Road trip....Part One....

We went away for the weekend, Mr. Downeastdoingstuff and I, up the coast to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. This is what I wanted for my birthday, since 'I' don't exactly get a, ahem, BIRTHDAY WEEK! 

Anyway, it was a beautiful fall weekend so we took off at the crack of 7:30 a.m., heading  'downeast'.

 Ayuh.

Seagulls couldn't be bothered to move from their cozy spots...in the street.

This is looking down Main Street in downtown Bar Harbor. As you can see, tourist season has passed....just the way we like it. (no offense to potential tourists.)

Heading closer to the water.

One of the many hotels dotting the coast. Peak foliage season is past, but there are still some bright colors to tickle the senses.

Wicked good ice cream to be had. ( I would think it is wicked good. We didn't have any, but isn't most ice cream wicked good? We had a beer instead in a bar overlooking the water.) (SOOOOO nice!)

This is from the top of Cadillac Mountain. Those white specks below are where we were in Bar Harbor.

The road to the top of this magnificent mountain  is part of the Park Loop Road in Acadia National Park. 

There is a second piece to Acadia National Park, called Schoodic, but that is on the next peninsula of land, about 45 minutes to an hour away. 

We stayed in a wonderful Bed and Breakfast at Schoodic. Those photos are coming next......

Whooopppppeeeeeee.....

I found a recipe for pumpkin Whoopie Pies with cream cheese filling on the Martha Stewart web site. I've never made Whoopie Pies before, so I was a little reluctant, but my dessert genes kicked in and I got over that ..... pronto.

 

There is one lone whoopie left and I don't know who will nab it first. Since it's breakfast time, I think it's safe for a little while.

Here is the recipe if you would like to try it: (click on words)

PUMPKIN WHOOPEE PIES WITH CREAM CHEESE FILLING

"BITE ME!!"

Away at camp....

Our school goes away to overnight camp every year. And, yes, the teachers come with them. Sending them two hours away all by themselves would not sit well with their parents. Well, most of the parents...

This is the view from the deck of the dining hall. It's a little late in the year for my blood, temperature wise, but visually it is a beautiful time of year.
This is the cabin the teachers stay in. There are cabin counselors that stay with the kids at night. (Thank God!) We are right on the lake and quite far away from the kids bunks. They have NO idea where we stay.....and we like it that way!
This is the outside of the Dining Hall.
If you biggify this photo you can see some of the little cherubs up on the hill.
Another view of the lake from the Dining Hall. For some of the children, this is their first overnight. Some are homesick, but they all survive, and in the end are very happy they did.

They do workshops on relationships, bullying, decision making, adventure (ie. high and low ropes courses) and team building. Afternoons and evenings are spent doing fun things.

It's a wonderful program and our kids are very lucky to have this opportunity.

Stuff......

Yesterday we had Mr. Stanley Steemer come and super steem [sic] our rugs in the family room and the hallway. Since those rugs have beens wicked scuzzy for a while and because our own Hoover rug shampooer uses only two tiny round toothbrushes to 'scrub' the rug at snail speed, we had to take drastic measures. Yes, Stanley Steemer is as drastic as we get. Whew.

Although, we did have Stanley Soot come several times to clean our chimney in the past. That was a hoot.

To prepare for our scuzz expungement, we had to remove stuff from the room and put it in our summer porch. Within 20 minutes the summer porch was jammed to the rafters with stuff.

We are not hoarders in our main house. (DO NOT look in the two attics.....ever....) The stuff we have is regular stuff. And the stuff was all in order as we had a family gathering 4 days before, no clutter to be seen. (Don't look in the attic.) 

It made me realize that I can never move. I starting looking around to see what I would take with me when I retire and move to Tahiti. 

It's going to be very expensive.  

I need to start heaving things right now.  

Even all those hundreds of Beanie Babies we got Baby Downeastdoingstuff, you know, for investment purposes.

And my trolls, too? Say it ain't so.....

Help.

Good Luck my sweet nephew...

Last weekend there was a farewell dinner party for a member of our family who is moving to California. He's young enough to try this drastic move of his dreams. Taking practically the clothes on his back, early Monday morning, off he went.

Now, I would have to rent two or three 18 wheelers to transport the clothes on my back, plus some other stuff.

This is why he's the one doing this adventure and not me.

I think, however, he will find a few differences between Maine and California.

Such as.....

In California, your fastest commute will be down your driveway.

In Maine, you consider it a traffic jam if there are four cars waiting to pass a tractor.  

In California, your monthly house payments exceed your annual income.  

In Maine, your neighbors house foreclosed after an unlucky 24 hour mini-cruise on the Scotia Prince.

In California, the primary bugs you worry about are electronic.   

In Maine, you think a mosquito could be a species of bird.

In California, your car has bullet proof windows.  

      

In Maine, you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked.

In California, you pack shorts and a t-shirt to ski in the snow and a sweater and wet suit for the beach.

 

In Maine, if you have to dress up you wear a tie with your flannel shirt.

In California, getting from point A to point B, no matter what the distance, takes about "20 minutes."  

In Maine,  you measure distance in hours.

In California, you know how to eat an artichoke.  

In Maine,  you eat ice cream with flavors like Moose Tracks and Maine Black Bear.

You never step foot in McDonald's.  'In N Out' is where you go.  

   

In Maine, you can make a meal out of a Jordan red-dye hot dog, a bag of Humpty Dumpty chips and a soda.

When in California, you keep in touch with your relatives that love you dearly

via email, texting, skype and cell phone.

In Maine,  you keep in touch with your relatives that love you dearly via email, texting, skype and cell phone.

So, my dear Z, do keep in touch. We wish you the best of luck, surfer boy.

Love from Maine......

It's a sign....

I've been collecting pictures of signs I encounter on my travels.

Time to share.

Awww, how endeering.... 

(Belfast, Maine)

Redundancy? 

(Belfast, Maine)

No spell check in Florida...

I don't even think spell check could rescue this one.  ????

Good Message.

If you P in the lake, the Sopranos will be notified and they will get their stuff in here.

There was an old  bike leaning against that tree. What a lucky gal.

I think this was in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Tough place.

They don't even need the MOB closet.

The best one I saw this summer was outside of Meredith, New Hampshire at a motel.

We should have turned around to photograph it, and Mr. Downeastdoingstuff asked me if he should, but in a blogger lapse I said no.

This is what it said:

COME STAY WITH US

CLEAN ROOMS

HEATED POO

When your 'L' falls off, it's bad for business methinks.

I won a gift from AFRICA!!!!!

A few weeks ago, lovely Lynda from Tanzania, Africa had a give away. I submitted my name for it and WON. I won an awesome gift consisting of some ginger tea ( I LOVE tea) and an African CD, plus Lynda wrote me a sweet note on a postcard.

You HAVE to check out Lynda's blog. She lives on a Bazillion acres farm in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro with 2 lovely children and her husband. Her home is gorgeous and they survive without regular electricity. (They do have generators, though.)

Food, Fun and Farmlife....in East Africa is the official name of her blog. Check it out. Life in Africa is way different from life in Maine in so many ways. But it's also so much the same in other ways.

Thank you, thank you, thank you my friend Lynda.

Check out the stamps it took to mail it to Maine. Do the math. 

800 X 10 equals 8,000/=  to mail it out.....whatever /= is.

8,000 anything is a LOT!

Thanks!

Going Green...

Organic material shrug enhances a layered wrap around skirt with chunky clogs. Hat by Rhody Dendron.

Some of you know that I like to make stuff from other stuff. If you read my Going to the Beach post this summer, you saw some evidence of that....(scroll way down, past the guy in the bikini thong, you pervert.) (I don't know who put those photos onto my wholesome blog! Still a mystery to me....)

Here are a few of the 'people' I made with Mother Nature's help and put in my display case at school. I needed something to put in the display case because it will be a while before the kids make anything display casable.

Enjoy....

Iris leaf spandex leggings with sleeveless muscle shirt and white Shape Up shoes. Hair by Old Spice.

Pleated Mini-skirt with textured leggings topped by a layered shell and a natural seed choker. Earth shoes in nutmeg color. Hair by Herbal Essence and hat by Pacific Sunwear.

Possibilities are virtually endless!  (Wiggle eyes are not organic. Sorry Al Gore.)

More gag gag.....

OK, so I want to be open minded about this. As much as the meat ensemble gagged me, (see my previous two posts) (the smell alone, which I can smell from here...), I remembered seeing her perform on TV with Elton John during the Grammy Awards and I remembered being very impressed with her talent.

I'm impressed with anyone, first of all, that can play the piano. It's always been a fantasy of mine. And secondly I'm impressed with anyone who can sing. I can't sing worth a lick.

(No comments, Birdman...)

She can do both quite well.

If you could take the time to watch this video, hang in there through the beginning and watch her sing with Elton, well.........I am speechless...

Well done, Stephani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

More where's the beef...

Just to keep you in the loop, I found an image of the back of the dress.

That's some rump roast!

photo credit

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's all over the news....Lady GAG GAG is coming to town..... 

MY town.....today at 4 pm.....and it's not about my blog. (I hope)

Who woulda thunk it?

Click here to see the info....

PS....I will NOT be there.

Where's the beef?

Lady Gag Gag

When I was younger, my grandmothers used to tell me that I needed to put a little more meat on my bones.

Little did I know that this was all I had to do.

Now they tell me.....

"If we're not supposed to eat animals, 

how come they're made out of meat?"

-Tom Snyder

Boring, boring, boring......

Debbie asked if I was on vacation again. I wish. No. The start of school is very busy and I'm ready for bed at 6:30 p.m. Don't know how I'm going to watch Project Runway tonight.....

AND my life has been boring, boring, boring. 

So, 'having said that' (I hate that phrase....who made it up? Someone had to be the first one to use it...), I will now post a photo of dinner one night.

Told you I was boring.

But check out dinner.....

SPAGHETTI SQUASH from our garden. Is that the craziest thing going??

I wash it, cut it in half, remove all the seeds, poke holes in it, place it cut side down on a plate, put it in the microwave for 15 minutes full power, take a fork and pull out the strands.

A veggie that's like spaghetti!!! Who knew? ( Well, 'I' did, but only about 15 years ago. Never heard of it before that.) (Pretty bad when I say "only" "15 years ago". ) (sigh)

Spaghetti sauce made from tomatoes in our garden, string beans are from the garden, swiss chard from the garden sauteed with onions and garlic in some Extra Virgin Olive Oil and home made meatballs from the cow we used to have in the yard. (Just kidding on that last part.)

I wish we could have the garden all year 'round.

You say tomato and I say tomato......

Yeah!!!! After not one frickin' tomato last summer, we are now inundated! 

Anyone have a good recipe for spaghetti sauce?

I have a good recipe for tomato soup, which Mr. Downeastdoingstuff (pictured above) has, for some reason, taken on as his specialty. He has one other specialty...... Zucchini bread. 

I told him, "if you could follow directions for cooking/baking these two delish items, you can basically cook anything."

"Heck", I told him, " you cook everything from now on and I will select 2 things that will be my specialty!"

He said, "No."

I said, "Yea, you can."

He still said, "Nope."

So that's it. I'll gladly munch on his two specialties.

Tomato Soup

(I'm pretty sure this recipe came from a prehistoric edition of Bon Appetit.)

~3 Tbsp vegetable oil

~1 medium onion, finely chopped

~2 lbs. ripe tomatoes, (unpeeled), sliced

~1 Tbsp tomato paste

~1 bay leaf

~1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic

~2 tsp cornstarch

~3 C chicken stock. (He uses 2 cans of College Inn lower sodium chicken broth.)

~black pepper (recipe says freshly ground, but then, all recipes seem to say that.)

~herb salt. (or whatever)

~1 medium tomato, peeled, seeded and cut julienne. (He doesn't usually do this.)

~1 Tbsp fine chopped fresh parsley (He uses dry parsley.)

~1 Tbsp fine chopped chives

~1 tsp honey

-Heat 3 tbsp OIL in a 4 Qt. saucepan over medium heat. Add ONION and cook til translucent.

(most of my kids in school don't know the meaning of this word.) Add all the sliced TOMATO and cook 3 minutes. Stir in TOMATO PASTE, BAY LEAF, and GARLIC.  Cover and cook 10 minutes, stirring often.

-Transfer mixture to food processor and puree. Return puree to saucepan. Combine CORNSTARCH and 1 tbsp OIL in a small bowl. Stir into puree. Add STOCK and bring to boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes. Season with PEPPER and HERB SALT. Stir in julienne TOMATO, PARSLEY, CHIVES and HONEY.

(Mr. DEDS always DOUBLES this recipe because, to be frank, it makes a piss poor amount otherwise, IMO.)

*******You know what? I know he uses a food mill somewhere in this recipe because I always have to wash one. Maybe after the food processor? Maybe to get out the skins and seeds? Who knows? So. use one somewhere......

I always make RICE and mix it in just before serving. Serve with some crusty bread and it's a great meal.

Enjoy.

Godspeed 'Opihi'.....

My good friend D had to say goodbye to her beloved dog a few days ago. Her sweet, tail wagging pup went in and out of this antique door many, many times. 'Opihi's name is Hawaiian in origin, but I'm sorry to say I don't remember what it means.

She was almost 16 years old. I know D did everything she could to take care of her over the past year in her declining health. I know 'Opihi will be sorely missed. 

I'm sure D's chickens will be wondering where their crazy friend is.

D spent many years in Hawaii and when I heard Israel Kamakawiwo'ole sing this song quite accidentally today, I thought of D and her pup. 

He did a beautiful rendition of Somewhere over the Rainbow, which I'm sure is where 'Opihi is, looking down on us all........ (click on this video)

So sorry, my friend.

EARL aftermath.....

We battened down all the hatches, bought batteries, got gas for the generator, brought in all the cushions from the deck furniture and ate all the sweets in the freezer just in case....

All night long..........it just rained.  I don't think a gust of wind appeared unless a car drove by.

But the Princess and the Pea made her appearance on the deck cushions.

Can't be too careful....

Good bye Hurricane Earl.

Dang, it's hot.....

I’ve been in school two days. No kids yet, they don’t start laboring until after Labor Day.

And it’s been 195 degrees both days.

213 degrees up on the second floor where my room is.

In Maine. 

Why, Florida must be in the 300’s I would guess.

Is this Global Warming?

Is this like that Twilight Zone episode where the sun is cascading toward the Earth and all the crayons and oil paintings are melting?

Is this what it’s like in a Sweat Lodge, whatever that is? 

I think it is.

Time for another Sapphire-tini.......

Ahhhh.

Sapphire-Tini

1/2 oz. Blue Curacao

3/4 oz Bacardi Coco Rum

3/4 oz Banana Liqueur

2 oz Pineapple Juice

Fill Cocktail shaker with ice. Pour all ingredients into cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a chilled Blue Gemtini glass.

Enjoy!

Oh, what a night.....

I am still recovering from my airport mishap 2 days ago. I am recovering with pizza, icecream and wine. 

This may take a few days, or weeks or more.

I actually am very busy taking care of the business I came here for. My mom is still in the throes of a very long recovery and dad is doing the best he can.

Just in case you are wondering, which I'm sure you are, here are the photos from beautiful Philadelphia Airport....you know....on 'that' night. (Longest night of my life, btw.)

Here is where I sat for about an hour with my tea and a chocolate glazed donut, plus my laptop, of course!! (Thank you Philly airport for free wireless! Not all airports have that.)

The halls of the airport at around 10:45 p.m.  Deserted.

What goes on after 11 pm at the food court. I don't even want to know what's going on. (Looking for the runway?)

My home for the night at gate C 26. I bought a new pair of fuzzy socks at Newport News shop, the Information Desk gave me the pillow and a blanket. Where's the blanket you say? It's there.

That tiny, teeny little rectangle above my new socks. Yup, that's it. It's called a space blanket.

(If you don't know what that is, it's a gigantic, gargantuan, monster sheet of aluminum foil type of stuff that's suppose to retain 90 percent of your body heat. When you take it out of the plastic sleeve, that is. As it is now, it's pretty much useless.)

My view from my bed. I was posting yesterday's post in my new socks. I finally fell asleep with my pillow up against my backpack which was propped up against the wall. Not the most comfortable position, but at least then I'd be alerted if someone tried to steal my stuff.

After around 2 a.m. it turned frigid. I tried to hold out and not get up because I was so danged tired, but I had to resort to the space blanket. Note: Space blankets make A LOT of noise when handled. But I did manage to cover myself with this oddball thing, and it actually DID keep me warm.

What was worse was that the Musak (elevator music) played at ear splitting decibels all night long and the night crew highway repair lighting was never dimmed. A TV was on all night long in the gate area and sleep was very hard.

The night cleaning crew appeared around 11 pm and worked all night. The humming of the floor polishers and vacuums actually were a welcome relief.

After a while I decided in my sleep to find out what time it was. I estimated that it must have been around 3:30 am. I took out my cell phone and discovered it was 5:15 am!!!

I opened one eye and this is what I saw.....

People already there waiting for the 6:45 flight that I was taking!!! I have no idea what they must have thought of that woman in the corner wrapped up in aluminum foil. (that would be me...)

I calmly sat up as if sleeping across 3 seats wrapped in Alcoa wrap was perfectly normal. The hard part was stuffing the Space Blanket into my back pack because it made sooooooo much noise. (Attracting unwanted attention...although nobody seemed to care.)

I combed my hair with my fingers, packed up and headed to Au Bon Pain for breakfast.

Turning back to the gate, this was the view....
There were plenty of people there, going about their business for a normal flight, happy that the seemingly homeless woman was leaving....