Saturday, January 05, 2013

Puppy Love

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How can anyone resist this little, adorable, foxy-faced baby? Doesn’t that belly call out for a rub? Soon this will be snarfling at my door. Can’t wait. It appears to be happening perhaps by next weekend. Fingers crossed.

We have had some real cold weather for the first time. Thankfully the new heating system is working well. That is if someone doesn’t accidentally turn off the switch at the top of te stairs in the new house. The switch will be getting a red cover Monday but on Friday I didn’t even know it existed. That is until it got down to 51 degrees and falling. I had a sweatshirt, coat, Ugg slippers and a quilt on me when I woke from a light nap on the couch I knew something was very wrong. After calling the contractor and having a short question and answer I was told to hit the switch at the top of the stairs and that was the problem. It looks like a light switch and got turned off. Boy that heat came up in minutes and the house was toasty and lovely in no time. Just one of the many little things to get used to. Now we all know not to flip that one. Brrrr.

I’ve spent most of the afternoon organizing(eeeekkkkkk) paperwork and looking for a missing check register. I cannot find it and I finally had to walk away from the piles of envelopes and statements. Record keeping is not my forte. Nope…not at all.

I decided to make meatballs instead and that is my thing. Meatballs and Mezzi Rigatoni for dinner with eggplant and mushroom sauce. Yummy and the perfect cold weather food. Tomorrow we are going to an Asian restaurant out east to celebrate our friend Joe’s birthday. There will be his whole family and then some and us. Looking forward to it since it is Chinese, Thai, and Japanese. Mmmmmm.

Back soon with an update on the birthday celebration. It’s a fun and funny crowd.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Super Storm and the Closet of Shame

121216_06 Here are some shots that I took of the Super Storm aftermath at our beach. The top shot is of the beach and what normally is a little creek that flows into the salt marsh. Below is what used to be the salt marsh. In all the years I’ve been here I’ve never seen the marsh completely covered all the way up for several blocks to the golf course. It was very creepy. Well, the whole things was creepy and as bad as it was we were some of the lucky ones. We had no power for 7 days and lost all the food in the fridge. There was no gas to be had for a week or so but there wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. I was lucky enough to go to James & Dani’s for a nice hot shower when ours ran out- we ate at a diner near them. Everywhere you went was cash only so I guess that was lucky too since I had a bit of cash on hand and so did Bob. We ate at a restaurant every lunch and some dinners. There were interior places on the island that were just messed up from strong winds but here, just down the block, an enormous ancient fir tree, (think Rockafeller tree) fell over across the road and took out all of the power for blocks for many days. For the first few days no one even came to do anything. They were too busy helping people who had real serious flooding problems out on the Neck. It was pretty bad out there and only accessible by boat for a while. The Coast Guard station is out there so I guess they could get some help if serious help was needed.

Anyway, Many, many, old trees fell over and for a couple of weeks all you could hear was the sound of chain saws and trucks carting away all the debris.

   I’m back, as promised yesterday with the tale of the Closet of Shame. Several years ago, on this blog I recounted the embarrassing tale of my so-called walk-in-closet. I named it the Closet of Shame since at that time it contained shelves, bags, and boxes of fabric that I had collected. If I never bought another yard of fabric I could start sewing today(if only) and keep on going for a large number of quilts. However, as we all know, there is a moment in making quilts and wall hangings when you realize that it just needs something elusive to make it what you imagined and that requires you to go into dangerous territory to find it. You know what I mean…you enter the shop and suddenly bolts of fabric throw themselves off the shelf into your arms. What can a girl do?? It kind of reminds me of the same thing that happens when you have recipes you have come across in a new book or on line. As much stuff as you may have in the pantry or fridge, you never have the right stuff for the recipe. But I digress violently….

 

121216_05 My DIL Dani’s Grandmother passed away a few weeks ago and so I ventured into the closet to get out the black pants and shirt for the wake and funeral. As I lifted the hangers and turned around to exit-I was viciously attacked by the entire Closet Maid shelves, all of my hanging clothes, and a large collection of Roger’s Lionel Train collection. Seriously, the whole darn thing just fell on me with a whoosh. Mercifully the clothes covering me kept me from being knocked out by the Lionel trains. Also mercifully, the train collection fell on soft clothing and we didn’t lose any of the precious trains either. As for me-I just started to laugh. What else was there to do. I was stuck under piles of clothing and trains so I just sat down and laughed. Then I figured I better hold tight to the black clothing and find a way out. Since it was late at night I didn’t even go over and tell Bob. Luckily for me I have the best BIL in the world and when he saw my predicament he just got to work figuring out a way to fix things. The worst part of the whole thing was that I had to find a place to put all the clothes and trains for the time being. Here we had a whole house standing empty with miles of space and couldn’t use it yet because we didn’t have the certificate of occupancy. I did manage to lay down a soft blanket and put all the trains on the floor of my new sewing room since it was a weekend. By Monday Bob got things pretty well done and as for the clothing, it went on top of the already mountainous piles of stuff in my bedroom. Piles on the plastic tubs-piles on the floor, piles of bedding and other stuff. It was really just time to put on blinders and keep moving. 

As I sit here we have just finished dinner and are looking forward to having the house looked at by the permit people and the electrical permit people hopefully tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Oh! and speaking of electrical wiring-this morning before it was even light outside somewhere between 4-5 maybe, my smoke alarm went off. After I pealed myself off the ceiling I tried to wake up enough to figure out what to do. The screaming in my ear of that little bugger made me feel murderous so I got a little ladder and ripped that sucker out by the wires. I’ll grab on the the many electrician/worker bees to help me put in anew one. It was very old. Maybe had a short or something. Wow is the alarm loud at that hour!

121216_04This is where there was a salt marsh. It looks like Long Island Sound but it’s not.It was really deep and high.

Taking my Kindle up to read for a while before I fall asleep. Back soon.

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Happy New Year

Men with tools are nearly gone but they’ve left the good stuff behind. Words can’t express adequately how much I love what has taken place here. There are a few details left to iron out before we can get our certificate of occupancy. The kids will hopefully be in by mid Jan. Below are some pics of the work. My house is on the left. BIL Bob’s new digs are under the porch and run to the front. The kids new house is on the right and the upper portion of the house except for James old room. That is the pale pink room below….eeeeeek, my new sewing room. The porch is being used for staging right now so it will look a lot better when all the crap is removed.

121221_31  121221_30121221_29121221_09121221_28 121221_22 This is the hallway out my sewing room and down the corridor to the new house. The floors are so beautiful121201_06_01 121221_26 121221_14 The new master bath awaiting shower enclosure and BIL Bob’s new bath awaiting everything. In between is the guest room/baby room and here is the lovely new staircase in the new house.121207_06 121201_07_02

I can’t seem to make these photos do anything I want but you get the idea. It’s been a long haul and a very noisy one. I’m ready for a winters quiet rest and for locating my sewing machine and fondling fabric again. I’ve been checking up on friends and I hope that you all had a beautiful Christmas and a joyous holiday celebration. Here’s to a year filled with health, peace and lots of fabric!! I will be back tomorrow to tell the tale of the Closet of Shame falling on me a couple of weeks ago and frankly who can blame it.