Sailing a sea of boxes.....

It is just a little after 8 PM on Sunday night.  So it is already Monday morning for you on the East Coast.  And it is November already... good gravy, where has the time gone.

I did have trick or treaters at the house on Halloween.  It is the first time in 40 years that I have had anyone ring the doorbell in costume.  I found that in the dark, I was very happy about having a driveway alarm installed.  If the alarm went off, it gave me plenty of time to get down the first little flight of steps and pick up the bowl of candy and be ready for the kids.  I had a steady stream of visitors, most in homemade costumes, and they took away over half of the bag of candy I had gotten... just in case.  I had no costumed kids once I moved out on Route 10.  In town, on 5th avenue I usually had to spend a small fortune to make sure I had enough candy for the Parkesburg kids as well as the kids brought in from other townships and cities.  The first Halloween out on Route 10, I got the same amount of candy and not one, single kid came.  I had Halloween candy until after Christmas!!

Friday I woke up at 9:30 AM.  Rob and Kate were already here.  Kate was working from their bedroom and Rob was busy carefully burning the newsprint from the boxes that I had opened since he last burned.  They were spending the day with me as they were going to be transferring the title to one of their old cars around noon.  Then I was cooking dinner and we were going to a play in the evening.  Rob and I worked hard all day.  I was madly opening boxes and he was madly wadding up the paper and burning it in the wood stove.  I was able to finally get to my grandmother's china.  I had two dishwasher loads to get it clean.  The delicate cups only number 7 and there are only 6 saucers.  Everything else seems to have 10 of everything.  It has been washed to allow it shine once again and has been carefully stacked into the glass front china cabinet in the kitchen, ready and waiting for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Rob and I did take time to put together the new TV stand to hang on the wall in the craft room.  It is white and because it is more compact than one that sits on the floor, it blends into the room.  so we moved the TV over to the stand, Rob brought the little microwave in from the garage and we moved the recliner over into the corner where it will be living, giving me a little living area in the lower level.  My TV, recliner, round table and another chair occupy a corner of the craft room.  Each thing we do, makes this place more and more like my home.  

I baked a small ham, almost burning it as I am still struggling to get into cooking with electric.  The oven thermostat seems to be off 50 to 75 degrees, so it has been a challenge cooking my usual fare without my beloved gas.  After dinner we were off to a play.

The play was "The 39 Steps", a mystery/comedy based on a Hitchcock mystery.  It was acted by a troupe of 4 actors playing many parts.  It was hysterical... even more so watching the 4 people act the multiple persons that they were portraying.  This little theater is all volunteer.  Not a paid actor among them.  And they love what they do and it shows.  I am looking forward to the next show.  I will probably end up getting a season ticket in the future.  I love little theaters like this.  They are a dying breed.

It snowed on Thursday and all day Friday.  By the time it was time to go to the play, if we were in Parkesburg, the play would have been cancelled and we would have been at home.  But in Alaska, if you are not willing to go out in the snow, you are going to be spending a great deal of time at home.  In fact, I had driven to North Pole, AK on Thursday in the snow and I was just fine.  Gaddy, the Caddy handled the icy roads with only two little slipping incidents that were quite minor... just spinning tires with too much gas for conditions.  Studded tires and front wheel drive should be fine for driving around here in town.

Saturday morning Rob was up and out using his new snow blower on his hill of a driveway.  He said it had really made dealing with their snow much, much easier than hand shoveling.  Then Kate dropped him off at the house while she went to a sewing party for costumes for the December Nutcracker ballet performance.  I would have loved to have gone, but I need to get through these boxes and get my kitchen working and then the craft/sewing room.

Rob then broke out the snow blower that had been left here by the sellers.  He fired it up and blew the 4 to 5 inches of snow on the ground from the driveway.  It took him about and hour or so to clear my big driveway.  It looks fairly simple, as long as I can pull start the snowblower.  Kate says that we do not usually get BIG snows that can fall in Parkesburg.  It is just constant, little snows that never go away in between snowfalls.  So it is quite likely that the snow I am seeing now will be the base of the snow that will be around until spring... whenever that might happen.

Once the snow blowing was finished, I began tackling the boxes again.  I am finding my coffee pot, with most of my coffee but I had not yet found filters to make coffee.  I am setting up a coffee station in the kitchen.  It will be set to brew a pot of coffee when I tell Alexa 'Good Morning'.  I also worked on replacing the knobs on the little upper cabinets in the kitchen.  I was able to get all but one cabinet above the stove side of the kitchen.  I think it is going to have canned good and dry goods up there, leaving the lower cabinets for pots, pans, baking pans, etc.  I am still trying to figure the best way to make the kitchen work properly.

Today Rob and Kate picked me up for a trip to North Pole.  I had a shipment to pick up so we had lunch at the Pagoda.  It is a wonderful Chinese restaurant and one of the few that have Egg Fo Young on the menu.  I had gotten used to ordering Shrimp Egg Fo Young at the little Chinese place in Parkesburg, so I have been searching for a place here.  North Pole is a tad far to drive just for Egg Fo Young, so I am still searching.

Rob came in the house after lunch while Kate did more sewing.  I have now unearthed the majority of my pots and pans.  I also found some coffee filters in a box pf pots and pans, so I will be able to set up my coffee for tomorrow morning..  I am finding room for everything, so far and still have lots of spaces to fill.  My spices are proving to be the hardest thing thus far.  I have my regular spices out on the counter near the prep station, but I have a box full of spices that are not used often and I am not sure where they are going to live.  It is a marathon, setting up this kitchen, not a print... I keep telling myself.

So, more boxes tomorrow.  I see the box with the mixer and juicers... according to the list.  But I need to make room on the counter where the mixer is going to live where it is readily available for breads, cookies, cakes, etc.

We are having electrical work done on Tuesday.  We are going to be installing a transfer switch so we can have a generator ready to power the house in the event of a power failure.  I cannot afford to not have one ready in temps at 40 below.  But the electrician found some damage to the supply area where power comes in from the outside lines.  It probably happened when they previous owners had a tree fall in the area of the lines.  Our inspector must have missed it, so we are going to have to get to fixed before the transfer switch gets installed.

In the meantime, I will be sailing the sea of boxes that are in the dining room and garage.  The nice thing is the dining room is down to pretty much a single layer of boxes.  Makes me feel like I am finally accomplishing something.