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.

We're In!

We're in! Which was no small feat given that we were locked out of our new house a few hours after taking possession. Oh yes. It was epic. We had to call a locksmith to break into our house on the very first night.

So, who's to blame, you ask? (Well, even if you don't care, I'll tell you.) It was truly a convergence of many unfortunate events. First, although Lew & I were handed a huge key chain full of keys during our walk-through, unbeknownst to us, the keys to all of the deadbolts (which are on every door) and the key to the front door were NOT on the key chain. Hence, we had one key too few for each and every locked door. Nice. Second, the front door key was left on the kitchen counter. There is some debate over who did this; however, the bottom line is that neither Lew nor I knew of the existence of said key. Third, during the closing we realized that we were missing the front door key. At this time I naively commented that we didn't have to go back to the house immediately because we had keys to all of the other locks (of course, I was unaware of the deadbolt situation).

Later that evening, I escorted Lew's grandparents to the house for a looksie. And that's when the other shoe fell - right before we were about to eat this fabulous meal prepared in our honor by my mother-in-law, Susan. This, of course, ruined the dinner. Lew & his dad, Brett, spent most of the evening at the house with a locksmith (named Adam Adam, seriously).

To add insult to injury, the next day we got a phone call from our real estate agent. Apparently, the cleaning crew (I use that term liberally since poor Susan spent all day cleaning the kitchen, again, on Saturday) saw the front door key lying on the kitchen counter & figured they'd lock up the house & place the key under the door mat. Of course, that's the one place that none of us thought to look. And, of course, the cleaners forgot to call anyone to let us know that's where they put the key. Ultimately, many hours, many gray hairs, and several hundreds of dollars later, we resolved the situation.


Here's the new pad. Unfortunately, this is an old picture (from the day we first saw the house.) But, hey, it looks pretty much the same. The yard is much greener though. Brett has spent countless hours preening our yard. Brett is amazing with yard work. He did, however, pull some vines off of our tree out front & threw them onto the road. I keep nagging Lew to remove them before we get the reputation of being the dirty neighbors. No one wants that!








Here's the Master Bedroom. Unfortunately, once again, this is an older picture (hence, not our stuff). I'll post some new pics once we get everything settled.







Susan has also been a God-send. While Lew & I were out shopping for cars, she spent all day Saturday cleaning and kashering the kitchen. (More to come on the car situation soon.) On Sunday, Saint Susan drove all the way to Cape May, NJ to pick up an amazing vintage Secretary's Desk that Lew bought me during our recent vacation. It's absolutely beautiful! (More on the desk & the Cape May trip soon.) Also, Susan spent a good chunk of time Sunday & Monday helping me unpack. Thanks to her help, we're about 80% unpacked. Yay!

Here's the fabulous deck & the back yard. It's heavenly! You can hear the birds chirping & the crickets cricketing. (Sidenote - Speaking of crickets - I was almost named Cricket because my mom went into labor while stepping on a cricket. The reason they went with Sarah? Because I was too quiet to be a Cricket - HA!) Speaking of heavenly, I've been sleeping like a baby (BTW - whoever came up with that expression is crazy) since I moved in on Monday. Part of it might be because of the exhaustion of moving, but I think it's also because the traffic noises in the city always interfered with my sleep. Yay to sweet, sweet sleep!

I'd better sign off for now. Many documents to review and many boxes to unpack before the day is done.

Craft This

Being crafty is definitely a double-edged sword. On one hand, you feel an amazing sense of accomplishment when you finish a project. On the other hand, you often feel an intense desire to procrastinate, and the subsequent guilt procrastination causes, throughout the duration of the project (unless you're one of those people who finishes a project promptly - if you are - you're no friend of mine).

After beginning and (temporarily) abandoning a photo framing project (but only after I bought about 100 frames off of Ebay), I decided to turn my attention to repainting the trim of our kitchen table & chairs. Little did I know how llllooooooonnnnngggg this type of thing takes. Because I'm going from a dark green to a white, it takes 3-4 coats of paint, plus 2 coats of varnish. So it takes me approximately 4 hours to paint one chair. Fab-u-lous. Needless to say, given that my days are already filled with work & packing, I haven't had an abundance of time to complete this project. Consequently, we now have 1 white chair, 1 semi-white chair (only 2 coats of white paint), 2 green chairs, and a green table.

Classy...

Here's my work in progress. It does look nice though, doesn't it?

Well, I'd better run - lots of packing to do...

What it feels like to be in an Alfred Hitchcock movie...

Sorry it's been a while. I've been working like a maniac this week. In addition, I've also felt the urge to make a trillion appointments: with every doctor I've ever had in the city and every friend I haven't seen in more than a couple weeks. If you didn't know any better, you'd think I was moving across the country, not just to the suburbs. However, I'm sure that accomplishing these little things will be a tad more difficult when I move to suburbia. It's sooo easy to walk to the doctor's office a block away on my way into work. Anyway, now it's 7 a.m. & I'm already procrastinating. But, since I haven't posted in a week, I feel like this is a worthy waste of time.

Last Friday night I went to see KT Tunstall in concert at the Borgata in AC (that's Atlantic City, NJ for those of you who are not "up" on the East Coast lingo). She was a really entertaining performer - very funny in between songs, energetic on stage, and theatrical. She changed guitars in between each song (loved, loved, loved the rhinestone guitar). And, she did this cool thing where she would record the first part of her song, and then sing the rest of the song with herself as back-up. (Also, one of her band members came out with a washboard tie which he played throughout one of the songs - sooo funny!) Although I didn't take any pictures because, come on, no concert pictures turn out very well, I found a couple of her on the web.

Here she is on her most recent album cover (Drastic Fantastic) with one of her flashy guitars. She wore these same ankle boots for her show.

Here she is with her band. Her fiance, the drummer, is the one with the pencil moustache to the right.

Although KT put on a good show, it was an odd scene. Instead of standing up & dancing throughout the show, everyone sat politely in their seats. Bizzare! I felt like I was in some sort of a lecture hall.

After the concert, my lady friends (Colleen & Kristina) & I crashed at the tres chic Days Inn. Nothing like sleeping in a smoking room with questionable sanitation. But, it was the right price & right next to the Boardwalk, which gave us the chance to walk on the beach before heading home on Sat. morning. Unfortunately, our walk was cut short when we were attacked by seagulls. Seriously. As Kristina was enjoying her morning donut, this seagull swooped down & grabbed it right from her hand. Thereafter we watched, in horror, as all of the other seagulls attacked the seagull with the donut. It freaked us out so much that we had to head back to Philly immediately.

Speaking of the NJ Shore - Lew & I are heading to beautiful Cape May this Monday for a mini-vacation right before our closing/move. We're staying in the Stonewall Jackson Suite in this cute little bed & breakfast right in the middle of the fun part of this quaint Victorian community. (By the way, doesn't it seem odd that a bed & breakfast in NJ would name a Suite after a Confederate General?) Hopefully the seagulls there will be a little more civilized.

Cityfied

True story. I'm on the phone with my sister-in-law, Emily, who lives in po-dunk-ville Iowa, when she suddenly exclaims - "Oh my God. There are two barns on fire!" Right as I was mocking her for living in a place where barns even exist, she passed the fire department (I use that term liberally - it's really just another barn) where - get this - there's a fire truck refilling with water. I had NO idea such rudimentary fire trucks even existed anymore. I immediately envision one of those old black-and-white movies with a line of men passing buckets down the row to put out a fire. Don't get me wrong, it makes logical sense since many people in po-dunk-ville drink well water (which, after doing environmental litigation, really gives me the heebie jeebies); however, it's still a very foreign concept to me. Apparently, I'm no longer a country girl. For better or worse, I've been cityfied.