Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
My lady and I have a nice little tradition going. We’ve been doing it for a few years now and it really seems to be working out rather well.
What’s the tradition? Well, it’s basically avoiding the world during the holidays and spending time with each other over a nice dinner. We’ve found some great restaurants by doing this. I hope the trend continues.
I bet people think we’re nuts. “What? How in the world can you not be with your loving family during these special times? Are you crazy?“ To that I say please stop asking me those kinds of questions. I like to think that our families are secure enough to know we love them. I mean, we talk enough. Like three times a week enough. Any more of me and they might specifically ask me to stay away.
Do you know what else we do? We don’t exchange gifts. Oh here we go again…I know, I know. “Why sir, do you not exchange gifts?” I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t need anything and neither does anyone else. Really. When my friends and I talk about this, we all usually end up in agreement. My sister and I were laughing about all the garbage people get each other during the holidays and she said something really funny. She said, “Do you know what I really want for Christmas? A house.” That pushed me off the deep end. I started laughing and replied, “Yeah, how about someone paying the electric bill or stopping by to shovel the driveway.” I mean really, I don’t think anyone needs more stuff to sit on a shelf somewhere for a year before it hits the garbage. Every time I head North on 91 past Hartford and look at that huge mound of dirt I feel horrible.
I know, I’m a Grinch.
But I’m not a Grinch when we’re eating mighty good food down at the Saybrook Point Inn in Old Saybrook, CT. As I mentioned in my post about our Thanksgiving dinner, I am diggin’ the buffet idea. All you can eat and the food is awesome.
It’s weird, whenever I think of the word “buffet,” I think of bad food in Vegas. Then I have to remember that when you go to a buffet style dinner in a real restaurant, there are real chefs making the food. From what I have experienced this year, it’s really really good.
The Saybrook Point Inn pleasantly surprised me. I just couldn’t believe how good the food was. I can still remember what I ate. Man…and the desserts. Holy mother. I ate this mousse cake that I had to hold myself back from. Oh yeah, the restaurant is nice too…but the food!
Okay, enough about the great dinner that I ate multiple plates of. Enough about that. We did other stuff too.
After dinner, I drove around a bit. My better half wanted to go back to the Old Saybrook town beach to collect some shells. Her collection is growing. Of course, I drove her there. I kept telling her that I always wanted to visit a beach with snow on it. I thought it would be cool and it was. Oh yeah…she got her shells.
Before we visited the beach though, I thought it would be fun to check out this one neighborhood that we passed the last time we were in the area. The area is called “Fenwick” I think. That’s what Google Earth is telling me. It’s sort of like a peninsula with a golf course on it as well as a bunch of really nice houses. This is the type of thing that gets my attention.
During our little tour of the area, we passed by the beach, the Lynde Point Lighthouse and some Monk Parakeets. Monk Parakeets? That’s right. Our jaws dropped when we saw about five bright green birds sitting on the branches of the tree that held their nests. It was so strange because I thought these types of birds only lived in the Amazon. Apparently not. They also live in Connecticut. You should have seen me fiddling around trying to get my camera out of the bag.
So there you have it. Our very simple Christmas of 2009. Just the way I like it.
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Saybrook Point Inn sign
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Docks at Saybrook Point Inn
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Looking East from the Saybrook Point Inn toward Great Island
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Looking North from the Saybrook Point Inn up the Connecticut River
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Monk Parakeets in Fenwick, CT (Old Saybrook)
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Lynde Point Lighthouse – Old Saybrook, CT
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Fancy chocolate from the Saybrook Point Inn
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Sunday, May 24th, 2009
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Costs add up fast in the produce aisle. Save some of that money by growing food yourself. Most herbs and vegetables grow great in containers – so they’re perfect additions to a sunny deck, patio, or balcony.
5 Homemade Chemical Free Bug Repellents That Work
Not only can insects be a nuisance in your garden, but they can ruin a perfect picnic or hike. Here are a few totally green, home remedy suggestions to repel insects without using toxic chemicals.
250,000 Tiny Greenhouses, Each Containing One Head Of Lettuce
During the early 1900s, Parisian urban gardeners employed the bell jars — called cloches — to protect their plants and raise salad greens early in the season. This was known as a practical guide to “intensive” farming the French way.
Company Designs And Maintains Organic Farm In Your Backyard
Most environmentally aware Americans would love a personal organic vegetable garden, but how many people actually have the time to cultivate one?. Thanks to a San Francisco-based company called MyFarm, Bay Area denizens can pay a weekly fee to have a backyard garden designed and maintained by professionals.
Tea Tree Oil: An Amazing And Versitile Substance
Tea Tree oil is a great multipurpose treatment to use on a number of ailments. Whether you are looking to repel insects in your garden or if you are looking to clear up your acne, tea tree oil is a great alternative.
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I received a message this morning from the heating fuel oil company we use. The person who left the message was inquiring about the low quantity of oil that we used throughout the year and wanted to update their system with whether or not we were burning wood or some other source of alternative energy. I gave a call back to fill her in.
When I called her back, I told the lady that we did, in fact, have a pellet stove. I said that the oil was primarily burned for hot water and to heat one bedroom during the winter. She praised me on my intelligence for getting a pellet stove. I asked her how much oil we burned in the last year (they just came to fill the tank a few days ago). She replied with 256.6 gallons. I thought that was pretty good for a year.
That got me thinking…since the pellet stove was pretty expensive and the pellets themselves were an additional cost on top of the stove, was it worth it to get the pellet stove and pellets, or should we just have burned oil to heat the house for the whole year? I can’t remember the price per gallon of oil last year, when they wanted to lock me into that foolish contract, but I swear it was over $4 a gallon. Since I can’t remember, I did some quick research online to see what oil prices were last year at this time and I came across this website. It shows last year’s oil prices vs. this year’s oil prices in New York. Close enough. At this time last year, oil prices were $3.93 per gallon. Last year, the oil delivery company estimated that we would burn approximately 1000 gallons of oil for the year. That was based on other, similarly sized houses in the area.
Let’s do a little math.
If I signed the oil contract and burned the estimated amount of fuel oil, we would have paid $3930 for the year’s worth of oil.
Since I didn’t sign the contract and since we burned much less oil than the oil company’s estimate (because we used an alternative form of energy), we only paid $638.93 for the oil we burned. That number is from the oil prices on the receipts I kept.
Even if we didn’t sign the contract, but still burned the estimated amount of oil, we still would have paid $2490 for the year’s worth of oil.
Let’s see…I paid about $1100 for the four tons of pellets that we used for the season. We paid about $2500 for the pellet stove and installation. That equals $3600 for the pellet stove and one year’s worth of pellets.
I am going to go out on a limb here and imagine that I was feeling the same way a lot of people were feeling last year at this time and went ahead and signed that oil price contract. If I had signed it and never got the pellet stove, I would have $330 less in my bank account right now.
I know there is some more delicate math involved here, such as the actual price paid for the oil that was already in the tank before we moved in, but I am going to ignore that. This post has already almost put me to sleep. I just thought it was my duty to write it.
That’s the point? Well, I would say that even at today’s lower oil prices, it’s still worth it to get a pellet stove. The payback period is very short and you won’t cringe every time you hear the boiler kick on.
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009
I’m not even sure I know why. We just kept walking…and walking…and walking.
Lately, we have been making a left at the end of the road instead of a right. We need to mix things up a bit. To the left, we have a short piece of road and then a cul-de-sac which leads into the woods. We walked this way a lot last summer and fall, but when the snow hit, we were forced to stick to the road. Now that the snow is all gone, back to the trails we go.
The trail we took today lasted for about a half-mile and led to a nice, level road. It’s about a mile long. Usually, we just walk that road to the corner and turn around to head back. The whole thing is an invigorating three mile walk. I would say that’s what I’m worth…three miles at most. After that, I start getting anxious. Which makes me wonder about what we did today.
When we got to the corner of the nice straight road today, I said to Laura, “Hey, Liz lives up here past the golf course. We’ve never been on her road before.” She said, “Let’s go.” I guess the good weather made us delirious or something, because by the time we got to the golf course, we were ready to turn around. We kept going though and made it all the way to Liz’s road. It was a heck of a lot further than we though. In a car, it’s right there, but on foot, it takes forever.
We started walking down the road and began taking in the scenery. It’s a nice road with a bunch of nice houses. I thought I had the whole thing mapped out in my head, but when we came to the first intersection, I realized that I didn’t actually know where I was going. For some reason, I though the road was a loop, but it’s not. I kept waiting for it to loop around, but it never did. It just kept on going straight. When we got to the intersection, I was thrown for a “loop” and we were forced to turn around and start walking back. Now, mind you, at this point, we didn’t really feel like walking anymore, but I suppose we did get ourselves into this little situation.
A few minutes after we turned around, Laura informed me that she was getting a blister on her cute little foot. We tried to roll her sock in such a way that would minimize the blister pain, but nothing helped. I started getting a little concerned because we had a long walk ahead of us. Finally, I took my sock off and put it over hers and folded it back over to give her three layers of sock. It worked okay, because we are back and I am writing this. It wasn’t all that much fun walking wall that way…her with a blister and me with only one sock on. Hey, we did what we had to do. Good thing I was wearing socks or else I would have had to carry her all the way back.
After thinking about today’s walk, I have decided that six miles is far too long. Walking starts losing its luster after half that distance, so I think we are going to stick to our usual routine. You are safe for another day Liz. Oh, don’t worry, we were only going to walk by. C’mon, who do you think we are?
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Thursday, August 28th, 2008
As you may know, I have been doing a lot of work outside trying to make things look nice. A lot of sweat has gone into these projects. Things are rolling along smoothly and actually getting somewhere.
I have been visiting the local hardware store every few days to get a yard of mulch. I can fit twelve bags in the car, which is actually about a yard and a third. It’s good enough to do smaller areas. Once you start raking, mulch doesn’t go all that far.
I am up to the front sidewalk area of the house. I weeded the whole area this morning in preparation for the sidewalk lighting I purchased at Home Depot yesterday. There were already three lights out there, but two of them were out. I decided to buy three more lights and a set of bulbs. I got the Malibu “Do-it-yourself” metal lights, because they matched the ones already installed.
Malibu sidewalk light
These lights are pretty nice. They are about a foot and a half tall, made of metal, use 11 watt bulbs and are really easy to install.
Since there were already some installed, but I like to do things my own way, I decided to take them out, along with all the wire. With the 50′ of outdoor wire I bought yesterday, coupled with the existing wire, I had plenty to add three light to make a total of six.
After I did all the weeding and pulled out the wire and lighting fixtures, I assembled all the new lights. Each one took just a few minutes. I installed the lights and re-ran the wire so it accessed all of them. I changed the time on the outdoor timer and took a look. Miraculously, all of them worked. I am very excited for it to get dark tonight to I can attempt another picture. I am hoping it will come out so I can post it here. Then, you will see the pure beauty of my work.
After I showed Laura what I did, she suggested that we put in some small floodlights that aim at the house from the sidewalk, facing upward. I am sure you have seen them. There are a few houses that have those types of lights in this neighborhood and I get jealous when I see them. There is nothing worse than a naked, dark house at night time. Well, I’m sure there are some things worse than that. But still, it’s all about the lighting.
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Monday, August 11th, 2008
As I was outside today cutting down some more small trees, the chimney repair guys rolled down the driveway. I thought he said they were going to call to set up an appointment, but this was fine with me. The faster I can cross something off my list, the better.
The job was to repair the crack in the chimney crown and ad a cap. I found a nice site that offers reasons why repairing a chimney crown is important. I have a feeling this is one of those repairs that a whole lot of people ignore. I guess they will be forced to fix things once they start falling apart. Heck, I wouldn’t have even known about this if the chimney cleaning guy didn’t tell me. I did my own research to back up what he said.
Chimney crown and cap
The cap they put on the chimney is stainless steel and measures 13″x28″. It has a lifetime warranty. For the price they charged, it better.
There are some benefits to having a chimney cap installed as well. They are:
- the cap helps to prevent downdraft
- it helps to repel rain and snow
- stops animals from nesting in your chimney
- helps to improve draft
- helps the chimney crown to shed water
- stops or helps to stop the fireplace damper from rusting
With all these benefits, I thought getting a cap would be the prudent thing to do. I am a prudent person.
During a walk last week, I noticed that virtually all the new houses around here don’t have chimney caps installed. I guess it’s not that imperative for new construction. I am still wondering why that is. It is probably the duty of the homeowner to get that done after the house is built. It still strikes me as odd though.
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
It seems that many people aren’t writing in their blogs these days…with me being one of them. As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s just been all sorts of crazy ’round these parts. Honestly, the last thing I have been motivated to do is write. Well, I think my dry spell is over.
One of the reasons I haven’t been writing is because I have been hiding a horrible secret from my mother. See, in the past few months, I have been loudly complaining about the Winter blues. Much like every other Winter of my life, I threaten to move down South. This time, I went as far as to sell the idea to each of my family members…who happen to live down South. You can imagine their overwhelming joy at the thought of having my pretty face much closer to them.
A while back, I began a real estate search in certain cities and towns in Northern Virginia. I was extremely excited and wanted to live on a warm lake in the worst way. I found some good stuff, but after giving it some hard thought, discovered that those areas weren’t for me. As a side note, if you don’t know me, I am famous for changing my mind soon after a forceful decision has been made. It’s part of my charm. I had to break the news to my mother that we weren’t moving down South before I wrote this post. The silver lining of the whole thing is that we will have a nice place up North for her and my father to visit for the Summer.
I am not sure if I ever mentioned that I have been looking for that “perfect town” since I was in college. I think I may have solved the problem. For the longest time, I have been looking at these tiny towns in the middle of nowhere. The problem is, while they sunk some money into their main streets, they were virtually broke because there was no real revenue, besides tourism. I can’t live on tourism alone. Last year, I wanted to live in Woodstock, NY because I thought it was a neat little town. Well, after visiting a few times, the novelty wore off and there was nothing to do. I need some reality in a town. I need indoor tennis and golf courses.
The other day, I had an epiphany. I thought to myself, “Jay, perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places. Perhaps you need the money of a city, but the peace and quiet of a suburb.” Ah, a suburb.
Last week, I started searching realtor.com for some properties around the Hartford, CT area. There are some very nice places around that city. There are some not-so-nice places too, but those are easily avoidable. I zeroed in on two towns…one very nice and busy, the other very nice and not busy. I like to live on the outskirts, but have the real world close by. I found a real estate agent and had her email me some listings for the area. Laura and I picked out three houses that we liked and took a trip on Thursday. The trip has two purposes, one was to see if we liked the area and the other was to see if we liked the houses. This, of course, was after I went to the bank to get pre-approved for another mortgage.
When we arrived, we immediately liked the area. We met the realtor and had her drive us around all day. We took tours of both towns and visited all three houses. The first two were very nice, but just ok. The third one was really nice. I think Laura and I just kept looking at each other thinking that we would get lost in the place. It was really big. It was also on four and a half acres of land.
Needless to say, we liked the third house. It is a very nice Connecticut colonial on a really nice cul de sac. The neighboring houses are all right up my alley. They are new and very, very clean. I did some research and it seems that most of these people live in this town and work in Hartford.
We have been going back and forth with the realtor and the homeowner and may put an offer on the house this weekend. If that doesn’t work out, we will keep looking at existing homes or build a brand new one. There are many options to build new in the area. Since these homes are on a totally different level from what we are currently living in, we have to do this slowly and carefully.
The bad part is that I brought my camera on Thursday, but totally forgot to take any pictures. We may go back out there on Monday, so I will be sure to take some photos.
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Sunday, November 11th, 2007
We were going to go for a hike this afternoon, but I feared the ground would be swampy when we got to our destination. I wanted to hike down to a pond a few acres away. I think we’ll get to that another day, but for today, we stuck with our usual walk down the road.
I have to say, for all those people who put off hiking in the summer because it’s too hot, today was the day for you. Weather.com tells me it’s 44 degrees outside…perfect for walking or hiking. No sweating and no freezing. Just perfect.
In an unusual move, I thought I would bring the camera along. It’s nice and sunny, so I knew the photos would come out nicely. Wanna see a few?
This is a piece of property down the road that both Laura and I are very jealous of. I am not sure how many acres it is, but they have a pond, a grassy area, a main house and another house out back. They also have a table and chairs set up near the back of the pond. I would like to drink my morning coffee there.
Moving further along, there is a river that flows pretty much along the entire road. When Rob came up to visit a while ago, we looked for salamanders under the rocks in this river.
This is Laura’s favorite house on this road. It’s an old white farm-ish type house. It’s hard to see back there, but what I was trying to get a picture of was the nice driveway and Pacasandra planted off to the right.
I just had to grab this one on our way back. The sun was hitting it and the leaves were bright yellow. Also, this is a great stone house to look at.
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