Ten On Tuesday - I'm Scared!

Ok - I had meant to post about our wild & wacky weekend trips to Boston for the Sox game but I left my camera at home so can't download the photos. So it will have to be the usual Ten On Tuesday - this week Ten Things that Scare Me or Freak me Out.

1. The idea of drowning

2. White water rafting (see item 1)

3. Walking thru the woods on our property and having Hubby say "Wow - this looks like Blair Witch Project".

4. Scary books

5. Adds for scary movies on TV - HATE THEM!!

6. Being crammed into small places

7. Reckless driving

8. Ouija boards

9. Bad vibes or spirits

10. Not having booze in the house on Sunday ( they don't sell booze on Sunday in CT) - obviously more freaky than scary & it doesn't happen very much any more : - )

So.... what scares you???

It Never Gets Old...

So the Sox have finally clinched a play off berth - YEA! And the second best thing is they knocked the Yankees out of the post season - double YEA! So the Hubby & I have decided to celebrate, we are going to a game this Saturday. Look at the view from our really awesome seats! ( Choose Outfield Grandstand Section 9 on the seating chart - a pop up photo from that section appears) It is a good day to be in Red Sox Nation!!!

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Great Things That Happened This Summer



1. Left my old job - finally!

2. Started my great, fab new job - YEA!

3. Enjoyed a visit with friends from Florida & their adorable 3 year old.

4. Spent a week in Maine with great friends and their Princess.

5. Enjoyed good wine & a summer night on our back patio.

6. Got to practice reiki with a good friend.

7. Started & finished a quilt for a fundraiser.

8. Helped our team raise over $6,000 for Relay for Life.

9. Discovered that steriods really work on poison ivy.

10. Split a shitload of firewood for this winter.

Miami Has the Dolphins.......

Yea!! We actually DOMINATED the game!! Yea for us! Yea for Coach Sparano - his first NFL win. I'm going to enjoy it - just in case this is our only win this season. How 'bout them 'Fins??

Tai Chi Ya Later !

Whew - I am finally done with my 10 session, once a week tai chi class. I am SO SO SO glad it's over. It was supposed to be relaxing and teach me how to slow down & think deep thoughts but all it did was stress me out almost every week that a) I either had to go to the class or b) I had to figure out how to make up a class I had to miss. Now, there were only two of us taking the class, a very dear friend & I and the instructor is fab so I am certain the issue was me. I could not relax if you paid me to in those classes. I think the biggest part was committing to 10 weeks of anything on a regular basis and then just slowing down for an hour was hard. All I could think about last night was - "YEA! This will be over in 1 hour, now55 minutes, now50 minutes," etc. You get the point. So I guess I am not deep, I am quite shallow, Shal. Low. Hal has nothing on me. ( I thought of that line last night with about 45 minutes left during the standing-relaxing-clear-your-mind-stance).
So no more classes until possibly January - maybe I'll practice what I learned, maybe I'll learn the tai chi from the DVD I bought but have only watched 10 minutes, maybe I'll learn how to relax so I won't need tai chi. Probably not any of those.......

I DID buy running shoes during my lunch break yesterday and will take them for a spin this weekend. After all the 1/2 marathon registration opens tomorrow and I need to register. You can't run 13.1 miles if you don't start somewhere! So - who wants to join me???

Let's Run a 1/2 Marathon - it will be Fun!

I guess it is time to start the posting about my next, new exciting adventure - dealing with getting old. I don't want this to turn into a diet blog (yuk - boring for even me when it's about me) or a running blog because that would be too too funny since I haven't run in about 4 years. So I'll mention it (the diet part) here but then move on. Since I'm comfortably in my 40's - my metablolism has slowed down which sucks because now I appreciate good fun & wine and boy do I appreciate it! I left out the part of our NASCAR trip where we went to the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire. God, was it ever good! Pictures on the wall of all the famous folks (mostly politicians) who have visited - I sat where Al Gore sat and came out of there looking like him before he slimmed down a little bit. I had Chicken Fried Steak with a side of mash potatoes & gravy and mac & cheese with a root beer (diet of course!). We (4 of us) did split the most amazing piece of lemon meringue pie and left there beyond Thanksgiving full. So.. I'd like to say that was the worst I ate but I can't say that. When I got back home & only 2 pairs of work pants fit and I looked at some old photos ( depressing) I decided it was time to get back on the wagon so to speak and decided to not only watch my weight (hint hint) but also run a 1/2 marathon! I'd been hinting around at the 1/2 marathon idea with my friend Belle ( don't have permission to use her real name but you know who you are) and we sort of decided on this one.

Registration opens this Saturday - yippee! Now I need to get me a new pair of running shoes and start training...I mean running. Anyone want to join us?? Come on it will be fun and at least it's not a full marathon! Let me know!

It was a Heluva Good race weekend

Thank God Jimmy didn't win... we had a great time at the Heluva Good Race weekend. Only got rained out on Friday which meant all that racin crammed into Saturday. We watched about 8 hours of racin' - yee haw!The truck race was a little boring but we still had fun.

Saturday night we found a fun little bar in Concord called the Green Martini. Good drinks, music and food. I'd go back. We weren't even the oldest people in there!

Sunday's race was loud and exciting - 1st race of the Chase. My crystal told me Tony was going to win but it didn't count on him speeding down pit road! Two of our driver's looked good at different times in the race - Junior & Tony and two of our drivers, Ryan Newman & Kasey Kahne didn't look so hot. We were happy not to have the race get rained out - it rained all morning but then the NASCAR gods got busy and it was just cloudy the rest of the day. Traffic was better than we thought it would be, we got home by midnight. Steve & Debbie are back home today - safe travels!

Who did I think I was, Wonder Woman??

Yesterday we had a bigger storm than our brush with Hanna. Anyway I thought it was. Here is a picture (same view as the last photo). It was pretty cool to watch but when I got home from work, I discovered a tree branch had broken off a big ol' tree and blocked the driveway. So I got out and thought I'd take a crack at moving it. Do you know some of these branches can weigh several 100 pounds?? I didn't know it at the time so gave a try at moving it, ala Wonder Woman. A smaller branch I grabbed broke off, and all my displaced energy carried me backwards and since I was going downhill I lost my footing and fell - backwards with my head breaking my fall. And I thought my ass would have been big enough to hit first! Glasses & cell phone went flying and I lay in the drive way stunned & sure I had broken my neck. I was freaked out when I reached back & felt blood and started to cry, Ok sob. You can laugh - the visual is funny now but trust me, it wasn't then. Especially after I made repeated calls to hubby and no answer on his cell ( found out later he left it on his desk at work.) So I grabbed all my crap out of my truck ( purse, book bag, 2 potted mums for the front of the house) and walked down to the house like a blubbering idiot.


What was the first thing I did when I dropped all my crap on the floor? What anyone would do - grabbed the emergency bottle of chardonnay (everyone has one of those - right? Ok - maybe not but I do) and poured myself a glass. Then I cleaned up my hand road burns (from the fall), washed off the blood from my head and applied an ice pack. Once hubby got home - to his credit he didn't laugh and seemed genuinely concerned - he went out with the chain saw to remove the tree branch. He guessed it weighed about 1,000 pounds - it was big. I was on my second glass of wine by now and had started to wonder if ETOH might mask the symptoms of a concussion. So.. I finished my second glass of wine, ate dinner & called my neighbor, Karen. She told me to check my pupils - check they are Ok; and if I started to vomit go to the ER. Thanks, Karen! I waited a little bit before I started the third glass of wine so I would be able to tell if I got sick from wine or head injury.


Today my neck, and head hurt but I think I'll survive. And next time...I'm going to park the truck & walk around the damn branch.


Steve & Debbie arrive tomorrow for our NASCAR extravaganza weekend - I'll try to post - we have free high speed Internet at our hotel - Woo Hoo!


I just got Site Meter added to my blog so I can tell if anyone is reading this - hope someone is! Oh ya - and a link to a really, really, really funny blog story from my new favorite blog is below - a warning - don't drink anything while reading this story - you'll snort it out through your nose, it's that funny! Make sure you read the original post & comments. Let me know what you think!

We Survived!

The latest big tropical storm, although the folks in Hartford so so wanted it to be a category 5 hurricane. No matter what disaster happens anywhere in the world, the folks in our fine state have to think of a way to bring it back home to CT. I heard on the radio they even opened some Red Cross shelters in CT Friday for potential flooding. I know being well prepared is a good thing, but man don't wish this bad stuff on the state!

Dinner Saturday night was good fun - we went to Providence & met our friend Kathleen & her main squeeze, Liam. All through dinner we kept saying - "It's only raining a little bit - wonder when the storm will hit?" Well - it hit while we were getting coffee after dinner. Torrential rain that fell fast & the streets of Providence were like fast moving creeks.The water was about 4-5 inches high - but we survived!

Not much else going on this weekend - preparing for our big, red neck road trip to New Hampshire to watch the boys make left hand turns. We haven't watched all of the race from yesterday since we had to watch the 'Fins lose (not as bad as I thought it would be) and the Red Sox win - GO SOX! Tonight the Sox start a very important 3 game series with Tampa so we might not get to the race at all....

As promised, here is the view from my office. Very distracting but I love it!

Crap! err... I mean check this site out.

Forgot to add this to my post - it is a very cool site about the very real and serious problem of colony collapse (we lost a hive last year). To help the bees, you gotta eat ice cream - how cool is that ? (literally!)

Robbing the Bees & the perfect sports storm

First the bee stuff - photos of Steves Squared robbing the bees this weekend. I think after it was all said and done we ended up with 32 1/2 pounds of honey. Not enough for Christmas gifts (spoiler for those of you who get gifts from us) and mead so next year we are going to add a third hive. Nice how I keep saying we? I should say him because I don't have that much to do with the whole backyard bee operation but I do enjoy the honey.

Back to me, it is my blog after all....

I love the fall, but this will be a tough weekend sports-wise for a fan like me; sort of the perfect storm. First of all we have The Red Sox - as of today only three games back in the standings for the American League East title and 5 games ahead in the wild card race. They play Saturday at 8:05pm. The boys are making left hand turns in Richmond(NASCAR) on Saturday night at 7:00pm but they are predicting rain from Hanna so it will probably run on Sunday. Which is when the 'Fins season opens at 1:00 against the Jets. We can TiVo all of them ( as we are meeting friends for dinner in Providence Saturday night - can't wait!) but when in the hell will I watch them all??? Hubby is somewhat interested but not as obsessive as me and will give me endless crap if I stay inside all day Sunday watching TV. But we don't get the NFL Package for nothing so I may need to take my chances - oh and the Sox play again Sunday at 3:00pm...

The view from my office today was nice, sort of distracting - you can see the colors are starting to change. I LOVE my view & am really starting to love the new job - I've been here for 3 months & it is a good fit. Don't want to go into too much detail but it's a great company. I'll try to get a photo of my view on a fairly regular basis or as it's interesting.

Possible jury duty tomorrow so I may not post again until the weekend if I'mNotSoWildAboutBlue Internet works or if I go to an Internet cafe. Disadvantage to living in the boonies is the very limited choices we have for Internet service...

Day One or Ok - I'll Try This Out

Well - I have been threatening to do this for about a week now so for those of you who must know what me & hubby like to do in CT and don't want to wait for the Christmas letter here you go. I can't promise how often I'll post as we are stuck with Wild Blue satellite Internet coverage at home ( I hate Wild Blue but I'm sure will talk more about that later).

A little about us - we have been in CT for 8 years now - (YIKES) and lived in West Palm Beach before that. Hubby is an Air Force brat & traveled everywhere but I'm from Montana where I grew up as, get this, a Dillon Beaver (thus the sub-title of the blog). I survived and actually appreciate growing up in small town Montana and now live in the village of Moodus ( smaller than Dillon - haha on me) in the town of East Haddam, home of the "Noises".


Fast forward to last weekend, Labor Day. Growing up we always went to Montana's Biggest weekend - The Dillon Jaycee Rodeo and Beaverhead County Fair. But no more in CT - we split wood and robbed the bees ( we have 2 hives).
First the photo of all the fire wood we split (29 tractor loads but who's counting!)
We should be set for the winter - the picture doesn't do justice to the 3 rows of wood approximately 6 feet high and 10 feet long. Anyhow - we split all day Saturday, 2 hours Sunday and 4 hours Sunday. Sorry for the bleary photo but my arms were shaking...

Time to sign off for today - I'll give more background later & post photos of the Steves Squared robbing the bees.