Back in Business

Okay, the break's over.

I spent last evening going through all the photographs I've taken since before we moved and I'm ready to get back to work.

So, without further ado....

Today's pictures were taken in Rockland, Maine, the weekend of March 20-21, where Mrs. Smith and I were in attendance (by ourselves) (sans kids) (yahoo!) at the Maine state homeschool convention. The convention was great, but get a load of the view from our room!

As difficult as it was to tear ourselves away from such luxury, we did indeed actually go to the convention.


And it was awesome. I learned a lot, got a lot more comfortable with curricula, and gained a new hero....Dr. Jay Wile. This man is brilliant and yet had the likes of me hanging on his every word. I went to every workshop he led and hated to see the conference come to an end. What a treat!

Speaking of treats, we did manage to sneak away for a few minutes at lunch on Saturday to walk the Rockland Breakwater, a 7/10s-of-a-mile jaunt down a boulder pathway to a lighthouse at the end. It was an unusually warm Spring this year, and an unusually warm day that Saturday, and it was pure joy.

After a brief stop at the Farnsworth Art Museum, we were preparing to head home when I got a call from Tracy with exciting news. I guess I had better back up a minute to explain, though...

We had been renting a lovely home in Winthrop since moving to Maine in August of 2007. The owners of the home purchased it just a couple of months before we moved in, with the intention of living in it themselves someday. Well, that day came, and they wanted to move in on April 1.

Tracy is not yet ready to commit to Maine long-term, so we were on the hunt for another rental house. It made sense to look in the area of our church, since it was 45 minutes away from us in Winthrop, and the VA hospital where Tracy works is in between the two towns.

The problem was, Union is a very small town in a rural area, and we were having a lot of difficulty finding a home for rent. We started calling homeowners with houses for sale to ask them if they would consider renting. This is simply not an option for most homeowners, and even for the ones for whom it is, most are not interested in becoming landlords. However, on that fateful day, Tracy called to tell me one of the owners we had talked to called him that afternoon and agreed to rent to us. It was good news indeed, as it was March 21 and we had to be out of our house by March 31.

Since we had to be drive right by the road the house is on as we headed home from the conference, Mrs. Smith and I made a slight detour and stopped to peek into the windows of my new abode. It was a harmless enough activity; at least it seemed like a good idea, until the owner of the house showed up. :) Probably not the best situation to find oneself in when meeting a new landlord in person, but thankfully ours is a very pleasant man who suggested we actually go inside the house and have a look around.

This house was built in 1850 - before the Civil War! - but was beautifully renovated several years ago and has been languishing on the market ever since, probably because of that beautiful (i.e. expensive) renovation. It's been challenging to get settled in, as storage is an issue that wasn't addressed in the renovation. However, that's been a good motivator to keep getting rid of things, and I'm content with what's left.

Some of the advantages of our new home...it's 4 minutes from our church and several of the families are now our neighbors, including a playmate for Jed; we're out in the country and the people seem friendlier; fresh eggs!, many of which were given to us; the area is beautiful; there is a pond beside the house that connects to two lakes by way of rushing streams; and we're just 15 minutes from the rocky coasts of Maine.

We couldn't be happier to have been kicked out of our old house. :D