Thursday, January 14, 2016

Living the Stratford Dream

Autum Lordship.....

We had stretched out the hospitality of our Colorado host Phil while trying to settle in Breckenridge. So after things unfortunately not falling into place, we had to return 'home' to Connecticut. Fall into place they eventually did though, as we returned back to the East Coast. I had contacted with a local brewery while sending resumes to every corner of the country and following a few interviews, I was now a Cellarman on the brewing team at Two Roads Brewing Co. in Stratford, CT. With Amy taking on a short term substituting role, we could now be considered to be real contributing members of society once again.



and then winter.
A few towns up the coast from Amy's family in Stamford, we were quick to scout out accommodations of our own ending up with a lovely third floor apartment right at the beach in the suburb of Lordship, tagged the 'town within a town'. We have a little balcony overlooking the golf course and out over Long Island Sound. With the weather cooling outside, amenities were under utilized after our first month of December. Cold it was despite it being the warmest winter on record. I still managed to sneak in a few rounds of golf and a paddle-board before the year was out and the cold truly came. Walking on the beach continued through winter, as we are suckers for sunsets and we always had the place to ourselves.


 

We easily accumulated a household of furnishing, all hand me downs or unwanted items from others. This being the first time we have had a place of our own to make our own it was somewhat exciting to decorate with our own true style, with maps, Amy's artwork, framed photos and collected pieces lining the walls. I used some waste structural cardboard from work to build some shelves and a side table and piled cases of beer to make end tables, as well as providing additional beer storage.

A casual walk in the blizzard
Although I have a quick 10 minute bike ride to the brewery, Amy unfortunately has continued to commute back to Stamford. Seemingly along with every other person from the East Coast also heading South West towards NYC. It takes her an hour or more in each direction to get to school as her position as the reading specialist at Springdale Elementary has been continued through to the end of the school year. Seeing small groups from Kindergarten to Fifth grade age children, she really enjoys her job. She has a lot of responsibility and has quickly adapted to the role of creating lessons and finding resources as she works on reading skills with struggling students. 


We celebrated all the holidays in true Sierpina family fashion, with the big family Thanksgiving, Christmas tree farm tree cutting down ceremony, a night into NYC to check out the light displays and the big day of course. Amy hadn't been home for Christmas in three years, so that was very nice for her. I even got my own stocking to hang with the rest of the family's, which Diane handmade made for me. 

Short Beach Sunset