> We drove down a barrier island to a place that really didn’t feel like America. St. Augustine, founded in 1565, is the oldest port in the U.S. Spanish architecture and mosaics dominate the city’s buildings and squares. We walked through ornate stone arches below embellished bell towers near carp-filled fountains. We gawked at the hotel ponce…
The days of my pumpkin spiced lattes are dwindling. The plump pumpkins that lined the grocers’ windows have been replaced with poignant poinsettias and will soon be joined by mistletoe and fraser firs. In September, I wrote, “If it weren’t for Thanksgiving, Christmas would start November 15.” Ha! Okay okay I take it back. I must have forgotten…
What a welcoming sign What an interesting area. As I drove through Seminole Park, I felt like Christopher Reeves felt in “Somewhere in Time” when he crossed from 1989 to 1912 and his surroundings flickered and faded from modern to Victorian. My surroundings seem to flicker and fade between Hawaiian and Georgian as I crossed…
Morning sun beams snuck between illuminated clouds and made the water and the mist bright white. I could not see more than 200 yards down the stretch because of the white film around me. Early bird surfers did a disappearing act as they bobbed up and down with each wave and the figures of joggers…
> “Chris, thank you for understanding me and validating me. Sometimes I think you understand me better than I do myself.” Some people get in fights and doubly hurt each other because they react to their spouses actions instead of looking at the deeper cause of that action. This is like slapping a horse because…
>The barren bear bared her beard then barely bit the board that the bored boar bore. PinterestFacebookTwitterEmail
>Chris has 24-hr duty on the boat on Thanksgiving Day. I’ll probably get Christmas with him, but they will be gone by New Years. Last New Years, we were on our third date in New York. PinterestFacebookTwitterEmail
> Florida is warm and humid. Not that I expected it to be any different. Glad it’s not hurricane season. Jaguars football game last week. Woohoo. Casting Crowns concert Thursday. Man the lead singer is so genuine. Some bands play for the sake of music and add lyrics; some bands write for the sake of lyrics and add…
Chris and I fell asleep to the Christmas-tree-topper Chrysler building standing outside Brian’s window at 37th and Lexington. I have labeled his 80 yr. old flat a “cozy little money-sucking fire hazard.” He agreed. I like it. We had spent our evening in New York carrying pumpkin spiced lattes through Times Square and Grand Central Station. I got…
>”head>heart>feet>steps>walk” Stuff flows into our ears and eyes then infiltrates our minds and hearts. It is unlikely that something that enters our minds will not puncture our hearts whether it be truth or lie, pure or foul, love or lust. Additionally, it is impossible to disconnect the state of our hearts from our hands and feet and stride. In Matt….
>Every Halloween, a parade of wowingly costumed people marches through old downtown Portsmouth. Seriously, these costumes are ridiculous and meticulous! I do not think I saw a single storebought outfit. There were characters from every movie, story book, and youtube video you could think of. I saw the Knights That Say “Ni,” the Teacher from the…
>”Sow a thought; reap an actionSow an action; reap a habit.Sow a habit; reap a character.Sow a character; reap a destiny.” http://heatherpaiges.blogspot.com/2007/12/you-know-old-saying-you-reap-what-you.html Galatians 6:7-91 Corinthians 15:3Philippians 4:8 PinterestFacebookTwitterEmail
I have lived in Portsmouth since June. It is nearly November. And I am still enchanted with this place. It’s all brick and wood and books. Old bridges, old shops, older houses, a blue door, a red door, the trolley. Morning Stroll by Eric Gendron No one hustles here. But boy the town did bustle…
>So last night, Iwas anticipating cooking chicken when the door bell rang. It was our lobsterman neighbor, Jeff, holding two live lobsters that he had caught in the bay! He instructed us (in his rich Mainer accent) to boil 1″ of water then stick ’em in for 12 minutes. Great. So Chris and I let…
>And today, Chris played a rugby game in Boston. Do you know the history of rugby? It started in a soccer match at Rugby Boarding School in England in 1823. A player picked up the soccer ball and ran then the other team said Hey, you can’t do that and tackled him. Later, they said…
>Buy cider from your local grocerPour desired amount into sauce panThrow in two cinnamon sticksand a palms worth of whole clovesHeat to a simmer SO GOOD! Do it. Toast pumpkin seeds too. 1) he drove his truck down a muddy rocky mountain road very skillfully at night. That looked really good.2) later, he plowed down…
> Saturday Chris and I and two of our New Yorker friends went to a Harvest Festival in Old York Village. People get so much more into the seasons up here- it seems like it is a major part of people’s lives. I think the semi-lack of seasons deprives Texans of the fullness of this…
We drove the truck down a dirty dirt/rock road in the mountains for several miles at 40 mins till dusk. We were feeling pretty darn adventurous. We parked by a remarkably still lake and bounded around a nearby boulderfield. When we got back to the truck , the lake was pink from twilight and the trees…
>I top rope climbed a 35 ft. rock! We drove down this backwood, potholed, dirt road then hiked a big hill to this sweet wall, anchored in, and climbed a few routes. Tell me this isn’t a sweet name for a road: Kancamangus Hwy. We went hiking near it in the White Mtns. in the…
>Chris gets back tomorrow. He left last Thursday to sail the boat down to Florida for renovations. When he was leaving, I watched them launch the boat from a park on the other side of the Piscataqua River, then as the tug boat pushed them harbor ward, I hopped in my car and raced out…
I had to buy pumpkins. So I stopped at a 300 year old farm-orchard called Emery and poured myself a $.50 cider then scouted the patch. This is a bonified pumpkin patch. The vines are still laying between the pumpkins, which sit where their stalks were cut. After I loaded up my cultivars, I decided…
I climbed an aspen tree. The sun shone through the bright yellow leaves and made me feel like Glinda in the middle of a glowing bubble. My favorites are the sugar maples. They are such a glorious red! I can compare the color to nothing else. But if I do ever see something that is…
>I’m looking at Chris right now. He sitting on our couch full of football watching men for whom he made burgers and I made sweet tea, homemade nachos, and chocolate chip cookies. From Tuesday to today though, I have had him pretty much all to myself. He is just so wonderful. I love him more…
>1) We went to the Tulluride by the Sea film festival at thein Portsmouth. Neat old theater. We saw Coco Avant Chanel, a very good indep. French film starring Audrey Tautou. We felt pretty darn intellectual. Then we drank pumpkin spice lattes at, which also made us feel intellectual. 2) breakfast at the slightly odd…
>A clean stove is like a guitar that hasn’t been restrung in 3 years. Either is never used or it is broken. My stove was dirty. My guitar does not need to be restrung. PinterestFacebookTwitterEmail
>In come the Canadian geese. Why are they called Canadian? They are only Canadian half the year. PinterestFacebookTwitterEmail
>A fellow Aggie-Coast Guard wife-temp. Mainer and I drove to Bar Harbor (adorable) and Acadia (wowingly georgeous) for a day trip. Acadia is where those nincumpoops were standing on the cliffs during the Hurricane a few weeks ago and 12 people were swept off by a giant wave. So anyway the weather was good while…
>”w/ mechanistic and scientific views of the universe gaining hegemony & analytical minds swearing unyielding antipathy toward any invincible mystery that couldn’t be broken down by controllable parts, nation-states and their cultures rose above ecclesiastical influence.” Wow what a sentence. I could never comprise that. I read it in “A New Kind of Christian”by Brian…
>Earlier today, when I was “returning” from York School Dept, I accidentally turned north instead of south. oops. I figured this out when i saw Nubble Lighthouse in the distance. So I figured, eh what the heck I’ll just go to the light house. I spent a good hour there. That light house is on…