September 20, 2008 Scallop Festival

6am:
Today Mike's going up to New Hampshire to his mothers house for 2 reasons. One, to bring home our dog, and two, because the porch on his mothers house is threatening to fall down the hill in front of it, so he's going to see what he can do to reattach it.
The kids and I are going over to Wareham to the laundry mat because now that we don't have a dryer, Emily is boycotting doing laundry and has piles to be washed. Since we're on that side of the bridge we're going to check out the scallop festival in Buzzards bay, then pick up Emily's friend TJ on our way home and she, TJ and Sarah are going to spend the afternoon hanging out.


Danny found this cool moth called a Large Tolype Velleda on the deck this morning. http://bugguide.net/node/view/3054

2:30pm
Danny's napping.....Em, Sarah and TJ are sitting in the living room watching Another Cinderella story, and I'm blogging.
We got an early start this morning, but not quite as early as Mike was hoping and he got out the door a little before 8am. The kids and I left around 9, arrived at Delkin laundry mat, started 3 loads of laundry and then Dan and I walked over to Walmart for sugar. We left there 30 minutes later with a winter coat, a Patriots warm up suit, two tee shirts, and a pair of pants for Dan. Two new red towels for the bathroom, Dan picked the color, our bathroom walls are chocolate brown & two new bras. I was hopeful when I chose 36C (11 weeks ago I was 38DD) and was thrilled when I got home, tried them on and they fit. We did remember the sugar thankfully and made it back to the laundry mat in time to put the clothes in the dryer. I've decided that the laundry mat is the way to go. In just over an hour we had 3 loads washed, dryed and folded. I might rethink buying a dryer and just plan to take a trip to Wareham every couple of weeks once the weather gets too cold for line drying.
We left there a little before 11 and arrived at the scallop festival just in time to get one of the last parking spots in their lot. Dan couldn't wait to try some rides, and originally thought he wanted to ride the ferris wheel until he stood under it and realized how tall it was, at which time he decided maybe he wanted to ride the bumper cars instead.
He also rode the serphent coaster, the slide, and made his way through the fun house. Then we went over to the Comcast booth where they were taking free pictures.and then onto the Banknorth kiosk for a spin the wheel contest where I won some hand sanitizer and to a name that tune contest that Em and I competed in. I won but just barely. We both won a free music upload card. We decided to take a walk through the craft tent and we quickly came upon an airbrush tattoo stand and Dan immediately decided he wanted a shark tattoo. Em chose a rose. We had just enough time to get back to the van and drive over the bridge to IHOP to pick up TJ.
We got home, fed Dan some lunch and sent him to bed for a rest.

Mike and Marley arrived home a at 10pm. Marley is shedding like crazy and left tufts of fur here and there as she came barreling into the house. She's been kennel dog for the last two weeks so she's pretty happy to be up on the couch, bed and Mikey's lap. Nettie kept one of Marley's puppies and named her Harlow. Every once in a while Marley lets out a little whimper....I wonder if she misses her babies....

September 16, 2008 Sturbridge Village

I've never milked a real cow, this plastic one will have to do!


6am: It's Homeschoolers day at Sturbridge village which means that the usual admission of $20 is just $7 today. Emily isn't working so she'll be able to join us. I haven't been since I was a little girl and am looking foward to it!

6pm: We had a great time at Sturbridge village. Laurie picked us up a little after 8am and we traveled up 495N, to the Mass pike then to 84. Sturbridge village is right off the highway and we made it there in just over an hour and a half. The day was cool and overcast and as we pulled in I noticed a beautiful pine forest, perfect for cicada nymph hunting. We paid our $7 each admission and began exploring.
As we walked through the doors, back in time, I couldn't help but think this was the time I was meant to live in. The dirt road sloped up hill. To the left was a rustic rail fence and beyond a garden filled with corn, and pumpkins. To the right a stone wall, then trees for as far as the eyes could see. On the left past the garden was a laborer's house, a simple two room. The women were sitting, talking and knitting. They were dressed in simple dresses and bonnets, neither the same, but neither too different either. Children ran around and even though the children are raised in today's society, somehow being in these surroundings inspired a sense of safety and the ability to be carefree, their only really concern was not getting in the way of the horses when the carriage came by. They ran around with abandon. I could easily imagine Laurie and I being those two women. Both Mikes working down at the saw mill. She and I spinning wool, making butter, or tending the animals. Emmy and Dan sitting in the one room school house, then running home to do their chores so they could meet their friends for a game in the common. My sister-in-law Kristin toiling away with her canning just down the street, chickens running around her feet. Early family dinners and slow nights sitting by the fire. How great it all seems....until I think of those cold New England nights and the outhouse that is truly out. That's when my craving for the old is replaced by my appreciation for the new. I don't know who invented indoor plumbing, but I'd like to shake his hand!

It was really a remarkable place, and much bigger then I remember it being when I was in Junior High. If your interested their website offers a pretty interesting tour of everything we saw. http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/village_tour.html The highlights were the blacksmith who was doing a welding demonstration and really interacted with the kids, and a woman who was dying hand spun yarn with soaked and cooked tree heartwood.
We broke for lunch right around noon and Emily chose my pine forest for a picnic. I had a few minutes afterI finished eating to check some of the trees and found nothing to my dismay.We went back into the village to see a butter churning demonstation, the grist and saw mills, we walked under a cover bridge, check out the Parson's house, lawyers office and the mercantile, which was really amazing. On our way out we stopped at the gift shop to purchase some fudge that was calling to us. They had about 20 different varieties. We settled on a bar of chocolate, one bar of Chocolate raspberry and a bar of my favorite, Chocolate Peanut butter. We enjoyed every delicious calorie sitting outside the gift shop in the cool but wood scented air. We all had a great time!




Cool caterpillars we found in Sturbridge Village

The first picture is of a Spotted tussock moth caterpillar & the second is a Southern pine sphinx caterpillar.

August 9, 2008 1st day of Dunkin

So, my first night at Dunkin was everything, if not more that I remember Dunkin to be. I walked in at 4:50, asked for the lovely D & D attire I was promised would be there, promptly dressed and looked just like a Casaba melon...who picks these colors anyway?!?! Khaki pants, and a yellow and orange shirt. The "kids" behind the counter probably didn't add up to my age combined and I was suddenly worried. Even more so when the boy I'd been talking to, said "Ok, good luck, I'm closing with you tomorrow." there were a 4 people in line at the counter and 3 cars at the drive thru....I said "Excuse me? Who's training me?" He said "she is" pointing to the girl with the headset waiting on drive through. I said "Who's going to wait on counter?" He said "you are." It was at that moment that I knew things were going to get ugly. I looked at him quite seriously and said, if you walk out that door, I'm going with you. Not to be mean, but this is no way to treat a new hire on their first night, 3rd night maybe, but not first. JJ is a sweet kid, but a horrible trainer. He takes for granted all that he knows and kind of whips it at you willy nilly. Just then enters Sean. Sean has many piercings, and a beautiful new blue mohawk. He was there to pick up JJ, and caught the tail end of our, if you leave so do I conversation. Sean agrees with me that this is wrong, and calls somebody higher up who doesn't answer. Sean decides that it's time to lock the front doors, I'm ok with that, just drive thru....that's a little better anyway. The back room is strewn with today's delivery, bagels have been out thawing for too long already, it's only 6pm, they won't be cooked until tomorrow. The place is trashed, garbage everywhere...it's going to be a long night. JJ and Sean stayed and helped for a bit. Uniqua waited on drive thru. The guys do a basic rundown on what needs to be done, and start training me on how to make Lattes, cappachinos, turbos, mochas, smoothies,coolatas etc. They show me how the sugar, cream/milk/skim milk machines work....yes...all machines. It's bizarre and I wonder if all this technology is really necessary. After all we managed to pull off quite a booming business with a spoon and a pump.

The guys leave, Uniqua works drive thru and announces we're closing at 10pm. Hmmm...how's it this 17 year old gets to make this decision. I'm thinking now that I really need to have some phone numbers for the higher ups. Closing at 10 means lots of cleaning very quickly and since she's busy with customers, yours truly got a quick lesson is closing the shop....alone. I washed, dried, disassembled, and assembled and filled about 40 machines. Stocking was a breeze, because really, it's just about looking in cabinets. This store is fairly small and it's easy to find what you need. I then set about to putting the delivery away. Having been a manager came in quite nicely here, and the kitchen was quickly emptied. I took out all the trash, and swept and mopped the entire store. At 10pm Uniqua turned off her headset, and said we're closed. The customers didn't know it, but she adamantly refused to even go to the window to tell them. Kids. At 10:37 I punched out, or rather wrote out, since their time clock doesn't work. I left sore, wet and frazzled, but happy that at least I was tired for a reason. I'm sort of looking forward to going back tonight. JJ is quite amusing and really I think I learned alot last night. We'll see!



Found this interesting bug flying around my butterfly bush. At first thought it was a bee of some sort, but Gerry identified it as a clear wing moth. He's really very beautiful.