Yesterday was just another sweltering day here in the Caribbean, but in the night the weather shifted and a nice breeze kicked up. Through the day it’s picked up and now we have this beautiful, cool wind blowing.
We have our friend, hurricane Joaquin, to thank. The hurricane path is bizarre in that they typically start out in the Atlantic, veer west toward the Caribbean, say hello to a few islands and then veer north to hit the east coast of the US. This bad boy is breaking all the rules. He started out in the Atlantic, but not very far away, and instead of taking the usual path he’s veered south and has been moving slowly and gaining intensity. The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos must be getting pelted right now. They’re still predicting a sharp turn north, but we shall see!
Until then we’ll gladly take the cooler weather. I was out at the new house and probably half of the guys out there were telling me about the wind. One of our other workers came up to the house for something earlier this afternoon and I might have been laughing at him when he told me he didn’t like the wind because he was cold :) Maybe.
To celebrate this lovely shift in things I’m making a pot of potato & corn chowder for supper, and I whipped up a bottle of pumpkin spice coffee syrup. Nom, nom, nom. I was so excited about the weather I told Chris at lunch that it felt like fall. “It’s October first. Yesterday I was sweltering, and today it’s beautiful. It actually feels like fall today. It’s like Jesus loves me or something.”
I got to spend some time working with wood today. I’m really excited about this because it feels like progress. I finally unboxed the sliding compound miter saw that we bought in Miami on our way out of Haiti, and shipped in with all our solar panels. I got this one:
Um, I love it. It’s now my third child. And now I know how real people do woodworking projects. I need to build a set of rolling work benches so I can get started on other building stuff for the new house, and was dreading doing all the cuts. My old method of using what I had available meant clamping each board down to a table, measuring, then cutting with a skills saw. Skill saws are hard to get straight cuts with, especially when your “table” is rickety and wobbly. Thus the need for solid work benches. All the tables that I used to use have since fallen apart, so I literally put this thing on the floor on the deck of the other house on the property, and cut away. What would have taken me hours before took me about 45 minutes, including my short breaks where I just stared at it. While we were away this summer I went ahead and finished outfitting my tool arsenal so that I actually have all the things that I’d need to do a really good job on things, rather than just getting by. Tools really do make all the difference!
So, I had fun cutting all my wood today, and in the next couple of days will work at getting my work benches together. I just needed to feel like I was doing something for the house, rather than feeling stressed out about things not getting done. I still have work to do on our website revamp, but it is coming together. The internet has been frustrating in the last 24 hours, and I’ve had updates that needed to be done, so rather than getting frustrated and wanting to bang my head against the wall I’ve been choosing to do other things, and it’s amazing how it changes my mood. Chris has noticed that I’ve been a lot happier in the last couple days. I think part of it is the vitamins starting to kick in, which has given me more energy, and just feeling productive even if it doesn’t necessarily look like what I thought it should.
With moving in a few months and it being so hot I haven’t been in my normal mood to put a few fall touches around the house, but with the weather as it has been today and just feeling good I got in the mood and whipped my little jute twine garland up on the windows that I made last year, and put up my “give thanks” sign. My “fall bug” may have also been in part due to a few girlfriends coming over and Pumpkin Spice creamer being involved. Maybe.
We had a fun time sitting out on the deck, enjoying the weather and talking about everything and nothing. I love good days :)
~Leslie
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