Moving on Up!

After closing on our first home two years and four months ago today, we are finally moving into our bedroom upstairs. As we have had the time and money to do so, rooms have been done one by one. We started with the living room first because sadly, I needed a comfortable room to watch television in and decided the smaller bedroom downstairs would act as our temporary sleeping base.

The room upstairs would some day be ours, but not until we did some serious work. We relied on our fathers electrical engineering skills to re-wire the entire house and in February my father installed the last outlet! With long, grey winters we needed to brighten up the room and cover up the cold, dark asbestos tile.

Last week, the carpet installers came and we stared in amazement at our transformation.

(happy cat on the new carpet)

Not wanting to wait for the trim, we set up our bed and are still working on getting our clothes upstairs. Right now I am trying to air out an old dresser and rid it of the mothball smell.

I am contemplating whether or not I should prime it with kilz and then paint it a cheerful color because I have no idea how to destroy the smell and there are a lot of scratches on the wood with mismatched knobs.

So, fellow readers, do you have a cure for the smell of mothballs or what color should I paint the dresser?

Clean Up Day

Once a year, the town of Jay has "Clean Up Day." As a resident you are able to bring most unwanted items that have been taking up space at your home and dump it for free.

We gathered up a few empty paint cans and I brought them to the Town Highway Garage on Valley Road. When I arrived at 8:30 am, there was already a good size dump pile.

After handing over the paint buckets, I couldn't help but notice some pretty nice items. I restrained myself from taking home the Adult Baby Blue Tricycle, but asked about an old Radio Flyer wagon sitting off to the side. One of the workers had dumped it off that morning and admitted to having reservations about doing so because two generations in his family rode in the wagon, but felt it was time to part ways. He and his son helped me load it into the back seat of my car and I could tell that he was happy that someone rescued it from the dump pile.

I'll just have to have my own little "Clean Up Day" and spruce up my new Radio Flyer.

Red Barn Antiques Grand Re-Opening

I had gone down to Wells Memorial Library in Upper Jay today to do a little volunteer work. I usually scan old slides from the Archives room, but today the computer was "Out of Order" and my favorite librarian, Karen, was out as well.

Having already set a side a few hours to volunteer, I decided to poke my head in at Red Barn Antiques to see if Julie, the proprietor, needed any help getting ready for the Grand Re-Opening this Saturday. This will be their one year anniversary at the red barn in Upper Jay and to celebrate there will be a community pot luck and music to celebrate.

Julie put me to work right away carrying items to the new upstairs section and I was thrilled. As I windexed a case, I couldn't stop looking around. My eyes darted everywhere checking out all the amazing antiques.

I called my husband to tell him about my change of volunteer venues and told him about the danger involved with me working in an antique store/barn. I was as the expression goes, "like a kid in a candy store."

Julie, an expert on early plastics, educated me on bakelite and celluloid as we worked and I was thrilled to learn that someone as nerdy as I am when it comes to antiques lives just a few miles away. I restrained myself from buying today, but did not leave empty handed. Julie surprised me with some vintage milk glass spice jars as a thank you!

Come on down to The Red Barn Antiques & Artisan Gallery Grand Re-Opening Celebration on Saturday, May 22 at 5:30 PM. There will be a free music concert by the Pelletier Family and also, Larry Stone & Julie Robards (my new BFF). Bring some food to share at the Pot Luck and hang out with some pretty darn cool people in the community and a barn full of antiques. Does it get any better than that?

Gargoyle Celebration

The Gargoyles were holding balloons last weekend and I am not really sure why.

Was it a Birthday party?

Maybe the Gargoyles had an Anniversary or perhaps they were throwing a prom party?

Whatever the reason for the balloons, Happy Celebration!

Fresh Cut Flowers

After spending months in the cold garage, the garden scissors came out of hibernation and made their first cuts of the season.

Forget-Me-Nots

Lilacs

It might be cliche, but I always find that fresh flowers brought in from the yard makes our home brighter and brings a smile to my face. What do you do to bring joy into your own space?

Wake Up Call Cafe

I've written before of my love of chocolate and mint. This time, I fell head over heels for my favorite duet in the form of tea and it can be found at the Wake Up Call Cafe in Keene. If tea is not your thing, you can get your "wake up" with their espresso drinks and coffee.

For months, Drew had been stopping in before work for the Chocolate Mint Truffle tea made by Mighty Leaf and I had been dying to try it. I'm not much of a coffee drinker and there are times when I can't decide between hot chocolate and tea. I found this tea to be the perfect solution to my beverage dilemma. The mint wasn't too powerful and the chocolate flavor was just mellow enough that it didn't take over. Once again, a perfect marriage of two flavors.

The owner allowed me to take a tea bag home so I cold inspect it further outside of a mug. The packaging describes the tea as, "handcrafted silken pouches are packed with artisan blends of whole tea leaves, fruits, herbs, spices and flavors too big for ordinary tea bags."

My husband thought that the tea bag resembled "ladies underpants, silky and ruffly." Say what?! On a more serious note he mentioned that you can usually get two drinks out of one tea bag.

So, for a nice treat head on down to Keene and grab yourself a tasty beverage at Wake Up Call Cafe.

Zamboni Monday

For years I nagged the rink guys for a ride on the Zamboni. My day finally came this morning and it was way better than a ride, I drove it! Of course, I had no real camera to capture my dream coming true, but here are a couple camera phone pictures the mechanic took of me.

Here I am backing the Zamboni into the USA rink!

Then, I got to cut the ice and drive around real sloooooowwwwwww.

How did your Monday go?