Power Dressing, Indeed!

I came across this story and I am still laughing. Be careful how you dress!

I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted. This week has been nuts here with playing end-of-the-pay-period catch up! That's what happens when you do things like go to bluegrass get-togethers and go fishing instead of working! Well, it's caught up now, and this pay period I won't get behind. Actually I'd like to stay ahead if possible, because Jerry said that he would like to go look at property in WV sometime in the next couple of weeks. We are both getting antsy now. We had not planned to be here another winter, but sometimes things don't work out the way you planned them! I'm sure there's a good reason we're still here, even though we may not realize it, but we do have faith that we'll be put where we're supposed to be when we're supposed to be there.

We finally sold the property we had for sale in WV. We weren't in any hurry to sell it and so we stuck to our asking price, which we eventually got. We used the proceeds to finish paying off the Tahoe, so now we're just down to the mortgage and Jerry's trailer, and that will be paid off at the end of this week. The mortgage will take a little longer! We are slowly but surely paying off everything so we have more funds to buy a house in WV with and can be mortgage-free there. It would be even nicer if the month-to-month stuff around here wasn't so expensive! Last month's electric bill was $270.00. I guess because of the air-conditioning (it's energy efficient, don'tchaknow!) Energy efficient, my eye.

Buddy the bird has officially become part of our household. Andy and I took the sign down. We didn't get any more calls on it, and he was very quickly endearing himself (herself?) to us. He now says "Heeeeere, kitty, kitty!" very nicely! Sometimes if he can't see us he'll either start squawking or shrieking, or laughing like a maniac until he can see someone! Today Tom had band practice downstairs and for some reason every time the drums started, Buddy would shriek "HELLO!" He has developed the disturbing habit of making a distinct belching sound that sounds suspiciously like Tom! I can live with that, but I definitely made it clear that the bird was NOT to be taught any foul language! The family just laughs when I tell them that, though, and it makes me cringe to think of what "language lessons" might be going on when I'm not around!

Well, enough blogging for now. Got another busy day ahead.

Uncle Jim's house.

One of the bands playing.

Cousins Lisa, Jon and Amy.

Uncle Jim, (their) cousin Nick, and Dad. They are all so much alike that it's scary!

Alyssa, Collin and Matthew having fun in the moon bounce.

Mike, Sherri and Mike in the room with the desserts - funny how we kind of congregated there!

One of the bands is playing under the canopy.

Crossing over the river before Harper's Ferry.

Aunt Dot (Jerry's Dad's sister), and Jerry's mom.

A Wonderful Day

Yesterday was a wonderful, relaxing day. We went to Uncle Jim's house for his annual bluegrass get-together. We had never gone before and I'm so glad we went this year. It was great seeing relatives, some for the first time, and seeing cousins I haven't seen in 20 years or more.

I had printed out directions from Yahoo! maps on the internet, but they neglected to tell us that the "Potomac Street" they had us go down was through the historic Harper's Ferry park and literally down through the woods. We had just crossed over a train track and went down a slight hill and then there were - woods. And nothing else that we could see. Just as we were beginning to turn the truck around, we heard a train whistle and then the warning lights started flashing. We got turned around just in time to watch a train passing roughly 10 feet away from us. It was pretty scary. When we got out of there, we saw a park employee directing traffic into a parking lot, so we stopped and asked directions. We showed her what we had printed and she said that yes, believe it or not, the road we got on after the railroad track actually was a road and went through the woods! But thankfully she said there was a much easier way to go, and so we went that way. You'd think Yahoo! would have at least marked it the "scenic" route or something! Boy, was it scenic!

Tom, Jerry's aunt and mom ended up not going with us. Tom was sick when he came home from work Friday night and felt terrible and spent the day resting and taking medicine yesterday. Yesterday morning shortly before we were going to leave, Jerry's mom called and said that Jerry's aunt was sick, too. We stopped by on our way to pick up lawn chairs that we were borrowing from them and to see Aunt Dot before she left today to go back to California. She was really disappointed because she wanted to go with us. She said she felt well enough to go, but Jerry's mom wasn't sure about having her out all day instead of resting, especially since her flight to California today has a 2-hour stopover in Dallas and today will be a long day for her before she gets home. So, it ended up just being the three of us. Tom is really hoping they have another one next year because he was also disappointed that he didn't go. Uncle Jim had originally said that this was their last one, but then yesterday he said they might do it again. I hope so.

Andy had a great time. He really enjoyed the music. The bands that played had some CDs for sale there, and Andy bought two for himself. He listened to them on the way home and again last night. Andy and I were just walking around the yard when we heard music. One of the bands was playing an impromptu concert in the parking area, all by themselves. Andy wanted to stay and listen, and they didn't mind, so he got a private concert! Andy was amazed at how wonderful the music was, with no electricity involved! Now he has a new enthusiasm for his violin, as he intently watched the fiddle player, and now insists that he MUST have a banjo to learn to play!

Anyway, it was a great day, and it's hard getting back into "regular" life today. I feel like I just want to do nothing and listen to Andy's CDs today, but I can't - I didn't get to the apple butter on Friday, and so now I really have to do that.

Catch of the Day

Andy and I had a great day today. We went crabbing and fishing in Solomons. I had been reading on the DNR reports that the crabs were plentiful and the fishing was good. Today must have been an off day! We caught exactly one crab, and that's it. We were there about five hours, too. Four elderly people in a boat pulled up close to the pier and asked Andy if he would like the fish that they caught, so even though we didn't catch any ourselves, we still got fish. I had told Andy that if he was going to fish, that he was also going to learn how to clean a fish. I also decided that this was something I should learn how to do, too, as I've never done it before. One of the houses we have seen online in WV is on a river - a stocked river - and cleaning fish would probably be a useful skill to have there! I can now say that I have cleaned fish. It's really not so bad. Andy didn't get off to such a great start, though! We were doing this in the kitchen (probably not the best place to clean fish, but we were using directions in one of my wonderful, old cookbooks). Just as he was slicing the bottom of the fish, suddenly the slippery fish shot out from under his hand and flew across the kitchen trailing what I guessed to be a gallbladder, like a kite's tail! Once we stopped laughing (and cleaned the floor!), we got busy again. The innards weren't Andy's favorite part, but he did okay with it. I tried to fillet one which didn't work out at all. I ended up with something approximately the size of a chicken nugget. I believe fillets require bigger fish - or more experienced fish cleaners. Jerry came home shortly after that and since I knew he knew how to do the job quickly and efficiently, I asked him to show me his method which turned out to be much better than my bumbling efforts.

We are a little burned and very tired, but happy. Tomorrow will be another busy day. Jerry's mother gave us a bucket of apples, so it's apple butter time again. Then Andy and I need to clean our vehicle to go to Uncle Jim and Aunt Nancy's bluegrass festival on Saturday in WV. Jerry's aunt is here from California and so she and Jerry's mom are going with us. The truck doesn't need too much attention, but it needs to be vacuumed and we need to make sure that there isn't any residual fish/crab smell from our adventure today.

About Andy's ONE crab - when I asked him if he was going to throw it back, he said, "No way! I'm going to eat that beast!". And that's exactly what he did, too. I cooked it and he barely waited for it to cool down before he ate it.

Here's a fat and happy seagull!

The pier and the bridge.

Adjacent land is owned by the Navy and there was a huge ship docked there today.

To give an idea of size and height, what you see on the bridge is a tractor-trailer. THIS is why I get nervous going to BJs!

Have you ever seen a ham fish?

The parking lot of the pier is under the bridge and the pier is just beside it.

Andy fishing at the end of the pier.