A gray day, but the temp will hit the fifties. Then heavy rain tomorrow, with the temperature on Friday back down to the thirties. But then, from Saturday on, temps will be in the fifties and sixties. Huzzah!
The current puzzle. I worked on it for a few hours yesterday. It’s titled Village by the Sea and it’s from a 1938 issue of The New Yorker, although the time period seems to be a decade or so earlier, given the horse-drawn cart and the women in long dresses. I like the cheery colors. I’m now to the point where I have to fill in all the trees and the road.
Time to order another one.
I’m going to work on the windows, trim, and baseboards in the English Cottage today. I ordered an unfinished wardrobe for the bedroom yesterday, as well as some kits for two different tables. I don’t know whether I’ll use them in the English Cottage or not. They may be destined for the Beacon Hill.
Don and I were in gratitude mode during our second cup of coffee. The view from the living room sofa into the kitchen always makes us happy. We realized that this year marks 20 years since we moved east. How can that be? We took off for the drive cross country on Don’s birthday that year. He turned 50. We turned our lives upside down in order to take a risk out here. I gave up my university professorship, my work at the Globe. All because we wanted to take a chance on something new while we were still relatively young. And somehow, after renting for four years, we managed to buy a house and carve out the lives we wanted to live up here in the Hudson Valley. Yes, our mortgage payment is hefty. Yes, we went through years in which we worried – every single month – whether we would be able to pay it. The stress was sometimes so enormous that I can’t adequately describe it to you. But we had faith in our decision and we kept slugging away and somehow, miraculously, we never missed a payment and the bills were always paid. We’re two freelancers with an income that changes every year. We aren’t like many of you who bought houses when you were younger and have paid off your mortgage. We met later in life and we started this house owning journey in our mid-fifties. We acknowledge that we won’t have the disposable income that is freed up with a paid-off mortgage. It is what it is and it’s absolutely worth it for us. Though I wouldn’t mind winning the lottery!
Big on my gratitude list: Don. He is the only person I can imagine spending my life with. He is the perfect partner for this adventure and I am grateful and humbled by the miracle that brought him into my life.
Okay. I guess it’s St. Patrick’s Day, though I don’t celebrate it even though I’m English, Scots and Irish, as well as German. If you do celebrate, have fun.
Stay safe.
Happy Wednesday.
beautiful words about beautiful lives spent together. so glad you and don found each other, have that very charming, cozy home and gratitude to go with it all!
and that puzzle … lovely, too. how quickly you’ve put this one together! have fun finishing it, picking out another one and working on the dollhouses, too. how’s your back (after that fall)? hopefully all better.
has don decided for sure if he wants to set up a mini record shop with owner’s home above it?
fickle weather here, too. march, for sure. but at least it’s march and not october. as much as i love coziness and the quiet that piles of snow can bring (plus how much it reflects sunlight), i am completely tired of ice and snow and worrying about my family having to deal with it. and i want to be able to walk outside.
happy wednesday. and to anyone who celebrates it, happy st. patrick’s day. stay safe in every way!
kathy in iowa
My back is still a bit troublesome at times, but it’s mostly better. Thank you for asking, Kathy.
Not a mini record shop, a mini guitar shop – and we’ll see if he ever brings it up again. If he does, I’ll be happy to help!
Stay safe!
oh, that’s right … a mini guitar shop. you’d be a big help (if he needed it)!
thanks for the correction.
hope your back feels better soon. take it easy!
kathy in iowa
xo
I love that puzzle. I think it may be my favorite of the New Yorker puzzles.
You and Don are blessed to have each other. When I woke up this morning I was thinking about all I have lived through so far…. wars, pandemics, births, deaths, health scares, etc. I am so grateful for all I have now. Every day is a gift from here on.
I am English, Irish, Danish and German and we never celebrated St Patrick’s day growing up and neither did my husband. We never did after we married either. My daughter envied her best friend who’s family was Irish and had a big party every year. After my mom passed my daughter noticed on the death certificate that my mom was English, Irish, and German. She was thrilled to know she actually had some Irish blood. We have more German on both sides so mainly identified with that.
Anyway,
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
I mainly identify with the English part of my ancestry as it runs through both sides of the family – pretty strongly!
Stay safe, Marilyn!
Yes I understand the risks and challenges of moving cross country. We moved from Ca to the East and have never regretted it. I must admit not being able to see our family because of the pandemic has been difficult, but this too shall pass. Did you have tenure in your university position?(Just keep plugging away at the mortgage you will get there)
No, tenure was not offered in the Acting program when I was there, but they changed that several years later. I was an Associate Professor and paid well – just no possibility of tenure at the time and since it wasn’t a big deal to me, I didn’t mind.
Stay safe, Linda.
I love your gratitude thoughts. I think them every day as well and as you have Don, I have Rick and really can’t imagine any other. I love your boldness, taking a chance back then. I finally paid off my mortgage back in October and it was a huge deal. I thought I’d have it forever.
You’re having our weather from a few days back. The threaten snow and rain showers tomorrow but still temps in the 40s (don’t understand the snow with that) but it won’t last. I’m very eager for spring.
We don’t really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year but when I was working on Rick’s genealogy I found quite a streak of Scotch and Irish so maybe I’ll whip up a loaf of soda bread to go with our very un-Irish meatloaf tonight. I’m plugging along on my puzzle and always feel like I’ve achieved a small victory when I find some of the pieces (and other parts, pretty easy.) You’d probably have had it done yesterday! Have a lovely rest of the day! Happy Doll Housing!
Same here today. Rain all day with a bit of snow and WIND later tonight. I’m over the wind, thank you very much. And the snow won’t last.
Enjoy the puzzle and the soda bread, Jeanie.
Stay safe.
We don’t celebrate on St Patrick’s day, but every year during this week I do make corned beef & cabbage. I am Polish & German, and hubs is English, German and a bit of Irish. He never had CB&C til we married. I don’t know why, but my grandparents & parents made it every year, so the tradition continues!! We do love it. That is the extent of our celebration and I don’t know why they made it every year. Sadly, there is no one remaining to ask that question.
Your gratitude is noted, and I feel the same for our relationship here, as well. It has been a long year, but I can’t imagine it with any other person on earth.
Cloudy with a mix of snow and rain here today, and only in the 30’s. Supposed to be near 60* on Sat & Sun. Yay!! The daily ups and downs in temps and sunshine is reflected in my daily up and down moods. Hope your day is going well. Take care.
Since I’m a vegetarian and never liked cabbage, that particular dish has no memories for me. Though my mom did make corned beef.
Aren’t we lucky to have the life partners that we have?
I feel the same way about the ups and downs of the temperatures. My mood today with rain, gray skies, and no sun is not the most upbeat.
Stay safe, Chris.
I agree on the “it is what it is”. You and Don made – and are still making – the best out of life, despite not meeting until both of you were a bit older. Brian and I have the opposite story. We met when we were young. I was only 19 and he was 21. We got married when I was 22 and he was 24. We had our first child four years after that and our second, 2-1/2 years later. We had purchased a townhouse a couple of years after we got married. And then we sold that and purchased the house we still live in when we were 28 and 30. Interest rates were high when we bought this house, so then we refinanced a few years later when interest rates dropped. Then they dropped a *lot* at one point to where we refinanced again, but this time at a 15-year loan.
We have no idea if we’re going to stay here or move somewhere else when Brian retires. It depends on a lot of things…namely, finances (where could we afford to move where we wouldn’t have to start all over again with a mortgage?) and my mom. She’ll be 81 this year and even though she’s in perfect health and shape and does just fine on her own, you never know what can happen from here on out.
I’m Scottish, German and English…Brian’s Irish and Polish. This is the first year ever that I’m making corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Normally we don’t do anything. This year I thought, why not.
xoxo
I hope you enjoyed your special meal, Melanie!
I think we’re here in this house until it no longer is feasible – if the weather and the shoveling and all of that gets to be too much, we’ll reconsider. But I’d like to stay here.
Stay safe!
I do like that puzzle! We don’t really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day either. We used to go out for corned beef and cabbage…but our favorite place for that, is now our favorite Italian place…lol.
I think we’ve had more gratitude moments in this past year than previous years. My husband as a child moved every couple of years as he was a Navy brat. The farthest I’ve moved was a mere 75 miles from the community I was born and raised, to Madison. I can’t imagine moving from one coast to the other…you two were quite adventurous! But, I think it’s safe to say…you did the right thing.
Our weather looks much better come the weekend…I can’t wait. I even started my plant list for this year. Happy puzzling! ;)
Gratitude is always important but this past year has shown that we have much to be grateful for.
Thanks, Donna.
Stay safe.
“We aren’t like many of you who bought houses when you were younger and have paid off your mortgage. We met later in life and we started this house-owning journey in our mid-fifties. We acknowledge that we won’t have the disposable income that is freed up with a paid-off mortgage.” Well, Claudia, you’re of course describing me and MY husband with those statements. You are not alone. We’re another couple in the same boat.
Just yesterday, I was running thru the not-helpful scenarios of ‘what if’ this or that had happened differently, where would we be now (my husband has NO patience with unhelpful thinking from me, to his credit), but ‘it is what it is’ (I really don’t like that expression anymore now that somebody else/you-know-who used it so cruelly). I’ve got a friend who has a completely-remodeled, newer, really-nice home in the Bay area/San Francisco; he has no mortgage; he hasn’t worked in 25 years because his wife had an excellent job (he became the stay-home dad while she worked a 12-hr day outside the home, their mutual choice as a couple and what seemed right for their family); his mother (to whom he wasn’t close in physical miles or emotional connection) just died a month ago and he’s getting a big inheritance; all very nice for his already-healthy financial situation at age 66. Before Covid, he and his soon-to-be-retired wife had just taken a luxe trip to Italy.
(I have another friend who, also before Covid and who will resume it as soon as the pandemic is ‘over’, does nothing BUT travel in his retirement, all on “Mom’s money” (his description of it; his words). He is traveling the world on inheritance (Europe, Scandinavia, Costa Rica, South America, New Zealand, etc.), never touching what also is HIS already-fab retirement portfolio. A woman I’ve known since kindergarten just received, months before Covid, an inheritance thru her in-laws (many boomers getting inheritances thru the Greatest Generation savers) and the first thing they did with the windfall was buy a $150,000 motorhome (cash; paid for in full) which they’ll be seeing the U.S. with (as soon as this summer, if Covid settles down). I could go on and on; I don’t even KNOW that many people to start with, but there’s A LOT of the aforesaid disposal income out there; so, lucky them!
But I have to work hard on being sincerely glad for these folks (isn’t that awful to admit?!), and alternatively not sorry for ME, or feeling that my husband and I are retirement failures. I have to be a mature adult(!) when the green-eyed monster overtakes me, stamp it out, pray for forgiveness, then reconsider my fleeting negative-resentful-jealous attitude and count my blessings, improve who I am as a person; because, equally, I AM SO LUCKY to own my own home (in not-so-great condition and a forever fixer-upper in a town I don’t want to live in, but a ROOF OVER MY HEAD and not a landlord having the control; and with my own washing machine!); when, for oh-so-many/too-many years, I did not.
One of my biggest concerns is that we never have much (if any, at times) emergency cushioning (which is just dangerous) because we essentially live paycheck to paycheck and have no ‘family’ or other resources to ‘fall back on’ although of course it’s paramount to be self-sufficient and self-supporting. Also, we drive ancient cars (like, really ancient; the ‘youngest’ of them is age 22) and I always worry when they’ll conk out and how much, THIS time, what it’ll cost.
Anyway, just my gut-honest reaction to what you said. I know what I say about myself ain’t pretty. I’m a flawed human being. I’ve been self-indulgent in past years; we reap what we sow. It’s all very emotional and a study for a professional. Some of us have all kinds of things going on ‘inside’ with fears, disappointments, unrealistic expectations, loneliness, bewilderment or confusion, a lack of resilience or self-confidence, insecurities, just plain ‘ol mistakes and, yeah, lack of consistent income or even other family considerations which took precedence and altered the path, all affecting how we cope and often what drives our decisions and skews our life’s ‘timeline’, shaking up the sensible order of what should come first; point being, who knows how we got from there to here, and we have to deal with the ‘here’, making better/doing better where we can, practicing gratitude, feeling hopeful, feeling safe; using good judgment.
We were at a gas station recently, and the guy in the next bay had a beautifully-restored 1959 Chevy El Camino (to me it’s similar to a Ford Ranchero but my husband disagrees); I mean, this vintage car was PERFECT in every way, inside and out; the chrome was amazing. In an appropriately masked and distanced conversation I had with him, because I know my Chevy cars and grew up driving one from 1960 (he was impressed I could identify his, and the year, I guess became I AM A FEMALE), he revealed he was newly retired and he bought the car for fun in his retirement because it was the ‘same’ car that he remembered his dad driving when he was a kid. (Boomer sentimentality!) Imagine having that kind of ‘disposable’ money to spend for fun (I can’t[!]; I look at my grandmother’s piano, in its sorry state, well over a hundred years old, having finally retrieved it from another owner and keeping it from the chopping block, not being able to afford to restore or repair it so that I can even play it again, saying aloud , “I’m sorry, Grandma!”). The guy with the vintage El Camino? He probably worked hard for it all his life; give him benefit of doubt! Why does he not deserve it if it makes him reminisce and be happy?!!
What can I say, we live with our choices, we make decisions we hoped were right at the time, and we’re all shaped by circumstances. (I got sick in my late 40s and couldn’t work a job from that time forward; we lost a lot of income in key years when I’d heretofore been working continuously since I was a teen; but, stuff happens. And when the husband was then the sole earner, I should have been saving more, not spending A DIME; the shoulda/woulda/coulda.) But I do wonder what it must feel like to never have to worry about money (buy something and not feel guilt/buyer’s remorse!). I’ve never known a life when I didn’t worry about cash flow. (And I’ll worry over money til I die; nothing will change unless it comes from deep within, a question of faith [I’m a work in progress].) I grew up in a happy home but we never had very much money. My parents were uber-thrifty although we somehow had fun and I had years where I never felt deprived of anything (and I never went hungry).
It would certainly be a stress-reducer, though, to be comfortably set up in retirement; like, if the water heater goes out, not such a scramble to say, “okay, we need it now, not tomorrow; how do we pay for it?”. (Or like the dog who just needed $500 in emergency tests because she’s been ill; who wants to put that unexpected expense on a credit card when you’re on a fixed income, but we had no choice; she’s our canine ‘child’ and we’ve had her for a dozen years; she’s our responsibility and we have to give her a chance at a little more life; she’s not ‘done’ yet. [But, see? It IS a choice. We ARE driving our own choices/decisions.])
I have two women friends who enjoy the troublefree financial life (of never having to be concerned about money); but, I will say, although they have a lot of perks and have, at times (many times), made some expensive purchases, they (on the other hand) are otherwise frugal (like, they grocery shop with all the coupons; mostly buy what’s on sale/seasonal) and they don’t do spontaneous shopping of any kind (both refused, for instance, to do pandemic ‘stock-up’ a year ago, and only keep, at all times, maybe a week’s worth of food in the house/pantry; maybe a couple of xtra cans of tuna in the cupboard, some water; but that’s about it, and we’re in earthquake country, too, so they’re not being too smart about this [when we’re told to be able to ‘get by’ for a few weeks on our own in a natural/national disaster]). They balance ‘want’ vs ‘need’ and have a lot of self-control/discipline (something I’ve often lacked).
Neither are collectors like me; and the one gal never buys books (like me) but instead just goes to the library; never listens to music except to what’s on the radio. (It’s so weird to go in someone’s house and they don’t have a bookshelf; have walls with no art; no music CDs or vinyl or turntable; no pretty-little-things for decor but instead just bare tables; no scrapbooks or hardly a framed photo; I find it empty, as if the home has no soul, or the inhabitants no imagination; just colorless and so impersonal; but I guess it’s why they have money and I don’t!!) They don’t buy knickknacks or souvenirs; they don’t really even buy clothes very often. You know what else? Neither of these two aforementioned women have actual hobbies. Me? I have 1000 things I’m interested in and I can be victim of the “I want” (‘way too much “I want”). Somewhere in all that is the proverbial ‘happy medium’.
Well, off my long comment, whoa how I’m running on again; yikes; you hit a nerve with your post today. I blame no one else for where I find myself in my life; I just want to make it count, with good vibes and goodwill. And good health (good mental health and good physical health!). My mother would often recite that there will always be those who have the ‘greater or lesser’ than oneself. (I think she got that from ‘Desiderata’ but she’d also quote similar things from the Bible. My mom was ‘into’ teachings from The Good Book.) And Dad was all about being grateful, daily, for what you have (and not what you have not). My treasured parents were wise, so I again take heed. I applaud you, Claudia, for recognizing your blessings; you and Don both; it says good things about you two! I’m glad you shared your thoughts today.
Sorry for length of comment, emotional ‘spilling’, typos, darned ‘auto correct’; a lot of it is my bad eyes. Sigh. I can’t get a cataract surgery soon enough.
xoxoxo No apologies necessary.
hope you can get that cataract surgery soon and it helps you a lot! praying for you (and everyone else here).
xo
kathy in iowa
… thank you, sweet kathy; you are always so thoughtful … I hope your back is improving each day …
It’s completely normal to have that kind of reaction, Vicki. I’ve felt that and will probably continue to feel it occasionally. But for the past few years, I’ve been working on releasing ‘comparisons.’ They never serve any good purpose. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” And it is.
Coming to terms with it means accepting that your path is different than the path of others. We’ve all made choices and those choices have led to where we are at the present moment. So I work hard at gratitude that two late bloomers who roamed from city to city finally have a home base that we love. Home is everything to us, so the joy far outweighs everything else.
But see? You’ve owned up to those feelings and by doing that, you can release them. That’s something to be grateful for.
Stay safe, Vicki.
… thank you, Claudia; you always say the right thing; you’ve got maternal instincts, with a gift of being able to soothe (and teach) …
xoxo
hej, vicki …
jumping in here to say i can relate to a lot of what you said and what claudia wrote back and that you are not alone! and that feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are. i try to do (sometimes successfully,other times not) what claudia said … feel them, honor them, learn from them and let them go.
also, i can’t understand a home without books, hobbies, color, etc. either! to each their own, but those things to me are signs of life being lived there ….
hope you are doing well. glad you got your vaccinations!
kathy in iowa
… thanks again for being so kind to add on to my comment and for always being so nice to me; I really appreciate it, kathy; you’ve shown yourself to be consistently thoughtful to everyone here on the blog … I’m writing this on Friday and hope you have a wonderful weekend!