Exploring the new home state

Things I learned this weekend--

1) Rhode Island really is a small state.
2) I need to spend time over in Roger Williams Park and take pictures.
3) I will not want for stitching supplies while living in Providence
4) Rhode Island drivers are worse... slightly... than Massholes.
5) Roof patching material stinks to high heaven

On the big news front-- our stove finally works (yay!). The electrician, after three weeks of phone tag, finally came over on Saturday morning to replace the plug, but discovered that the entire wire coming from the basement was in very bad shape (the casing was frayed to where we could see the copper... not good). So the wire and plug were completely replaced, and we're now in business in the kitchen. Mac & cheese became the first official cooked meal in the house. :)

With a working stove, we finally could justify doing the first official food shopping trip for the house. Stop & Shop was doing some 10 for $10 deals, so we stocked up on side dishes. We decided to do most of our meat purchases at BJ's Wholesale later this week. Since we have two freezers, we can save money by buying in bulk and freezing it. And since I could have pork chops for dinner half of the week in various styles, I want the ones from BJ's since they're very thick (and cook nice and juicy). It was one of those HUGE shopping trips, though. When the fridge in our apartment went dead, we were able to save some stuff, but some stuff didn't make it. We also just had been winding down food shopping, so while we did bring down a fair amount of groceries, a lot of it was dry, long-term stuff like spices and tea.

I seriously can't wait to have chicken, rice, and salad tonight for dinner. You have no idea. :)

After the electrician left, Erich left to play one of the rotating D&D games that he's involved in with the Boston-turned-Providence crew. I wound up with a long day to myself, but with very little fundage to support doing much of anything out of the house thanks to a huge bill-payment catchup and some splurges on unnecessary lunches at work. I'm currently at a position where if I take any money out of the bank, I'm going to screw myself. (sigh)

So, instead... I spent the majority of the day organizing my stitching stuff. I had (and still have) dozens of skeins of embroidery thread to wind on bobbins and put away. I got through about half of them-- I still probably have around 40 skeins to wind. In the early afternoon, I decided to do my one exploration of the day and search for the stitch shop in Cumberland that I'd found on Google months ago. When I mentioned it on a New England stitching group I joined on yahoo, I received some very positive feedback.

I found it fairly easily-- no wrong turns to get there following google maps. I clocked it at about 20 minutes from the house, and almost all of it was on a limited access highway. The first thing I noticed about the store was its size. Most supply stores (save a defunct one in Salem that was THE BEST I've ever been to) for stitching are very cramped quarters, due to their limited audience. Think front of a drycleaning shop, or maybe a baseball card store (that does not carry gaming/hobby supplies). Very cramped, stocked to the ceiling with stuff, usually with a table in the middle out of necessity... but it makes it difficult to get around. With Heart and Soul is not like that at all. The cash register is in the lobby room of the store, but there are three other rooms. One has gift stuff (Vera Bradley bags, stationery, candles, etc.). The back room is a framing and matting room. But the main room has tons of stitching supplies-- kits, leaflets, fabric (cut to order), fibers, beads, hoops and scroll rods, magazines, etc. And tons of finished works on the walls. It was a surprisingly large shop. Most of the patterns were samplers and traditional cross stitch.

I will not want for stitching supplies. At all.

Since I currently have enough patterns to keep me stitching for probably the next five to seven years (and possibly more), I honestly had no desire to buy more patterns on Saturday. I did get the skeins of thread that I was missing in my stash to prep Ivanna's wedding piece. (I'm shocked at the chart price at the site I linked, BTW... I bought it direct from the design studio last week, and it cost only $6.00). I was only missing a dozen skeins-- three of which were duplicates that I had some of in stock, but not enough for the two skeins called for (and to prevent dye lot issues, I just bought two new ones). Now I just need to match fabric from my current stash (which won't be hard to do), and that project's ready to start.

After I left the stitching store, I decided to drive back to where my path to Cumberland had veered off of Route 146. I remembered seeing that there was a drive-in theater in North Smithfield. Sara (our friend and real-estate agent) had mentioned that she and her husband had seen movies there, and that it was very close to the house.

Sure enough, just up Route 146, there was the Rustic Tri-View... in business nightly. $17.00 per car load. But it looks like they only do single-feature movies on each of their three screens. We'll have to give them a try. Mendon is a wonderful place to see movies, but it is one that's a double-feature theater... so it means it's a weekend or vacation theater. If Tri-View only has one showing, we can do that on any night of the week.

I headed home after finding the movie theater, spending the rest of the day hanging out on the couch, stitching, and getting a bit of laundry done. Erich finally came home from his game sometime around 4 a.m. I was very glad I decided to sack out sometime around 1.

Sunday morning's iced coffee run led to a forced round-about way to get home, thanks to a car accident. It turned out to be a pleasant little drive through Roger Williams Park-- (which will become a photo essay entry next weekend). Once the weather cools a bit in late summer, I plan on taking some walks over to the park. Until then, the humidity will force me to drive to the park, but then I'll walk around once inside. It's only a few blocks away to the entrance, and just so beautiful.

The rest of Sunday was errands and chores. Aside from the grocery and cat supply shopping, we got new keys cut for the house and both cars. Erich's original set of keys still has not turned up, so it was time to get that issue fixed. And for the first time since living with Erich, I have a key to his car (shocking). Erich patched the soffit over the Florida Room, which my phobia of heights would never allow me to do. We did laundry. We'll do more tonight.

Thus ends my weekend adventure.