My Year Without A Summer (with a wee bit about knitting)

No doubt about it, I'm an Autumn Baby. With a birthday is in September (You know I'll start celebrating the whole month in just a few days) and, of course, I live in the south - in the muggy buggy sleepy swampy coastal land of Virginia. Secretly ... well, not really all that secretly ... I am proud that I can endure a tidewater Virginia summer. But most of all I have always been glad to see those mosquitoey days draw to a close. I can't wait for the crisp bite of a north wind, the clear blue of a humidity free sky - I even like the song of the cricket - so long as he stays outside to do his wooing.

It has always been a mystery, why so many of my friends (including ThePrince) prefer the summer and sigh wistfully at it's closing. Till this year. This year we have had AIR CONDITIONING! I have only spent one summer in my life living in a place that was air conditioned and I had a sore throat all that summer. So I have always been a little suspicious of living and especially sleeping in air conditioning. Instead, I've known what the weather is like out there. I have felt the stifling heat of a second floor bedroom, gasping beneath a wet washcloth on my chest as I waited for sleep to take me away from the hotness. I have kicked off the sheet in my sleep. I've gotten the ice pack out of the freezer and wrapped it in a towel so that I could lie on it till my chilled blood circulated through my body to cool it down.

Not This Year.

This has been a summer of closed windows, clean floors, bug-less sills. This year there have been no stuck dresser drawers, no mildew spores creeping across leather shoes and no no-see-ums whining in my ear. But this has felt like the year without a summer. This year, since I haven't "felt" summer, I can't really feel like there has even *been* a summer. I know. It's a Right Brain Thing.

And here we are, facing the last weekend of it. (you might think summer lasts till the 21st of September, but ask any 4th grader and she will tell you it's over on the first day of school)  I feel like I've been caught off guard.

And what does this girl do when she is caught off guard?

She pulls out her Notebook and Starts A New List!

First I listed all the wonderful things that have filled the past 10 weeks. Then I wrote down everything I could think of that I want right now. And then I started the list of steps I need to take to get the things I want right now.

And number one on the list - no duh - is to drop the added lbs that an air conditioned summer has allowed to creep back onto this body.

ooooo. Notice how I found SOMETHING ELSE to blame for the weight gain?

No - just joking. The weight gain came from choices made over and over and over again. One more bite; an extra ice cream bar; wine AND dessert at the same meal - two days in a row. Hel-OH-oh.

But there is nothing like a new month, a BIRTHDAY month - heralding in a New Season - to inspire a girl to revamp her could-be-more-healthy lifestyle. First on the agenda is to do a new assessment with my WW ActiveLink activity monitor. I started that on Sunday. The initial assessment was done at a time when I was lifting weights with a personal trainer. I haven't done that since my shoulder problems flared up in December.  I can plug my little monitor in to the website and it will assess my daily activity and suggest ways to improve it.  I'm ready for a fresh start and new challenge.

Second will be to commit to eating in the weight-loss zone.  I know what that needs to be. Time to be like Nike and Just Do It.

Between those two choices runs the golden path to the body I really do want; the body with the energy to do all the other Fresh Start Things on my Autumn 2014 list.

And as a reward for hitting my goal weight I will cast on a new project - no. I will buy yarn!!! and then cast on a new project - in spite of the whining and sighing of all the UFOs tucked here and there about the house. I have chosen Amy Herzog's Telluride Aran pullover:


And since I am as in love with the color as I am with the design I will log onto Webbs and see if its available.

There are some Other Things on my New Things List that I'll share soon but this is my pumped up post for a Thursday morning - at the tail end of August in my Year Without a Summer.

Escape from the Dread Clorox Bottle - a journey into the mountains of Virginia

After a delightful Friday evening with friends, good food and a charming amateur theater production, TheQueen awoke to the news that the painter was coming to prep the house with big bottles of Clorox! 

Now, TheQueen is deathly sensitive to chlorine, so there was nothing for it but to get out of dodge. We decided to head west to the mountains, taking a favorite route down country roads. At Frederick Hall we had lunch at a little spot we'd passed dozens of time without ever having the time to stop. 

It came complete with two porch cats, curious and friendly.











The food was nice, but there was only one poor waitress who had to tend all the guests while getting food from a basement kitchen.


We wound our way over Afton Mountain and took 81 south to Troutville where we stopped at a cute little shop, The Apple Barn II,  that sold several lines of collectable cottages, including The Cat's Meow.

All along the way we were paralleled by the Appalachian Trail and once we'd stopped in Troutville we decided to find the trail and hike it for a little while.




I haven't walked along this trail since I hitch hiked out to Warrenton from D.C., the summer of 1971 with a cute French boyfriend. Oh my that was a long time ago. Pre-ThePrinceConsort!


Most of the trail was through the forest, with a cool green canopy and delicious little wooden bridges crossing stony creeks.

  

But there were some open fields to climb up and hike down.




And even a railroad track to cross - two different modes of transportation in high contrast.

The flora was lavish - lots of late summer blossoms - here is crownbeard and ironweed - neither of which tempt the cattle - who were, happily - in different fields that day. 

 The vistas were equally spectacular - Virginia at its finest on an August afternoon. 

One unusual sight were these two trees - different species - but growing together. I thought they looked like they were kissing.

We decided to spend the night in Natural Bridge - no - not at the lodge - though it looked very pretty but also very full. Just a little roadside motel south of Lexington. But on the way we stopped in Buchanan - where we discovered this treat: A suspension foot bridge!

 Here are two views from the bridge - I particularly loved the Gothic molding on the supports. And at the Old Town Canoe livery I sat in one of the old town kayaks and it felt like a perfect fit. I am now seriously thinking about a birthday present. 

We ate dinner in Lexington - but at nigh on to 9 o'clock and as rumpled travelers we didn't want to stop at some place fancy. Instead, we were the last customers at a little hamburger joint called Pure Eats. They get a 4.5 from Urban Spoon and a 5+ from this hungry gal. They serve local beef and beer, and simply decadent french fries.


Sunday morning was cloudy and cool up in the mountains and we drove north on 11 along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There were More Vistas, More Wildflowers ....

  
 

and one darling little mountain cabin farmstead museum.

 

  

Complete with it's own ruminant ranger. 

And so - that is how TheQueen escaped the Dread Clorox Bottle. When I got back to TheCastle it looked so white it hardly needed to be painted. ThePrince has done some brutal landscaping out front so the painter could get his ladders set up. There will be a shocking photo of TheCastle in TheNude - after the gleaming white paint has been spread. This place is getting so much work done on it it hardly feels like my house any more - but fear not. I shall adjust to the clean and the beauty and the cool.

It's Reunion Time Again

In fact, it's half way through TheReunion - or even 2/3 of the way through if you count the blissful Friday of prep. And while 75% of that Friday was exactly like every preReunion Friday for the past 20 years, the 25% that was new was almost the most fun of all.

We always book a manicure and pedicure for early on that Friday but somehow I screwed up my scheduling so while BH had her toes pampered I swiftly dashed through the store picking up paper products. That's one of my contributions to TheReunion. The other is footing the bill for mailing out invitations. In return? I don't cook a thing. There is always more than enough food (though I do worry about not having enough, that particular anxiety is all about TheQueen's self doubt, not about reality)

New this year was a convenient appointment I could schedule in Richmond so that BH and I could have lunch in Carytown.






We dined al fresco because while the food at CanCan is simply beyond delicious - it's a noisy restaurant. Besides, inside the music was piped, outside we were entertained with the real thing.

In addition to dining, there was luxury grocery shopping - one more thing to make TheReunion weekend special.

This has been a particularly cranky summer for TheQueen but Saturday morning there was no anxiety about anything. There was some swift and efficient house cleaning since one never knows if there will be After-Reunion guests. There were not - this year - but that only made coming home at the end of the day particularly nice - a squeaky clean house just for the two of us.

There were already cousins in the church yard when ThePrince and I arrived and we were soon spreading out food and photos to share with all. The oldest among us are a group of first and second and third cousins descended from this union:

J T and Hannah Elizabeth Hoskins

The Cousins

But there are plenty more cousins to go around. Cousins who are even from different Hoskins lines. This year we were blessed with a new Hannah!




And lots of pretty teenage girls to make the Granddaddies smile.

And what looks to me like some hungry cousins wondering when we'll sing our traditional hymn and ask the blessing. 

The food really does surpass expectations. My question here is - why is it the slimmest slightest cousins are the ones that bring platters full of butter-filled deliciousness? I never saw so many ways to use chocolate and there were spiced peaches, pulled mint candies, and banana puddings as well. Oh yes. and Fried Chicken.


This year we didn't have any of the Warner line with us nor were either of the Eastern Shore Eubanks able to come. The Hill line has sadly died out, though Cousin Thomas will live forever in my heart because he welcomed me so warmly at my first Hoskins Reunion. This was the first time in ages that Cousin Elizabeth C couldn't be with us and I felt the loss. But those of us who could come made everything feel warm, welcoming and joy filled.

And once we were replete with deliciousness, there were photographs to be taken in the sanctuary of the old family church and songs to be sung by the musically inclined.

So, you'd think we were ready to go home by then, right? Wrong. Groups paired off, drifting in clumps, or headed to family homes. We spent our late afternoon with the H's at Hillsborough. One of these days I'm actually going swimming there. Though I took my suit, I kept getting waylaid by fascinating conversations with cousins. 

And so, Saturday closed softly with a quiet green drive home through King & Queen and Essex Counties. Today, some of us will drive down to Mathews to visit with More Cousins Some More because, there can never be enough cousins.