Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas Eve


Merry Christmas Eve! We are taking it easy at home tonight and then headed out to see family tomorrow morning. Hope everyone has a happy holiday.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

First Snow


Well we made it pretty far without snow but now have about 5 inches on the ground. Luckily it was a beautiful day today, so some of that has already melted.

I have been amazed and in love with these little violets that are still in bloom in our cold December. I dug them out of the snow this morning and will be sad to see them go.

Friday, November 27, 2009

ThanksGiving Round 2 (posted a couple weeks later)




We had Thanksgiving dinner at Tony's Aunt and Uncle's house yesterday. There we about 22 of us in all. It was a good time, and we came home with some leftover pie, but no turkey or sides.

Instead we decided to go pick up our own turkey today (on sale) and made our own feast.
Turkey, stuffing, brussel sprouts, squash, garlic potatoes, and cranberry sauce. It was pretty good, but the turkey popup thing went off an hour early, which in turn made me end up rushing to do the sides, only to find out that in fact the turkey was not done. We had to put it back in the oven. At some point grease spalshed in the oven and started filling our house with smoke. Oh, and I forgot to saute the garlic and onions for the stuffing before I cooked it, so it came out pretty bad. Anyways, we tried.......

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

UGH.....


Been sick for almost a week now. Some kind of stomach bug....no fun. I missed 4 days of work, that is a new record for me. Tis the season.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Winter is Coming

....and a real post is coming soon too.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Bumper Meat?!?!



Tony has been out hunting a few times this season with no luck. He did however stumble upon what he calls "bumper meat". Yes, thats right, I am married to a hillbilly. One who picks up road kill ("it was still warm!") off the side of the road and brings it home to butcher. Well, not our home, cause I wouldn't let him do it here. Regardless we now have lots of venison in the freezer. As long as I don't think about what I am eating, it is actually very good. Its also going to save us some money this winter on our grocery bills. Dinner tonight was venison stew.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Waiting to Hibernate


I've been super sleepy for the past week. Think it has to do with working so much. My last few afternoons have been spent laying on the couch being lazy or napping. Luckily there is no school tomorrow so I can sleep in.

We had wood delivered last week. Now all we have to do it get it all stacked before the snow flies. Its a lot of wood to stack............

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

New Ride


Okay, okay......
A real post will come soon. I've been busy between weekends in connecticut and working nonstop to help make up for the loss of income from Tony being layed off last week (the good time keep coming!) I haven't gotten around to my poor old blog.
In the meantime, one good thing going on right now is my new car. It an 03 Honda CRV and I love it. Finally a reliable vehicle.
Monkey likes it too.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Coming Up For Air

This year is trying to break me.


I have had years in the past when I thought...this is the worst year ever......I tell myself again and again when Januarys come that this will be my year. Somehow though, my hopes tend to unravel with each pressing month.

In 2000, my grandfather got sick, then passed away, my boyfriend at the time cheated on me, and I was failing several of my college classes. I nearly convinced myself to drop out of school that year and move back home. Instead I got a fake id, started going out to bars, and somehow managed to survive that semester.

I graduated college in 2004, a year late thanks to having to retake chemistry classes (due to my crappy grades from the semester I talked about above). I quit working at the little aquarium shop I had been at all though college and decided to open my own business. For whatever reason (probably fear of doing it alone) I asked a girl I barely knew, and whom knew very little about the industry if she wanted to go into business with me. In just a couple quick months we had opened out saltwater aquarium store in a basement shop on the waterfront of Portland. We did nearly $100,000 worth of sales in the first year, yet as a start up business we had little to show for it. We spent countless nights going to the bars straight after work and I barely had enough money to pay my rent every month. It was at one of those bars that I meet my husband. After meeting him I realized that I needed to make some changes. I quit smoking and drinking on March 22, 2005. Thats when my relationship with my business partner began to fall apart. In April or May I knew it wasn't going to work anymore when I found out she had pulled money out of our business account to pay her rent, even though we had payed the business' yet. After lots of debate she decided that she would buy my share of the business. I made plans to open a new shop in Freeport, we drew up papers with our attorneys, and we ready to move on. I put a down payment on my new space and began moving into the apartment building Tony had just purchased. She and I scheduled a time to have her sign off on all of the paper work and finalize everything. I went in that day and she decided that she was not going to buy my share anymore. She had already resigned the lease to our space, without my name on it, changed the locks to our business, stolen all of our photos for advertising, and emptied out of bank account. She changed our business' website to advertise her new store. I got screwed. (There were also false claims made to police,and threatened restraining orders and other fun things going on)I lost out on a lot of money and had to scrape by to open my new shop. Three months after I opened, one of my electrical outlets caught on fire and caused a lot of smoke and water damage. I had to close for several weeks and never regained my momentum after that. That year felt pretty awful at the time. In 2006 we bought our house we are in now, moved to the boonies, and I eventually closed shop. Thats around the time I started this blog.

I think that this year probably takes the lead in bad years. Most of the challenges are things I don't feel comfortable posting to my blog, but it has been a year of heartbreak. I keep having this dream (nightmare) where I am drowning and just as I am about to reach the surface, I get sucked right back down to the bottom. That pretty much sums up this year. I do, however, think that I am surviving this year better than any of those other years, probably because they made me into a stronger person each time.


All that being said, it is time to move forward and make some changes once again. I am closing comments on this post because it was really only made as a means for me to vent a bit.
From here on out I will get back to my regular posting and start figuring out how to make next year a better year.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Testing

Playing around with photo sizes....bear with me.





Monday, September 21, 2009

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Missing

This summer officially blows. Ween is missing.....its been a week today. I don't have a good feeling about this one. We have had other cats missing around 5 days and then come home, but this is unlike Weenie.
We posted a bunch of signs yesterday and put flyers in mailboxes but haven't heard anything. I am trying to keep my mind off of it but am having a hard time doing so.

LOST CAT
MISSING SINCE 7/30/09

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Pink



The gardens seem to be in a pink phase right now.





Old Friends


I went back to my hometown in CT a couple of weekends ago to attend a friends wedding. It felt more like a reunion than a wedding though, as I got to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in years. We all grew up together and were a tight knit group for years, but as we got older, lost touch with each other. Part of the reason communications dwindled could have been that we all dispersed across the country. We started in Connecticut and between us have lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, Washington, California, New Mexico, and Florida. It was great to see everyone though, most of us married now. Hopefully we will do a better job this time round at keeping contact with each other.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Soon......

I am an awful blogger, i know. I shall try harder now that things are a bit calmer around here. For now here's some of what in bloom.