It's been a very busy last few months!!! I know I've been posting mostly photos because, well let's face it, I'm a shutterbug and very much enjoying re-exploring the stomping grounds of my youth.
I have been having a BLAST seeing all my friends. I knew I was lonely on the west coast, but I didn't realize just how lonely till coming back here.
One rainy day in mid-September, I went up to see my friend Jen, in Cohasset. We'd worked together at Channel 56, in the late 80's. We had a delicious lunch of squash soup, vegan quiche and fresh fruit, then settled down to do some beaded cross stitching. Jen is working on a really cool cow kit, and I started my Mr. Bones kit at her house that day. Here is the finished project:
And here are both Mrs. & Mr. Bones together. I am not sure what to do with them now that they are done. The kit came with magnets to put on the back, but let's face it, there's just no room on my fridge and my squeeze finds skeleton art somewhat morbid.
I shot the above photos on my craft table in the early evening, using both my
Ott light and the camera flash. When I turned off the Ott light to leave the room, imagine my utter surprise to see some of the thread glowing in the dark. I had no idea that the special Kreinik 'grapefruit' floss had this property to it. Sorry for the blur but I had to keep the shutter open long enough to capture the glow.
Apart from shooting copious quantities of photos, seeing my friends and taking Pepper for walkies, I've been helping my mom a lot with whatever chores and/or errands that need to be done, including planting some mum's at dad's grave downtown.
Pepper has had more excitement since we moved out of the house on June 23rd than she has in the last 6 years. She's still very clingy and wants to be with me, and/or us, 24/7. My mom LOVES her fuzzy grandchild, but who wouldn't? Pepper is an adorable and sweet little doggie. She loves the beach, although I am reluctant to let her plunge totally into the water just in case I need to go in and haul her back out. I'm just so vigilant and afraid something might happen to her. After she floundered in the deep tide pool at Cannon Beach in Oregon, and I had to wade in to carry her off the rock she clambered on and refused to get off, I'm just not sure I want her to get into a situation that she can't get out of and panic. But I don't mind letting her off leash at low tide. We took a walk at Sagamore Hill and I let her off leash then, and again during a very brief walk at Myles Standish State Forest. Said walk was brief because it's pheasant season and some hunters fired 2 rounds way too close to the trail for our comfort, so we hastened back to the car and left.
Speaking of walking, I took a great walk on the Canal with my new old friend, Ginny. I say 'new old' because I am sure I met her at some point in the past, but I don't remember it. Although she went to Bourne High and grew up in Sagamore, she knows a lot of people from Sandwich because her mom worked there. My dad used to get his hair cut at her mom's shop, and Ginny correctly described my squeeze, who she used to see in the area, since his uncle's oil company was next to her mom's shop too. Small world! I look forward to spending more time with her. Her mom and my dad always performed in the Lions Club Minstrel Show, and she told me that she always went to the after-show party on the first night, as did I, so I think we probably must have met at one of those parties but we just don't remember because it was so long ago. She's battling breast cancer and we made it almost all the way to the Bourne Bridge and back, which was epic.
Money's tight but it always is when you start over and have to rebuild. It's really OK....as long as we have enough to pay our expenses, rent and truck repairs, I'm happy. I don't need any more 'stuff' and I have enough craft supplies to keep me occupied for years. I've kicked around getting a job but let's face it, I am really enjoying being a stay-at-home girlfriend with the flexibility to do what I want, when I want, with no set agenda. I thought I'd miss working but I don't, not even a little bit. Being voluntarily unemployed is a real novelty to me. It's done wonders for tempering my road rage and all around anger management issues that I had on the west coast. And bonus: He gets to come home to a relaxed, happy, mellow person, rather than the stress-case I was when I worked and commuted.
I finally met his immediate family and they are the best, the nicest, and the sweetest people. I hope I made a good impression, as I felt a little bit shy. It's going to be so awesome to be a part of his family, especially now that so many of my own relatives have passed on or moved away. I got to thinking, as I sat on his sister's front porch one lovely Saturday in October, how much I missed that familial interaction.
Returning home at this point in my life was definitely the right move, especially to be with the love of my life. I was only 23 going on 24 the last time I was here in the fall. Back then I ached for excitement, different stuff to do, different things to see, new places to go. The west coast beckoned to me and that relocation was right at that point in my life. Now that I'm 46 going on 47, I just wanna climb into my jammies at 2:00 p.m. and enjoy peace and quiet. It was an amazing ride out there in the wild west, but it's good to be back and operating at a slower pace.
My mom was in the hospital for a few days in October; she'd passed out due to a drop in blood pressure, so I stayed in E. Sandwich for three nights when she got out to make sure she was OK. The downside of staying at her house is that she has no a/c, and it's still so remote out there that you can't even steal someone else's wireless internet signal, so I was really missing Facebook and the blogosphere. I was extremely distressed at the vast quantity of ticks that Pepper picked up at her house. I don't know how she got them, since she did not get near any tall grass that I know of. I took her for an on-leash walk to the cranberry bog and she came back loaded with them. I was horrified and bumming hard having to pick them all off her, especially the ones that had attached themselves to her and were swollen with blood *shudder*. I had to get a tick collar. I don't know why they are still out this late, except that we did have several extremely warm and humid days into late October. I also saw a ginormous coyote trotting through the back yard. I've only ever seen coyotes as roadkill, never that close. I was
very startled and was somewhat paranoid about taking Pepper out after dark, even on the leash.
While over at mom's, I was going through some of her many unfinished photo albums, bummed that I didn't have a scanner, or else I'd be a scanning maniac. I did, however, shoot photos of some of the photos for giggles.
My dad was always a Flora Dora Girl in the annual Lion's Club Minstrel Show, back in the 70's. He's the buxom blonde on the far right.
Me at my grandmother's apartment in Yonkers, NY, November 1968.
One of my oldest and dearest friends, Sheila and I on our First Communion day, spring 1972. We met in Kindergarten and are tight, even though she'd moved to Orleans, up the Cape apiece, at the end of 2nd grade.
This is my mom's twisted sense of humour.
Good lord could my dress
be any shorter? And dig that red, white and blue knitted poncho. Taken on the first day of school, I think 3rd grade, September, 1972.
Remind me again why I beat myself up for being fat in high school? Memorial Day Parade, May 1980, end of 10th grade. I carried the Commonwealth flag, Jennie handled the Stars n Stripes. We were both filling in at the last minute for the regular flag carriers, and so we are taking parade instruction from the Color Guard Coach.
When I got back home from mom's, I treated myself to my annual late fall viewing of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and wept off and on throughout the movie, saving the sobbing for the end, as per usual. Oh and I
also treated myself to a
Marshland Restaurant Halloween-themed cupcake. It was nummy and the skull was made of hard sugar and edible.
In other mindless news, I'm #1 in the Cape Cod Network in the Hatchlings game on Facebook. I haven't held the top spot in a network since the winter of 2008. That just shows you how much free time I've had lately.
I've been really enjoying the silly monsters that have been released for the Halloween season. They are so adorable.
I had thought about decorating for Halloween but I just didn't feel like repacking all the stuff I just unpacked not too long ago, in order to put out the Halloween stuff. As it turns out, we are going to be out of town for Halloween anyway so I'm glad I didn't go through all the decorating machinations. We'll be in Maine helping my squeeze's niece move. Back in September, she'd asked us if there was any way we could come up to help her, so that also played a lot into my decision not to decorate. I am so stoked to see my bff Michelle too!!
At the rate I've been posting pictures, the Maine photos won't be up on my blog till late November since I'm publishing on an every-other day basis. I'll check in again soon!!
