Daydreaming

Afternoon doldrums have set in and my mind is wandering. I have been feeling a great deal of stress lately. What happens to all the hours in the day? Sometimes I think it would be better if we didn't have this house. It is just way too much for two people! I know that some of the workload here is because of the new addition we added last year. We still have electrical to run, two doors, trim, and painting to do upstairs (I finally sanded it last week!), set of stairs going out the back, replace ugly ones out the front, we need about 15-20 more yards of loam to fill in the side and back yard so we can plant grass, a burm to plant, a driveway to trim, a walkway... We have had so much rain I am mowing twice a week which is a two hour job each time if I don't weed whack (which, let's be honest, doesn't happen very often), not to mention trying to keep up with weeding and pruning. The raspberry patch is a mess! Good thing they are tough weedlike plants who can fend for themselves! Then inside is beyond ridiculous. I clean constantly, and have dropped my standards through the floor, yet the house is always a disaster! Today, between reconciles, and web updates, I am attempting to do about 10 loads of laundry, and clean one bathroom. Vacuuming won't happen for days, and mopping! Surely, you jest! I did get up early to make meatloaf! Art is at the store finishing new displays today because he is off to Canada tomorrow morning for a few day retreat with our pellet manufacturer up there. Men only- Thank you very much! :-(>
Anyway, lately I have been thinking of when we actually finish this house so we can move on to the next one! Art wants to build our next house. We still like our town, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to live closer to his folks on the coast. I am very unsure of building a new house as I have been through that with my own family growing up, and know that it is extremely stressful and difficult on it's own, but I do not like the colonial, salt box, gambrel style that dominates New England. Anyway- we were looking at house plans yesterday... It never hurts to look! Here is the one we like today.

Spaceys 2007 - Favourite TV Show - Stargate Atlantis

Congratulations SGA!

david hewlett at the 2007 spacey awards

rotflmao

Thrill Ride

Finally! I was able to get down to the town to register the Porsche, and then to Milford to get my plates. Between our crazy store schedule, the limited small town dmv hours, and our recent trips it has been difficult to find time to register. We have ten days to do the inspection. But other than that- Thursday it was done. I was careful not to get too excited because I could not see a time when we would be able to drive it. It was COLD! and rainy on Wednesday and Thursday, with a promise of uncertain for Friday and beyond. Seriously cold. You should have seen all of us tough types in long sleeves, pants, and jackets hopping up and down, huddling together, and blowing on our hands to try to keep warm during the big solar presentation on Thursday. Saturday, after working in the store, we were going over to Art's folks house for Father's day and because Pam was going to come up. Even though it was still cloudy when we woke up, I really wanted to take the car. Art didn't want to bring the car to the store, and had taken the top off so he was concerned about rain. I dug my heels in and we took it. We showed up a little late so no one at the store even noticed what we drove in with, and it got warmer and brighter as the day progressed. At one, after Art finished doing some deliveries we had rescheduled for training, we set off for the seacoast. The top was down and the sun was bright. It was a great ride, although traffic was a little heavy so we couldn't really stretch her legs. I remember thinking that it would be just short of a miracle if we didn't get pulled over today. Bud and Pam took it for a ride to get Chinese take-out for dinner. Then our neice Lindsay drove to get ice cream. So far so good. On the way out of his folks development heading home we had Karyn and Ralph following in their sporty little Lincoln. Art took off at a good clip, but quickly slammed on the brakes when he saw that a cop was approaching from the other direction. Of course, the cop turned around, and on went the blues. Ralph pulled over, and Art began to pull over, but realized that he did not want us. He had tagged poor Ralph, who we can only guess was trying to catch up to us. Continuing on we thought we would call them when we got on the highway to see what had transpired. We drove pretty slow at that point, both for nerves and we were going through the little town of Newfields which is a bad place to speed no matter what you are driving. When we turned on to 101 we saw that Ralph and Karyn had caught up and waved and beeped. They must have just had a quick warning, or the cop changed his mind altogether... Phew! The rest of the ride home was wonderful. Art and a BMW played leap frog for better than half the distance to Manchester, and a newer Carrera pulled up even with us with a wave of acknowledgement before joining the game. They got off at a near exit and pulled even again to wave goodbye. We stuck our hands out of the skylight and waved goodbye to the Beamer when it exited. I saw 120 once and just gave Art's leg a little pat to let him know that "yeah, that was fun, but..." We made it home with no (further) cops and no stops!

New alternative

We have always fancied ourselves alternative energy dealers even though we have mostly sold wood pellet stoves, furnaces, and the occassional grill. Most would lump us in the stove or hearth category at the strictest, and the wood pellet or biomass at the liberal end. This week we officially picked up solar hot water systems. So (I think) we are now officially out of the stove/hearth category and into alternative energy. We picked up Enerworks solar hot water systems. We liked them because they are right North of us in Canada, they had an established product, easy maintenance, and a good local distributor. I am sure that stoves will always remain at the heart of our business, but I really like the idea of doing more with the central heat systems, advancing bulk feed options, and tying in other systems such as solar. There are many great solar/biomass systems in Europe. Right off the bat we will have a nice package with the pellet boiler w/hot water coil, using the solar as a preheat and summer hot water package. There are so many tax rebates, and credits available I think it will help save dollars as well as give us some experience in that department for future biomass credits.

Speaking of Sqirrels

6/14/07 BERLIN (Reuters) - An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.
The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said Thursday.
With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.
The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.
"After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man's garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh," the spokesman said. "Then he killed it with his crutch."
The spokesman said experts thought the attack may have been linked to the mating season or because the squirrel was ill.

Bribery

Art has had a very good week. We had our little getaway on the Block last week. We spent Thursday night at home and on Friday Art headed North with his buddy Steve for a little boondoggle. They traveled just North of Berlin on the Maine border on Friday, and Saturday they kayaked to Lake Umagog which they had pretty much to themselves. Sunday they headed down the Androscoggin River. At this point I think he has paddled all of the Androscoggin. He came home with a big smile, a sunburn, and a hand full of flowers. This is apparantly an activity on his list that will make him think flowers. They were beautiful, and I am glad he had a great time.

I spent a lovely weekend at home. I am in the process of moving my office (again). We have a little cottage on the property that I have been using. It seemed nice to have it separate from "home". However, a couple of years ago to conserve pellets we moved my office up to an unused bedroom we coined the 'bear room' at the back of the house. I kind of liked that. I think I just like that room. I used to have my sewing room in a little room by our bedroom, but I moved that up to the bear room last fall, just because. The bear room is a special room. It was one of two rooms we didn't see the first time we walked through the house because they were tucked behind a door in the (then kitchen B) bar. It has a great door with a window that reminds us of bear paws, hence the name. It also has views of the raspberry patch, the stream, and the field out back. Another reason to move the office is Art. He was so excited to get the garage done, and moved all of his tools, and woodworking equipment out there as soon as we were finished. Well, now we have the Porsche which neither of us want to run power tools around for obvious reasons, nor do we want to have to leave the car out in the rain/sleet/snow that happens here from time to time ;)>. So the thought is that we will convert the cottage to a workshop. We still have our exercise equipment out there, but that is a problem for a different day...

Someday.