A change is in the air. Summer is leaving us one day at a time. The air smells different. The sun’s arc is lower in the sky every day, making the light more mellow and not as harsh (and also not hitting the pool). The days are getting noticeably shorter. This seasonal swing seems early this year. We’ve been experiencing nighttime temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s. Nice sleeping weather but not good for keeping the pool at a reasonable swimming temperature. It seems like pool season just started and now it’s pretty much over. So sad. Don’t get me wrong—I love Fall—but this year I’m not quite ready to let go of Summer. A very odd thing for me to say since Summer is not my favorite season.

Fall is another truly wonderful season in the East. We get four true seasons, unlike Colorado where Spring and Fall amount to about two weeks of each. Here Fall lasts for months, spreading itself out like comfy blanket. I think you know what I mean.  Like when you go to spread a blanket for a picnic, and as you lift your arms high and release it, the folds billow out and fall gently to the ground. That’s what it’s like. A slow settling down. Okay, maybe I am ready after all.

One side of getting ready for cooler weather is to stock up on firewood. Especially this year with the sky-rocketing price of fuel oil (which we happen to use to heat our house), we plan on using the fireplaces more than ever.  As if (me) Fire Woman needs an excuse to build a fire. We had two cords delivered on Tuesday. At first moving all this wood looked like a monumental task.

But once I got started it just moved along a little at a time with the help of my trusty wheelbarrow.

I learned a long time ago the art of ricking up wood to make a nice rack. That knowledge has served me well over the years, especially at the cabin where we cut all our wood from our own property. However, there is a definite difference in the wood. In Colorado it was all soft pine and aspen wood, and unless the wood was still wet and not aged it was not very heavy. I could carry a good armload of, oh, say seven or eight pieces of wood at a time. That was the good part about it. The bad part was that being as soft and dry as it was, it burned very quickly.

“Put another log on the fire…”

Here we have hardwoods. Heavy even when it’s aged and dry. And, much slower burning. I am lucky to pick up one large piece to toss into the wheelbarrow—using both hands, I might add. No one-handed tossing going on here. A pretty good workout for those upper arms and back. Pushing a loaded wheelbarrow full of hardwood is not a task for the faint of heart either.  whew.

Heavy work gloves are a real necessity. Not only to protect the hands, but to avoid getting bitten by all the spiders that have taken up residence in a few short days. What’s that you say, you don’t want to help me? Bunch of wimps!

Soon progress is made.

As I worked in the cool, fresh air of early morning, I could hear squirrels rustling around in the tree tops, then the thud of pine cones and/or early acorns falling to the ground below. They too must feel the shift in seasons, as they busily prepare their stash for the chillier months ahead. They must chew it off and store it because the ground is strewn with scores of cores of spent cones.

I like working with wood. The smell of the split wood is earthy and redolent of sap and, well, woody. It’s a honest, homey kind of job. I expected to be sore from my woody workout, but I’m not. I’ve done a little each day but there is still more to go. Since we won’t be here for the next few days and I really want to get the wood off of the grass so the grass doesn’t die on me, I’ve hired Luke to move it over to the gravel. The job of stacking will still be mine next week.

That’s why I love living where I am so much. This house. This small four acres of New Jersey countryside. It allows me to have a little bit of the cabin, yet I can have NYC and a cosmopolitan lifestyle when the mood suits. Country Girl : City Girl. The best of both worlds all rolled up into one. I think I’ll stay for awhile.

P.S. Rereading this post I see that I veered off topic quite a bit. Oh well. The thoughts kept tumbling out of my head and onto the keyboard as I went along. Sometimes it happens that way. I’m not going to go back and edit it; it is what is is!

What? Doesn’t everyone have a bathtub in their bedroom? Just sitting there waiting to be enjoyed? No?

We are almost there. “There” being at the point of finally moving back into our fully renovated bedroom and bath. This weekend, they tell me. Can’t wait. How exciting. After six weeks (gads, has it been that long?) of sleeping in the guest bedroom, it’s finally coming to an end.

Hmmm .... an end. The end of the rhythm of my days for the past six weeks is going to be a little strange. Tim got me out of bed earlier than I would normally rise on any given day. Hey, Tim, just because you can’t sleep past 4:30 does that mean you need to arrive five minutes earlier every day? I have to admit that a few times I was still in my robe when he arrived on my doorstep ready to take on the day. He got used to seeing me still in my robe, and I got used to his early arrivals. Every day like clockwork I got up, fed the dogs and cats, rushed upstairs to take my shower, catch the cats and put them in a closed room (for their own safety), do something similar with the dogs, grabbed a cup of coffee and checked my email—all hopefully before the workers arrived. If I overslept, the first thought upon awakening was “oh ****, Tim will be here in ten minutes!” Better get my sorry you-know-what out of bed.

At times I had no privacy, although they were always respectful about it. In and out; up and down. Questions here, questions there. I had a job and that job was to be here to answer questions and make spot decisions so that the work could go forward. Now it would seem I’m about to be cut loose, back to “normal” (whatever that is).  The cats and dogs can once again have the freedom of the entire house. I won’t have to plan my grocery trips and other various errands around when they will be here and when they won’t. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want.

The driveway seems empty without the two work trailers parked out in front of the house. We are now able to park both vehicles in the garage—wow—imagine that!  It’s all good except that I find myself a little at odds with it, which is a bit strange. You see, I got used to having people around for the better part of the day. I will miss Tim’s sarcastic wit and our conversations. I couldn’t wait to have my house back to myself again, yet now I am almost regretful that it’s over. Can it be that I am actually going to miss having them around?

On the other hand, we are getting weary of not being in our own bedroom. We are tired of sleeping on our old queen-sized bed. There just isn’t enough room for our two bodies and Sam (our Maine Coon cat who stretches out between us every night and takes up 1/3 of the bed space). Our clothes are in another bedroom, still in the dresser drawers that we removed from the furniture itself so it could all be moved easily. The furniture sits in the upstairs hallway and in the fourth unused bedroom. All our hanging clothes are in what used to be the master bedroom closet (we made a new one). I think you’re beginning to get the idea that this is going to be quite a transition to get everything back in and settled again.

It’s all coming to an end today as they finish setting the bathtub and toilet. Well, almost anyway. We still are waiting on our shower door so we will still have to shower in the guest bathroom for a few more weeks. But we can move back into our newly refurbished bedroom (new wood laminate floor, fresh paint) and enjoy our bubble massage bathtub.

But that might not be the end. I just might have a job after all at the end of this. I might be taking before and after photos of house renovations. Nothing is certain yet. Just maybe ...

Sneak peek at how the bath is coming along:

One year ago today you left me. You left quite suddenly and without warning. How I wish I could rewind the last few days of your life again. But would it really have made any difference? I wonder. Still I am tormented by what ifs. But you are gone and there is no going back. I think about you every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of something to ask you about or tell you about something that happened in my day. But you aren’t there.

We didn’t get to say good-bye and that really hurts. At least I have the last words you spoke to me on the phone—love you! I love you too. I miss you so much.

The rain washed everything clean and brought with it much cooler temperatures yesterday. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Good because a lovely cool breeze wafted through the house making the curtains billow out, breathing fresh air in; bad because the combination of new rain water and the cooler temps made the pool temperature drop by three or four degrees. boo hoo. It was pretty cloudy for the better part of the day and not very conducive to splashing around the pool. Still, we hung out in the cabana. We feel we have to take every advantage of the pool that we can since all too soon it will be closed for the season. At least that’s the best rationale that we can come up with for spending another Sunday doing not much of anything.

We kicked off our shoes

and proceeded to kick back ourselves and just relax and read while the cool breeze blew through our little poolside oasis.

Of course, with us there is always food involved and this was no exception. I tried out a new recipe Grape-Mint Salsa. It’s made with both green and red grapes, chopped mint, chopped chives, a jalapeno pepper and some lime juice. (Follow the link if you’re interested in the recipe.) Sugared pita chips are served alongside for dipping.

And, if you’re following along with the Robinson’s you should also know that there is always some kind of drink to go along with the food. Another new recipe, this one taken from Rachel Ray’s website: Beer Margaritas. Oh my. I am not a beer drinker at all, but this is enough to change my mind. delicious. refreshing. addictive. Take 4 12-ounce bottles of ice-cold Corona, 1 cup of tequila, one 12-ounce container of limeade concentrate and mix together. Salt glass rims with kosher salt and serve with wedges of lime.

The only downside to these that I can think of is that they go down a lot easier than a normal margarita. Maybe too easily ...

The day got sunnier as it went on and we did take a quick dip, then just floated around for a while.

Our little garden frog was happy too.

For dinner we grilled pizza. The crust comes out cracker thin and crispy. yum. One with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, portobella mushrooms and roasted red peppers,

and one with caramelized onions, gorgonzola cheese and black olives (my particular favorite.

A walk after dinner down the road with the dogs topped off another great (if not very productive) Sunday.

Last night we had a power failure. Since moving here we’ve only had one other significant power outage and that was during the daylight hours. Our neighbors have always told us that it’s very common to lose power here so I always have candles on hand, and we bought a lantern the year before last when tropical depression Ernesto paid us a visit but we’ve never used it.
Sidebar: Most of our power lines are above ground; not buried. Add to that all the trees that fall down on a fairly regular basis and you can understand why we have power outages.

We had a thunderstorm roll through around 7:00 p.m. last night just as we were eating dinner. We had three very close hits (if not our house than something in our yard), and on one of the lightning hits the power went out. It poured; more lightning and more thunder. We sat there watching the rain come down and about 20 minutes later the power came back on. The little thunderstorm moved off to rain on someone else and we cleaned up the dinner dishes.

An hour later found us settling down in front of the television to watch Flashdance and give Rick a much needed back rub. All of a sudden we were sitting in total darkness. Hey, who turned out the lights? Somehow, this seemed more final than the previous one. We scrambled around in the dark grabbing candles and remembering where we’d put the lantern. It was so dark! Soon we were sitting in the comforting glow of candlelight. Kind of nice. Peaceful. We carried lanterns down into the yard to put the solar cover back on the pool. So very dark.

We didn’t get to watch Flashdance, but Rick did get his back rub—by candlelight. Two hours later as we got in bed to read, the power came back on. It went off again in the middle of the night too. We only know because we were rudely awakened by the beep of the smoke alarm as the power came back on. This morning everything had to be reset, from the coffee pot to the pool timer. Oh how we depend on our electrical gadgetry!