Rememberance

A friend of mine from NY captured this moment on film on Thursday night. Incredible.

Vroom, vroom...

The day after closing on our house, Lew & I decided to commit ourselves to another [insert obscene amount] worth of debt in order to lease not one, but two cars. The experience took soooo long, but the end product was worth it. After dinking around with the junior salesman for several hours, we almost walked out of the dealership because we figured we should be able to get some sort of deal for buying two cars. Then “the closer” stepped in. He asked us how much we wanted to spend for a down payment & what we wanted our monthly payments to be. Amazingly, he made both of the numbers work, so we walked away proud owners of a couple cars. Actually one car & one SUV. Given the sky-high gas prices and, therefore, the flood of SUV’s on the market, they nearly threw it in for free. So, Lew has a manly vehicle that he can drive to-and-from the train station.


And I have the practical (but cute) sedan that we’ll take most places. Both cars drive & ride really well.
I didn’t realize how much I missed driving for the last 4 years until I got the car again. Actually, I have never liked driving because I’ve always had cars that have required an inordinate amount of duct tape. So the Altima is a nice change of pace.

Cape May Days

A couple days before our closing, Lew & I took a mini-vacation to Cape May, NJ. I seriously thought it was a fantastic idea to go on vacation the same week we closed on our new home. I even boasted about what a wonderful idea this was – I figured I’d be all rested, relaxed, and ready to handle anything life could send my way. Ummmm…not so much. In retrospect, perhaps taking off the week AFTER closing (the week we moved in) would have been a better move. (No pun intended.) It was insanely difficult to work last week between the exhaustion of the move, the pain in my body from unpacking, and the desire to shop on-line for absolutely every new thing I “needed” for the new home. You’d be amazed at how much time I can waste searching for the perfect shower hooks.

The Rusty Nail Bar & Grill. How about that for tantalizing advertising! Speaking of tantalizing - a vending machine outside of the local 7-11...

Despite all of my complaining, the 3 day vacation to Cape May was wonderful! Lew spent most of the time at the arcade, where he used his mad skillz at the grabber machine to win a dozen sports watches. He has a serious addiction…er…talent. I spent most of my time shopping & lounging on the beach. The weather couldn’t have been any better – it was in the low 80’s every day.

Here are Lew's winnings from the arcade - 12 sports watches and 2 stuffed toys.

We stayed at the Mainstay Bed & Breakfast – the oldest Bed & Breakfast in Cape May. Although we’re usually not huge fans of B&B’s – the rooms are usually garish & small, the t.v. non-existent, and the owners too intrusive – this one was a nice surprise. All of the antiques in the house were cool, there were always fully stocked jars of chocolate chip cookies, and there were lots of nooks & crannies to hide in. Most importantly, the Inn was located right in the middle of the town – two blocks away from the Boardwalk & two blocks away from Washington Square (the shopping district).

I LOVED this tete-a-tete at the Inn!

The food in Cape May is pretty awesome. I had amazing blueberry pancakes at Bill’s Pancake House, delicious vegetarian risotto at the Washington Inn, and tasty spicy beef stir-fry at the Black Duck. Mmmmm…. Unfortunately (and this is a huge unfortunately), the vitamins I had just started taking wreaked havoc on my stomach. Spicy Beef + Already Upset Stomach = Not fun!

Lew & I at the Washington Inn.

(Funny sidenote - At this very ritzy restuarant there was a sign in the women's restroom that read, "WARNING - Drinking while pregnant can lead to serious birth defects." Do they seriously have a problem with this?!?)

The trip also reinforced the fact we never ever want to go on vacation during the last couple weeks in August. There were so many people at the beach and so many (screaming, whining, annoying) kids. I considered getting my tubes tied on more than one occasion.

The major highlight of the trip was when I found this 1890’s secretary’s desk at The Whimsical Mermaid. The owners, Terry & Stephen, really loved the piece, but no longer had space for it, so they were happy to sell it to a grateful new homeowner (yes – I had to tell everyone in Cape May that we were days away from closing on our first home). They ended up selling it to me for about half the amount they had it on sale for, not because of my unbelievable negotiating skills, but because they were just that nice. The secretary’s desk is now sitting majestically in our living room by itself because I spent all of our extra cash on the desk instead of any useful furniture. OK, so it might not have been the most brainiac idea of mine to buy a secretary’s desk before getting a couch. But, hey, it’s not called an impulse buy for nothing.

Lew and I took a couple of interesting side trips while in Cape May. We went to the old firehouse that’s been turned into a museum. The old fire truck is really cool! Then, we wanted to get tee-shirts, so we stalked the poor firefighters inside the new firehouse until they noticed us peeping at them through the windows & got us the shirts. Additionally, on our last day, Lew & I visited the Cape May Lighthouse. We both made it all the way to the top (yay)! It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful mini-vacay.

The Cape May Lighthouse.

At the top of the Lighthouse.