Tag Archives: storm

Mini hurricane? Go antique shopping…

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After showering off the sand from our beach walk and spraying my second hairdo of the day in place, I planned on spending the day at the resort since no one in their right mind goes out during a bad storm.

No one but my husband who refuses to waste a vacation day that is.

Here’s a little glimpse of the neighborhood right beyond our door. In the rain…

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As we headed over the bridge from Edisto, the sky did not look promising.

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But my husband was determined in his quest.

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Antiquing for my man is like the U.S. postal service…. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep him from shopping for crap.

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I told him he could only buy what would fit in his suitcase. Thankfully this did not.

As usual I saw some ridiculous things…

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Fur trimmed sleigh?

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Ah, the vomit clock.

A time honored treasure.

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Its little demon hand beckoned…

But I ran for my life.

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The husband has a weird obsession with vintage wooden advertising yard sticks and was bound and determined to come home with these… even though I assured him they wouldn’t fit in his bag.

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Southern self help book.

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7 sticks of butter? This makes a wonderful last meal before your arteries snap shut and your heart gives out.

We wandered around the store until the storm got bad enough that the owner wanted to close. Husband bought his yardsticks and a few other small items including this….

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No, he doesn’t cook. But it definitely qualified as quirky.

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In particular this recipe – which was so wrong, it was right.

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My only purchase requires a bit of explanation.

Last Christmas our state lottery ran a commercial about the joys of regifting. (Don’t roll your eyes, we’ve all done it.) The ad was a huge hit… funny and heartwarming and everyone loved it.

Take a look.

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So when I turned the final corner of the store and saw this sitting on a shelf?

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I knew it was $8 well spent and couldn’t wait to see my girlfriend’s face when she opened her gift.

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Store closing around us and bad weather moving in, my husband wanted to go out to lunch. Not surprisingly everything was closed because, ya know… mini hurricane.

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Lunch was at Hardees. And I use the word lunch loosely because whatever that sandwich was it didn’t resemble food as I know it. 🤢

When I finally dragged the other half back to the resort, the pelicans were turned to the wind ready to ride out the storm.

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It’s hard to tell, but the wind was really howling. Watch the palm tree in between the buildings on the upper left.

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The afternoon and evening of Vacation Day 4 was spent playing gin rummy (with a deck that had all 4 jacks)…

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And eating a box of this…

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Which I’d never seen before… but heartily enjoyed. Beer + cheese + pasta = happiness.

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Winds were 65 mph.

It was a long noisy night….

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Pre storm morning beach walk… part two.

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You could feel the drop in barometric pressure, the storm was moving in.

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But we walked.

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With me lamenting the fact that we flew instead of drove to SC because there were some shells worthy of collecting.

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So many shells…

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And the starfish!

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Man, they were everywhere.

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And much larger than what we have in Maine.

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The farther we walked from the resort, the darker it got.

Naturally my husband found the only other person on the entire beach and started a conversation as it began to rain.

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She was collecting dead starfish.

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But as much as I love beach strolling, I don’t love doing it in a downpour so we ran back to the condo.

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Not soon enough judging by my hair.

🥴

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Pre storm morning beach walk…

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Not wanting to waste any precious time on our week long vacation, day four threw a monkey wrench in my carefully planned trip.

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We woke to overcast skies, an egret in the pond and a forecast of what turned out to be a mini hurricane. Heavy rain, high winds and dangerous surf are not prime beach resort conditions.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I burned breakfast. Again…. due to the stupid flat surface stove that had two burners in one.

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High level heat if you turned right, high level heat if you turned left. This proved too much for my under caffeinated morning brain to handle and henceforth, the husband was on his own when it came to eggs.

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But at least the dish sponge was happy.

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Not having walked the beach since we got there, I forced my spouse onto the sand before the storm arrived. That’s his arm to the right of the photo, pointing out which unit was ours. I’m not sure why as we had just exited it and I was unlikely to forget that quickly.

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My husband is not a beach guy, not an idle walker. He needs a destination and purpose…

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I told him pleasing his wife of 40 years should be motivation enough.

😉

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We had the beach to ourselves, but it was cool, dark, damp and hellaciously windy.

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As proved by my epic hairspray fail.

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On the far right side…

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The marina.

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In between?

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Lots of marvelous shore birds.

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Even my husband likes to watch those.

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It’s hard not to smile.

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The calm before the storm.

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As I sit here typing this post, a hurricane is blowing its way past us outside. Thankfully the worst of it will be felt to our north… and though we already have tree branches down and will probably lose power later this afternoon, I’m not too worried. Maine rarely sees hurricanes so people were panicking and buying every battery and bottle of water they could find, but we lived in coastal North Carolina for 17 years. That was the time to worry.

Last evening after putting away the porch and deck furniture, bringing bird feeders and hanging flower baskets inside and tying down the grill cover … we did what one does on the eve of a hurricane.

We went for ice cream.

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Cones in hand, we enjoyed the glorious show Mother Nature was putting on in the sky.

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These are untouched photos from my phone. It really was that fabulous.

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It was one of those sunsets you hate to see end.

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A perfectly revolting Christmas Eve.

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I’m sure I’m not the only who’ll be complaining today as it seems the entire United States was slammed by what they called a bomb cyclone event yesterday.

The wind? Insane. It gusted almost 70mph at our house.

The rain? A deluge that flooded roads, businesses, and homes.

Our nightmare started yesterday at 8:00am just as I was about to step into the shower. Bam! No power. Which meant no shower, sandwiches for lunch and dinner and an epic 13 hour gin rummy tournament by flashlight. Temperatures during the day were mild with a high of 52 degrees, but by nightfall it was frigid.

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Thankfully we have a fireplace…. and while it won’t heat the whole house, it did manage to keep the living room at 58 degrees when the outside temperature dropped to 7. Of course my husband the Marine runs the operation.

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Which means throwing giant logs on the top to get it truly blazing.

This does not always end well.

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Because sometimes the logs revolt and pop back out. Giant cloud of smoke, sparks that burned the carpet? You betcha!

But as we sat in the dark enjoying the smell of smoke and scorched Berber, the fun was just beginning. Yes, just as we were about to call it a day and go to bed… shingles started lifting and literally flying off the roof. We watched them sail into the backyard, the neighbor’s driveway and the road. Good times!

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Or not as it turns out.

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Five new leaks as of this morning.

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Did I mention Lord Dudley Mountcatten is utterly terrified of the fire? Positively and absolutely. He fled to the furthest reaches of our bedroom and cried nonstop. Which meant instead of sleeping on the relative warmth of the living room couch, I had to snuggle his highness in the frigid bedroom all night and got no sleep whatsoever because to top it all off? Our neighbor’s wood stove caught fire at midnight.

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Thankfully no one was hurt.

It’s 1:00pm now and we’ve been without power for 29 hours. I haven’t slept nor showered and just discovered it’s not easy to make tea and toast in a fireplace. I have to say …. I’m more than ready to fill the house with electric current. This pioneer woman thing is getting old.

🥺

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Here are a few pics I grabbed from friends.

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Our little downtown park.

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Not sure if you can tell, but the water is right under the bridge.

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Yikes!

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You’re looking at a pier and a parking lot. Or rather, you should be.

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We may be cold, dirty and hungry… but I’m still glad we don’t live there.

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Looks like winter is finally here.

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I woke up this morning to an old fashioned winter temperature.

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We haven’t seen this for a while so I can’t say it bothers me. And if it was a little colder like the northern part of our state, I might try this…

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Crazy cold doesn’t begin to describe northern Maine.

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Judging from the weather forecast, things are going to get interesting here on Saturday as well with an old fashioned N’or Easter.

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I say bring it!

I love the big snow dumps and we’re in the 10-20” zone so… yay!

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A day lily kind of day.

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I really wish they were month lilies.

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Because they’re a wonderful pop of color in the garden and a day just isn’t enough.

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I have them scattered here and there around the property.

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And while this dark pink is my favorite, it’s never grown larger… though I planted it 17 long years ago.

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This line of hostas and day lilies was here when we moved in… and though it’s not a good spot, I’ve yet to relocate them.

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This double ruffle is sweet.

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But the stormy sky behind my backyard patch?

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Not at all sweet.

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Birds in snowy trees.

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Sadly our snow is all gone, but here are a few pretty pics from our last storm.

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We have a few cardinals visit our feeders now and then…

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But it always surprises me that they show up en masses during a blizzard.

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Perfect winter scenes if ever I saw one.

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They spend most of their time huddled in the small apple tree.

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But every once in a while make a dash for the seed.

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With light fluffy snow? It doesn’t always end well.

🤣

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Well… time told.

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And I don’t like what it had to say.

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Not one damn bit.

Sadly after all the roofing repairs my husband and his friends did the other day… nothing changed.

It’s still leaking.

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So we went back up in the attic and realized the wood and shingles they replaced the other day probably weren’t high enough up on the roof.

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So now our ceiling looks even worse.

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And though he thinks he knows where to make the next repair?

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It was on the day our first N’or Easter started blowing in… so I doubt it will be anytime soon.

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He shouldn’t be happy, but he was.

 

He shouldn’t be happy we had high winds that brought down part of our choke cherry tree two nights ago.

 

 

He shouldn’t be happy.

 

 

But you know he was.

 

 

Because as soon as the sun came up?

 

 

He was out there.

 

 

Trimming weight.

 

 

Anxious for the fun to begin.

 

 

Ready!

 

 

 

You know he’s been itching to cut something down.

 

 

So he was one happy camper.

 

 

It had to be done, but when he started eyeing the rest of the tree?

I threw myself in front of it to save the poor thing from total annihilation.