Week 32 - Biding My Time

I usually get on a plane to Rhode Island the day after the books close but this year, I had a week to wait. I'm not sure how that worked out because John and I had the beach house starting on VJ Day weekend (yes, RI still celebrates victory over Japan) but I had time to kill before I'd fly out on Friday.

The week didn't drag. I had work to catch up on now that fiscal year end was done and Mary asked me for lots of data. I had lunch with Dodie on Wednesday and did the final carryforward entry that was truly the end of FY23 work. I offloaded some work to Brook on Thursday and called work done.

On the non-work front, I got some sewing done when Monday Night Knitting was cancelled, making a cute strawberry project bag for a make along with one of the podcasters I watch and I switched up the pattern on my monthly challenge socks. Add a couple of library meetings on Tuesday after work and doing laundry to put directly into my suitcase and I was ready to go.

I had a direct flight leaving Omaha after lunch and stopping in DC before going on to RI. My flight was delayed so I had extra time at home and the flight was completely uneventful, getting in just a bit late. Matt picked me up and I ate delicious leftover pasta for a late supper. Our tiny house rental started the next day.

John picked me up late morning and we went, with Matt and Carolyn, to The Crow's Nest for lunch. It's my favorite place for fried clams but it changed hands and isn't as good anymore. Bummer. We split up from there and John and I headed to Trader Joe's for groceries then hit Stop & Shop too (a normal market), getting to our tiny house right at 3:00.

So, the tiny house. John and I have rented the same cottage for the past three years but it had been sold and we were told the new owner would be living there so not renting. We wanted to stay in the same village and be on the water, which left us renting the tiny house 4 doors down from our old cottage. We started unloading the car when Erica, the woman 2 doors down from out old cottage and the tiny house, came running over to say hello. We were shocked when she told us that our cottage had been empty all summer with only a couple of weeks with people in it. OMG! We were going to be crammed into the tiny house for no reason at all. Oh well.

The tiny house had a full size bathroom and kitchen but only one bedroom and a loft bed. The plan was for one of us to sleep on the "futon" instead of braving the ladder to the loft, which was definitely the right decision. Until John tried to sleep on the futon, which was actually something homemade and not comfortable to sit on never mind to sleep on. After one miserable night on that, we needed a different solution.

We woke up to rain on Sunday so after a relaxing morning, we drove to Wakefield (the closest town) in search of a full size blow up mattress to put on the futon. We failed on that quest so John blew up the queen sized one he'd brought. The problem with that was that when it was put on the futon, it was only ~3" from the kitchen sink, which meant I was trapped in my bedroom. Good thing I don't usually get up in the night. We put the air mattress on top of the loft bed during the day to get it out of the way. There was also a ledge above the kitchen appliances that was handy for suitcases and such. This picture is from the bathroom. Not bad.

We picked up wraps on the way home and called that a late lunch/early dinner and enjoyed an evening of streaming. We were making the best of our tiny house, which actually wasn't horrible but just a bit cramped. The next door neighbors helped us set up our table and umbrella outside, brought us vegetables from their garden and were absolutely lovely. It might not be our perfect cottage but it would still be a good week.