For those of you who read my blog, I am back online! And in an apartment since mid-June! OMG! Running water, a private toilet (that I don't have to clean every time I use it), a galley kitchen which allows me to bake a whole chicken AND potatoes, squash or what have you in a full size oven & stove top with four burners. Even though it is electric, I cannot complain but did have to learn how to cook with electric rather than gas. This kitchen even has a DISHWASHER! I am in heaven or at least the Taj Mahal! The only drawback is it is in the city of New Bedford and not the best neighborhood. The building has 114 apartments, mostly single people but some married or partnered couples. The living room & eating area are combined, the measurements are 12' X 30' and looks out onto the courtyard. I really lucked out, many apartments overlook two busy streets or the parking lot. The courtyard is very quiet with trees and some flowering shrubs growing in it. The difference between a street or courtyard apartment is dramatic when it comes to noise. I am on the second level, which is actually on the main entrance floor, so taking BB the dog outside does not involve the elevator.
The building is called the Car Barn, it was built to house the trolley cars that once ran the streets of New Bedford. My apartment has a very large pillar supporting the ceiling (probably an I-beam covered with cement) and the ceilings are still the original shape for trolley cars (concave roughly covered with probably plaster). This gives the apartment a southwestern motif. After moving all my possessions out of one storage area (10x10', mostly my furniture, clothing and valued items), I moved the camper mattresses out of the camper and spent the first night in the apartment on June 24, a week after signing the lease.
One of the first things I did (after unpacking, washing and putting my kitchen away) was hang my sister Velorice's watercolor painting of a Canada Goose. I dug out my framed photographs from college and Vermont and hung them. I set up a lovely glass top end table and set the lamp my mother gave me, a scallop-shaped clear glass lamp filled with beautiful shells (my mom collected shells during her winters in Florida). This lamp had not seen the light of day for many years and was so happy to light up my sister's watercolor! I found the framed ink drawing my classmate Marianne drew for me of Merlin and hung him where he can watch all that goes on inside my apartment.
I unpacked all my skulls and bones, a deer with eight point rack, a cow skull, coyote, fox, goat and hung them over the large window in the living room. My conservation agent friend was cleaning out her office and I selected some posters, l hung them on the walls. I found all my old mirrors, they went well in the eating area (a table found by the side of the road by my ex-friend Ellen serves mostly as my office) and unpacked my mantle clock (a gift from my mom in the 1980's) and wound it. It chimes on the hour and half-hour, one of my great delights.
Unfortunately, I have lost my two steamer trunks (one form the mid-1800's, the other from early 1900) to termites, they came through the floor of the garage storage area and ate many papers stored in those trunks. Fortunately, I had all my winter clothes stored in SpaceSaver bags, so weren't invaded by the little bugs. I am still trying to empty out that garage storage space. I have sold my Old Town Pathfinder canoe, a 16' river canoe, my gas range but still have my gas dryer in the storage unit along with a lot of boxes that need to be re-packed and sorted. I am using my camper for storage. Between the two storage spaces (camper and garage storage), I am paying $150.00 a month.
At this time, I have many unfinished projects to get done over the warmer months. I did buy a replacement steamer trunk while on a trip to Vermont in mid-September when I went to Sheena's wedding (I met and knew her and her family when I lived in Vermont). I stayed next door to the house I lived in for nine years while I lived up in that green state. That was the first trip I had taken since my eventful trip out west in the summer of 2017.
There is more to write but not today. Thanks for reading!