Happy Halloween!

Have a great Halloween...


enjoy the day!

Trick or Treat...

Halloween is nearly here. It's also the weekend to set our clocks again in the US. The next thing you know, we will be into the holiday season and winter. Time speeds in the fall, doesn't it? Seems like the leaves were just starting to turn and now they are also gone off the trees.

We get about 100 Halloween trick or treaters at our door since we live in the middle of the historic part of town. Some of the costumes are so creative and the littlest kids are so adorable in their wonder.

It was never a favorite holiday of mine. I am not much of a sweet eater. It is more fun to me to be handing out treats than it ever was for me to receive them as a kid. (If they had been handing out pizza when I was a child...well, that would have been a different story!)

In our neighborhood, the parents come around with the kids and some of them wear costumes, too. Our street is usually very decorated and there are sidewalks and plenty of light.

Needless to say, our Yorkie goes crazy with copious barking and I am very glad to turn off the lights at the end of the evening.

Wishing you a Happy Halloween if you celebrate it and a fun weekend. For now,

enjoy the day!

Antique hunting in Vermont...

Although the weekend started out blustery, it quickly turned to a sparkly, sunny fall day on Sunday. We were off to Vermont to look at antique stores. We had never been to the quaint town of Chester and spent some time looking around. I loved this BIG CHAIR that we saw outside a store.

There are some wonderful stone houses and a church right out of town and a great bakery /deli where we bought a take-out lunch and dined in the car overlooking a mountain view. It is a lovely memory of a beautiful day.

Now it time to start the day here. Looks like most of New England will have rain but it is quite mild and feels more like summer than fall. As always,

Enjoy the day!

Boo!

Just popping in here for a moment to show you what Bear is up to today. It's a gray day with howling winds and leaves blowing everywhere. Inside, it is cozy and warm and the tea pot is filled with herbal tea. Not quite as scary as Bear would have you believe!

Enjoy the season!

Enjoy the day!

Blustery day...

It was gray blustery day on Saturday with incredibly strong wind gusts.


We were traveling along the CT shoreline and I thought I saw kites over the tree tops. We decided to find the kites and were surprised to see a brave bunch of guys para surfing.



The wind would lift them up and drop them back into the water.


As you can see in the photos, they were wearing harnesses. It must take tremendous strength and skill to participate in this sport. We don't often get the right winds for this kind of sport when it is warm enough to be in the water.


The rest of the weekend turned out to be much nicer weather and I will share some other photos during the week. Hope you had a great weekend. For now,

Happy Monday!

Enjoy the day!

Nearly here...

When I wasn't paying attention, Halloween seems to have crept up on me. Is is possible that most of October is gone? We have had a return to warm weather, a true Indian summer and it feels more like late August than October. But, in true New England style, the temperature will drop during the day and we will return to autumn by dinner time tonight.

What's on your plate today? We were up at 4:00 a.m., today because a fire truck parked in front of our house with the flashing lights and the motor running for an hour.

Although the accompanying ambulance was a block away, it was our luck to have the only open parking space for several blocks. I mentioned before that there is parking on one side of the street---ours. We happen to live 6 feet from the sidewalk, so the lights and the noise made for an exciting morning wake up call. I need more coffee.

Whatever you do today...

Enjoy the day...

and happy weekend!

Some doll stuff...

On Monday I went to doll club and you can see the dolls I took to show. The one below I bought at doll club from a member. She is a sweet Edith Flack Ackley doll.

The program was on Teddy Bears and this big boy came home with me. He was made by a talented bear artist, Lynne Pierce. Yesterday I bought him a shirt at the dollar store. He seems to fit into size twelve months. How did he come home with me? When I picked him up he hugged me and Lynne gave him to me.

As you can see, he is already into mischief.

He hasn't told me his name yet but I think he will be a handful!

After a stormy weekend , we have a return to beautiful weather. It was a pleasure to open the windows again and turn off the furnace. We ordered some new windows months ago for the upstairs bathroom. They took months to get here and we are hoping we can get them in while it is still warm. There are always things to do before winter.

As always,

Enjoy the day!

Rainy weekend...

Even though it rained for days, it was quite beautiful over the weekend.



It was not weather for boating so we couldn't help but notice that the marinas were filled with boats of all types. The Nor'easter made the water choppy and the winds were really howling. This was the year of the BIG boat. We keep seeing really big yachts everywhere we travel along the coast.

Monday has rolled around too soon...time to start the week.

Happy Monday!

Enjoy the day!

Autumn is slipping away...

Autumn is slipping away. These photos taken over the weekend are so sunny and bright, but a nor'easter has moved in and now it is raining and snowing lightly. This means some of those beautiful leaves have been blown away by now. If you look closely, that scarecrow is holding ice cream cones. Our favorite ice cream place, Canterbury Cones, will close soon for the season.

Yesterday, I made a big pot of chicken vegetable soup. This is the time of year that I enjoy cooking. After a summer of salads and light fare, it is always nice to return to fall favorites like soup and stew. What is your favorite time of the year to cook? I never mention cooking in my blog but I have loved to cook since I was a child. I am a foodie.

Do you have a "to do" list? This time of the year I always make a running list because I work on holiday gifts and things to sell. I cannot operate without lists. Like everyone I know, I am on information overload and am sure to forget something I need to do or buy or make.

The weekend is nearly here but bad weather may prohibit riding out into the country. We have some household projects this weekend involving winterizing the house. What are your weekend plans?

Enjoy the day...


and have a happy weekend!

A few more from the weekend...

Hanckock Shaker Village, Hancock, MA

The Blue Oar

This past weekend one of our favorite eateries closed for the season. The Blue Oar is located on the CT River and the view is wonderful. We will have to wait until next spring to enjoy the view and the food again.

We are so fortunate to live in a small state where we can get to most parts of New England within a few hours. We are inclined to take day trips and travel as much as we can on the weekends. We are not every extravagant and have an economical car, eat light meals in small eateries, avoid fast food, and enjoy the the landscapes on back country roads. We both come from a tradition of the "Sunday afternoon ride" in our childhoods. It is fun taking rides now. We try to schedule household chores around the trips. Our thought is to save indoor stuff for the days when weather prohibits roaming around and savor New England's beauty when we can.

Back to a day at home with happy memories to think about!

Enjoy the day!

Autumn in New England

How was your weekend? Ours was too short!

Here are some images from the weekend. Today I will show you a few, but I have more I will share this week. A perfect fall weekend! This group was taken in Vermont.

This looks peaceful but the Vermont Country Store was so mobbed we couldn't stay long. We stayed long enough to buy delicious Vermont cheddar to take home.






Pictorial perfect! Hilariously, when we pulled over to take the photo, other card stopped, too. We caused a mini traffic jam. The leaf peepers were out in record numbers on such a beautiful day.



My beloved Belties are showing up everywhere.



Have to be out the door early today so I must be on my way.

Happy Columbus day...

Enjoy the day!

It's beginning to look like...

It's beginning to look like Halloween, everywhere I go. I thought these scarecrows were rather whimsical... particularly the snow man.

It is amazing to me how elaborate and expensive some of the displays are this year. Those huge blow up displays that are around at Christmas are now made for Halloween. They lie dormant all day on lawns. At night they spring to life with animation and lighting.

Call me a traditionalist, but I love homemade decorations more. I have seen some cute things this year in my travels.

Is it Friday? Where did the week go? Sending you wishes for a

happy weekend

and enjoy the day!

Time to sew

It's time to sew again. I will probably sew on the above machine. It is no longer where I posed it for a photo but has a place of its own upstairs. My husband made this cabinet for it out of bird's eye maple with lace wood panels.

Or...I might sew on this machine. He made this reproduction cabinet out of cherry. It doesn't live in front of the fireplace but that's where the light was best for a photo.



You might have guessed that I like Singer Featherweights. I do! For Christmas a few years ago, my talented husband gave me a Singer Featherweight 222. That is the free arm version and is the holy grail of Featherweights to Featherweight lovers.



I must choose one of them and get going. I have a stack of projects to finish before December.

It's a windy, rainy morning and a perfect day to stay indoors and sew and brew tea.

Wish you could come over and share a pot of tea with me. What are your plans for the day? Whatever they are,

Enjoy the day!

A beautiful day in the neighborhood...

After a torrential downpour on Saturday, Sunday turned out to be a day of perfect weather.

Our New England town has its annual fall event celebrating the town and its restaurants. It happened only a few blocks from here.

As we ate and walked through the crowds, I kept spotting Spiderman. He stayed in character and jumped from place to place, never standing straight up and with great acrobatic skill. Needless to say, he was crowd pleaser. Children and adults were charmed.

We ate Cuban food and it was excellent. Our town has cuisine from everywhere and it was hard to choose since we like it all.

It is said that people don't even know their own neighbors anymore but that's not true where we live. We live in a town with a population of 40,000 plus but the neighborhoods in the old part of town still thrive. We stopped and talked to neighbors as we walked along. We had a very good time...in our own neighborhood.

Time to start the day. Happy Monday!

Enjoy the day!

Continuing at Chesterfield Gorge...

We continued to hike along the edge of the gorge and enjoyed the view. The trail goes a lot further than we did and it is breathtaking.

We were gazing at view when we looked down at a nearby rock and spotted dinosaur tracks. New England is filled with dinosaur tracks and we have seen them many times. There are public places marked with them all over CT and MA as well. The tracks continued on to many other rocks but it was quite shady and hard to get a good photo. As luck would have it, the sun was on this rock or we would not have seen them at all.

We hope to return there in a few weeks when the leaves are off the trees and check the view then. One can only imagine what this looks like in the snow!


After we left the gorge we continued on to view more early fall foliage in the hills of central MA.

Now, the weekend is nearly here. How was your week? I hope it was a good one wherever you are in whatever season. Until next time...

enjoy the day and..

have a happy weekend!

Onward, ho...Chesterfield Gorge

It looks innocent enough....a roaring brook.

At the top of a hill, there is a parking lot. Within a few feet, one begins a walk along Chesterfield Gorge. Click on the photos to see them larger.


To be honest, I was a little nervous along the ridge, even though there was a wire railing of sorts. My dear husband, went OVER the railing to get a few shots and scared me out of my wits!


To get an idea of how deep this is, we took a photo of a tree hanging off the other side. It a full sized pine--not a branch.


The early autumn weather was gorgeous: breezy, in the 70's and sunny. The deep shade of the trees was delightful.

There was something else there we enjoyed, too, but I will save that for another day. It was wonderful a adventure.

For now, I must get going and start my day. I hope that you have adventures today.

Enjoy the day!