Sheila, Bedrooms, and Cate's bib on her head

Today was ship out day for Sheila, our "adoptive daughter." She has joined the Coast Guard and will be on a 3:42 plane to Philly, then riding a bus down to Cape May, NJ for 8 weeks of boot camp. We went down to Portland this morning for her swearing in and then went over to the airport, where we were able to get guest passes to go into the terminal with her. They all had to be at the airport at 11, and Cate wasn't able to last that long, so we left around 1 to come back home. Sheila was pretty nervous, but we're hoping this will be the start of a real career for her. We're really excited for her!

Changing gears, we've been working really hard the last couple of months trying to get the house ready to go back on the market. The closets are all cleaned out and organized, curtains have been washed, excess has been donated or put into Mom and Dad's new basement, workwork has been Murphy's-Oil-soaped, paint has been touched up, etc. You get the idea! One fun thing we did do was give our bedroom a little update. We bought a queen-sized mattress three years ago but have never had a queen headboard. Also, we've never had two matching nightstands. So we bought this headboard and nightstands unfinished at the Mill Stores, and I painted them. The style is "Cottage" and the color I picked was "Cottage White" by Behr. I love them!!! The lamps I found at Target, and the bedding ensemble was a Christmas present from Mom and Dad. Even Rick said, "Wow, it looks like a real bedroom!" We feel so grown up. :)

And finally, just for fun- Cate with a bib on her head.

A walk on the beach

Today was about as good of a day as one can have in Maine in early March. It was 55 degrees, bright blue sky, and not much of the white stuff left, except for a few small, dirty piles at the edges of driveways or northern sides of houses. Rick was working so I spent most of the day laundering and ironing curtains and cleaning all of the windows (plus window sills and surrounding workwork). After Cate got up from her afternoon nap, however, we decided to head down to Popham Beach. We were only there for about 45 minutes before it started getting too dark (and the gates close at sunset), but we had a great time. And though Cate was a little afraid of the water (which is probably a good thing), she loved filling up her bucket with rocks and shells, and she enjoyed scooping and throwing sand.






Popham is having some major issues with beach erosion these days. I can remember when we were little and would spend a day at Popham, and the beach seemed to go on forever. Today, there is significantly less beach between the dunes and the water, and this picture of Cate in front of an eroded dune seems to show that quite nicely.

Self-taken shot.

The sun is setting, and we're headed back down the beach toward the parking lot.