Electric

We've been waiting to get electric service to the cabin since we got it. It's been taking a really long time, but we haven't been worried, because it's fun to camp, and that's what we've been doing - camping there.

But we were really excited to get the call this week - the electric is in!   And even though we didn't MIND living there without electricity, we have a lot of reasons that we really like electricity.

Like music, for example.  We can't listen to the stereo without electricity.  I brought a portable player, and we went through about 10 D sized batteries in one weekend, and that's just too much.

(We like the sounds of nature, too, but music is lovely.)

And also - power tools.  Hard to do any work with power tools if you don't have power.

Since we had power tools now, the Husband got a lot of work done.

We have a long list of work to do there, and an idea of how important it is on the priority list.  My priority list might surprised you.  Safety is obviously the number 1 priority.  Anything to make the house safer as we use it has to be most important.  Number 2 in importance is any relatively "easy" and inexpensive job to make the place neater.  Which is why Husband has already started doing trim work --

like putting in
this door threshold,
going into the kitchen,
and

like covering these beams --

even though
we have
lots of
other things
to do.

Thor and I were eating our dinner - left overs we brought with us, prepared in the microwave, now that we have electric -- and we saw a car pull in.  I was sooo happy that Nicky came up to stay overnight with us!  It makes me so happy when my kids decide to spend time with us, even if they don't have to and we don't expect them.  Nothing in life is better than that. (And that goes for ALL of my kids, both my sons, and their friends, and my nephews and niece, and even all the kids I feel like are in my family even if they aren't!)

My handsome nephew William - we went for a short hike.

On Saturday afternoon, Thor and I made some time to hike around the property.  I love my property.  It still feels so weird that I can say it's "mine."  Like this rock pile.

There are so many mysterious areas, but slowly but surely the mysteries are becoming clearer.

  

Since Nick was there, Thor started working on the railings.  Like I said, safety is most important.  This is a safety issue - to a degree.  Because obviously it's safer to have railings, but since my kids aren't little anymore, I don't really worry about them falling.  On the other hand, I am afraid of heights, so I just feel safer being upstairs if I have a railing.  The railings are taking some time, but they'll be done sooner or later.  Hopefully before Thanksgiving.

And then, we headed home, earlier on Sunday than usual.  The big talk is of the impending storm, and we didn't want to get caught in the mountains and not be able to get home.   And the signs were a bit scary.

At home in Iselin, we don't think we need to worry much about flooding - at least not yet.  We aren't close enough to the ocean for the storm surge, I don't think.

Our biggest concern used to be the large trees next to our house, but they were trimmed down to nothing and so they aren't a concern anymore.

And back to the electric; it seems to be a likely concern that we will lose power, and if it goes out, it will be out for days.

But we are already used to dealing with no electric.  So I am not really sure why I should be too worried about that.  Sure, there will be no computer, TV, or house phone, ok that's fine.  My heat will go out - but I have a gas stove, so I can keep the house from getting too cold, and it isn't really that cold out right now anyway.  Plus, I can cook on a gas stove.  I would lose the food in my fridge and freezer - but I did freeze a lot of huge blocks of ice, so I'm hoping they will keep things cold long enough to get the power back.  And I don't have that much frozen or refrigerated food anyway.

And we might not lose the power, anyway.  But that would be a fitting end to this story, wouldn't it?

A Ghost Story

So Beth told me a ghost story. It was a dream she had.
She dreamt that there are ghosts at the cabin.
There is a friendly old woman who haunts the cabin itself. She is dressed in old fashioned clothes. She likes to have tea with me, and she wants to share the folklore that she knows.
She also wants to warn me about the other ghosts.
The other ghosts are outside. They are also dressed in very old fashioned clothes. But they aren't happy and friendly.
They are walking by the cabin, coming down the path from the mountain, past the pond, and past the house.
They are not necessarily evil, but they are more ... tortured?
They are the victims of some violence.
Beth said that in her dream, she could see them walking. But she didn't want to look at them, because they are scary looking.
Not the happy little floaty kind of ghost - more like the rotted flesh, caved in skull kind of ghost.
And according to my friendly woman ghost, I had better leave them alone.

Warmth - various quick commentsand lots of photos

The days are starting to get shorter and the nights are getting longer, and we got our first wood stove!  Yay!

I had a bunch of mugs with advertising slogans that I painted with outdoorsy designs so they would all match.  I like them.

 Here is the kitchen - where I spend most of my time lately - from all angles:

 Fall has always been my favorite season.

And, we got the Hex Sign up!

My Summer of Musicis almost over...

 Last year, I called my summer "The Summer of Art and Flowers," and I spent all of my time painting and gardening, and it worked out really well.

This summer, I called my summre "The Summer of Writing a Book."  I didn't write anything.

It turned out that it was actually "The Summer of Music Festivals."  And that is the reason I haven't posted much in the last few weeks.  I've been going to concerts.

Last week was the free concert in Central Park in NYC.  It was to spread awareness about extreme poverty in the world, and my son got us the (free) tickets for our birthdays.  We went into the city and saw Band of Horses, Black Keys, Foo Fighters, and Neil Young.  Then, after the concert, we went to a really cool little bar and heard an acoustic set of cover tunes by a really good duo called C.O.A.L.G. - I was happy.

The weekend before that, we were in Atlanta for the Music Midtown festival.  I'm working on a video on that one - not that anyone will want to see my video.  We saw lots of great acts, but my top ones were Joan Jett, Adam Ant, Avett Brothers, Florence and the Machine, Foo Fighters, and Pearl Jam.  Not necessarily in that order.  It was WONDERFUL!  I was happy.

And earlier in the summer, we went to FireFly Festival in Delaware - BEST FESTIVAL EVER!And yes, I was happy.  :)

One and a half minutes

I am going to give my self
one and a half minutes
to blog right now
before I have to get ready to go to work.


And now that I've decided that,
I can't decide what to say.

I guess it's the pressure
of a limited time.

Well.
I've been traveling a lot lately.
We went to Atlanta two weeks ago
and NYC Central Park last weekend
and this weekend, we
will be headed back to the Cabin.
I'm pretty excited about that.

I'm looking for a woodstove
and shopping at a thrift shop
and my son may be buying me a
very old
used truck.

And I'm hoping we got Electricity.

Time's up,
more later.

My new place in time and space

I can understand why no one else is as excited as I am about the new cabin.  It would be hard for anyone to care as much about this place as I already do.  So many things I love.

It's a new place to start decorating.  It's a new place to fill with some of my things - things that I've collected over the years, but have no good place for here in my regular home.   It's a new place to fix up - I love renovating and building and planning and construction. 

It's a new place full of artsy details, which you might look at and say OH DEAR - That building is collapsing!  But I look at and say, WOW,  look how cool that frame looks,

 with that plant growing inside... and yeah, we're gonna have to get rid of that collapsing section, but I think I'm going to save that door for SOMETHING - and that's exactly where I want to put the outdoor shower!  (It's on the list - but who knows how long it's going to take to get through the list!)

I love to look at the building and wonder - who worked on this section?  Why did they put it here?  Why did someone allow it to fall apart? 

And it looks SO NICE when something that's falling apart is cleaned up and put back together - a real sense of accomplishment!

And I love walking down to the pond, and learning that the green slimey looking stuff is actually plants, and not just slime, and that there are golden salamanders of some kind floating in there - living their little salamander life!

 And I love finding the flowers of the end of the summer, and wondering exactly which kind of flowers they are, and what they could be used for - are they chamomile?  Are they daisy?  I don't know!  And it takes some good reference books for me to figure it out, and some peaceful time with my nose buried in a book in the woods!

And I love walking through my own woods, and not even knowing them yet, and finding strange THINGS just sitting there - in the back in the woods - and wondering WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?  And why is it there?  And who put it there?

Like this thing.  What is it?  It's pretty sturdy!  I could swear I've walked through this part of the woods before, and I hadn't seen this metal thing!  Why is it there?  What is it used for?  I don't understand it at all!

So many cool things to discover and wonder about!

And the trees - the shear NUMBER of trees!  I love trees!  And now I have uncountable numbers of trees!  And they are all my own trees!

Of course, when I say that, I feel bad.  Because the trees aren't really mine, they are the world's.  How can anyone really own the world?  Or a tree?  The tree owns itself, doesn't it?  But - I'm the tree's protector, now, aren't I?  I feel like they are my own.  I want to get to know each tree.  I have an unimaginable wealth of trees and plants and rocks.  And strange scrap metal things.  And animals.

 The animals - I don't see as many wild animals, because I seem to share the neighborhood's farm animals.  And I love that too!  I have dogs now!  Well, at least this one - Mugsy tolerates us quite well, as long as we let him continue on his never ending search for frogs and snakes and mice and things.  The other dogs aren't sure about us yet.  I keep forgetting dog biscuits.  And a cat!  We call the cat Asthma, because we don't know it's real name, and it wheezes quite a bit.  Asthma has stopped by for two of our campfires now.  And we have chickens hanging out under our deck occasionally!  How exciting is that?  Well, really exciting, for me!  I just like looking at them as they peck at the bugs and wonder around, and I love to hear them clucking.  And of course we have the salamanders, and who knows what other aquatic animals, and frogs and toads, and I've seen deer prints - but no deer yet - and I've seen wild turkeys wandering down the road.

And, last but not least, we now have a new sliding glass door - it was the number two item on our list of things to accomplish.  And the number three item was the electric.  We've got that ALMOST checked off - we had an electric inspection, and soon, they'll hook us up to the grid.  And maybe, if we're lucky, we can get the well going, and the wood stove, and we will have accomplished our goals for the summer and early fall, and then we can move into phase two - fall and winter.

I really feel like I belong here, and I can't wait to get back. 

The Trees

So I know I mentioned that I'd write more about the trees.

Hey, Mom, I'm hoping you are getting all this for the scrap book, right?  :)

We had put our deposit down, and went to look at the house, and this HUGE tree had fallen in the yard. In this photo, Husband was saying, "What if it had hit the house?  What would we have done then?"

But it didn't hit the house.  It DID make us realize, though, that some of these trees are less than stable.  And one tree, the one in the deck, really needed to go.

Really close call!

By the time we'd closed on the house, the neighbors had kindly cleaned up all of the debris from this fallen tree.  (They need the firewood, anyway, because they use firewood for heat, every day.  I don't begrudge them the tree.  They've also been watching over the house for a while, so I guess it's payment.)

This tree, the one in the deck, was tricky to take out.  For one thing, it is surrounded by deck.  For another thing, it hovers over the closest neighbor's electric wires.  (They lose electric all the time, apparently, from branches down on wires.)  It was too big of a job for us to take on, so we paid to have it dropped.

And I do mean DROPPED.  I told the guys to feel free to take out that side of the deck.  It's rotted out anyway, and I didn't really like that side of the deck much.  The whole deck/porch thing has to be reconfigured.

You can see in this photo how close our one neighbor is.  I wasn't sure I'd like that, but they are a very nice family, and I actually feel a lot more secure knowing SOMEONE is around, especially when I'm up there by myself.  And he's been great, taking care of mowing our lawn until we get our tractor running.  Even so, that isn't really the side of the house I prefer to have the deck on.  I'll feel like I'm sitting outside staring at their house!

And today, Husband and Nick are up there chopping wood.  I'm jealous.  I won't get there until tomorrow.

And we don't have a wood stove yet.  Soon, though.  It's starting to get cool in the evenings.

What we DID get this weekend is a new sliding glass door in the kitchen.  Considering that the old one was boarded up, I figured it was a priority.  Now I have to replace one more window before winter.

And get a woodstove, and electric would be nice.  I think I'm prepared to give in on the water.  We don't really NEED water, and the pipes would just freeze again anyway.  Maybe in the spring we can get our plumbing fixed.

So I know probably no one is reading this and really interested in any of it, except me.  Well, Stevie, my nephew in the Marines, may like reading this one day - he is as excited as I am about the whole camp.  He had a chance to visit it just once before he went off to training at Parris Island.   And I think my family is very happy - right, Mom? - that we picked something generally near them.  I'm hoping that they come visit me.  The fact that it's an extremely rough dirt road to get in doesn't seem to bode well for visitors.  I hope I get some visitors, though!  We'll see.

Yeah, I know no one is really interested besides me.  But I am SOOOO happy, you have no idea.  This is my home now.  It really feels that way.

Of course, it's only been about a month :)  so we'll see what I say when the honeymoon is over!

I'll write more soon, after my visit there tomorrow!

My new life, continued and continuing.

So, where was I? I have quite a bit to write about.

So, the way the story goes is this: we have wanted to buy property for ever, and we've been thinking about it for a long time. And we looked at property several times, but there was always something not quite right about it, and that made us help figure out what it was that we really want.

And recently, THIS property came up on a real estate listing. And I was about to go look at it, but I got cold feet. "What could I be thinking of! I lost my job just a little while ago, it could happen again! Or, Husband could lose HIS job, and then what? We'd lose everthing!" So, I cancelled the appointment and let it go.

 At the time I cancelled the appointment, I thought to myself - and said to my husband - "If it's meant to be, it will be." And the property sold really quickly, and it was off the listings.

 I was a little sad, but not too sad, because I was nervous anyway.

 But then, about a month later, the property came BACK on the market. The people who had put an offer on it had let the deal fall through. And who knows for sure why? because they may have seen something very bad that we didn't see, or something.

But anyway, it was even cheaper than I remembered. So we went to look at it, and we really liked it. Even though the description says it's just a shell, and that the land is the real value, the fact is that it's a really great house. It just needs a lot of work.

 So we put an offer on it - and a deposit - and we went back to look at it again, and a HUGE tree had fallen in the yard, just missing the house. It was close for comfort, but it didn't actually hit the house, so we're good! And now, we've closed, and we have started working on it. But we are working
V E R Y   S L O W L Y...
because we really don't have any more money to spare, anyway!

I'll write more tomorrow. Right now, I've gotta go pay the bills :p

This is the back of the house.  And this is NOT the tree that fell... actually, we knocked this one over.  More about that soon.

My new life :)

Hi all!!!  I've missed writing on here... and it was so nice to have people comment my last post, as brief (and cranky) as I was.

This is what has been going on with me:

I lost my job.

I started a new blog - about our town; kinda like a news blog.  I was trying to maybe write as a career, maybe make money with my blog.  Plus, I love my home town, and a lot of people talk bad about it, so I wanted to give it some good PR.  But after a few years of doing that, it's really boring me.  Plus, I'm not making any money anyway.

I got another job - I like it.  It's similar to the one I used to have.

My kids grew up.  They haven't completely left, but pretty close to it.  Sometimes I have a hard time adjusting to that.  Sometimes I have an even HARDER time adjusting to it.  I always defined myself as a mother first and foremost, and now I can't define myself that way.  I need to find a new definition.

And, most importantly of all - I bought a new home!!!  And I'm SOOO excited about it!!!  This is it.  It's 26.75 acres out in the country - and I LOVE being there.  It was a foreclosure, sold as-is, with lots of things wrong with it - but lots of things right with it as well.  My husband and I are in the process of re-building, updating, fixing, etc etc etc... and I'm totally in love with it.

We've been looking at property for a lot of years, and thinking about what we want. We came to the conclusion that we wanted at least 5 acres, but preferably more, and we wanted a bit of a mountain, near the Appalachian Trail, and we wanted a bit of some kind of water - pond, stream, lake or something; and we didn't really care if we had a house or not, because we planned on camping there anyway. And we found every single thing that we wanted, plus more.  It is honestly a dream come true.

I've hesitated saying too much about it to too many people.  I haven't really put it out on Facebook.  I don't know how many people will be happy for us, and how many people will be jealous.  But, I am so excited, and I have so many things I want to share - so I'm going to blog it here.  I hope you find it as interesting as I do.  If you don't, well, I haven't been blogging much before this anyway, so you won't have to read it if you don't want to.  If you are interested, I hope you will comment.  I'd really like to know who is reading, and what you have to say. 

I'm looking forward to getting back to writing here again, especially now.  I am looking forward to spending hours in the woods, to taking some amazing photos (I hope!) and to really having space to think.  I'm ready for my new life, and I'm really happy.

Hi peeps!

I was brought back to this blog today by a comment on the Woodpecker poem I'd posted ages ago.  Made me miss the old blog. 

The good thing about this blog was always that I could really express myself.  The bad thing was that I couldn't come out and really say EVERYTHING I wanted to, because it isn't really anonymous.  Family and friends used to read it.  I wonder if they read it now?   Because I'm in a really cranky mood, and I'd love to vent!!!

But I won't.  Wouldn't be ... prudent.

Anyway, maybe I'll find my way back here tonight, when I have more time to post.  But for now, it's time to make dinner for me and my husband and my empty nest.  :(

The woodpeckers have flown from the telephone pole. 

Working on another new blog!

I love to blog and help other people blog too....

Iselin Times: Eric LeGrand signed by Tampa Bay

Iselin Times: Eric LeGrand signed by Tampa Bay: From Jaffe Communications, which you can find HERE : TAMPA BAY - In a symbolic gesture, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced the signing ...

Lunch Time

I'm at work, on lunch.  So I have a minute to post again.

I think the last I told y'all, I'd lost my job, right?  Well, lucky for me, I got called back to the School System again... so once again, I'm gainfully employed full time.  Makes me happy.  It's not the same school, but it's an even better job in some respects, because it is one of the few secretarial jobs with a teacher's schedule.  So what that means, is I have off this summer!  How exciting!  Of course, I'm paid less.  But I can live with that, because at least I'm getting paid again.  Less is better than nothing!

So this summer I have the benefit of a summer off without worrying about having a job.  An unusual and exciting situation.

Where previously, I made the (unemployed) summers all about art, I'm looking forward to making this summer all about words. 

I mentioned that I have two books in mind, right?  I want to write.  I've dabbled with writing before, with stories for Nanowrimo.  But November really isn't a good time to Nanowrimo.  On the other hand, the summer should be great! 

(And I'll probably mix some art in as well...)

Story one - my family history story.  I've done research on my family tree for years.  I have a lot of anecdotes collected.  And I have a pretty good imagination for filling in the details.  So I'm thinking of a semi-fictional family biography.  How 'bout that idea?  And... I'm actually probably going to include recipes in it as well.

This story is really for ME, more than for anyone else.  I know what I want to record, and how I want to record it.  I hope it's interesting enough for anyone to want to read - but I'm not sure that it will be, and I really don't care.

Story two - a fictional story.  I want to take a stab at writing an e-book, purely fictional entertainment, purely to see if I can write a book purely to entertain other people (and maybe to make a profit at the same time?  One can only hope!)  After all, Rowling was not an author when she started Harry Potter - and I'm pretty sure neither was the chick who wrote about Bella and Edward and Jacob, that vampire book - what was that called again?  I forget.

I've always wanted to paint.  I've painted - and I find that as much as I enjoy it, I'm really not that good at it yet. 

I also always thought that I could write a book.  But I also felt (as a child and as a young adult) that I would need to be old in order to have the perspective and experiences to make it interesting.  So I feel like I've hit a good age; I'm old enough, I think.  I might not get any more interesting than I am at this exact moment. 

So it's time to try. 

And, now, lunch is over.  So, it's back to work...

Hi!

Hey there... it's another day... another dollar...

Remember me?

Ummm... Hi! Long time, no see, right?

 Especially for a blog named Keep in Touch, I haven't been. I just looked at this blog for the first time in MONTHS yesterday. I kinda miss it.

 I've been pretty busy over at my other blog, the Iselin Times. Sometimes it's all I can do to make sure I get new stuff put up over there. I'm trying to make that one pay -- well, it's starting to generate a little bit of money, but not much of course. But I keep trying :) Plus, the purpose of the Iselin Times, which is to show the good side of Iselin - well, that's working to a degree.

But that's not why I'm blogging here right now. I was looking at old posts, and I do really miss it. I'm thinking about coming back and blogging here again. I hope I do. I am not making any promises, though.

Having two blogs is difficult, especially considering everything else going on. Like Facebook and Twitter and now Pinterest too. And a few TV shows I like.... and several projects I'm really into right now. Projects? Well, I'm still painting. Plus the garden is getting ready for the season. And I'm trying to make a quilt. And I'm working on some things for my parents and my in-laws for their anniversary. Plus, I really want to try to write a book - I have another germ of an idea, so that's actually TWO books. Not to mention - I am working again! Yay! and the usual cooking and cleaning. WEll, I hope to be back. We'll see.

What's new with you? Feel free to comment. I see the comments in my email, so I will definitely know when you write, and I'll try to write back and keep in touch.

I am testing my mobile communication system