Summer gone sad...

In our never ending quest to be absolutely miserable we planned a 3 day, 33 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail during the tailend of a 4 week rainstorm. Even though it was pouring rain at start time we waited out for a clear spot and headed on the first leg of our journey. It mostly stopped raining but fog was hanging and the views were nonexistent. Then throw in the mud which on the trail is basically decaying matter and smells like death and yep you got one unhappy hiker. Blech it was nasty, my boots were soaked and my pants were covered in mud up to my knees. Not fun people, let me go home. Well I got my wish as we camped just one night and hiked out the 2nd day. Next time we will conquer this section, until then my boots are taking a break.

Fall comes way too fast especially when there is firewood to collect. Some friends had some downed trees they offered us so we sawed, split, and hauled the wood home. Okay really I just hauled and supervised because I do not touch mauls or chainsaws, they are just too dangerous for this accident prone chicka, but Mr. Anderson, he did his fair share of chainsawing and chopping last weekend. Ben got his reward though when we drove thru town like a couple of hillbillies with a load of wood and a chainsaw and wheelbarrow strapped on top of his man truck. It makes him happy to look like we fit in, and that day we looked like true Maine-ahs. Wow we have come a long ways in just one year.

Kind of seems most everyone has a blog these days but there are still those people out there who say the word BLOG like it is something quite special. My mom has a knack for that one and so does my grad school advisor. Last weekend at a work retreat me and my research partner asked our advisor if she would take a photo with us. Sure she said, I am sure Mindi wants to put it on her BLOG. Hmm only if it is funny or cool or something. Well it is kinda of funny, who knew we all had the same the left head tilt pose for photos. Neato huh??

Flying Rabid Mice

The other night I was chilling on the couch reading a magazine when I saw a huge moth come flying down the steps. I was like wow that is one ginormous moth and then I realized we had a bird in our living room. Oh a poor bird, trapped in the house. OMG NOT A BIRD! I screamed bloody murder and Ben came flying out of the kitchen to find me huddled on the couch under a blanket. After a bit of convincing that it was the man's job to take care of such things he followed the thing upstairs and trapped it in our bedroom. I had to have one more look and yes I was still scared, freaked out actually. Ben told me he didn't think I was the kind of girl to scream, like a girl anyways. Oh yes I am and you can hear it here.



The day after bat day, I jetted down to Washington DC to meet my buddy Darcie and her sisters and brother on their annual sibling bonding vacation. The first night we took a walk around the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials and were joined by a flock of bats out hunting for dinner. How did they know I was going to be there?

Traveling in a group of 7 can be a challenge. What are we going to do? Where should we eat? Who has to go to the bathroom. Oh boy! But we had a great time, saw the sights and for just one day I got to be a member of their club. Check it out, I am the sister underneath the sailor. Thanks guys for making me feel welcome!

Good to be Home

Home again home again, we made it home again. I found some super deals on flights outta Boston so we last minute decided to make an appearance in MN. The flights were cheap mostly because they were crap but hey we made it home. In order to catch our 5 am flight in BeanTown we left Bangor after work to catch the last Amtrak from Portland. Sound inconvenient, oh yes it got worse. I decided we needed to bring a load of fresh seafood home, so I loaded up a cooler and put Ben in charge of carrying it. We had some time to kill in Boston, okay like 6 hours, and to my glee the new batman movie opened that night at midnight. Ben had never seen anything like the 19 screen megaplex I drug him to, it was huge and had escalators which was great because we had suitcases and a giant red cooler. We were hoping to put our luggage under a counter but were denied. Awesome, 5000 people waiting for the doors to open and Ben holding a cooler. Everybody stared, everybody commented and we just stood there like a couple of freaks in the midst of actual freaks dressed up like Batman and the Joker. The movie ended up being awesome, we got wheelchair seats to stash our luggage and we were able to go right to the airport without really waiting around at all. It ended up sweet!

The forecast for our weekend at the lake looked horrible but ended up perfect. I got to meet my new nephew, way cute, my sister's family's new puppy, also way cute and catch up on these two monsters, cute but trouble. We got some much needed boat time, family time and enjoyed a Seafood dinner party. As an added bonus some of my buddies from way back made it down to visit. Good times!

Now that I have two families and we live away our time is at a premium. Luckily our families get along well and we are able to do things together. Plus our families have quite a bit in common. For instance check out my Mom and Ben's Grandpa, they are both missing 3 teeth. And not just any teeth but those right up there where you can see them. How neat huh!! (If I don't explain my Mother's situation I know I will get a phone call, she is getting them fixed and has temporaries that she can take out, which she did for this photo)One of my favorite things to do when I am home besides play cards and waterski is to have Ben's Mom teach me how to make cool Vietnamese cuisine. Here we are making bhan com which is a dessert of coconut, mung bean and sweet flour. Sound yucky, well it's not, it's real good. While we were rolling the dough Ben's mom told me about the time she offered to buy Ben the stuff that would make his hair grow back but he said no. She said it won't have mattered because her friend bought it and it didn't work anyways. Oh I laughed at Ben's expense because it was so funny. No secrets are safe with us two Benjamin, I am sure you already know that

Our week in MN flew away and soon we were on the road, on the road in the new pickup truck we bought from my Papa. Ben is stoked to have a truck in Maine. Now we don't have to cut sheetrock in half to get it home and we can haul anything we want. Can you tell I am so excited to haul stuff. Anyways the truck was a pretty comfy ride in fact I fell asleep alot except when we parked at Niagara Falls to sleep overnight. Then I couldn't sleep at all, what a drag. Niagara Falls in the dark is really scary, a gagillion gallons of loud, roaring water that I didn't even want to go near but during the day it is breathataking and definitely worth putting on your bucket list. Now driving the 1700 miles from MN to Maine, not really bucket list material.

Trash talking is for fools

Woof 0 - Porcupine 2. Nice move blockhead. Dogs, like boys, they never learn.

I've learned though, learned how to make another quilt. I made this flannel baby cover for my buddy Kelly who is expecting in August. Happy baby day Kelly! Quilting has been good for me, it keeps my idle hands busy and distracts me from working on my thesis. Perfect!

Living in RedSox country has been a little tiresome for a couple of diehard Twins fans like Ben and I. "We won the World Series last year", "We have a great pitching staff","All our starters made the All Star Team", blah, blah, blah blahbahhhh! "Who won '87 and '91, huh, tell me who won?!" Anyways when the red hot Twins rode into Fenway for a series with the slumping RedSox I took full advantage of the opportunity to do a little trash talking to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately my talk came back to bite me as the series did not at all go the way we had planned. Wednesday evening we returned home to find a gift to reminds us how many games the Twins won against Boston. Oh there will be other games and ....I should probably just stop talking.

Back in MN we had a gigantic garden, about 100' by 50'. Ben loved it because he HAD to use a full size tractor to maintain the thing, I hated it because it took many, many hours to weed and water the thing. Here in Maine we have a sweet little 8 by 8 garden. I can weed and water this baby in 5 minutes flat. Now that is the kind of garden I dig and I bet my right hand we will pull more veggies out of this little fertile plot then we ever got out of the Minnesota monster.

The AT ain't bad

Last weekend we embarked on our first hike on the Appalachian Trail. It has been pretty wet here so the trail was real sloppy and I was a mess, I know how to find the mud. I also stepped through a bridge and up to my knee in a river about 10 minutes into the trip. By the time we set up camp 8 hours later I had smelly prune foot. Our camp was just below 4000 feet and it got pretty cool and really wet, oh and the bugs were horrible. Yes I spent the evening in the tent.

We met a thru hiker on our trek in, he must have left Georgia in like March to already be in Maine. I wonder how much snow he hit on the way and HOW he could do the trail solo. I think I would go crazy walking this by myself. Although doing all of it or a big chunk of it is something we would like to do someday.

Good times, here we are on one of the 2 peaks of the Bigelows. It was my first time at 4000 feet, on my own two feet. First time for Woofer too and he did awesome on the technical climbing with his new pack. Now if we could just get him to pose for photos we would be all good.

Crash Test Dummy

Last Sunday the 66 John Deere mowed our whole lawn for the first time ever (it has never ever run right). It was almost like the thing knew it was going to die soon. As an afterthought I decided to make a couple of quick passes in the swatch of grass between our deck and garage because the push mower is not working. Not my best move. Not my best move because we have a 15 foot drop off behind our house, the grass was wet and the tires on the tractor are really worn. Oh yeah and there is that one big tree, the dead one we were going to cut down this spring.


The last photo shows the view from the clearing behind our house, it is quite a drop. Even though I bailed halfway, riding the mower just 10 feet down the hill was by far scarier than any rollercoaster I have ever been on. Minus that one tree we would be laughing but I am pretty sure Ben shed a tear when he viewed the aftermath.

Not a Girlscout you say?

Summer is here and moving dang fast. For those of you have not started your summer activities you better get a move on. My mom visited for a long weekend and we took her on her very first camping expedition. We chose a really cool hike-in spot downeast that overlooks the ocean. It's a little bit of a hike in and my mom is 60, which she reminded us many times. She did great although she about sweated through her pants and the bugs were pretty bad. We made it to camp and the woman who claimed she was going to die scavenged enough wood for a 2 day fire. Hmm you are that tired huh?

Woof on the other hand acted like he was not well. It was his first day wearing his new pack and the longest hike of the year but still he had me worried. We were setting up tents and he just plopped down right were the tent was going and layed there breathing all weird. Eventually he did snap out of it but he gave us a little scare.

Once the sun set the bugs went away and we had a nice evening by the fire. We were able to see 3 lighthouses which doesn't happen everyday and had a nice bit of moonshine to look at.

We packed up and made it out in record time and set off for Campabello Island Canada. We had crossed the border with no problems other than a couple of unsigned passports. There is an old light house that can be visitied at low tide and luckily we planned accordingly to be able to do just that. Woof came with and did very well until we got to the light house and he started acting like a dead dog again. Here we are waiting for him to snap out of it. The East Quoddy Head light house is pretty neat and is in the process of being restored by a bunch of really old people from the island. They were out working the day we visited and they were not the ablest bunch. One old lady offloaded most of her gear onto Ben including a bucket of paint and her BRAND new camera. He must look trustworthy or something? But not 100 feet later he about wiped on some slippery seaweed. That would have been cool huh? That crazy old canuck would have probably kicked his butt.
The rest of the weekend we put my mom to work. We planted our garden, planted grass, planted flowers and transplanted all kinds of stuff, she was like our little migrant worker.

She talks like a migrant worker too. We played alot of Wii bowling and the one time I beat her she called me a s**thead. What is up with that? I deserve better especially from my mother...

Finito!

Ah, life is good again. We finished the bathroom remodel on Tuesday, what a relief. We are both quite pleased with the results, in fact we are starting to wonder if the room really even fits into our century old home, it is way too nice.(check out the old bathroom here, not so nice) Although I was the instigator and designer of the new pooper room, Ben was the one that made it happen, way to go Mr. Anderson. Take a gander at the photos, there are a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears in this 6' by 10' room.



We are pumped that the bathroom is done but bummed to find out Woof has Lymes. Although he may never show any signs of the disease he is on preventive antiobiotics which means 8 giant horsepills a day. He doesn't mind though, he eats poo so pills are no problemo.

Now getting him to drink water, that is a whole different story. Woof doesn't drink water unless it is in the white bowl in the house, the bowl in his kennel goes untouched even if we leave him all day. I am attempting to break him of this habit but am having little luck. Monday he ran errands with me and it got real hot, real fast and he was panting like crazy in the back of the wagon. I rushed home to get him to his water and the sucker would not drink a drop. I decided to show him and locked him in his kennel until he drank. Well he showed me and dug a giant hole and didn't touch his water. At this point it was about 90 and he was breathing like a dragon. I showed him who is boss by putting him on a leash and spraying him off with the hose. He HATES the hose but he just stood there like a statue and would not look at me. It is on Woof, you better watch your back!

Mechanically Challenged

Ben has a way with machines. First it was our lawn tractor which doesn't run long enough to mow our yard or blow the driveway. Ben brought it in to a small engine place and $200 later was told there was really nothing that could be done for it, it is 35 years old and needs a new motor. It does still run and here I just rode it all the way around the yard and it never overheated once. Nice huh?

Then Ben transferred his awesome luck onto to the Camry. That too works when it wants to but is not really reliable. Last Saturday I was at a conference for school and Ben called for a ride. He was in the turn lane to go to Home Depot in the the pouring rain when it quit. Later that day it started right up and we drove it home. We haven't tried to get it fixed because what do you say when you bring it in, "it runs perfect and then it just quits?" We will wait until it never works and in the meantime Ben rides his bike to work and we get by with one vehicle.

Speaking of riding their bike to work, I picked Ben up from work last Tuesday to go to our softball game. We threw the bike up on the car, went to our game and drove home together. When we got home Woof's kennel door was open and Ben was a little preoccupied with the missing dog and drove right into the garage. We heard a horrific crunch and both knew instantly what had happened. We jumped out of the car and all we could see was the bike hanging off the driver side of the car by a cable. After surveying the damage the only serious problem we could find was the bike shock which was seperated into 2 pieces. No scratches, no broken roof rack, nothing!

Until his bike is fixed Ben is riding my bike to work. Please be careful MAN, I really like me bike!

And now the curse of death has hit our push mower. The thing starts but will not run, last night Ben finished a portion of the lawn with the weed whipper. Cripes...

Huh, What?

So, how's the bathroom remodel coming?? That good huh...

Seems a little hard to believe that we have already been living in Maine for a year. We are still finding new things to do and having a lots of fun. Last week we dined on fiddleheads for the first time, they were pretty awesome. I guess you can get good things out of the back of some dude's truck.

Another Memorial day here and passed! Ben and I both had a 4 day weekend so we drug out the camping gear and got outside. We chose a canoe-in campsite which is not problem if it isn't too windy and Woof sits still. He was a champ except for all the leaning but it wasn't windy and there were no dumps, no wet sleeping bags, no crabby pants. Woof even went out with us fishing and aside from becoming utterly bored to death he did great. Oh and the views were pretty sweet too.

In the past few months I have been learning to quilt with some ladies at church. It is alot of fun plus the quilts we make all go to Lutheran Social Services for mothers at risk. I even got brave and made a baby quilt all by myself for my new nephew Jackson (I have 5 nephews and 4 nieces!). Here is Jackson Five and his new quilt. Looks good on ya little man, I can't wait to meet cha.

Ok back to the bathroom because that is always on the brain. My mom is coming to visit on June 12th, so we have 2 weeks to finish this beauty up. Here is where we are today and yes the bathtub is functional. I took a bath for the first time since September (we did not have hot enough water upstairs before) and it was great. Oh the do-it-yourself fun I acquired when I married the son of a contractor. Like traveling, remodeling pushes the limits of any marriage. But honestly for the most part it has been pretty darn fun but still, we will be glad when it is done.

Punked

For months we have been cursing the stooopid crows that hang out in our yard and dig up the grass. In fact what was quite a luscious lawn last summer has now turned into this... bummer


Little did we know we were being punked by a freakin skunk. Woof had found a den in the backyard and Ben was planning on trapping whatever was in there. In the meantime we were told we probably had a skunk. Sure enough at sunset, the first night we looked, we spotted the white stripe working through the yard like a roto tiller. Ben tried for a shot but was not even close to quick enough and the stakeout began. We spent 3 nights peering out our bedroom window with a 22 and pair of binoculars. Ben got off one shot but no cigar and eventually we surrendered and went for the trap. Here's the catch of the day and the best part was the sucker didn't spray.

Spilling

Canoeing is not usually a scary sport, but believe me it can be. We took part in the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race last weekend which is a big deal for Bangor. If the conditions are right, as they were this year, there is plenty of whitewater to deal with. Add to the 6 miles of rapids, 10 miles of flat water paddling and you get one exhausting and in our case wet race. We spilled 4 times and ohh that water was brisk. As we live on banks of the Kenduskeag we got to see ice chunks floating downstream just days before the race. Really makes you wanna go swimming huh? Here we are at shopping cart hole, the last challenge of the race. We made it through but had to pull aside to dump the canoe as we took in a boatload of water. BRRRRrrrrrrrrr.

Happy Three-OH Ben Jammin'

And yes I know, I am right behind you.

Purple, purple, purple

Spring cleaning is here and we have been busy sprucing up the house, the dog, and ourselves. We started running again and have started cleaning up the garage and lawn. Woof's teeth are also getting a makeover with a toothbrush and he loves it. Well actually he loves the taste of the toothpaste so I hear no complaints about the brushing. He even has is own orange toothbrush that we were keeping in the tooth brush holder which was a very bad idea. The other night when I was groggy, yep, you can figure out what happened. STUPID, my toothbrush is purple and YUCK, Woof eats poop.

On a more sanitary note the bathroom is coming along nicely especially after last weekend's tile fest. We are not experts but were quite pleased with the end results, in other words everything looks straight and no tiles have fallen down yet!
We also got a good start on the vanity we are making out of an old buffet. Ben loves to measure, saw and admire. See here he is busy admiring. Looks good carpenter man!

Spring has sprung

Or as they like to call it here, mud season. Which is really hard for me to believe because just 2 weeks ago I was here standing in front of the worlds tallest snowman (actually snow woman) in 50 mph winds and frigid conditions. Seasons change fast and now all we have to do is wait for 121 feet of snow to melt. wow.

We survived our first major holiday on our own and it wasn't half bad. The Easter bunny forgot to come to our house. Well not exactly forgot he brought Ben a basket but I didn't get one. I am not sure how that works, something about Easter sneaking up on someone. Hmm, I guess I know who won't be acting the part of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy if we ever need one around here. Even without my basket I was able to put my disappointment aside and help color eggs. Coloring eggs is pretty awesome, look at how awesome it can be. For almost a month now we have been dismantling our upstairs bathroom. We have finally gotten to the point where we are putting it back together which is a relief because it has been quite a mess. I find sawdust and pieces of sheet rock all over the house but I guess that is the price one pays to rid themselves of a bathroom this hideous. Let me introduce you to 1970 all mixed up with 1985. Uffda that is not nice. One should not be asked to start their day in a room this ugly. Slowly but surely we are progressing and although the room looks pretty desolate right now in a short time (hopefully the next month) this bathroom will be too cool. I mean really all we have left to do is lay tile, lay floor, install the sink, move the toilet, sheet rock, paint and install wainscoting. Piece of cake!