I would have posted sooner, but the soonest the company can install our internet, landline, etc. is October 9th!!! So I’m typing this at our “dining nook” table, and I’ll post it the next time we camp out at an Internet café for an hour.
We got in last Thursday, but the movers didn’t make it until Saturday. We spent the time cleaning in preparation for our furniture and exploring with the friend who owns this house. It was a huge blessing that he was in town this weekend, as he helped us find the important places and even introduced us to new friends! Thursday night we ate at a French café downtown, where I had tomato bisque soup with lump crab meat. Mmmmm. . . . After the movers came Saturday and we got the bed put together, we went to a party and met lots of new people, many from Tulsa and in the same field as K. Sunday we visited a little Lutheran church here in town, and the people were very kind and friendly. They are in the process of calling a new pastor, so we may visit a couple other places and then go back in a few weeks.
I’m still unpacking, of course. We got the master bedroom and bath in livable order over the weekend, and then we quit working and explored our new town. (The downtown area by the harbor has 3 (THREE!) ice cream parlours, and I think there’s a FOURTH getting ready to open. And one of them is a Ben & Jerry’s! Obviously, I am meant to live here.) Then Monday and Tuesday I got the kitchen cleaned and unpacked, so we could have home-cooked food again, and today I’m working intermittently on the front room and breaking down empty boxes to store until we need them again. I actually went to the grocery store last night (that’s a whole post in itself. . .), so life is settling down admirably.
The carpet cleaners are coming in half an hour to clean the basement stairs and rooms--that’s the only place that’s carpeted, and there was once upon a time a cat whose legacy remains in the form of runny noses and scratchy throats for the two of us. Actually, since I sprinkled carpet deodorizer and vacuumed, it’s not so bad. But we want them cleaned before we spend any amount of time down there. Fortunately, the master bed and bath are upstairs, and the kitchen is on the ground floor, so we haven’t needed to go downstairs at all.
Once everything is unpacked, I’ll post a detailed photo-tour of our new home. Until then, here are a few pictures I took on the road and around town thus far.
The view from the MD welcome center on the Youghiogheny (sounds something like "Yuckugeeny") River:
MD state flower, the black-eyed susan:
You know what this is:
My first foray into the world of brussel sprouts. . .don't ask K if he's glad I'm staying home to come up with new vegetables for him to eat. :-)
The roast I fixed for our first "real" dinner in our new temporary home:
