60th B-Day Celebration

Heading down to the cottage to help Mom and Becky get ready for Dad's 60th Birthday party on Saturday. Happy Birthday, Dad!

A Busy Weekend

I think this is the first weekend all summer that I haven't gone to the cottage. Jay and I had a busy agenda this weekend.

First, there was a trip to New Bedford and then a little bit of Rock 'n Roll!

Then Jami and Andy had us over to their new house for dinner. Drew put on quite a show!

And then on Sunday, my dad and I acted in a play called "Softly Speak the Stones." The play told the story of 8 people buried in the old town cemetary and was part of my neighbor's Girl Scout Gold Award. I was Hannah Farrington, who was 37 in about 1800, and I spoke for my triplets, Emaline, Oliver, and Fisher, who passed away soon after birth. My dad played Deacon Francis Nicholson who was one of America's first documented makers of planes, a device with a blade used to smooth out rough surfaces of wood. He was also know as the master of the slave Cesar Chelor. Nicholson taught Cesar his trade and upon Nicholson's death, he willed Cesar his freedom, as well as enough land, tools, and stock to start his own business. Cesar Chelor became the first African-Americn plan-maker and some of his planes are included in the Smithsonian Museum's Anacostia Collection.

Our Favorite Things!

Here's my favorite thing in my home (right now anyway). It's the cutest little tray decorated with a fawn. I have it on my rescued apothocary chest in the living room and put spare change in it.

I have to post this one too. For as long as I can remember this beautiful blue goblet sat on the mantle of my Grammie & Grampie's house in Cape Cod. They moved into an assisted living facility about two years ago and I got to bring it to my home. I love, love, love it! I put a votive in it and it looks so nice.

Stained Glass

I found the best website EVER! I absolutely love homemade crafts. I sometimes fancy myself to be a crafter, but I have neither the time, skill, or patience to be a real crafter. Anywho, this website is ETSY and it's kinda like EBay, where a gazillion different sellers can post their goods -but it's not an auction and they only sell homemade items. Here's what I splurged on yesterday:

It's a stained glass froggie. I bought another, but I can't find the picture of it. I'll add a pic when I get it. I LOVE stained glass window catchers. Here's a few from my collection:

That one's a 3-D window catcher. It's in an old window from and has tree branches in it. The tree branches have stained glass leaves and a stained glass moon attached to them. It's called "Blue Moon" and I got it at North Quabbin Woods a few years back. The artist is amazing and has items for sale there.

These two were give to me by my Grammie:

My sister gave me this stained glass wind chime a few years ago and then last year she gave me the canoer.

Lastly, this is a yard sale find from this summer. I haven't hung it up yet, but it looks pretty cool just sitting on a table.

Memory Lane

One of my girlfriends from High School was home this weekend to plan her wedding! So the girls just had to get together for some good food, beer, and cackles. Here are the girls: me, Rachel aka the bride, and Jami.

And now here's a picture of us on the day we graduated High School! Thirteen years later, and we are still such good friends. I had to throw this one in here for a few giggles. This is Rachel and I from the Spring of 1995.

And finally, I got to meet the infamous Brian - Rachel's super nice and handsome fiance. Way to go Rach! Can't wait to see guys walking down that aisle all married-like!

A Perfect Day at the Cottage

Hank and I spent another day at the cottage. With temps at home hitting 95 and mucho, mucho humidity, camp was a lifesaver. Hank and I must of spent 4 hours in the water!

Jami and Drew came for the day - yeah!!! It's always a good day when Jami and Drew are around. Drew LOVED the water, but was especially fond of the sand. I don't think I've ever seen a kiddo take a bite out of the beach. Drew put his face right into the sand and got a mouthful of sand!

Here's Momma Sue modeling her new bathing suit and sun hat. And Hankie and I pooped out on the hammock at the end of a busy day. And two of my all-time favorite people - John and Lorraine!

Another Cape Cod Day

Spent my afternoon yesterday at Scusset Beach. The water looked as blue/green as a Carribean sea, but was way colder! I spent my afternoon catching crabs at the jetty - I got soaked! And then a co-worker and I set up an educational display on the beach all about crabs. We had touch tanks with hermit crabs, rock crabs, sea stars, and snails. People loved it and about 100 of them came over to check out the crabs.

The best part was that we got to use the Gator to drive on the beach to put our stuff away. Of course we got stuck about three times and had to do a 74-point turn in front of about 1000 people!

Heading to the cottage this evening for the weekend. Enjoy the sun!

Frustration

Why can I not remember to take my freakin' camera with me? I left it at work....grrrr.

ABC's of Amy

A. Attached or Single? Attached
B. Best Friend? Jami
C. Cake or pie? Peach Pie please
D. Day of choice? Sunday
E. Essential item? Splenda, otherwise I couldn't drink my coffee
F. Favorite color? Green, blue, and orange
G. Gummy bears or worms? Gummy bears
H. Home town? Wrentham
I. Favorite indulgence? Mint Oreo Blizzard from DQ
J. January or July? July
K. Kids? No way!
L. Life isn’t complete without? A dog
M. Marriage date? To be determined
N. Number of brothers and sisters? two younger sisters
O. Oranges or Apples? Oranges
P. Phobias? spiders (only if they are on me) and driving in big cities
Q. Quotes? Don't know any good ones off the top of my head.
R. Reasons to smile? A warm summer day and a cool beer.
S. Season of choice? Fall in New England is so sweet.
T. Tag 5 people: I don't have 5 people to tag
U. Unknown fact about me? I spoke to Brad Pitt on the phone once
V. Vegetable? Asparagus
W. Worst habit? biting my nails
X. X-ray or Ultrasound? x-ray
Y. Your favorite food? Thai food
Z. Zodiac sign? Sagitarius
Z. Which zoo animal is your favorite? I feel bad for zoo animals. But I think I like the nocturnal room the best.

Crazy Lady

Ok, so every once in a while you run across someone who is crazy. Not just a little odd, kinda wacked, marching to the beat of their own drummer crazy. But someone who is certifiable CRAZY, scary crazy, unbelievably crazy. As in their brain does not work anywhere near the way most people's brain works.

Today was one of those days. My guess would be that this lady's craziness was caused by a life of hard drinking, hard living, and hard drugs. Here's a few stories she told me:

• In Maine, there are a number of toddlers who have gone missing recently and the fisher cats are taking them and eating them. Seriously, WTF? How do you respond to this? And her grandfather kills every fisher he sees so they'll stop taking and eating the babies. OMG - CRAZY!
  


• A few years ago a drug smuggling plane crashed in Maine and all the packages of cocaine spilled onto the forest floor. A grizzly bear (no grizzly bear's in Maine-only black bears, and I have my doubts about drug smuggling crashed planes) found the cocaine, ate it, and went crazy. Local officials had to call the FBI in to find the drug-crazed bear and kill it. The lady was quite suprized that I hadn't read about this in the papers. She also said something along the lines of "Can you imagine all that cocaine the bear had? I mean, I've seen a lot of cocaine, but man that must of been a lot!" Hmm...she's seen a lot of cocaine? I would have never guessed.
  


• She just her three pet flying squirrels go. She's had them for years and every fall she has to go collect acorns and scrape lichen (which she pronounced 'lick-en' - rymes with chicken) from trees so that the squirrels could eat all winter. But now since she got thrown out of her apartment, she had to let them go.

I have conversations about wild animals all the time as it is my job to connect people with natural resources in an intellectual and emotional way. This lady can't make normal connections. She was completely effed. But my co-worker and I did have quite the laughs after we told her we had a meeting to go to and then got the hell away from her!

(Pictures are by Bill Byrne at www.masswildlife.org)

The Day of the Dentist

You would think that a post with this title would be horrific. But for a day that I had to get a cavity filled, it turned out pretty good!

Since I had to leave work early for my dentist appointment, Jami and I made plans to go get a late lunch of Thai food at the Dahra. We LOVE Thai food! This is how much Jami loves Thai food: when she opened up her menu, she turned to me and warned me that she was going to order Thai rolls but that I couldn't have any because she wanted to eat them all! I totally understood. I had Veggie Pad Thia - - - Yummy.

Then I got home and took Hank for a nice walk before a thunderstorm came rolling in.

And when we got home, Jay was making pizza for dinner! What a good guy!

Birthmark Remark #1

So I have a big pink birthmark on my face. No big deal; has never really affected my life. I could get rid of it, but I kind of like it. Every once in a while it sparks some pretty interesting communication with people. This one happened over the weekend and it's one of the funniest of all the birthmark remarks I've ever heard.

At the cottage this past weekend, I was hanging out with my little cousins. Maggie is 4 and Meghan is 3. Maggie noticed my engagement ring and asked me why I had it. I explained to her that it meant I was going to get married. With the cutest quetioning look, Maggie asked "You're going to get married even with a birthmark?" So yes, even with a birthmark (and a big pink one at that), someone wants to marry me! Imagine that! Out of the mouths of babes!

July 4th Weekend at the Cottage

Hank and I spent the last few days at the cottage on Fearing Pond. We are both completely worn out, but we had a blast!

The cottage.



I got to spend a lot of time with my sister Jessie and my neice Thea May. Here's Thea taking a camp-style bath.




I took Hank and Koa for a nice canoe ride around Fearing Pond the first night we got there.


My mom's birthday is July 3rd, so we had lobster dinner and yummy cake that night for Momma Sue's b-day celebration.



It was very sweet to meet two new members of the Fearing Pond Brat Pack for the first time. Here's Graham and Casey - may they love camp as much as I do.




And then we just enjoyed being at the pond with a bunch of little kids.




Here we are tuckered out and ready for bed.