October Random Pictures

Our Starbucks is really enjoying Halloween!

                            A beautiful sunset closes out the month. No filters on this picture!

I stopped by the reservoir for lunch on one of my days off and got to watch the Deep Water Diving Team from the State Police doing some practice dives.

We made it to the Maryland Renaissance Festival!  Here you see Puke & Snot - longtime performers at the Festival, and huge crowd favorites.

I stopped by our local farm stand and found these glorious hot peppers! I bought a box for the soon to be son in law. He loves hot peppers.  I'm curious to see what these become!

The goats at the farm. She is looking towards the store itself. They keep a box of Kale and Collard Greens by the door and visitors can pick up a bunch and feed them to the goats. This goat spies a little boy digging through the box!

 A night at the fire pit, surrounded by family.

Nor'easter

 If you live on the East Coast, in the Mid Atlantic Region, you know we are having some weather today. We are expecting record coastal flooding.  Ironically, I had taken today off work so that I could go hiking and enjoy the glorious fall weather. I've had a hideous 2 weeks and I really need the time to mentally reset. So much for being outdoors today!

Instead, I have a fire in the fireplace. I'm baking Oatmeal Cookies and I've spent the morning prepping freezer meals. (More about that soon.)  I have a freezer full of freezer meals now and a pot of soup simmering on the stove. I have plans to finish watching Westworld this afternoon and maybe, just maybe I will watch Dune for the second time! It won't be the same as it is in the theater, but it will still be awesome.

I hope that wherever you are, you are warm and toasty today.  Stay safe!

The Power of an Acorn

 Since trading in the mini-van, I've been driving a Honda CRV. We picked it up used at Car Max. While it's not a mini-van, it does do a great job of getting me where I need to go. Monday morning, I left the house to head to work and as I pulled out of the driveway, and as I turned left a hideous metal on metal screeching sound began. I pulled over and looked under the car to see if anything was trapped under there, but could find nothing.

As I drove into work with the noise getting louder, I saw the kids standing at bus stops along my way in, with kids and parents pointing at my car. As I stopped at a light by my work, someone stopped by my car, had me roll down my window and asked me if I knew my car was making a weird noise? He suggested that I should get it looked at.  As I made the turn into the parking garage the car shimmied so hard, I thought that the wheel was going to fall off.

The car got to my mechanic that afternoon.  And the mechanic called me on Tuesday to let me know that he had finally dug out the cause of the problem.  An Acorn. Stuck between the brake pad and the rotor. 

That's nuts!

A Quick Trip to See the Oldest Kid

We took a quick trip up to Pennsylvania to see our oldest last week. There’s nothing like a college town in the mountains in the middle of fall, is there? We took the opportunity to walk around campus, explore the campus and spend an intense 24 hours talking and laughing with each other. We had an amazing dinner from a Chinese restaurant that came highly recommended by the Chinese students that he works with. The food was absolutely amazing.  Best Chinese food I’ve ever had.  I tried something different for me - peppercorn chicken. Have you ever had it? It’s the best. I had never heard of it before, and now I just can’t stop thinking about it. 

Above, a view down one of the little alleys off Main Street. Below, the view of campus from our hotel. 

 

Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks has written 23 books over the course of his career. One of his most famous books is "The Notebook". His most recent book is "The Wish".  He's out now, doing a book tour. 

Last week, I got to see him at a stop in Maryland. It was a fun evening of conversation where he discussed his philosophy of writing, little known facts about him, and the "footprints' - true things about himself that he leaves in his stories.

As part of my ticket, I received a copy of The Wish. The story is about a woman who had a teenage pregnancy, and she is looking back on her life. 

I wanted to share a few pictures that I took!

Me and my mask, waiting in line outside.

We were required to wear masks in the venue.

The line of people in front of me.

Inside the auditorium. I sat in my favorite spot - the balcony!

Not the best of pictures, but when you're sitting in the balcony, this is what you get from the screen!

 

And now, I am off to stay up entirely too late reading The Wish!

2021 Resolutions - October

I like to keep a list of resolutions on the blog.  It helped to keep me accountable and  helped me keep track of my goals - what I wanted to do and whether or not I actually got them accomplished during the year.  I had a few goals in 2020.  Those all went out the window in March.  I don't even want to talk about those goals anymore.  But, this is 2021, and we are all set for a new series of goals.  So, here they are.  It's a short list this year.  

1) Get away with my husband twice this year. 

We made it to Acadia National Park in June! (Pictures to follow.)

2) Visit middle child in Kansas.

He's headed out here in October. He was also out here for my Mother In Law's funeral in April. Will we make it out there? Only time will tell....

3) Visit all of the state parks in Maryland.

Calvert Cliffs  

Patapsco Valley 

Soldier's Delight 

Sandy Point 

Rock

I've got a way to go.... 

4) Get one more stamp in my National Parks Passport

Acadia National Park

Gettysburg

Harper's Ferry

5) Lose 10% of my body weight.

Well, hey! I'm almost at this one! Just a few more to go! Crossing my fingers to have this in my pocket by the end of the year.

6) Get a storage unit and move stuff there to sort it out.

We had stuff we needed to get out.  And then we cleaned out my Mom's house when we moved her to Assisted Living and then we cleaned out my MIL's condo and apartment and THEN the oldest child moved back in.  AND THEN my Step-Mother's niece called me and gave me BOXES of my Dad's stuff.  You know, my Dad.  Who passed away over 12 years ago.  (There's another story...)  This house looks like a real life episode of Hoarders. 

Update: We have the storage unit. It has been filled. Much of what is in there will be going to the White Elephant Sale at the church in November. And then, we will be moving more stuff over there while we figure out where to put it.

7) Do a minor home improvement project.

There's a lot to choose from.  Which one will we pick?  Fixing the fence line in the back?  Getting the wood trim on the house painted?  Replacing the floor in the utility area in the basement? Hiring the tree guys to come out and get rid of the brush piles in the back? Having someone come out and landscape the front of the house?

Update: nothing visible. The outdoor a/c unit was hit by lightning over the summer during the big heatwave. We had to wait the better part of a week to get that fixed.  

I’m counting the installation of the Septic Riser as our minor home improvement project. It’s not a big, showy project, but being able to have the solids sucked out of the tank on a regular basis? That’s a pretty big improvement.

Oh, and the pipes in the kitchen sink got clogged. Again. It turns out that when this house was built in 1970, the plumbing code at the time was written by drunk people. (kidding)  Maybe it was just the builders. The pipe leaving the kitchen sink and running down to join the rest of the pipes runs the length of the house. But not the way you'd think.  The pipes run underneath the kitchen floor straight across to the support bean in the middle of the basement and then run the length of the house to the main sewer line. It has a total of 3 turns in the pipes. 

We found a new to us plumber who came in and really fixed the line. He snaked it out to the very end of the sewer line, and he had an assistant down in the basement who verified when the snake got to each turn in the line. After he finished snaking out the lines, he turned the hot water on and then went down to verify that the pipe was hot all the way around just where the sink line joins the line leaving the house. So amazing to have the job done right, and we were thrilled with his work!

Those are minor, but necessary improvements!

8) Visit my cousins in Texas (a trip postponed from 2020.)

Not this year. It's just not going to happen in 2021.

9) Get my kids and all of my sister's kids together in the same place at the same time.

We're still working on this one. It's hard when the kids are all grown and living around the country. We are hoping we can get this done later this month when middle child is home for a week.