It's the Birthday Fairy Again!

It is the eve of yet another of those birthday things! Funny how they come and go each year. Many thoughts are going thru my mind. I am working tomorrow, like a normal, regular Monday. I could have taken off if I really wanted to, but we didn't have anything special we were going to do, so it didn't make a lot of sense to take off to sit around the house for the day. Besides, I really wanted to be off on Friday so I could do what I need to get done before my daughter and her boyfriend come up here from Texas. And really, do I need to take a vacation day on my birthday? I think not. So I will work. But we will go to dinner in Burlington after I finish, and that will be nice. I would have loved for my sister and her husband to join us, but their schedules don't work out for a good dinner time. So instead they will come over here tonight to have dinner with us. We picked up some salmon this morning that is already marinated, and we will roast some asparagus, so it will be a very easy dinner. I did make some rolls:

I made these awhile ago, and they turned out yummy good, so I thought they would go well tonight. And for dessert, I ordered this cake from a very well known bakery in Burlington:

It is a Creme Brûlée cake! It is a yellow cake filled with rich vanilla custard and topped with a crunchy melted sugar topping. Doesn't it look wonderful? I can hardly wait to eat it! It'll be fun. Today has been a busy day; breakfast this morning with my sister and her husband, like normal. Came home and did 4 loads of laundry and cleaned the bathrooms and made the rolls and tended the fire in the fireplace. I almost didn't do a fire because it really is mild out. So mild that there is a hint of spring in the air. And a hint of sugar season in the air. It got up to about 43° which feels wonderful. But the heater was still coming on in the house, and it is nice to have a fire going if you are having guests over for dinner. And speaking of sugar season-we haven't tapped the trees yet, or we would surely be out collecting sap today. I'm sure it would have run. But it has just been such a frigid, cold winter, it didn't make sense to tap yet. They will do that next weekend. I only hope that it warms up a bit when my daughter comes because she is coming for sugar season and it will be a shame if nothing is flowing. But that is the way the sap drips! It is forecasted to be -2° when they get here Saturday night! They will be quite chilly considering it is 70° in Dallas today.
This morning 2 of my daughters ran a half marathon in Disneyworld. It was to commemorate one of their 30th birthday which was 2 weeks ago. I am so glad they had a lot of fun and ran it together. It sounds like they had a great time. It would have been really nice to be there, but I try to not think too much about it. I know it wouldn't have worked out for many, many reasons, but still... In the end, I'm just really glad it worked out for them.
My sister, who lived with us for several months bought a house ten days ago. I am so happy for them. It is a beautiful home and I know the,y will do a fantastic job with it. I can hardly wait to see the seasons evolve there, the setting is so pretty. I did go over for about 5 hours on my day off last Friday and helped unpack maybe 6 boxes. I feel like I should have helped so much more. I'm sure they have been overwhelmed, but it sounds like they have made some progress. I did have them eat over here on Wednesday night and then again tonight. I know its a long process, but I hope they will be really happy there. They are 8.5 miles from our house, and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. We won't see each other every day, but I know we'll see each other often. It is so nice having them close.
That's it. I think that catches up on the basics of life here in Northern Vermont. Winter is winding down, and even if the Polar Vortex does roar his angry head this way again, we know it won't be for a terribly long time. The new season brings lots to look forward to. Life is keen and cozy.

A New Year...Again! Welcome 2014

Once again it has been a long time since I have found the time to sit down and write a bit in this blog. Time has passed quickly since the week of Thanksgiving. It seems like I was doing a lot between then and now, getting ready for the holidays, baking cookies (of which we still have some left!) buying and wrapping gifts, and getting ready for the houseful of family we had that week. We had all but 1 child here, and all the grandchildren:

I need to upload the photos from my camera, but this one will do for now. It was a great Christmas, busy and active and a bit crazy, but oh, so much fun! We had an ice storm right in the middle of it all, and had to have 2 80 foot pine trees taken out on Christmas Eve so they didn't fall on the house. Here are some trees by the house after the ice storm:

 And the day after Christmas we got about 5 inches of snow which prevented everyone from venturing down to Burlington to walk around. But all in all it was a pretty special holiday. We went to the neighbor's for New Year's Eve, even though we didn't stay until midnight. And I've worked and turned the store around after the holidays, and have now settled into the post busy period into the calm and quiet and rather challenging dead time of year. 

On the home front,  I do see my sister at least once a week or so. They have begun looking at houses and hope to find the perfect one for them in the next few weeks. It is exciting for them, and I am anxious to see where it takes them. This morning they picked me up for breakfast (my dear husband is sick with a terrible cold) and after we ate we went to look at two of the houses they looked at yesterday. We just looked from the road. Both look nice, but I think I see them in one over the other. Both are close, about a 10 minute drive. I really hope we will continue to see each other often. 

Like I said, I have a sickie in the house. I have been fighting a lousy cough for about 2 weeks, and it finally seems to be winding down. I don't have coughing spells during the day anymore, and just a few coughs at night. Just the same, I have been sleeping in the basement for the last few nights for a few reasons: 1. I need to cough when I need to cough, and I found sleeping in my bed, I would wake up and try not to cough so I didn't wake up the man next to me, and I would end up having a horrible coughing spell. So I would leave the room and go downstairs so I could cough my head off, and sometimes that was at 1am and sometimes it was at 3:30am. Either way, it was hard to get back to sleep afterwards, so I found if I just slept downstairs I could cough all I needed and roll over and go back to sleep without any worry. 2. He is pretty sick and when I need to go to work I get up about 6:15am, and of course, this wakes him up. I am tiptoeing around trying to be quiet, while I know he is trying to sleep. So, by being downstairs I can cough when I want, get up when I need to, shower and dress in the light, and be on my way just as he is crawling out of bed. Besides, he is pretty sick, and I don't really want what he has-I'm still trying to get over what I have! I think another night or two, and I'll be back upstairs.

It's been an interesting start to the new year. The winter has been so unusual. Lots of ice, freezing temperatures of -13° with -30° wind chill, and lots of ice. Our driveway was such a solid sheet of ice I barely made it up in the morning, then I slid all over the place. We finally hired someone to put down a layer of salt and sand, and that helped tremendously. We haven't had too much snow, and yesterday it was 50° with rain. Who knows what the next few months will bring! But it is new, and that is good...

A Place of our Own

I have not posted in FOREVER! But I am sitting here tonight and finally felt like writing for a bit. August was a long time ago. A really long time ago, it seems. August is when my sister came to live with us. This morning she and her husband moved out. Not too far away, just down to the end of the street. They will be house sitting at our neighbors' for the next 3 and a half months while they are in California. And while they try to find a house to buy. I have had a really great time while they were here. It was nice to come home from work on days when she was off to find dinner nearly ready, and dessert baked and waiting on the counter. It was fun to sit around at the table after dinner chatting about our customers, how busy we had/had not been at work. It was wonderful to share doing the dishes after we ate, and to shop together for groceries once in awhile. We still can't believe that my brother-in-law moved in nearly 6 months ago, and my sister almost 4 months ago. The time went quickly, but then our work schedules were such that we rarely had the same days off. In fact, we think that yesterday may have been one of the only days that all four of us were all off. We went to breakfast at our old favorite, My T Fine, because our favorite waitress was back working for the day. We came home to do some laundry and they packed up their things in anticipation of the move. Then my sister and I made homemade pasta with her pasta machine, meatballs, and bread. We had a roaring fire going because it was brutally cold and windy outside. We wrapped gifts and knitted and chatted. We all ate dinner together by the fire with a nice bottle of wine to mark the end of this chapter, and to celebrate the fact that we were all still talking at the end of it all. I miss my sister 😢. But guess what? They are going to come here for Thanksgiving Dinner!!! And next Tuesday she has invited me to dinner over at their new house! I think, maybe, we will still manage to see each other pretty often. And now, maybe I will have more time to do things alone, like writing posts and reading books.

Dog Days of Summer

Yes, this is a Dog Day kind of afternoon! Normally we think of the Dog Days of Summer as those hot, sticky, muggy August afternoons when it feels like summer will never end, and you are trying to enjoy every last second of the lazy mood before the new season kicks in. Most vacations have come and gone, visitors have packed their baggage and returned home, and the new school season in on your mind, but only the TV commercials seem to accept the fact that its just around the corner. I can remember shopping for new school clothes in August with my mom when I was young. Of course we started out the new year in our summer clothes, so we were looking for fall and winter items that she would put on layaway until the weather turned colder. There must not have been air conditioning in the stores way back then, because I know I would try on winter coats and just agree to the first one so I didn't have to roast trying on any more. 

Today, though, it is a fabulous day. Sunny, mild 70's, and a light breeze. Going to breakfast this morning we saw patches of leaves beginning to change into their fall colors. The mornings are cool and the days mild, but we know what is on its way. I am sitting out on the patio enjoying the gorgeous view out the windows, watching the yellow finches at the bird feeder. It is so nice out here. This is my favorite place in the house at this time of the year.

And here is a picture of the cows being moved across the driveway this morning to graze in the other meadow. They love moving to a new field. 

There are only 11 cows out there, but it looks like lots more. One is a bull who is doing his best to make sure that the heifers out there produce new babies in the spring. We know we have a glorious autumn coming, and then the long, cold winter, but all is good up here in the north!

Summer Changes

Last week was Summer. From Sunday thru early Saturday it was hot, humid and miserable. We had 6 days of temperatures in the 90's, lots and lots of storms, and blazing sun when it wasn't raining. We often get hot spells like that, and they sometimes last for several days in a row, so I wouldn't consider it strikingly unusual. Tourists, however, were pretty surprised, especially those who thought they were heading north for cooler weather. They should have travelled south to Dallas. Sunday and Monday their highs were only in the 70's. Friday it was 98° when I drove thru Burlington and got on the highway. As I travelled home the temperature dropped to 70 by the time I pulled onto our road. The rains came about an hour later. Sunday was really nice. Cooler, drier and less humidity.

Today, it felt like Autumn. It was pretty sunny and nice in town, but still only 70° when I left work. It was cloudy, breezy and 57° when I got home. The house felt chilly and all the windows were closed up. I put pants on and now I have a long sleeve top on! I know it will still warm up,  but most of the daytime highs in the week ahead are only in the 70's, with an 80 here and there. Just like that, we forget that week of super hot weather, and we start to think about the colors changing on the trees and apples and pumpkins! It can change so quickly here, but that's what makes it fun too.

Other changes will be happening soon too, along with the change in the season. On Sunday my sister will join her husband in our family room to begin their lives in Vermont. We will all be trying to live together as one happy family until they sell their house in New Hampshire and find another to buy here in Vermont. They will both be living here because they have taken transfers with their jobs, and need to begin working here. My brother-in-law has been here since the first of June, and my sister will start her job on Monday. I know this won't always be easy, I know there will be days we will all be in each other's way, but I'm also excited to be able to have them closer and to share what we love about Vermont with them. A move is one of life's most stressful occasions, and I hope I can help them get thru it as easily as possible. It will be tough on them, and probably us too, but we will make it work, and in no time at all, they will be settled in their wonderful new home, and we will be able to share so much more of our everyday life with them. This is going to work out wonderfully! I will keep you posted!

A Warm, Rainy and Muggy Summer

It's July! Summer is well under way here in Vermont. This one has been very damp and humid, and the forecast shows mostly more of the same for 10 days out. We talk about the weather here. A Lot! Probably because it changes so much. You can never count on days and days of sunshine and consistent temperatures like you can in some parts of the country. I am finding the topic of weather is often brought up at work, especially now that there are so many tourists coming into the store. Many visitors aren't that bothered by the storms we have been having, and like to compare it to what they have at home. Most of the complaints are coming from the Vermonters who know that summer is extra short way up here in the north, and having so many days of unsettled weather means an even shorter time of nice days before the season changes again. Visitors are here for a week or two, and let's face it, no one comes to Vermont, even in July, for beach weather! I would have to say the absolute worst thing about this kind of summer is that the bugs are out in full force, especially the blood-thirsty mosquitoes. They are so horrible this year, everywhere. It's awful just taking the dogs down the driveway for their afternoon walk. One step in the grass and the mosquitoes swarm around the dogs and me. By the time we turn around to come back we run to try to outpace them. Sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't. ...but, it sure is GREEN here!

I did escape to Cape Cod for a few days the end of last month:

This is the beach a block from the house. 12 of us were all together in a big old house my niece and her husband rented. It was so much fun, and a great vacation. All of my and my sister's grandchildren, sister, brother-in-law, 2 daughters, niece and husband. Beach time, play time, book time, super-super meals prepared by a world renowned chef, We had great weather the whole time. A morning or two of fog that burned off by 10, but mostly sunny, warm days perfect for the beach and ice cream. It was exhausting, but a wonderful 5 days filled with lifetime memories for all. 

Magic

I live in a Magical Place!

On my way to work the other day, I snapped this picture of Sadie under the big maple tree. It was overcast, probably had been raining since that seems to be all its doing lately, and she had been laying down until I stopped the car. But something about the way it looks bright behind her, and the contrast of the dark branches and dark calf, and the green, green grass just looks like a fantasy-type place. I have a little elf door at the bottom of a tree across from the house, and I plant flowers around the rock walk way going up to the door. Tiny, little wild strawberries grow all around it. I have never seen an elf near it, but I can imagine them dancing thru the trees. 

The Elf Door

The forest is saturated with moisture this morning, everything dripping with the falling rain, and the leaves hang heavy with the weight of water. And if fog comes rolling in, then it truly seems like magic is happening out there. This is looking into the woods, just past the driveway:

The woods are thick and dense now. You can hardly see thru the trees. And they are probably packed with mosquitoes too. But it looks so mysterious out there, and there are times I can hear something moving around in the trees, but can't see what it is. Often it's just a squirrel or chipmunk, or maybe a turkey. But if you pretend real hard, it could be just about anything...