Goodbye warm weather

Now that all of the leaves have dropped, autumn is officially over in my mind. Which means the start of another long New England winter. The kind that starts the first week of December and seems to go on until May. You'd think that after living all 31 of my years in the northeast, I'd be immune to the cold by now, but that is not the case. Although I do think I'd take a New England winter over the hot, humid, oppressive heat of say, southern Florida. Humid weather does not bode well for good hair days. Not that hat hair is much better.


I started thinking about the long winter ahead after seeing some lovely summer time pictures we forgot to download from our digital camera. So I decided to dedicate this post to all things warm weather like. First is a vacation picture of the beautiful harbor in Camden, Maine (this is the town with the beautiful library, natural ampitheather, and 4 bookstores - one of which is, or was, selling the entire Trixie Belden collection in near perfect condition; should have snatched them up when I had the chance). Actually, this picture could be Rockland, Maine, not Camden. Doesn't matter. Both are adorable.


Next are pictures from Edith Wharton's estate The Mount. One of the house itself and one of the amazing gardens behind the house. Must get back there again soon. Seeing her personal library and the ongoing restoration project of her estate was incredible.


And then we have a picture of our beautiful rose bushes that, much to my astonishment, bloomed for the second year in a row. Gardening is not my forte. I like the idea of it, but don't have the patience for it. I did manage to keep a potted tomato plant and some lavendar alive this year though, so maybe I'll rethink the whole gardening thing next year. I planted some bulbs this past weekend - if they come up in the spring then I'll definitely give gardening another chance.


My two buddies lounging on our porch is the next shot. They like to keep me company when I read. And when I sleep. And when I am trying to brush my teeth, or make dinner, or do work on the computer. You get the picture. Whoever said cats are solitary creatures have never met my cats. While they can't stand each other, they love people and like to be the center of attention at all times. Especially Jack (the black one), who essentially rules the household. This picture makes me laugh, because for two cats that despise each other, they always seem to lounge or sleep next to one another. Go figure. I think about 5 minutes after this picture was taken, there was a flurry of activity in which punches were thrown, necks were bitten, and faces scratched, all resulting in what looked like an explosion of cat fur, followed by each of them retreating into separate corners to lick their wounds and strategize their next attack.

So with this post, I bid warm weather adieu. Time to settle in for a long winter in which I will be sure to keep myself surrounded by piles of books at all times!

New Reading Challenge

Since I was delinquent with the last reading challenge (meaning I did not read a single book on my RIP list), I decided to partake in the Winter Reading Challenge to try and redeem myself. I am even going to make one of my RIP reads one of my winter reads so I can say I read at least one of my RIP books this year. This winter reading challenge will be good for me. I am forever buying books that line my shelves which end up taking a backseat to whatever I have checked out of the library. Now is my opportunity to read some of those that have been waiting so patiently!

Need to make this a short post, but for those of you that like young adult fiction, I just finished Leaving Jetty Road by Rebecca Burton and thought it was excellent.

More to come soon...