Friday Five

1. We celebrated Independence day by having a nice quiet day at home. Okay, sort of quiet. We life across the street from what we call a party lake. There are numerous boats and jet skis as well as no less than three different locations that hold their own fire works. They don't wait for just the 4th either. We've been watching fireworks from our living room windows for several nights. Monday night we had a bon fire in our back yard and watched the fireworks through the trees.

2. Wednesday we drove up to Maine to do some work on the new house. Boy, does it need a lot of work! The nice thing is that the owner is letting us do pretty much what we want. There are some things he is taking care of (new septic system, plumbing repair in the kitchen, new kitchen flooring, new roof on the shop) and others he is leaving up to us. We decided the wall-to-wall carpeting needed to go. He okayed it, and we went to work. It's going to take a bit to get it all up, but it's going to be worth it in the end.




3. We're starting the serious business of sorting and packing. We both want to exercise some "tough love" and weed out things that we just don't need. We're off to a pretty good start, hubby took a truck load to the town dump today. Some stuff was thrown away while other things ended up in the swap shop. You know that saying, one man's junk is another man's treasure? Well, sometimes one man's junk is just plain junk! I'm going to have to lock my inner-frugal-New-Englander in the closet and not fall prey to the ole "I might need that some day".

4. We really did enjoy getting to spend our first night in our new home- even if we were sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor. The location is beautiful and the house gets lovely sun all day. We have a beautiful viewing of the sunrise, and while we don't have a clear view to the west, will still be able to see the sunset. There were a few moments of "oh no" panic, but overall we both left with a sense of encouragement that we can get the place fixed up and be quite happy there. It is after all a temporary situation.

5. Thursday late morning our landlord brought his family up to meet us. Such a sweet family and really cute kids! They really are delightful people and we are going to enjoy renting from them and being their neighbors. Before we left, we took a load of the ripped out carpet down to the dumpster the owner had outback of his workshop. We than visited with him for a few minutes (he was working to rebuild a window for a house he is working on) and got a tour of his workshop, portable sawmill, and sugar house. It made my heart swell to see this honest, hardworking man proudly show us the work of his hands. They are his hobbies and his lively hood. I really hope that in a very short time we can have our place and hubby can have the shop of his dreams and be able to be living such a fulfilling life.