Frills and Folderol

Living in a house that's being renovated for a year and half (and the road stretches ever on) has been difficult at times. Not because it's impossible; not because we don't have what we need and more; not even because of the tools lying everywhere.

It's more been that intangible sense of home that I've missed. The colors. The frivolous things that aren't necessary but make you feel as though you've got your name stamped on the place. The sense of being interwoven with the walls that enclose you.

As time has gone on, those more ethereal things have started taking shape. Thanks to a lot of hard work from Rundy and me chipping in where I can, the skeleton of this old house has put on some flesh and started to breathe. It's beginning very much to feel like Home.

And it doesn't hurt that it's Christmas time.

 

 

Waxing Moon

Rundy just took pictures of my pregnant self for the first time. 

We just entered our seventh month together, my son and I.

She Said It'd Never Be So

Nope.

No animals in the house.

No scratching furniture, no chewing things, no cleaning up messes made by the hardly-housebroken.

I grew up with a mother who was pro-animal and anti-having-them-in-the-house. So...when Rundy and I woke at 5:30 in the morning on Black Friday to the yowls of a sickly, half-grown feline sitting on our doorstep, my natural inclination was to take care of the unceremoniously dropped off kitty, but to do it in the great outdoors.

But then it got cold. And I have a tender, weak heart. And Rundy's heart is basically mush.

And so it happens that we now have a cute gray and white kitten who curls up next to our woodstove and chases our shoelaces and climbs into our laps.

And who lives in our house.

Rundy named him Munchkin.

Memory Lane

Rundy will be at work for several hours yet. A fire crackles behind me, warming my back as I sit at our make-shift kitchen island sipping peppermint tea. There's a big bunch of dark outside the French doors, and I'm feeling unapologetically mushy. I've been cleaning up files on my desktop, and I just ran across a folder full of honeymoon pictures intended for a post on the Old Blog. Almost a year and a half ago it was that we honeymooned. It's hard to believe.

The post never happened, and since I'm missing Rundy and his big ol' grin I decided to let the mush do its mushing tonight. (Actually, the post isn't particularly mushy; just the Debbie).

Neither of us wanted a grand honeymoon traipsing through airports and flying over oceans. We just wanted trees and light and some mountains, all free for the taking. We decided on a nice wooded spot in the Adirondacks with a cozy cabin.

The drive was pleasant--sunny and scenic and not unbearably long.

The closer we got to where we were staying, the better the scenery.

When we got to the campgrounds, we quickly decided we had the best situated cabin in the whole place, complete with a porch swing.

 

And singing trees. 

We feasted on leftover wedding food during our stay. No freezing the wedding cake for a year, I'm afraid. Since the dessert we served was primarily cupcakes, the cake we had was small. And it tasted better fresh...

This was my first time hiking honest-to-goodness mountains, and we were in the perfect spot to take our pick of peaks. We found an access road that led up to a Secret Society for the Very Wealthy. Mansion resort, full golf course with sprinklers to keep the grass the perfect shade of green, pools, tennis courts--all tucked away where the mountains meet. You'd never know it was there (unless you're one of the Very Wealthy, of course).

Past the resort and down a walking trail into the woods, we found the official Adirondack entrance. The path goes on for quite a few miles, with trailheads sprouting off to either side.

The first peak we tackled was the Gothics via Beaver Meadow Falls. In retrospect, it was pretty ambitious for a first-timer. But with Rundy carrying the pack and me just carrying myself, we actually made pretty fast time.

 

Rundy's first thought when seeing a hole that looks like the perfect entrance to the lair of a Rodent of Unusual Size? Climb inside it, of course.

(But look at that grin...)

Breathing stop.

 

The summit in our sights!

Some of the slides were so steep there were ladders installed.

After a good handful of hours, we made it to the top.

 

By the time we summited, the light had shifted. An aptly named mountain, indeed.

With sore muscles the next morning (mostly mine), we decided to take a break from climbing and kayak on Lake Placid instead. It was sunny and warm and peaceful. We took a double kayak; I was later informed that they're called divorce canoes in common parlance. But we got along just swimmingly.

That night was noteworthy. In our months of dating and being engaged, we had never once gone out to eat. Instead, we walked around cornfields in the dark after I got out of work, and we hung out in libraries. So this first time eating at a restaurant was An Event.

I didn't take pictures of all the food--just the appetizer--but it was delicious. Well worth waiting until we were married, I'd say.

 

Back to a campfire and some moon-drenched conversation.

On the last day of our honeymoon, we decided to tackle another mountain on the way home. We got lost trying to find the trailhead out in the middle of nowhere, and so we stopped at a little shop where we received rambling directions which led us nowhere fast. I stayed in the car where I could chuckle over the exchange as it unfolded.

 

We did eventually make it, though!

Catamount was an altogether different experience than the Gothics--all dry heat and sun glare and rock-scrabbling instead of dense woods and hard breathing and interminable plodding upward in the semi-dark.

We took a nice break to munch on wild blueberries.

 

Another summit!

It was the perfect honeymoon, really. Even down to the flat tire on the way home. Ah--romance!

So many good memories.

(Mush. Mushy mush.)