Like It Was Yesterday

Where do I begin?. . . Back in June, when I first moved into my new house, I decided that next time Joyce came to visit, I would have a girls' weekend. Joyce, aka Juanita, finally arrived in the Mid-Atlantic area to attend her son's wedding. So I planned this weekend, along with the couldn't-have-done-it-without-you help and suggestions from Fin.

The players are Fin, her sister (and my friend since grade school), Juanita; cousin Cathy; Izzy and Kathy B. Kathy is Izzy's sister and one of Cathy's best friends from high school. Izzy is one of Joyce's and my friends from high school on.
Friends, from left to right: Fin, Fifi, Kathy B, Juanita, Izzy, Cathy. Pets are little Minnie and Shelly, both fantastic guests.


After agreeing on the specific weekend, I sent a message outlining what I would be making for both dinners. What came back was a plethora of offers for making breakfast, snacks, salads, lunches, etc. Boy, I like having weekend people over; all I do is invite and they do everything. I had to beg to do any dish cleanup. It was wonderful. These Philly girls just took charge. Go Bucs! (our school team name)

When the first wave of guests arrived, I was struggling to make my 8 lb chicken fit into my new rotisserie oven. The kitchen counters immediately filled up with food of all kinds. We had many celebratory drinks; Kathy B made hummus on endive, then steamed shrimp - yum. The first few hours after all the guests were on board were spent catching up. Our --th class reunion had been 3 weeks prior, and someone sent us photos of our classmates as they are now. I could identify about 2% of the people. So while I was preparing the dinner, the rest were working out who was who in the photos. Sometimes even cheating by using yearbooks wasn't enough to figure out people. I still don't know who they are. I do think we should crash the --th reunion in 2014.

Dinner was wonderful: my rotisserie chicken, Fin's Caesar salad, Cathy's grilled asparagus.

After dinner we had Fin's homemade apple cobbler - yum. We then had a surprise Harvest Festival gag gift giving. Fin and I were the only ones who knew what was coming. It was a hoot. It was clear to see who the competitive ones were in high school They haven't changed in all these years. Go McHenry sisters!


After the gift giving, we played Pictionary ( a gift from Kathy). I just can't get over what wonderful artists we are. One after another, we cranked out museum quality art.

We all found our sleeping places and hit the sack(s) around 1AM.
Saturday we were up early (for me anyway) and started back where we left off. Izzy made a scrumptious breakfast, followed closely with her homemade yummy chili. Everything was so good. There was a side trip down to Rehoboth Beach for a walk on the boardwalk. We had just missed a Halloween parade. Seems that everyone was dressed for the occasion, including pets.


After the trip to the beach, we all started celebrating anything we wanted. Four persons played Scrabble while I put all the ingredients together for the dinner. As an appetizer, Kathy B again did shrimp, but now they were shrimp on the barbie and were they good!

Before starting dinner, we all went outside to the RV where everyone helped me get free of some mud? I had backed into while trying to make parking space. I steered, everyone else pushed, and in 10 seconds the RV was out of it's 'stuck' position. So, of course, we celebrated with bubbly provided by Cathy.
I decided to make the 2009 Coast Day crab cake cook-off winning recipe: it was crab cakes with vinaigrette dressing and roasted shallots over baby greens. I think it was a success. We had leftover asparagus with it and some broccoli.

Dessert was more of the same: apple cobbler, and did I forget to say, mini pumpkin and mini praline and nuts cheesecakes?
Now that the main eating of the weekend was over, Juanita presented each of a with a remembrance of her now home town of Gainesville, FL. - a delicious solid chocolate "gator". A gremlin "pinched" the tail before I could get a photo. Now it looks like a river hippo.


Another game of Scrabble was played and it was time to hit the hay once again.
I have to say that it was so much fun having my friends here and reminiscing and telling tales of school days. Most of us are from Great Memories Park. Those of us who are not, lived close enough to know what we mean when we say great memories.

On Sunday morning, Juanita whipped up a delicious breakfast for us and we were ready to roll again. But, everyone had to leave for home.

I am so happy to be back East where I belong. Thanks to my friends for making this such a great, fun weekend. 
more. . .

Back in Commission-The Enhanced Post

I was having trouble posting photos to the blog post. I finally fixed the problem and have deleted the original post.

The story in a nutshell of my life from June 12 until tonight.

I have spent the past 4 months fine tuning the new house. There were the usual minor, yet aggravating, problems with things to deal with after moving in. I had, what turned out to be, minor problems with things like floors and well water. Those appear to be corrected, and now I have little, if anything, to gripe about. So I'm now about to get immersed in the ongoing project of landscaping the front of the property.

The front "yard", including driveway, is about 100 ft. by 90 ft. In that area is a well pipe, two 24" septic tank covers and a septic field, all in front of the house It is a challenge, but I think I have a plan - perhaps a 5 year plan, but a plan nonetheless. The photo below shows part of the yard today with 2 ft. tall weeds. I'll be posting as the landscape takes shape in the coming months.



Since moving here, I have had the pleasure of having friends/loyal blog readers visit me: Sandy, the Contractor, Cathy, Izzy and Boomer, Fin, Juanita, several other cousins and the latest, my long-time friend, Becky, from Memphis. Becky arrived on Saturday, Oct. 3 in D.C. I picked her up there and brought her back to see the new house and to catch up on the latest news in our lives. In an effort to give her the flavor of Lower, Slower Delaware, we went to Coast Day in Lewes on Sunday where it was all about water and seafood. Also, we went to a special ceremony where Fin and her team received the President's (Obama) Award for her excellent Delaware Bay oyster restoration project, which has a return on investment of 40 to 1. Boy, she should go to Washington and show them how to do that. Anyway, it was a great day. I got to sample homemade clam chowder and enjoy the beautiful Fall day on the Delaware Bay.


From Lewes we drove a couple more miles to Cape Henlopen State Park, which is the first beach on the Atlantic Coast in Delaware. All others north of that are on the Delaware Bay. Next stop was Rehoboth Beach and a peek at the boardwalk and beach. After a drive around Silver Lake south of Rehoboth, we decided to throw caution to the wind by eating dinner and taking in a movie: Capitalism: A Love Story. It was a perfect end to a great day along the coast.





I forgot to report that, after moving into the house, and while getting the house in shape, it rained a lot in Milford and SCargo leaked! I did what anyone would do in this case and ignored it until I couldn't ignore it anymore. Becky is thinking of getting an RV and hoped to do an overnighter in the V. Well, the V had dried out, but smelled like an RV that had leaked. So I began the process of eliminating the musty odor with several store-bought remedies, plus a pie tin of charcoal. I also made and kept an appointment at the local RV place and had the seams resealed. So we picked up the RV on Monday, quickly packed it up and headed down to Assateague Island. It was another beautiful day. We drove around through the National Park looking at the birds and wild horses. It was another great excursion. The photos below are of Becky on the beach and a few others of the scene on the island.

Wednesday we took a drive north to Kitts Hummock to show her the typical bay beach. From there we went to several beaches, including Pickering Beach and Port Mahon, each quite different from the other. Lastly, we took the auto tour of Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, which Becky agreed was a highlight of the tours. We saw a few different birds, including a harrier, falcon, various ducks and the first wave of snow geese coming in for the winter months. The weather, again, was great, even though very windy.

Thursday I drove Becky back to D.C. where she met up with another friend with whom she will spend the rest of her week touring the D.C./Virginia area. While her friend was working, we did some walking along the Mall and visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I then hopped on the Metro back to the car, leaving Becky to continue on to other sights.

I thoroughly enjoyed Becky's visit and look forward to her returning soon. Maybe next time she'll be retired and driving in with her great dogs in her new RV.