Thursday

The day here started out gray and rainy. Not much encouragement for getting out of bed and turning on that coffee pot, honestly. But that's okay...we need wet mornings like this one and meanwhile, every time I look at the forecast for the holiday weekend it looks a little better!

These red begonias are in a stone planter outside of the bank. I should have taken a picture of them earlier in the season when they were a little fresher looking. But they caught my attention this morning and so here you go.

There was a little upheaval at the Nest this morning, but nothing particularly monumental. We had suspected in the last couple of days that perhaps there was a leak in the gas line that comes up to the apartment, as there'd been the occasional whiff of the stuff. Today, Lenny pulled off the facing boards on the step ups from dining room to kitchen and bathroom, since the gas is piped in between floors there.

Naturally, it was only once that destruction had been done that it was discovered that the new stove was actually the source of the leaking...and it has apparently been a lucky thing that we've been sleeping with windows wide open so regularly lately. Anyway, the problem is all fixed, there's no more leaking and all is well.

In fact, I like the photo above not for the destruction (and that's no big deal--haven't painted ANY of the trim in the apartment yet...), but I like the way it shows off the red-orange-yellow progression from kitchen to dining room to bathroom.

Dykewife calls my string of lights "cheer lights" and I love that name, though I've never heard them called that before. I've always been a fan of the indirect light cast by these little lights and have often incorporated them in my living situations one way or another for years now. They ARE cheery, though. And another thing I wanted to point out, are the little balls made of grape vines. I got them on one of those novelty strings of lights years ago and love the way they make these great shadow designs on the walls. The shadows do something to the painting on the wall I really like.

I'll try to get some better pictures of what I'm talking about as far as detail of the painting work in the days to come. It's pretty late now and I ought to already have been in bed...but there's a few flower pics to round out the day.

On the way back from the bank, this bed of furry-flowered ageratum and yellow marguerite daisies called out to me from one of those traffic island gardens and so I stopped for a photo or two.

I'm pretty sure this fuzzy topped stuff in ageratum, though I've not grown this variety before. They ought to call the particular strain Animal, after the Muppet Drummer it so reminds me of.

These petunias are showing what end of the season it is, but I still couldn't look away from the rich purple flowers. Next summer I want to do more with petunias.

And here's some of our fall foliage, a blend of pretty Virginia creeper and sneaky poison ivy, climbing the side of a pine tree across the street from the traffic island, at the path entrance of one of Eastham's conservation areas.

Rainy Daze

As it was so many places in the Northeast, yesterday on Cape Cod was all about the rain. It's funny, how much more accepting of the rain I was when I had a nice big garden to benefit from the watering. Of course, that'll be the case again before long...but for now, the rain was just an annoyance, a difficulty in the day, the cause of perpetually wet sneakers.

Since my injured eye continues to be slower than expected in its recovery, my eye doc sent me off for a second opinion, which meant half an hour's ride through the heavy rains in plenty of traffic. Since the blurry vision in that eye also seems to be a sort of mental trigger encouraging me to want to sleep, the driving was a bit of a challenge. Happy to say I am still here.

This second doc has prescribed me a variety of drops, as well as some nighttime goop, to help heal my eye. In addition to the abrasion, which is healing, I also have something called corneal dystrophy, which she likened to being similar to when the grout that holds your tile in place loosens up...except of course, we're talking about my FREAKING eye.

And also, ironically, I have dry eyes...which just seems like final proof of the uselessness of the emotional tears, which have been in abundance the last few weeks, but seem to be tapering off a little lately (most of what remains may probably be attributed to the Nicodemon's little tantrums--after all, it's now been 71 days, 7 hours, 17 minutes and 53 seconds!!!).

Anyway, hopefully all that will help my vision to clear up as things heal. Meanwhile, the rain let up for a little while as I was headed home from work last night and although I wanted to get home to see what I could of the Debate, I also was happy to pause at Rock Harbor for a few minutes and stand out in the fresh sea air and snap a photo or two.



Once I was home and had some dinner, I stenciled a few leaves onto the living room walls, before settling down to call it a night. It's starting to look pretty cool...I wonder what I'll be able to accomplish on Sunday, my next day off.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, the laundromat calls me on the way to work...and it will be a full evening at work as we host a Comedy Night fundraiser for the local Pop Warner Football. There's someone billed as a "sports comedian"...so there'll either be jokes about football (oh, yay...), or perhaps its his delivery of the material that's athletic; we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure I'd remembered to tell you that the cool ceiling light fixture in the living room does indeed work, though I will be picking up a little putty to tighten up the loose light sockets. Just a utilitarian bulb in there now, as I work on the painting, but will be in the market for something a little more interesting later on.

There's a break in the Raining just now, though it appears that may be our theme for much of the next week. Tomorrow, we are to be enjoying some more storminess, as Tropical Storm (possibly by then, hurricane) Kyle will be passing by us, hopefully safely east of our location.

Fingers crossed.

Fat Tuesday Light Show

After the rain tapered off this afternoon, a thick blanket of fog descended over us with nightfall.

Since I enjoy playing around with different camera settings and love working with available light, it was kind of fun to play around with catching the lights of approaching vehicles on the ride home tonight.

It was this image, appearing to represent some electric parade, that reminded me that it was Mardi Gras!

Out With the Tree

With the Christmas season at its ultimate conclusion, and needles accumulating on the manger roof, the time had come to take apart the Christmas tree. But I didn't want to do it without a closer look at the tree topper this year.

I found this cool wicker star during the move and it was the perfect addition to the usual white dove. I liked that it was all-natural, but gave the tree a nice traditional (do I mean 'nostalgic'? Isn't that always a part of Christmas?)look.

Although I've been happy with the look of the plastic shimmery icicles, I still miss good old fashioned tinsel, which is not only a pain in the ass to deal with in the static-y winter season, but also not safe for pet friendly homes.

Anyone have any suggestions for something closer to that single strand of shimmer for next year?

Winter Comes Home

Having only recently moved in, the house remains in a bit of disarray, and some unlikely things are in spaces they might not normally be...such as this pair of potted canna lilies, who've begun growing during their last three weeks in my bedroom.

The lily of the valley on the window sill are, of course, fake.


Our snow continued for a little while longer this afternoon, its pristine white offering a nice back ground for the bones of last summer's Queen Anne's lace.



Here's our snowy street as I left for work. Note the glimmer of blue sky behind snowy clouds.


Around the corner from us, some folks have decorated this lovely little pine tree for Christmas, using those deep, rich toned LED light strings.

I think these lights make this tree a quiet beauty, especially now with a coating of snow on the ground, and it's been a welcoming treat for the eyes every night just before getting home.

Perhaps you've noticed I'm a little late posting tonight. With our outdoor current temperature of 16 degrees (Fahrenheit, for you Europeans...), I think you'll agree that tonight was hardly the ideal night for our furnace to give us the Finger.

Fortunately, we noticed the increased chill in the house before it was too late in the evening to want to contact our landlord, who brought an emergency service person over...and although they've both left not long ago, I'm very happy to say the furnace is working once again.

Snow

Some good old fashioned snow found us as the afternoon faded and by dark, we had almost half an inch. It seemed to take breaks between actually snowing and just blowing, though after a certain point its hard to be sure which is which.

By the time I got home around 10, there was closer to an inch of the stuff on the ground in some places and the temper
ature was falling. In no time, there was another half inch on the back porch.

Here's some non-flash photos of snowflakes whizzing past the outside light.

The Christmas Ball

So, tonight I thought I would take a break from the business of moving to celebrate the approach of Christmas, by focussing on this special piece of our holiday decor, The Christmas Ball.

(If I had access just now to my own computer, I'd have put together a more representative animated gif file to show it off, or maybe even a video, but alas, this slideshow is the best I can manage with current resources. Imagine it a little faster, with the different colors blinking independently of one another. Actually, if you go into the late December archives from 2006, you'll see it featured in the opening of our video Christmas card.)

Anyway, it's an interesting bit of our collection, created by my Granny at a craft class five or six years ago, and arrived to us on New Year's Eve. In daylight, it's not particularly impressive looking, but at night, it totally comes to life. It's crafted entirely of clear plastic cocktail cups, brass fasteners and little bits of plastic webbing. Each cup has a single bulb thrust through the bottom, and the rest of the light string is balled up tightly in the center.

Originally, it was stuffed with one of those "animated" light strings that has all the bells and whistles: flashing, fading, strobing, blinking, twinkling and so on. The second year we had it, we suspended it high in a tree, to show it off to as many neighbors as possible and to give it that Star of Bethlehem look. But a nor'easter made short work of that idea and it came crashing to the ground and began to fall apart.

The following year I rebuilt it, which is when it became a little more egg than ball-shaped. I had often thought it would be cool to make a bunch of these, and string them up in various trees throughout the yard. But that fantasy only lasted until I was faced with the complicated task of rebuilding the original.

This year, the Ball was the first piece of Christmas bling to make the move, and as always, has received a place of honor in our decorating scheme, just outside the living room window.

Icy Saturday

I had originally thought that I would spend some time Friday night unpacking some of the recently moved boxes, so as to bring the empties back to Eastham for reloading.

But by the end of Friday, there was really no energy to spare. I was thinking just illogically enough to know which six boxes I had to visit in order to set the bathroom up for a nice hot shower, before collapsing in front of the television before falling into bed a little while later.

Morning came quickly and after a cuppa joe, I got to work doing some unpacking and then heading off to Eastham to load up some more stuff. Temperatures had dropped into the 20s and stayed there on Saturday, so the driveways were a bit icy and tricky to manage, even with four-wheel drive.

Still, I was able to get another big truckload delivered to Harwich before needing to head into work for the night's festivities there.

When I got home around midnight, I discovered that Owen had found the box containing our Christmas inflatables, and they were dressing up the front of the new house, along with Granny's Christmas ball.

Scenes From A Move 2

Friday morning came early, but brought with it temperatures climbing into the forties, which meant clear roads for our multiple trips back and forth. I made my first right away, with the load of stuff I had intended to deliver on Thursday, before the heavy snows changed my plans.

Was nice to see Not Wisteria Lane blanketed with snow when I arrived, but with so many more trips to be made, there wasn't really time to linger. The second trip of the day saw the moving of "The Kids", Emily and Badum, and all their stuff. Here's a fun shot of the kitty distress...if only I could capture the sounds and scents of his full displeasure at traveling.


Although the temperatures worked in our favor, as you can see, the driveway was a bit of a mess by the fading of the afternoon.

We did get much accomplished, though some things (like, apparently, the contents of the silverware drawer)remained for another day. The last trip of the day was enjoyable, despite exhaustion, as there are pretty Christmas lights all along our route from old house to new.

The Snowy Day

The predicted snow arrived to us an hour earlier than expected, starting to flutter out of leaden skies around noontime.





It didn't take long for it to begin sticking and start piling up. We were quickly getting reports at work of bad road conditions from out there in the world.





By late afternoon, plans had been made to shut down the restaurant and to reschedule our evening event for next Thursday, and we found our way to our cars and home through the messy winter wonderland around us.


It was no picture print by Currier and Ives, but the day had its prettier moments.


I enjoyed arriving in Eastham to see that they had finally gotten the traditional Christmas lights up on the windmill


The storm's about drawn to a conclusion now, leaving us with a little better than six inches of snow. Fortunately, temperatures are supposed to rise in the morning, so perhaps we won't have to much around with too much shoveling as we make the last of the Move happen.