June update, sort of

Ok, so I'm a little late with the June update, but there has been a bit of progress in West Virginia. We have done some demolition which is always fun. We are almost to the point where we can start making the middle floor habitable. More on that in a second.

The big news, though, is that I am currently writing this post from West Virginia. Wait, what? Yeppers, folks. We have wifi and I am a happy camper. You know who else is a happy camper? Andy, our super cool renter who has been reliving the sad, sad days of life pre-Internet for much too long over the past few months. He's pretty thrilled. See, it is quiet here. Like eerily so. Had I not gone up to the village Monday to take care of some stuff and go to Starbucks, I could have easily gone over 24 hours without seeing anyone but my Little Man. He's not the best conversationalist, being one and all. (Reason #4,239,742 that I love Starbucks.)

Despite the normal solitude up here, this past weekend was not so quiet. This weekend Snowshoe hosted a Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) Racing event. It was decidedly un-quiet. Andy, said super cool and helpful renter, warned me against coming up this weekend. In fact he said he did everything in his power to not have to work this weekend so he could, as I believe he put it, "get out of Dodge". But, since the modem was being delivered and I am a control freak, I wanted to make sure everything was hooked up as needed. Also, because Andy was going to be gone I didn't want the package with the modem sitting out front when ten gazillion people descended upon the mountain like locusts.

(Photo by Cinnamon Mitchem)

Come to think of it, from a distance dirt bikes might sound a little bit like locusts descending upon the mountain.

This is what one end of our road looked like while races were underway.

 

 

Yep, that's the top of the stroller. We were silly enough to walk up to the village to check things out. Walking back entailed being just a few feet from the racing dirt bikes. Needless to say, naptime was cut a little short. (And I had visions of bikes careening into us or rocks flying at us. #notarelaxingwalk)

 

We got a little closer to our house and realized the street was being crossed by the racers. Hmmm. How does one cross over when one is not on a dirt bike and is pushing a stroller?  

One waits for the perfect moment when there is an appropriately wide gap between riders and one runs like a crazy person. In the meantime, we watched. I thought Little Man would be scared of the noise, but he was absolutely fascinated.

 That's because he's all boy.

(Photo by Cinnamon Mitchem.)

 

As he watched the various races with rapt attention, got muddy, and rolled around, his mom had a vision of what this little person might be like in about sixteen years.

 

(Photo by Cinnamon Mitchem)

 

And while it might be creepy that I have a photo of two random strangers on my blog, I seriously think that the blond boy on the quad is giving me a brief glimpse into my future. It makes me want to cry. Not because he's dirty and someone has to wash those clothes. And not because what he's doing is dangerous and scary. Because I bet his mom looked at him when he was one and getting mud on the knees of his Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls, blinked, and opened her eyes to this grown person.

 

Sigh. Look at me getting all mushy.

 

Anyway, if Little Man wants to forgo the dirt bike and quad riding and become, say, an artist, I've got material for him on the very same mountain. 



 

Even with the distant buzz of locust dirt bikes, there is serenity in this sunrise. (I know, I know, the transition between the boy on the bike and the sunrise probably needs work. I just wanted to show you guys how cool the low-lying morning fog looks and let you know that even though the mountain was crawling with locust-people, it is incredibly beautiful.)

Ok, enough of outside, I told you there was demolition done.

This actually took place in May. The only work I did this weekend was some spackling, sanding and color testing. And I didn't take photos. And I told you I was writing this from WV (where I could just snap a photo), but that was yesterday when I started writing and now it is today when I am finishing. Forgive me.

But lets go back to our May demo. Remember the rooms with the stinky carpet?

It is gone.

And for good measure, we pulled up the little bit of hardwood in the hallway.

Why, you ask? Well, now we have a blank slate upon which to put a lovely new floor! I'm super excited to get busy painting and putting in floors. Someday in the relatively near future we might actually be able to sleep in a bedroom instead of in the middle of the living room. (But don't get too excited, there is a ton of work to do to get us to flooring instillation. Boo hiss.)

Jealous of our current set up? You should be. Its bleakness made Betsy cry. Yep. It's that bad.