Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Project Continues after a few days off

Here's the next installment of How Not To Do Home Repair starring your favorite handywoman: ME! I've taken several days off to do other, more social, things (even retired people need some time off, right?) but tomorrow I'll be back at the windows. Three of them are ready for the next stage: primer. I'll be heading to Bibens in the morning for advice about what kind of paint is best for that. I think it's going to be an oil based exterior primer, which means messier, more chemically clean-up. I've never worked in the oil based house paint medium before. Should be an adventure.


Friday I spent the day in the mountains with Kevin, who is a relatively new addition to my hiking friend world. He invited me to join him in the White Mountains on an 11 mile loop up the Madison Gulf Trail to Mt. Madison and then down the Daniel Webster Scout trail. (My pictures here -right click and choose open in new tab) I think we did something like 4100 feet of elevation gain. Ouch. The weather threatened throughout the afternoon but we only got some light drizzle. Being in the mountains on a blue-bird day with nearly unlimited views is considered the gold standard of a good day on the trail. Lately though, I've discovered that I enjoy just as much being part of a more variable weather day. Low clouds shift around and between the peaks and then race past me in wisps driven by the wind. The sky constantly changes in every direction and I have to remember to look behind me from time to time to see how close the "weather" might be getting. Hints of blue sky way off in the distance suggest a possible peaceful finish to the day and shafts light blast through breaks in the cloud cover like spot lights. We finished up the day with a greasy-good ten dollar, sixteen inch, cheese & pepperoni pizza from a sketchy grocery store in Bethlehem, NH and a one dollar soft serve ice cream cone with free Jimmies (sprinkles) from a place down the street that had just opened that day. We got the first cones as appetizers while waiting for our pizza to cook. I accompanied Kevin back to the soft serve place after dinner but declined to join him in eating a 2nd, dessert ice cream cone. Kevin posted some unedited video clips of our hike.


On Saturday, Chip and I drove down to Milford, NH to hang out with our friend, Meri. I hadn't seen her for quite a long time and we haven't been hiking in ages. We took a short, humid hike up North Pack Monadnock and filled our bellies with sun-warmed wild blueberries. Drank some beers, ate some dinner and got a tour of Meri's copious gardens. Meri may be the only other person in the world who finds edible flowers as fun as I do. The bite of my veggie burger that had both homemade hummus and a Gem Marigold in it was delicious.
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Eating all those blueberries yesterday inspired me to use the only remaining bag of last year's harvest to make a blueberry pie. My absolute favorite. Some people think making pies is difficult. Well, when you have my Mom's crust recipe and years of watching her perform pie miracles, it's not so difficult. Look Mom...pie perfection!

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I've spent today successfully working on a story that's sat in the drawer for about seven months until a couple weeks ago. Of course, for the past hour I've been screwing around with this diary-like blog entry as a procrastination technique because creative writing is hard, I was stuck and this is easier. Thank you for enabling my procrastination.

3 comments:

  1. i really like your pics, it looks like you like camping to, thats rhe best thing to do in the summer, have a nice one

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Blueb's are the best when sun-warmed.

    No, Blueb's are the best in pie.

    No, sun-warmed.

    No, pie.

    Life is full of tough choices.

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