Four Day Weekend

Dear followers of Maple Ave Gazette... Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by and read my modest blog. Now hold your horses everyone - here are the latest and greatest updates and reports.

First, fall in Clintondale:

This is the south end of the house with one of the 2 Maples visible.

The back and north gable. And our favorite grandaddy Sugar Maple.

This is mainly for Eva. I hired an architect to draw up a floor plan so you could get the gist of our quirky house.

Just kidding! It's me and a Sharpie 10 minutes ago at Kinkos. Click on it to enlarge it.

So it's nice to meet the locals and get tips about the area and where to buy the best apples and who's got the freshest eggs. Who delivers your fuel and who cleans your septic tank? And then there is the age old question. Who's got the better pizza? Well, let me tell you, we got the inside scoop from our cab driver the other night. He picked us up in a rainy Rosendale after our friends Sam and Angela's pre-wedding BBQ. Minutes into the ride, apropos nothing at all, he offered the following tidbit.

"So I had a slice at Village pizza the other day and I had to spend 15 minutes in the Dunkin Donuts bathroom. So you gotta go with Fat Bob's. That's the place."

Thank you Mr. Cab Driver, for that valuble information.

It became a 4 day weekend for me taking friday off to go to the BBQ and monday was Columbus day. We got good stuff done around the house, but we also took a little drive. We went to Rhinebeck for the annual antiques fair. If any friends of James are reading this, just for the record: it was my idea, James would never be caught dead at an antiques fair... I seriously considered a life size brass monkey head, but decided rent was more important.

After that a stop at the Vanderbilt mansion.

And we are scared about our heating bills...

View over the Hudson river from the Vanderbilt mansion.

We drove through Poughkeepsie on the way home and found thousands of people trekking Walkway Over the Hudson. It's an old railroad bridge that just opened for pedestrian traffic this weekend.

The last stop for me before getting on the bus monday night was the Esposito house, .3 miles from ours, to say hello to the latest editions to their family.

Ethan and Banjo

Cassidy

Things are slowing down a little bit around the house. All those projects we thought we were doing right off the bat (new furnace, electrical upgrade, porch and wood floor in the cottage, starting the master bedroom...) have all been pushed to the spring. The only one left is THE WINDOWS. It's a big one (read expensive....) but it's a good one. 16 (SIXTEEN?!?!?!?!) Marvin aluminum clad double pane argon filled 2 over 2 simulated divided light bla bla bla... Hopefully they will make the DRAFT PALACE a little more air tight.

So LA-LA-LA-LA sign the check, don't think about the amount... LA-LA-LA-LA-LA go back to work, think about the tax credit these windows will provide April 15 LA-LA-LA-LA go on with your day.

These are the beautifully restored 2 over 2 windows at the Gunk House and that is the type of window we are going for in our house.

As if you are the least bit interested in my heating system... If you're not you can skip to the next paragraph, but if you are as fascinated as this suburban-kid-turned-city-gal-come-country-bumpkin, stop and take a look at Dr. Furnace von Frankenstein.

It's scuffed up and in bad shape, But Matt the furnace guy says he'll live another 10 or so years. Cross every finger you got.

Our heating system is set up pretty great, dividing the house into 3 different zones, meaning you don't have to heat the whole thing. As soon as we leave one room that thermostat goes down to 55. Every room has sweet old radiators and the place heats up pretty quickly. So come on up, Elena, we can turn it up to 57 for you.

James has been hard at work in Clintondale, while I've been hard at work in the city. The living room is about to get primed and painted. It's looking better already with just the skim coat.

The future couch corner.

My sister and Gizmo's house seems to have a very similar lay out to ours, especially the dining/living room scenario. Same shape, same picture window and same opening between them. They decided to paint theirs black. Well, we couldn't do exactly the same thing, so ours in greenish-black. So there.

The black dining room of Goatvalley.

The in progress GREENISH black dining room of 19 Maple Ave.

This is all a joke of course and the Goatvalley folks approve, we took them on a Skype tour around the house on saturday and it was like they were right there! Skål, det var trevligt att få en stund tillsammans!

So the top shade is the Polo green in flat finish. The bottom is only primer so far. By next weekend I think it will be covered by a first coat of Polo green in a semi gloss finish. Sexxxy.

These are the sweet chairs we got for the PAAARLOOOR. They preside in the cake shop right now which has become a very comfy temporary living room.

Finally, I made corn bread... Went a little too nutmeggy (muskotnöt) for James but I think it took on a "fally" taste, a little spicy and very hearty. Trying to get into baking cause to quote Elizabeth of the Gunk House, "we owe muffins all over this town."

1 cup flour

1 cup yellow corn meal

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

Aaaaand I topped off with 1 teaspoon nutmeg.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and pour into a buttered pan.

Put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 mins.