Happy anniversary!

Whoa, been a while, eh?

We took possession on September 7th of last year so we have quickly reached our one-year mark.

Now we've been back to the cottage a few times since the August 8th post, but we didn't go this past weekend because I had free tickets to a football game.  Plus, we'd been there most of the previous week so we figured taking a break wouldn't be the worst thing.  But it was.  It was the worst thing.  And in mid-January, when I'm dying to go start going again, I'm going to curse my football addiction for causing me to waste a weekend six months earlier.

Rob and Deb visited for the second time on the first Saturday of our week off (August 24th), spending the night this time. We were warned when we bought the place that people would come by expecting to be catered to, but...that hasn't been the case with this family.  Visitors are seeing to their own needs.  And many of our needs.  Really, they could see to the needs of several families on Crow Lake Road.

Parts of the above turned into this:

Not shown above is a plate of roasted, salted almond slices that Debbie made that nearly caused me to reach a state of nirvana.  Sounds so simple but sweet maple syrup were they ever good!  We had a fire outside later, during which Debbie got to roast marshmallows, something she apparently has not done in about 60 years (eh eh eh!). 

On the Monday following, Christine and I attended the pot luck that's held at the school house on the last Monday of every month.

Now everyone who knows me knows how there's nothing I love more than being in a room full of strangers, in an unfamiliar location, and unaware of proper procedure.  Suffice to say that I was somewhat out of my element.  "Hiding under the bed" is closer to my element.

However, we made "my" Caribbean Rice recipe, walked over, met a lot of great people (and remembered the names of about 14% of them), and were pleased to have gone through with it afterwards.  I'll go into greater detail about that when I'm able to take pictures from inside the building but here it is, behind the town sign.

My folks came by the following Friday so that my dad and Christine could go to a NASCAR truck race in Mosport on the Sunday.  That left mum and I with a quiet afternoon together during which she made this delightful soup and I...huh...drank Seagram's cider.  I could have sworn I did SOMETHING useful that day but damned if it'll come to mind now.  I'll probably remember as soon as I click "publish" for this post.  That happens alarmingly often.

One improvement project got taken care of, courtesy of my dad, and Christine began visualising another.  I'll get into both of those in the next post (or the one after.  Eventually).