Two years ago, I moved to the Christmas tree farm. Sort of. And I started this blog. Sort of.
See, I wasn’t actually able to move in right away, because the quaint cottage I rented turned out to be a shithole, and took about three weeks of hard labor before it was deemed livable. And this blog is actually my second one, started as a companion to the final 30 days of New York City blog, which I integrated into this one when I switched to WordPress. I was such a young and naive blogger then. I put up a link to Dooce, patiently waiting for her to link back, while hyperlinking like crazy all over the rest of the internet.
The idea of anonymity didn’t cross my mind during the first week when the blog was titled “<my real first name> in the city.” It wasn’t until The Daily Tannenbaum started up that I came up with all the nicknames I use today, and I went back and changed all the old names in my archives. I’m sure that if you are really into digging, you could find a place or two where Birmingham, and SisterAlyson are called by the names on their birth certificates. There are also a couple of posts where I called myself “Noel” before my co-worker convinced me that only men spell it that way, and if I want to be known as a girl, I have to add the “le.”
Ah, good times. It’s refreshing to know that nothing ever really changes in my broken down home. Last night I went to the supermarket after work, and came back to the cottage laden with groceries (in reusable tote bags, which I know Allie will appreciate.) Lately, my back door has been sticky, and over the weekend my dad let it swing open and hit the stopper really hard, which made a scary cracking sound. A quick investigation revealed no serious problem, but I still reminded him to treat this 150 year old structure with kid gloves. Then, last night, in a much similar way, I lost control of the heavy door because of the groceries, and it went slamming into the stopper. Then it fell of the hinges. 
For those of you who don’t live in the area, it was exactly no degrees last night, so forgoing a back door was not an option. After some finagling, I finally got it closed, not solving the problem of how I’m going to open it again. Because I was planning on leaving the house at six in the morning in order to get to free bagels morning at the gym, I had to get the door working. The only option was to call the emergency handyman, who is a nice guy, but no Julio. He came over in a jif, but then spent a full hour re-doing my hinges, sanding my threshold and screwing my door frame. (Wow, that sounds dirty…) You can see the results to the left here, and I’m sure I shouldn’t be worried about the enormous crack that runs all the way to the top of the door. What you can’t see is how freaking cold my home got while the back door was open for the hour he was working on it and the enormous oil bill I’m getting next month because the thermostat is right next to the open door.
Here’s to two more wonderful years!
