Apparently, this is me.  How embarassing!  I am the snorer!!!  Wow.  Seriously unattractive attribute.  No man ever said,  "My wife has beautiful blue eyes and the cutest snore."

I did not know this.  How could I know this?  It's not as if we hear ourselves when we are sleeping for heaven's sakes.  And of course, Tim is much too gallant to have ever mentioned it to me.  

This came up recently during a doctor visit.   Just my usual once a year visit with our General Practitioner.   He went over my lab results, they checked all the stuff they usual check and for the most part, everything looked good.   He then asked, as he always does, if I had noticed anything new.  This is the part where I usually say, "Nope, I'm all good"  and I make an appointment for the next year and go on my merry way.

This time however, I said, "yes. I notice that I am tired.  I mean seriously just so dang tired all of the time.  And even on days when I feel a little perkier, I wear out fast.  If I hike in the morning, I snooze in the afternoon. Yes,  I even take naps!  I means seriously! Naps!  Naps do not suit me."  He asked a few questions like....am I a good sleeper.  And that's easy. No. I am a terrible sleeper.  If you look up the word Insomniac in the dictionary, it's probably a picture of me.  BUT that's nothing new.  I have never been a good sleeper.

One of my earliest memories is of me  getting in trouble for NOT sleeping.  I wasn't not sleeping on purpose.  I just couldn't sleep. So I got really good, as a child, at playing possum.  Laying their quietly, thinking about things, pretending to be asleep so as to not get in trouble.

So the not sleeping part isn't unusual at all.  I made that part very clear.   The extreme fatigue......yeah, that part is different.

So then he asked me, very nonchalantly,  "do you snore"?  And for a second, I didn't respond at all.  I was shocked, surprised,  taken aback momentarily.  Then I said, 'How on earth would I know?"

To his credit he laughed and suggested that I ask  Tim.    So when I got home, I did just that.  And Tim said, Yes.  With not a seconds hesitation.  It was not accusatory or horrible or anything like that.  In fact, his tone was very conversational and ordinary.  "Would you like spaghetti for dinner? - yes"  That sort of a yes.  I was aghast!  I snore???  

My cheeks were on fire with humiliation.  I was horrified and said so.  Tim was quick to reassure me that it didn't bother him, he wasn't grossed out by it and it didn't keep him awake.  It was just something he noticed is all.  He reassured me but...wow...   I've never been a cute, dainty little girlygirl.  I was the big clodhopperish nerd who read endless piles of books, wore glasses and got a microscope and a globe for Christmas. But at least I didn't snore. No wait!  Yes I do.  Dang.

As my late Nana used to say, "Crap and two is eight"  Meaning, it is what it is what it is.  So what do I do about it?

In my case, my GP referred me to a pulmonologist.  Start there he said, and so I did.  The appointment was yesterday.  It was super quick, in and out.  "Do you sleep well?"  he asked.  "No" I answered, "but that's nothing new. I am a life long insomniac.  So why am I suddenly tired?  If I've always been a poor sleeper shouldn't I have always been tired?"

Somehow that very reasonable question (I thought anyway) got walked past and the Pulmonologist said, "You have sleep apnea."  I do?  News to me!    In case you are unfamiliar with the term:  Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder where breathing is interrupted repeatedly during sleep. Characterized by loud snoring and episodes of stop breathing.  Oh My  God!  I stop breathing during the night?  That doesn't sound like a good idea!!!

Anyway, the plan is that once he gets permission from my insurance company, I am going to do some sort of sleep study.  It seems to involve downloading an app on my phone and me wearing a ring of sorts that will track my sleep (or in my case nonsleep) patterns.  I'll do that for a month.  

Then the doctor reviews all of the collected info from the study and then we move forward from there.

It'll be interesting. A different experience.  It's good to learn new things. Though I think I could have gone my entire life without knowing that I snore!   Trying to see the good here.  If it's true (and I'm honestly not yet convinced) that I do have sleep apnea and we can fix it, yeah, it might be nice to find out what a good nights sleep is like.

Meanwhile, I'm wishing you happy dreams and good sleep!

Really Super Quick:

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We did!  Lots of good food, lots of great conversation, lots of wonderful laughter and the company of some of my favourite people.  My list of things and people for whom I give thanks grows longer every year.  Among those people, I give thanks for all of you!

And now the race to get everything Christmas related done before Christmas begin!

Enjoy your weekend!

Hugs all 'round

I know everyone is super busy right now, just two days before Thanksgiving!  Yikes!  So Much To Do!  But maybe you have time for one quick, funny little story before you dash off to get done the next thing on your gotta do list?

As you can see by the photo at the top of the page, I already have our tree up.  Yeah, too early, even for me.  BUT still there it is.  Up and bright with lights and beautiful in the way that all Christmas trees are.  If you recall, I haven't been able to put up a tree for two Christmasses with all of the Construction and related ish-kabibble that was going on.  There was just no room to squeeze in the tree. Literally no room.  There was barely room for us in this house for two years!  Therefore, I have been looking forward to putting up our tree since that last lick of paint went on the walls in the Family Room (formerly known as the project room) and all of the furniture went back to where it belonged.  What a relief to have it over!  I was so excited at the prospect of a fully decorated house With A Tree!

I am actually kind of impressed with myself that I waited this long to put the tree up.   But I restrained myself.  Originally the plan was to put it up the day after Thanksgiving thus following my own policy of "One Holiday At A Time Please".  But then I remembered that Thanksgiving is on Thursday and the great Christmas Cooking Bakathon begins on Saturday and if I put up the tree on Friday I will be Toast by Saturday. Crispy!  Thus dimming the pleasure of anything else.  Therefore, I wisely decided that the Friday between Turkey Day and Cookie Day be a day of rest.  Which means either putting off the tree for one more full week OR putting it up early.  You already know  which one I choose.

Sooooo Sunday past, Tim helped me put the tree together.  It 's still a wierd thing getting used to a fake tree.  It's handy, I will give it that.  Just a quick as anything, the tree was constructed, the electric cords all connected (carefully covered and cat proofed) and plugged in and tested (yes! it still  works) and we took a moment to consider what happens next.

As it was, the kitties were showing GREAT interest.  No shocking at all.  Cats are notoriously curious.    The cutest part was once we plugged the tree in and the lights went on.  They went from curious to mesmerized!

Tim and I put a lot of thought into what decorations should (and more importantly should not) be used this year.  Out of deference to the baby kitties, we decided that only unbreakable things would be on the tree,  We knew, no wait, we KNEW  that ornaments would be batted around and possibly gnawed on a bit from many previous kitty owning years. 

Once the boxes of ornaments came out, we sorted through carefully and only choose things made of fabric and leather and yarn and wood and, well you get the idea, things that are, generally speaking, unbreakable.  We had enough of them that, while the tree was not nearly as heavily decorated as usual, was good enough to appear finished.  Yay!  Good Job!  We even found the Christmas Train to put under the tree!  

Tim and I put all of the bins and boxes away while  Brysco and Wyatt sniffed around and checked things out.  In general, their attitude seemed to be very paws off.  They were interested but only mildly.  Brysco took a little nap underneath and Wyatt showed even less interest than that. :

  All in all, we felt like we got really lucky.  We have spent many a Holiday season plucking kitties out of Christmas trees and cleaning up broken stuff.  I even considered that perhaps soon I would take a chance and put out some of the other Christmas stuff.  You know what I mean, the pretty little (mostly breakable) things that sit on table tops and in surprising little corners,  Ultimately, as it was nearly the end of the day I decided to wait and give it an over night think before I acted.  Thank goodness!

We woke the next morning bright and early to discover that during the night there had been a terrible train wreck:

Oh, the humanity!  Train cars scattered thither and yon!  

Then through my sleepy eyes I noticed an ornament on the floor near the train. And another. And another. And..... Oh dear, the violence of this train crash obviously caused an avalanche!   When I squinted through my not quite awake peppers, I slowly (I'm not too quick on the uptake first thing in the day) realized just how many ornaments had fallen.  And they were strewn around the family room and, I later realized, into the living room and beyond.  Wow, that was some Crazy Avalanche eh?

I asked the kitty boys if they knew anything about this little collection of ornaments and, as expected, initially they professed their innocence.  But when I later caught them in the act, they had to confess, yes it was them. 

However, in the way of cats everywhere, they showed no remorse whatsoever

I suppose that to their way of thinking, we obviously put the tree up for their enjoyment, right?  Otherwise, first of all, why would it be there at all?  They were feral kitties, they have climbed a few trees in their short little lives, trees are for climbing!  And secondly, all of the dangling little objects in the tree clearly are intended to be played with.  I mean, otherwise, what is the point at all? Why would those enticing little bits be hung in the tree?

I collected all of the ornaments as I found them throughout the day and debated. Should I bother putting them back on ?   Should we take the tree back down?  In discussion with Tim we decided that A) it's their tree too, leave it up.  Thus far they haven't managed to actually knock the tree over (though it's not for lack of trying I assure you)  B) It was a cheapo tree from Big Lots and we've had it for 7 years now. It's not like it's valuable or precious in anyway.  C) they are still babies.  In a few years, they won't be as frisky or silly or fun.  

So we decided that when they nap in the afternoon, I would put the ornaments (which I have collected through the day) back on the tree and during the night they can, if they choose, once again have the fun of taking them back off.  

During the day they don't seem to bother with the tree much other than to sleep under it.  The undecorating and train destruction are strictly night maneuvers.   Which means that, foolishly, after the first night, we thought, maybe they got it out of the system and tonight will be different.   HAHAHAHAHAHAH!  Silly Humans.

I woke this morning to yet another train wreck and about half of the tree undecorated

I'm not sure, of course, but I suspect that the goal is to denude the tree fully.  It's important to have goals.  I think I have found most of the ornaments now.  A few were inside the kitty tunnels, under furniture and behind things but still they were found with only a few fang  marks marring them.  Later today I will, once again, put the ornaments back on the tree and tomorrow we will do the dance again.

Some of the branches in the tree are looking a little worse for wear too.  While the boys are indeed babies - only 7 months old after all, they are BIG babies.  I measured Wyatt when he was sleeping and from the top of his head to the tip of his tail he is over two feet long.  They aren't cats as much as they are mini-panthers.   I'm quite sure that this cheapo tree wasn't intended to carry the weight or length of kitties this size. (or probably at all though that is naive  - everyone knows that cats are the arch enemies of Christmas trees)

The rest of the ornaments, the table top things, the Father Christmas, the snowman collection and so forth, will stay in their boxes and bins this year.  This tree, such as it is, will be our one and only decoration this year.  

Right now they are sleeping the sleep of the righteous and innocent and they look so dang cute.  Later they will wake to wreak chaos and havoc once again.  And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Thanksgiving!  

Hey, there you guys are! Glad you are still around!  I was having some computer problems last week so it's been a few days. Hope all is well with all of you!

 As you can clearly see (Joy on the left, me on the right) Joy and I hit the trail again this past Friday.  Even though we have several days of rain (which we needed so very badly that I won't even complain about it) Friday rose with heavy fog but by the time we arrived at the preserve the sun had come out. Perfect for a Photo Safari Day!  I'm calling with one the Spidey Hike because even though we saw lots of wonderful things, I was so struck by the sun shining through the spider webs everywhere that were right at the very beginning of the day! There were literally hundreds of them.  Wow!

I ought to apologize because that's a lot of spider webs to post, but I did love them all!    It's funny how we only saw them because the light was just perfectly shining threw them in just that moment.  A short time later it was as if they had all vanished!

There were, as there always are, some lovely botanicals too.  A few of them still have those sweet early morning dew drops on them too:

I must have been on my A-Game too because I caught a lot more creatures than usual..woohoo!  The one and only butterfly that I managed to photograph did not come out very clear, but I am posting it anyway, just as the representative for all of the butterfly pictures I did NOT manage to get.  Oh well.

We all know that birds are not my best thing.  I love them, I see them, I try to capture them, but I kind of suck at it.  Still, I keep trying and I have a small collection of them for you today.  We saw quite the birdie variety which is super nice but it seems that mostly what I shot were various sorts of woodpeckers, a bluebird, a warbler of some sort and a hawk in mid-scream!  And if you've never heard a hawk scream, honestly, it's blood chilling!

Lastly, as always, are my favouites, the rando's.  There is no rhyme or reason as to why I like these particular pictures, but I do.   Hope you do too!

​

Hiking for the next few weeks will be a lot less likely as the holidays approach us and the window for getting all  the gotta-do list completed in time grows short.  So I hope you enjoyed the Spidey Hike because there may not be another until the New Year!

There will, however, be loads of other things to talk about, so expect me back again later this week.  Meanwhile, everyone please enjoy a fabulous Thanksgiving.  I hope your pies are perfect, the potatoes are mashed and your holiday companions are exactly what you want and need.

Please know that when I count up all of the things for which I am truly thankful, my readers are on that list!

Happy Thanksgiving  ya'll!!

When you have been petless, especially if it's been for a good long while, there are accommodations you must make in your home when you, once again, have pets.   Suddenly you realize that you must make space, not just for them - and as small as they are they seem to take up a great deal of space - but also for their stuff:  beds, toys, water and food dishes and litter box.

In our family we are very good at the idea of "everybody shove over" to make room so that part wasn't hard, not really.  It was just a matter of rethinking the space, seeing it differently.    Some things we have moved multiple times because our first idea wasn't the right idea.  Like the kitty beds.  Initially we put them in the kitchen/living/dining space because during the day, that center of the house is probably the area nearest us.  My "office" as it were, is the kitchen but, in the way of all "open concept" homes  the kitchen over looks both eating and living areas.  Tim spends most of his days in his office but he comes into the main area fairly frequently.

Side note here:  The idea of an open concept home is supposedly a new idea.  Our house was built in 1962 so perhaps it's not such a new idea after all.  Makes me giggle a little bit

ANYWAY,  these two sillycats didn't seem to like their brand new comfy kitty beds.  In fact,  the only time any of the cats ever did was one day when when  Tim and I were relaxing and chatting in the living room with two friends who were over one afternoon.  To our great surprised, Brysco got into one of the beds as if he did it every day, curled up and immediately fell asleep.  First Time Ever.  The message was clear.  They want to be near us when we are relaxing...not racing around cleaning or cooking or working!  Gotcha.  The beds have been moved to the family room where they are used on the regular now.  They snooze in their beds when  Tim and I are relaxing in the evening, reading, watching TV, chatting, playing games.   Much like the new cats,  Tim and I are teachable.  Sometimes we guide the kitties, sometimes they guide us.

Other accommodations, very small things, were, for example,  learning that we must ALWAYS put the lid down on the toilet seat becoz these two kitties are fascinated by water. Water of any kind.  Lids Down!  Got it.

Some of our tabletop decor has been put away too.  I used to have this adorable little golden carousel that sat on the coffee table.  It moved by air currents and with the ceiling fans always going it spent it's days gently spinning, catching the light as it turned and I was charmed by it.  Kitties were charmed by it too and for a few days, every morning, I would wake up and have to put all of the horses back on the carousel becoz they had been knocked off.  No big deal. Like I said, it's little things.    The carousel is now in the display cabinet, safe and sound. Small accommodations.

Mostly. 

​Another was was not so small.

This is our pantry which is in desperate need of a reorganization so please ignore the mess!   

It has doors.  But back in BC  (Before Cats) I generally didn't bother to close the doors because I was in and out of it all day long.  Leaving the door open was just more efficient.  

However!  The thing about kitties is that they are naturally very curious.  About everything!  And the pantry is something they desperately want to explore.  And if they happen to stumble across some kitty snacks along they way, all the better.  And that is not a good idea.  So I began to close the pantry doors.​

Ahh, the old rubber band over the doorknobs trick, as Maxwell Smart might have said.  It worked great.  Kind of a Pain in the Arse to be undoing and redoing all day long over and over but after awhile, you get used to it.  Except the rubber band doesn't get used to it and in the short time that these kittyboys have lived with us (3 weeks now!) we have had to replace broken rubber bands as locks three different times.  Sigh.  It was clear that either we would have to invest heavily in rubber bands OR find another way of securing the door.

Tim spent awhile exploring options.  Part of the issue is me.  It has to be a lock that even with my stupid arthritis clumsy hands, I can easily work it BUT it cannot be so easy that the cats can figure it out. Believe me, yes that is an issue these guys are super smarties.

After a little trial and error, Tim found a solution!  A lock that I can work, holds the doors closed and, thus far, the cats cannot operate:

  The bottom holes?  Like I said, a little trial and error was involved.  The important thing is that this lock or fastener or whatever we shall call it, works!  YAYAYAYAYAYAY!  

It's funny. We've had pets before, all sorts of pets.  So while we knew that there would be accommodations, and a lot of them we knew about ahead of time,  this one we did not expect.  As time passes, I'm sure there will be others.  And I also know that we will find solutions because that's what we do.

Meanwhile the new mystery today is that Brysco has somehow managed to lose his collar!  Obviously it is somewhere - SOMEWHERE - in this house.  The question is where.  I've already looked everywhere I can think of.  Now I suppose I need to look everywhere I cannot think of.

I promise you that the next post will NOT be about the cats.  I swear it!

​Hope your weekend was grand!

Life is fairly ordinary around here lately.  But then, I find that most of life is like that.  Mundane, normal, sameysame, uneventful.  And you know what, I honestly am fine with that.  There is a comfort to be found in a mostly quiet life with only occasional moments of Excitement or Surprise or Scary Stuff.  

And I don't think that is just Our life that is like that. I suspect that Most people's lives are 80% prosaic.  There are of course the exceptions to the rule.  People whose lives are filled with one exciting adventure after another.  But now that I think about it, I bet that even those people, whose lives are Very  Different from mine, (and perhaps yours) have moments when they look around and think, "This is so very monotonous".  Their monotony may sound exceptional and fascinating to us but to them it's all rather "meh".  

As is most everything, this too is relative.

I suppose I could post some updates on our very ordinary life today.  Keep in mind please that  , when your life is very small, small things become very large.  

Update the first:  I made a big old batch of chili, something I absolutely love but only make rarely.   But when I was ready to serve it I discovered that we had no cheddar cheese..  Traditionally I always sprinkle the top with a little cheddar (and sometimes sour cream and chopped scallions).  It's just something I do.  But when I went to the fridge to get said cheese, I realized that we had no cheddar. NO Cheddar??? Dang.  Ok what alternatives do we have then I asked myself.  Well,  we had provolone - nah, swiss - gosh no, American  - absolutely not and some shredded mozzarella. Hmmmmmm.  Gave the mozz a try and oh my goodness, it was wonderful!  Way better than cheddar.  I think that's going to become the new normal.  Mozzarella cheese on Chili!  Who knew?

I don't seem to be able to make a small amount of chili. Nope it always ends up being created by the vat. And it's a busy sort of chili with lots of veggies:  tomatoes, onions, peppers, 3 kinds of beans and corn!  Ground beef of course.  Loads of spices and other flavourings. And then it needs to just simmer awhile. Let those flavours mingle :)  Served with Cornbread. The first day always freshly made cornbread.  

In subsequent days it may be served over baked potato, on a salad or with elbow macaroni so that it becomes Chili-mac which is definitely a comfort food.  Ain't nothin' wrong with that!
​

Update the second:  My hair.  It's still growing long, it's past  my shoulders now which is perfect for a ponytail, a braid or just thrown up into a messy bun.   But the bangs are still in the process of growing out.  I can't quite tuck it behind my ears and have it stay put yet.  Almost!  But not quite.  So I still employ a great number of clips and barrettes and pins to keep it out of my face.  

And of course, I am greyer than ever before. It wasn't that long ago - last year maybe? or the year before - that I stopped colouring my hair and was disappointed and surprised to find that it was just a boring sort of mouse brown.  Bah.   Then when the greys starting coming in, I was honestly pleased.  Almost anything is better than Mouse brown.  Even grey.   Not only is there more of grey but I think some of the grey is leaning toward white and that absolutely delights me!

In my order of preference it's Number 3 grey...bah...grey...just not appealing to me in any form or fashion.  Number 2 is silver.  I suppose technically it's still grey, but at least it's sparkly.  And then Number 1 with a bullet is white. Soft, bright, shiny, white hair is gorgeous!    As more and more of Numbers 3 and 2 creep into my hair, which are kind of ho hum, I am encouraged to see bit of white in certain places which give me great hope.  Mostly, so far, the white is at the temples and can only be seen if I clip the sides up.  Still, I'll take it!

It's not as if I have any control over it. I cannot order my hair to do something it isn't going to do, or force it to be a particular shade (other than by dying it which I am not going to do). So I have chosen to be pleased with the results no matter what they are.

This is me back in August.  So definitely more grey and silver and white now, 3 months later.  

Update the third: The kitties!

We have now had the kitty boys for two weeks and we are definitely becoming more comfortable with each other.  Every day is a new surprise!  Probably the biggest changes have come from Wyatt who was the original "scaredy cat" when they first came.  Wyatt spent most of his time hiding under the bed in the guest room the first few days.  Eventually he began coming out a little more but he allowed no touching.   No touching!  And he continued to sleep in the far corner under the bed in the guest room.

It makes sense if you think like a feral cat.  One of the times of their days when they are the most vulnerable is when they are sleeping, so ferals choose a spot where they feel safe.    We get it. So we didn't force him to come out, we tried to help him realize that this entire house is a safe place.  We are his safe place.  Eventually he graduated from under the bed to in our closet.  Specifically Tim's side of the closet where this silly kitty chose to sleep on uncomfortable shoes so he could feel safe but still be near us.  To our great surprise one day I stepped into the family room and Wyatt was sound asleep in his kitty bed!!  Right out there in the open! Wow!  

He also actively seeks out pets now.  Lots of pets. Lots and lots of pets!   Tim says he  is making up for lost time. And if that is the case, it's just  fine with us.  We can absolutely take out time in our day to stop whatever we are doing for a few minutes  to lavish Wyatt (and Brysco) with lots of attention.

They also sleep in the kitty tree, paper bags, and inside their kitty tunnel and kitty cube!  The tunnel and the cube I think are reminiscent of whatever safe kitty den they had as feral kittens.  

And they play. Playplayplayplay!!  They are good about entertaining themselves and each other but there are times when they definitely want us involved too. And it's frankly a lovely break in our day to stop what we are doing and play with them a few minutes.    

As is the way with most  cats, they  play a lot a night!  Every morning one of the first things I do is put the house back to rights.  We find the most surprising things.  Fang marks in my newspaper (that I didn't read the night before and was sitting on the counter to be fair), towels on the floor instead of on the towels racks, my glasses.....everywhere!  They are crazy about eyewear!  Books knocked off the bookshelves (of course - no surprise there), soap dispensers knocked into the sinks,  and all of their toys strewn all over the house.

The most surprising thing so far was the morning I found the cloth bag that holds our gloves/scarves/mittens, which is normally on a shelf in the guest closet, on the floor of the living room.  How on earth did they get that down?  This is the shelf that is Above the clothes rod.  I have trouble reaching it!  But there it was on the floor in the living room, partly open (I guess they eventually gave up on it).  Did they levitate?  Ah the mysterious ways of kitties.

None of those things I just listed bother me in the slightest.  They are baby kitties. They are curious about everything and they didn't harm one single thing.    I just put it back where it belongs and chuckle to myself.

They do make us laugh.  Tim and I have always been people who enjoy laughing but I think we laugh even more now.  All these silly goobers have to do is look at me upside down and I'm cracking up.  

Brysco still wants to help us do whatever we are doing.  He was trying to help me fill ice trays this morning.  He definitely wants to help  with cooking or baking but is actively discouraged from that.  Nobody wants fur in the food for one thing but mostly I don't want him to get hurt.  He still follows me around as I vacuum (to save me from the vacuum monster maybe?) and checks on me every time I shower.  (you ok in there mom?)  He helps me dust, sweep, fold clothes and change sheets.  He would like to help me iron (by playing with the cord) but I also discourage that. Repeatedly!

I guess they are the most exciting things in our lives right now and that suits us right down to our toes.  Here are some new photos : (You knew you werent' getting away without that!)
​

I guess as updates go, it isn't much. But honestly that's all I have.  Maybe I will have something more exciting and interesting for you next week!

Meanwhile, Have a wonderful, full-filled, exciting, adventurous weekend!  And then tell me about it.  I'm good with living vacariously ;)

Welcome to yet another Photo Safari Report!  I will call this one The Hike of Many Birds because we saw LOADS of them this time around.  We were surrounded!  And, unless you are in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds", it's always a good thing.

I have to start this report with the little bit of time prior to the actual hike.  It was while I was waiting for Joy to arrive.  I generally wait outside, loaded up with camera, water bottle, phone and monopod. Anyone driving by knows what I'm about to do with one glance.  It is no secret.  Well except maybe to the kitty waiting inthe window, watching me.  Oh My Gosh.  It about broke my heart.

Before I walked out of the house that morning, I kissed Tim goodbye and petted both of the cats.  Wyatt just watched me walk away and jumped back up into the kitty tree for a snooze.  But Brysco walked me all the way to the door, right at my heels.  And then he got up into the kitchen window and meowed at me.  He meowed!!  So I stood on the outside of the window, one fingers pressed against  the screen as he purred on it explaining that I would be back in a little while.  And he meowed again.  And then gave me the sad kitty face.  OMG!    How am I supposed to ever leave the house again??

I steeled myself and with a final wave walked out of the courtyard and to the end of the driveway.  But as I waited, I couldn't help myself, occasionally I did look back at the window and his little kitty face was still right there pressed up against the screen.  My Heart!  Thank goodness Joy showed up right then.  I jumped in the car and we took off before I could change my mind.  It was sort of like leaving your child with a babysitter for the first time and they think you are never coming back!  

ANYWAY, to the hike.  We went to Oscar Scherer state park.  There are loads of trails so there are a lot of possibilities.  We like that.  We were greeted by a very cute little squirrel who was carrying around an acorn as if he had no idea where he was going to put it.
​

You know it's going to be a good hike when it starts out that cute :)

​There were a few botanicals worthy of snapping:

But mostly it was about the birds. We saw all sorts of birds.  Birds in trees, birds in shrubs, birds in tall grasses.  Birds in the sky, birds on the trails, birds everywhere you can imagine.  Wow! Now, Joy is the Wildlife Photographer in this hiking/photo taking duo and her pictures are nothing short of gorgeous.  But here you are stuck looking at mine instead.  And I will be the first to admit that some of mine came out ok, but a lot of them are very meh.  So I'll give you the best of the "meh" photos first: (the only reason I'm posting them at all is because they are pictures of birds, that we saw and photographed.  You can skip this part if you want)

I think most of those shots were either taking directly facing the sun which is always a photo taking issue, or hiding out in shadowy bits,  but what you gonna do?  That's where they birds were!  (and come to think of it, they might have done it on purpose...the buggers)

​But a few other shots came out pretty well:

I have a few rando's for you too this time:

There you go, the Hike of Many Birds!  Considering how few bird photos I've posted in the past few Photo Safari Reports, I think I made up for it with this one ;)

By the way, Tim sent me a text with a photo of Brysco, still in the window waiting for me, about half way through the hike.  That's loyalty baby!

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So excited to present to you, our two new family members, Brysco (in the blue collar) and Wyatt (in the red collar)!!!!  These two crazyboys have already brought so much laughter and joy into our household, I cannot evenn begin to describe it.

Tim and I both grew up in households with pets. For him it was cats and dogs, for me it was cats, dogs, fish, birds, turtles and whatever else happened along.  It was almost unfathomable to us to not have some sort of pet in our home.  And yet, and yet, for the past seven years, we have been petless.

It wasn't really the plan, it was just a matter of timing.   Just before we moved to Florida from Colorado, our one remaining cat passed away.  It was very sad of course.  But we didn't really have time to grieve or consider getting another because we were so busy with the process of selling the Colorado house, finding a Florida house and all of the fal-de-rol involved with moving.  Once we moved into our Florida house, with next to no furniture (having gotten rid of almost every single piece before we left Colorado), we immediately began construction and renovation.    And buying furniture. And painting. And learning our new town. And settling into a new routine. And, well, time flies by.

The chaos of construction is not a good environment for toddlers or pets (and come to think of it, most pets are very similar to toddlers), so we postponed even thinking about whether or not we should get a new pet.  And as 7 years of nearly constant construction and projects going on, we continued to not think about it...............most of the time.  Occasionally we would meet up with friends and neighbors who have pets and we always found ourselves lavishing attention on their cat or dog.  Then we would return home with a vague longing.  But shook it off.  It was something not to be remotely considered until construction and projects were done.

Last year, during my constant round of surgeries and recoveries, I found myself missing the comfort of a pet more than ever before.   Tim and I discussed it and decided that once the family room was done, we would give it serious thought.

Owning a pet  does require serious thought.  Pets, like children, are an enormous responsibility and, let's face it, expense.  Their food and vet bills (which are sometimes more expensive than humans), the toys and beds, the collars or harnesses and leashes, carriers and treats...well it adds up.  And like with a human child, you do not take that on unless you are prepared to do it right.

We debated whether we should get a dog or a cat and landed on cat, mostly because cats are easier.  Yes, I know that sounds lazy, but honestly, neither of us is getting any younger and easy is, well easier.  Tim and I both agreed that two pets was the right idea, not just one for each of us, but also so that when they tired of human companionship, they woudl have another feline to commiserate over how stupid we are ;)  So are bonded pair was an ideal plan.

Last week, I filled out an application to adopt at an excellent cat shelter up in Sarasota, The Cat Depot. We  tried looking at the photos of their available cats online,  but  every kitty picture is so adorable that we just couldn't make the decision that way. Nope, we had to see them live and in person.  So last Saturday we did just that.  We met so many very nice cats and liked all of them.  And then we met these two goofballs.

They are absolutely identical brothers, six months old and originally ferals captured in a TNVR sweep.  That is: Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return.  They each have one ear that has been docked or tipped if you prefer, poor babies.  But are still very handsome devils.  We were told by the folks at the shelter, they nobody, not one single solitary person, had shown interest in these two sweet boys.  So, clearly, we had to take them.  For some reason, which absolutely baffles me, people do not seem to adopt black cats.    They would have been doomed to live out their lives at the shelter.

Don't get me wrong, Cat Depot is a wonderful shelter staffed with loving, caring knowledgeable people but it's not the same thing as being in a loving home.  Without even checking out all of the cats available for adoption, we knew that these were our boys.  We paid the fee, signed the papers, loaded them into their carriers and brought them home.

They were surprisingly well behaved on the long car ride back and once we arrived home and let them back out of their carriers, they were more curious than anything.  We allowed them to just sniff and wander and check the place out.  Clearly we passed their inspection because with each passing day, they become more and more relaxed and goofy and fun.

For ferals they are surprisingly affectionate and love getting pets.   Because they are physically, carbon copies of one another, we put different coloured collars on them immediately. Otherwise, we'd never know who was who.   Their personalities are a little different, which helps.  Brysco is a little more trusting, a little more outgoing, but Wyatt is relaxing more and more all the time and now, (less than a week later), will sometimes walk up to Tim and I to request pets rather than hiding in the far corner under the guest bed which was where he choose to be between meals the first two days.

They are very easy going so far about mealtimes.  They don't get noisy or pushy about wanting to eat, which is nice. But if I call them to breakfast or dinner, they  thunder up like a herd of ponies.  And, like most ferals, they aren't at all particular about what they eat.  I, however, do care and read every can and every bag in the cat food aisle before purchasing any. 

They are slowly learning the word no.  They are not fans.  No you cannot be on the stove.  No you cannot scratch the furniture. Same goes for the rugs. No you cannot chew wires.   No you cannot climb the window screens.  No you cannot help yourself to our food.     But as I say, we are making progress.

They are endlessly curious about everything.  Shockingly, they are not afraid of loud noises so when I dry my hair, they sit and watch.  When I vacuum, they follow the vacuum around.    Both boys love sitting in an open window watching the world go by, bicycles, people and cars are mildly interesting but bunnies, squirrels and birds are awesome!

They want to help us do whatever we are doing, tying shoes, making the bed, typing....oh yeah, they are big on helping type.  The number of sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs that I've had to delete are legion.  All typos from this moment forward I'm blaming on the cat.   They want to help wash dishes, read the newspaper, fold clothes and wash floors. 

Brysco is especially good at helping Tim watch television.  Every day, at least once, there is a battle for cube supremacy which Wyatt usually wins.  And then somewhere along the line, usually late morning or early afternoon, they disappear and we wonder if it was all a dream.  Do we actually own cats ?  They vanish into closets or the little "clubhouse" on the cat tree or under the coffee table.  And seriously, a black cat in the dark is totally invisible unless they have their eyes open.

There is all sorts of literature about the positive health benefits of owning a pet.  They lower blood pressure and anxiety, decrease risk of stroke,  lift depression, and because they want to playplayplay, get us up off our arses to play with them which is exercise!  And best of all, they make us laugh.

I will say that it's hard to get decent photos of them. They are in near constant motion!  But I try.  Here are some other photos of our new house panthers:

We are delighted with our new kitties and know that they will bring us great joy in the years to come.  But I feel so very sorry for this years Christmas Tree.  Making a mental note now to only put unbreakable ornaments on it!

Tell me about your pets!

If any of you are old enough, do you remember the old Doublemint Chewing Gum ads?  "Double your pleasure, Double your fun.....  Two Mints In One."?  Well similarly this post will be two hikes in one blog post!  Late last week I hiked on two consecutive days, once with Tim and once with Joy.  Both were awesome!   We will call these Photo Safaris the "Doublemint Hikes".  There was nothing minty about either by the way.

Tim likes to find new places to explore so we found ourselves at Weeden Island Preserve on Thursday.  It's an interesting place just on it's own and has been, at one time or another, a movie studio, an airport, a speakeasy (!!) and a private residence.  The crumbling remains of the tiny airport building is still there:

We heard loads of birds and actually saw quite a few:  Here is the list as best as we can both recall of the birds that we saw:

Osprey
Blue Jay
Gnat Catcher
Gold Warbler
Vulture
Mockingbird
Woodpecker
Hawk
Pelican
Ibis

This is the one bird picture that I actually got (sigh):

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There was a big tower to climb, so ofcourse we did.  From the top we could see, not only water, but three different cities:  Tampa, St Petersberg and Clearwater.  Very Cool:

There were, seemingly, miles of boardwalk through the mangroves, which are always amazing.  And along the way we saw some very cool stuff including a spider that was easily as big as my hand!  Somehow, no matter how I tried I couldn't get a photo of the spider but I got her reflection in the railing.   Did manage to capture a couple of photogenic lizards : )

And toward the end there was a big old gopher tortoise!  Awesome!

It was a terrific hike  and it's always fun to do something a little different.  

Of course there's nothing wrong with hiking a place we've been before either and that happened on Friday with Joy.  We headed back to Carlton Reserve and we were not disappointed.  The early morning light was beautiful.  Of course, it always is:

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And, as always, we found some pretty botanicals. The water drops were especially nice on some of them:

We saw so many dragonflies and butterflies.  And I actually miraculously captured few of them:

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And this hike, I even managed to get some birds!  Another miracle!

Two, Two, Two hikes in One!    And both of them were absolutely awesome!

Hope you enjoyed the Doublemint Hikes.  Get ready for a surprise post later this week!   I'm so excited I can hardly stand it)

I'm back!    How has everyone been?  What's new and exciting?

We've had a lot of company over the past few weeks which has been awesome!  There is nothing quite like seeing your own town through the eyes of someone else. 

We showed off the best parts of our town:  places like the beach, tree-canopied streets, parks, historic homes and adorable downtowns.  We ate at great restaurants, checked out interesting shops, took long walks and spent a lot of time just talking and laughing.  The weather cooperated and was absolutely lovely the entire time.  I baked, of course.  If nothing else I will always offer guests tasty treats!

Of course, we were lucky to also have perfect guests: Thoughtful, funny, gracious and both interested and interesting!   We are forever grateful to anyone who is willing to spend their very precious vacation time hauling themselves all the heck the way to Florida to see us!  We are so happy that they came!

Frankly, these days, my hat is off to anyone willing to drive endless highway hours battling road construction, bad drivers, mercurial weather and recalcitrant automobiles.   All guests deserve rewards for endurance!  The least we can do as hosts  is to make our visitors as comfortable as possible.   

Worse in my opinion is flying.  In fact, I think right now the only thing good I can say about air travel is that it is faster than any other mode of travel.  The entire experience is expensive, inconvenient and unpleasant.  But I suppose until Scotty really can Beam Us Up, travelling by plane is going to be the best we can do.

Speaking of airplanes,   yesterday Tim and I went to a museum we had never visited before, the Military Heritage Museum.

It was a fascinating places filled with information, memorabilia and loads of volunteers ready, willing and able to ask questions and share terrific information.  Most of what was there was not new to either of us as we are both interested in history.  And there was a lot of history there as every U.S. involved war/police action/conflict/official skirmish from the Revolutionary War right straight through to the present day was represented.

The coolest part was that this  museum has some interactive stuff!  For instance Tim was able to sit in a flight simulator and "fly" a plane with a real life pilot right at his side talking him through.  His instructor was very impressed with him.  (I was too!): 

As I watched I couldn't help but think of Snoopy and his endless "aeroplane" battles with the Red Baron.  heeheehee

So anyway, that's mostly what we've been up to lately. Enjoying our guests to the absolute Max and then discovering this museum ourselves yesterday.  We are just having way too much fun.

Today it's back to the museum for me. And life begins to settle back into what passes for "normal".  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Nice to be back though.  Hugs all 'round

The above photo has nothing to do with my little mini-post today by the way.  Tim and I were down at the jetty over the weekend and to our surprise, it was very splashy!  Happened to be lucky enough to get this pretty good shot so I'm sharing it ;)

I know that you don't know this but we've had a lot of wonderful company the past few weeks and enjoyed every single minute of it. (Tim and Christina, you know who you are)  AND we have more company company coming later this week and I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about our next round of visitors :)  Squeeeee!~

It seems that I have yet more very full days of stuff going on right now and therefore I am going to take the rest of this week off from posting.  We all saw how little I have been posting lately anyway, which is mostly because I've been just barely squeezing it into my cup overfloweth schedule.  Sorry about that.  I decided that rather than continue to add ONE MORE THING to this week, I'm going to just step away until Next Week and then we'll catch up!

Meanwhile, have a terrific week, be safe, have fun and I'll see you soon!!

Hugs all 'round

I was reading a very interesting (at least to me) article about the "Interview" experience.  It's been awhile since I last had to undergo the experience of being interviewed to be fair, but there were some rather unusual interview experiences throughout my life that  were not easily forgotten.   I'm sure we all have stories about them!

The entire interview experience, especially early on in our careers, is borderline terrifying.  Stepping into the unknown is always scary and seriously: I don't' know these people, I am unfamiliar with this place, I don't know what they are thinking, I dont' know what they expect of me!!  Then it's the sudden lack of confidence:  am I up to the task? can I do this? am I dressed appropriately? am I babbling like an idiot? have I had a sudden attack of stupid?

It can be nerve wracking!   According to the article I read, we all feel pretty much the same way walking in the door to an interview They referred to at as a "universal experience". Kind of nice to know. Misery loves company and all that.

In the article I read, however, one of the things they focused on was some new interview trend that frankly does not impress me.  Amidst  all of the many questions that the interviewee is asked, sometimes now, suddenly the interviewer throws in an oddball question that is designed, (honestly), to knock the interviewee off kilter.

Something like, "If you were any animal, which animal would you be".  What????  I can see asking that of a kindergarten class as a way to get to  know the kids and their personalities and kind of break the ice.  But in an interview for a job, that sounds  wildly off base.  My mind was racing when I read that part.  What animal would I have said?  

I have been described as a bunny rabbit of a girl and a lady bug before.   And one of my favourite animals is a cat but I'm not sure any of those answers would make me sounds like a prime candidate for ANY job.  Think about it.  Rabbits are skittish creatures, ladybugs fly away and cats are notoriously lazy.  None of those descriptors sounds like, Yes Let's Hire Her!  

Another crazy interview question was, "What colour best represents you?"  Again, What the what?  What colour?  Is this arts and crafts class or a JOB interview!  Perhaps they are hoping to see how creative the interviewee is or how quickly they think on their feet.  But it did get me wondering, what colour best represents me.  I've been mulling it over since I read the article several days ago and I still have no idea.

I am a happy person so maybe yellow?  But I like things to be calm and serene so maybe blue? And then there is a penchant for light so perhaps white is the better choice?  I suspect that there is no ONE colour that properly represents any one person.  Question overruled!

But that did get my bizarro brain wandering down other similar paths tho.  What about states?  There are already official state animals, for Florida it happens to be the panther.  And state flower is an orange blossom .  Is there a state colour?  As it turns out...nope.

So I wondered what that would be.  I suppose it could be blue for the water and the sky.  There is a ton of both here.  So many shades of blue and every single one of them is gorgeous!

Or yellow like the sun, after all we are known as the  Sunshine State:

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Or maybe orange!  Who doesn't associate Florida with Oranges?    But it's also orange for the sunsets.  They are pretty spectacular:

Actually, now that I'm really giving it some thought, I think that the colour that best represents Florida is green.  There is so much greenery, it's year 'round and it's everywhere!  Lush, Verdant, Abundant, Flourishing, Thriving, and All Year 'round Florida is green.

It's not just the palm trees that everyone associates with such a tropical climate, though they are aplenty, it's also the pine trees (did you know that we have them?) and my favourites, the Live Oak which, unlike the trees in other places, is never without her leaves.  There are citrus trees, avocado trees, mangrove and gum trees.  Trees I have no idea what the name is and they are legion.

Shrubs ?  Yeah, we got 'em.  Some flower, some don't.   All of them are luxurious and full bodied and green.  Flowers? Naturally and they have blooms in a rainbow of colours but the stem and leaves are green.  Grasses for sure, both wild and tamed, green and green.  Weeds, oh yeah, lots of weeds, all of them some shade of green.

So this started out with an article about the Interview Process and how it's changed a bit since my day and I'm ending with a proposal for an official state colour and voting that Florida's colour be green.  I have no doubt that there are those who would argue the point and that's just fine. I like a good intellectual exchange or ideas. Bring it on!

And employers, please, stop with the really stupid interview questions. 

Nothing really big to talk about today, but there are a few small, related things. Or at least semi-related.  Isn't that most of life though?  I believe that the majority of our life is a collection of little moments, small pleasures and tiny  treats.  This is more of that :)

Let's see, I suppose the first thing is that we got a new freezer for the utility room!  Yay!  You may (or may not) recall that a few months back our old utility room fridge/freezer died.  With no warning at all it went from fully functioning to zero functioning and no amount of threats or coaxing would get it going again.  Dang.  Frustrating!  Especially since it was less than 4 years old!  Grrrrr. Did not get our money's worth out of that particular appliance!  Drat.

Luckily we discovered that it had crapped out before it ruined everything inside.  And by everything I mostly mean what was in the freezer because, as it turned out, that was mostly what we used it for, the freezer compartment.  So somehow we managed to stuff the contents of the 2nd freezer compartment in the utility room into the primary freezer compartment in the kitchen. It was a very tight squeeze.  Then I cleaned the non-working appliance thoroughly and we on about our lives without giving replacing it much thought.  Let's see how much we REALLLLY need the second one.

As it turns out, it's not absolutely Essential to our existence, but it is nice to have.  And since we realized that we primarily used it for it's freezing ability, once it was replaced we determined that we would buy only a freezer.  Because we are smart consumers, we tend to shop the sales.  And when we find a great sale, doesn't it make sense to buy more than one of whatever the item is?  Of course it does!    So for example, if our local Farm Market is selling huge bags of chicken legs for $3.00 (not per pound....per bag!!!!)  Of course we are buying that. And at least two. And putting them right into the freezer!  Things like that.

And when I bake (which is often as we know) with a freezer, I have the option of making more than one loaf of something or making double batches of whatever and putting the rest in the freezer for.....I don't know what occasion but those occasions happen!  And becoz I have goodies in the freezer, we are prepared!

Sooooo, as I was saying, we are smart consumers and shop the sales.  And that means for appliances too.  Tim found a Terrific deal on utility room (actually they said garage) freezers but it had to be ordered before a particular date.   We talked it over and decided to go for it.  The day it was delivered (and they took away the old fridge/freezer thank goodness) we woohoo'd all over the place.  And once it was colded up, I moved over EVERYTHING in the kitchen fridge/freezer to the new freezer (except ice packs) and, and, and,  it was almost laughable.  Great Big stand up freezer with maybe 5 items in it.  And one of the items was a bag of banana nut muffins.  LOLOL    So we've been slowly adding to the frozen larder as great sales turn up.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that since we have that big old freezer with all that extra space, perhaps a good idea would be to get some ice trays.  We go through a LOT of ice every day just the two of us.  If there is anyone else at the house who wants ice in the drinks, we will clean out the ice maker completely!  Tim agreed that it was a great idea and applied himself to the task of researching the subject.  Researching ice trays never dawned on me, by the way. I assumed that we would stop in a target at some point and pick up a couple of ordinary ice trays and that would be the end of it.  I was wrong.

A couple of days later several packages showed up via Amazon at the door.  Voila!  Tim says with a big old smile on his face.  Ice Trays!  All sorts of ice trays!  And I began to laugh and I couldn't stop for awhile.  Why?  Because these aren't ordinary ice trays. Of course not!    Some of these trays make HUGE ice shapes. Some of them make tiny ice.  Well everything is in some short of shape.  But I mean not run of the mill ice shapes.    It was a hilarious surprise.  

While I was beside myself laughing, Tim told me to count my lucky stars because he considered getting ice in the shape of trucks or stars or cats and instead settled on these.  And I was off again, laughing so much that my face hurt afterwards.  

So the new ice trays:  Some are spheres..great big ones and when the tray is over filled and some of the edges come out with the sphere, they look like the planet Saturn!  Some are tiny spheres...those look more like the former planet, Pluto.  Some are GIANT SQUARES!  You could hurt somebody with one of those if you threw it!  And then there are my favourites that are teensy hex shapes and the trays look like blue honey combs.  They are my favourites becoz I have always had  the terrible habit of eating ice.  These are Perfect for that!  I can fill a tiny shot glass with a bunch of them and slowly munch on them while doing another task.  

Here's the ice cubes?  Well some are cubes...what do you call the ones that aren't cubes?   I mean generically not specifically.  Thoughts?

And here are my favourite little baby hex ice cubes in their usual home, the shot glass:

I have no idea how many of those I go through in a day.  I don't want to count. It's probably embarrassing.

And then there is the last  new thing.  It involves lights.

More than 7 years ago now, we had just moved into this house and the very first thing we did, I mean Very First Thing was to have the kitchen reno'd.   And that of course, included new kitchen lights.  We requested a line of can lights  down the galley with under cabinet lights, plus several pendants over the peninsula, one over the sink and a fixture over the table.  Tim and I like LOTS of light.  So our builder accomodated all of our requests.  Yay!  We still love the fixture over the table and matching pendants but the can lights never really seemed to give the amount of light we wanted.

But you know how it is, you deal.  It was still WAY more light than when we bought the house so, we made do.  But more and more often, while cooking/baking I found myself turning on every dang light in the kitchen, including undercabinet lights and that little light under the microwave (it's over the stove) and still wishing we had more.  As time went on, suddenly one day the can lights at the far end of the kitchen by the pantry and the utility room door went out.  And suddenly there was this black hole at the end of the kitchen .  Oooo Scary!  And less than ideal.

So, last weekend Tim  replaced all of the can lights with brighter white lighting and oh my gosh the difference is incredible!  The first thing I said to him was, "Holy Cats!  I could do surgery  in here now!"  It's awesome! I can see everything!  (including the dirt, sad to say - a great deal of cleaning happened immediately aftewards...once again, embarassing).  It's Awesome!  We still just cannot get over the difference between the gloom zone that used to be the kitchen used to be and the light bright happy place that it is now. 

It really is the little things :)

Wishing you a bright light happy day and an even better weekend!

hugs all 'round.

I am starting this Photo Safari Report off with 3 shots of the same thing, just different perspectives: close up, not so close up and farther away.  It's an eagles nest!  If you've never seen one before you just cannot imagine how BIG they are until you realize that you can still see it from quite a distance away.  

I started with the eagle's nest because this hike caused some serious cricks in the neck for Joy and I. It seemed as if most of what we saw required looking UP.  So I am calling this one this TipTop Hike.  Soooo many of my photos required focusing on the tippy top of things :)

Things like Hawks.  We saw more hawks in this one hike than in multiple hikes put together!  It was crazy.  Every time we turned around, look there's another hawk! And of course they are always way up......somewhere. Maybe they were having a convention?  Or maybe it was just one hawk, zooming from one place to another as we hiked along?  Honestly have no idea.  I do know that I took a ton of hawk photos.  Here are a few:

Of course we didn't only take pictures of hawks. That would be silly. And boring.  Nope we took lots of other photos too. But again, many of them were of creatures that were sitting way up high.  And not all of them were birds!

Thank goodness not everything was up high.  Right around the time we were getting dizzy from constantly looking up, we would look down and see things worth happy snapping that didn't have us craving a chiropractor afterwards!  

As always, I seem to be drawn to botannicals, partly because they are so pretty, but also because they are easier photography subjects.  They tend to hold still.  I value that highly!

Finally just  before we come to the end of the TipTop Hike, I have a few randos to share with you. I have no explanation of why these things appeal to me, but they do and so here they are:

Hope you enjoyed the  TipTop Hike !  We sure did, even though it was a literal pain in the neck.  teehee.  Have an absolutely Glorious Day!

What the what?   There are two Curry Creek Preserves?  How could I have lived here this long without knowing this?    Well I suppose it doesn't really  matter how it happened that this bit of information  escaped me.  The important thing is that I  know it now.

Joy and I have been hiking what we thought was the one and only Curry Creek (which turns out to be Curry Creek East) for years. { The fact that the sign clearly says on it "Curry Creek East) obviously meant nothing to us.}  It's a smallish local preserve but we've taken some great photographs there.  My one and only picture of an armadillo was taken there.   Also the baby Swallow Tail Kites were there. And come to think of it, I think my only picture of a Bob-White was snapped on those trails!

So Joy was as surprised (and intrigued) as I was about this Curry Creek West business when I told her which of course meant that we had to check it out.  Yesterday, despite predictions of rain, we loaded up and headed over.  The sky was gloomy and the air became progressively more humid as the minutes ticked by so we knew rain was coming and we did not dawdle. But you know what?  As it turns out, it's not a dawdling sort of place.

​It was fine, I suppose. Turns out to be even smaller than the other Curry Creek Preserve. But there were trails, well marked and there were a couple of birds hanging around the edges of a couple of ponds:

I think my biggest issue with this Western Curry Creek is that at no point were we ever beyond the view of the homes in the area.  When we hike, Joy and I really like that feeling of being out in nature, that feeling of being where the wild things are and it's hard to maintain that illusion when I can glance over and see some nice lady hanging out her laundry.

Drat.  We cruised through it fairly quickly and we did take a few photos and slapped at a LOT of mosquitoes and we were back at our starting point in no time at all.  Sigh.   Kind of disappointing over all.    What do we do now? we asked each other. " Well, I suppose we could go back to the other Curry Creek, " Joy  said,  and so we did.  

Now here are the rest of the photos. 99% of which are of the Real Curry Creek Preserve.  So this Photo Safari is going to be called the "At Least We Tried Hike"  because we did give the imitation Curry  Creek a try. And now we know that we don't need to go back.

We did see more birds at our 2nd stop and more Blue Jay's than anything else!  I don't think we've ever seen so many Jays in one place!  Here's a sampling:

But of course there were other birds too.  And I have to mention here that the gloomy day certainly impacted being able to take a nice clear shots since the birds were hanging out in the trees which are shady and the sky was very grey so please bear with me on the quality of the shots. I added as much light as possible and sometimes it just didn't help much.  Anyway, here you go.  Birdies;

Initially we saw no birds at all and I think I even said to Joy at some point that I suspected this was going to be a botanical hike.  And there's not one thing wrong with that, it was just an observation.  Luckily I was wrong, we saw plenty of other photo worthy things!  There just happened to be loads of flowers too. Hope you like flower photos coz here they come! I will try really hard to only post the really good ones:

The biggest happy surprise were the number of insects we saw. Loads of dragonflies and butterflies, lots of different sorts of wasps and bees and a few other bugs that I'm not absolutely positive what were!  Only got a few photos, (they move so quickly!) but here they are:

 Last but not least there is Curry Creek itself.  Curry, by the way, is the name of one of the first settlers to the Venice area.  I think that fact deserves to have a creek and a couple of preserves named after them!  The Creek and reflections of things in the creek:

And we've come to the end of another Photo Safari Report, this time the "At Least We Tried Hike".  I'm glad we checked out the Other Curry Creek. We learned something new, which is always a good thing, we finished up just as the sky was beginning to  sprinkle on us so our timing was terrific, we got some exercise, some time together and few decent photos.  

Another Great Day!

​

Welcome,  Welcome Autumn Equinox!  Let me add a few more Welcomes in there just to clarify how very happy I am that Autumn has officially arrived!  Woo and hoo!

I have always been a big fan of Autumn.  Regardless of where we lived or how the seasons played out, Autumn was always top dog with me and I don't really know why. I guess it's just one of those things that's just typed right on my DNA.  Thou shalt love Fall!  And it was so.

Now that I'm giving it a little more thought, I suppose this is one of the reasons I adore autumn:

That, my friends, is an open window.  And it is a beautiful sight to see.  Over the weekend, it was so absolutely gorgeous out in the morning that we opened a few windows for awhile. And, most importantly, we were still comfortable after doing so.  The inside of the house was not too hot, not too humid, it was wonderful!  Fresh Air!  I love when that happens.  

And it was earlier than usual this year.  Usually, the first opening of windows doesn't happen until sometime in October.  Very Exciting!  The window opening generally begins slowly, just a few hours in the morning and evening each day, closing them as soon as the temperature begins to rise and re-opening once it falls again.  But as the days go by, we find the windows open longer and longer until, they just stay open all the time and the fragrance and the breeze (and the outside sounds, lets be fair) swoop through the house all the time and eventually it's so cool that I have to put on a sweater. Love It!

The weather being cooler and less humid  also means spending more time outside comfortably and that's huge!  I have big plans for lots of yard work and Tim is looking forward to getting that second coat of paint on the outside of the house. Over and Done!  It's not that a person cannot spend time outside in the summer, it can be done. I know because we do it. But it's not.......pleasant.  We'll just leave it at that.  So we are looking forward to being outside and being happy about it.

Here's something else that I look forward to every autumn:

Rainbows in the house!  Shortly after we moved into this house, Tim put a window film on the glass part of the front door so that we have light but privacy.  Due to the position of our planet around the sun this time of year, in the late afternoon, the light of the sun comes directly through that window and breaks into prisms that make rainbows on the floors and walls for a short time.  I cannot begin to describe how much that tickles me.  And it only happens this time of year.

And speaking of the earths changing alignments in Autumn, this is the best time of year to view my favourite Constellation,  Orion!  It pleases me to no end to look up into a dark, cloudless sky, night after night after night and immediately spying a bright, clear view of my old friend, The Hunter!  Can't explain it, but it's true.

I love that we begin to eat different foods this time of year.  After a long hot season of various salads and simpler, lighter fare, now I can begin to make more casseroles and stews and soups!  And pies!  I rarely make pies in the summer.  For some reason, to me, pies are a cold weather treat.  As are cobblers!    Additionally, the grocery store offerings in the produce section will have changed.  Apples are back!

Ok let's be honest.  Nowadays you can get strawberries in December and apples in June BUT they aren't great.  They sort of whisper their representation of the real fruits (and veggies!)  I am happy to wait, thank you very much, for the real deal.  And right now we have the last of the fresh beautiful juicy fragrant peaches and the beginnings of apples and pears and I am such a happy girl :)

Yet another reason to love fall (as if I needed another reason) is a wardrobe change.  I do like my clothes.  It's the reason I bought the things I bought.  Because I liked them.  But after wearing the same things, day after day after hot sweaty summer day, I am ready for a change. I am so looking forward to the temperature dropping so I can start wearing long pants, long sleeved shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts and occasionally even a jacket!  It's been so long now, that I'm not positive I remember which shirts go with which pants??  I'll have the joy of figuring it out all over again.

Here's a final reason:  New TV season!  So tired of reruns

I reckon those are the biggest reasons why I adore this beautiful season of Autumn!  What's your favourite season??

Yeah, that's me and no, I didn't break down and cut my hair.  That's me one year ago. What a difference 365 days makes, eh?

You know how on Facebook they have that "memories" thing and you can see what you posted one year ago and five, ten or more years ago?  Yeah?  Well this photo popped up.  I had just had my hair cut. And the only reason I know that is because it said so right in the post.

I had been wearing my hair in a bob with bangs for a very long time and I directed my wonderful hairdresser to always trim it right around chin length.  Sometimes it was a wee bit shorter, sometimes a tiny bit longer but the length was always right around that chin neighborhood.  It was easy to care for,  though I was forever butchering my bangs when I trimmed them between appointments.  I had a standing appointment once every 7 weeks to keep me from looking more like a sheepdog than a human being.

It was at some point after that  photo was taken that I decided I was going to grow out my bangs and, what the heck, lets grow out the hair too. I cancelled my next appointment and did not make another.  

That picture is  literally  of my most recent haircut which was September 21st 2022.   Yikes!

This is me last month:

And my hair is one month longer today.  Wow, I  just cannot get over how much my hair grew in one year!  Holy Cats!

I cannot seem wrap my brain around it fully.  I guess it's because the hair grows such a small amount each day that we didn't  really notice it.  I mean, when my bangs started getting my my eyes, oh yeah, I noticed that.  But I gritted my teeth and clipped and hair banded  and barretted it until it was finally (FINALLY!!) no longer an issue.   

And the rest of the hair was never an issue. Not really.  I wear it in a ponytail or one of those giant clips most of the time during these hothothot days anyway so I don't think about how long it is or, conversely how much shorter it was Just One Year Ago!  Whoa!

That year went by so quickly too. I mean just Zoooooom!  And here it is one entire year later.

I suppose that dramatic change is a good indicator of what can happen if I really put my mind to it and just do it.  I could potentially lose those dang 10 pounds that REFUSE to go away.  One year from now I could be 10 pounds lighter and far more fit and potentially stay that way, if I really tried every single day for the next year.

Or maybe if I devoted a little time daily for a year, perhaps I could finally truly learn a second language?

With a years worth of practice maybe I could master french pastries?  Or the Tango? Or, once and for all, Calculus coz I sure as heck didn't get it the first time around!!!!

Maybe I could learn to knit?   Paint?   Play Pickleball?  Start a vegetable garden?

If I really put my mind to it, I suppose I could devote the next year to doing pretty much anything and one year from now I would be so much better at whatever it is I chose to do!!!

Wow!

Of course, the one thing I apparently haven't learned in a year is how bad I look in Black or Grey!   Wow!  Try a little colour why don't ya, Sam.

​Anyway, that was my brilliant (?) insight for the day today.  

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and wondering where we will all be and what we will be doing one year from today!!!

​Hugs all 'round

Look at that nice, clean, neat, tidy Utility Room!  That's the task that Tim and I tackled on Saturday this weekend.  There's more to be done, of course, there always is, but it was a great start.  I do love when things are clean and tidy.  And a utility room is such an easy room to slob up.  Any time there is something that you don't quite know what to do with, it gets stashed in the Utility room, "for now".  And then "For Now" ends up being forever and that's easy to get out of control. I have one trip to Good Will ahead of me and other stuff went out with the garbage this morning.  Tim put in some hanger-upper things so some things are now on the wall, big yeah.  He also repaired the frame of one of the many pictures that fell and hung that back up.

You may (or may not) recall that at some point, I thought I was being so dang smart, bought a bunch of Command Strip Picture hangars and suddenly there was art on the walls all over the house.  Much to our surprise,  some time later,  those same pictures began to fall from the walls.  We would hear a crash and run to find broken frames, broken class and art on the floor.  Sigh.  It wasn't even all of the pictures at once.  It could be weeks or even months between art disasters. Eventually we just  proactively took it all down and then we had no art on the walls.  It was very sad.

Now, very slowly, Tim is repairing frames and hanging things back up.  It isn't even the repair work that is the issue here.  Because  most Florida Homes are built out of Concrete Blocks, this isn't a matter of taking a small hammer and an ordinary picture hanger and tapping it in.  Nope, this requires a power drill into Concrete.  It's a process.  Eventually most, if not all, will be back on the walls.

And I took advantage of the much tidier Utility Room to vaccum like a mad woman and wash the floor.  It was a Busy and Dirty day.  We were filthy and tired when we were done but happy with the end result.

Sunday, however, we wanted to get OUT.  No idea of where to go or what to do, just, "lets get outta here!"  And so we did.  And I said, "Let's go on roads we've never been on before"!  Ahhh, an adventure!

So, ultimately,  we ended up out in farm country!  A pretty place to be :)  Very green and wide open with fields and sky and more fields and sky.  Awesome:

We saw lots of farm equipment, some of which I had no idea what was, lots of tractors of course and a windmill!  I cannot tell you the last time I saw a windmill!

There was very little traffic on the roads which was a delightful change but we saw loads of cows and horses, quite a few bee houses, one raccoon and countless birds.  Because it's tricky taking pictures out the window of a moving car, I only managed to get one photo and that of a horse.  So this horse is representational of all critters that we spied:

We drove alongside a train track for a very long ways and I speculated as to whether or not is was still active.  The following answered that question in short order:

 We drove in and out of countless little farm towns with interesting names like Nocotee and Cubitis and Ft Ogden.  And then we drove in and out of multiple cloudbursts despite the sun shining and then were disappointed to see not one single rainbow.

We went over countless little bridges spanning small creeks, some named, some not and then also over some good sized rivers.  We did stop at one of the rivers to walk the kinks out of our legs.  Even lazy old me can only sit so long before my butt goes to sleep and I really need to move around for a little bit.

We were having such fun that we lost  all track of time and were surprised when our tummies started rumbling.  Oh, is it time to eat already?  Yup, it was dinner time.  By the time we filled our bellies, it was time to head home.

But it was a great adventure and a perfect way to spend our Sunday!

How was your weekend?

About 15 years ago I did something a little out of the ordinary.  I bought myself a set of mugs.   We already had cups/mugs whatever you would like to call them.  In fact we had plenty of them.  And all of them were either conventional or oversized.  Which is great if you have big hands and/or drink your hot drinks very quickly.  

Neither of those things applies to me.  I have small hands and I sip my drinks.  In fact I am so goldarned pokey about how slowly I drink that by the time I'm reaching the bottom third of whatever hot drink I am working on, it's not longer hot.  Sometimes it's barely tepid.  Bleh.  As far as the small hands thing goes, those oversized cups mean I have to use two hands to safely use them and that's just not efficient.  I don't know about you, but I'm almost always doing at least two things at a time which means I need at least one of my hands free of mug holdery.

One day I just got a wild hair and happened to see this set of six mugs/cups that were smaller, more delicately proportioned and I liked them well enough to fork over the dough to buy them.  Yay!  That's them in the picture above.  Purple, Orange, Green, Blue and Red!  Oh wait, that's only five mugs.  Didn't I say the set had six mugs?  Yes I did!  Oh dear.

Yup, sad to say, earlier this week I broke one of them.  Of course it was my favourite mug, the yellow one.  Ain't that always the way?

I'm not even sure how it happened?  It was in my hand and the suddenly it wasn't and when it smashed onto the granite counter top it shattered into, roughly, a zillion pieces of all different sizes.  

The pieces were of every size possible from the largest, above, to almost microscopic and they were everywhere.  It wasn't enough to smash the cup to smithereens, no, the pieces had to be well distributed too.  They were everywhere on the countertop including under (how did that happen?) the coffee maker, they were in the sink and the debris field stretched the full length of the kitchen from the utility room door to the table,  a few pieces even, somehow, made their way into the living room.  Sigh.

It took quick awhile, but only one cut, to get it all cleaned up. It's over now, nothing but a memory.  I won't bother to replace it, I mean there are 5 other cups in the set.  It's not as if I was cupless after all. But I really loved that yellow one. 

There was just something about the sunshiney yellow colour that was happy. It was a great way to start my day.  Back when I was working, this was the mug I took to the office and it lived on the right hand back corner of my desk.  Sometimes it held hot water, sometimes cold, once in awhile I drank soup out of it and with fair frequency it was pressed into service as an M&M bowl.  And it survived all those years at the Audiology office with nary a chip.  But in my own home...smash-ola! Dang!

I guess they are right, most accidents do take place in the home.  Who knew?

Well I'm going to miss it ;(   I tried to switch to the blue, orange or green cup but it just doesn't feel the same.  Takes time to adapt to a new routine. I'll get there but it won't be as sunshiney.

Hmmm I  see that I am using the words "mug" and "cup" interchangeably.  I wonder what the difference is between them, really.  I'm going to bet it has to do with the saucer.  Cup and saucer, not mug and saucer.  Let's find out:

• "A cup is smaller and more narrow, while a mug is taller and more wide.
• A cup has a handle on one side, while a mug has a handle on the top.
• A cup sometimes rests on a saucer, while a mug does not.
• A mug is designed to hold more liquid than a cup.
• Cups are often used for serving tea or coffee, while mugs are suitable for various hot and cold beverages."

So it turns out I am partly right...the saucer thing wasn't wrong....it just  wasn't the only defining characteristic.  So if I ever replace the broken yellow one, I will now know to look for a cup rather than a mug even though I don't need or want a saucer, the saucer part seems to be optional.  Interesting.  

Well there, we both learned a something today, the difference between a mug and a cup!  My Dad always said you should learn one new thing every day.  Looks like we  are done now and can stop learning immediately.  For today anyway.  We still have to learn the one new thing for tomorrow too.

Have a great day, with nothing broken and an even better weekend!

Hugs all 'round

What the heck?  Road Closed?  High Water?  Wasn't that hurricane a couple of weeks ago?  Shouldn't things have settled back down by now?  Well you'd think so, but there ya go.  Joy and I set out of Myakka State Park for a photo Safari on Friday and while the main road through the park was still open, most of the side roads were sporting a similar sign.  Dang!

Even without the signage, we are certainly smart enough to avoid flooded trails, paths and roads.  So we weren't certain what, if anything, photo worthy we would find.  Not to worry, there were plenty of photographs taken.   For obvious reasons with will be the High Water Hike, even though there wasn't a lot of actual hiking involved this time around.

Naturally, the high water itself was an interesting photo subject:

And because the water was so high it was in places it usually isn't which also means that sometimes the wildlife was in places it usually isn't. I speak in particular of the gator sort of wildlife. They get their own category today. Don't worry, we are alwasy very careful. Remember Joy's motto:  Always know where your alligators are!

There were beautiful botanicals of all sorts and I took loads of those photos.  I will only torture you with a few:

There was the non-flood water as well, of course.  The Myakka River on it's own is always a stunner.  And the light was especially good.  There is some light that is just made for photography. I'm sure you've heard of the Golden Hour of photography?  That's the light at the end of the day, between when the sun starts to set and full dark.  Early morning light is often very nice as well, clean and clear and crisp.  But this was mid-morning when the sunlight is usually starting to be harsh;  it bleaches out the colour and leaves photos looking very flat and washed out.  Well, we got lucky because just when, normally we would be having dealing with full sun, instead the sky starting to cloud up leaving some especially nice conditions for photos.   You can judge for yourself:

As far as wildlife goes, well, hmmm.  We saw a ton of dragonflies but they were flying the entire time, Nobody landed. Saw bees, also flying.  But not a single deer, not one raccoon, we were armadillo-less and saw nary a single squirrel.  However there were birds. Loads of birds. Lots and lots of birds!  So I have bird photos. So many in fact, that I think I'll break it up into two different slideshows for you.  

Bird Slideshow One:

Bird Slideshow the Second:

And here we are having come to the end of the High Water Hike!  It will probably be a few weeks before the next Photo Safari so I hope this one will hold you over until next time.  Make no mistake, I will be posting again later this week, but the Photo Safari Report ?  It'll happen again, just not for a few weeks.

​Hope your weekend was an absolute Delight!

I went to the library late last week to stock back up.  These are the four books that I chose.  Whle I particularly like historic fiction, I actually like almost every kind of book so I'm open to all sorts of books.  I didn't really have time to go to the library but I went anyway.  I was starring down the barrel of a 3-day weekend.  No way was I walking into it without some new books to read!

As soon as I got home with this batch, I started thumbing through them trying to decide  in which order to read them. (I stack them in the order I wish to read them y'see) and I ended up being so engaged with the first book, that I sat down and read it. Dang.  One book down and it was only the first day.

To be fair, it was a super quick read.  Basically, just brain candy.  Historic brain candy but still.  It was vastly superior to say, a Harlequin novel and of course muchmuchmuch better than ANYTHING by Danielle Steele (but then,  what isn't?) and yet it still falls in that basic category.  Those sorts of books always remind me of my mother.

I know I've mentioned before that I come from a family of readers.  And generous readers at that. Meaning that we shared our books.  Back when everyone was still around, and my sister, her daughters and our parents all lived near each other and only I lived far away, they would trade their books around and once everyone had read everything, the books would be packed up and shipped to me!  My turn, My turn!   The first ones I always read were the stilly little romance novels that were my mother's choice of reading material.  We referred to them as bathtub books because each book could be read in its entirety in one nice long soaking bath.  As a bonus, if it accidentally fell in the tub or got dunked, it really didn't matter.  I received many a book with stiff and wrinkled pages.  Pre-dunked as it were.  

The point here is that, despite my snotty comment about Danielle Steele,  I'm not a snob about what I read. Although I find that I am more selective than I used to be.   I used to have the attitude that every book that fell into my hands had to be read. I mean really and truly read, appreciated, considered and remarked upon.  Even if it was not an enjoyable read.  If someone else put the effort into writing the book, the least I could do is read the dang thing, was how I saw it.  But as time has gone by, I have become more, ummm, discriminating I suppose is the correct word.  It finally occurred to me at some point that pleasure reading should indeed be a pleasure and if I wasn't enjoying it, why was I reading it??  I mean seriously, I am not getting any younger here. Why would I waste my time and eyesight on a book I'm not enjoying?

I also used to approach a library visit like a military mission requiring lots of research and forethought.  I would bring in lists of recommended books to search for and should those not give me the desired results,  my list of books that I happened to have come across in newspapers and magazines and then the back up to the back up plan which was to have topics in mind that I could then look up - first in the card catalogues (remember those?) then later on the library computers. The results were, mixed.  Sometimes I bought home books I loved and other times books I merely liked and still other times books that I hated.

Then, earlier this year, I made a mistake.  Before I walked over to the library, I made sure that I had my various lists, my library card,  my book bag (to carry home the books!) and my sunglasses.  I ambled over, enjoying the walk, and arrived in due time.  Once through the doors, I removed my sunglasses and immediately realized that I had forgotten to bring my reading glasses.  Dang.  Without them I see perfectly at a distance but everything up close is a blur.  Doubledang.  For a minute I considered walking back home to get them and then returning even though I honestly didn't have time for all that back and forthing.  How badly did I need new books?  Well, very badly apparently because I ended up standing in a random aisle, effectively blind,  and then choosing 4 random books.  Literally turned to the left and selected two books and then turn right and picked two others.  I checked them out, walked home, put on my reading glasses and discovered that I had miraculously gotten 4 really great books!  Wow!

So while I do remember my reading glasses now, I don't put as much forethought into my book selections.  I pick an aisle, a shelf, and kind of randomly pick 4 books.  I am usually in and out of the library in under 15  minutes. And, shockingly, my selections are at least no worse than they were when I was putting so much thought, time and energy into choosing.  And, bonus, it's always a surprise.  I do love a good surprise.

The surprise 4 selections from the previous visit took place in 1) France 1942, 2) Austria/Hungry WWI,  3) Sweden through 3 generations of women and 4) Ireland WWII.  Of that lot the only one that disappointed was the last one.  It had potential but kind of dragged on and on and on...bah.  I returned that one without finishing it. With NO remorse!  Remember, I no longer finish reading things I am not enjoying.   Hey, if I go to a party and I'm not having a good time, I go home!  Same thing.

ANWAY, here's hoping that the two remaining books in this week's stack get me through the weekend.  No worries, my back up to the back up to the back up is to just re-read something that is already sitting on the shelf.

Wishing you great books and an even better weekend!

​Hugs all 'round

Disclaimer:  I got the above photo online, repeat, I did not take this particular photo of Naples Florida.

How was your Holiday weekend?  Hope you got to have some fun!  We managed to do a little bit of everything.  We relaxed, ran errands, got housey stuff done AND had an adventure!  Woohoo!

Monday - the actual holiday - for absolutely no reason in particular we drove down to Naples Florida which is illustrated in the  photo at the top of the page which, again, I found online. I was looking for something to exemplify the City of Naples.  I think this photo pretty much does it.

When we first moved to Florida, more than 7 years ago now, we made it a point to explore our new state, and that year one of the many places we visited was Naples.  But that was quite some time ago and it was time for a revisit.    If you are unfamiliar, Naples is quite a monied town and it shows well.  Everything about it is pretty, a little more, a little special, a little extra. Not in an ostentatious way (well not usually) but in a subtle quiet way where you exclaim over what a beautiful town it is, but you maybe cannot quite put your finger on the why of it. 

When I say it's a pretty town, I seriously mean that. Even the most pedestrian, utilitarian things look nice.  It 's hard to describe. 

I mean the beaches are beautiful of course, but then, most  beaches are. It's a very simple formula:  sand + water. But somehow Naples is exceptionally beautiful.   By the time we got around to looking at the beach, the sky was starting to cloud up and honestly, we couldn't find any public parking. It seemed to all be residents only and requiring some sort of sticker. So I only snuck one quick photo and it doesn't really show anything special:

And then there are the houses.  Not every house of course, but a shocking number of houses there look more like palaces, or  museums, or perhaps federal buildings, maybe fancy hotels.  Because we were driving, not walking, down the street and I was too busy goggling to think to take pictures!  Therefore,  I only managed to snap one quick through the front window across poor Tim as he was driving but here you go:

And then there is the downtown. It is an absolutely charming area stuffed full of shops and restaurants and all of it looks more like a movie set than a real downtown. Again, too busy looking to take more than one photo, sorry.  Actually looks a bit like Downtown Venice come to think of it. Just there is more of it.

We happened to notice one 'For Sale' sign in front of a relatively normal sized house so, what the heck, we looked it up.  Google is a wonderful thing.  I read it to Tim and we laughed and laughed.  It was a normal sized house, 3 beds, 2 baths, around 2000 sq feet on a nice lot a few blocks from the beach and a few blocks from downtown, which is similar in both size and situation to our own house.   But this one, it said right in the listing, was ravaged by Hurricane Ian last year and has been empty ever since, meaning it is a tear-down and not a liveable abode.  The asking price?  Get ready to laugh 'coz we did.  Over six million dollars!  LOLOLOL   Too funny.

We did stop at the Gordon River Greenway Park which has beautiful trails.  Some parks were paved, some were on a raised wooden boardwalk through a swampy area and some just  dirt  trails and we wandered a bit.  One trail takes you to the Naples Zoo!  Another to the Kayak Launch, yet another to a bridge that goes....somewhere....  It was very nice, not crowded and I did take a couple of photos:

Out of curiosity, I looked up Naples on the phone and entertained Tim and I for part of the 90 minute drive home, reading about it.  I was specifically looking for some historical facts before moving on to demographic information and so forth but in keying the word "history' into the search, the first thing that came up was the weather history of Naples. Interesting.

As it turns out, there have been 69 (!!) hurricanes in Naples Florida in 1930.  1930 was 93 years ago and it seems that Naples averages a hurricane in less than every two years.  That seems excessive to me.   Additionally, as I read on, we learned that Naples is listed as being at Extreme Risk of flooding.  Yikes!  No Thank you!  

We did learn that Naples was founded by a confederate General, a congressman from Kentucky and a newspaper man also from Kentucky in 1886.  Also found out that much of Naples was created from dredging, bulldozing and filling in which would probably explain the high risk of flooding.  oops.

To it's credit, Naples has a lot of wildlife sanctuaries, parks, preserves and parks. I mean a LOT.  And that is all good.  And, as I started this post, it's such a pretty place to spend a little time.

But I'm thinking we don't need to go back again for awhile. Been there, done that, learned a lot and moved on.  

​How was your holiday weekend?

Well, taadaa!  We made it through another hurricane.  This one, Idalia, we are being told, was very unusual in that it followed a path never before seen in  recorded weather history!  Wow!  Which means it also hit an area that has never had a hurricane before. At least not a direct hit.  Those poor folks :(  My heart goes out to them!

We had lots of wind and rain, flooding on the roads closest to the beach but otherwise, it's all good.  I've already picked up the deadfall in the yard.  3 garbage cans later...jobs done.    But I'm leaving most of the sandbags in place until the end of hurricane season - just in case.

So many lovely people have been checking in with us, to make sure we are ok. That is so thoughtful and considerate!! Just warms my heart.   But in talking with folks,  I think there is a little misunderstanding of how a hurricane works.  If I may do a small tutorial before I move on?

Think of a hurricane as a pinwheel.  Imagine each of the petals of the pinwheel has streamers attached to the tips.  When it spins around, obviously, the streamers reach way way way farther than the edges of the pinwheel right?  Ok.  Now imagine that pinwheel is 350 miles across.  That's roughly the size of the state of Colorado.  Now then, the center of that pinwheel made landfall in Cedar Key Florida which is more than 3 hours north  from us.  Only the streamers of the pinwheel lashed us.  The strongest part of the storm is the actual pinwheel.  Does that makes sense?

Good!  Now bear in mind that this pinwheel travels counterclockwise which means the top of the pinwheel (or north side) is pushing at things including water and the bottom of the pinwheel (or south side including us) is pulling water.   Which is why the backside of the hurricane can also be very damaging; Storm Surge!  The storm literally pulls the water onto shore.  Storm surge is often the worst part of the storm.  Meterologist sometimes refer to the backside of the hurricane as the "dirty side".  Dirty as in dirty tricks!

Hope that helped!

One of the hardest parts of getting through a "weather event" is the not knowing.  You don't know for sure where it's going to hit, you don't know for sure how bad it's going to be, if you are going to lose power, or be underwater, or have trees down, or house damage even!  And it's a lot of waiting. Waiting. Waiting.  I paced a lot.  Used up my nervous energy cleaning and organizing and doing things that didn't really need to be done.  Tim on the other hand is pretty relaxed about it.  His feeling is that there is nothing he can do to control it, so he is more focused on being prepared as much as possible and dealing with the rest afterwards.  He is so smart. Wish I could do that.

The sun is shining brightly today. At least for right now.  Weather predictions suggest rain later, but that's ok. I'm loving the sunshine right now.    It was still windy and rainy yesterday so mostly, I stayed inside and re-organized part of the pantry, cleaned bathrooms and made a coffeecake with brown butter icing.  I shouldn't brag on myself, but it tastes reallllly good.

And because we are always curious, instead of doing the noonwalk,  Tim and I headed out in the car to see what we could see.  I brought my camera of course.  At one point we assumed that we were between rain bands and headed down a boardwalk toward the beach only to have the sky, suddenly, open up and, needless to say, we were drenched!  But that's ok.  Once that band cleared, we continued and the pictures happened.    Even saw a couple of birds!

It was windy and rainy enough that the camera lens kept collecting wet sea air and moisture (which also means salt) so I had to keep cleaning the lense.  It was hard to get really good shots, but I did the best I could. Please bear that in mind:

I did have a teehee moment the day of the hurricane.  At one point I suddenly realized that last year, when Hurricane Ian came through, I was wearing the exact same clothes!  LOLOL  It seems that I have an official hurricane outfit!  What  a silly thing to remember.

Labour Day weekend is coming up!  Hope you have something wonderful planned!  I'll see you at some point next week!

Have fun and be safe ya'll.  Hugs all 'round.

What is it with the letter "I"?  The first hurricane we truly encountered since we lived here was Hurricane Irma, last year it was Hurricane Ian.  Now we are expecting Idalia!  All start with the same letter! What are the odds on that?  The rain part should begin later today but the actual landfall of the storm won't be until sometime Wednesday. At least that's the story for right now.   
And according to the map, a t this very moment, it seems to be heading north of us. Which means we will mostly just get heavy rain and wind.  But things change and honestly nobody, including the weather people, know anything for sure.  I guess we will all learn about it at the same time.

Tim and I headed over to the jetty last night to see what we could see.  There was a brisk wind, much cooler temperatures and some awesome clouds:

Other than a few people stopping by to take photos like us, the jetty and the beach were the least crowded we've seen in months!  I was able to line up a couple of fun shots of other photographers tho.  Perspective, sometimes, is everything!

We saw two little girls blowing soap bubbles and watching the wind carry the bubbles away.  They were sort of enchanting.  I didn't even try to take a photo of the children but I got one of the bubbles. You may have to do a Where's Waldo level search to find them, but I assure you, the bubbles are there:

Once the rain reached us, we headed home but quickly outpaced the storm and found, instead, a magnificent rainbow!  Naturally, I paused to take pictures of that too:

Our weekend started out so good too.  We had a Minock Weekend!  Yay!  They drove down Friday late afternoon so we got to have dinner together and then hang out just talking and laughing, way way way too late.  But up bright and early to share breakfast (and talk more). The we split up girls/guys to hang out for awhile.  She and I walked the avenue and poked around the shops. (and talked more!) Then we all met up again at the house and talked and laughed still more until it was time for them to hit the road and go home.  How on earth do we come up with that much to talk about??  I dont' know, but we always do :)

It was a GREAT beginning of the weekend.  And now we wait to see what Idalia will bring us.  Fingers crossed that it's all much ado about nothing. 

If you dont' hear from me later this week, it only means that we've lost power. I'm sure we are absolutely fine and eventually I will be back to post the rest of the story on the storm.

Everybody hunker down, stay safe and we will meet again soon!

Hugs all 'round

In a moment rather unusual for me, I actually have nothing to say today!  So I will leave you with wishes for a wonderful weekend and a few pretty pictures.

​Hugs all 'round