Thrifting...

Living in the countryside is a joy, but as anyone who is familiar with country life knows, you have to make your trips to town count when you venture out. These days I try to conserve fuel and time by running as many errands as I can while there. I shop at the food coop and grocery store, drop off the books at the library, fuel up at the gas station and do whatever else is pending that day ... sometimes I  still have a little time left for something fun, like thrifting! 
Let's be honest here, sometimes I even do the thrifting first, depending on my mood and the urgency of things.
 We have a few good thrift shops in our area and they are well maintained and well attended as a result. On the day I was in Camden, I visited a shop called Heavenly Threads. It is located in a large, white, clapboarded house that was  built during the 1800's and that once housed the minister from the church nearby. 
As long as I have been visiting this shop it has been on the first floor of the house. You'd pass a marvelous, old staircase when you entered the front hall, but it was closed off and the upper level was off limits to customers.  I was so excited when I entered the shop the other day and noticed that the second floor was now open to the public! I had always longed to climb those stairs, you see I'm truly in love with older houses and their beautiful and sometimes quirky features. I climbed the stairs and was not disappointed!

A lovely, old room ... though a little hard to see behind the many treasures you see here. I did manage to find something special to take home with me.

I instantly had visions of Chocolate Pots de Creme when I saw these!  This recipe from a lovely food blog made my vision come true, and though I didn't add the coffee or espresso, it was rich and delicious.  Yes, you MUST take advantage of those trips into town!

dining out...walking...home again

It's been a nice first week of January, no complaints. We have managed to make it this far into the depths of winter without any snow to speak of, which I like, and even better, temperatures have been mild in comparison to other years. 
I've been sticking pretty close to home these past two weeks so it was quite exciting when our daughter, Alex, called to invite us to lunch at Long Grain, a favorite local restaurant. Six for lunch and everything was superb, only wish that I had remembered to get a picture of my ramen bowl before it disappeared! Such a nice afternoon it was!

This time of year always finds me making to-do lists and visiting the library more than usual for inspiring reading material. I've been getting some new ideas about how to make exercising a bit more fun and varied in this book and like one of the suggestions for winter walking. The idea involves an occasional visit to the local shopping mall for indoor walking on the coldest of days. The only problem, in my case, is that the closest mall is over an hour and a half away, ah well.

I bundled up this afternoon and headed out to our neighborhood for a walk. Instead of mall shoppers I ran into quite a different sort of throng, you can begin to see them on the crest of the hill in the above picture.

Wild Turkeys!

 I don't think that they were as happy to see me as I was to see them!

In moments they had all disappeared into the woods and I was left alone in a silent field.

I love these little adventures but it's always good to return home afterwards.

Home again!

checking in...

 

It seems that only yesterday I was looking at this summery view from my kitchen window, but in reality, it's been weeks since this picture was taken. 
Autumn is here now and although we've been enjoying warm, summer-like weather for the most part, the signs of the changing season are unmistakable and beautiful as always.
For any of you who check in on my blog from time to time, please forgive my recent absence here.  I've been thinking a lot about what it is I have to offer on the
blogosphere and needed to take a little time out to look around, learn, and enjoy the blogs of others for a bit. 

I've been doing a lot of walking recently, well, as much as time will allow, and have become quite familiar with a forty-five minute walk up and around the loop in Camden . 
Starting out early is best, the ocean air is cool and fresh and sharing the road with other early walkers and runners makes for a happy feeling. 
The other day when I arrived for my walk I found the harbor to be quite 'socked in' by fog...like 'pea soup', as they say, though not of the old London smog variety.  I'm glad I had my camera with me.

Independence Day

Summer is on the move, I really wish I could slow it down a little...vegetables need weeding, strawberries need picking, lawn needs mowing, ect. ect.  Sometimes we all need a little time off though and one of the great things about living in the heart of 'Vacation Land' is that you can take a short day trip whenever you have a free afternoon. You can have  a mini vacation and be a tourist for a few hours!

This week was really the official start of the tourist season here in Maine. David and I watched the fireworks in the park over Camden Harbor on the 5th where he filmed this little video.

We had our first strawberry shortcake of the season, our first summer cookout, and we got to take a day trip to Boothbay Harbor to visit the galleries and shops and have lunch at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant called Baker's Way. The place is a bakery in the front and at the back, a small restaurant where the food is always good, great even. Sitting outdoors in their little courtyard garden, we ate under the big maple tree and enjoyed the summer breezes off the ocean. 
Of course no summer outing would be complete without ice cream, yes, we had that too...guess I'll be skipping supper tonight.

The cosplay costume I made and promised to show you in my last entry, modeled by my daughter.

Fireworks over Camden Harbor

Camden Harbor

A pretty B+B in Boothbay Harbor, the garden here is always impeccable.

More from Boothbay

Spring Rolls under the old maple tree.

A lovely place to have lunch and linger awhile.

 

Ice cream for dessert, the line was long but totally worth the wait!

 July in Maine