Pure Old English Happiness

It’s fall - and that means the beaches in Maine are open to bring your dogs. We’ve had a stretch of unseasonably warm temperatures, and it was a perfect day to go out and visit the nearby beach where the Boy and my Bride both surf.

The water is definitely cold - there’s no way I’d be going in there without a wetsuit. Apparently, the dog agreed as well - a wave touched her paw, and she figured that was close enough.

But.. you can see how much these two enjoyed just the wide open (people-free) stretch of wet sand. Chasing each other, and laughing (as a dog can) in the freedom of it all.

Beautiful.

Shaving a yak

I ended up shaving a yak last week.

If you don’t know this phrase, let me quote from Seth Godin...

Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something you need to do. “I want to wax the car today.”

“Oops, the hose is still broken from the winter. I’ll need to buy a new one at Home Depot.”

“But Home Depot is on the other side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable because of the tolls.”

“But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor’s EZPass…”

“Bob won’t lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though.”

“And we haven’t returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it.”

And the next thing you know, you’re at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.)

All I really intended to do was to tidy up my printer closet. But I always wanted the shelves on the other side of that wall to be big enough and deep enough to house our cook book collection. So I figured I’d see how much work that would be.

It turns out, it was a bit of work.

I’ve been meaning to get to this project for years. Our go-to daily cookbooks sit in our kitchen shelves. But we have literally dozens of others tucked away that we have collected over the years and love to peruse. And now they’re all out and categorized where we can browse and remember and be inspired.

This satisfies my inner OCD and makes me indescribably happy.

And my office closet (on the other side) is more usefully organized and organizable as a side benefit.

'Not Still Life'

My Bride has always been a talented artist. She took scientific illustration courses back in university, and loved art class all through school. But like with a lot of things, adulting seemed to get in the way for many years.

A couple of years ago, she picked up her sketchpad and started drawing again, which led to watercolors and painting.

Yesterday, she surprised me with this portrait of our two resident gobbler goofballs.

I love the capture of their curious expressions - they really are just two big old feathered weirdos, who want to know if you’ve got a treat or something interesting going on. They’re dorks - I’ve had to herd them back out of the road a few times now. When I hear horns honking and see traffic at a stop, I know they’ve been wandering a little too boldy. But they’re always glad to see me and happy to be shown the way back.

I think this is my Bride’s way of acknowledging how much she’s enjoying their company as well.