Quite a long time ago now, I don't remember exactly when, I wrote about a TV show that I was crazy about. The show was called, Outlander.  I don't know if any of you are fans or not.  If you are a fan, you will probably understand this.  If you aren't a fan of this particular show, I'm sure there was a different show that you were especially fond of, so you will also probably understand.

My show, (well not mine personally but the one I am referring to), Outlander, is nearly done.  After 12 years and 8 seasons, we are coming to the end.   The finale, the very last episode EVER airs tonight.  And the anticipation is absolutely crazy.  Not just mine but that of Outlander fans around the world.  (there are literally millions of us - Millions!)

There's the wild and weird thing that happens to me (and I'm sure others) as we anticipate the Last of something.  I both desperately want to know what is going to happen in the story, but, equally desperately, I don't want it to end.  And so I suppose if I don't watch it, it never ends.  A Schrodinger sort of thing?  I felt the same way at the end of both Quantum Leap and X-Files, so I should be used to such things by now, but I'm totally not.

I am reasonably certain that there will be tears.  Mine.  Whether or not this last episode has a sad moment in it or not, I will be weepy.  Good-bye's are hard.  And even harder is the fact that I won't be watching the finale when it drops tonight.   What? That sounds crazy.

Some people that we love, who are also Outlander fans, suggested that we watch the finale together.  The phrase, "misery loves company" comes immediately to mind. But they aren't available until tomorrow so I have bravely agreed to wait.  Which means also not reading any of thing online about it. And the Spoilers are Everywhere!   And to everyone threatening to ell me what happens ahead of time, I have closed my eyes and plugged my ears - lalalalalala, I don't hear you, I don't see you!

One my of neighbors, also a huge fan, called me this morning to talk about it.  When I told her that we were waiting until tomorrow she was shocked.  How could I possibly wait after all this time? She did agree to resist discussing it with me further until she is positive that I've seen that last show which is a sacrifice on her part as well!  Much Appreciated :)

She's not entirely wrong though.  12 years of dedicated fandom is nothing to sneeze at after all.  We deserve the satisfaction of this last episode!  But I have promised and so I shall wait.  My assumption is that the anticipation will make it all that much more powerful an episode!  Though to be fair, each and every episode was so dang good, and the expectation of this finale is running so high that I'm not sure it could be any bigger.

I'm treating this occasion as a big deal, because to us, it is!   There will be food - burgers on the grill - and cake!  We will all be a little sad, but cake makes almost everything a little better. I will be in the state of "sad, but cake filled" which is to say, I will survive.

One of the things that will help to fill the Outlander void is that there is a whole other show, written, produced and directed by the same folks who did Outlander, called "Blood of my Blood' which is the Prequel to Outlander.    Basically the story of the parents of the Outlander folks.  I've already seen Season One which was pretty good.  Season Two comes out in the fall.  

The other thing that'll get me though are the books.  Outlander the TV series was based on Outlander the books. Very HEAVILY based.  Usually books turned into movies or TV shows are either just plain terrible or merely anemic versions.  This time, magically, all the stars in the universe were properly aligned and I loved both the show and the books with the same fervor.  A rare thing indeed.  And I have all the books.  I can re-read them anytime I want. Actually I don't have all of the books because the last book, Book number 10 hasn't been released yet. I'm not positive that the author is finished with it.

So how on earth did they finish a TV series which is strongly based on a book series when the book series is not yet done, you ask?  Well with great imagination I should think.    I have trusted the writers through more than 100 episodes of this beloved series, I believe I can trust them through one more.

Anyway, Cheers to you, Outlander!  The writer, the producers, directors, actors and everyone behind the scenes. You did a brilliant job. I loved every moment of it and while I shall miss it terribly, I do not regret one single second of it.  Thanks for the memories!

Howdy do and what's new?

I guess  the biggest, most recent news  was Mother's Day this past Sunday!  If you are a mom, I  hope you were well celebrated.  If you have a mom, grandmom or mom-figure in your life, I hope you celebrated them!  

I was lauded and applauded thoroughly.  Flowers, cards, texts, phone calls all made my weekend bright and happy!  Tim brought in donuts for breakfast since we all know that Mother's Day donuts have zero fat or calories!!  Tim then went on to tell me that we would do whatever I wanted to do. Geez, what do I want to do?

The only thing I could think of was that I needed a haircut and birdseed.  Tim shook his head and chuckled.  I could do ANYTHING, go ANYWHERE, and that's what I came up with?  Yup, that's all I could think of.  So, off we went, I got a  haircut (I'm  uncertain how I feel about how it turned out frankly, but I really liked the young lady who did the work)  Gosh I'm looking old but then what did I expect?  I'm 72 for heaven's sakes!  Obviously I did NO editing or photo shopping. This is me, it's what I really look like.  It'll  have to do.

Then we headed to Walmart to pick up some birdseed for the feeder outside.  Not because I enjoy shopping at Walmart, I most certainly do not, but because they had a sale.  Pragmatic decision.   Once we got home, I filled the feeder and within about 10 minutes it was packed with birds:  grackles, a wood pecker, a bluejay, some sort of finch and a few others. The kittyboys were in heaven!  Cat TV!

When dinner time approached I got the same question," Where would you like to go for dinner?  I will take you anywhere you want to go."  Hmmm. I gave it some serious thought. What was I in the mood for?   Took me a little bit but eventually I figured it out.  where?  Arby's.  I hadn't eaten there in probably a year? Maybe a little longer?  And for some reason, it just sounded like what I wanted.  I got the headshake again, "Ok if that's what you want".  It was what I wanted.  What can I tell you?  I guess I'm kind of low-rent.  

We ate in the family room while watching one of the Jack Ryan movies, the one with Ben Affleck. Haven't seen that in a long time.  It was a treat!  Followed it up by watching yet another Jack Ryan movie, this time the one with Alex Baldwin.  Frankly, Ben Affleck did a better job as the main character than  Baldwin.  I think Chris Pine did a nice job  as did Harrison Ford but John Krasinski, thus far, has done the best job of portraying him. My humble opinion.  I am open to entertaining your opinion :)

It was a good day.

I appreciated so much the love and care that went into making Mother's Day special for me, but I confess to having some difficulty with the day.  Not sure why.  Maybe because I don't have my own mother or mother-in-law to celebrate anymore?  I always did a pretty good job of pointing the celebration in the direction of someone else. Maybe I just don't know how to be celebrated?  I am awkward and a little weird about it all but I try reallllly hard to act as normal as possible . I fear that my desperate attempt to act "normal" is sort of like a teenager coming home a little drunk and attempting to act "normal" which ends up being the exact opposite of normal.  I hope everyone who showered me with time, attention and affection felt properly thanked. 

ANYHOO,  Mother's Day is over, Father's Day is on the horizon, a little more than a month away so I have plenty of time to obsess over that.  

Let's see what else. Surely there is more news. Oh yeah, I remember now. We now have gutters on our house!  Huzzah!  Tim hired some very nice young men who came and took care of it on Monday and, impressively cleaned up perfectly after themselves. Now I'm excited to have a rain storm so we can see the difference! Hopefully the difference will mean not having a pond in the front courtyard that we have to wade through coming in and out the front door. That would be nice.

Oh!  And on another note, I have new dishtowels!  Perhaps not exciting to you, but I'm overjoyed.  I think in total it was 18 new dish towels (I use a LOT of dishtowels), 3 different types.   There are two kitty ones, 4 botanical ones and 12 of the others. And I will go through them all on a regular basis.  We use them for as napkins, trivets, to set hand washed items on after washing, for wet shoes when we come inside, as place mats occasionally, to set heavy glass vases on to protect the table underneath, etc.  Oh yes, I also dry dishes with them. So I go through many in an average week.  The old ones that were thin and raggedy and, in some instances, a little holey, went into the garage rag pile. Still useful but no longer kitchen pretty.

I reckon that's all the news for today.  

Hope all is well with all of you!

​Hugs all 'round

That's a big dang tree! The branches at the top kind of remind me of Medusa :)

Welcome to another Photo Safari Report!  I'm excited to jump into this one so I'll tell you the best part upfront.  I'm calling this post the Eagle Family Hike for what will very shortly be an obvious reason.

Very early in the hike, within probably 15 minutes  we saw this gorgeous creature.  An American Bald Eagle:

I have no idea if this gorgeous creature is the Mr or the Mrs and when I took this photos, I also had no idea that this was just one member of an entire family!  

Joy and I took a zillion or so photos, talking about how lucky we were to capture it and then we moved on. More walking, more talking, more photos.  And then, a mile or so later, Joy spied this:

I'll be honest. I wasn't absolutely certain what sort of giant bird I was looking at.  I knew from the beak and the stance that it was some sort of predator bird but as I was running through my mental catalogue of possibilities it wasn't matching anything I knew.  So I asked and learned that this was a juvenile eagle.  How exciting!  This was, basically, a teenager eagle. How beautiful is this guy or girl (I never can tell)

Not much farther long we came across:
​

Oh Me, Oh My!  There were two of them!  Siblings, clearly.  This was way off the coolio scale. If I had ever seen a juvenile eagle before, I had no idea what I was seeing then. But I can absolutely swear to you that I'd never seen 2 of them at the same time! Wow!

Oh it gets even better!  How could it possibly get better, you ask?  Hang on to your bird-watching hats, friends:

In the same tree, THREE members of the same eagle family!  Dad (or mom) and two kiddos!  Holy Cats!  

We stood there happy snapping for a bit and then Joy suggested that we retrace our steps back to the first eagle sighting,  see if that one is still there. If so, oh my gosh, we might have seen the entire eagle family!  

As Joy is talking and I'm nodding along, we see the youngsters take wing and head in the direction we were already planning to go.  Off we went at the fastest hobble we could manage (both Joy and I have foot injuries that were ouching big time that day).  

Once we arrived back where we believed we began,  we were delighted to see that, yes, Mama or Daddy, was still in the same spot.  

We wondered what he (or she) was starring at so fixedly. It wasn't a prey stare......?  We followed the line of sight and found not only the nest but also, the youngsters back IN the nest! Wow!  And yes those nests are massive!

What an amazing start to a hike!

Eventually we moved on and saw other things that we deemed photo worthy.  Here are a few more birds. I will say that I missed easily a dozen shots of other birds. I was just moving too slow. Oh well.  Here it what I have:

We had a good soaking rain last Saturday so there were a few more botanicals then lately, but once the rains start showing  up regularly, it will be a regular flower show. Yay!

There were the friendliest bunnies!  While some careened away in wild directions in abject terror (coz we are, apparently terribly scary) others hopped right up to us!  Is someone feeding these bunnies and they thought we had goodies?  Oh and a surprisingly blase squirrel!

I believe I have a couple of randos still in the collection from yesterday.  Shall I add those in too?  Whyever not!  

I reckon that's it!   We've come to the end of the Eagle Family Hike which was awesome!  Hope you enjoyed this Photo Safari Report and I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Well dang it all. I missed posting on my usual Tuesday once again. I'm so sorry. I've always thought of myself as a person that you can count upon.  If I say I'm going to do something, I, by gosh, do it!  And for most of my life that's just been the way that I operated. For everything in my life, even the blogpost. Every Tuesday and every Friday, like clockwork, I produced a blogpost.  I took that Tuesday/Friday deadline seriously. Like Dead Seriously. (terrible pun, sorry)

I prefer my life to be tidy.  I like knowing ahead, planning,  having life well arranged.  This is both literal and figurative. I know where every item of mine in this house is.  If you asked me if we had, oatmeal for example, I could tell you precisely where it is in the panty.  Could you borrow a pair of scissors, you ask? I can tell you exactly where to find them (and please replace them in the exact same place, thank you)  I even know where every item of clothing that I own is and can find it In The Dark. Ok that's maybe a little scary but it's true.   Same goes with my personal calendar of events.  It's not rigid, but it is neat and clean.  I've always said that I'm open to being spontaneous as long as it's well planned (heh)

This extended into life as well.  If I say I'm working on Monday and Wednesday, then you know exactly where I will be, appropriately dressed, with a smile on my face and ready to go on those days.   On the days I designated as laundry days, that's what I'm doing, laundry.  I clean on cleaning days, shop on shopping days, post blog on blog posting days, etc. etc. etc. It's been a pretty good balance of doing the things I am obligated to do and doing the things that I want to do.

But somehow, lately, my calendar seems to be getting away from me, it's a little out of control My list of gotta-do's is getting in the way of my list of wanna-do's.  I hate when that happens.  And it's not a matter of me suddenly being scattered and unorganized at all.  It's also not that I have recently decided to be cavalier about missing an, admittedly, self-imposed, goal.   

As always there are reasons. Not as excuses but as genuine explanations.

And, as per usual, it's not just one thing, it's multiple things, layers of things, all legitimate but still .....    For example:  1) We are very short handed at the museum so I'm picking up extra shifts.  Every moment I spend there, something isn't getting done here.  Just a fact. 2) Medical Appointments.  I don't know about where you live, but where we live securing a doctor appointment is a delicate thing.  There are so many people vying for the doctor's time that there is no picking and choosing days and times, you take what you get and work the rest of your life around it.    3) Projects.  Lately we seem to be taking on a lot of home projects of one sort of another and those are always more time consuming than anticipated and  4)  Doggone it, I hate to admit it, but I'm tired.  I wear out faster than I used to and, the big and, the most important and, nowadays I'm willing to admit it and then sit down.

That's new to me.  I feel like I spent most of my life tired but I didn't have time to sit down.  Sitting down felt like an indulgence that I couldn't afford. I just pushed through, kept going, kept swinging no matter what.  Just took a deep breath, smiled and moved forward.  I never caught up but, I reasoned, at least I wasn't falling too far behind.   YEARS ago,  when I was in what is now called middle school, I briefly ran track. I was strictly a distance running because what I lacked in speed, I had in stamina.  I made sure I had just enough umph left inside me for that final kick of energy at the end, but mostly I just kept moving forward.  The coach told us that " no matter how tired we thought we were,  we could always take one more step. Everyone  has it in them to pull it together to take one more step. And the one more, and one more and before you know it, you have made it through to the end".

I guess I took that to heart and used it in my everyday life. It served me well.  I did make it through every day and everything that needed to be done, somehow got done both in my professional life and in my home life. I just kept taking that one more step rather than giving in and sitting down.

And then I retired.  I took me quite awhile to adapt to being retired.  I kept pushing and organizing and prioritizing (then endlessly reprioritizing) my day, every day just like I did when I was working full time (sometimes also working a second, part time gig as well).  Then one day, when I was so tired that I literally ached from it, to my surprise, I sat down.  During the middle of the afternoon, I sat down.  I picked up a book and sat in a comfortable chair, and it was glorious.  So glorious, in fact, that I almost immediately fell asleep, sitting up in that chair with an unopened book in my lap.  AND the world didn't come to an end.  

Somehow everybody got fed, laundry got done, the house is clean enough and life went on.  It was an epiphany for me.  Why was I still pushing so hard?  Just habit?  Probably.    I began to re-prioritize things a bit.   I remembered not so much what my old coach said (the one more step guy) but more what my old philosophy professor said, "Hey 110 years from now, who will know the difference?"  Brilliant!  

So nowadays, while I still have my preferred getting the laundry done days and my preferred blogpost writing days, if it doesn't happen to happen as I hoped, I forgive myself and move on.  I show up to work on time, I show up to doctor appointments as required, everything that absolutely needs to get done, gets done and some of the things I'd like to happen, actually happen. Some don't. Or at least they didn't yesterday. But it did happen today and it's okay.  Because, when it's not contrary to the things I absolutely have to do from now on, if I need to sit a minute, I'll sit.  If I want to read for awhile, I will read. And if a nap is calling, I will answer.

I will continue to try to post every Tuesday and Friday, but occasionally life, or a really good nap, might get in the way.  And then I'll try to post, instead, the next day.  Because my old philosophy professor was correct, "110 years from now, who will know the difference?"

Have a Great Rest of Your Week!  The plan is to post again on Friday!

One of my favourite sounds, is that of laughter.  Particularly if the laughter is unexpected.  It's like a bonus, the cherry on  top of the sundae, the BOGO you didn't know about, the awesome free with purchase.  When I am already having a great time and then I hear it: children's giggles, a  man's throaty chuckle,  a baby's uninhibited chortles of glee, a clutch of older ladies, tittering over the cups of coffee,  a gathering of young people howling and helpless, overcome with joy.  But the laughter that I enjoy the most, though it's selfish of me to say so, is my own.

And speaking of laughter:

Yesterday, as per usual, Joy and I got together.  But not in the usual  Thursday Photo Safari Way.  Due to scheduling conflicts, it was late morning before we met up so we decided to just "walk the avenue" instead.  That means window shopping on Venice Ave which is the heart of the shopping district here on the island.  It's only a few flower laden streets but they are loaded with an almost endless number of shopping and eating options.  It's glorious and not something Joy and I do on a regular basis, so it was a treat.

We hit a few of our favourite shops, talking and walking, catching up on family and friends, events and appointments, observations and announcements, asking for and giving advice and talking in such a circuitous fashion that it's hard for other people to follow our conversation.  In between topics we stop to check out shop windows, pointing out things we like for ourselves, each other and other people we know, commenting on pertinent things like the weather (hot and humid), our feet (which hurt), our hands, (which didn't!) and our clothes (which were comfortable).  We stopped at the bakery which was sold out of Bob's favourite lemon bars and Joy tried on a dress which she liked on the hangar but not on herself.

We dropped into Nana's Toy Shop where Joy found some adorable things for her great Nieces and we petted all of the stuffed animals and coo-ed over the precious baby clothes, teensy socks and bonnets.

We checked out all of the shoe options at Joy's favourite shoe store (she has very hard to fit feet and that particular store almost always has shoes that work for her which is amazing and wonderful.  I gazed longingly into the window of the Gelato store as we passed and quickly perused the sale rack in front of the $10 shop.

Then we arrived at Venice Stationary Shop.  There actually is some very pretty stationary in the store but mostly it's a thousand other things.  It's one of my go-to shops for gift giving.  We had a terrific time strolling through, checking things out, pointing out this'n'that to each other and making mental notes for future Christmas Shopping and in general having a lovely time.  Then we rounded a corner and Joy spotted a spinning rack that held brightly coloured cocktail napkins.  On each napkin there were words printed so, naturally, out of curiosity, we checked them out.  Joy read the first one, first to herself, then softly, out loud to me.  We both came to a full stop, frozen for a moment, then we caught each other's eye and started laughing in the fizzy sort of way that happens when you try to Not Laugh.

I softly read the next one out loud, and it happened again. Soft fizzy laughter.  Back and forth we went, taking turns reading cocktail napkins, quietly,  out loud to each other and then laughing.  We started out relatively constrained and well behaved (we were raised to be ladies after all) but by the end, we were dissolving into laughter so hard (and I'm sure loud) that our heads were thrown back, our hands were clapped over our mouths, eyes twinkling, sides aching from trying too hard to hold back and faces hurting from all the smiling.  

People passing by us, laughed as well. Perhaps just at how silly we looked while laughing, or maybe they were cheered by what fun we were having.  It is rather contagious.   The words on those napkins were unexpected, very amusing, sometimes slightly naughty, and I wish I could remember even one of them to share with you but I cannot.

Once we had finally read them all, we approached the checkout with the few items Joy had picked up  to purchase so as our giggles wound down, we caught our breath once more, pulled ourselves together, wiped our eyes, and approached the checkout,  Immediately, we apologized for our behaviour. We do know how to behave in public but, hey, funny is funny and we just temporarily forgot ourselves.  The sales lady waved it off and said it happens all day, every day. And that kind of made me laugh all over again, just picturing different groups of people, some locals, mostly visitors, gathering around those napkins, reading them perhaps to themselves, but probably out loud, and laughing just as we did. 

The laughter felt so good.  It's such a release!  And it taps into some other realm of existence where nothing is a big deal, everything is manageable,  the universe is balanced,  and all is well with the world.  Laughter does a body, mind and soul good, lots of good, heaps of good, piles of it,  stacks of it!!  Clearly I need to do a lot more of it.

Laughter. Highly Recommended. 1000 stars out of 10!

Welcome to another Photo Safari Report!  I'll call this one the Quick and Painless hike because it was both.    Due to time constraints it was a short hike and probably because it was a short hike, nobody's feet required icing afterwards!  Woohoo!  It was still absolutely worth the time to be tramping around in nature for a little bit and Joy and I always enjoy time spent together so it's all good.

Obviously, since it was a shorter hike, I don't have very  many photos.  Add in the fact that most of the (very few) pictures I actually did take, didn't turn out very good. Not sure what the dealio was on that. I mentioned it to Joy and she said many of her pictures didn't come out well either.  Odd.  Just one of those days I suppose.  Luckily at least One of Joy's pictures was a really good one. It's the one at the top of the page  :)

The rest of the pictures are mine, such as they are and I reckon we can go through them together it you like. Honestly, it'll only take a minute or two.  Very few photos today.  Very Very few pictures. (sigh)

I think this was one of only two pictures of birds that I ended up with, and it was hard won!  Woodpeckers move fast and the tree was quite full and lush which means lots of hiding spots.  I am actually surprised that I got this one! It's far from  perfect, but you can tell what it is.  

The only other bird picture was of cardinals, Mr and Mrs both, which makes it an unusual photo on it's own. We saw dozens of cardinals zipping through the foliage like little missiles - zooom!  Impossible for me to capture even on my best day. But then we came across these two, way way way down the trail ahead of us and we were still and quiet so as not to disturb them, used telephoto lenses and.... success (of sorts)

I did get a couple of caterpillar pictures of my own too. They were everywhere, we had to keep an eye out constantly to keep from accidentally stepping on any!  Here is one of them.  Watching them eat their way through the forest I keep hearing the "hungry hungry hippos" song in my head.

I have a couple of botanicals that aren't too bad. I'll throw them in the mix too. Why not!  At this point, every half way decent photo counts!

And that's it.  The entire lot.  Sad, but true.  

It was still a great day. In fact, as far as weather goes, it was a perfect day!  Dry (in fact very dry. Our weather bulletins are in bright red, reporting a critical lack of humidity. critical!)  but low temps, 60 to low 70's.  Just about perfect. Far too nice to spend time indoors.

Thanks for coming along on the Quick and Painless Hike.  Wishing all of you a terrific weekend. Hope we meet here again next week!

​Hugs all 'round

 That looks like a hard working hand, eh?  Well it's my hand and it is, indeed, filthy.  And the reason that my hands were so very dirty was that Tim and I were working on the "future garden" over the weekend!  

The so-called "future garden" had kind of reached mythical proportions. It was sort of one of those things that we day dreamed about but were beginning to believe was never truly going to happen.  Sort of like winning the lottery or flying to the moon!

Should I back up and remind everyone about the "future garden"?  Ok, quick time out then.  In front of our house is a walled courtyard. 

For whatever unknown reason, the people who lived in the house before us created a very nice pavered area on one side of the courtyard but not the other.  We have since cluttered up the side that has the pretty pavers very nicely with wooden seats and tables, a grill and a load of potted plants.  We have pretty much ignored the other side of the courtyard because we have always been working on the inside of the house, one project after another for literally years.

Last year (I think) I got so fed up with the gravel and sand and awful looking weeds and scraggeldy stuff on the non-pavered side that I shoveled up buckets of gravel and spread it in the driveway (which is also mostly gravel and shells) and pulled/dug/yanked and cursed the weeds and whatever the heck else was in there, out.  I wasn't 100% positive what we were going to put in there, but I knew it was NOT going to be the crappola that already existed.  Which left only a decent hedge on one side and what looked like a desert on the other.

Tim and I gave it a great deal of thought, first leaning toward one idea and then another. We knew we wanted a garden of some sort so we referred to it as the "future garden", very hopefully. Meanwhile, we attempted, repeatedly to "amend" the soil.  But since the "soil" was actually just sand, it didn't work.  Over and again, we would amend and plant and the plants would immediately keel over and die.  It was all very sad.   

Somewhere along the line the idea of a raised bed garden came up.  Not sure who said it first, probably Tim. He is the sort of person who comes up with good ideas.  I did some reading about raised beds and agreed that this was probably The Answer.  I left the actual construction of the beds to Tim as that is NOT in my wheelhouse and I focused my research on how best to have a successful raised bed garden here in Florida.

Turns out that prepping the bed prior to the dirt being loaded in is key!  After reading copious amount of information, I began saving paper towel and toilet paper rolls (as this is organic material that easily breaks down) cutting them up and stuffing them into a big old garbage bag in the utility room to save.  I also saved stacks of newspapers and multiple bags of the Shred in Tim's office.  This was a great start.  I knew when the day finally came, I would be ready!

That day came on Saturday.  We were up bright and early and Tim was building the raised beds.  It was a sunny gorgeous day that turned hot very quickly with the sun beating down so hard that the sweat was running into our eyes as we worked. No Bueno!  Tim had the smart idea to set up our Canopy over the worksite.  The actually setting up took a bit of time and work itself but once it as done, Ahhhhh! Much better!

There is a curve you can see in the courtyard wall that made construction tricky, but it all got sorted out.    Once the beds were fully constructed and secured to the ground, I immediately started emptying in the carboard rolls, followed by layers of newspaper and then wetting all of that down.  Next up was loading in the bags of soil that we found, ON SALE (woohoo) months ago.  Who knew that dirt would be so heavy!   We really got our exercise.  Each bag got dropped randomly in the first bed, cut open and then emptied.  I laughed out loud when I realized that all of those bags, at least 8 of them probably more(I forgot to count), barely made a dent. 

So I swept up and we put the tools away, threw away the garbage and binned the recycle and I assumed that we might head back to the garden center the upcoming weekend for more bags-o-dirt to finish filling at least that first bed.

To my great surprised yesterday a huge truck from Home Depot pulled up and dropped off a pallet of soil and compost!  Wow!  Tim anticipates me ;)

Gosh! I am so excited! It's like Christmas Morning for me right now.  I cannot wait to get out there and open one of those bags of compost so I can work it into the soil, then another bag of soil followed by more compost, etc.  Woohoo!

I think I'm going to just concentrate on ONE bed at a time.  Let's get the first one completely prepped, then get some plants/flowers in and see how they do.  If they do well, then I'm on the right track and I can just repeat the same process however many other times necessary for however many other beds we have.  If, however things do not go well, then I can figure out what went wrong and fix it before I spend beaucoup bucks foolishly!!

My hope is to find colourful bee and butterfly friendly plants and flowers, hopefully fragrant ones as well, that tolerate full sun coz that is a doggone sunny side of the courtyard! The canopy cannot live there forever guys.

The long range plan is that once all the beds are complete, then I can put landscape fabric down in the "walkway", topped with gravel and stepping stones of sorts.  Tim already put in a watering system so I think we are nearly done. NEARLY DONE!

I'm ready to get out there and get filthy all over again today!   Dirt for a glorious cause! My mother would be proud.

There we are, two intrepid explorers, out in the wilds of Florida, attempting to capture true representations of our adventures!  Yay!

Obviously I'm finishing up this week with yet another Photo Safari Report.  I'm calling this one the "Ditto Hike" because we kept seeing new versions of the same basic thing over and over again.  You might think that makes for boring photos but I say, "nay, nay". I believe, instead, it gives a more multi-dimensional view of each individual thing. 

I'll start with the cardinals. Or perhaps it's just a whole lot of photos of one cardinal, I have no clue.  What do you think?  Was he following us around, hoping we'd take more photos of him OR does he just have a lot of friends and a big family?

And then there were the hawks.  Not even positive if they are all the same kind or different kinds.....I am no hawk expert .  At least I do know a predator bird when I see one and I'm equally grateful that they do not see me as prey.  *shiver*

There were the "ditto" amount of the same sort of woodpeckers too.  Here's a few:

Let's see, there was also one lone bluejay, several scrub jays, a dove and maybe a thrasher.

Even the bunnies were in 'ditto' mode!  Wow!

There must be some sort of Xerox machine out there hidden in the forest because there were duplicates of some of the botanicals too! (You will know it when you see it) Crazy!

I'll finish up with a couple of rando's if you do not mind:

So there you have it, the Ditto Hike!  Hope you enjoyed this repetitive Photo Safari Hike!  We did!

Have a terrific weekend, Catch ya again next week!

Here I am, a day later than normal (sorry about that) with yesterday's blog post. I know I know, normally I post on Tuesdays and Fridays.  I don't know what my deal was yesterday but I just couldn't get out of my own way.  And therefore, Tuesdays post is, this week only, on Wednesday.  I've just messed up my own entire week!

Oh well.  I'll start again.

Welcome to today's Blog post, The Fashion Edition!  Actually since I haven't cracked open a fashion magazine in literally years.....I have no idea at all what is currently in style.   But I do know that I was overdue buying a couple of new pieces for a number of reasons.  #1 and most importantly, I wanted to. I'm going to be very honest and say that sometimes I just feel like being self-indulgent. So when Tim suggested a little shopping trip, I did not do my usual, "no thanks honey",  "I'd rather save the money", "there's nothing I really need" or the very simple, 'I'm good'.   Instead I was all in.  Greedy little bug that I am.

Secondly, I genuinely did need to replace a few pieces.  Lately I've had to throw out quite a number of things. Girl clothes are not made very well.  I am not certain what the reason is behind shoddy worksmanship but there it is.  Truth is truth.  Possibly it's to encourage us to buy more clothes, or to keep prices down, or maybe I just tend to buy cheap stuff. Okay that part is true.  Many of the Quality Clothes that I bought years ago, I still have now that I think about it.  

Thirdly, my body keeps changing on me.  The shape of it I mean.  I will be the first to admit that I need to lose about 5 to 10 pounds.  It probably won't happen as I like food too much, but facts is facts and the fact is, I can now pinch an inch.  It is a reality that I don't care for, but hey there it is.  I don't eat any more than I used to, and in fact, I actually eat less.  I still work out, I still walk but those stubborn ell-bees have refused to vacate the premises sooooo I gotta work with them. Which also means that not every single article of clothing in my closet fits properly anymore. Oh I can get every thing on my body, I can button, I can zip and I can even breathe while doing so, but when I look in the mirror, yeah, I can see it and it ain't pretty.  Dang.  And that unfortunately limits the number of garments that I am comfortable wearing.

The last reason is another facts is facts sort of thing.  I am 72. I will be 73 this year. Yuck. Time life and gravity have done terrible things to my body.  Such terrible things in fact, that even if I were able to shed a few pounds, some of my clothes would not look the same way on me that they did however many years ago.  And that sucks, but it's the truth.

So when I was whining about all of that a few weekends ago, Tim said it was probably time to do a little shopping.  I was both excited and trepidatious. It's fun to have new clothes but sometimes the shopping experience is horrible.  As you may, or may not, recall, my last shopping trip about two years ago, did not go very well.  Nothing in the petite section fit properly not matter what size, it all cost the earth and by the end I was so irate that I just wanted to go home. (and so, we did)

We knew not to go to any of those stores. We would start all over anew, somewhere else - Sarasota!  Initially while my attitude remained positive, I wasn't having much luck.  We started with Kohl's.  Back in Colorado I often shopped there with great success.  But history did not repeat itself. There just wasn't anything that "spoke" to me, nothing looked like my life, my taste, my price point!  Then as we continued to drive north we drove past a JC Penny store.  I haven't even thought about Penny's in years.  But sure, why not. The worst that will happen will be that I find nothing and we move on, elsewhere.

As it runs out,  they were having a sale!  In SamSpeak that reads as Yahoo!    Not just a sale but a SaleSale!  We were each given a scratch off when we walked in the door and told that whatever percent the scratch off indicates at check out, it applies to the entire purchase.  Sounds good to me.  And on top of that everything. I mean every single solitary thing that I selected to try on, was on sale already.  Awesome.

I found so many things that ultimately I had to decide on which were my absolute favourites instead of ending up with, "well this one thing sort of fits even though it's horrible". Big difference.  I ended up with 4 new outfits and once I got home and "shopped" each piece individually around my closet, so many more possibilities!

As we checked out and Tim did the scratch off (30% off the entire purchase!) the receipt revealed that ultimately we saved more money than we spent.  What?  Yes that's what I said.  For example, if we spent $100, we saved $150.  That's insane. But also Marvelous!    Less wallet ouchie than I anticipated and that is a very good thing.

Oh, also found two pair of sneakers (by one, get one half off) and one pair of sandals!  Mercy!

I am so tickled now to have so many choices about what I will wear each day.  Love it!  

Want to see what we bought?  Ok, bear in mind that the model is me and I have tender little feelings, so be kind!

TaaDaa! 

Tim has been on vacation this week, yahoo!  A staycation-vacation and there ain't nothin' wrong with that!  We've done some day trips (as you read earlier this week) and some home projects and even had some good Total Blob time too.  Perfect Balance!

Yesterday was another day trip which was awesome.  We didn't go far, just up to Sarasota which is only about a half hour away. We went specifically to visit the Botanic Gardens.  We've visited before, of course, but it has literally been years!  And since we last were there, they have done a lot of renovating. A Lot!  A lotta lot!   And they aren't done yet either.  There is one whole area fenced off that has big Phase II signs on it.  (That sounds like future fun!)

On the drive up we talked about what we supposed might be new and different and what might be familiar from before.   Speculation conversation :)

The first thing that was very new was the parking garage.  Prior to this  was a series of tiny very crowded, parking lots tucked in here and there between other buildings in the area necessitating winding wandering wondering walks before ever reaching the start!  The entire walk would be wandering around wondering if we were going the right way as we wound around trees and shrubs!  This time was much easier. Enter Parking garage. Find an empty spot, take elevator (or stairs) to the first floor and follow the signs.  Easy Peasy.  The view from the top floor (where we finally found a spot) was pretty amazing by the way.

That's Sarasota Bay that you see in the photo by the way.  This particular Botanic Garden sits right next to the water and they have cleverly incorporated that fact into their garden plan, including a Mangrove Boardwalk.  As we strolled along that part of the garden we not only saw the mangroves, of course, and the bay but also had a lovely view of downtown Sarasota.

This particular Botanic Garden ( as do many others) always features a particular artist along with the gardens.  This season was  Alexander Calder and it was called, "The Nature of Movement".  Apparently he was one of the first artists to work toward the development of kinetic (or moving) art! Very cool.  A lot of his work was on display in one of the old houses and I did not take any photos inside, but I think I got a few from outside. Let's see:

Ok it appears that I only took one.  But there it is folks.  He had quite an amusing sense of humour that really appealed to me in his pen and ink drawings. The sculptures?  Well, I appreciated the concept a least, so that must count for something.  

There was a lot of "art" throughout the gardens and most of that I truly enjoyed.  Here is some of that:

One of the things I truly loved were all of the archways, some man made and some natural. Partly I like that it's a visual separation from one area to another and the other is the childlike open eyed wonder of wondering what magic exists through each new portal:

It makes perfect sense to me that any botanic garden would have an number of water features of one sort or another. This one is no different on that theme.  Loved them all.

Even saw a wee bit of wildlife. Heard far more, manage to capture these.  In one you can see an orange blobby.  That particular orange blobby is a butterfly that photo bombed. I had NO idea it was there until after I saw the picture. I was trying to capture the bird at the far end of the shot. heh

At this point you may be asking, were there any actual flowers at this botanic garden?  Heh.  Were there any flowers?  Of course there were flowers. I was just saving the best 'til last.  Hold on to your botanic seats coz here we go. (obviously this isn't all of the flowers, just a sampling)

What a great afternoon!  We capped off the day by having an early dinner at our favourite BBQ place which we haven't visited in over a year (not sure why since it's our favourite, just how it worked out, I suppose). Miraculously, I managed to get Zero BBQ sauce on my clothes! Shocking but awesome.

Hope you enjoyed our visit to the Botanic Garden!  Have a wonderful weekend and we can catch up next week!

​Hugs all 'round

A boat?  What's the deal with the picture of boat?  Hang on,  I'm here to tell you all about it!

Yesterday, Tim and I had quite the adventure and to properly explain it, first I have to back up all the way to Christmas 2025 which honestly, is just a few months ago.  Tim and I were so fortunate to be on the receiving end of so many wonderful gifts!  All of our human kids and their wives were thoughtful, generous and so very sweet with what they choose for us and we LOVED every single gift.  LOVED! So much so, in fact, that we (or the kittyboys) have been using and enjoying these gifts for the past few months endlessly. And every time we do, we smile and think of the sons and daughters in law that gave that gift to us. Love it:)  Gifts that keeps on giving!

All of the gifts got used right away, with one exception. The gift from youngest son and his wife was one that we had to wait to...hmmm not sure how to say it.  To use? To utilize? To enjoy  perhaps?   That's it, we had to wait to enjoy.  At this most recent Christmas my stupid foot was still a problem and this particular gift required me to be more physically present. No holding back!   And soo we waited. And waited. AND WAITED!

What was this gift?  It was the gift of adventure! A day cruise to a private island and how cool is that? Answer?    Yesterday was the day and it was awesome! So exciting!

We got up bright and early, and stowed our beach bag and Tim's backpack in the car before heading down to Ft Meyers in the early morning fog, hoping against hope that the prediction of showers for the day was wrong.  We arrived in plenty of time, lined up, checked in and boarded the bright yellow pontoon boat (with a potty - critically important).  Our fellow passengers were right behind us and we were loaded up and heading out before we knew it.

Our hosts, two very pleasant young men, not only piloted us expertly but also narrated the trip, pointing our things of interest in every direction as we zoomed about 30 minutes away from the dock.  We chatted with some of our fellow day cruisers who were mostly tourists and every age from babies to oldsters like us . All of us dressed super casually, many in bathing suits and beach coverups and hats.  Almost everyone had some sort of carry on. Most of the kids also brought floaties, beach balls, sandpails and the like. We were all ready for a good time.

We were told in advance to bring whatever you need coz there is nothing on the island: no food, no bathrooms, no shops. Tim and I gave a great deal of thought to what we should bring. We wanted to make sure we had everything necessary but nothing extraneous.  Sometimes that is a tricky line.

We ended up with Tim's backpack for the boat but also packed a beachbag which we left in the car. The backpack held immediate essentials like food: I made two PBJ's and wrapped them individually in waxed paper then put both in one zippybag, threw in some crackers and called it done but there was also a giant thermos of iced water, an empty zippy bag for phones, sun screen (more on that later) and two beach towels   The beachbag in the car held another big thermos of iced water, a change of clothes for each of us and two more beach towels.  I had my camera, we both had hats and we felt prepared.  Surprisingly, we actually were good!

Once we arrived at the island and I had gotten past the skittish part of descending the boat ladder to the sand, we found a Gorgeous beach that was covered in shells of every size, shape and colour we could possibly imagine!  The water was crystal clear, cool but not cold with small gentle waves. Walking through the water we could see so many fish and even a manatee that swam right up beside everyone in the water!

The one and only disappointing part was that most of the big trees had died. There were the bones of massive trees, long deceased, yet still remaining.  But most of the vegetation was ground cover and a few small, obviously very young, palm trees.  We were told that the tree loss was part of the destruction caused by the bad hurricane season two years past.  Very sad, but it makes total sense.

We carefully explored the carpet of shells, marveling at all we saw but I secretly was hoping to find a piece of sea glass to add to my collection.  It's hard to find nowadays as most people use plastic everything so there is very little actual glass to be found. HOWEVER, I did find one small piece of white opaque sea glass and it's already been added to the jar. Yahoo!

We wandered around on the island, waded knee deep in water, walked over to the other side, admired all of the birds and eventually returned, intending to just sit and relax in the shade of a long dead tree. But as soon as it appeared that we were going to plant our butts on the sand, our hosts came running over with a beach umbrella and two very comfy folding chairs!  Wow! What service!  They also provided a large bin for garbage and an enormous cooler filled with ice and bottled water for us to use. So thoughtful.

We relaxed.  Any stress, any tension, any thoughts of obligation or work just lifted up and drifted off. It was glorious.  The weather could not have been better, sunny with big puffy white clouds dotting the sky but not hot and not humid.  It was perfection.

All too soon, it was time to pack everything up and reboard (back up the scary ladder).  All aboard!  All of the babies fell asleep, the children were drowsy and quiet and the rest of us content and smiling on the trip back which came with two stops to ogle pods of dolphins that came right up to the side of the boat!  Wow!

We talked about how amazing the trip was and what a great time we had all the way back|!  10/10 recommend!!

Took some photos (of course I did!)  Ready?

A few shots of Tim and I enjoying he day

Side Note;  We were both really smart about sunscreen use.  Tim and I have each experienced serious sunburns, while on boats and/or on beaches and not only liberally applied sunscreen, but reapplied during the day.  We were thorough, faces, necks, arms, legs. We did great!  Except, We BOTH forgot to sunscreen our feet. BOTH OF US!  Ouche.  But our faults for forgetting and even so, totally worth it!

​Hey kiddos!  Thank you for the Christmas Gift, It Was Awesome!

This week's Photo Safari Report was easy to name.  There is one particular Preserve that we have to time our visits to carefully.  The entire preserve runs alongside the beautiful Myakka River.  It's a gorgeous place but because of it's riverside proximity, once rainy season starts, it has a tendency to flood. So we always go there during the very very dry season (which is to say this time of year) ahead of the rains.  So in honour of this glorious but limited access preserve, we will call this one by it's actual name, The Sleeping Turtle Hike.  (Oddly enough we've seen very few actual turtles here, awake or asleep)

Joy and I hiked along our usual familiar trails until, at one point, we noticed a trail that was kind of tucked in behind a covered pavilion (said pavilions dot the preserve here and there). And in fact, we weren't absolutely certain at first that it actually was a trail but maybe a rocky/pebbled corner or a spot where the grasses had been worn away.  Happy news. It was. Yay!  A new hike!  Well not really.  Eventually here and there we noticed little bits of things that seemed perhaps a tiny bit familiar and by the end we realized that yes we had done at least part of that hike before but a Very Long Time Ago.  Long enough, in fact, that, yeah sure, call it a new hike.

Most of it took us alongside the river so there were, as there almost always are, various typical river photos of mirror-like reflections,  arching  elderly oak branches or fallen palm trees reaching out over the water and a few boaters:

The place was lousy with birds, seriously.  They were everywhere. But they were also constantly moving - and we all know that my best photographic abilities involve things that stay in one spot.  Therefore, very few bird pictures:

I did manage to find a few flowers here and there, or at least flowering shrubs.  Some of them smelled Amazing!  Others had, no fragrance at all, but pretty is still pretty, no matter:

The rest of the photos are just unrelated randos that appealed to me for whatever reason and but I'll share them anyway. Who knows?  Maybe they will make you smile too :)

I actually have one more rando for you but it requires a bit of explanation.  We were surprised to find, here and there as we went along, silk flowers and silk butterflies tucked into the oddest places.  It was such a funny, quirky thing to come across that I had to get at least one photo.  I have no idea why anyone would do such a thing, perhaps thinking they were improving on nature?  Regardless, it certainly caught my eye:

Thanks for joining me on this Photo Safari!  The Sleeping Turtle Hike won't happen again until next year sometime during the dry season, as per usual, but there will be plenty of other hikes, I assure you:)

Have a great weekend ya'll!!

Howdy do!

Hope you all had a terrific weekend.  Tim and I met up with our friends, the Minocks on Saturday at the Botanic Gardens in Tampa and had an outstanding time!  Well, of course we did, we always have a great time on Minock Day!

Would you like to hear about it?  Great!

The park itself is divided up into different sections which makes perfect sense and I'm pretty sure we visited them all, eventually, after wandering twisting curving paths, through gates and under arches and over bridges, marveling at all we saw.

 There was a wedding taking place in the Wedding Garden, which is kind of perfect.  The bride was beautiful, as all brides are, the groom was smiling so hugely his face was in danger of splitting open, and everyone who attended was dressed up and smiling and looking genuinely happy. (Yes we peeked in before it started of course we did!)

One of my favourite parts was the children's garden, naturally.  And we took time to play with the things that ought to be played with thus satisfying the small child inside us all.  There were things that made music and things to climb and clamber over and things that we honestly had no idea what to do with.  Enjoyed it all.

There was a tropical fruit garden with enormously tall Mango trees (no idea how they harvest fruit that high up!) and towering banana trees among others. There were even fruits that I did not immediately recognize and had to read the signs. Thank goodness for those signs!  

The herb garden was especially lovely. Some plants were in pots, others planted in the ground. It was fragrant, lush with bees and pretty garden decorations:

I was very taken by the lily ponds too; quiet, peaceful and contemplative. Sometimes that's exactly what I need:

The overall theme, naturally, was flowers. But there were a stunning variety of trees and shrubs too.  Along with that, almost as a package deal, is always birds, a few squirrels and lizards and bugs too  numerous to mention.   Here are some of the flowers and one of the birds:

Also was quite taken by the details in every direction: mosaics, benches shaped like butterflies, fountains, trellis's and more. There was just so much to look at we could have spent all day!

But we tore ourselves away from the blooming things and moved on to the other side of the gardens because there was also a Heritage Park to enjoy.  What's that you ask?  Well, it's a village of old buildings, some of them tricked out inside to represent era specific life!  Wow!  That's very cool.  

In addition to homes of various ages/sizes/ social strata there was also a General Store, a Model T era Auto Garage, a church, a doctor's office, a school, a train station and several other sorts of shops.  I was particularly taken by the way the kitchens were often separate from the main house in an effort to keep kitchen heat away from the rest of the building.  In a place with summers such a Florida has, I think that might still be a good idea!

I took no photos of the village, shame on me, as I was having too much fun oogling history. That's what this was, living history! Very Very Cool.

And what, you may ask, was the high ticket price for such a wonderful adventure?  It was free for nothing.  My favourite price.  Gratis. Can you believe it?  I have no idea how they manage to stay open and functioning and gorgeous without charging a dime, but they do. (donations cheerfully accepted naturally)

By the time we finished, we were ravenous and decided to have lunch at an nearby, adorable little restaurant called, Savory, which was quite good!  Both food and service checked all the boxes. We ate and talked and laughed and ate and talked some more.  Ultimately, we stayed, probably longer than we should have, but we were just having too much fun to break up the party.

As per usual, Minock Day was a terrific success!  We will find another adventure for a another Minock Day very soon, without doubt ;)

*You Are Here* 

 Well actually Joy and I were there.   You were probably where ever you actually are.   At any rate, the place Joy and I were was a different preserve. Kind of a Preserve within a Preserve, which is rather unusual. To the best of my knowledge, the only way into this place is though a gate, across a dirt road (with a locked cattle gate at the end) and then through another gate.

As you can see from the sign on the board, it is South of Border.  Border is the name of the road that is it South Of.  Clever eh?  As you can probably tell from the photo above, I was taking a minute to review the map on the board, get our bearings and try to map out our hiking plan.  Technically, of course, we had already hiked a little bit to actually arrive at that spot, but regardless, what i SHOULD have done, instead of just looking at the map and trying to remember it, I ought to have taken a photo of the map with my cell phone.

Yup. Shoulda. Didn't.  Oh well.  It all worked out.

Obviously, this is a Photo Safari Report and since I'm feeing singularly uninspired today, I'll simply call this the South of Border Hike. It's accurate :)

Joy and I have attempted to hike this wonderfully "secret" preserve within a preserve several times over the years and each time we had to turn back due to it being too "piggy". And by that we mean we are seeing either too many actually wild pigs or too much fresh wild pig indicators.  And setting out intentionally into a hike that you already KNOW is rife with cranky wild oinkers is just stupid.  It would be like going swimming in alligator infested water with hot dogs in your pockets.  Joy and I are many things, stupid is not any of them.  But on this particular day, there was not even the smallest suggestion of any walking bacon lurking about so we dared enter!

First of all I want to say that the South of Border hike was stunningly beautiful.  Almost like a mystical fairy land.  It didn't look quite real.  On the other hand, while we heard a cacophony of birdsong, we saw relatively few actual birds.  Of the few we did see, I was able to capture on a couple of photos. I may as well throw those out now since we are talking about it:

It was a really good morning for spiderwebs though. My gracious. They were everywhere. Each one unique and beautiful. I will show you just a few. I know not everyone is as excited about those webs as I am:  (those little spiders are just so industrious!)

It's been quite dry so there weren't a lot of pretty blooming things, but I have a small handful of flowering this'n'that:

And there is this one. My favourite photo of the day. A Mother/Daughter Portrait:

So yes, not a lot of my usual stuff, which is absolutely fine. It was still a beautiful day and a great hike and I always have a good time with my sister :)  Plus I was delighted to finally get to hike that South of Border Trail.  Seriously, who wouldn't love to spend time in a place that looks like this:

Hey thanks for coming along for the Photos Safari Report.  Hope you enjoyed the South of Border Hike!  

Have a perfectly Splendid Weekend!

Tried a new recipe tonight.  It's so fun to experiment with food, coming up with new and different things to present at a meal  BUT,  and I'm talking the big but, it's also terrifying.

I mean what if it doesn't turn out good?  Or what if it turns out exactly as it's supposed to but it doesn't suit the palate of those stuck either eating it anyway or throwing it out and having a PBJ instead.  What a let down that is.  It's happened before. Sadly.  Not often but it has happened.

I made a Quiche once that was so pretty. I mean, magazine photo worthy pretty.  And it must have smelled pretty good because the kiddo that was in the house that night at dinner time followed his nose to the kitchen with great interest.  I was so excited to present my dish with it's pretty little side salad. And then they took the first bite as I anxiously watched and both of them, at the exact same time, Tim and Kiddo, looked first at the slice of quiche on their plates, then at each other, then raced each other to the garbage can to spit it out. Oh dear, oh dear.  we ordered pizza.

We laugh about it now of course, and thank goodness Tim did not use situations such as that to suggest that I stop experimenting. And in fact, he encourage it., Mostly because most, hear that carefully, most, of my experiments turn out just fine. And in fact some turn out so good that they are dishes that are part of the usual meal rotation now.  A few things are even prepared, by request for special occasions ;)  

Still if an experiment goes wrong not only is my family disappointed, but we now have to pivot to find an acceptable substitution for the meal we've thrown away AND it was a waste of food. Maybe that's the worst part these days. We all know how freakin' expensive grocery shopping is and wasted food is also wasted money. Ouch!

Tonight's meal was a nail biter.   Tim had picked up, somewhere on some grocery excursion a package of beef ribs. Definitely not something we have on the regular.  And I did some recipe diving before even attempting it.  I knew, since it was being cooked in the oven, that it needed the low and slow treatment which generally suggests a slow cooker but I know that Tim really likes that little crust that only comes from a dryer cook method.  It needed flavour too but also something that will break down the meat and make it tender. Hmmm and also Hmmmm.

Keeping all those things in mind, I  singled out one recipe that had the ribs cooking at 325 for two hours (turned half way through) in the oven. Ok I'm interested.  It had an interesting sounding sauce poured over it before cooking:  tabasco, molasses, vinegar and soy sauce.  Ok Now I'm downright intrigued.  Tabasco for snap, molasses for sweet, vinegar to break it down and soy sauce for...I don't know..salt?  This was it, I decided.  Well I hoped, let's say that. I put it all together, lined the pan carefully with foil (I'm not stupid) put it in the oven and crossed my fingers.

About 30 minutes in, I turned on the fan to low because the "burnt" smell was pervasive. Dang. That's the molasses.  Molasses is a sugar and sugar burns. I began to have great doubts but hey, it's already in the oven, I am committed.  

Half way through  turned the ribs and I thought oh gosh, this really does look like it's burning. I re-read the recipe carefully. Did I miss something really important?  Nope, I'm doing exactly what it says.  Trust the process I said to myself and turned the fan up to medium.  

At the 3/4 mark I turned the fan up to full speed and I could also smell the tabasco and soy sauce, oh dear, oh dear. I began looking through first the fridge and then the freezer for some sort of acceptable substitution.  But I went ahead and prepared the sides just in case a miracle happened. (asparagus and potatoes in case you wondered).

With GREAT trepidation, shortly after 5 I called Tim to dinner. I confessed that I was concerned about the ribs and to let me know what he thought. Then I sat and watched.  He said he was sure it was fine.  They didn't look fine. They looked burnt. They looked beyond burnt. They looked like the last bits of logs in the fireplace after the fire goes out.  Seriously.

First he carefully inserted a fork.  To my great relief, the fork went in, directly in, no hammer or chisel required.  Then he cut off a chunk and popped it in his mouth, chewed with satisfaction and smiled.  That smile was everything. 

As I was finishing cleaning up, I asked for notes. I always do that when I either invent or try a new recipe. How could it be better next time? l Should there be a next time?  Was this a one and done? Should I ever try it again?

He had one note and one only.  Him buying ribs that had more meat on the bone.  LOLOL   And YAYAYAYAY!!  I can still hardly believe that the dish I took out of the oven after two hours that looked more like briquettes than food was actually edible, let alone good enough to repeat another time.  It was, as I said before, a gastronomical miracle!  Yay Again!

I will continue experimenting and trying new dishes and sometimes I will win and other times I will fail, but I learn from each attempt,  Mostly I'm grateful that Tim is such a brave soul who indulges my  attempts with no complaints!

It was nearly Dinner Drama instead of Dinner Delight!  BUT, what's life without risk?  I don't bungee jump or zipline, I don't fling myself down mountains with sticks strapped to my feet or explore underwater caves but I do experiment mightily in the kitchen. 

It counts!

Welcome today to the Fashion Edition of my blog!  

Okay yeah, I said that with a straight face but now I'm laughing.  The Audacity of me calling anything related to me a fashionable is hilarious.    The only times in my life that I have ever been considered stylish or in fashion as been were a total accident.

That said, I do believe in dressing appropriate to the occasion and like most ladies, I think it's very fun to, every once in awhile perk up my wardrobe.  Sometimes that little perk comes by way of a hand-me-over from Joy, once in a long while I actually do buy a new pair of shorts or a new top, but this time I went in a different direction.

I noticed, as I was going through my closet recently, how many oh so very plain round necked blouses and sweaters and etc that I have. In the olden days I might have filled in that "negative" space between the end of the garment and the beginning of my skin with a necklace. But for several reasons, I don't do that much anymore.

The reasons: 1) It's hot here.  And jewelry is metal. which heats up in the hot.  Also it sticks to me in the humidity and well, it's generally less comfortable to wear necklaces here in Florida land which is probably one of those 'princess and the pea' things  but it is what it is and I am who I am. 2) Old lady neck.  Can't get around it, at 72 I am old and one of the things that happens to most old ladies is we get that very unattractive crepe-y neck thing.  Round neck, u-neck, square neck, pretty much anything other than a turtleneck, shows the crepe-y skin off and seriously, it is not something that ought to be showed off.  I find that a necklace highlights the crepe-y (not creepy. well sometimes maybe) skin rather than detracts from it, so no.  3) for whatever reason, most of my jewelry is silver. Silver tarnishes. When exposed to the salt air/hot and humid air/island air/Florida air that we have here, silver tarnishes a LOT and very quickly. No matter how careful I am, how often I clean my jewelry, or how it is stored, it tarnishes. And sometimes for whatever alchemy/chemistry reason the tarnish cannot be removed. Which means I have fewer and fewer pieces of jewelry - necklaces in particular - to wear anyway

So the issue remains, how do I dress up, change up, address the round neck issue?  Sometimes, especially when the weather is cooler, I can tie a pretty scarf and that little change not only provides warmth but also a pop of colour,a little change-up that makes an older top look newer AND hides the crepe-y neck.  win/win/win

But once the cooler weather is gone, now what do I do?  Well sometimes I pretend I don't notice my crepe-y skin and just wear the shirts anyway. Other times, I wear a different shirt underneath. Specifically a shirt that has a collar. Looks snazzy and solves all the issues. BUT once summer arrives in all it's hot and humid glory I do NOT want to wear two layers of shirts. I would feel as if I were trapped in a sauna!

And while considering this issue, my brain wandered back to fashion in other centuries long ago when things like collars and cuffs were detachable. That was a clever idea.  And that made me wonder if such a thing still existed.   Enter mystical Google.  He (or she) knows all!

Turns out you CAN buy just a collar. Well sort of.  Back in my youth, it would have been called "a dickey".  Don't know why it as called that, but it was.  I only ever owned one.  It was turquoise - which is a beautiful colour as long as I'm not the one wearing it.  Makes my skin look yellow which in turn makes me look jaundiced and everyone around me wonders if I have some liver disease.  I'm fairly certain I did not choose the colour.  It was worn with a vee-necked white sweater that I had because lord knows that a female's clavicle should never be on display (insert much rolling of eyes here).  

I hadn't thought about that old turquoise dickey in decades but as soon as I looked up women's collars and the results popped up there it was in my head immediately. I was not a fan of that old heavy knit turquoise thing, but these new ones looked so very different. Lightweight, pretty, feminine and perfect.  

I scrolled through the possibilities (there were nearly endless choices) for a long time and ultimately ended up getting a set of 4 because I couldn't seem to choose just one.  I tried them all on with the shirt I was wearing in the moment which was a purple tee-shirt and honestly they even made that tee-shirt look good.  So Excited to wear one for real in my actual life and see how it worked out.

Wednesday, which is known is this house is Museum Day, was the maiden voyage.  It was a cold, windy day so I knew I would absolutely be wearing a sweater and ended up in a somber outfit of black slacks and a plain back sweater.  Boring but toasty warm.  Jazzed it right up immediately.

Still, the question remained, how comfortable would it be worn all day while moving around, walking, gesturing ( as I do while talking), driving, cleaning, etc.  The answer was, it went great!  Loved the way it looked and how it dressed up a very  monochromatic  and far too often worn look.  Bonus points it was perfectly comfortable and easily washed.  

I think I've found my solution!  I'm excited for the opportunity to wear each one in turn and see how it changes the look of my old outfits.  A success story for sure.  Big Yay!  And it harkens me back to a rather vintage phase of fashion and that is definitely my style - fashionable or not!

Have a terrific weekend y'all. See you next week!

Over the weekend Tim and I had a singular experience.  And it had to do with my car.

The above picture is, obviously, of a car engine.  It is merely representational as I am too lazy to go outside and take a photo.  The story which follows, a true story, is about my car's engine.  The car I drive, which used to be Tim's car, is a twenty year old Ford Explorer.   She still works just fine and is paid for. That's all that I need. It gets me to and from the very few places I am still willing and able to drive to (and from).

Generally speaking, when Tim and I go anywhere together, we take his car.  For many reasons.  First of all being that Tim is the one driving and he likes his car.  'Nuff said.  It's also a newer, nicer, definitely more reliable vehicle. But in a pinch or if I'm driving, of course, there is the Explorer, just sitting there. Patiently waiting.  

Sometimes, it has to wait a very long time.

And that is probably part of the problem.  

Another part, of the problem, as it turns out, is that we have no garage.  Which, when we first were looking for a home here, we had on the "would be nice but not absolutely necessary" list.  When Tim and I are house hunting we have categories of lists. (Doesn't everyone?)   The most important category on the list is "Absolutely Must Have" which has things like the number and type of rooms we require at bare minimum and the fact that for whatever reason, we feel the need to have both a living room AND a family room.  Then there are the things that "would be nice but are not absolutely necessary", things like a pool or, as it turns out, a garage.  And the reason we didn't believe we absolutely needed a garage, is because winters here are no big deal. In fact they are very small deals. Zero snow. Zero ice.

Turns out there are other reasons to require a garage. We know this now.

Soooo last week, Tim's car had to go into the garage for some work. Just safety maintenance really.  Things like new brakes, new shocks and a new oil pan (the other one had developed a leak - yikes!)  Which left us with one car, mine.  Soo we had wheels. Technically.  But the car I drive, again, is 20 long years old which is getting up there for a car and has a few issues.  Small things like the clock no longer works, the radio also is kaput and a little more annoying, the AC also has crapped out.

You might think that living in Florida as we do, AC is really high on the gotta have list, but I drive so rarely and such short distances that honestly, it isn't an issue at all.  Most of the time.  The only time it is possibly a problem is situations such as, this past weekend, when we only had my car and there is some place we need or want to go that is farther than I normally drive.

Another issue, as it turns out, is that there have been times - sometimes long periods of time -when I don't drive at all.  For instance, the past 5 or so months when my right foot (my driving foot) was broken.  I couldn't walk on the dang thing, I absolutely could not drive with it.  I've only begun driving again at all about a month ago which means, my car just sat in the driveway for 4 months like a giant paper weight.  Patiently waiting. 

And now it's spring in Florida. (it comes early here)  Lots of things happen in spring. The grass greens up, trees bud, flowers bloom and birds nest.  Not just bird, actually, lots of little critters nest this time of year.   Naturally, the mom and dad critter try to choose cozy safe places to build their nests.

I think I've painted the picture for you fairly well.  In fact, you probably see where this is going.  Most likely you see where this is going much better than we did on Sunday because we had very few concerns when we got in the car on Sunday afternoon planning to head up to Sarasota.  In fact, I remember asking Tim if he thought the old girl was up to the drive and he was fairly certain that it would be ok.  We would go slowly and carefully (not too slowly of course, don't want to honk of traffic patterns). And it was a nice enough weather day that we could just drive with the windows down so that the lack of AC wouldn't be an issue.

Off we went.  

As we do, we talked, we commented on things we saw out the window, ideas that popped into our heads, plans for the future, reviewing recent happenings, sharing things we had recently read about. We were having a perfectly pleasant time.  Until I said, "do you smell something burning?"

Tim immediately pulled off the road and into a gas station, far from the pumps. He jumped out and lifted the hood. I also got out to hold up the hood because it has a nasty tendency to close at it's own whim.  At first glance everything seemed to be ok though Tim pulled out a few very thin bits of palm frond here and there that clearly had to do with where I park my car in the driveway *under a tree*.  On second glance he saw more tree ferb and carefully (the engine was superhot) pulled out yet more. And it wasn't just bits and pieces of palm tree. Nope, there were also oak twigs, bougainvillea blossoms,  clumps of grasses, and things unidentifiable but organic. As he pulled out more and more of it, more and more was revealed.  Ultimately is became very apparent that what we had here was a critter nest of some sort and naturally it was dead centre in the hardest part to reach. Of course.

Well dang.

We decided that we needed to just turn around and go home.  Closed the hood, got back in the car and very carefully headed back to Venice.  About half way I called out softly, "there it is again".  This time Tim pulled off into a self-help carwash place. He drove right into one of the bays.  I was a little mystified until he started up the water wand.  Once again, I held up the hood while he water forced more of the next debris out and at the same time, cooled the engine.  Brilliant! I tell you the man is a genius!

Eventually, we were ready to finish the drive home and made it with no further issues.  Tim gave the car about an hour to cool off then he set to with his shop vac to remove any remaining nest debris.  The engine is now about as clean as any working engine can be. Huzzah!  

The assumption here is that because I was parking under a tree AND the car just sat unmoving for several months while my foot healed AND is was nesting season it was a confluence of separate moments that came together perfectly just in time to attempt to set my car on fire!

Why didn't we know before this? Our best guess is that, even though I am driving once again, I don't go far enough for the engine to heat up and it's rarely more than once or twice a week that I drive at all.  It didn't impact the nest at all.

Needless to say I have moved where I park my car in the driveway and we've decided that every once in awhile someone who drives further than I do  (that would be Tim) will take my car out on the road to make sure it's all good.

Dodged a bullet there. Well dodged a car fire I suppose.

It was an interesting experience but one I would prefer to never experience again, thank you.

Lesson learned. Periodically check for critter nests!  Got it!

Let's hear a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOY!!!   Woohoo!  Best Happy wishes to the Birthday girl whose birthday, this year, landed on Friday the 13th which is why I am not the least bit superstitious about such things as triskaidekaphobia. (fear of friday the 13th - yes it has an official name).

Having a sister, this particular sister, has been one of the best gifts I ever received so naturally I wanted to make her birthday special for her.  When I asked what she wanted to do to celebrate, to nobody's surprise at all, she wanted to hike.  Wish Granted!

Happily the Birthday gods were smiling on us because even through most of the hike was rather gloomy and cloudy, there were birdies galore!  Another Wish granted! Joy especially likes to photograph wildlife.  Therefore this Photo Safari Report shall be entitled, The Birdie Birthday Hike.

First of all, I don't think we have ever seen as many cardinals before.  It seemed as if they were at every turn. Which does not mean we were able to capture each one, but we saw them, marveled at them, admired them and as always learned about them more and more.  For instance, the Mr. always makes sure the Mrs. is safe and usually hidden away, before he zips to another spot to either secure food for them both or to distract the potential enemy from the Mrs.   Chivalry is not dead, it's alive and well in the lives of Cardinal Birds.  Here are a few of the cardinal photos I got:

Then there were the eagles. Yes plural.  We have seen eagles in that particular preserve before so it wasn't a surprise, but it's always a pleasure!  Since it's nesting season for eagles right now, there is a barrier to prevent anyone from getting too close to the nest. But we could still see it from the trail (just gotta know where to look and what to look for)  It's a very long distance shot but still an eagle in the nest.  Then we began to look for the mate.  If there's only one in the nest (probably with the young) then the other one has to be  nearby.  Took us awhile but eventually, there he was in all his magnificent glory.

The Best of the Best though were the owls.  For whatever reason, I can never see owls.  I know they are around, probably in every preserve I've ever hiked. I just don't have the "eye" necessary to find them. And in fact, I've only ever seen one other owl on a hike. The only reason I actually saw it was that Joy was with me and pointed it out. I still couldn't see it but she persisted until at least, there he was!

This time however, we knew about the owls (and in fact specifically looked for them) because we happened across another hiker while we were out.  The other hiker had a pair of binoculars around her neck and she saw our cameras and after an exchange of howdy's asked if we were looking for birds. Joy was a little ahead of me on an important phone call, so I answered that well, we were looking for whatever struck our fancy while taking photos, but yes, sure birds were great.  She then told me that at the other end of the trail we were on, there were a pair of owls. Wow! She tried to describe the tree (in a forest of trees which makes it tricky) so in exchange I told her where to find the non-nesting eagle. Fair Trade.  I caught up to Joy and told her about the owls and off we went on the hunt.  

Naturally it was Joy who found them and once again, persisted in verbal directions until finally I too saw them.  Two Great Horned Owls!!!  They are huge by the way.

There were other birds, of course.  Loads of woodpeckers of every sort including the big old Woody Woodpecker looking piliated woodpecker who is unmistakable.  Anyway, here's a sampling of the others:

There was one more bird that we saw a lot of and that is the Scrub Jay.  Similar in colour to a BlueJay but totally different personality. These guys Love to be seen, love to have their photos taken. They pose and preen and show their personalities. Naturally, therefore, I took lot of Scrub Jay photos.  Here's a few:

Also got a few botanicals because it just wouldn't be me if there weren't:

And I guess that's about  it.  The highlights from the  Birdie Birthday Hike.   It was a great hike. Joy and I both had to ice our feet when we got home (she oddly, has a similar foot injury to mine!) but it was Totally Worth It!  

Thanks for coming along. I'll leave you with wishes for a terrific weekend and one last photo.  Bunny says, Bye, see you next week!

As you can plainly see, that's Joy and I (Joy on the left, me on the right) out in a forest ON FOOT for the first time in a long time. Way Overdue!  Joy patiently waited until I was ready and last week, at long last, I felt as if I had turned another corner in the healing of my stupid foot.  So with no small amount of trepidation but even more excitement, I felt ready to do an exceedingly small, short, brief actual real out in the forest hike.  

I should be embarrassed by how brief a hike it was, but, for a change, this time 'round, I am actually listening to both my doctor AND my foot and therefore, I am taking it very slowly and carefully.  Recovery is a long series of baby steps (especially at my esteemed age!).  I am, therefore, calling this Photo Safari, the Baby Steps Hike.

Joy and I took all of the local preserves (and there are quite a few) into consideration when choosing our destination for this first foray and ultimately decided upon Lemon Bay preserve, primarily because it is very LEVEL with no obstacles, usually, and with grassy paths.  Our goal was to find something where we didn't have to climb up or down a ravine, or climb over fallen trees, or hop over rushing streams, or wade through the ones we can't hop over, and didn't have to walk on loose sand.   Also keeping in mind the fewer hidden tree roots, the better! Lemon Bay is check check check.

But as soon as we arrived the very first thing we see is a GIANT and Very LOUD mowing machine. We arrived on the day they mow the paths. Dang it!  Change of plans.  Turned around and headed to Carlton Reserve instead.  Normally Carlton is one of our absolute favourites but alas, this time, not so much.  It's not Carlton's fault either.  

Right now Florida is experiencing a massive drought while other parts of the country are virtually snowed in. Very Bizarre. Ponds, Lakes, Rivers, Streams and other water sources are drying up which means less beautiful foliage and a lot less wildlife.  Cannot blame anyone really. It just is what it is.  Mother Nature's whims and all that.   But it surely makes for fewer photo opportunities.

Of course, Joy and I can always find something to take pictures of, even when we come home with far fewer than normal. Kind of makes sense anyway, shorter hike, fewer pictures, right?  Perfectly Logical.

At any rate, here are the very few photos that I took.  I guess if nothing else, it makes this a shorter post, which means quicker reading and fewer photos to cruise through.   Hope you Enjoy!!

Little by little, the hikes will get longer, the photos will get better and more varied, I promise! Hang in there with me please!

​Have a Great Week!

As I'm sure I've mentioned before (at least a hundred times no doubt), Tim and I live a fairly quiet, calm, uneventful life.  It's peaceful and very happy.  Some folks may even refer to it as dull and boring (we don't but other's might). At the very least it could probably be considered relatively predictable. We are good with this by the way.

In an ordinary week, on a normal day the most interesting thing that might happen is noticing that a neighbor's tree was cut down or they repainted their front door a different colour.  When I call something exciting I usually mean the grocery store has exceptional BOGO's that week or maybe we got an unexpected refund in the  mail. Woohoo!

But this past Wednesday began with a different sort of excitement and this is the story of that:

The day began as most of our days do with Tim jumping in the shower to get ready for work and me staggering sleepily around, feeding hungry kitties and making Tim's coffee and peering around through squinted eyes waiting for both vision and brain function to stop being muzzy.  I went to throw something (don't recall what) away in the kitchen garbage can and that's when I saw it. Ants.  Not just one or two frightened tiny little specks running for their lives when they saw the Giant coming their way but a veritable Conga Line of Ants calmly and steadily marching forward. What the what?

Suddenly I was a lot more wide awake. I followed the line of dancing ants under the kitchen door, to the utility room and then down the entire freakin' length of the utility room, under the exterior door and outside.  Dang it!  I got to work immediately irradicating the little varmints.  I use a pet and human safe spray in the house which works, but smells so strongly of peppermint that it put me off candy canes for life.  I sprayed with determination and prejudice down that entire line, massacring ants with no mercy.  Once I got to the outside of the exterior doors I switched over to an outside spray that reeks of chemicals and is probably cacinogenic. (this was all done while I was still wearing pajamas by the way thus presenting myself at my very best to anyone passing by. Oh well)   

Once I completed my killing spree of course, I immediately showered to get that nastiness off of me. Hum dilly hum. I relaxed and took my time and reflected on the odd start to the day.  While I was pampering myself with shampoos and conditioners Tim was in the kitchen.  He had "slept funny" and woke up with a sore neck. In my family's lexicon that means you have  "crick" in your neck.  Best solution for that is a warm compress and perhaps a little Advil.

Now we have a number of different heat source products in the house from electric heating pads to full sized hydrocollators. But the best one for this particular issue and is in fact why we have it, is a bean/grain filled long tube with plastic loops on each end that fits perfectly around the neck. Just thinking about it makes me sigh with relief.  A quick 2 minutes in the microwave and the sufferer is quickly on their way to relief. 

We keep all of these items in a hall closet on the same shelf. Each one wrapped first in a towel and then in a bag.  Generally speaking, we take the item OUT of the bag but leave it in the towel (to keep it clean) to microwave.  Now the last time the neck warmer heater thinger was used, it was by me.  And I "cleverly" used to twisty tie threaded through both plastic loops and then twisted closed to keep the neckwrap in place while I continued working around the house. When I was done with it I intentionally put the twisty tie IN the bag so that whoever used it next didn't have to scrounge up another twistytie.  You probably see where this is going, right?

When I finally got out of the shower and was combing, lotioning and powdering and so forth I kept thinking......"that's  a funny smell, I wonder what that is?"  After a second or two I recognized it as burnt plastic. Oh no!  Did I leave a bread bag leaning on the toaster oven?  I mean, I didn't make any toast that morning, but perhaps Tim did?  I was prepared to spend some time later attempting to scrub melted plastic off the toaster oven but for that moment, I just wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out of the bathroom then wandered down to the kitchen where the smell was noticeably stronger.

There was Tim in the kitchen and not his office in front of the microwave with the door open. Odd.  I asked him if he noticed a funny smell.  And that's when I heard the story.

Now first you have to keep in mind that Tim never panics. Ever. He calmly assesses a situation and then addresses it equally calmly and correctly.  So, again, bothersome neck issue.  Obvious solution is the neck warmer thingie.  He finds it in it's usual spot, pops it into the microwave and returns very briefly to his office as he will hear the little Ding when the mircrowave it done.  Instead, right away he smelled the same odd burning smell that I did.  So, immediately, he returned to the kitchen and when he looked at the microwave, instead of seeing the neckwarmer circling endlessly, he saw flames.  Wait, not flames... FLAMES!    That's not normal!

He immediately opened the door (which automatically turns it off), pulled out the flaming object and dropped it on the stove top. He patted out the flames on what was left of the neck warmer and then again inside the microwave, got yet another towel, scooped the entire burned mess up and put it outside in the courtyard to think about what it had done!  By the time I stepped into the kitchen all of that was done and Tim as trying to clean up the mess left behind.  (despite putting out the flames with his bare hands, he did not get burned by the way thank goodness)

He told me what happened and both of us were agog at the idea that those bean/grain filled warmers could catch on fire!!!  Bizarre!  I told him that I would finish the clean up and he gratefully returned to his desk and back to work.  I got dressed and then began attacking the melted/burnt/yucky remains.  As I worked, I was thinking the entire thing through and then, as I was scrubbing a particularly resistant bit of melted something, I remembered the twisty tie.  Dang.  This was my fault.  I did leave the twisty tie, not still attached to the actual neck warmer, but definitely in the bag it was kept in.  Ratz.

I trudged, head down, into Tim's office and confessed.  He was very understanding about the whole thing.  As long as we are both safe and the kitties are fine and the house is still standing, it's no problem are his thought on the matter.

To my great surprise, once I got it cleaned up and did a trial cook with a bag of microwave popcorn, the microwave itself still works~!  So really, we are only down one microwaveable neck warmer and two towels (and one twisty tie)

And there ends the tale.  It was an exciting morning for sure.  And now I'm good on the excitement meter for awhile. Life can resume it's usual serene, lovely, levels.  Please.

,My Dad was seriously into genealogy.  He did years of research and interviews, letter writing campaigns and library hauntings. He prowled attics and basements and poked through other people's giant boxes of unlabeled photographs.  He consulted endlessly to, eventually, put together a very comprehensive picture of his family's lineage. It was a truly impressive piece of work.  It included everyone from the first family member who landed on the east coast of the US way way way back before this country was an official country of it's own, to the newest littlest members of the family.

I loved reading the names (some really awesome unusual names in this crew) and hearing some of the stories about serving in the various battles, from the revolutionary war forward and excerpts from the diary kept by a woman travelling by covered wagon, slightly farther west than they began. It's all just endlessly fascinating to me.  All of those hundreds of people on the list and somehow, I am related to all of them! Wild!

All of them shared hopes and dreams, all experienced terrible losses, they worked hard, laughed out loud,  loved their families and  lived their lives and then the next generation did the same, over and over, until my generation and then my kids generation.... It's like a fountain of related bloodlines. And, honestly, related experiences. 

It's true.  From the first family member who stepped foot on what is now American's soil to the family members here right this minute,  we all have a familial thread that binds us.  I'm not just talking about DNA, I'm talking about the way we live our lives.

From what I can see, we all work hard.  They worked without electricity or indoor plumbing originally but whether you are sitting behind a tractor wheel or a computer screen, hard work is hard work.  They were all courageous and took brave chances.  Sometimes the bravery was getting on a giant wooden sailing ship, leaving everything they knew behind to come live in a new land. Nowadays that bravery might be shown serving in the military, moving to a brand new state where you don't known a single soul,  beginning a new job, starting a family or following a dream wherever it leads. All of those things require a person who is courageous enough to first take a deep breath and then that first step into something new. Not just playing it safe, y'know?

Throughout the generations, even though I never met the vast majority of these people, I know that we are more alike than we are different. I've never had to use a button hook to put on my shoes and lord knows I've never attempted to wear a corset but I have struggled amighty to walk 'normally' in high heels and zip up a pair of snug jeans.  Close enough.  I'm working on either a gas or electric stove cooking meals to feed my family and previous generations cooked over open fires or wood fired stoves, but we are doing the same job, feeding our families come heck or high water.

I only remember ever attending one family reunion on my dad's side of the family. It was at my Grandparents farm up in Michigan. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old and probably younger than that. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who attended.  The line of cars seemed to go on forever and each vehicle was like a clown car with a seemingly unending stream of people spilling out.  The food offerings were many and varied and splendid and amazing and there was more food than even that size group could ever possibly consume.  There was deafening conversation and laughter in every direction with kiddos running amuck and babies crying.  And there I stood, dumbstruck in the middle of it all, mouth open, brain reeling and I even remember wondering to myself how could it be possible that I was related to each and every person there.  Untangling the whole puzzle of exactly how we were related was a place I didn't even try to go for years!

This all came to mind again this past Sunday when, Joy and Bob, Tim and I, and Joy's eldest daughter gathered together to spend time with our cousin Carol from up in Michigan.   Carol is always a delight to spend time with. Not only is she our source of information regarding all northern relatives on that side of the family but Carol is also a wonderful raconteur. She tells the most entertaining tales of her adventures which are both interesting and hilarious.  She is also one of those rare folks who remembers things about each individual at the table.  She asks about us and our lives and remembers things we've discussed before.  She is a treasure.

For, I don't know how long, Carol comes to Florida for awhile every winter and we try to make it a point to get together as many of us as possible each time.  It's not anywhere near the same level as that giant family reunion all those years ago, but it still reminds me a bit of it.  And I feel the link, the connection from my kids to me to my dad, to his brother to his kids (my cousins) and then further back, grandparents, great grandparents, great great's and many greats further than that.    

There are a few old photographs around and occasionally you can even see a family resemblance here and there which is remarkable.  But as I look back even further I wonder sometimes, what traits do we share?  Do we have the same blue eyes?  The same general hatred of licorice but love of music?  How many of my forebearers loved books as I do, or quilting as Joy does?  How many of those folks who came before were wizards with numbers as my boys are?  Did any others have my general clumsiness or were they light on their feet dancers like my sister?

I suppose I'll never know the answers to my questions but I do know that I'm so glad Carol still comes to Florida every winter and chooses to make a little room in her Crazy Busy life to spend some of it with us and help to keep that family connection strong. Like a tree.  A family Tree :)

Happy Photos Safari Report Day!  

Joy and I hit good old Myakka State Park one more time. As we impatiently await the final healing of my stupid foot, we did another mostly drive with a little walking photo session and had a predictably wonderful time!  

There were more visitors than we are accustomed to so we did have to work around other people but it's a big park. We can share  :)  

The day started out a little cool but wisely we dressed in light layers so we could peel off outer layers as it warmed up. The weather was nearly perfect.  Great light too!  Not a great deal of wildlife, unfortunately, but there was just enough to cobble together the Safari Report.  Therefore, I am calling this one the "Just Enough Hike".  

That said,  I'll start with the birdies.  There were a lot of the same few kinds so I'll  try to not duplicate very much. Here are the best shots:

Then there is the non bird wildlife, which in this case means alligators. Lots and lots of them. There were literal piles of them!  We kept our distance and were grateful for telescopic camera lenses. Here's some of those guys;

As always the park itself was gorgeous. Can you bear some pretty scenery photos for a few minutes?  Thanks!

And now it's done.  As I predicted, I had Just Enough photos for the Photo Safari Report.  Thanks for coming along :)  Hope you enjoyed

Happy Weekend!

Howdy do to all of you!  Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday, Monday, I was knee deep in laundry.  I do laundry every Monday. No sure why it ended up that way, but it has. And, as I have observed on many an occasion, either Tim and I are exceedingly dirty people or extremely clean people because Laundry Day at our house is a full day event.

​How on earth do just two people create enough laundry to make Laundry Day, well, an entire day?  Truth is, I'm not absolutely certain.  

I am rather particular about sorting.  Delicates are only ever washed with other delicates, dark clothes and light clothes are strictly segregated (the only time I ever approve of segregation) and even the towels are divided into whites and colours and washed separately.  Luckily the utility room is good sized so as to hold all of the many piles of laundry waiting their turn.

I've been accused before of being a Clean Freak when it was learned that I change sheets every week. To be perfectly honest, I would change them more often if it wasn't so time consuming!  I adore clean sheet night!  Also love using clean towels and I even throw the sink sponge into the laundry pile at the end of every day.  And by the way, I wear clean pajamas each night!  Yeah, I guess I am kind of a wierdo.

We also seem to go through a great number of towels each week. To be fair, we use tea towels (sometimes called dish wipers or kitchen towels) for things other than drying dishes!  I put one down on the counter for the clean hand washed dishes,  I sometimes use them a trivets for hot pots and pans while dishing up a  meal, or under a cutting board to soak up any spillage.  We use them as napkins, as blotters, as place mats and hand towels.  Somtimes I even dry dishes with them! Shocking I know.  

Clearly each of those uses (whether you agree with how we do it or not) means the towels is now dirty and off it goes to the dirty towel pile in the utility room, replaced by a seemingly endless pile of kitchen towels.

This time of year when it's chilly, we wear multiple layers of clothes, meaning bigger piles of dirty clothes and in the summer when it's hot and humid and we get sweaty just thinking about moving around, we sometimes change clothes during the day as what we were wearing has become sweaty and gross. Again, creating bigger piles of clothes.

I think we've solved the mystery of why it takes me all day Monday to do the laundry each week. Heh.  I honestly don't mind Laundry Day. It's not as if I have to haul it all down to the river and beat it on a rock after all. Once it's sorted, it's just a matter of putting things in one machine, pushing a button then transferring it to another machine and pushing a different button.   However, because I want to keep these endless loads moving forward in as timely as fashion as possible, I never allow loads, wet or dry, to just sit.  As soon as the load is finished, it's moving on to the next part.  Wet things into the dryer and dry things either immediately hung up, folded and put away or stacked in a neat pile and set aside for ironing later.  This means setting a timer and then, trickier part, listening for the timer to go off.

Sometimes I simply do not hear the timer. Which means that poor beleaguered Tim, who hears everything, even when he doesn't want to, has to endure listening to the repeated buzzing until it has driven him half mad whereupon he comes out, turns off the timer and tells me, "machine is done" before returning to his office. Poor Tim :(  I try very hard to not have that happen but hey it's not as if I'm just standing aroundm twiddling my thumbs,  waiting for each load to be done.  Heck no!  I'm doing other stuff between loads. It's called Multi-Tasking and we women are exceptionally good at it ;)

The first washing machine that I remember in my life was probably 60 something years ago?   Something like that. It was a wringer washer which was, at the time, quite the amazing machine!  We lived in California then and the washer lived in the garage. It looked a little like this:

As I understand it,  Mother would fill the tub of the machine with water and laundry soap of some sort, add the clothes and then plug the machine in.  At that point it would shimmy and shake, undulate and shiver until it had reached it's limit.  Then Mother would Unplug the machine, pull the drain plug to let the water out.  Then,  one item at a time, each piece would be fed through the wringer to squeeze out as much water as possible.  The first wringer machine was hand cranked, the second, wildly modern, was cranked electronically.  Mother was terrified by that electric wringer and cautioned Joy and I to keep our distance so that it did not pull our arms in and crush them! (coz you know we were definitely planning to feed our own arms in, fingers tips first).

Next up would be hanging the clothes on the clothes line. I cannot recall when Mother got a machine dryer but I know she was very excited about it AND the invention of dryer sheets. She used so many dryer sheets for each load that our clothes nearly oozed out of our hands when we tried to fold them. HAHAHAHA

I never owned a wringer washer myself, but I did have to hang clothes on a clothesline as a regular thing in my farm days when the boys were young.  I know my mother didn't enjoy it but quite honestly, I did.   I know that makes me sound even weirder than you already believe me to be (and I probably am) but I honestly enjoyed hanging clothes on the line with wooden pegs that squeaked a little each time I pushed them down onto the combo of fabric and clothes line. I can still hear it.

The first few items taken out of the clothes basket weren't just wet, they steamed in the morning air and they smelled delightful.  It didn't really take all that long to hang out a basket's worth at a time and it was peaceful outside time for me in the sun.  Later, in reverse, I would remove each item, give it a shake to snap some of the stiffness out of it, fold it carefully and place it in the basket. Every single tee shirt, each towel, smelled of sunshine and pine trees and whatever flowers were blooming that day.  And the fragrance stayed, it clung on even after it was hung up or tucked into a drawer. The aroma lingered even after being ironed.  I miss it.

Basically, of all of many myriad household chores, daily, weekly, monthly etc, one of the ones I truly do not mind is doing laundry. Even nowadays without the excitement of possibly crushing my arm in a wringer washer and without the scent of clothes hung on the line.

When someone says Happy Monday to me, I agree :)

Valentine's Day just happened!  And on the weekend too!  How nice :)

In our typical low key fashion, Tim and I had a lovely quiet Valentine's Day.  We've celebrated lots of different ways over the years but one thing has always stayed the same.  It is, by now, a long standing tradition of exchanging cards.  (Which we do for pretty much every occasion.)  From the very beginning,  since before we were married, without even discussing it ahead of time, we each gave the other two cards, one funny, one serious.  It just cracked us up that we both did the exact same thing . What are the odds?  

As the years have gone by,     we have continued to exchange cards, always at the end of the day, always with no distractions (TV off or at least muted) always together, always reading each card with comments and laughter, appreciation and kisses. (awwwwww) The cards are always displayed for a few weeks on the tabletop afterwards. The only thing that has changed is some times instead of just two cards, every once in awhile it's 3.  

Why 3?  Well one card nowadays is usually from the kittyboys.  The cats, strangely,  are not welcome in stores to choose their own cards so we have to do it for them.  Besides they cannot drive and have no pockets for wallets. Brysco and Wyatt trust our judgement, implicitly.   So 3 cards each, right?  If you count the cards on the table above, it turned out to be more than 3 each because, according to Tim,  Hallmark was doing a BOGO on cards and he wasn't going to waste a perfectly good BOGO! Gotta do the extra card now too.  4 cards !!!  Frugal and standard logic don't always go together in this family.  Sooo That's 4 to me from Tim, Brysco and Wyatt.  And two to Tim from the kittyboys and me because I am a slacker, didn't notice the sale and am a cheapskate.

(I may have only done two cards to Tim compared to his 4 to me BUT I made him a lovely batch of brownies and that might help to even it out a bit?)

If you are counting, even with the explanation, it still doesn't work out right, does it?  Well that adorable little puppy card came to me from an old friend back in Colorado.   Now the numbers work even though it's a little crazy.  

You might also notice that two cards are identical.  Yup. We did it again. It has happened so often now that it's almost expected.  We gave each other the same card..................again!  Cue even more laughter!  Clearly we are two people who were meant to be together! We can shop in completely different stores on different days, at different times of day and still end up giving each other the same card!  LOLOL  We are ridiculous.

So that's kind of how we spent our Valentine's Day, together.  We ran errands and did chores for most of the day, I made a very nice meal for dinner, we did our annual card exchange, laughed a lot, smooched a bit and enjoyed a really nice brownie (or two). It was a perfect day.  oh   Tim also contributed a short stack of boxes of Whoppers and Milk Duds, perfect for snuggling up to watch a movie together. Yum~

I know that Valentine's Day is a "made-up" holiday (aren't they all ultimately) and people feel a  lot of pressure to properly express to their life partner how much they care, how important the other person is to them and the extent of their love !   Commercials and movies and "reality TV" make it feel so very serious, very emotionally precarious, teetering your relationship on the brink balanced on this one day of the year! (not to say expensive!)

  I cannot say that either Tim or I feel pressure leading up to Valentine's day.  We both know how we feel and how the other one feels but we like that it is a sweet day  where we make it a point to express how we feel,  tangibly.  With something you can hold in your hands, as well as your heart.  We've done it bigger with flowers, and heart shaped boxes of chocolate and nice dinners out, we've done it smaller with phone calls and delayed celebration but we've always done it with cards. And we've often done it with duplicate cards.  Because we are weird.

Some traditions are a little stranger than other's I suppose but as long as we are good with it, that's all that really matters.

Hope your Valentine's Day was exactly what you wished it to be.

This is the first sunset over the water photo I've shared in quite some time.   Naturally, the reason being my stupid foot.  It continues to heal, very slowly, but progress is progress no matter how pokey it may be. I make it a point to do a little more walking each day and now I'm branching out into walking on different surfaces.

Perhaps you never had occasion to really think about it,  but in truth, walking on actual ground is completely different than walking on concrete which is different, in turn, to walking on sand.  I've been mostly walking on smooth flat surfaces:  wood, concrete, asphalt, tile but I've started branching out occasionally to wandering aimlessly around the backyard, carefully. I don't want a set back for heaven's sakes. This has gone on quite long enough!

But I've been doing so well that the other night after dinner, spontaneously (which is unusual for me) I suggested to Tim that we head over to the beach to watch the sunset.  It's something we used to do regularly but haven't been able to do in quite some time so I think we were both surprised by the words coming out of my mouth.  It's almost criminal to not take advantage of being as close to the beach as we are!

I took off my socks and put on my sandals (socks and sand sounds like a bad mix), Tim grabbed his wallet and keys and at the last second, I snagged my camera.  Once we arrived and I was faced with actually walking on the sand I hesitated.  I even remember thinking, "this could be a really great idea or a really bad one."  I shrugged,  "over the top!" I thought to myself and there we went.

There were far fewer people out there than I expected, this being peak season right now.  (February and March bring guests in droves) but that was probably due to the fact that it was more than a little chilly and very windy.  We did not care one single bit.  

It smelled the same as I remembered and all the elements were still there:  the sun, the birds, the boats, the sand and the water. The beach didn't care that I wasn't around for awhile, it did not hold a grudge, just welcomed me back.

All of the peace contentment, beauty and simplicity was still right there.  And as shuffled cautiously out across the shifting and uneven sand spotted with broken shells and seaweed and the occasional bits of this'n'that  I immediately decided that it was totally worth the risk.

I took a few photos, of course I did:

 We didn't stay long, but I'm so glad went. Now I know I can tackle a careful walk on the sand safely and therefore will return. Probably soon.  The siren call of the beach is just too strong to resist.  Or perhaps I just don't care to resist any longer.

Like the beach I send you wishes for serenity and peace!  I know I am a day early but Happy Weekend to you!