Personally, I do not pea… but the husband is a huge fan so when hams are on sale for Christmas and I’m left with a bone, there’s only one thing he wants.
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Split pea soup. Which happens to be the easiest soup to make… so it’s hard to refuse even though I can’t stand the smell or taste.
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5 hours later ? A pot full of slop with the consistency of sludge as far as I’m concerned.
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But the husband is in leftover pea heaven, and hey… I have to throw him a bone now and then.
A few more chuckles from our recent power outage during the storm.
When you live in Maine, you own lobster cooking pots.
And when the power is out for a day and a half due to a monster winter storm, you use your fireplace for heat. This burns copious amounts of wood, which results in copious amounts of ash. And when you can’t find your old ash bucket?
You improvise.
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With a lobster pot.
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Which worked remarkably well.
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Though I probably should have dug a little deeper in the closet for the larger one.
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And speaking of improvising…
The wire mesh curtain that slides across our fireplace is a wonderful thing. It keeps sparks and small pieces of wood from jumping out and burning down our house. In other words, it’s important.
Ours has always been temperamental and must be slid with care, something my husband naturally ignored. He tugged and pulled and ripped all day which resulted in half of the metal strip that holds the curtain in place to come crashing down.
His solution?
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I think you know me well enough to realize this will not be tolerated for long.
The unnecessary basement ceiling project is moving right along.
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And after the husband didn’t like the look of his zip taped seams?
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He decided to paint the whole thing white. Another completely unnecessary expense and waste of time. Who’s going to see it… the mice?
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Here he is vacuuming cobwebs out of the windows.
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Man with vacuum is such a rare sighting…. I had to get a close up.
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A giant pause was taken when the cables to our satellite tv were reached. This is sacred ground and must be dealt with properly to avoid interruption in service. He’s only seen Rio Bravo, El Dorado and The Sons of Katie Elder 122 times. Wouldn’t want to miss the 123rd showing.
On one of our random scenic drives around Vermont we stopped at a diner for lunch. Wondering if there were any points of interest nearby, we asked the locals who promptly sent us to Huntington Gorge.
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At first glance it didn’t look promising.
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And to be honest, the second and third glances weren’t any better.
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Everywhere we looked there were warnings.
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And while I’m not normally obtuse, I was beginning to get the feeling we weren’t wanted.
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So of course… after all the Danger Will Robinson! signs?
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My mountain goat husband had to investigate.
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Right at the very edge they warned us about.
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Please note yours truly listened to robot and was well out of danger range.
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Yeah. That limb will hold you honey, no problem.
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Needless to say he survived. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
The last vintage beer crate we found had one issue…
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Wooden bottle separators that would have to be removed in order to house my vinyl. This was not simply a matter of pulling and popping them out. They were old, warped, and not in any hurry to go.
Ergo… it required tools.
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And since my husband turned his barn and workshop into a man cave …. this meant doing surgery in the living room.
Lord Dudley Mountcatten did not approve.
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After the first twenty minutes the husband was grumbling.
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After the second twenty minutes he was sputtering.
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But when the clock struck a solid hour of remodeling?
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One empty crate ready for part of my record collection.
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Although judging from the price of an old can of that beer … I think I’d rather have it filled with those.
The husband asked me to find an old picture from his Marine Corps days last week.
You know, the one from the Pleistocene Era before digital photography… when you bought film, loaded it into a camera, took 24 pictures, unloaded the film, drove the film to a processor, waited a week to find out if any of your pictures turned out well and put the ones that did in a photo album.
As you’ve probably realized from my photo heavy blogs, I take a lot of pictures. Granted I took less then than I do now thanks to that glorious little delete button… but even back in the day I took a lot. So when the husband asked me to find that one special photo?
It would not be an understatement to say I was less than thrilled.
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Our house is positively stuffed with photo albums. They’re in the cupboards….
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On the corner of desks..
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In the drawers….
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And yes, stacked on the floor.
I combed through 72 photo albums before I cried Uncle and told him if he needed it that badly he could search the rest himself.
Advice. Everyone seems to have it, but no one seems to want it.
My late father always used to tell me not to take any wooden nickels, which seems ridiculous these days… but I suppose you could substitute ‘cryptocurrency’ for ‘nickel’ and call it good.
While I make a habit of never offering unsolicited advice, being happily married for 38 years people often ask for our secret and want advice on staying together.
Love, respect, and understanding. All important, but I usually default back to compromise and choosing carefully. Chemical attraction and lust fade, trust me on this. If you don’t have anything deeper to hold you together you won’t be searching for the traditional 40th anniversary gift. ( Ruby! Let’s hear it for hanging in there.)
I constantly hear people say you have to have things in common with your spouse to cement a relationship, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth for us… we’re very different people. But we find common ground in the type of life we want to lead and where we want to live it. That trumps his preference for television over my love of reading any day, even if it means a John Wayne marathon now and then.
My husband and I met and were married 6 days later. Guess I chose correctly. ❣️
Because our first trip to Vermont was a quickie, the husband wanted to go back and spend a bit more time in the same area… so that meant booking another condo at Smugglers Notch Resort.
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Pro:
We’ve been there numerous times and enjoy the quiet, nestled in the mountains setting. When checking in this time around, we were going to luck out and occupy one of the newly remodeled units… which after our previous stay in the 1980’s horror sounded perfect.
Con:
My husband saw they booked us on the first floor. And since nothing upsets my husband more than people stomping above us, he immediately requested a top floor unit. Naturally there were no third floor remodeled condos available, so we were stuck in the Willows.
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Tired. Outdated….
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And very …. woody.
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Pro:
It was clean, quiet and had a comfortable king size bed.
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Con:
Would it kill them to add a bed skirt and a pretty spread?
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Pro:
There were 4 beds in the unit. A king, a queen and two twins… in case you like a variety of sleeping areas.
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And the master bath’s whirlpool bath was in the bathroom.
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It even had its own television if that’s your thing.
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Con:
There were two random cows overhead.
And Holy guacamole Batman! The wallpaper. How bad was it?
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Really, really bad.
I mean, WTH? This is Vermont… not the southwest.
The decor mattered not one iota to my spouse. It was clean, comfortable, and had working appliances with no one stomping above him, he was happy. But no matter how many times he told me to enjoy the sunrise off the balcony….
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I wasn’t forgiving him for turning down the remodeled unit.
When you take scenic drives around the White Mountains of New Hampshire you’re going to pass through a lot of notches. Roads that are cut straight through the hills make for some fantastic photos.
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Unless you’re riding with my husband who hates having anyone in front of him and is constantly jostling for position.
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I can’t tell you how many great shots I’ve lined up just to whizz past them in a blur.
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My husband may be well into the senior citizen age range but you’d never know it by the way he drives.
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Ever come up behind an elderly driver and have to slow to a turtle’s crawl?
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I can guarantee that’s not my spouse. He’s the one coming up in your rear view mirror who makes you move into the next lane to avoid him riding in your back seat.
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It may not look like it, but he was doing about 90 here, passing from the right, next to a big rock. Good times.
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After we exited Crawford Notch and I drew a deep breath?
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We finally visited a place that’s been on my bucket list for years….
To be continued.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 