Maine traffic jam

Fall

Apparently, Maine doesn't "transition" from summer to fall like the rest of the northeast.  In August, it was summer.  As soon as September hit, it was fall.  And these guys showed up:

These guys (um, gals?) really like our yard.  But at least they're not aggressive, they run/fly away every time I open the door to take their picture.

We had a free weekend in the middle of September, so we decided to fall-ify the porch a bit with some mums, pumpkins, and a Halloween bow on the door.

That's a cornstalk bundle on the right, not weeds.  Promise.

Matt finally planted the poor hydrangea that my aunt gave us for a housewarming gift (that got a bit neglected in it's plastic pot for a month and a half), and I planted some bulbs in the same garden bed.  Hopefully in the spring we should have some pretty tulips, daffodils, and other early-spring flowers.

the garage lights

This was a quick update that made Matt (and me, but mostly Matt) so happy.

From the moment we first saw our house, Matt said, "The lights on the garage need to go!"

You may not have even noticed them, but their brassy awfulness gave Matt anxiety every time he drove in the driveway.

So, we finally found lights we liked, and had them installed.

Now he's a happy husband when he comes home. :)

And they're much brighter than the old ones, too.

Summer 2013 Recap

Sadly, another summer is over too soon.  But we did a lot of fun things while it lasted!

We went to Martha's Vineyard with our friends Sonja and Lev over Memorial Day weekend, and while it was rainy and cold, we did still make it to all the lighthouses on the Island - and hung out with alpacas.

For our first wedding anniversary, we spent a weekend up in Brunswick, Maine, where we visited antique stores, dropped a Geocache down a hole, and ate lots of good food.

We spent the long weekend for Fourth of July up at the lake, where it was HOT.

We had varying degrees of success with our first attempt at a garden...

...connected with the neighbors.... 

...and settled in to a routine during the workday.

Matt's sister got married...

...and we spent the weekend of my 30th birthday doing fun things like going to a 19th century museum village...

 ...seeing Clay Aiken star in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Ogunquit Playhouse, and having lobster.

We had our first experience at the Acton Fair, where more alpacas made faces at us...

...and a one-horned baby goat tried to bite Matt... 

...Sonja and I got brave and ate moonshine-soaked cherries...

...I introduced our friends to farm-fresh eggs...

...and Sonja got bored and cleared a trail down to the stream.  This is why we like her: if you leave her alone for long enough, she'll start doing work.

So that was our first summer in Maine!  

a little front door update

When we last left our hero the front of the house, it was looking quite a bit spiffier.

But still needed a little bit of work.  Here's a closer look:

The pretty door knocker was a tear-inducingly sweet Christmas present from Matt; it says "Gardner" and "Welcome".  But did you notice that the knob and dead bolt don't match?  The knob is brass and the dead bolt is brushed silver (and didn't actually bolt).  Yes, that's what happens when the bank re-keys your doors - you get completely mismatched hardware.

After a quick trip to Home Depot, I found a set that I love, and Jason, our carpenter, installed it for us (it involved drilling through the metal door, otherwise we might have attempted it ourselves).

We still need to have a locksmith re-key all the locks so we can use the same key for all the doors (I think we're up to 3 different keys for various doors, and one or two doors don't have any keys that go to them at all), but at least now it looks a bit better.

Happy Kitchen

Our kitchen has been sad for the last few months.

The floor had been refinished, the counter tops were in, the sink was installed, the appliances were working great, and the cabinets were in place...

...well, all the cabinets except for one.

The corner appliance garage is supposed to be sandwiched between the counter top and the upper cabinet.  But apparently our counter tops are 1/2" thinner than they should be, because there was 1/2" of floating space between the pieces of the appliance garage and the cabinet it was supposed to attach to.

And then Jason, our carpenter, broke the appliance garage.

No, that's a good thing!  He was playing with it, trying to figure out a way to get it to fit, and the roll-up door came off the track and wouldn't roll any more.  Since it was still under warranty, Home Depot sent us a brand new cabinet, so Jason could cannibalize the broken cabinet and add pieces to the new cabinet.

Ta-dah!

Now our kitchen is happy and complete!

Uh-oh...

...apparently autumn is coming.  It's not even Labor Day yet, and this is what I see next to our driveway.