Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Moved in!

But not unpacked. No where NEAR unpacked. Still buried in boxes. But hey, I have more space for all those boxes.

Our first night in our new home, we climb into bed, exhausted, I turn out the lights and suddenly I hear "HOLY SH**T!!!!" from Rob, and I look up and see that the previous owner or the one before him, I don't know, had splattered glow in the dark paint on the ceiling so it looks like stars. No pattern or constellations, just random splatters of paint. But it kinda looks like your looking up at a galaxy or something. It was pretty cool and weird looking all at the same time! Rob and I were hysterical for like 10 minutes over it. Who knew??? No one had said anything to us and we just found out on our first night, the first time we turned out the lights. So we have no clue how far this goes back, which previous owner did it, but it's so funny! We don't love it, but then again, we don't hate it enough to bother painting over the ceiling. So I guess I'll have stars to look at before I go to sleep from now on... :)

Okey, time to go do more unpacking. Just thought I'd share something funny from my first few days in my new home. TEE HEE!!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Interesting facts I just found out about the Adirondacks (Random Conversation at Work)

•The Adirondack Park is comprised of about 6.1 million acres (9,375 square miles).

•The park is the size of the state of Vermont.

•There's no marked boundary to the park, no "entrance gate" and no admission fee.

•The Adirondack Park is the largest protected area in the contiguous United States, delineated by the famous "blue line."

The Adirondack Park is larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon National Parks combined.

•The Adirondack Park contains 85% of all wilderness in the eastern United States. It is the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi.

•The Adirondack Park has over 2,000 miles of hiking trails; these trails comprise the largest trail system in the nation.

•Contrary to popular belief, these mountains are not old, "worn down" peaks, but relatively young mountains. It is theorized that there is a geologic "hotspot" beneath the Adirondacks that causes continued uplift at the rate of 1.5 – 3cm annually.

•The western and southern Adirondack area is a gentle landscape of hills, lakes, ponds and streams, along with the highest mountains in the state. The 46 High Peaks (over 4,000 feet) include Mount Marcy, the highest point in New York at 5,344'.

•Within the park are 3,000 lakes and ponds and more than 1,200 miles of rivers fed by an estimated 30,000 miles of brooks and streams.

•Essex County, located in the Adirondack Park, contains the greatest number of waterfalls in New York.

•State-owned Forest Preserve comprises 2.6 million acres (42%) and is protected by the state constitution as "forever wild." One million acres of the Forest Preserve is further classified as wilderness.


•The New York State Legislature created the Adirondack Park in 1882 by enacting measures that guaranteed public lands would remain "forever wild" – the strongest such law in the United States.

•An estimated 7-10 million tourists visit the region annually.

•60 million people live within a days' drive of the Adirondack region.

•The park is a patchwork of public and private lands.

•Visually, very little difference exists between state owned and privately owned land.

•Approximately 137,000 people live in the Adirondacks twelve months of the year.

•The park is home to 200,000 seasonal residents. Hamilton County has the largest percentage of 2nd homeowners in the nation.


•There are over 100 villages and towns within the park but no cities. It is the largest area without a city in the state.


•The word "vacation," was invented in the Adirondacks. In the early 1900's people in the cities were beginning to realize that summer heat and deadly fevers went hand in hand. The upper class did not spend the summer in the city waiting for a fever; they vacated the city for the fresh clean air of the Adirondacks. The term "vacating" or evacuating is the reason Americans take "vacations" instead of a British "holiday."


•Hamilton County is the third largest county in the state but has no stoplights.

•Lewis County has twice as many cows as people (53,000 cows).


Sunday, June 17, 2007

18 Things I Love about my New Home (in no particular order)




1) The built in bookcase that takes up the WHOLE wall on the landing from the first floor to the second floor staircase from the floor all the way to the second floor ceiling.




2) A bigger kitchen! Which means SPACE! Space to cook, space to bake, space to move, and best of all, space to open my refrigerator door all the way open if I need to!





3) The BLUE WALL in my kitchen!





4) The picture window wherer I'm putting my herb garden in my new bigger kitchen!

5) The ability to paint walls any color I want instead of leaving them just plain white! (See above, my SUPERGROVER BLUE wall!)

6) Light, Light, Light, Light, Light, Light! This place gets a lot of good LIGHT! and I love good sunlight!

7) A finished "basement"! (The basement is only half underground because the condo is on a hill, so one end is sort of underground an the other end walks right out onto ground level.)

8) The Wet bar in the basement with sliders out to my postage stamp sized backyard.



9) The room in the finished "basement" that actually gets a lot of light so I can paint down there! And it's right by the wet bar so I have a sink to use for my watercolors!

10) The postage stamp sized backyard where I can grow tomatoes! And have just enough room to make a Sukkah!



11) Space to have people over! (Once I have a dining room table that is...)

12) A fireplace!


13) A second bathroom! (I've NEVER EVER EVER had one of those!)

14) A second Bedroom!

15) Walking distance to shul! Whoo Hoo!!

16) More closet space.

17) A gas oven and range. I hate cooking with electric. Gas is much easier to fine tune and control.

18) It's alllll ours!!!!