George

I just had to share this; it was one of those “makes me very happy” moments.

We have a friend, Ms. M, who is in the hospital right now, so I scoot over to her place to check her mail and phone messages every day.  This morning there was a message on her machine from George.  It was wonderful;  he had this gravel-y old voice that was precious as it could be (I’m sure he would love me calling him precious) and he announced himself as her old classmate. I have to admit I googled him, and found out that he did indeed attend high school with Ms. M…he graduated in 1936.  So it has been, very likely, 73 years since they have seen each other!  Maybe not that long, but he had a wonderful old laugh that seemed to imply it HAD been that long since they had seen each other.  He went on to say “I’m still here (Ms. M is 91 years old; I assume he is close to that too) and I wake up every morning just as suprised as can be!”

I can’t wait to see Ms. M tonight and see if she remembers him.  I’d love to hear a story about the good ol’ days; her memory is failing a bit these days (although so is mine!) but maybe she has a recollection or two left of her old classmate.  Wouldn’t it be great if she could call him back?  The stories they could share!

Anyway, his “wake up every morning just as suprised as can be” makes me remember that I need to “wake up every morning just as grateful as can be”.   That’ll be first on my agenda when my son wakes me up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. 

Anybody want to buy a house?

Ok, well, Erick let the cat out of the bag on facebook, so I figured I could let all of my bloggy friends in on the know; we are selling our house.  The one we have been in exactly one year this month.  It’s all rather overwhelming right now, especially because this housing market is simply laughable right now.  As in funny, haha, tears streaming down your face, are you kidding me?  laughable.

However!  The sell of this house could quite simply put us back in the town we truly love, and into a smaller mortgage.  Closer to church.  Right near my parents. Into a place that I have adored for a long, long time.  So it’s a GOOD thing.  Gone, however, is that summer of leisure I was imagining.  We still have quite a bit of work to do on the place;  in the meantime, for some insane reason, houses are popping up for sale all up and down our street.   All very valid reasons, but talk about timing!  And looking at selling prices, we are quite resigned to the fact that we will not be recovering all of the money we put into this place.  But that is ok; the last year we have learned such an incredible amount, in every area imaginable, that we are actually willing to “pay” for the experience.

Yesterday my mother in law took the boys, and Erick and I cleared out most of our belongings to store, enabling us to work with a “blank slate”.  It is SO much easier this way.  But WOW it zooms me right back to last year, running to the gas station for a slice of pizza so we can getbacktoworkalready.  It’s all rather surreal, actually.  The really, really neat thing?  I have to actually admit that we’ve done a pretty good job on this house.  Once the details are wrapped up, I can just picture someone peeking in the window and saying “Yes!  This is IT!”  I think we have really lightened and brightened the place up, and we are going to throw in a few extras, so I’m hoping we can be competitive enough to sell, and soon.   So I’ll be sharing pictures with you soon, albeit of empty rooms.  We aren’t even going to consider staging, not with what we have to work with.  And when every penny we are spending right now is pretty much guaranteed not to be recovered, we can’t afford to buy new, pretty things.  So we’ll just hope someone can look inside and see completely-ready-to-move-in-potential.

So there!  I actually would covet your prayers.  We have a long road ahead of us.  And if you know if anyone looking to move to fabulous Maine, send them my way. 

Is that SUN I see?

Sun outside?  Goodbye four walls!  Hello outdoors!  Seeing as though it appears you may hide behind the clouds the next few days again…we’d be crazy not to take advantage of the free Vitamin D we are so desperately  in need of.

Sooo…excuse the load of pictures, but I went a little camera happy today.  We drove to Moose Point State Park and enjoyed the coast; I love the fact that the woods meet the water.  Seems to be everyone else had the same idea-it was the busiest I have EVER seen this place.  Not even turning my head, using tunnel vision, I counted about 16 sailboats in my line of sight.  Are we all a little stir crazy?  I think so! Oh Happy Day!

Our hike:

The playground:

The water; tide was out…major tide pools to investigate!

And to wrap things up; a good ol’ game of catch.  I love these pictures-Ryan had been bonked in the nose  with the ball, and Erick had him laughing about getting hit in the “schnoz”…

still laughing…

Other than a bonk in the schnoz and a minor scrape for Jack in which he cries out “Go Away Boo Boo!  Go Away Now!” it was a mighty successful trip!  Thank You Jesus for small blessings.  We love the sun.  :-)

 

 

Reporting from the Soggy Northeast

Blast it.  I am so tired of this endless gray, as I sure everyone in the northeast is, by now.  I mean, what is it?  A month straight?  Ok, maybe 3 weeks.  But might as well be a year, actually.  That’s sure what it feels like.

Earlier today, I saw a bit of blue sky outside, so I said “Come on boys!  Lunch, quick, then we’ll get dressed and walk down to Big Bill’s for an ice cream.”  Unfortunately about 2 minutes later it was pouring outside.  Plan B; pop in some Charlie Bird and Ella Elephant and Philly Joe Giraffe CDs to jazz us up a bit, and partake of the Klondike Bars from the freezer.  So it’s been a good afternoon anyway, filled in with some dancing and wresting and hide n seek.  And I highly recommend these books and CDs-you can get a great deal on Amazon.

My dad uses them for his classes, so the boys get good use out of them too.  The cds are FUN.  They make you wanna boogie and belt out some tunes, which is a good thing on a day like today!  There are 4 or 5 more in the series, too.

In the meantime, Erick hopped over to our house (we are staying at mom and dad’s while they are away) to see if he could get some painting done in our bathroom and the boy’s room.  Low and behold, our practically watertight basement was no longer watertight, so he has been salvaging what he can from our sodden boxes.  Fantastic.  So much for a short, productive trip today…

Well, I hope you all are having a sunnier 4th of July than we are.  We are going to grill some burgers on the indoor Cuisinart Griddler that mom and dad own, and hope for a half-way clear sky tonight to have some sparkler fun of our own.  I don’t think we’ll go cruising to a big show tonight-we’ll be seeing fireworks in a week or two that are just a walk down the street.  And I’d rather do that than get stuck in 10:30 pm traffic somewhere. 

Have a happy weekend!

Last Saturday

Mom and Dad are off today for a couple of weeks in CO and NM, so last Saturday we took the day to travel a bit, while Erick and the boys had an amazing day at Uncle Joe’s house, doing fun lake-house things like some good ol’ catch and release, paddle-boating, and s’more eating!

(what was good for this momma’s heart to hear is that they did, indeed, find Jack a smaller life jacket than the one in this picture!)

The boys, in fact, still smell like a camp-fire.  We’ll have to visit you again soon, Uncle Joe!

As for mom and dad and I, we had decided at the last minute to head up the Stonington way, but were jabbering so much that we completely missed the turnoff!  So off to Belfast we went, with a stop at one of our favorite stores, The Cherished Home.  Then downtown…where we decided we’d stay all day, only to change our minds; Freeport was kicking off it’s free summer concert series with Madeline Peyroux that evening.  Inbetween Belfast and Freeport, we made stops at Boothbay Harbor and Wiscassett, taking pictures right and left.  What a DAY!  We covered some good ground and had a spectacular time.  And the weather actually cooperated!

(This last one cracks me up-they are a couple of boys that were at the concert.  Eagerly ran up to one another and then just stood there, checking each other out.  Made me miss my boys; I think we’ll bring them to one soon; Patty Loveless will be playing on the July 4th weekend, and Blue’s Travelers won’t be far behind…thank you, LL Bean!)

Today, Grammy is coming over and we are all heading to Portland to pick up Uncle Josh’s car and mom and dad’s car at the airport.  Should be quite the caravan home!  We are making a stop at Chuckie Cheeses; we’ve been there once, in March of ‘08, and these boys haven’t forgotten about it.  Should be another day to remember!

Have a great week, ya’ll.

More Family!

What a great June this has been!  My bro and sis-in-law were here earlier, of course, and now my bro-in-law and his sweetie Erin are here from California.  We’ve had a ball with them so far; yesterday Nonnie and Papa took Ry and Jack, and the rest of us (mom, Josh, Erin, Erick and I) took off for Bar Harbor on the most beautiful day we’ve had in awhile.

The fog parted on top of Cadillac Mountain, which gave us breath-taking views of the islands like those below-I must have taken 30 pictures just like this:

Gorgeous!  It was nice and warm on top of the mountain, and there were scads of people there.  Yay for tourists!

We ate down on the pier, did some window shopping, watched the bros play football, and took in a movie at the end of the day.  It was fantastic.  And Erin, we LOVE you!  You have our official stamp of approval, haha!

Inspiration

Is this great or what?!  Snagged it from the DIY Newsletter.  Lovin’ it.

Food, Inc.

When I found out that Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farms and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm were involved in this movie, I knew it would be incredibly trustworthy.  Although I haven’t watched it yet, I have no qualms about encouraging you to see this film.

Click here to find out more information!

Alan Claude’s 2010 Calendar…it’s so nice to already know what I’m going to have!  Isn’t it fun?

Today is Erick’s first official day of summer vacation.  And my dad’s birthday…happy birthday dad!  We’re going to celebrate tonight with homemade pizza and strawberry shortcake-gotta use up last year’s strawberrys; berry pickin’ season is a little over a week away!  So excited to see what adventures this season will bring.    Happy Weekend, everyone!

Time Together

Before I get to the week with the fam…mom and I saw UP yesterday.

Oh my word, ya’ll, it was so good.  I don’t know about taking the boys to see it just yet-there are some dogs that can get pretty menacing (and then delightful, in equal turns)…we’ll see how it goes.  But we certainly enjoyed it.  Hilarious and very, very poignant.  I think it’s one of the best Pixars yet.

Anyway!  I’m at mom’s house  today, so I have access to pictures-we had a great time with Dan and Caisee.  Evening walks, homemade mexican food, visits to Freeport, Wiscassett, Bar Harbor, Camden, even a sleepover with the house filled to the brim.  Good times.

Standing in line at the infamous Reds-and we didn’t have a very long wait, either!  Woohoo!

Aunt and Uncle in Bar Harbor

Jack learning a few tips from the artist

evening at the playground

our fave picnic spot in BH

family pic!

It’s a good life.