In an effort to give our friends from Montana the full east coast experience we whipped up a little tropical storm for their visit... We are nothing if not considerate! 

Seriously though, the first part of their visit was a bit... well, damp... But our spirits were not...

We did have to cross a couple things off our to do list and shuffle things around a bit but I think a good time was had overall... 

I ordered lobsters for the 4th and even though it was a soggy 4th fresh lobster waits for no man so Jed, Allison, family friend Jen (red hair) and some of the Montana crew braved the rain to dig into a pile of lobsters under the umbrella on the deck.

Jen, Jed & Allison coached the newbies through the process...

They dug in bravely... 

(Please ignore my non-clarified butter... I ran out of time and nobody minded.)

The Montana crew all dug in for one whole lobster each then headed in for for the more familiar ribs and fixins' inside... The locals killed the rest! 

We ended the soggy night with our favorite cupcakes who didn't hang around long enough to get their photo op! 

Due to the weather and our planned trip to the island we ended up moving our "party" to the 8th! 

So our friends and family gathered last night for food, fun & belated fireworks! 

Here is a peek...

All the traditional foods...

A make your own berry shortcake bar & s'mores for around the fire pit later on...

Unlike other parties we did one long table down the middle of the yard and all gathered around it...

Allison thought up most of the table decor and we found these fun little "brain teasers" at Cracker Barrel that we placed down the length for people to fiddle with... They were a big hit...

Later we lit up the fire pit, told funny family stories then Paul let off an insane amount of fireworks that left us with a few more crazy stories to tell around future fire pits! 

I am off to the Mary & Martha national conference in Kansas City tomorrow so I will finish catching you all up when I get back!

Thanks for listening,

Vacation Pause...

We currently have friends visiting from Montana...

They are enjoying the sights and flavors of Maine and we are enjoying them!

We are all headed to the island tomorrow for a couple days of "island time"!

(PS. She hates this picture so don't tell her I posted it!)

See you all soon!!

Thanks for listening,

I Only Have Myself To Blame...

And the weather...

So... I have company coming in from out of town tomorrow... I have been so crazy busy with stuff on the calendar every day... I wish that were an exaggeration but it is not. So what do I do? Do I just tidy up and prepare for a nice visit with some of our oldest and dearest friends? Oh no, I start about 10,000 new projects (slight exaggeration) that I can only possibly hope to get about half of them completed in time... 

Oh and if that is not enough, I plan a party for the 4th... Just a few burgers and hot dogs on the grill... Sure... Hahahaha... You know me by now, this party has custom printed invites and it's own pinterest board. It will be quite the shindig... If it happens!

Oh... And to add to my joy the weather forecast is for RAIN... Not little summer showers but 2 1/2 days of thunder storms... Followed by this...

They say his name will be Arthur and he is not invited!!! 

Our friends are the ones we stayed with in Montana when we went out there in May... They have been to Maine once years ago and it rained the whole time... 

Their son and Allison planned to go sky diving on Saturday and I am just going to go out on a limb and guess they don't do that in tropical storms! I have it all arraigned for the men folk to spend a day on a lobster boat owned by a friend of ours... I am guessing thunder & lightning will but a damper on that... 

The time I had set aside to wander around the little seaside down towns that are plentiful around here will be hard to do... Even a few days at our camp will seem like an endurance trip! Aghhh... 

I am headed to the Mary & Martha National Conference the day after they leave... there is no margin for error...  I picked the dates, they were totally flexible, so I only have myself to blame. How was I to know that the impossibly beautiful weather we have been having would end so abruptly? Oh and as I have one day left to work on these 10,000 projects it is of course the hottest day of the year so far with incredibly poor air quality so I am hiding inside wheezing! Yay me!

Well, I better go iron & hang the curtains in the room they will be staying in... 

Thanks for listening,

A Run To The Island...

We have friends coming in from out of town next week and plan to spend part of their visit at our camp (cabin for you non-Mainers) so we we ran over there to lay in some supplies and do a quick cleaning/mow... Since we needed to go we decided to spend the night... It's a tough job but somebody has to do it! 

I can feel the stress of daily life melt away as we board the ferry for the 20 or so minute trip over...

Usually by the time I see this sight I am already on "island time"!! 

(Kindly ignore the dusty dashboard! Thanks!!)

We drive by this house on our way to our camp and something about it always reminds me of Prince Edwards Island & Anne Of Green Gables... There is a beautiful view of the ocean just to the left of this photo but my phone doesn't exactly have a wide angle lens... (I really need to charge my camera batteries!!) 

We have been slowly updating the camp since we moved back to Maine in 2010 and four years in we are really getting there... To give you some reference just take a peek back at this post from 2011...

We were in a bit of a rush leaving today but I did snap some pictures of the living room... 

Paul will not let me get rid of that plaid chair as he claims it is the most comfortable chair he has ever sat in... That is an over statement but I can live with it...

The addition of the ousted furniture from our living room has made a HUGE difference... 

I have some cute oars that are going over the sofa but forgot to bring the drill driver to hang them this trip...

The lamps are new this year... I picked them up at Lowes of all places... Paul needed some things there before our last trip over and Allison & I spotted them and thought they'd be great there. They were less then $50 each!! Crazy huh?

The pillows in the antique winsor chair actually belong on the bed but they got plopped there and look so cute I haven't been able to bring myself to take them into the bedroom! 

The print is one of several we have by late local artist and family friend Lyn Snow... She passed away suddenly last year from a tick bite, but we are fortunate to have quite a few of her prints and one of her original works.

The pictures on the floor are some we removed this trip that used to be above the (now removed) daybed and you can see below what we replaced them with...

A collage of black & white sail boat prints... The larger framed one is a vintage one that has been at the camp in the bedroom for years, the smaller framed one was a gift and we found the canvas at a local discount home decor store awhile back but didn't have a spot for it yet...

Allison put this arrangement together just today and I like it... I think... We are in "live with it" mode but since we only get to the camp about once a week in the summer at best it takes us awhile to "live" with things! (Your opinions are welcome!) 

We took out the old, uncomfortable daybed and replaced it with a somewhat controversial item... A TV... We took the old one out in 2010 and didn't really want one there but we did find that the nights and/or rainy days at camp can be long and we enjoy getting to catch up on watching some of the videos we rarely take time to watch at home... For the last couple years at such moments we would put one of our laptops on a chair in front of the couch and gather around and squint at the movie... It does not have cable, and since we do not have the internet (except on our phones) at the camp there will be no netflix etc... I am hoping it will remain off most of the time but I have to admit that it was nice watching a couple episodes of Firefly last night! (Have I mentioned lately what a sci-fi geek I am?)

Anyhow, we were doing some tiding so our company would not be totally outraged by the filth we "camp" in... After all it is really hard to focus on cobwebs and dust when you are on island time! 

(I'll take pictures of the other rooms soon!)

Thanks for listening,

Beautiful Days...

 We have an out of town guest for the birthday party (see yesterdays peek in the last post) so we decided to embrace this once again too perfect for words Maine summer day and do the tourist thing...

We headed down to Port Clyde to show our guest the Marshall Point Light made famous in the movie Forest Gump...

(google.com)

Here it is in the movie when he is running from coast to coast...

And here it is today...

See what I mean about impossibly beautiful... If Paul's leg didn't photo bomb my photo you might think it was a post card picture... Yes, Maine is this pretty! 

I also got the Girlies to pose for a picture...

Then we did a bit more sightseeing in Port Clyde before getting some homemade ice cream... 

Who wants to visit next?

Thanks for listening,

Ramblings...

I am super busy but not really doing anything worth writing about if you know what I mean... I figured I'd just ramble on a bit about what I've been up... 

I keep starting posts about Allison's & my trip to Montana to visit Montana State but keep deleting them soon after... I don't know why... It was a good trip overall so why wouldn't I want to blog about it? 

I realized mostly because of Allison... She hates the pictures I took with her in them and since that is about 99% of them I don't have many to share... 

Here is one of the campus...

She LOVES  the school & town and is very excited to start this new chapter!

We stayed with some good friends from when we lived there that we have kept in touch with. For me it was wonderful to catch up with them and we talked and talked and talked... Sometimes all night! 

Since we moved when Allison was 4 1/2 years old and we have only seen these friends one other time since we left she felt somewhat awkward at first but by the end she was starting to be her normal bubble, sparkly self. They have five sons ages 11-26 and even though they visited us for a couple days when we were living in Tennessee she has very little memory of them and felt awkward quite a bit staying with them. We do not have a lot of extended family that we visit so I realized she has very little experience being a house guest for more then a night or two... It was good for her... 

Here is a picture from our friends living room window... I forgot how much I love the mountains... I know we live in an amazingly beautiful place but every ounce of me longs to move back to Bozeman. (You never know what the future holds!) 

In other news, My Mary & Martha business is going very well!

We have some fun summer exclusive items right now so I do a post about them later this week! 

Katy got to go with me to a vendor show in Auburn recently and it was fun to spend the day with her! It is a little over two hours from here so we got to spend all day just the two of us. I realized we hadn't done that since she had the baby. One of the nice things about Goobie getting a bit older is her being comfortable leaving her with Jed for more then just a couple hours. 

This little girl will be one year old this Saturday! 

I can't believe it either...

She has brought such joy into our lives... Just when you think your cup is full grand children come along and it overflows! 

We are having a party for her here Saturday that Allison has started calling "Goobie-palooza" 

It is a "Giraffe Garden Party" theme (since they are her favorite animal) and this will be the star of the party...

I will post pictures after the fact... It should be a totally crazy day!

Father's day was a good day around here...  

The kids gave Paul (and me too I guess) a little upgrade... 

Let's see if you can spot it...

Wait... Did I ever show you my new media cabinet? It took me a whole year to find just the right one... 

It is from Pottery Barn and was delivered while we were in Seattle...

New Media Cabinet before father's day:

And after father's day:

Can you spot the upgrade? 

We were literally the last people we know to break down and get a flat screen TV... The old one worked just fine and the 32" smart TV we bought Christmas 2012 seemed like a huge upgrade from the 22" old school TV we had before. We are now up to 48" which is I am sure small to many of you but I feel like we are watching our own private cinema screen! 

While I am at it... I took some pictures of the new sofa with my cell tonight so you can see it... 

Yes, we went back to a sectional... With such a small house it really maximizes the seating... With the more traditional sofa/love seat combo we had we generally only seated three to four at a time but all five of us (when Katy & Jed visit) plus Goobie can sit on this sofa and watch a movie comfortably! 

I guess I should have smoothed out the slip cover and adjusted the curtains before I snapped the photos but it is after 10 PM so I guess I'll keep it real for y'all!  

I know the pillows look a bit small but I have some fun flag ones I will get out in the next few days that will really fill it up a bit more! 

My current issue is the wall arrangement on the long wall... It looks a bit smallish over the over-sized sofa to me... 

I have other things I could try in this spot and may move this arrangement to the hallway and do something different here in the next week or so... I'd like to do it before the party this weekend but with my step-mom coming in from out of town and 25+ people coming over Saturday for the birthday party my to do list is already really, really long... 

Our friends who we stayed with in Montana are coming to visit over the 4th of July... They will be here for a week and we will divide our time between here and our cabin on the island... I am super excited for their visit! Allsion & Katy think I should use their visit to revive our tradition of 4th of July parties... We would do big ones every year until we moved to Tennessee and apparently the girlies miss them. I'd love to have one too but I assume most of the people we know have their own traditions and annual plans and would hate to throw a big party and have nobody show up... Especially with out of town company... I'm still toying around with the idea but am undecided at this point. 

The day after they leave Allison, another member of my M&M team and I will be flying down to Kansas City for Mary & Martha's annual conference! (More travel!!) I signed up last July literally days before their last conference so of course I didn't go and I am very much looking forward to this one. Every year they do a "theme" night and this year's is "Prom Through the Ages"... This is my nightmare... As a plus-size woman I have a hard enough time coming up with clothes that look somewhat flattering and that I don't hate... But a prom dress!?!?!?!  Seriously????   I am sure most of the consultants are headed to the local consignment shops to pick out a dress but I am a bit harder to fit then that. As I looked up dresses online I could tell that I was going to be investing at least $200 in a dress just to have one fit... I was unwilling to spend that on a dress that I could only wear once so instead of a traditional "prom" style I went with a more simple "formal" style in navy...

It came in last week and it fits... YAY! I might even go so far as to say it's a bit flattering... I am even starting to look forward to the night a little bit! 

I know I said I've been super busy with boring stuff... Most of what I've been up to has to do with my Mary & Martha business and home maintenance / improvements... The maintenance is boring (but expensive) such as two new windows, a new leech field (yuck and set us back almost $10,000!!), and tree maintenance... The improvements are slightly more exciting... Fun new trim paint... A new seating area in the yard... A new garden... Just to name a few... All of these are nearing completion and will hopefully be ready for the weekend... We just might (for the first time since we took over my parent's house) have a yard that isn't embarrassing to have people see for a change... (Of course there are projects that won't be done in time but I won't dwell on those!) I will take pictures of everything to share next week after the party! 

Thanks for listening,

Summer at Last...

After a long, cold, winter and a long, (slightly less) cold spring, summer like weather has finally reached us here on the coast of Maine and I am loving it!!! 

Before I tell you about our weekend though... What do you think about the new look? It's a work in progress but I am excited about it! Liz from Sweet Simplicity Designs is doing the work and she is a joy to work with... Even if I am not. I am not trying to be a difficult client but I am so busy I rarely get back to her right away and she is always having to email me reminders so I am sure she will be glad to be done with the whole thing... 

Saturday Paul, Allison, Katy, & I took my sweet grand baby (Let's call her by our favorite nick-name for her "Goobie") to the Maine Fiber Frolic...

Pop & Goobie waiting for us ladies to get it together...

Shoes on for our little walker! 

(Yes, she rode in her car seat!) 

The Fiber Frolic is an annual fair about all things "fiber" so it was full of people who grow wool bearing animals, sheer them, spin the wool, and/or create (knit, ect) with it...

In full disclosure... I do none of the above...

But it was a beautiful day and we have a friend who has an alpaca farm who is an organizer of this event and she invited us... We had a good time in spite of the fact it wasn't "aimed" at us.

Goobie loved the animals...

She petted several and had so much fun!

Especially with the angora rabbits! 

 Goobie has figured out she only has to wear a hat outdoors so as soon as we'd go into any building she would take it off and then (try to) put it back on as we'd leave... It was very cute!

She also figured out how to drink out of auntie's camelbak water bottle... 

This impressed us all a little too much and of course auntie bought her one of her own by the end of the day! 

I think we enjoyed our (frequent) breaks in the shade as much as the exhibits! 

(Do you spy the cute basket I found on top of the stroller... Yes, I can shop even where nothing is aimed at my interests!) 

Goobie has also figured out that funny faces get a laugh when the camera/phone comes out!

Try to not smile at that face! (In case you were wondering how she came by that nick name take another look at that expression!) 

The girlies insisted I get in on at least one photo! 

Next we headed to Hussey's General Store

Their sign says it all...

Yep, Hussey's is one stop shopping for all things country or redneck if you know what I mean...

The first floor is your typical small town grocery store... 

But upstairs is soooo much more....

Why does this woman have a parka on? It was over 80 degrees!!! Hahahaha...

Oh, and don't miss the recliner that Paul teased us about wanting to buy for the rest of the day...

They also sell guns... Lot's of guns...

We then made a quick trip to Augusta for a Target run then headed home in time to grill dinner! 

What a wonderful day!

Thanks for listening