Lunch on "The Cliff"

Pete and I took about 2 hours out of our afternoon to go for a ride in the convertible.  We stopped to get some Subway sandwiches so that we could eat lunch out on "The Cliff" in Bloomfield. Of course, we took our camera along!

"The Cliff" is aptly named because that's exactly what it is. Back in the day, the road traveled along the edge of a cliff. Because there were so many accidents and people driving off the cliff (you can still see some cars way at the bottom), the road was closed off. It's a wonderful place to hike, have lunch, and enjoy the view. You can see MA in the distance -- the little notch in CT where MA dips down.

Afternoon Cleaning

After deciding it was too late to join my parents and brother at the Manchester, CT car show (Pete had been at work all morning), Pete and I began to wash out our two newly acquired 55 gallon drums.  Why do we have them? Well, unfortunately we're still heating our hot water with oil and Pete's work buddy has some home heating oil that he needs to get rid of (he recently converted to natural gas). After looking for quite some time, Pete found a guy in Bozrah, CT that claimed to have new drums for $40 apiece. After getting them, we quickly realized that they were far from new. Each of them had been previously used for holding printing ink. The ink in the blue drum was dry and peeled out rather easily. After that, Pete power washed it to get out the chunky stuff we missed and any leftover residue. The black drum was a different story. As Pete washed out the blue one, I pulled the black one off our truck. Unfortunately, the tan ink inside was still very liquid and it got on my legs, my shorts, the bed liner in the truck, and on our driveway. My shorts, needless to say, are now ruined. Oh well.

After Pete washed out the blue drum, he power washed my Tevas for me. Yes, they were that bad!!

Crocheted Skirt and Shawl

My crocheted outfit is just about complete! I finished crocheting the skirt this morning. The only things left to do are to sew in an elastic band, find (or have mom sew) some sort of fancy, shimmery tank, find a pair of shoes, and make my necklace and earrings (from the same beads I used on the shawl). I decided earlier in the summer to make my own outfit for a very fancy/formal wedding Pete and I have been invited to this October in Newport, RI. We still have to buy Pete a suit and, as you probably already guessed, it's going to cost between $150 and $300. He needs a suit jacket, matching pair of pants, tie, and shoes. Hopefully he can wear one of his dress shirts from work. I wanted to make my outfit for two reasons: 1. Just to say I did it and 2. To save money (which I did!).

Specifics

Shawl:

• The shawl is made from 6 skeins of Paton's Brilliant (Gold Glow), 1.75 oz.
  
• The pattern is a simple shell which was found on-line at: Anastacia Knits
  
• Once finished with the shell pattern, I added my own edging and attached 3 small beads to each edge "tip"
  
• The shawl measures 66" across the top (horizontal) and 33" from top to bottom (vertical)
  
• An "L" crochet hook was used

Skirt:

• The skirt is made from 4 skeins of Caron Simply Soft (Black 9727), 7 oz. and 2 skeins of Bernat Satin (Sable), 3.5 oz.
  
• The pattern comes from "Crochet! Magazine" July 2008. The pattern is the skirt portion of the "Sophisticated Shells Skirt & Wrap" pattern
• The skirt measures 33" from waist to bottom (skirt will be approximately 1"shorter once top band is folded over and the elastic is sewn in). The waist measures 17.5" (folded flat) and the bottom of the skirt measures 35.5" (folded flat).
• An "I" crochet hook was used
  

An Unexpected But Enjoyable Trip to the Homestead

Right before lunch, Pete talked to the guy with the 55 gallon drums. His location was kinda close to my parents' house so they went to go get our two drums for us. We then left at about 1:00 for their house to pick up the drums. We visited for about 3 hours and then headed back for home. We need to get a drum or two because a guy that Pete works with needs to offload some home heating oil (about 150 gallons worth) and he's going to sell it to us for $2 a gallon! Hence our need for the drums! :)

The picture above is my mom's new little baby, Olivia. She joins my mother's other black and white cat, Suzy.

Tree Trimming

There's always something to do outside! Pete and I had wanted to put up our new motion sensing light. After realizing that there were hornets up where it needed to go and a bolt was stripped out, we figured we would just trim tree branches all around our yard instead. 

The Path

My dear friend Roxy wanted to see a picture of the path that Pete created (with my help!) in the woods today so that our mower could get to the compost pile. The wonderful worm-laden pile is at the end of the path to the left.

Another Busy Day!

It feels good to finally sit down!  We started off this morning by going to the Transfer Station in town to dump off our garbage and recycling. (I am proud to say that we recycle more than we throw away!)  After that we drove the truck to Pete's mom's house to set up the pool.  After finding that it was still too muddy back there (I sank down about 3"), we poked around a bit in Phil's room and headed out to Lowe's. At Lowe's we picked up a pretty fancy motion sensing spotlight. We need to aim it on our woodpile so that if any shmucks try to steal our wood, the light will be trained on them. With fuel prices the way they are, we wouldn't put it past someone to park next door and load our wood up onto their truck (or trunk!). We've worked too hard to let that happen -- not to mention we don't want to use our furnace this winter! While at Lowe's I also picked out another cacti to add to my other two on my kitchen windowsill.  Once home, we had a quick bite to eat and then I was off to the grocery store. We needed a lot of stuff although I was expecting the bill to be much higher than it was. It still was $152! I did get some ground beef for hamburgers tonight (for Pete) and some chicken for myself (and some Jack Daniel's BBQ -- yummy!).  Tomorrow for dinner I'm going to grill some flounder.  When I got home, Pete was in the process of clearing a path in our back woods for the lawn mower. That's where our compost pile is and it was quite hard to access. Now it's all cleared out and raked. I gave Pete a hand once the cold groceries were put away. I had a blast picking out all of the worms and throwing them into my compost pile. I got about 20 or so really juicy ones! After that, Pete started to mow the lawn (where he is currently) and I did some trimming with the shears. Now I'm in sitting a bit before I put away the dry groceries and start making the hamburger patties.  So, that's my day in a nutshell!