Mold and Must and Miserable Dust....

Wow - It's been a while. I didn't realize it had been so long. BAD ilanna BAD! :)

Ok - so i'm here now. I was away on vacation over the weekend (from about thursday on) and wednesday i was trying to babysit a VERY talkative 6 year old while working and so didn't get to post much last week.

So - I went to Martha's Vineyard. It's where my husband grew up and where my inlaws reside.

It is a LOVELY island. And it was being nice to my nature, and being cool the entire time we were there. never topped 75. Course it also rained 3 out of 5 days. Regardless of the weather, we had a good time. Got to relax a bit, we went shopping (always a good thing) and we went to the farmer's market. (brought home 3lbs of local honey and some flavored vinegars.) Got goodies for myself and goodies for my friends. One of the most well known souveniers from MV is the Black Dog. It's famous, t-shirts and clothes etc. I got a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie, both INCREDIBLY comfortable and good quality. :) what's also fun, is the spin offs. One enterprising tourist shop has started printing the "bad dog" items. We got my brother a T-shirt that said something like "Bad Dog Oyster bar, always fresh and steaming!" (bearing in mind that the bad dog is showin as a black dog in a Pooping position. :) There's a few really good ones from there.

We went to the local winery and I bought some wine and other stuff. Course, i'll never drink the wine myself - so it will have to wait until i have company over who will share the bottle. :) i'm sure i can arrange that at some point. :)

We never got to go sailing though - water was a bit too choppy and our tummies were sensitive so we avoided it. That was the DOWNSIDe of the trip. My mom and i have had off stomachs the entire month of august. ANd our allergies have been bad this month. In fact on the way up, mom and I took the train to Providence and met my husband there for the last leg of the trip - b/c we were afraid of being without a bathroom. Anywhere we went on island, we called ahead to make sure there were bathrooms available. I did finally have some lobster the last night we were there, but we were being very careful with what we ate... paranoid even.

Unfortunately the other problem was sinus. I'd been taking advil C&S most of thismonth off and on. I was taking it every 3 hours up there. And for the first time in about 4 years, I had to take claritin. you see...it's an island. ANd it was raining. So there was that in and of itself. The really bad part is that my inlaws house is a Mold Experiments' wet dream. the basement smells like the underside of a dock. I couldn't go down there unless I had a cloth around my face to make breathing easier. The rest of the house is almost as bad. It's 30+ years old, and never had any AC, central ducting, etc. The lack of central ducting is probably the only thing that saved us since it would have blown air from the basement otherwise, but that means no dehumidifying. A lot of people thing AC is just to cool things off, but it actually CONDITIONS and cleans the air too. Carpet is at least 15 years old, as is all of the furniture and curtains etc. So it just breeds and breeds. I sat down on the couch and my eyes began to itch and water. Hubbies allergies started getting really bad too, and mom in law was MISERABle, and it was HER house! She finally admitted outloud that her allergies were worse in the house than out of it, and dad in law said even he sometimes notices. I can only hope they decide to do something about it. She mentioned bringing in a professional cleaning service, but I think they are going to have to strip all fabrics - replace carpet, reupholster furniture, get some new furniture etc. Will have to see.

So you see, all in all we had a very good time, but our heads and bellies were miserable. My only other real complaint is that when we go there on vaca, I sleep in bro in law's childhoold bed/bedroom, and hubby sleeps in his own bedroom. Twin beds. I could accept that before we were married but ....sheesh. Time to clean out the old rooms and make them into guest rooms of some kind. King or queen bed, night stand etc.

I think the next time we go - we are going to see if we can rent a house or something while up there, so there can be more comfort options etc. In the mean time, i'm going to enjoy my COZY sweats this winter, and my zip up hoodie sweatshirt. I'm going to LOVE putting that raw honey in my tea in the mornings. In fact i used some this morning. It was wonderful. Very mild, not overly sweet at all, so I didn't get that weird honey aftertaste from drinking too much. I might have to bring some into work and have it here so I can have more tea during the day. :) I can't wait to try using some of the flavored vinegars in cooking, and seeing the looks on friends faces when i give them their gifts... :)

And now - i'm back at work. :) wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Doggies are home. They are like LUMPS. So tired they don't want to move. hopefully they stay that way through the weekend since hubby is going right back out of town to Canada to train with a kung fu grand master one last time before starting massage school. So i get to take care of the puppies - which means no sleeping late. (sigh)

Oh well.

SOON, I promise, I will get pictures of the floors, and maybe some pics from MV. I only took some on the ferry over, and when we went to Gay Head but there are some pretty cool pics. :)

hope everyone had a good weekend, and those on the east coast enjoy the rain this week. :) i'll try to get back to posting more often. :)