January 7, 2021 We had a plan, and it was to Get out of Dodge. Saturday, January 9th we were loading up the dog, driving back to Maryland and leaving it all behind. 🙂 In preparation for that, some good things happened this week. Bob spent parts of several days organizing and cleaning the middle garage, taking a number of loads of junk to the transfer station. Good riddance! Brian the garage door guy came to fix an air leak in the door trim and replace the bottom rubber strip on one of the big doors, to reduce the gaps where mice had been coming in. The Mouse Count, you ask? I actually have to ask Bob, but I know we are somewhere in the low 80’s. That is 80 mice trapped since July! Seriously! I spent some time on a ladder placing insulation around the PEX heating lines to the apartment, where they traveled along the exterior wall in the garage. There is a LOT of space in the garages and basement to keep above freezing… We were trying to make everything as ready as we could for an extended absence in the winter.
Our awesome neighbors in Maryland, Blair and Rick, keep an eye on our Maryland house while we are gone, and I often bring them NH thank you gifts… turns out they LOVE maple products, so I drove over to Sugarmomma’s Sugar Shack in Northwood to get them a selection of maple syrup grades. The darker colors are less refined and have a more robust maple taste, which are my favorites. They also make their own maple ice cream, so I got Bob a cupful to try – he loved me when I came home. 🙂 Our awesome neighbors in New Hampshire, Than and Cathy, keep an eye on our NH house while we are gone. (It gets confusing sometimes, all this back and forth….) Today, Cathy came over for a tour of the house as she hadn’t yet seen all of the inside. I gave her a set of keys and she and Than said they’d “run the trap line” while we were gone and check on things periodically. We put a hold on the mail and tried to eat the rest of the good stuff in the fridge before we left!
The very best news of the week is this: Scott Leighton and John Tuttle met with us on Tuesday evening, and we agreed on a plan going forward!!! Scott will finish building the house that he started with Nathan, and John will do the architectural plans for the project. We are elated and relieved. This is what we have been hoping for all along and now, finally, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel (very far in the distance, but there!). 🙂 🙂
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