home sweet home

Vacation Week

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Last week was Vacation Week here in Maine. If you are picturing me lounging in the sun, fruity drink in hand, keep dreaming.  The only downtime I got was Sunday, between the hours of 12:30 and 2pm.  I didn’t see a single fruity drink the whole week, unless you count the orange juice I had to wipe off the windows when the kids missed the sink.  The one highlight? My husband also took the week off. Normally this would have rocked beyond belief.  But since we are LIVING THE DREAM of 250 year old home ownership, Vacation Week was Hell.

Highlights of Hell included:

Cleaning out the basement.  Normally I wouldn’t complain, a little tidying here & there, but our basement was so congested we had to rent a jumbo sized construction dumpster.  It arrived Friday afternoon.

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The Kitchen Project.

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Eight months ago, my husband & I bought a new house.  And by new, I really mean 250 years old and in need of restoration.  While structurally sound, parts of the house needed to be rebuilt, others merely updated.  The kitchen fit into the latter category.  It was from the 1950s, the oven didn’t work well, but everything else was fine for the time being.  We made the decision to postpone the kitchen until spring, when our tax refund could cover improvements.  Last month it arrived.  Our refund wasn’t huge, but it would be enough.  And in true If You Give a Moose a Muffin fashion, one thing inevitably led to another, and…

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The Birth of a Dining Room

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Ask any parent.  Once you have a baby, your life is not your own.  As a mother, I understand this.  And as a homeowner, I understand it all the more.

Five months ago, my husband & I adopted a baby.  His name is The Dole House.  And although 250 years old, he is every bit a clapboard clad toddler w/a perpetually leaky diaper.  He whines, he cries.  He begs to be changed.  And much like our other babies, he has taken everything we’ve had to give and more.  When we first moved in, I felt as if I’d been swallowed whole, and now, five months later, I am still being digested.   Like parenthood, the process of restoring and updating such an old house is time intensive, financially draining, emotionally wrenching and physically demanding.  It has consumed us completely, often to the point of near exhaustion.  But, on occasion, much like parenthood, the moments of gut-busting angst give way to feelings of great accomplishment.  Like now.  As I present our new Dining Room.

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40 turkeys in my backyard

~ thedailydish ~ 21 Comments

A while back I posted about our Turkeys.  WELL.  Apparently wild turkeys LOVE snow.  b/c right now it’s coming down in droves, and there are (I kid you not) FORTY wild turkeys in our backyard.  How great is that?!

But here’s the trip.  John just went out and – as well as scattering seed, left a big bowl of food in the middle of the yard.  After all, these turkeys daily gorge themselves at our overflowing feeders.  You’d think they’d delve right into a bowl, right?  HAHAHHAHAHAHH!!