Chris knows how to blog?

Time to breathe. The past few weeks have been a bit crazy. Self-imposed craziness. A friend’s blog has links to other blogs listed in the sidebar and it tells you when they were last updated. At first mine said one week, then two, then three…. You get the picture. It now says “one month ago” but it’s actually been 7 weeks. Yikes! I keep meaning to update, but the longer you go, the harder it is. There are just too many topics that you want to cover. Sorry if it reads a little disjointedly. It’s taken me over a week to write this, and I’ve kind of been jumping around.

I love Halloween, and at times I’m a bit of an overachiever. I guess you saw that already when I made 18 mobiles with 54 witches. And I had to use the good beads on them. I couldn’t use just some cheap plastic ones. I try not to think about how much I spent on those. More about Halloween later.

So one topic that I seemed to overlook, was a trip that we took over Labor Day weekend. LL Bean offers free concerts during the summer. We looked over the schedule and saw that Lonestar was going to be performing. Rather than making a 2-3 hour drive back home after the concert, we decided to camp in the area. This was a week after we returned from camping in Acadia, and a week before camping at Hammonasset. Lots of camping!

We found a state park right next to Freeport. Pretty quiet place. Might have been nicer to spend some more time there. We had plans to hike some of the trails at the park, but never got around to that. Too much of the “normal” activities for us to do- Land’s End, Freeport, etc.

We arrived up on Saturday afternoon. Got into Freeport and spent longer than usual trying to park. We wondered why many of the entrances into the LL Bean parking lots were closed off. Finally we found a spot and started to head over to see how many seats were claimed already. Yikes! Now we know why parking was so bad. When we’ve been to concerts here in the past, it’s usually just seats on the grass. This time there were LOTS of bleachers set up! Luckily we found a spot fairly close to the front, although it was off to the side. After putting down a blanket to save our spot, we headed off to do a little shopping. As it turned out, mostly window shopping. I guess that’s good though, right?

Then it was time to head back to the concert area. Wow, it had filled up with lots of people in the short while we were gone. The concert was a lot of fun. I wasn’t that familiar with their songs before we went, but it was still a fun time. Certainly not bad for a free concert. I got a video of their finale- it was a montage of a bunch of covers. Started off with Van Halen’s “Jump” and as soon as I heard that, I grabbed the camera that shot video. Not online at this time. Actually, the quality of it is pretty horrid. But it’s still fun. Maybe one of these das I’ll add it to YouTube.

Sunday we headed off to Land’s End. It was at Land’s End that Chris proposed to me, so it will always be a special place to us. Of course it was cold and miserable that night so we had to stay in the car. And then I called Andrew in my excitement to tell him that I was engaged, and his response was “no you’re not”. Thanks, bro!

We took our pictures with the Land’s End Lobsterman, and then I waded into the water a bit. There were lots of little crabs there. Hard to walk without stepping on them.

And the cribstone bridge. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only bridge of it’s kind. And we’re afraid that they will be getting rid of it. Ok, truth be told, we have no idea what’s going on. But there was a bunch of construction work going on right next to it, and it looked suspiciously as if a new bridge was being built. This makes me sad. I just did a bit of googling and found this. I didn’t read into the 402 page attachment, but it seems as if the state gave them some money for repairs.

Monday we headed home. And on the way, while Chris was driving, he ran out of gas. Fun. Sitting by the side of the road, roasting. Broken AC. Waiting for AAA.

Besides going to the James and Gaelic Storm concerts that I previously blogged about, I got a new car in September! We decided that my Echo was a bit on the too small side. Plus, with the broken AC it was fairly miserable driving around. So, after doing a bit of looking, we settled on a 2009 Subaru Forester. Unfortunately, this means we now have a car payment again and are further into debt, but things are still going pretty well on the debt reduction front.

September also provided me with the chance to meet another Tally friend. Jan and her family were up from South Carolina vacationing in Newport, RI. Tami came down from NH and we headed off for The Ocean State. We had lunch and then did a bit of walking around and poking into shops. While we were walking we got surprise calls from both Minda and Christine. How fun to say hi and pass the cell phone around.

In September/October knitting news, I knit some eyeballs. Super cute. Unfortunately I had them in a candy dish at work, and I guess some people thought the eyeballs were something that they could take, rather than as a decoration like I had intended. I’m now down to only 4 eyeballs. Guess I’ll have to knit some more next year.

The last concert of my month of concerts, was New Kids on the Block. The concert was on the 26^th, the same night as the Glass Pumpkin preview. Mel sent me my ticket so that I could try to be in two places at the same time. I went to the preview, scouted out some that I liked, grabbed some dinner while I waited for Chris, conferred with him briefly about ones I liked, and then headed off to The Garden. I missed the opening act, but I was ok with that. I got there not too long before the concert started.

I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in a while. I found it very funny how so many women were still so enamored with this band. It was fun, but I certainly wasn’t screaming for them. (Sorry Mel.) I was glad I went, but I think I’ve moved on.

I’ve blogged in the past about MIT’s Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. It’s an annual fundraiser that they have and we’ve gone for a number of years now. This year we knew we wanted a certain style of pumpkin, so we saved a little bit every month to be able to afford what we wanted. Now that we have it, I’m not sure if I’ve fulfilled my pumpkin wishes or not. I’m still saving, so I guess that means not. Or at least this way we’ll have the option to get another if we so choose.

This year it was raining for pumpkin weekend. They always say that if it rains on the Saturday (the traditional day of the sale) then the Sunday will be the rain date. But what do you do if the forecast calls for rain on both days? They put up a HUGE tent! Luckily when the sale started it wasn’t raining and they were able to move some of the pumpkins out into the daylight for better viewing. As we were headed back to the car the sprinkles started. Perfect timing!

Rather than putting lots of photos here of pumpkins, here’s a link to a layout that I did about this year’s pumpkin patch. You can click on the image to see it bigger.

Glass pumpkin day happened to be Chris’ birthday. He gave me lots of crap about making him get up early, but I think I made up for it when we got back to the house and I gave him his birthday gift- a Wii. He opened it up and started playing, and I took a nap. Later that evening we invited people over for cake and an impromptu Wii party. In recent weeks it hasn’t been played as much, but I think in a few weeks life will quiet down a bit and we’ll play some more.

So as I mentioned earlier, I am an overachiever when it comes to Halloween. This wasn’t completely apparent at home- I pretty much had my standard decorations, although I did add the Yankee Candle haunted mansion tea light thing. Finally! Only took me 3 years. They’ve always sold out so quickly that I had to buy it in August.

My Halloween overachieving transpired at work. In an effort to make the work environment more fun and to encourage interaction between departments, we had a Halloween party. And since it is known that it is one of my favorite holidays, I was asked to help plan it. Ok, go ahead twist my arm. And the best part? All of the stuff that I bought for the party- I get to keep it

So not only was there a party, but as one of the activities there was a cube decorating contest. I decided to bring in my apotheScary from last year. I had seen online vinyl sheeting stuff that I mentioned to Chris I would use as a backdrop. He had something even better! Turns out that Brandeis had overbought some vacuform brick wall for a show. So we took a sheet of that and then Kristin painted it for me. It looks fabulous! So good, in fact, that people have said that I should keep it up year round. (I foresee a fireplace for the winter months, and then in the spring and summer maybe some ivy and flowers?)

But since I’m an overachiever, apparently just having the wall and the apotheScary bottles wasn’t enough. I had to go and get a streetlight. And a bloody/rusty lantern to hang from the ceiling. And then people were commenting that I was really only decorating one wall, and not my entire cube, so then I went and got some of the vinyl sheeting stuff and decorated outside my cube and put in a little cemetery.

I guess it was worth it, since I won, but I spent a lot more than my $50 prize. Good thing I can reuse everything!

Remember how I said I’m an overachiever? The cube decorations are only part of it. I also had to carve the company logo onto a pumpkin and then bake and decorate 4 dozen cupcakes. Yup, self-induced stress.

There also was a costume contest. I was completely blown away by how many people got into the spirit of things and wore a costume. It was fabulous! Funniest was “Super Garbage Bag Man”, Best costume was a lion (fabulous mane!), and scariest was a witch. I went with the Ice Princess costume that I made for Linda 7 or 8 years ago. People weren’t quite sure of what exactly I was, but after I told them they all seemed to get it.

Back at home after the party, I added my new tombstones to the yard, scattered some bones, and hung up the skeleton. (The bones and skeleton had previously been party decorations.) My pumpkins- I kind of took a quick approach to these and very roughly had carved “trick-or-treat” into them. And a few days later I think a squirrel absconded with one of the pumpkin lids. Not really sure where it has disappeared to. Better the pumpkin though than my newly planted bulbs.

And so that brings us to what’s going on now. There’s a craft faire that is going to be held at our church on the 22^nd. Chris is going to have a table. I’m going to have a table. I’ve been crazily working for the past week or so knitting, sewing, and making other items. Here are pictures of cupcakes, toadstools, and sachets that are awaiting the lavender that I ordered. Lots more to do. Hopefully I don’t stress myself out too much!

I’m also insanely behind in my scrapping, so in an ideal world I would manage to get a bit more “caught up” with that. Yeah, I know, I should stop dreaming. If only work didn’t get in the way!

Congratulations on having made it to the end. Hope you’ve enjoyed, and maybe I’ll be better about updating more regularly. I’d like to have once a week be my goal. Maybe every other week.

The coven takes flight...

Here's what 54 witches look like.






And here's what they look like as they start to take flight.









And for those who are clueless about what this is about, I'm doing a Halloween swap over on Tally. There are 17 of us in my group, plus I'm making an extra set for a friend who loves Halloween as much as I do. Basically we each make 17 of the same item, mail them to the hostess (me) and then I'll repackage everything and send each person 17 different things. It's a neat way to expand your collection of Halloween goodness.

Last night I got 8 sets strung up. I was running out of places to put them, so I now have them clothespinned to the blades of the ceiling fan in the dining room. It looks pretty cool. I'll have to snap a picture when they're all up there.

And in other concert news...

Apparently this is the month for live music! We saw Lost & Found at Hammonasset, James on Monday, and then we went to see Gaelic Storm on Wednesday. And next week I'm going to see New Kids.

Gaelic Storm was actually at the same place where we saw James. Unfortunately, dinner before the show didn't agree with me, and I had horrid stomach pains all evening. This definitely put a damper on my mood.

They played a lot of new music. And unfortunately we don't have the two newest CDs, so we weren't familiar with a lot of what they played. It was still a good show though. And here are two videos of one of their songs. Unfortunately I stopped the recording after the first snippet, but then I kept it going through the rest. I guess it's a good thing though, since my memory card filled up just as the song was finishing. Anyway, here's Johnny Tarr, sung in many different musical styles. Sorry they're a little on the dark side. And I had my old 3.2mp camera. Not the best.

More from Monday

First off, if I offended anyone by the content of the previous video, that was not my intent. Although I agree with the sentiment stated by Tim, I do support our military. I don't believe it was right for us to be in Iraq, but I do support the men and women who are serving their country.

Here are a couple of other videos from Monday. I didn't shoot them, but they are just fabulous.

Here's a vid of their opening number. At the beginning when Saul, their guitarist, comes up to the front of the stage and is staring out into the audience, he was looking directly into my eyes. What a great way to start the show!!! And towards the end of this clip you can even see the corner of Chris' face. :) You can also see some of Tim's wacky dancing. Love his dancing!


This one is more from the end of the night. The beginning sound quality is kind of bad, but the audience participation towards the end.... Oh my. Such a powerful thing to have been a part of that.


It was also interesting watching Chris. He's a fan, although not as big a fan (or at least not as long a fan) as I am. And so they would start playing the songs, and I would recognize them, but there would be this look of confusion on his face. For the new album I can kind of understand that since he only started listening to it in the past month, rather than since April like I have. But for the older ones he would be confused and I would look at him and tell him that he knows it, and wait for the moment of comprehension. But there was one, Sound, where even later when he was singing along, he still wasn't quite remembering it. Rather funny.

And about the new album... it was released in the US on Tuesday. However, I would imagine that the majority of the people there, probably 80-90%, were like me, and ordered it from the UK back in the spring. They played a lot of stuff off the new album but based on the cheering and singing, everyone knew the songs.

So in my previous post, I mentioned that they brought up an audience member to play guitar. Well, his name is Jonah. here's a photo of him, and here's his story, in his own words. Apparently this was the first time that James has ever done something like this. What a fabulous experience for him! I wonder if they'll start doing this more often?


Here's the set list from Monday. I think there were a few differences in the encore, but otherwise it's pretty accurate. I was kind of making my own set list through the night. I knew I wouldn't be able to remember all of the songs, so I took short video clips during each of the songs. However, especially at the beginning, I wasn't filming them during the songs since video wasn't allowed. I haven't looked at them yet, but I imagine I have lots of video of the shirts of the people in front of me. :)

And now for the best news.... according to the James forum I've been reading, they'll be back in February or March!!! I have no idea if that means the US or Boston, but they'll be back! I'll definitely be getting tickets for more than one show. As it is, I looked into going down to NJ to see them tomorrow, and I kind of looked into Chicago/ Milwaukee/ and Minneapolis tickets for next weekend. But way too much going on next weekend to be able to go on a road trip. However, with a little more advance warning, I might be able to convince Chris to go for it.

James concert!

Ok, the concert absolutely rocked. I've been a fan for about 13 years now- right around the time the stopped touring here in the US. Tried to see them in London when I was studying in England, but they were sold out.

Sorry the video quality is pretty sucky, but you do what you can when there are signs saying no videos. :) But there was someone in the front row doing a vid as well. I love the intro to this song. So glad they had to restart it due to a broken guitar string. Then Tim made some comment about them "not being allowed to a political song" which is funny, because that's how Chris and I refer to this one- as their political song.

For one of the encores they had a guy from the audience come up and play guitar on Come Home. That was pretty cool. Wish I had gone to last night's show as well. Oh, and there were people there who had flown over from the UK. Now that's dedication!

A summary of my time in Acadia

It has been mentioned that I have been back from vacation for two weeks now and I still haven't updated my blog.

I guess I'm just overwhelmed. I took about 380 photos, and I have no idea how to narrow it down. Also, most of those pictures are of landscapes and granite carriage road bridges- not exactly the most exciting to the viewer/reader.

So here's a really lame summary:

Saturday- headed up to Acadia. We stopped along the way in Freeport to go to the Maine Highland Games. It was kind of interesting. We didn't stick around for too long as we still had a few more hours of driving, but we heard some bagpipes and watched some athletics. We both agreed that we wished there had been commentary during the sports as we really didn't know what we were watching or what the point was of it.
Got to the campground in the late afternoon, set up, made dinner, and then went to one of the evening ranger programs. I remember going to these all the time when I was a kid. It was kind of interesting, but we were cold, so we left a bit early to go back to the site to put on warmer clothing.

Sunday- decided to climb Cadillac Mountain. Cadillac really kicked my butt. And my knee. For the past 5+ years I've had a knee that hurts when I go hiking. It was fine on the way up, but the hike down sucked! Then even walking around camp really hurt.

Monday- woke up with my knee still hurting. Going for another hike was not going to be an option. However, it turns out that biking wasn't causing me pain, so we decided to hit the carriage roads for a bit. Went for about 9 miles.


By the evening my knee was feeling a bit better, so we went for a walk around Bar Harbor and did a little bit of shopping. However, both the yarn store and the scrapbook store were closed, so we'll have to come back. :)

Tuesday- we had planned to go for another bike ride, but on our way out it started to rain. Blech. Change in plans. Instead we went into Bar Harbor so I could go to the yarn store and the scrapbooking store. Yes, these are important things to do. Found a cafe where we could get online for a bit, so at least we were out of the rain and we got an internet fix for an hour or two. We then headed back to camp for reading and napping. I guess doing nothing all day is tiring. :)
In the evening it was time to go back to Bar Harbor so that we could go to Bar Island. We had looked at the tide schedule for the week and figured that this would be the best day to go. The rain had stopped, so we decided to go ahead with our plans. Then it was time for dinner in town. We were actually pretty good during this vacation with not spending lots of money at restaurants.

Wednesday- Time for another bike ride! We started off doing a loop that was about 8 miles, and then decided to do another 5 miles after that. And as if that wasn't enough exercise, we went for a hike.

This time we decided to hike the North and South Bubbles. Both of these are really short hikes, but they are a tad steep so are fairly strenuous. We did lengthen the hike a bit by coming down an alternate route. And we're very glad that we didn't climb up that way- lots of bouldering.

Thursday- Started the morning off with a carriage ride. The driver wasn't the best, but it was still a pleasant time. While we were out we even passed by one of the Rockefellers. Nice to see that they still make it up to the island.
After the carriage ride we went for more biking. It was our goal to see all of the bridges, and there were some we hadn't seen yet. Guess we overdid it a bit the day before- we were exhausted! We had thought about doing another hike, but we just didn't have it in us. We were beat. We did go over to Thunder Hole, but got there at the wrong time so it wasn't that exciting.

Just a random photo here of our dinner. This is pizza crust, cooked on the campfire. Looks like a certain country, huh?





Friday- Time for another hike. This time it was the Beehive. It was here that I discovered that I kind of have a fear of heights. Well, make that a fear of cliffs. I realized I'm ok with heights when on balconies, roller coasters, or other places where I am more or less secure, but on the ride of a cliff? Yeah, not so much my thing. I was very glad when we got to the top! We came down via a different route, but we had planned to do that anyway. When we got to the bottom and saw how many people were climbing the Beehive, we were glad we had gone earlier so that we would be able to go at our own pace.
After our hike we headed back to Thunder Hole. The tide was coming in, so it was supposed to be getting to its "peak" time. The waves were certainly better, but still nto that impressive. We decided it's probably best during a storm. We asked some ranger sand they agreed. One of them even commented that he had come out in a hurricane and it was fabulous!
We then stopped at the beach just long enough for me to run in and get wet. Beaches just aren't Chris' thing. At this point I was tired and wanted to go back to camp, but figured I had to at least go in, so I did and then we went back to camp.


Saturday- Time to head home. It was great not having to take down and set up camp every night like we did last summer. However, that's not to say that the day was without drama. When we were about 30 minutes from home Chris quickly pulled over three lanes and stopped the car. We were out of gas. Blech. About 40 minutes later AAA arrived. And wouldn't' you know it? There was a gas station less than a mile from where we had stopped.

Hammonasset

Hammonasset. Where do I begin? I first attended this event 16 years ago. 15 years ago I saw Lost & Found there for the first time. And I became a groupie. It was such an awesome experience for me to be able to see them back at Hammo again. When I was in college they were playing there about every other year. Then after college for one reason or another I have had to miss all of their return visits. But not this year. I was determined to go! I was ready to camp elsewhere in the campground and crash the event.

And then word came about Tropical Storm Hanna. At first we thought the event would be cancelled, but instead it was just held in an abbreviated format. The Friday activities went on like normal, and then the Saturday and Sunday events were held on Saturday at a local church, with the event ending at 6. We left a little after 1 so that we would be sure to avoid the worst weather.

So we get there Friday, arriving before it was completely pitch black, although it was after sunset. We got the tents up and then headed over for the concert, actually scoring some decent seats. After the concert I kind of hung around the merchandise table for a bit. I was off to the side, letting Michael do his thing. He was greeting all of the kids, "woman/man, what can I do for you". (Interestingly there were far more women than men.) The kids all were getting a kick out of it. Then he turned to me and said the same thing. I responded "Don't 'woman' me" (but in a friendly tone. I realize that may read kind of mean.) and then he immediately recognized me. I love that 15 years later they still know who I am. It's not like I haven't seen them in 15 years, but with everyone they meet, it's still nice to know that they remember me.

So we chatted for a bit, but then it was time for me to head back to camp and be a responsible adult. :) Our group sat around for a bit chatting, and I explained how I became one of their groupies. How I met them 15 years ago when I was in a small group that they were leading.

I remember we were playing a game where we had to say our name and something about ourselves, and then other people would ask questions. We knew it was time to move on to the next person when I would ask a really random question. I remember I was wearing my "cow" sweat pants. They were black pants that I had cut various holes in them and my white legs underneath made up the "spots" of the cow.

I told the group about how when I went to the National Youth Gathering (that's a link for the upcoming one) in Atlanta I had questionnaires with me for them, on the off chance that I ran into them. And how people knew I was looking for them, so they brought me over to them. How one of the questions was about what I should do with a yard of cow print fabric and that George had answered make a dress for his daughter, so I did. And then I made one for his second daughter as well.

I told about how I went to concerts every year at Valpo, and how then I've seen them all over NY and New England, and dragged Chris with me, so that even he knows the songs now. And I told about how excited I was to be seeing them at Hammonasset again so that I would get the extended concert experience. They tend to use a lot of the same jokes at concerts, so I was looking forward to new stories and witty repartee.

And then I was touched when Amanda and Brittany led our group in prayer, and they both mentioned their thanks that I was able to see Lost & Found again. I know I sound like a psycho groupie, following a band around 15 years later (I guess this is similar to Mel and her Donnie obsession), but I'm really not normally this bad. I think it was just the extreme joy of being able to see them at Hammonasset again. I don't think I get this way for normal concerts. And they were playing in Rhode Island Sunday night and I didn't feel the need to go to that concert.

So we went to bed Friday night. The air was very warm and humid. Somewhere after midnight the rain started. Then around 4am there was really bad thunder and lightening. I woke up and hear the girls talking. Turns out 2 of them had to get up to go to the bathroom. They got soaked!

Woke up in the morning and the rain had stopped. But of course everything was soaked. I think most people's tents had leaked so everyone was on the wet side. We packed up and headed to Friendly's for breakfast. Surprisingly the place was pretty empty. I've never seen a Friendly's that deserted before. After breakfast we headed off to the church, making sure we would be there in time for the 9:30 Lost & Found performance. We kind of kidded around about how I wasn't going to let the group be late. We got to the church and I grabbed seats for us in the second row, Michael side. (I had told them the night before about how for a while I would show up over an hour early at shows to make sure I had a seat front row, Michael side.)

Another tradition I have when I go to see them (although I haven't always done it in recent years) is that I give them a set list. Sometimes these are rather extensive. I didn't have time to prepare one in advance, so after the concert Friday night I quickly put one together with only 4 or 5 songs on it. I had given it to Michael, and later George asked if I had one yet. "Yup," I told him. "And #1 on the list was Alexander." He responded, "can there be a substitution?" Nope. Unfortunately I knew it wasn't going to be played, but I had to request it anyway. (It's an oldie that I love, and they used to play it all the time, but now they never play it.) But back to my story.... Friday night after turning in my set list I thought of two others I wanted to add, so when we arrived on Saturday I told them of my two new additions.

They played for a bit, and then we had some other programming that was part of the weekend. We had a break at one point and I went out to talk to them. I mentioned that if they were going to play anything from my set list it would have to be before lunch since we would be leaving afterwards. Then George mocked me for leaving at since apparently Hanna wasn't going to hit until 2am. I told him it wasn't my call, that it was our vicar's and he said that I should have her come talk to him so that he could set her straight.

So the next time they got on stage they talked about how an old friend of theirs had requested a really obscure song of theirs, and they played one from my list - The Hi-at Hotel". And then a little later the same thing, really obscure but their friend Chris requested it, and it was "Jesus Loves Me" complete with the hand motions made up by an 8 year old. They had done this song 15 years ago at Hammo, and I've frequently requested it since then, and they had never done it, until now. Yup, warm fuzzies. Here I was thinking they would be doing a different one since they had told me they would do two of my requests.

Shortly after that musical interlude was lunch. We ate, and then I gathered the group together for the annual photo with the band. (Like I was going to not do photos with L&F?!) And then it was time to head home.

We hit a bit of bad weather along the way, but it wasn't too bad. I think I'm glad that we left early though. If we had stuck around, who knows what the rain would have been like, and I don't like driving on the highway in the dark. And everyone was tired and was sleeping in the car, so it all worked out for the best.

It would have been better without the rain, but I think, all in all, it was a fabulous Hammonasset experience.