Good morning friends! Welcome to a cloudy but, thankfully, less humid day here in Southern New Jersey. We can virtually catch up over coffee and my husband’s homemade blueberry muffins. Sit. Relax. Let’s chat!
If we were having coffee...you would have joined me in waving to Mr D as he headed out the door a few minutes ago. He and some friends are off to the beach for the day. It’s a bit cloudy here but apparently 70 miles to the east there is part sun. I don’t know if it matters though. A day at the beach is still a day at the beach. I’m glad he will have something fun to do since it’s been a tough week for him. His girlfriend moved up to Syracuse NY this week to do a two month rotation for her Athletic Trainer’s degree at Syracuse University. Two months is a long time when you’re 25 so neither one was very happy about the placement but they knew it was a great opportunity for her to train at a really good school. They’re both really responsible young adults and have been together a few years now (I’m pretty sure it will eventually lead to the altar) so they will manage this hump just fine but in the meantime we have to live with a slightly grumpy guy! Like I said, I’m glad he’s off to the beach for the day. 🙂
If we were having coffee...I would tell you that Miss D and I are planning to walk uptown later and visit a new cookie shop that opened last weekend. “Is there anything better than a cookie shop?” you might ask. My answer would be “Only a bookstore would be better” and, guess what? We’re getting one of those too! It will be called “Words Matter Books” and the owner is now finishing up work that was slowed down due to the shelter in place. Hopefully they will open in the next few weeks. I can’t wait! In the past year the uptown business district has added an Antique Store, an English Pub and a ladies clothing boutique. Now we have the cookie shop and the bookstore added to the already established ceramic studio, pharmacy, bakery, homemade Ice Cream Shoppe, and several other eateries all three blocks from my house! This is one advantage to living in a small town.
Of course small town living certainly has it’s disadvantages too. Other than the fact that everyone seems to know your business, our population, teaching staff and business owners are embarrassingly undiverse. This is something we newer folks have been battling for years. Finally it looks like it is being addressed with a new committee on diversity and inclusion being added to the town board. I have noticed in the past few years that we’ve been inching in the right direction electing young forward thinking council people who are dragging the town into the present. There are many families that have lived here for generations (we moved in a mere 17 years ago) and some tend to be a bit stuffy and slow to change. Hopefully the archaic views are on their way out. I guess time will tell.
Anyway…
If we were having coffee… I would probably look around and realize that the day has started without me. I would love to chat longer but I really should attempt to clean some things and be productive. I’m glad we had time to visit though because after six months sheltering at home my world view has begun to narrow. These coffee shares have become extra important. They act as a window to the events outside my walls and beyond my porch. I plan on visiting some of the other posts over at our host site Eclectic Ali. Please try and stop by as well.
Thanks for visiting!!
The View from the Porch 
Your small town life sounds charming, but not without its stresses. I haven’t been in a cookie shop in years. Around here bakeries do it all, cookies just being maybe 20% of their business.
[Also, unrelated, when I see your photo of Jack I smile because he’s cute, of course, but because we have that same floral throw pillow. Small world.]
How funny is it that we ended up with the same pillows! And Jack was always good at making people smile. Thanks for visiting.
Its a bit warm winter is alomst over now we are mozzying over to the hot dry season and the the rains come.
Lockdown is still much active and I miss the outside havent been to a book store since this year begun I wonder if we will still have them when all this is over
Have an awesome week
~B
I certainly hope so. A world without bookstores would be a terrible thing. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by. Stay safe and try to enjoy the week.
You are so lucky to have a book store actually opening in your town! Most places, they are closing, which is a huge loss.
I agree, Ann! An afternoon wandering around a bookstore is one of my favorite pastime. Buying books online is just not the same. Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for the coffee, treat and downtown walk. Have a great week.
Thanks! Hope you have a good week too.
Thank you, Nancy, for the coffee and home baked blueberry muffins. So sweet to read about your Mr D’s young love. I hope a day at the beach lifts his mood. Your planned outing with Miss D sounds great, what’s not to love about books and cookies? Have a wonderful upcoming week!
Thanks for visiting! Our outing was a lot of fun. The cookies are excellent, if a bit expensive ($1.50 a piece!) Maybe just a treat for special occasions. I hope you enjoy your week as well.
The picture you paint of your town in my head it is a very picturesque one. I;m starting to wonder what style and type of building you have downtown ? I bet the new cookie shop and bookstore will add a lot to town. I live slightly outside town, but the area is still. part of town. It is a rather small town I live in as well, 32 000 lives in town, but close to 60 000 if you count the suburbs that technically re a part of town. “The suburbs” is country side 🙂 Thank you for the coffee, and have a great rest of your day.
What could be better than cookies and books! It would be complete with your favorite beverage on the side, or ice cream! Sounds like a start to a good weekend. I can totally relate to Mr D as and the girlfriend. I have been in a long distance relationship for almost three years now and it’s tough. We started to work on our plans this year and then COVID happened. Two months will pass by fast, I’m sure they will be okay. I still have fridge magnet with a blueberry pie recipe I picked up as a souvenir when I wen to NJ back in 2011. I tried it a couple of times and turned our good. Unfortunately, the fruit doesn’t come common from where I live (Philippines). I miss the beach and it would be nice to get out there once the rainy season is over here. Thank you for the muffins and the coffee share. Have a great week!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Apparently NJ is the blueberry capital of the world but I’ve not seen any scientific proof regarding that. 🙂 This past school year, I worked with a lovely young girl who was from the PhIlippines. If I remember correctly, she said it was quite a long travel time to get back there whenever she went to visit family so I guess making a short trip here just to pick up blueberries would not be very practical! I’m sure you are right about my son and his girl weathering this time apart. Long distance relationships certainly benefit greatly from the current technology. FaceTime is wonderful and when my son visited Greece last summer, we were still able to chat with him every few days through something called WhatsApp. Thanks again for visiting. Have a good week.
Ah yes. Provinces here (being equal to countrysides and even far suburban areas there) can take a long time to reach especially that transportation becomes limited as you go farther. But having a family waiting for you with home cooked meals is always worth it at the end of the trip.
Aw, I bet Mr. D is already missing his girlfriend. Hope he had fun at the beach anyway. Times are so uncertain right now. My husband and I got married at age 22 and 25 respectively in far from ideal times (2011) and thankfully, we’re still going strong. We’ve faced some significant challenges though.
Awww, the cookie shop sounds so nice. I don’t really care for bookstores, as I can’t read print books due to being blind. My mother and sister both love them though.
Oh and thanks for the homemade blueberry muffins. I love blueberry anything.
Thanks so much for stopping by! I’m glad you enjoyed the muffins. Lucky for me, my husband loves to bake and NJ is famous for our blueberries. Someone told me that the sandy soil here is really good for growing them. Have a great week.
Hi Nancy.
How about a book store with a coffee and cookie shop inside? We had one here for many years, but they could not adapt fast enough to Amazon so we lost them.- it was so sad. Loved that store.
Our 28 year old young Mr. and his girl friend are pressing hard to get married but they want their financial situations stable and both see enough covid challenges that it’s getting in the way. Life was so much easier for us when my wife and I were their ages.
I want that simplicity for them.
That shop sounds like something I should open when I retire in a few years! My husband is an excellent baker so he could supply the goodies. I was thinking that I might let the owner of the bookstore that’s opening that I would be willing to work evenings and weekends in exchange for books. 🙂 I quite agree about things being much more complicated for young people starting out now. I hope your son and his lady will figure it out eventually. I keep telling my daughter that after all this craziness, the rest of her life (hopefully) will seem simple in comparison. Have a great week.
Your little downtown sounds great. There is almost nothing in the little downtown of my village in NH, but a little more on Cape Cod. It’s cool, cloudy and windy here, but still might be a beach day 😉 I hope you are enjoying your weekend and have a wonderful week ahead 🙂
Uptown is a really nice area now. For a while it was very empty but was revitalize when the theater reopened. I forgot to mention that the biggest draw uptown is the historic theater built back in the 1920s. It fell into disrepair and was closed for quite some time but then new owners took over and renovated the whole building. The shows at the theater are a big draw and that brings in business for the smaller shops that have opened. Have a great week. Enjoy the cooler weather.
My little village in NH has a theater, which is cool. There is also a candy shop that makes all of its own candies. There is a really strange general store that has been there forever. But not much else right now. Some restaurants have come and gone. There is an antique shop, but not the best around. 25 years ago there was so much more, including a used book store and the best art supply store in the region, but it is all gone. Hope your weekend is going well 🙂
I would love a used book store and an art supply store to open here. We used to have a hobby and craft store that was opened for over 30 years then the owner retired and mover to Florida. The new Antique store opened in it’s place. I really miss it.
The used book store moved about 15 miles away, but to a much higher visibility spot, and the art supply store died with its owner. I think was in his late 80s and the store had been there forever.