.
Work started on the bedroom door replacement, and you know it didn’t go well.
.
.
After removing the existing door and pulling back the carpet, serious water damage was discovered.
.
.
Which pleased neither me nor my contractor.
.
.
More work. More time.
.
.
More money.
.
.
We communicated through this hole to the basement. That was fun.
Not.
.
.
Rotten floor cut out, awaiting new wood.
Good thing we planned on replacing the carpet.
🥴
.
.
Let’s begin…
.
.
Holy Hell. Two uteruses? I had enough trouble with one…
.
.
I’ve never had a problem with this, but okay.
For those of you who have time constraints, the trick is to store them upside down.
.
.
I’ve often said I’d like to sleep for 5 months and lose 50lbs. That’s my kind of diet.
.
.
Nuclear mutant Chernobyl dogs. What could go wrong…
.
.
This half of a 16 year age gap couple who have been married for 40 years says it works just fine.
😉
.
.
If I was a dishonest person, I could get rich doing my husband’s laundry.
.
.
He’s forever leaving things in his pockets.
.
.
I think I need this book.
.
.
I have long suspected my spider plant was in cahoots with my succulents. Maybe now I can prove it.
.
.
Mr. Hawk is back.
.
.
And currently driving His Lordship crazy.
.
.
I’m not sure what makes this French…
.
.
But Martha Stewart assures me it’s a good thing.
.
.
As seen at a local convenience store.
Better than sour balls I assume.
.
.
That sums it up quite nicely I think.
😉
.
.
The new door frames have been painted and sealed..
.
.
As have the doors, which are currently blocking access to the man cave pool table.
.
.
Next on the list? Staining the new trim and sills the contractor will be putting around the two previously installed windows.
Our house has honey colored trim throughout….
.
.
So the goal was to match the existing.
And like every other renovation project we attempt, it did not go well.
.
.
The color the contractor bought wasn’t even close.
.
.
The first color I bought was too light.
.
.
The second color I bought was better but it took five coats to achieve the desired shade and no one has time for that when you’re paying a contractor by the hour.
.
.
Numerous trips back and forth to the store later, the husband got involved and came home with solid stain cans that I hated because it looked like paint and covered the grain.
.
.
He argued that the color was closer but all I saw was brush strokes.
.
.
So the contractor showed him how to apply it with a rag for less coverage … and seeing that I was not going to be easily pleased… promptly turned that job over to my husband.
.
.
I love my guy, but he’s not one to take his time with finish work and I feared the worst, picturing streaky spots and dribbles.
After some slight… and I thought quite valuable supervision of the application… I was told to get lost and kicked to the curb.
.
.
At the end of the day I compared my 5 coat sample (on the right) to one of my husband’s.
I think mine is a slightly warmer shade and a closer match to the existing color, but I can’t argue with how much time (and money!) was saved doing it his way.
.
.
Having nothing better to do last weekend we decided to take a drive down the coast and try another Batson River drinking establishment.
.
.
Until a snow squall moved in out of nowhere and we opted for a late lunch closer to home.
.
.
Tuscan Brick Oven Bistro has served us well in the past, so we headed there.
.
.
As did everyone else because my husband’s beloved bar was full, as were all the tables.
Thankfully a young couple was vacating a bar adjacent high top and offered it to us… because clearly we looked thirsty and pathetic.
.
.
I was thrilled to see the seasonal Apple of My Eye had returned ….
.
.
And promptly drank two.
.
.
My crab cakes were tiny but tasty but my husband complained his meatballs were “different”.
.
.
I blacked out their faces, but here’s a modern family of three… every one of them on their phone and oblivious to the others presence. Ah, technology… thou art a heartless bitch.
.
.
My chicken Marsala with homemade pasta and pancetta was flavorful if a bit thin on sauce.
.
.
But my husband … who was already upset with his meatballs… said his shrimp scampi was “different” as well. When I asked him to clarify, all I got was “different”.
Since he clearly wasn’t interested in eating his meal, I called the waitress over who then brought the manager. He was a lovely young man who immediately removed the offending shrimp, promised to delete it from the bill and offered substitutions.
After talking with the guy for over a half an hour… sigh… husband chose a bowl of haddock chowder, which I thought was an odd choice for an Italian restaurant.
.
.
But ooh la la! It was thick, creamy heaven in a bowl. Full of fish and fresh herbs and damn near perfect.
Too full for dessert we asked for the bill… and were pleased to see good customer service is alive and well in Freeport, Maine.
.
.
The scampi charge was removed, and the chowder was free.
That’s one way to keep repeat customers happy.
👍
.
.
I’ve discovered shopping for dining room furniture with my husband isn’t any easier than shopping for living rooms. Don’t let anyone tell you women are hard to please…
Our current dining set is a 40 year old Queen Anne style table, chairs and china hutch and though it’s served us well… it’s time for a change to something more casual.
.
.
I liked this one… but my husband didn’t like the table legs.
.
.
I liked this one…. but my husband didn’t like the chairs.
.
.
I liked this one…. but my husband didn’t like the pedestal base.
.
.
To be honest, he was more interested in figuring out this kitchen island we didn’t need.
.
.
It had a hole in the middle of the chopping block for scraps and he couldn’t figure out how you’d empty it.
.
.
Until I pulled open the drawer on the other side.
The search continues….
.
.
My first year of using the Goodreads app is through and I have to say I enjoyed the experience.
I’ve always been a voracious and fast reader but never actually tracked the amount of books I fly through annually.
.
.
To say I was surprised at the number of books I read last year is an understatement.
.
.
Now I know why my Amazon bill is so high.
.
.
Good thing I buy as many as I can at thrift stores and library sales.
.
.
But here’s my gripe… I joined their yearly reading challenge and set a goal of how many books I would read last year. I guessed 75, which as it turns out was ridiculously low. I finished 193, which if I do say so myself is pretty impressive.
It’s slightly more than a book every other day which proves I love to read… (and apparently don’t have a life).
So how in the world can anyone read more than that… and why am I only in the top 25%?
.
.
Are there people who read two books a day? And how many do you have to read to teach the top ten…
I call foul.
😉
.
.
A Coopers Hawk has discovered our bird feeding station.
.
.
And while I haven’t seen the telltale sign of feathers on the ground…
.
.
It’s only a matter of time before some poor slow moving dove succumbs.
.
.
Birds of prey are glorious creatures and though witnessing an innocent death is never easy, it’s most definitely part of nature’s plan.
.
.
Not the most riveting video, but I’m sharing anyway.
.
.
As you can see we have no snow, but the wind was blowing and the hawk was puffed up against the cold.
.
.
This next photo?
.
.
Mid poop.
🤣
.
.
Hawk visitors.
.
.
Another reason I love living in the country.
❤️
.
.
Yes, it’s a new year.
And yes, we’re still doing this…
.
.
I must have been 3 1/2 because I was born in December and started nursery school early.
I remember all the children had to bring in something to sleep on for nap time. And while the other kids were given a pillow or blanket from home…my mother, being the uber mom she was…. went to FAO Schwartz and purchased a fantastically plush Humpty Dumpty egg shaped rug. It was perfect and I loved it.
I have vague memories of the other children being jealous and trying to take it from me on repeated occasions. Being a shy child, they often succeeded which resulted in my tear stained face and the teacher asking my mother to give me something less grand and envy provoking.
Which now that I think about it was a pretty lousy lesson. How about teaching my thieving little classmates to respect other people’s property instead.
🤣
Now you….
What’s your earliest memory?
.
.
*Cue the Twilight Zone music*
This post may be a little woo woo for some of my readers and that’s fine. I’m a very grounded skeptic at heart and I swear if these things didn’t happen to me I wouldn’t believe them either.
If you’re a long time reader you’ll remember I wrote about the bizarre things that transpired during my mother’s last days in hospice. I can’t explain any of them, but I was there. They happened.
I’m an only child and my father died when I was young. My mother and I were close. She was a very spiritual woman and believed in a lot of things I don’t. Her death in 2014 hit me hard and deciding what to do with her ashes took me a few months. After burying half of them with a memorial tree on our property, I decided to take the other half back to the Jersey shore where we spent countless happy hours as a family.
.
.
She adored the ocean.
.
.
It was an emotional journey returning to the place she loved and saying goodbye.
.
.
But I felt her with me and knew she’d approve.
I was a bit of a wreck that day, drained and raw. So when we returned to our hotel all I wanted to do was crawl in bed for a nap… but then I saw this on the counter.
.
.
A white bobby pin that wasn’t there when we left. The same type of white bobby pin my mother used every day. The ones I had to special order at a beauty supply shop because no one carried them. The ones my mother would obsess over if she didn’t have enough.
I don’t use white bobby pins.
I certainly didn’t bring one with me to New Jersey.
No, the maid hadn’t cleaned our room while we were gone and left one. I checked.
Scoff all you like, but I know it was my mother’s way of telling me she was okay with my decision.
For the last 9 years that bobby pin has been a talisman and has lived on the bureau in my bedroom where I carefully dust around it. Until the other day… when I had just finished reading a book about a girl who lost her mother and believed she could communicate with her from beyond the grave.
I finished the book, went into our bedroom and it was gone. I looked everywhere. Under and behind the bureau, in all the drawers, behind my jewelry box and perfume tray. My husband didn’t take it. No one else was in the house. Lord Dudley doesn’t jump on the bureau but on the off chance he had, I scoured the room, searched in every corner and under the bed. I even emptied the vacuum cleaner. Nothing.
Just… gone. There that morning, gone in the afternoon, and I can’t explain it.
I also can’t explain this –
Remember when I posted about the recent storm and our loss of electricity? When my husband and I had an epic six hour gin rummy match by flashlight?
.
.
We used a blue deck of cards I had in the drawer. Naturally I won because gin rummy was my mother’s game and she taught me well. Hope springs eternal for my husband, but he rarely beats me.
Wanting revenge, he pulled out the deck last night and we played again. I was skunking him and after I’d just dropped another gin… double points thanks to a spade… he complained about not drawing the jack he needed and picked up the deck to check how far down it was.
The deck we had just recently played with for 6 hours.
The deck that has been in the kitchen drawer, untouched, ever since.
.
.
There wasn’t a single jack to be found. None. It was a deck of 48 cards.
Did Lord Dudley remove them all? Doubtful.
Is there a jack burglar on the loose in rural Maine? Equally as doubtful.
I’ve been joking lately about our house being cursed due to all the renovation nightmare mishaps, but damn. Now I’m really beginning to wonder.
What the hell is going on?
😳
.
River's world..... 