Fall Fun at the Farm 2011

The last weekend in September we ventured up to Maine for the FIRST annual "Fall Fun at the Farm." Our original plan was to spend the weekend with my Mom and Dan, Nicki, Rich and the kids doing fall like things such as going to a giant corn maize, visit a pumpkin patch, carve pumpkins etc. Unfortunately, the weather was so poor that we were pretty much stuck at the farm (in the pouring rain). It was a bummer but, we still enjoyed spending time with everyone!

Mom really went over the top by decorating an entire tent, which we aptly named "Spooky world".  She thought of every detail!

One morning I woke up early and joined Dan in tending the bees. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I am absolutely obsessed with the idea of being a beekeeper. I would love to do it for a living but, alas, my dear husband is deathly allergic to our pollinating friends so, I have to live vicariously through Dan, who lets me help.

Spending time with my mother and sister (especially at the farm) always allows me to recharge my batteries. Going to the farm is like visiting the most amazing country store with an on site orchard, fresh veggies, meat, honey, syrup, jams, jellies and baked goods. While our first annual "Fall Fun at the Farm" wasn't a complete success due to Mother Nature, I'm looking forward to next year!

Update

I've been horrible about blogging lately. What can I say? I've been busy/lazy/tired and otherwise occupied! McPepe commented on my last post earlier this weekend (I think to get my butt in gear posting) so, simply because I enjoy writing and he's arguably one of my favorite people in the world, I'll get the lead out.

I'm clearly too intimidated to write about Alaska; it's causing me some serious writer's block. To be honest, it was just such an amazing trip that the thought of even trying to recapture it via written word is just too much. So, I'm going to stop pressuring myself and continue to blog about the things I want to blog about. Every now and then, (when I find the time) I'll slip in a post here or there about our trip to the 49th state; most likely just pictures.

This summer we had a small vegetable garden. It was something we decided to do last minute given we were away for pretty much the entire month of July/Alaska. We grew cucumbers, squash, peppers, green pepper and we had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. That was fun.

We are doing some major construction in/around our home. Thanks to our in-laws, we removed the looming accident waiting to happen (the 65+ foot spruce tree that was leaning and ready to fall the next time a big gust of wind came rolling through). Aaron rented a boom lift and with the help of his best friend Jason and McPepe, they took it down section by section. Doing it ourselves saved over $1000 and Jim & Linda took care of it for us as an early Christmas/Birthday present. We have a lot of pictures but y'all know I won't post pictures of my home on the world-wide-web!

We're replacing our heating system later this month, which is a huge undertaking. We've had to pull out all the old circa 1930 (300+ pound) radiators and we're doing gas/baseboard. This will give us a ton more room but behind all these radiators is almost 100 years worth of wall paper- so we're scraping and repainting (and remodeling some areas).

Let see, what else? My new job is going great! I'm at the max amount of clients I want to take for doing the 3 days per week. My teaching schedule is a bit grueling (I'm teaching three classes this semester which is a bit too much) but it was helpful income when I was building my clientele. Now that I'm where I want to be (income wise) I think I'll scale back to one or two classes next semester.

I hate to say, I'm NOT liking my Ed.D program in the least. It is not at all what I was hoping for and I'm really disappointed. Luckily, I went this semester for under $500 because I had a voucher for a majorly discounted class. So, if I decided to discontinue at the end of this semester (which I am SERIOUSLY thinking about) it won't be a huge waste of money!

That's it for now, I think. Our plates are full, our cups are overflowing and we got things cookin'. Life is good.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books!!

This is a total aside from my Alaska postings but I had to mention the 10 books I purchased about 2 hours ago at Borders. Unfortunately, Borders is closing their doors; going out-of-business. Make no mistake, I'm not tragically upset about the fact that they have gone out of business (although I don't like to see anyone fail). I am more upset when I think about the hordes of small business owners and privately owned bookstores they put out of business once they came gallivanting into town.

That said, the grief didn't overcome me to where I couldn't swoop in and make a few purchases.

I start my doctorate program next week and, although I haven't seen the list of required reading yet (I'm not bitter and frustrated that I can't get a head start) but judging by the 50 books on the recommended summer reading list, I am feeling a bit concerned that the workload from the required reading list won't lend much time to leisure reading.

I have already bargained with myself that if I read one chapter of "required reading" per night (textbook reading, blech) then I'll reward myself by a chapter of leisure reading. So, to dangle the motivational carrot in front of my eyes, I bought myself a few new reads; 10, in fact. It was purely coincidence that I bought 10 on a Top 10 Tuesday. The truth is that I planned to buy 8 because you were given an additional discount if you bought 8 and, well, after I reached 5 I lost all self control.

• Eating Out by Annette Natow & Jo-Ann Heslin:(You'd think they could have picked a better title, LOL) It is a book of nutrition information for every imaginable snack-food and restaurant.
• The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America by Hannah Nordhaus: Okay, so with this book I totally cheated. I've already started it. I couldn't wait another week. Over the summer I became OBSESSED with bees and bee-keeping. Lucky for me my step-father, Dan, keeps bees so it's not magical thinking that I feel I can use the knowledge about bees to help "keep bees." Bees are truly remarkable creatures and, believe it or not, we as humans owe them a debt of gratitude for perpetuating life.
• The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After by Melaine Gideon. "A disarmingly honest take on marriage and motherhood by a woman who realized she was sleepwalking through life when she decided she needed to do something about it" sounded really interesting to me. I thought, A.) Who doesn't sleepwalk through life, sometimes? and B.) What's her secret to living "intentionally?" Do tell, Melanie; I'm all ears.
• Whalehead Nation: Creating and Keeping an Environmental Ethic in Children by Scott Mercer (signed and dedicated copy) as someone who firmly believes that nature plays a huge role in my personal physical and mental health this is right up my alley. Plus, it gets better, the author writes mostly of NH, ME and MA.
• Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) by Abby Sher- Is supposedly "a brave and exquisitely written account of obsessive-compulsive-disorder..." We shall see about that, won't we?
• Walking Wisdom: Three Generation, Two Dogs and the Search for a Happy Life by Gotham Chopra (yes, Deepak Chopra's son) Basically, a book about spirituality and how he (Gotham) draws on things taught to him by his amazing father, his own son, and (of course) man's best friend.
• The Trouble With Black Boys... and Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Public Education by Pedro Noguera. This isn't one of those guilty pleasure books but more of something that might help inform my one-thousand-page ramble of bullshit doctoral dissertation.
• America the Edible: A Hungry History from Sea to Dining Sea by Edible Richman Adam Richman- Isn't he just so clever with his title? This is a book about his travels and eats (yet another way for me to stalk this tasty morsel of a food-lovin' man!)
• Dissertation and Thesis from Start to Finish by John Cone & Sharon Foster- Blah, blah, blah.
• Citizen U.S.A by Alexandra Pelosi. I picked this up as an after thought because, well, if there's one thing I love more than Adam Richman, it's the red, white and blue. It outlines (via photos and personal stories) how amazing it is to be an American and what we take for granted on a daily basis. This book is phenomenal. I encourage you to view it on Amazon.com, which will allow you to "peek inside.

So, there they are, the 10 books I purchased-- 8 of which I'm actually looking forward to reading/using. I could always count this post as my Oui for tomorrow too because I paid $13.56 for all 10. Yep, under $15!

Alaskan Vacation: Anchorage

I think I neglected to mention (or perhaps I didn't) that we elected to do a cruise-tour vacation package through Princess Cruise Lines. What this basically means is that we booked ourselves to go on both a cruise of Alaska and a tour to cover the land portion of our trip. Often people don't realize that many of the well-known Alaskan towns are islands (Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway) thus they are impossible to reach by land. Further, other towns, (Denali/McKinley and Anchorage) are impossible to reach by sea so, to get the full experience, we did both land and sea. Perfect!

After our brief stay in San Francisco we landed in Anchorage (and retrieved our luggage, which arrived the day before we did). We immediately headed off to book ourselves a hotel; we had been traveling for about two days, hadn't really changed our clothes, and we were struggling with the four-hour time difference.  If you remember correctly we hadn't booked ourselves a hotel in Anchorage because we feared we would miss our connector flight (which we did). Our tour didn't officially start until July 2nd, so we had yet another day to kill until we were whisked away on the pre-paid portion of our vacation. We found the least expensive hotel we could book (after of course, I consulted the bed-bug registry). This hotel was quite comical and had very interesting... character.

Let me just say that I wouldn't recommend the hotel if you're looking for luxury. We were looking for something cheap, as we planned to go immediately to sleep, and we were due to check into our 5-star hotel in downtown Anchorage early the next morning when our tour officially started. This hotel was the kind of place where you'd expect to get a knock on the door by "C.S.I." Okay, so I'm exaggerating, it wasn't that bad but, we don't often stay in hotels (we opt for B&B's or rent small houses) so this place was a bit dodgy (and the bed folded out of the wall!)

I have to admit; one of the strangest things about Alaska was the position it is on the earth. Because of its location, the month of June/July gets about 21 hours of daylight. The other 3 hours are twilight. It NEVER gets dark. Ever. You can literally read a book outside 24-hours per day. So, on top of being a New England native AND the 4 hour time change, it was really weird trying to sleep in broad day light at midnight!! That took some getting used to.

We had a lot of fun exploring Anchorage, Alaska's biggest city (boasting a smaller population than many of the bigger New Hampshire towns.) One thing that really struck me was the size/quality of the flowers/greenery; I can't even begin to explain how beautiful the foliage is there. Due to the amount of glacial ice melting, creating a significant amount glacial silt in the soil (read: really high levels of nitrogen [the main ingredient in Miracle Grow]) plus add almost 24 hours of sunlight/photosynthesis, the flowers and greenery are giant sized. It really was something to see. On one of our tours the guide said, "we just grow our flowers really big here because we want to make tourists feel badly." The average size of a cabbage is about 20 lbs. (!!)

We did all sorts of touristy things in Anchorage: Went to an enormous farmers market/craft fair, ate way too much, went sight seeing (toured the Ulu Factory, and the start line of the iditarod) and walked and walked and walked.

The hotel associated with the tour portion of Anchorage was the Hotel Captain Cook (I accidentally kept calling it Captain Hook) and let me tell you, it was luxurious! It was the kind of hotel that has those gorgeous bathrobes for you to wear! As a matter of fact, when any celebrities come to town they always book themselves in the Capt. Cook. Everything about that hotel was AMAZING!

One of the highlights (for me) in Anchorage was Humpy's. Now, the food was amazing but, the main reason I wanted to go there was because it was yet another stop on the trail of Adam Richman (Man Vs Food [my boyfriend xo])!

Anchorage was such a cool city. It was so strange to think that it is the biggest city in the State of Alaska yet smaller than the city I currently live in! The people were so accommodating and the city was so clean; it just really felt like another world. We were there a total of 2+ days before we were whisked away to the McKinley Princess Lodge!

Wednesday Oui: Alaskan Cheers

We are slowly making progess with getting our thoughts together enough to blog about our Alaskan Vacation. While I will say part of the lack of blogging has been laziness on my part, it is also extremely difficult to blog about this trip-- not for emotional reasons, but logistically. There is so much to document and so much to share. I had decided long ago that when we did blog about Alaska, Aaron would help me. Now, don't expect to hear from him via written word but, he is helping me to put our trip to paper. Like I've always said, as much as I appreciate people dropping by this blog, it's mostly a place for me to do my "record keeping" so I want to make sure, with this vacation above most, I don't miss a detail! Not an easy task!

Anyway, to dangle a tid-bit (and a few pictures) as a preview of what's to come... here's a Oui to get me started.

Many who know us well know that Aaron and I (more so me) are not big drinkers. This vacation was no exception. While we were away for almost 20 days we kept track of our spendings on alcohol-- in just under 20 days we spent a hair over $100 on drinks. Now, considering most drinks are $5-$7, that's really not a lot per day.

That said, when we did get a drink we relaxed with it and savored the experience. Whether it was on the deck of our ship, balcony of our hotel room, or in a five star restaurant, we took our time. One of the nights we were on our ship Aaron ordered me an Alaskan Mudslide, himself an Alaskan Amber Ale, and met me on a private section of the boat where we had spotted humpback whales earlier in the evening. While looking out into the ocean, our conversation went something like this.

Jessi: Ohh, this is perfect. How lucky are we?
Aaron: (sipping his beer) Pretty lucky, I'd say
J: Heyyyyyy!! (holding my gigantic mudslide in the air) You didn't cheers me!
A: Yeah? (playfully) Well, you never kiss me goodnight.
J: You really care that I don't kiss you goodnight? (somewhat surprised because I actually don't kiss him goodnight, it has never been my style yet, I never knew it bothered him.)
A: Of course it bothers me that you don't kiss me goodnight. I'm deprived of at least one kiss every day of my life. It's horrible.
J: Well, (baffled) okay. I didn't know it bothered you. I'm sorry, Babe. (pause) So, let's cheers then. We never cheers. What should we even cheers to?
A: Here's to kissing me goodnight!


And since then, we cheers and kiss goodnight. Sounds fair to me. Oui?