I'm Making Progress,

I have been working diligently to get all the wood split into firewood pieces so I can move on to easier stuff.
By Saturday lunchtime I had finished the pile of wood behind the woodshed and Jared had stacked it all for me. Even the woodshed is now full.


After lunch I headed out to start on the pile in the driveway near the garage,


By the time I quit I had made some great progress. With some help from the boys I can get this knocked off pretty quickly.


We have a rule that on Sundays we do not run the lawn mower, weed eater or tractor (unless we have to plow snow). I took the opportunity to head over to Tennessee and do a Sam's Club run. I found everything I wanted and stayed within my budget. I am good!! I have also restocked my baking supplies so I can have more fun with food days.

Fun With BIll and Rhonda

The other night I had Bill (my ex-husband) and Rhonda (his girlfriend) over for dinner. We had a great time even though my casserole came out a bit dry and the dessert did not live up to my expectations. I had tried to create something new and now know, I think, how to fix it for the next time.

After dinner we sat in the living room enjoying wine, Bill was drinking scotch with lots of ice(see below).

Like everyone else who meets Morgan, Rhonda just fell in love with our handsome little boy.

I believe that Bill was trying to make a point,,,or he was pointing at the clock and commenting on how late it was getting.

What ever it was he laughed about it.

Tyler came up and sat with us for awhile. He got Kele to sort of cuddle with him. He is making great progress in earning her trust.

I also got a lovely floral arrangement from Bill and Rhonda. It was a great night and I would like to do it again sometime just without the hangover.

Memorial Weekend

Memorial weekend, a time when we honor those who gave their lives for our country. The "official" start to the summer. A time for parties, barbecues and going to the beach, the lake or what ever, unless,,,,,,,,,

Unless you are the mountain girl who has LOTS of things to get done over the summer, and since the weather was gorgeous it was a long weekend for all outdoor chores.

When I got home from work early on Friday I changed clothes, took a quart of water and went out to split wood. After 3 hours this is what I had accomplished.

I decided to treat myself to an everything but the kitchen sink pizza. This beauty had pepperoni, sausage, bacon, onions, garlic, black olives and portabella mushrooms with lots of cheese. It was wonderful.

Saturday I headed back out to spend the day with Tonto, the tractor, and split more wood. This is where I quit after 5 1/2 hours. You need to refer back to Friday's photos to realize the amount that I got done. Actually if you go back to "A New State of Normal" You can see the whole pile before I began splitting.

I promised myself that Sunday would be an easy day, no more wood splitting for this girl. Nope, no way! Instead I cleaned the front porch area. The siding was covered with grime and mildew. Check out the raw wood frame around the storm door on the far left of the photo.

After I scrubbed the siding clean I got the paint that Richard had left me and painted all the trim around the storm door. When Richard saw this photo he thought I had painted the siding also because it looked so good.

Now being the somewhat crazed person that I am I could not sit back and relax for the rest of the day. I had to push myself and chop kindling. This box was absolutely, positively completely empty when I started. It only took me 90 minutes. But now I have a blister on my left palm and a severe case of tendonitis in my left hand. I should have quit when I started to get the blister but no, I was too stubborn.

Monday, Memorial Day, I did real easy stuff like sprayed Round-Up on the weeds and did laundry. I got my two male college tenants to stack all the split wood for me. Now I have room to split the rest next weekend. Maybe it will rain and I can do easy chores indoors.

Mother' Day Weekend

Since I was going to be alone on Mother's Day weekend,,,,except for my three four-legged furry kids I decided to treat myself to a road trip to the boat. The weather forecast was for perfect weather the entire weekend.

As I was sitting in the cockpit enjoying a cocktail on Friday night I was surveying my surroundings and looking to see what, if any, damage was left from the direct hit Oriental took from Irene last fall. As I was driving down I saw several house with tarps still on their roofs. But the most interesting thing I saw was this gazebo across the creek from us. The storm surge had pushed it over some and then the owners lashed it so it would not fall any further over.

On Saturday as I was relaxing in the cockpit and learning how to knit a father and son came over to do some fishing.

I was not the only one relaxing on Saturday. Morgan assumed his position on the cabin roof and dozed in the shade while the breeze ruffled his coat.

Kele soon got tired of guarding her territory from everyone who came near and gave in to a nap in the sun.

But of course Lili kept watch.

It was a wonderful weekend with the "kids".

A New State of Normal

A this point in time our hectic life has now settled into two different states of normal, mine and Richard's.


As mentioned earlier Richard ran around like crazy trying to get everything taken care of for me before he left for 7 months. Some projects he did not complete and those that I can finish, I will.


A somewhat finished project was to collect firewood to be split and stacked so it could dry out for future. My sweetheart did an awesome job of collecting firewood. We have all this plus what is still in the driveway. My job will be to split and stack it all.

Since Richard would be working on a river he decided to take the dinghy from our sailboat up with him so he could run around on the water when he was not working on the water. Sometimes I think his veins are filled with salt water. Anyway, he built this nice rack for the dinghy to sit on. He carpeted the boards where the dinghy would rest so it wouldn't get scuffed.

Another project was to repair the bilge pump in the dinghy. It had gotten broken somehow. After he fixed that one he started to work on the pump from Molly Brown, the dinghy we lost and then found in the Bahamas. As he started taking apart Molly Brown's pump he started laughing and said "no wonder it won't work" The pump was completely clogged with sand.

Time flies and before I knew it the day had come for Richard to head off for his new job. He sort of looks like a traveling show.

Bye sweetheart,,,,,

However,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,



Since I am so very, very good at keeping myself occupied during his absences I had been planning for this one. To start off I bought myself a Portabella mushroom kit. I am thinking of mushroom cap pizzas, stuffed mushrooms, grilled mushroom sandwiches, mushrooms in my spaghetti sauce and some kind of marsala, either chicken or veal.

I also had Richard bring me home all my cookbooks from the boat, as if I didn't have enough here at the house already.


I got the Sushi book. It came complete with rolling thing and other goodies which are still on the boat. I am thinking this would be a great rainy day project, especially since we have a couple bottles of saki in the house.

Did you ever know that there are 650 different ways to cook shrimp? The book says there are and I will check into that.

Caribbean Cooking,,I can get some of the ingredients here so this will be a nice change of pace.

Morgan Freenman and Friends. Great book, great idea. Morgan and his friends each take an island in the Caribbean and highlight a dish from there. Michael Douglas represents Bermuda. Kenny Chesney takes St. Johns in the US Virgin Islands. The best part was that all the proceeds from the sales of this book went to the Caribbean Hurricane Relief Fund.

The Best of the Bahamas. Anyone know where I can get some conch?

Women Aboard,,,,

St. Peter the Fisherman. Recipes using the bounty of the Pamlico Sound.

And lastly, The Cruising Chef cookbook.

My goal is to find several recipes from each book and put them on index cards rather than cart the whole book around. Sounds like a good summer project to me.

I also have a large green garbage bag filled to over-flowing with pinecones that need to be dipped in melted wax for firestarters.

April Showers

April Showers bring May flowers. I have heard that all my life. This April we not only got showers, but several days of above normal temperatures which caused everything to bloom much earlier than normal. Then we got snow and 3 nights of freezing temperatures. Some of the plants came through better than I though they would. Others I am not sure about. The tulips had come up and were in their full glory when the cold snap hit. Several of them did not make it through the rough weather.

The azalea was just about to burst forth into bloom when the freeze hit. Now the blossoms look dead but the leaves seem to be okay.

The pond at the front door had icicles on the side of it.

However, the frogs went ahead and croaked their little hearts out and mated and now I find that April Showers not only bring May flowers but a lot of tadpoles,,,,,

There are a couple hundred of those little suckers in the pond this spring.

Spring and Easter Weekend

Spring has come to the mountains. Of course spring comes every year according to the weather guessers and the calendars. But this year everything is blooming very early. Along with spring comes Easter so this entry is a little bit about both.

Last July I had surgery and my boss gave me this Azalea, I love the color of the flowers and am happy that it is blooming again.


Our woodshed is almost empty. The piles on the far left are small pieces and "chunk" wood which is prefect for the chiminea. However we are in great need of larger pieces for the inside fireplaces.


On Good Friday, after I got home from work Richard and I spent 2 hours in the driveway splitting wood. Here is what we accomplished.


On Saturday morning we split a pile of wood that was near the woodshed. I spent the rest of Saturday moving and stacking all this wood and all the wood in the driveway into the shed while Richard put new brakes on the Land Rover. Sorry to say I did not take a photo of the woodshed after I was done.


Sunday was Easter and I made a blueberry pie for our dessert. I also made a Crab and Shrimp Au Gratin casserole for out dinner,,,again no photos,,,,,this is what happens when you work too hard the day before.


On Easter Monday Richard walked around the house and took photos of spring time stuff. The house with the PMJs blooming in the yard.


The big pond with the fountain running again.


On Easter Monday I finished packing up Richard. I don't pack his clothes, just everything he needs for daily living.


And since its spring I did some spring cleaning of closets and dressers. Here is a pile of the stuff I now need to go through. Some will go to Goodwill and the rest will be put on EBay. This should keep me occupied for awhile.