Monday Musings...damn people from away

We got to sit out back and enjoy our first campfire of the season last night.  It sounded like summer with children screaming, dogs barking (not mine at the moment), and boats roaring around the pond.  And then the sun went down...bring on the fireworks.  Really??  Must you come up to your summer home and make noise ALL night.  Do you even realize that some of us live and work here year round?  That some of us do not get the luxury of a three day weekend and we must be up early for our jobs.  Nope apparently not.  I think next winter I need to find out where you live and take up camp next to your home and light off fireworks all night just to get even.  And really the only nights of the week we have noise around here are the weekends when all the people from away come up here to get "away" from it all.  Maybe you need to try to remember that for those of us that live here all the time, we also like to get away from the noise you insist upon making.  That's why we chose to live here because of the quiet.  At least Monday through Thursday is peaceful and quite enjoyable.

our pond on a quieter weekend last summer

So now we are back to Monday when the fools from away have gone back to their lives and the neighborhood can go on in relative quiet.  Unfortunately it's only a four day work week for them so they will be back in a few short days.  Oh how I dread the summer months here.  The grocery store is filled with rude pushy people who look at us locals with disdain as they go by with their carts filled with beer and ice.  It makes going to the store a real treat.  And I know tourism is great for the local economy, but one should really take a crash course in acting like a decent person before crossing the border.

Guess I am being a wee bit crabby for this Monday, but if I had gotten my 8 hours undisturbed I would be a happier camper this afternoon.  Now off to grumble some more....

A day off?? What's that?

I am taking a well deserved day off while John and his hiking buddy (the small dog) are off early again.  He is working his way through the Belknaps this weekend, but I just needed a day of doing not too much.  That and the amount of ticks he pulled off the two of them left me not wanting to go play in the woods.  I have a bike ride planned and hopefully I will make it more than 5 miles before I feel the need to turn around and head home.

Had a great day of golf yesterday.  It was a bit too hot for my liking and 18 holes seemed to take forever in the 90 degree heat.  We are back to normal seasonal temps today and I wish all the runners taking part in Boston's Run to Remember a great race.  Our next race is on June 2 up in Concord and I will be running with Megan and John.  That is one is part of the Capital Area Race series.  Then I believe we may have two weeks off until the Bow Lake 5k.  I really wanted to do the 15k, but we have beach cleanup early that morning and thought better of the extra miles.

my golf team

Colleen and I have one week until we make the decision to do our sprint tri.  I definitely think it is doable at this point.  I just haven't been in the water yet this year.  The pond may still be a little cold for that.  But I did dig out my bathing suit this morning and I just need to get the nerve up to hit the water.


The bike ride turned out beautifully this morning.  There was a nice chill in the air and I did 14 miles around Barnstead before returning home.  My next plan is to go sit outside and enjoy this wonderful weather because from what I hear it's all over after today!  I am okay with a lousy holiday forecast since I will be stuck at work for the day.  So enjoy!

FO Friday

Yay!  The week is finally over.  I managed a half day, but will have to go in over the weekend to do an eval.  Any excuse to get out early on a Friday is good with me.  We managed a quick dump run and now won't have to do that over the weekend.  Bonnie and I are "playing" golf in the morning while John and Scout head out on another hike.  Really with the weather forecast for the upper 80s, I am glad to be hitting the links instead.  If only I had known that today was going to be so lousy I would've waited until this afternoon to roast the chicken I did last night.  I think a sweatshirt may be in order before I head off to Explorers down at the station.

I finished John's sweater earlier in the week and I believe I have convinced John that he should sew the buttons on it for himself.  I have begun construction of a green wrap sweater.  I had so much knitting mojo over the last few months that I think I need a bit of a recovery period.  I can knit about two rows before I feel the need to get up and move onto something else....oh look a chicken!

Also need to give a shout out to my Explorers tonight for a wonderful job with training.  It was a warm and humid night and you guys rocked with SCBA training.  And tomorrow night I will participate in a little tower training.  We will be painting the flagpole.  I got roped into training like this...Deputy Chief to Mandy "Hey you want to do some tower training tomorrow evening around 5pm?"  I say, "Sure I would love that."  Then he says "We have to paint the flagpole."  And that's how it went down.  So if you are out and about in Barnstead tomorrow evening, you can find dinner and a show at Station 2.  Ok just make sure you bring enough dinner for me too!  And pie, I would love some pie!

Will I cross the finish line this evening?

It's been a few weeks and before that it was a few weeks and I have to say I am sad that I have been out of my Tuesday evening routine.  So tonight I will take my sticks and string and head to Knit Night down in Epsom.  I miss being surrounded by women of all ages as we create with our hands.  The gentle click of metals needles as they slide past each other or the muttered curse of a dropped stitch.  Okay, really that's just me!  But thankfully there is someone there who can solve life's little knitting problems.

I plan on finishing the cuff of John's sweater and weaving in the ends once I have cast off the final stitch.  It feels like a week ago that I started on it, but in reality it's been almost two months in the making.  Then I will be onto my next project for myself...another cute sweater for me to wear this winter.  I do have plans for a summer sweater and one would think this would be the perfect time to start it since it's short sleeve and will be made from linen, but I just don't have the hankering to start that one.  I want the pretty green Merino yarn, not the conch colored linen.

And just maybe I will have a picture of the finished sweater for FO Friday.  That means I am going to have to sew on buttons and we all know how I feel about that.  Not my favorite thing to do.  Or I could just hand them to John and have him do his own....let's see how that one goes.

Monday Musings

our room with a view

I am exhausted!  Plain and simple, the weekend wore me out.  Busy week ahead with something going on just about every night this week and will wind down on Saturday with a benefit golf tournament.  Yup, I will be sharing clubs with Bonnie and we are going to rock it!

So I figured I would add more pictures from our weekend voyage.  We did have a good time even though I may pay for it during the next few days as my one million black fly bites start to heal.  I am that person who gets a bug bite and the swelling/itch lasts for almost two weeks.  It's wonderful having such a good immune system response!  But I did take the dog out this afternoon when I got home from work and I think it may be safe to that our black fly season is over.  Careful...I don't want to say that too loud because they might come back.

Mt. Washington

Scout seems to have recovered from the hike and even played a rousing game of whiffle ball with me when I first got home.  At least the sun was still shining then!  Now the clouds have taken over and it looks like more rain will be upon us.  Yet the outlook for the end of the week and the holiday weekend looks like great weather.  I am just hoping to get a couple of runs in during the chaos that is this week.  We have yet another 5k next Saturday on June 2.  My friend Megan will be joining us for that grand time.

We got out of our sleeping bags and someone decided she wanted to go back to bed!

Then it will be onto training for a sprint tri with Colleen during the first week of July.  Hopefully the pond water will warm up with the nicer weather that we have been having.  It's a small pond and it tends to warm up pretty fast, but I would love to get some serious swimming.  Got the bike already and I just need to force myself out onto that too.  But I am going to take the next two days to let my sore body re-charge.

Just a short (or 15 miles) walk in the woods

We took our little dog, Scout and went on my first overnight hike.  John had it all planned out that we were going to be doing Mt. Isolation up in Pinkham Notch.  Saturday dawned a picture perfect day in New Hampshire.  The sky was clear blue and the temps were in the low 80s.  I could have stood to have the temps a bit lower at our start time and the haze of black flies nearly drove me over the edge.  But we had bought an all natural bug repellent a few weeks ago at Clark's Grain Store.  This stuff was magic and it's called White Mountain Bug Repellent.  It specifically targets black flies and as all of us who live in New Hampshire can attest that these little flies are horrible in May.

me and the Presidential in the background

I won't deny that the first part of hike was grueling.  I was taking breaks every 20 to 30 steps and drained almost all of my water before we got to camp.  Our remote camp site was nestled into the side of a hill and you could hear the water rushing below.  The first stop after dropping our packs was the river and that cold icy water was just solution.  Scout did some serious swimming which was followed by a lot of shivering.  I got my feet in, but like the Atlantic this time of year,  it was brutal.

We had an early dinner of Santa Fe chicken in a bag.  Then it was lights out for Mandy.  I spent at least 10 hours in my sleeping bag last night and was quite sad that John was reading a book by his Android, but I had left my Kindle behind at home.   And that hillside campsite, well I kept sliding off of my sleeping pad and down the hill during the night.  But I had the little dog to keep me warm and she spent the entire night in my sleeping bag at the foot of it.

Sunday was a spectacular day.  We got an early start out of our camp after a breakfast of oatmeal and tea.  I finally located the toothpaste I couldn't find in the dark and was able to brush my teeth.  Talk about heaven!  The bugs were not as bad early today and we made really good time without the extra weight from our packs.  Scout made multiple river crossings and kept ahead of us about 30 feet at all times.  I swear she covers each mountain at least twice as she crosses back and forth along the trail.

From the summit of Mt. Isolation which was 3.5 miles from where we spent the night, we had clear views of Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range.  The old rock pile is so nice to see without it being surrounded by clouds.  No snow remains at the summit which must be some sort of record for this time of year.

Made it off the mountain by 230pm this afternoon and we were back home by 415pm.  Now if only I could have a weekend from my weekend!

And it's only Thursday.

Got back to the old running grind yesterday.  The IT bands still hurt, but had to keep running due the voracious mosquitoes that chased us home.  The humid weather felt more like July or August and I can say that I am definitely not used to running in warmer weather.  I didn't think we were going to get a run in because we were under a severe storm watch and as I was tying up my shoes I swore I heard thunder.

The storms did hold off until around 9pm last night.  We got to watch a vivid light show as the storms rolled in.  It's one of the times that I can I say I enjoying living on top of a hill.  We sat out on our porch until the rain started and then we made a quick retreat back into the house.  The first storm passed quickly without a lot of close lightning.  The second storm hit around 11pm and that rocked the house a few times.

This morning dawned with cool, clear blue sky.  Even the birds sounded happier than they did the past few mornings.  Mr. Cardinal started serenading us before 5am.  I know because I looked over at the clock.  Fortunately I had the day off and if we don't find another OT soon who knows when I will have my next day off.  Got John's sweater almost done and finished another book this afternoon.  Even managed to put away my new stash of yarn and mow the lawn.

Very thankful for the change of weather...now hopefully it will hold out in the mountains this weekend as I take in my first overnight hike.  From what I gather I could be in for a long day on Sunday!