So much to say, so little time

Man, we've been busy over the past few weeks! Owning a house is great, it really is. I love having all of this potential, all these things that we can do. Over the past couple weeks, Matt and I have rearranged furniture, compared paint colors and half-way organized our room. We've had friends over, and family, and we're planning a big housewarming kind of bash this weekend. As great as it is, though, it seems like there's always more things to get done, more cleaning or moving furniture around, or dishes or laundry.

Not that we're actually doing any of that stuff; I'd hate to give the impression that we're a bundle of energy and industry, bustling around the house and putting everything in order like the animals in Snow White. I would estimate that for every hour we've spent actually doing something to the house toward getting it in order or improving it, we've probably spent 3 hours playing Rock Band, watching movies, or surfing the internet. I wish we were more disciplined, but neither of us has the drive it takes to come home from work and then commit to a few hours of cleaning and organizing.

So we get it done in fits and starts. Last night Mike came over and helped Matt install the surround sound system. Now that that's in, we can figure out the layout of the room, hang pictures, and generally get that room in order. While they were working in the living room last night, I got started on organizing my desk and craft nook in the upstairs hall. Tonight I was hoping we'd get a few loads of laundry done, organize the front living room, and sort out our room a bit more, but I've been dealt the migraine card today, so I don't know how much of that we'll get done.

Or maybe we'll snuggle on the couch and watch "Confessions of a Shopaholic," which arrived from Netflix and looks pretty darn good. I might get enough sympathy on the headache that Matt might tolerate a chick flick. I'm just glad I'd planned on having leftovers tonight and I don't actually have to do anything for dinner.

What's for dinner?

I have a whole bag of apples from our trip to Mack's this weekend, and I also had a leftover leek from making soup to bring to work. So when I saw this recipe on Real Simple's website, I knew I had to try it this week. The good news is that it's also super easy. You simply throw apples, leeks, and chicken in a baking dish with oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary. Bake for 45 minutes or so. Which was just enough time to wash the prep dishes, vacuum the first floor and the stairs, and use up all of my energy in Mafia Wars.


The chicken came out incredibly tender and moist. The apples released their juices and made a delicious braising liquid. I was a little wary of the leek, since I've never eaten them as a side vegetable. My prior experience with them has been only in soups where they've been simmered and pureed until they're hard to distinguish individually. But they were really delicious, kind of a cross between onion and celery, and the apple added a complimentary sweetness. We'll see what Matt thinks when he gets home, but I feel pretty confident.

Apple Picking

Baby boy Vigneau has finally arrived. He came in the middle of the night, so Allison went and took Keira this morning to give Mike and Tanya time to rest. She called me to see if I wanted to go with them to Mack's Apples in Londonderry for some apple picking. I had been thinking about going to Mack's today also, so I called Theresa and we all went.

And when we brought Keira home, we got a peek at Israel Benedict. Whom Keira was insisting on calling "Baby Mac."

Oh Right, Pictures...

Here are the pictures I said I'd post. These are the rooms which are presentable right now. Check back this weekend to see if I managed to clean our room or organize my desk nook!

Night Visitors

As promised, I'm posting pictures of the house now that we've moved in and unpacked (most) (well, almost half) (listen, I'm working on it) of our stuff. But before I share those pictures, I have to share pictures of our most recent visitors.

Last week when the garbage truck came around for pick up, they skipped our house. I don't know if it was because the house has been empty for so long or if we actually needed to notify the highway department. But after unpacking - with all of the packing materials to dispose of - and a week and a half of living in the house and having people over, we had quite a bit of garbage to have picked up. I called the highway department today and they promised to have someone out here "first thing in the morning" to pick up our garbage. Not knowing how early that was, I brought everything out to the curb so that I didn't miss them tomorrow morning.

Then Matt and I took a walk when he got home from work. We went over to the old apartment and checked in with the St. Pierres to drop off the keys and pick up any mail which was still being delivered there. After chatting with him for a bit and bringing his garbage cans to the curb for him, we strolled back home. As we approached our street, we saw the first of our night visitors:

There he was, happily snacking away and blocking the way to our door. I am sure our new neighbors thought we were crazy. We stood there in the street, stamping out feet, clapping, yelling and generally trying to make as much noise as possible without disturbing the whole block. This did not work. Pepe le Pew was very focused on the chicken scraps he'd found. So we started looking for rocks. Darn our neighbors and their well-tended lawn. The wasn't a single useful rock to be found. I managed to find a few along the guardrail and we threw those, but we didn't want to actually hit the skunk for two reasons: 1) we didn't want to make him spray us and 2) it just feels wrong to throw rocks at animals. After being unsuccessful with the rocks, Matt pulled some dead branches off a tree and kind of threw them to make them skitter at the skunk. The skunk responded by laying down and making himself more comfortable.

So Matt put his paintball skills to use and snuck around the side yard while I kept watch at a safe distance. He managed to get to his car and pulled it out of the driveway, finally scaring the skunk enough to make it skedaddle under the guardrail. I ran around to the porch and we decided we'd have to move the bags in until morning, so Matt cut the engine and began getting out of the car. As soon as the car lights died, the skunk turned and began running right back to the garbage bags. Back on goes the car. We grabbed the bags and ran for the side porch. Matt got there first, opened the door, tossed his bags in and turned to grab the ones I held. He let out a yelp, which took to mean that the skunk was chasing me and so I yelled and dove into the enclosed porch. I dove right into night visitor #2:

Just to give you a sense of scale, this spider was about the size of a nickle, not including the legs, and he was dangling at forehead level right in front of the side door. My very manly husband ran into the kitchen and told me to get the rest of the bags because he was not going outside again. So I grabbed the camera and snapped a couple quick pictures

Now I'm going to eat dinner.

(Finally) Home

I'm interrupting radio silence at last. It took a week and a half to get Comcast out to the new house and install our internet, which is why I've not been able to post. I will try to catch things up over the next few days about the move and the house and our huge list of projects.

First, the move.I was amazed with how many people came to help, and how quickly we got everything out of the apartment and the first truck load ready to go. We started at 10 and we were headed to the new house by 11:30! And at that point, pretty much everything we owned was in the truck or the driveway (Thank God it was a nice day).

When we got to the house, I was too busy directing which rooms to put boxes in and what to unpack first to take pictures. Once the basics were in and unpacked, we stopped to grill some hotdogs and hamburgers and to feast on Kim's amazing lazagna. We also took a break to sing Happy Birthday to Mike (whose birthday had been the week before).

I'll post more later today, including pictures of the house now that we've moved in!