and haven't made it to a lake or pond to go canoeing, we both took today off for that reason.

Now, usually, when we plan a day off to do something outside, somehow it always ends out raining.   But on this day, we had hot, steamy, sultry weather.   I even wondered if it would be too hot to canoe.

We went and picked up "The Canoodle" (its official name) at my brother's house, where it's been living the past three years while we had a condo with no place to put it.   And we took it to a lake that Hubby passes by on his way home from work.

It's called Lake Mascuppic, in Dracut, MA.   As soon was we got there, we thought how nice it was.....there was a nice breeze and the lake was amenable to swimming.

We spent the next 3 hours swimming, canoeing, and relaxing. It's always more fun to do something like this when you know that everyone else is working!    It certainly helped us beat the heat.   And now The Canoodle has a special place in our own backyard.

Library time

2011-07-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I both enjoy the library very much. I'm a cheap son-of-a-gun, and wouldn't be caught dead paying full price to buy a book.   Usually, I see in the newspaper that a favorite author has a new title out, and I go online and reserve it at the library.

Hubby loves to use the library for everything,......DVD's, CD's and of course, all kinds of books.   We usually visit the library every week or so.

Last night, our library was having a children's show put on by Author Jeff Nathan, who wrote "There's a Bear in my Shoe."    It promised to be a silly, fun-loving evening of song and crazy poetry.

We took Emily, who will be four on August 4th, to see the show. We knew she'd enjoy it, because she's had a sense of humor, especially for slapstick comedy, since she was a baby.

We got there about 15 minutes early, and had the joy and privilege of helping her pick out her first library books.   I explained carefully about "borrowing" and she was perfectly fine with the idea that she would have to bring the books back.

She used Pepere's library card.   We asked about her getting her own card, and the library lady said, "When she is four."    So hopefully, in two weeks, we can take Emily back to return her books, get her her first library card, and start a long tradition of visiting the Library.

By the way......she LOVED the silly show!

Wallpapering

2011-07-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Wallpapering seems to have gone out of fashion lately. But the blandness of our bathroom, with beige tiles in the shower area and halfway up the wall, called for a little bit of something besides paint. I'm not really imaginative with sponge-painting and stuff like that, so I decided to go the wallpaper route.

They really didn't have too much to offer at Lowe's, and I really had to think about where else wallpaper is available. There's a small store near our house called White St. Paint and Paper, so I headed there.

Here I found the old-fashioned wallpaper store, with big books of samples you could peruse through. Since I was only wallpapering a small area, I chose to buy a double-roll right off the rack. It cost me $6.

Here's a glimpse of what the bathroom walls looked like after I pulled down the atrocious wallpaper they already had there.

The crookedness of the walls created a challenge. No, this is not an optical illusion above the door. There was almost an inch difference from one side of the doorjamb to the other.

The finished product.

Of course, I can see every single little mistake, bump, bubble, etc. But hopefully, overall, it looks better than it did before.

Pizza on the Grill

2011-07-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

I saw this Pizza on the Grill on the blog of my friend, Joan. At first I was skeptical, then figured why not give it a try?

So here's how it went.

Gotta do a little prep work first.

Sautee the chunks of chicken:

Slice the tomatoes thin.

Joan makes her own dough in her breadmaker, using olive oil rather than regular oil, but I couldn't do that and still cook the pizza while it was still light out, so I bought pizza dough at the supermarket.

You'll also need some crushed garlic, sliced black olives, alfredo sauce, parmesan cheese, feta cheese and some organo.

You can mix the parmesan cheese and garlic into the dough. I didn't think that would work very well with pre-made dough, so I chose to put the parmesan and garlic on afterwards. Then you want to roll out the pizza dough, spray some Pam on a piece of tinfoil and put it on the grill. I figured out that I should have made two to four smaller pizzas insead of one large one. It wasn't easy to move the dough on and off the grill. The Pam spray was genius, however, as the dough didn't stick to the tinfoil at all.

Let the dough cook in the closed grill until the underside is light brown. Relax with a cool beverage.....it always makes the food taste better.

When the underside is light brown, take the dough off the grill, paint it with olive oil and flip the dough over. It wasn't until I was putting the Alfredo sauce on that I realized that I had forgotten to flip the dough over!! You are supposed to do that so the other side will cook. Oops. Too late. Have to soldier on. Add your sauce, chicken, sliced tomatoes, feta cheese, olives and garlic.

Cook with the cover down for as long as it takes to brown the bottom of the dough. In my case, because I forgot to flip it, I let it go a bit longer and the dough was pretty dark. I like it like that, but thought Hubby might object.

Despite how it looks, it was absolutely delicious!

I asked Hubby for some "constructive criticism" and he said he wouldn't change a thing! He thinks I should "forget to flip it" next time too! This will certainly not be the last time I make this recipe!!

Ice Cream for Supper

2011-07-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

When my kids were young, every Sunday they'd play soccer.   Since the teams were divided by age groups, my three kids were often on three different teams, which meant that they'd play in three different games. This entailed sitting all afternoon on Sundays watching soccer games.

Which, don't get me wrong, was one of the best times of my life.   There's nothing like sitting in a lawn chair on a sunny summer afternoon, chatting with other parents and watching your children have fun.

However, it took a lot of time, and was a good excuse to not make dinner.   Instead, we'd have ice cream for supper.   Almost every Sunday night during the summer. Thus started the tradition of "Ice Cream for Supper Sundays".

Now Hubby and I moved into this new house, and one of the more exciting elements is that its within walking distance of this place:

Yes, our favorite ice cream place. They have the most delicious flavors.....my favorite is usually "Moose Tracks".

Last night, Hubby and I walked over to have "Sunday Night Ice Cream for Supper". We've resisted taking advantage of the close proximity because, let's face it, Ice Cream for Supper every Sunday night is not good at our age.

But once in a while, it's good for a treat, right?

"Totally Turtle" for me this time.

"Maine Black Bear" for Hubby.

Rhododendron State Park

2011-07-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I visited Rhododendron State Park in Fitzwilliam, NH today. Last time, we went in late May since that is when the local rhododendrons bloom, only to find out that these are a different species that bloom in mid-July. So today was the day. I thought the story was best told with more pictures and a few words.

When you enter, you walk through a long "tunnel" of giant rhododendron plants.

You could totally hear the sound of bees buzzing constantly.

This is a panoramic shot.

There was other interesting nature there that had nothing to do with rhododendrons.

Another fun adventure for Karen and Tag.