Plymouth at Christmas

Another fave place to visit in December is Plymouth.  Most of the gift shops are closed down for the winter but the lobster trap tree down at the docks is always worth checking out.

Lobster trap rocking chairs whaaat? 

Then I drove up and parked on Court Street and walked around.  I was bummed to see a lot of my fave stores are totally gone and windows papered up.  I did get to hit up a couple of my fave antique collectives though.

A little creepy no?

Definitely creepy.

The town tree.

I am a total sucker for vintage ornaments, esp. Shiny Brites. 

So many ornies, but no monies.

GAH!  I want this!

This too.  It's a beautiful stained glass chess set. 

I left with a few bits & bobs, but not near as much as I would love to have purchased!

Most Miserable Summer Ever

In the 7 summers I've lived here, only 2014 was excellent in terms of beautiful, dry days.  This one was the absolute worst.  The humidity has been off the charts almost every single day.  Add in being sick for over a month and having a great deal of real life stress, this year has sucked out loud.

We did something kinda cool earlier this month.  We went to a storage auction in Wareham cause Russell's addicted to that show 'Storage Wars'.  Fortunately these lockers go for far less than anything on the show.  We bid on, and won, a rather large unit and paid $58 with tax.  So that's not bad at all. Unloading it, however, was another story.  Multiple back breaking trips cause we had to have it empty within 36 hours.  We literally dumped everything in the back yard and covered it with a tarp. Most of the stuff has gone to the thrift shop but we've found a lot of cool things and more than made our money back on it.  The nice patio set alone is worth way more than what we paid. 

Anywho.  I took this pic of an unusual fly which was on the outside of the door, but it looks like it's clinging to the peace sign which is on the inside of the door.

The eclipse was just 'meh' around here.  We had 60% so it got dim, but it wasn't near as impressive here as it was in the states that got totality.  Some of my friends shot amazing photos.  

This hawk flew over as I was waiting for it to get darker.

This chair pattern shows the beginning.

And I had one suncatcher that was positioned perfectly to get a bite taken out.

 This was when it was at it's most coverage in my area, taken through my colander.

This pic got a lot of chuckles on FB.

So sort of dim but just looks like clouds covering the sun.

Dim'ish I guess.  That's the patio set we scored in the locker.  Not too shabby.

A couple pics of Sagan and his puppeh.

My friend Barit, who I have known since kindergarten, was moving and asked me if I wanted a jar of beach glass cause she just had too much.  Is that even a thing?  Too much beach glass? hahaha  We met up for dinner and she gifted me with this huge vase full!!!  Great to catch up and I so appreciate her thinking of me!!

I'd also been wanting to do a Harry Potter sign post so I got out the small soldering iron, sketched out the lettering on some pieces of wood that I'd cut into arrows, and started to burn.  I really love how they came out.....better than I expected.

I've been chipping away at my Grateful Dead bear but they didn't include enough floss in several colours.  I went to Michael's to get what I needed but when I got home, I was just so fed up with the skeins and skeins of floss that were in such a mess that it was easier to buy stuff for projects than try and find it in my stash.  I picked up some bobbins and storage cases and spent a week off and on 'bobbinating' the DMC floss and putting them in numerical order.  Now I can see what I have before I go off and buy one.  For example I have 5 bobbins of black, 4 of Christmas red, etc etc etc

I had to take a break on my Dead bears cross stitch while I bobbinated the floss.  This is the progress as of 8/25.  It's taken me 2 months to get to this point and this shows pages 4 completed (on the left) and the black outlining for page 5.  

Our 3rd wedding anniversary was the 17th but that was the weekend we did the storage locker and we didn't have a chance to celebrate properly, so last weekend we went up to Plymouth to have lunch at the Rio Brazilian Steakhouse.  It was quite good.  Brazilian Churrascaria dining is very popular here. There's a big salad bar and some hot food, buffet style, and then chefs come to your table with freshly barbecued meats of all kinds on skewers, and slice them at your plate.  You have a round thing on the table and green side means you want them to come and red means you are done.  We were stuffed!

Can't believe it's the end of summer already and we are coming into Labor Day Weekend, which is the last gasp for summer tourism here.  We will still get weekenders in September, usually retired folks who skip the summer crowds (but still make weekend travel a challenge for residents).  At least the weather has finally cooled off!

How Is It June Already?!?!?!

I feel like I just put the Christmas decorations away and it's already June.  Time's going by just waaay too fast.  

We had a quiet Memorial Day weekend.  We've had a ton of rain around here so when it was sunny, we had to take advantage of it.  The Saturday of that weekend, we went to the Wareham Flea Market and scored these 2 super cool, unique glass bottles.  They're so heavy....they must weigh a ton when full of liquid!

It was nice to be able to sit on the deck in sunny weather too, till the gypsy moth caterpillars arrived. Those things gross me out so bad.  We were visiting my inlaws and they were even inside the gazebo. Two of them landed on me and I about had a nervous breakdown, so Russell suggested I go treat myself to a cupcake, so I did.  

Pink flamingos looking worse for the wear after a couple of winters.

Gnomey is happy it's warm

Ebenezer

I thought this huge dragon fly was dead cause it looked like his wings were stuck in the web strands.  He was soooo still.  After I took, this I pulled a couple strands away, and it flew off!  

At least the rain has made for some pretty clouds and skies.  A huge and bright double rainbow was seen all over the Cape one night.  The pics posted on Facebook were beautiful.  I just get a lot of clouds which is fine too.

We got home from errands one day to find that Sagan had gotten ahold of an almost full package of lofthouse cookies, ate every single one and left the empty plastic clamshell on the floor.  I'd obviously left it too close to the edge of the counter.  The next day, however, we came home to THIS.  

We were sooooo not amused.  Sagan wasn't even sorry.

Hubs and my stepson trimmed the branches off of a tree for my mom.  The three of us worked really hard.  

It was way more of a job than I thought it'd be and now we have to cut up all the branches that were unloaded on the other side of the driveway.  

Cute li'l chipmunk.

We decided to check out a butcher shop up in Plymouth.  It's in an older, quieter part of town and I never stopped here thought I've driven past it a lot.  Piantedosi's is small, but packed full of delicious, fresh food, meats and Italian groceries.  I got a cheese lasagna that is to die for, and we were so pleased with the chicken wings as well.  Russell got some steaks too, and I picked up meatballs & sauce to make subs.

Walked around a bit.  Loved the signs in this part of town.

Russell told me that he used to deliver Coke at this old supermarket called Perry's, but he doubted it was still open.  We drove to where he said he remembered it was, and it was still open.  I wish I'd gotten pics of the inside cause it was like walking back into 1974.  He got a steak at their butcher dept. too, which he cooked up when we got home.  I even had a small piece and it was amazing.  He was literally in heaven!

Now I need to make some time for serious day trips!