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I gave my husband a set of handy dandy pool cue cleaners for Xmas and upon further inspection, I believe English is not the manufacturer’s first language.
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Things are getting serious with the cellar project downstairs. How do I know this?
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Low velocity tools have been purchased and I have to admit…. I’m a little scared.
Upstairs in the office –
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A seemingly appropriate calendar has been placed on my desk.
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Yes…
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I think it’s damn near perfect.
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The good …
A miracle is currently taking place below Casa River. And though I never thought I’d say it… I’m now glad my bored by retirement husband is fully engaged in a project.
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After insulating the walls and putting an unnecessary ceiling in my small section of the cellar, he moved on to the cluttered with useless crap main section of the nightmare that is our basement, and this is where the miracle happened.
Look!
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Bare basement floor! I haven’t seen that since we moved to this house two decades ago.
And what used to look like this:
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Now looks like this.
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Be still my heart.
His plan is to insulate all the exterior walls and put a ceiling throughout the whole cellar, which is a massive undertaking considering there’s nearly 40 years worth of accumulated junk in the way. Will he get rid of any? He says he wants to have a yard sale… which is a start. But if nothing else, things will be cleaned and hopefully a bit more organized.
Also good…
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The husband built a large shelf in my section for my numerous tubs of holiday decorations.
The bad….
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I couldn’t get down there to photograph it before he cluttered it up with his mess from the section of floor he cleared in the other room.
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Anyone need a 600 pound waffle iron or a Snoopy lunch box?
Also bad…
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See the end of that long dark tunnel? The one you can only access by bending over double and ducking under the sewage pipe? That’s where the husband put all my wrapping paper, bows and from what I can see… Halloween decorations.
😠
And finally, there’s the really ugly. Because under an old moldy blanket?
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There’s an equally old and moldy stereo cabinet from some long lost era. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that I was unaware he even owned this beast. The husband has a habit of sneaking purchases down to the cellar when I’m not home.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten’s idea of playing in the snow usually looks like this:
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But after the first small dump of the season last week the husband took his highness out for a winter stroll.
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But as much as Dudley loves the fresh air and being outside, cold feet is not his thing.
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So he found the one bare patch of stone wall…
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Loved on his favorite rock….
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And carefully avoiding as much snow as he could, made his way back inside.
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Lord Mountcatten is a fair weather feline and was pleased when all the snow melted the next day.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten is not allowed on the dining room chairs.
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So naturally that’s just where he wants to be.
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And while I know I should be a strict cat parent and refuse to let him play with his feather ball there…
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He’s just too damned cute to chastise.
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The problem is…
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He knows it.
😉
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The husband and I went out for a booze filled leisurely lunch the other day at a place I’ve been wanting to try for a while. It’s the sister restaurant to one of our favorites so I had high expectations.
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Right across the street from LL Beans in the busy village of Freeport…the Tuscan Brick Oven Bistro is always packed with a long wait to be seated. We thought showing up at 2:00 in the afternoon would afford us some elbow room, but no. There was a 45 minute wait for a table which made my husband take a direct route to the bar.
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My husband does not wait well. Or at all to be honest.
No matter, I started with a lovely cranberry sage margarita which though tasty, was served in a disappointingly small old fashioned glass.
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And if I ever wondered why I was having a hard time finding vintage beer, wine or whisky crates… one look behind this bar provided the answer.
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A spiced pear margarita was round two…. and was served alongside my crab “cake” appetizer. I ask you – how can a tiny round lump of crab ever be considered a cake? These balls were delicious, but at $23 were a bit of a pricey nibble.
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Lunch was a wonderful 4 mushroom funghi pizza for me and a shrimp scampi for the husband. His lunch portion contained 4 shrimp for $29. I’d hate to see the dinner.
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For me the best part was cocktail #3.
APPLE OF MY EYE
apple infused captain morgan white rum
lime juice * cinnamon simple *
white cranberry juice
Ooh la la! It might sound like a weird combination but it was alcoholic apple pie in a glass. Be still my heart!
For the husband this was the kicker –
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I don’t care for cheesecake, but it did sound divine.
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He said it was literally the best cheesecake he’s ever had… and that’s saying something because he loves the stuff.
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With tip, a $218 lunch.
Christ. That’s what I used to pay for two weeks worth of groceries when we got married. How times change..
🥺
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As you know…. Stephen King is from, and still lives in Maine. His home in Bangor is a veritable tourist attraction and people drive from far and wide just to take selfies in front of it.
But now?
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You could save time and gas by purchasing a house in his neighborhood.
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Imagine knocking on Stephen’s door the next time you run out of sugar while baking. Surely that’s worth 900k.
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Have all computers and/or cash registers run amok?
Is there a new Y2K bug of which I’m unaware?
Because for the second time in less than a month I’ve received a strange receipt/check. First they wanted to give me $2,000 change from a twenty dollar bill…. and now?
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We grabbed a quick sandwich the other day and while I was going to leave a ten dollar tip…. I had to do a double take at the establishment’s gratuity recommendations.
My math has 20% of $39.19 equaling $7.83… so yeah. This new math can bite me.
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Our wallets are all feeling the sting of inflation, be it at the grocery store or the gas pump… but after receiving the monthly newsletter from our little rural town the other day? I had a serious WTF moment.
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A bill that jumps from $50,000 a year to $65,000 a month is the very definition of insane. Increase aside, how is it even legal to break the existing contract and give the town no time to find alternative service?
😠
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We had a small amount of the white stuff last night and crazy as it sounds, it was the first to actually stick on the ground this winter.
In celebration of that I thought I would share a few glimpses out our windows this morning…. because sunrise over snow is pretty damned spectacular.
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After I posted a few of these to Facebook, I saw our farming neighbor had posted some as well. Here’s his shot, with our house and barn in the background.
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Since I hadn’t heavily decorated the inside of our house for the holidays in a few years… I’d forgotten what a time sucking nightmare it was to put everything away.
Three days after I started…
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With help from Lord Dudley Mountcatten…. I was done.
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And after buying a fresh cut ( I use that term loosely) tree from a roadside stand instead of cutting our own as we usually do, I’m seriously cursing needle drop again.
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While I do love a real Christmas tree…
( Note the lack of snow and abundance of green grass in our yard. In Maine. In January! 😠 )
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I do not love clogging up my vacuum with 20lbs of dry needle droppings. Though I have to admit, it does smell wonderful.
How about you?
Are you de-Christmased yet?
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River's world..... 