This is Sharkey's.   It's a beachfront restaurant here on the island that is very popular with tourists, snowbirds, visitors in general, fisherman and beach go-ers.  We have eaten there and it's perfectly fine.  It's pretty much what anyone might expect of a beachfront restaurant.  Music, food, drinks, both inside and outside dining options, beach view, pier view, gorgeous sunset views. And there ain't nothin' wrong with any of that!

It's always busy at Sharke's. Massively busy. The parking lot is usually full and there is even overflow parking across the street.  There are usually a full compliment of folks on the beach as well as both visitors and fisherfolk filling up the pier.  The only times I've ever been there when it wasn't insanely busy was during a storm and I was seeking good storm photos. The pier was an excellent choice for that!  I believe we were the only people there that day.

There are actually two restaurants on site, the more casual Sharkey's and the much fancier version upstairs which is Fin's.  We  have eaten at both places and had a good time at each.  But neither is  a place that we go on the regular. It's more when we have visitors. Everybody wants to eat at Sharkey's and walk on the pier.

About the pier, obviously referred to as Sharkey's Pier, it's been rebuilt multiple times after particularly nasty hurricane season and hat's off to the owners who bother to do that each and every time.  It's a solid feeling structure, tall and wide and about half way down there is a little shop for whatever a person hanging out on a pier might need.

Sharkey's has an indisputably kitschy charm, which is, I'm sure, at least one of the reasons why it's so popular.  For another it's because it is one of only two waterfront restaurants on the island which is kind of crazy when you think about it.  We are lousy with restaurants. Have them coming out our ears. But only two of them are on the water. Kind of crazy.  Doesn't sound like great planning does it?  OR perhaps it's great planning because being by the water means a higher risk of storm damage.  Hmmmm.  The other restaurant that is on the water, which we've also eaten at a few times, is called Crow's Nest and it's NOT on the beach, but it is on the water.  It's on the complete Other Side of the island. Sharkey's is on the south end, Crow's Nest on the North end.  Both of them are wildly popular, again good food and beautiful views.

But this post is about Sharkey's.

I'm sure that your town has places just as popular, perhaps not on the water but with other equally redeeming character. Places that, when people visit, this is where they want to go, or perhaps it's where you want to take them, even if you, personally, do not go their regularly.  Places of, at least, local renown.   Kind of nice.

What's the point of all this?  Nothing really.  Just Tim and I did a different beach walk the other night at Sharkey's and I thought, if I'm going to post photos, maybe someone might wonder what the significance of it all is.  No real significance. Not really.  Just caught my eye and my camera's eye, thought I'd share and hope you enjoy :)

This is our off-season right now so the beach was fairly quiet but the restaurants were still packed.  Bonus points for us, we caught some of that gorgeous just before sunset golden light which made it even better!

Behold!  I don't know why that particular word was my choice today, but it feels right.  In fact, it feels so right, I'm gonna do it again.  Behold!

Before you is a prime example of Elote, otherwise known as Mexican Street Corn.    Don't know if you've ever had it before but I made some over this past weekend and it was an unqualified hit. 

I kind of surprised myself with the choice, to begin with.  Like a zillion or so other folks who celebrated Labor Day weekend, we had a cookout on Saturday.  Putting together a menu was easy because our guests requested the "good hot dogs" which means the ones from our local Farm Market, Detweillers.  The next question, for me, was what to put with them.

Normally I think 'cook-out' out and hot dogs and I immediately jump to macaroni salad or potato salad, both of which people seem to like.  Sometimes in fact, they like them so much, I make it by request.  Happy to do so. There is something about cooking for people who reallllllly enjoy what you make that is such a pleasure and not a chore.

While both side salads are perfectly fine, I felt an urge to do something different.  But what?  I rattled that question around in my brain for some time and eventually thought, well maybe corn on the cob. Not every body makes that on the regular so that might be a treat.  And so that became the plan.   Simple enough as we have to go to the Farm Market for the hot dogs anyway, maybe as well pick up some freshly picked corn while we are at it.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with fresh corn on the cob, dripping in butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper. YUM!

But it feels a little ordinary. Bah.  I wanted to do something special, something different. Hmmmmm.  I thought on it a bit.  Just left it there in the back of my brain to ferment.

And then, like a bolt out of the blue, the idea came to me. Mexican Street Corn.  I had never made it before but how hard could it be?  I looked up a bunch of recipes and since they were all very similar and reasonable decided, Yup this is it. This is what we are doing.  Tim was 100% on board.

If you've never had it, basically it's corn roasted IN the husk, the peeled while still super hot (oh my gosh, so hot) then brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with cotija cheese, chili pepper, cilantro and lime.   The hardest part of that was finding the cotija cheese.  Surprisingly, it was right there in the cheese section of our regular grocery store.

The weather was iffy at best.  We had already committed to grilling the hot dogs so if it rained, somebody was going to be getting wet. But when I read that the corn could be roasted in the oven, I was all in.  The directions for that could not have been easier.  Pre heat the oven to 350, put the corn, husk, silk and all into the oven and take it back out 40 minutes later. I was concerned that the husk and/or silk would catch fire but nope. It was all  good.

Once removed it was carefully remove husk and silk (which although hot was simpler and cleaner than when it's raw), butter, cheese, chili powder and cilantro and squeezes of fresh limes. Easy Peasy as they say.

Turns out that many Elote recipes (just not the one I chose) also mentions putting mayo on before the cheese and so forth.  I assume that it helps everything stick to the corn?  A few other recipes mentioned something called Crema, which turns out to be a mix of buttermilk and heavy cream which is used as a condiment?  Obviously we didn't have that.

But despite my failings, our version of Mexican Street Corn was a huge hit. So much so that the requested "good" hot dogs were practically an afterthought.  

It was a great cookout, it was fun to try something new - which now that I know how to make, I will surely make again. Perhaps this time with the mayo or Crema?  And of course we enjoyed our laughing and talking time with our guests too.

Oh dessert?  Of course there was dessert.  I spent a lot of time going through my various cookbooks, and ending up just being the mood to make ordinary regular chocolate cupcakes with white icing. All home made and all delicious!  Everyone loved them and still the Elote was the star of the show

The cutiecute sprinkles on top of the cupcakes, by the way, were gifted to me by my lovely neighbor Joan. (The brand is Sprinkle Pop- check 'em out on line!)

The rest of our holiday weekend was quiet and restful.  Tim had, somehow, hurt his neck while doing a housey project. So most of the rest of the time was spent alternating hot and cold packs, moving as little as possible *(coz moving HURT!) and taking lots of Advil.  It was kind of enforced relaxation but necessary and, in truth, both of us needed a little downtime. It's a heck  of a way to get it but hey.

Other than Tim's injury, (which he is now recovered from) it was a great weekend, fun and relaxation in equal measures.  Just about perfect

Hope your Labor Day weekend was awesome!

This is my left hand. Well part of it. For some reason I find it incredibly difficult to take a photo of my hand with only one hand. (?)  Weird.  Anyway, as you can clearly see, it's lumpy and bumpy and crooked and something is missing.

My rings.

About six months ago, out of the blue, I suddenly popped up with a wicked onset of eczema which began under the rings on my left hand.   You know the ones, the "wedding set" as I have come to learn they are referred to.  I had already stopped wearing the engagement ring most of the time to protect it (from me and my clumsiness mostly)  but even with the increasingly annoy eczema, I kept my wedding band on as long as I could, hopeful that this 'round of eczema would be a short and quick one.  Alas, it was not.

The skin condition spread to the entirety of the ring fingers and on to the pinky finger before jumping over to the ring and pinky fingers of the right hand as well. What the actual heck?  Why the  eczema prefers those two fingers is beyond my comprehension but there you have it.  It was miserable. And ugly.   Two things you don't really want to combine.

Eventually the day came when I realized that there was nothing to be done for it but to remove the wedding band so the situation could heal itself.  (over long years of battling the occasional eczema bugger, I've learned that while various ointments and creams may help a bit, really it doesn't go completely away until it is dang good and ready).

And so I sadly, attempted to remove my ring. I say attempted because initially it wasn't coming off.  The issue was my knuckle.  I could easily slip the ring up TO the knuckle but there was no freakin' way it was going over the knuckle. Clearly it had been a Very Long Time since I took that ring off.

I could feel that little bit of rising panic inside me. Oh no! Was I going to have to have it Cut Off?  (the ring, not the finger). First I soaked my hand in really cold water in case there was any swelling from my attempts to force it over.  Then I soaped up my hand really extra good and slowly, ssslllooowwwlllyyy I began to feel it move up and over that dang knuckle.  Finally, it was off.  My finger was red and the knuckle was scraped up some, but the ring was off.

I carefully cleaned my ring and then, for safekeeping, put it in it's little box with the engagement ring.  Given enough time, the eczema would go away and then I could put both back on and tralalala go on with my life.

Except, that didn't happen.

I absolutely could NOT get the rings over  the knuckle to put it back on. What the actual heck?

That knuckle was a barrier that was holding firm.  Thou Shalt Not Pass!  I even tried the old soap trick in reverse, putting on instead of taking off, and nope.   Ratz! It seemed logical, after all,  it worked the last time. But it didn't work this time. Not even a little bit.

I blame my Arthritis which has reared it's ugly head once again.  At least my ring finger is straight, I'll give it that, as opposed to the middle finger which is now curved (and that itself is so bizarre).  But that big old ugly knuckle says no.  I was sad but I put the rings back in their little box while I thought on it.

I considered getting a nice gold chain and wearing the rings as a necklace. Except what would happen if the chain or the clasp broke and the rings slipped off and then were gone forever.  Heartbreak! That's what would happen.

So the rings remained in their little box.  And I tried to stop thinking about it. I went around living my life, ringless while my rings lived elsewhere. Safely, but elsewhere. "It is what it is", I said to myself.  "It's only as important as I make it be". I added.  "It's just stuff", I tried to convince myself.

Except that it's not just stuff.  Those are not just pieces of jewelry; it's what they represent.  Our marriage, Our love, Our commitment, Our vows! Those things are important to me and I decided that it was worth at least looking into what would be involved in having someone fix this situation.

We found a local jeweler with a stellar reputation who does work on site , took a deep breath and decided to trust them.  Turns out that old wrinkly arthritic ring finger of mine, or at least the knuckle of it, which used to be a size 5 is now a 6 1/2 which is a huge difference.  They were surprised that I was able to remove the ring on my own.  

It was not cheap to take care of the problem. But it was worth every penny. Some things are.

The rings now fit, both of them are extra sparkly once again and I am tickled to bits.

To be honest, I still do not wear the engagement ring  every day. In fact, I only wear it occasionally. It's beautiful but I catch it on things and it gets over involved with cooking, cleaning and gardening which requires another thorough cleaning so just not wearing it all the time seems not only easier, but wiser in the long run.

But the gold band, that simple ordinary gold band, that stays on.  Now that I have it back and it fits again, that one stays put.

And all is well in my little corner of the world once more

One of the big bonuses of living in a place that (part of the year) has loads of rain is that every once in awhile, there is a rainbow.  I adore rainbows and always have. I do not want to hear that these days I am childish for my love of rainbows as they are the domain of seven year old girls and/or the property of PRIDE.  Please.   I do not entertain that nonsense.  I have no problem with little girls or alternate lifestyle people also liking rainbows at all. Zero problem. Nobody owns rainbows.  Rainbows are one of the more beautiful gifts of nature (as opposed, for example, to tornadoes), freely given to all of us to enjoy and marvel over. (yes I know the sentences shouldn't end in prepositions either but today I am feeling rather rebellious) 

I do understand how rainbows happen, the whole refracted light and prisms and Roy G Biv of it all.  But I can KNOW the science of it and still love the whimsical magic of it and so I do.

Most of the rain that we've experienced lately, unfortunately, has been hard core, late day or evening thunder and lightening storms with black roiling clouds, torrential rain pounding down with cracks of lightening and rolling thunder. Very impressive indeed.  But rainbows need light.  And, at least at our house,  we haven't seen much of that.

But a few nights ago, just as I was finishing up dishes from dinner during a typical storm, I noticed that it seemed lighter outside.  Interesting.  Did the storm move on earlier than anticipated?  I peeked outside and saw, to my delight, that even thought it was still full on raining, the sun was brightly shining.  Which means, somewhere out there, is a rainbow.  And I was determined to find it.  Mind you, not only find the rainbow itself, but the end.  While we enjoy all parts of any rainbow, we particular like finding where it starts or ends. I don't know why, we just do.
​
First I checked out all of the windows in the house.  Nothin'.  Dang.  The rain kept falling and the sun kept shining. okay, I need to be outside to see farther.  I asked Tim is he wanted to go Rainbow Chasing with me. He grinned and grabbed his keys. I snagged my camera.

As we walked out of the house, dodging raindrops, I scanned the sky to the east since rainbows are always opposite the sun.  It was hard to be sure with all the trees in the way and we didn't see any immediately. Ratz.  Maybe we will see better from the road.

The instant the car backed out of the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the rainbow over the roof of a house behind us so we knew the general direction. (photo at the top of the page)  And that meant going over the bridge.  I kept an eye on the rainbow while Tim managed traffic.  At one stop light, I saw a moment, one perfect opportunity to capture it but was concerned that the shot would be too full of stuff other than the rainbow, too distracting. I took the shot anyway:

That is one busy slice of sky!  But it did help us to zero in to where we might get a better shot.  We continued on over the bridge thinking that the first stop should be the old train station (which is now a bus station).   It's a far more open area and perhaps we could narrow down the finis of it all from there.  In this bridge shot, the distant sky was still so dark and ominous while the foreground was bright and shiny.  A little wierd but very cool.

By the time we got to the train station which was, by the way, no more than a mile from the house, the dark had overtaken the light and the rainbow was gone. Dang.   If only I had looked out that window a little earlier, we might have found the end and even have gotten more and better rainbow photos.  Drat.  Still that's the way the rainbow bounces, so we kept going.   Camera in hand, what else can we see that looks coolio? 

We continued, back over the bridge and then did a quiet, lazy drive around the island, with my window open for photography sake which means the rain was trickling inside the car too (never fear, I kept the camera covered) and every once in a while, we saw something really pretty.  Not a rainbow, no, but still photo worthy.

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The thing about rainbows is that the sky is so huge it's harder than you would expect to track down exactly where the "end" of the rainbow in question is.  Either end, we don't care.  We are aware that there is no mythic pot of gold at the end, we know that. But it's still fun to find. And even better would have been to be in a spot where the entire rainbow was visible and photographable.  We've done it before. Just not this time.  

Even though we didn't get terrific rainbow photos THIS time around, it was still a lot of fun.  Rainbow Chasing doesn't fuel the adrenaline rush that serious storm chasers love. And of course we aren't doing any science experiments or  meterological reports as we hunt these rainbows down.

But we are having a lot of fun and that counts too.

Can you stand yet another post about our kittyboys?  I apologize for inundating you with their escapades lately but, frankly, there just isn't much else going on in our lives right this minute. It could change at any time, so hang in there with me.   Now that I think about it tho, I've never written about anything life altering or earth shattering, so I suppose this is pretty much on brand. heh.

Assuming you are still here and reading, here we go.  Not all that long ago I wrote about my discovery that pets do not necessarily need a constant influx of New Toys to stay engaged. That sometimes just presenting the Same old toys in a different place is sufficient. (which worked out great because I had no novel ideas for new toys - that I could make).   I was excited about that idea and I'm still occasionally moving things around the house. It does seem to be working. Brysco and Wyatt have been getting excited all over again for things that they kind of forgot that they had.

Well, in a way typical for me, the instant I committed to paper, or ummm well, internet I suppose, that I had no new ideas, I immediately had a new idea.  It involved saving toilet paper and paper towels rolls and water bottle caps.  So for a few weeks, I dedicated myself to hording these cardboard and plastic bits and bobs rather than recycling them as I normally would.  A few days ago I felt that I had enough to at least give the new toy idea a whirl.

First I cut the rolls into smaller rounds, then I hauled down a tray that we are not currently using.  I put the carboard circles and the water bottle caps, open end up, in the tray.  Then came the demonic part.  I put some kitty treats here and there, sometimes in bottle caps, sometimes in the circles. Then I placed it on the floor.  That's all it took to get them interested.

They both sniffed around it thoroughly.  We could almost hear them thinking, "What is this?"  "I smell treats!"  "Where are they hiding?"  "How does this work?"  Then we watched them gingerly prodding  things with their paws. Sometimes pawing at the circles worked, but sometimes it didn't give them their desired result. Then they resorted to biting cardboard pieces, lifting and spitting them out elsewhere to get access to their treats.  Clever boys.

Brysco actually figured it out first and boldly just stepped into the tray to reach things. Wyatt, with his giant paws was at a distinct disadvantage, but as he has more teeth, the extraction of cardboard via chompers was more his method.  Actually Wyatt has long had a habit of sitting back and allowing his brother to eat first, and he did that with this treat game as well. So we had to do a second 'round just to allow Wyatt his fair opportunity.

It was an unqualified hit!  Long after all of the treats were gone, Brysco, in particular, was still batting the circles around in the tray.  

We enjoyed watching them solve the puzzle of how to reach the treats and their delight in the game and we're pretty sure they liked it too.  It's not the sort of thing we will do with them every day but every once in awhile when it appears that they are well and truly bored, I have no problem hauling it out and setting it up for them.  

I took a few photos (of course I did):

I am still saving cardboard rolls and water bottle caps to add more circles to the game as I think it will only improve it; up the problem solving difficulty quotient and perhaps keep Brysco from standing ON the game board - unfair advantage.

Hope you have a terrific week ahead of you and hopefully I will have more, different, interesting, fun things to write about later in the week!

​Hugs all 'round

You see before you a picture of our living room. Well part of our living room.  It's a cozy space that exists between the kitchen/dining area and the family room.  Normally, there isn't a ton of furniture in this room, one small sofa, a coffee table which is, frankly, a little too big for the room, two swivel chairs and the display cabinet.  (also built-in bookcases topped out full of books but I don't count them becoz they are built in, as I said before). It's a perfectly sized room for reading, having a quiet phone call, a small group of friends talking etc.  It is, as I said before, cozy.

It's a room that we quite like but it turned out to feel just a wee bit perhaps more formal (?) than other rooms in our house, like say, the family room which is a kind of insane spot. (possibly more on that another time)  Since the living room is also a path that we walk to get back and forth from kitchen to family room and back again, it seemed logical and safer that simpler would be better, more streamlined, less "stuff".  And somehow, we decided at some point, that it would be a room with no kitty stuff. No toys, no trees, no beds, nothing that would junk it up.  Certainly sounds like a good idea, right?

Quite obviously, as you can clearly see in the photo, there is a kitty toy in that room.  A hammock. A kitty hammock.  Now why is it in the room that was never going to have kitty toy obstacles in it? That is an excellent question, I'm so glad you asked.

I've been doing some reading. (I hear you groaning)   Mostly because I am currently fresh out of kitty toy ideas that I can make.  There have been many over the years, some of them are still in  use, in fact.  But other creations either got used up, played to pieces, were always intended to be temporary, or turned out to not be great ideas to begin with.  And I could tell that the kittyboys were getting a little bored.  Well it seemed that way to me.  Which is why I was reading.

Was I imaging it?  Do cats get bored with the same old toys every day or was I projecting?  Turns out I was absolutely correct.  What is a good pet parent supposed to do other than go broke buying toys? (or making them)

Turns out, according to what I read, sometimes they don't actually need new toys.  Cats often consider an old toy placed in a new environment, a new toy.  Interesting!  So I spent some time considering moving things around.  Just as an experiment.  I decided to NOT move everything right away; just one thing, at first. Let's see what happens.

When the hammock first arrived a year or so ago, it was an instant hit.  There was a cat lounging on it before Tim had it completely constructed which did not help construction one single bit.  It lived in the family room in front of the TV where we could see the kittyboys and they could see us AND if they wanted to, they could also watch TV (sometimes they do). They played with the little dangling pompom, they fought over whose turn it was to lay on it.  They leapt over it while racing around the house. In short, it was very popular.  Right up until it wasn't.

Eventually it kind of got pushed to the side behind a chair in the family room and mostly forgotten by all of us.  So that was my first target.  Let's rethink placement on this kitty hammock. But where oh where else could it go?

We live in a small house. We, intentionally by the way, downsized. Perhaps a wee bit more than we probably should have but mostly it's all good.  But it's a rather efficient sort of space.  All furniture in the house is exactly where it should be and there is little open space leftover. It occurred to me that I could move something to make room for the hammock possibly or perhaps put it under something else (like a table).  I tried it out in multiple different spots. Nothing seemed exactly right. 

And then on my zillioneth walk through the living room it occurred to me that the space between the two swivel chairs it probably  exactly right, rules be damned.   I set the hammock in place and went on with my day assuming that it would take a few days before Brysco or Wyatt really paid any attention to the "new" old toy if they cared about it at all.

I left the room to bring a load of clean laundry in from the dryer to fold.  That's it. That's all I did.  I was gone for the precise amount of time it takes to take clean warm dry clothes from the dryer, pile it in a basket and bring it into the kitchen to fold.  I had just dumped the contents of the basket onto the counter, when I happened to glance into the living room and immediately my eye went to:

Wyatt lounging on t he hammock as if it were something he did every day.  He looked up at me with his sweetie face and I grabbed a quick photo.  I patted him a moment and went back to folding clothes.  I then put the clothes away and took the laundry basket back to the utility room.  When I returned, I looked toward the hammock, expecting to see Wyatt still happy in his hammock but instead saw:

Brysco!  I grabbed another quick snapshot and patted Brysco as I had done for his brother.  When had they changed places?  It was one and then the other almost immediately sort of like a magicians trick.  Presto Chango!

The point being that they have rediscovered a toy they loved before and then got bored with.   As long as Tim or I or both of us are in the kitchen or living room, there is often one house panther or the other in the hammock where they can keep an eye on us. Apparently that is their job and they take it VERY seriously. Sometimes they have to wrestle a bit to determine whose turn it is. We do not interfere as long as blood is not drawn.  Which is, coincidentally, the same rule I had for the human boys when they were small. Worked then, works now.

AND it all seems to have proved that the articles I read are correct.  Cats do get bored but they do not necessarily need new toys.  Old toys in a new place works great too.  Love it.  I will be doing more re-arranging in the future.  

​Just thought I'd share :)

You know this lady, right?  I mean, you at least recognize that it's me?  At least that was me on Thursday just before I left for the museum. Wait, this isn't coming out exactly right. I am not explaining myself clearly. I am still the essence of who I always was, after all, that part didn't change.  Just the packaging changed.  Wait, what?

It's about my hair. It's almost always about my hair.  It is with a lot of women.  What is it with us and our obsession with our hair?   I recently read a statistic that on average, women spend over a thousand dollars a year on their hair and that's an average that includes every US woman from the ladies who are willing and able to shell out major buckerooties on the regular to the cheapo's like me who trim their own bangs, only go in 2 or 3 times a year, with a coupon mind you, and only to very low expense salons.   I can think of a lot of things to do with a thousand dollars that do not involve hair. 

But still, my hair must be dealt with now and again and l lately, my hair has been driving me mad.  It turns out that my last haircut was about four months ago, so I suppose it makes sense.  I have trimmed my bangs multiple times in the interim, of course.  And I do it so very slowly and carefully, snipping off the tiniest bits at a time, terrified of opps-ing big time and ending up with something.............unfortunate.  As I look at the photo I suppose that my bangs didn't look terrible, I suppose.  I am, by no means a professional, and I really have no idea what I'm doing except getting the hair out of my eyes. That's the biggest goal when I trim my bangs. I succeeded at that at the very least.

But the rest of my my hair, the length of it, the heaviness of it,  the floppy weird bulky fall of it,  the odd bits that grow either much slower or much faster than the rest of it (and what is up with that?) were getting harder and harder to manage. And by that I mean manage to make it look half way decent, especially when I'm working or otherwise seen out in public. The rest of the time it's very whatever and I don't care all that much.

It was taking longer to tame and I was becoming more frustrated every day. I was, frankly, kind of over it.  So yesterday I decided, this is the day. I'm getting my hair cut.

These days I don't go to a fancy schmancy place. It's just a trim/cut, not washing no styling no big doobiedo consultation, just a cut.  I have always operated on the, "What is the difference between a good hair cut and a bad one?" platform.  (the answer, by the way, is two weeks).  If I don't like how it turns out, I just hang in for a couple of weeks and then, suddenly, it's a lot better.  Partly because it has grown out a bit and partly because I have figured out what to do with my "new" hair.

And because I don't go to a fancy, standing appointment with a dedicated stylist and peaceful music playing and some soft and beautiful fragrance wafting through anymore, I never know who I'm going to end up with on the other end of the scissors.  And I'm okay with that.  I show up, wait a short time, sit in a chair, pay an embarrassingly small amount of money and come back with shorter hair.  It works.

But I will confess that the following two week period of time, when I'm attempting to re-learn my shorter hair, and figure out how to work with it, is a struggle. Sometimes a bigger struggle than others.  As I walk along, and catch a peek at my reflection out of the corner of my  eye, I wonder who that short haired woman is walking beside me.  It's me. Every dang time, it's me.  I just don't recognize me.  

At least not for the first few days.  I'll get the hang of it.  Just bear with me. I want to wear a tee-shirt that says so, by way of explanation, but of course I do not.    This time it's not just shorter but she also "thinned' out my hair. I wasn't aware that it was in need of 'thinning' but I suppose in the humid hothothot of any Florida summer, it's not a terrible idea.

So in the meantime, here I am, not looking like myself, or at least not the way I think of myself (or perhaps remember myself?)  for a short time while it begins to grow out.  It's not bulky anymore, it doesn't flop oddly or hang limply,  and it's off the back of my neck which is always where it feels the hottest this time of year AND the bangs are out of my eyes. So I'd say the haircut was a success.

Are you curious? Do you want to know?  Would you like to see?  Ok.  Hang on to your hat coz here we go:

Two weeks, guys, I'll get the hang of this in two weeks.

​Have a great weekend!

 I don't know about your house, but at our house, Amazon deliveries are a regular thing.  Amazon packages arrive at least weekly. It is a Very rare week without one.  During the Christmas Season, we take full advantage of Amazon and work it hard.  We purchase gifts, usually shipped directly, buy cookie baking ingredients that I cannot find locally, and decorations that, somehow, we seem decide that we need.  Vitamins, books, clothing, shoes, phones, small appliances and helpful gadgets galore, the list of what Amazon can deliver right to your door is nearly endless.  Seriously.

Please do not get me wrong, I also shop locally and I especially love the little boutique shops right here on the island, particularly when I'm buying gifts. Tim and I both believe in supporting our local businesses.  But there are times when we cannot get what we want here in town. Or what we need just costs significantly less when purchased online and that matters. It matters a lot.

There was a time when purchasing things online was a dicey affair.  Everything was ordered individually through the company that offered it and some companies were more legitimate or  perhaps just better verse in the process than others.   What you thought you purchased may end up being something else entirely and there was, very likely no recourse for you to rectify it.  Sometimes whatever was ordered took weeks (and weeks and weeks) to arrive, in various states of broken.  Occasionally it never arrived at all.  Trying to return an incorrect or unneeded order was a nightmare.  Things are different now, thank goodness.

Whatever we order through amazon arrives correctly and quickly and returns are relatively painless.  If there is, somehow, an error of any sort, it is dealt with directly.  And when something is needed ASAP, I am always surprised and grateful when it does, indeed, show up overnight. Sometimes even the same day it is ordered! I appreciate the convenience and the efficiency.

 But I honestly never realized what happens behind the scenes.

We got the opportunity to see, at least some of the BTS recently on a Minock Day.  We met up with our friends in Tampa at an Amazon Fulfillment Center for a tour.  There ended up being roughly 20 people in the group, which is not too bad.  

Our tour guide gathered us together, checked our ID's against her list of attendees and led us through security.  We were each given bottles of water and encouraged to drink up. Anyone who hadn't had breakfast first (me) was given a granola bar with instructions to eat it immediately as they didn't want to "lose anyone" during the tour. heh.  After some important safety instructions, we were each given a pair of noise cancelling headphones which were mic-ed and we played follow the leader.

The tour was fascinating!  There were so many employees!  So many computers!  So many Packages!  So much Stuff being packaged!  And to me, the coolest part, so very many robots!! Each type of robot has a name.  The one I remember clearly was Hercules who was a hard worker for sure.  Hercules robots, which are similar to giant Roombas, deliver to which ever employee has called it up, via computer, the item they are in charge of.  The products are somewhere in a huge line stack of hard plastic crates. Hercules zooms the stack right over to the employee.  The employee then grabs the item in question and before you ask how they know where in the stack that one item is,  Hercules whirls around until that side is facing the employee and the area where the item lives lights up.  It Is So Cool!

We watched items get checked in and other items be checked out. We saw products wrapped and prepared for shipment and then be carted off to be shipped out.  We saw robots being recalibrated and also saw them hie themselves off to be recharged at, of course, the recharging stations.  The robots themselves are treated with a courtesy and kindness usually offered only to humans.  Nice.  

The Fulfillment Center is huge. No, it's bigger than huge, it's......hmmmm what's bigger than huge...Enormous? Colossal?  Massive?  I'm not sure that any of those words suit but I think you get my drift.  There are multiple floors, elevators of course, a lot of industrial staircases, great sightlines, so much machinery!, surprisingly bright and shiny decor here and there,  and noise. a LOT of noise *(hence the headphones)*.   It was so large that they have medical staff on sight at all times.  Whoa!

The entire plant was remarkably clean and for all that it seemed kind of chaotic, it all made a crazy kind of sense too.  Everyone we saw working there was pleasant and smiled, waved and sometimes spoke to us as we walked through, head on a swivel, trying to see everything all at the same time.  Each step was painstakingly explained to us and questions answered.  One of the things we learned is that full time employment there is 10 hours a day, 4 days a week which sounds awesome.  When I was working, I often said to my bosses that I would Happily work 10 or more hours a day if I could just have that one day off during the week for appointments and errands which of course never happened for me. But I feel vindicated a little bit that Amazon gets it.  

Tim and I have always enjoyed Factory Tours and while, technically, I suppose it as not a factory, it was still fascinating and I'm so glad we went.  Not every amazon place offers tours but a lot of them do and if there is one near you that have that option, I suggest that you check it out.  It was free, it was interesting, it was fun and I now have an extra appreciation for all of the amazon packages that arrive on our doorstep.

I guess I owe everyone an apology.  I haven't been writing lately.  It was no one big thing, really, just a lot of smaller things that ate up my time and I kept telling myself, "oops, dang, I missed another day. Oh well, I will write tomorrow" and then tomorrow came and went and I was still saying it.   Life happens.

But today I'm back, first of all to hope that all of you are well and happy and having some fun out there while living your lives but also to show you a few photos I took last night.

For multiple reasons, among them vacations, appointments, heat advisories and rain, I haven't been on a real hike in over a month now. And I missed it. A lot!  Not just the hiking, although I do love that, but also being in nature, taking photos and hanging out with my sister.  As it so happens,  Joy is otherwise occupied right now, totally understandable, and I cannot control that. BUT I can control whether or not I go out on my own.

So with that in mind,  Wednesday night I told myself that I would wake up early the next day (thursday) before it got too hot, and grab my camera and head out around the island snapping away. And that was a great idea right up until I had a terrible night of non-sleep and finally dozed off around 5:30 am for about 90 minutes and the idea didn't sound very good any more. Dang.  But Thursday night after dinner I guess I got my second (or third or fourth) wind and  Tim and I headed over to the beach.

The first thing that struck me, other than, as always, how beautiful it is, was that it  was LOADED with people. In August!  In Florida! Our beaches are usually very quiet and practically abandoned in August. It's partly because August and September are our most likely months to have hurricanes and honestly, who would want experience that willingly?  But it's also because, this time of year is hot. Not just hot but 7th level of hell hot.  Daily heat advisories hot.  And also humid. Not just ordinary humid but soupy humid. Breathing under water humid.  It's unpleasant.  And why would anyone pay money to visit us then?  

Mostly they wouldn't.  But for whatever reason, this year, it seems that they would.  Sooo yes, Lots of people. Which is lovely.  It genuinely makes me happy to see so many people loving our town and our beaches!  Yay!  But I don't' really want to take loads of pictures of random people on the beach.  So we didn't spend much time at our first stop. Here's a few shots though.  One of them from the lifeguard shack - you'll know which one it is:

Even these few photos were tricky to get because people kept walking into the shots.  I wasn't mad at anyone of course. Everybody as just having fun! They were enjoying themselves, as they should.  But we decided to move to another beach access point.  Hey it's an island, the entire perimeter is water! Just pick another spot!

So we moved on.  The next spot was filled with giant machinery and pipes and other things I don't typically think of as photo worthy.  (all stuff from a beach renourishment project currently going on) But Tim saw a couple of possibilities which he pointed out to me so I rethought it and decided that even though it was far more industrial than I usually gravitate toward,  I kind of liked how different the shots might be from my usual.  You can decide how you feel about it on your own:

Our next stop was in an area that is loaded with beach front condo's on one side.  Definitely possibilities there.  Tim with his great eye for photos, was a terrific spotter of possibilities as we peeked down the corridors between buildings. Eventually we crept down to their beach for a few shots as well;

I think the pictures from the boat launch and marina are my favourites this time around.  That pink water reflected from the sky was just amazing.  

After all that we headed home, thinking I was done taking photos that night.  But as we drove, Tim cleverly spied one more really one good shot beside a house that is currently under construction.  Once he pointed it out, I could not resist this one:

Do you have a "Dream Home"?  I mean, in the broadest sense of hopes and wishes and dreams, is there a mental image of a house that has a better look, layout,  location or number of rooms?  Is there something would better strike your fancy?  Maybe it's not an entire house, maybe it's just one room that, in a perfect world, with deep enough pockets, you might tweak a bit?  Or perhaps you love your home, just as it is, but you wish it was closer to or farther from town?   I suspect that most us do.

Tim and I love where we live, walking distance to our cute little downtown, walking distance to the beach, easy driving distance to multiple different cities and airports. We are very happy  with where we live.  And we even like our little house.  It's just a cute little old beach house, emphasis on the little and the old.  

We've updated and improved things, one project a year for ten years now, and we still like our house just fine. Honest, we do!  If we spend every day of the rest of our lives in this house, that would not be a problem at all. And, as I said before, we love where we are.  But is this our Dream Home?  No. Not at all.

And that is a huge part of why we enjoy going to see model homes and Open Houses.  We are, mentally building, our Dream Home.  Seeing ideas, up close and personal, as opposed to just reading about them, has helped us to decide is this something we like (and if so, why) or is this something we do not like (and if so, why).  Other houses sometimes showcase things we might never, in a million years, consider. OR it's something we considered, discarded and now are reconsidering because seeing it in person is completely different than on paper.

I guess we take this fairly seriously because we have been "building" our Dream Home for nearly the entire ten years we have lived here.  The whole, if we were starting from scratch, what would our house HAVE to have, or what would be nice, but is not an absolute necessity, and what do we absolutely positively NOT want.  We have tossed around ideas, agreed, disagreed, made our case(s), discussed endlessly, drawn sketches on paper and pointed out in other houses that we see and even done a little research - (mostly about construction ideas and landscaping thoughts).

When Tim and I do the Noonwalk, which we try to do most everyday, it's a common discussion if we have nothing else pressing to discuss.  What do we think about this, that or the other thing.  When we are on a long drive, one or the other of us might be struck with a new Dream Home thought and that discussion might last 100 miles or so.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, that if we have a weekend day with no other plans, we sometimes will look to see if there are any models or Open Houses that we haven't already seen scheduled.  And that is what happened this past Sunday.

You are familiar with Open Houses, I assume.  The owners vacate the premises for a few hours, the realtor puts up Open House Signs with arrows around the neighborhood and in the yard, greets everyone who wants to check out the house and hands out paperwork telling about the home, the neighborhood and so forth.  Sometimes they want you to "sign in" sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they offer cookies and water. And they try, very hard, to answer all of the questions asked.  

Tim found Three houses, online that were listed as Open Houses that day all of which looked interesting, two of them in an unfamiliar neighborhood, one in a neighborhood we already like. We had no other plans, no other errands and it was a gloomy day that threatened to let loose so why not.  Off we went.

Tim was Pilot, I was Navigator, as per usual.    The drive was perfectly ordinary, it was rainy true enough, but ordinary otherwise, and when we arrived at the neighborhood, we both remarked on how cute it was. The lots were large, the houses set well apart, there were sidewalks on both sides of the street and mature growth trees.  The homes and yards were well kept and the houses of wildly diverse architectural styles, ages, and eras.  We were suitably impressed.

When we arrived at the address in question, however, there were no Open House signs, not one. How Very Odd.  I re-checked the  date and time on several different real estate websites and all of them agreed that it should be an Open House. Not only were there no signs, but no sign of life!  No realtor's car in the driveway, no lights on inside. Very Very Odd.  Well, we thought, perhaps they were delayed by the rain and would therefore be getting a late start. No worries. We moved on to the 2nd house on the list.  We continued to note pretty homes, the surprise of a body of water very nearby, what an adorable neighborhood feel it had and then, we arrived at the second address which also had Zero signs, Zero cards in the driveway or in front of the house AND Zero lights on inside. What the what?

Hmmmm.  We drove around the area for a bit then, just in case there was, in fact,  the late start, returned to the first house but nothing had changed. Bizarre.  How odd that both houses in that same neighborhood were apparently listed incorrectly?  Whatever, we said out loud to each other and moved on to the 3rd house and guess what?  Also no signs, no signs of life, no nothin'. What exactly is happening ?  

It felt Very Twilight Zone.  what are the odds that all 3 houses, three different realtors, three different streets, two different neighborhoods would all have Open Houses listed very clearly on line but not in reality. 

We headed for home, perplexed and disappointed, wondering what on earth was going on. Then we wondered, were they called on account of rain?  Wait a minute that makes no sense, this is not a baseball game.  We aren't viewing the house through the windows from outside getting soaked in the downpour.  The only time rain enters into the situation at all would be the short trot, under an umbrella mind you, from car to house, house to car.    But is it possible?  Could that be the case?  Has this ever happened to any of you?

Is this a new thing?  I admittedly do not keep up with all of the New Things happening in the world out there, but Open Houses that are, in fact, not open due to weather?  That's a new one for us.   Hurricanes?  Yeah, absolutely, that would be cancelled.  Tropical Storm, yupyup. Same goes for volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and blizzards, but just ordinary rain?  Colour me surprised. I just don't get it. I was just regular rain.....Gene Kelly did a whole song and dance in it!  Ryan Gosling and Rachel MacAdams had a famous kiss in it!   Football games get played in it.  Most of Woodstock was rain soaked.

I guess I just need to file this under, Learned Something New now let it go.  But that doesn't mean I like it.

You may have noticed that I have not posted any Photo Safari Reports in a few weeks.  Generally speaking, Joy and I usually hike on Thursdays which means I have Photo Safari Report (PSR) ready for you on Fridays!  But, with one thing and another, it turns out that the last PSR I put up was an entire month ago! It was June 26th, I just looked it up! 

I don't know if you've missed reading them, but I've missed writing them and mostly I've missed doing them!  The hiking, the photographing, the spotting of opportunity and the time with my sister are all  things too good to not do!

But life happens.  There have been appointments, travels, and mostly, there has been rain. Lots and lots of rain. Well it is our rainy season, so it makes perfect sense but dang!  Joy and I were both very hopeful for yesterday. After many weeks of NOT, we were sure that finally we'd be getting back out there. And then on Monday we checked the weather prediction and it was wet. Very wet. And worse than wet, it was filled with lightning. We don't mess around with lightning.  But during our usual Monday phone call, we agreed to wait to make an absolute decision until Wednesday.  The plan was that when I got home from work on Wednesday. I would check all of the various weather reports (because they don't always agree) and text her.

As soon as I got back from the museum on Wednesday, as promised, I checked the weather predictions and for a change, they all agreed.  Thunder, lightning, and rain. Full Orchestration. For Thursday morning.  Dang.  Joy and I texted back and forth for a bit trying to decide. After all, things do change. And around here, they change often.  So we agreed to do a zero hour decision Thursday morning. Whoever got up first would look out the window and text the other one.  Reasonable thought process! So we both prepared as we always do, camera batteries were charged, hiking clothes laid out, equipment gathered, we were ready, just in case.

I woke at 5:30 am Thursday morning to what sounded like an unending line of giant dump trucks filled with boulders crossing a metal bridge.  That is to say, rolling thunder.  I slitted my eyes open long enough to read the nearest clock and saw the time and immediately thereafter I was nearly blinded by a lightning flash in the very dark wee hours.  Dang.  I groaned softly, swung out of bed and padded to the window.

It was just a gentle pitter patter of rain at that moment; more drizzle than rain.  I checked the weather app on my phone and it confirmed that it had not changed it's mind about the storm. And in fact, if anything, it was going to be longer and bigger than originally stated. The entire county was now under a flood watch.  Well, that is just craptastic.

I texted Joy, knowing that eventually she would see my report and suggestion that the hike be cancelled even though the rain was just drizzly.  She responded almost immediately and agreed.  At that point it was more about the lightning than the rain.  It's not like we would melt in the rain.  It's not fun to be soaking wet, feet squelching in our shoes (a sure way to invite blisters by the way), clothes plastered to our bodies and hair running with water but it's not a death knell, just miserable.  The problem with the rain is our cameras and my hearing aids.  If they get wet, it's not just a problem, it's an expensive problem. 

We could bring plastic bags, that's easy enough.  They fold up small, tuck them in a pocket and cameras and hearing aids are protected.   Absolutely, that could be done.  But in Florida, the issue is the lightning.  Not only do we get a lot of lightning, and wildfires often start from lightning strikes here abouts, but  - and this is the scary part - people get struck by lightning with alarming frequency and that is ALWAYS a bad thing.    So drizzle or no drizzle, lightning says no.   No Hike.  Ratz.  Yet another week of no hike, no pictures, no photo safari report and no time with my sister.

Wait a minute, no pictures?  I bet I have some pictures.  And it's true, I do!  Just a few, but they are pictures and so they count.  Between rain bands on this past Tuesday, I saw the kittyboys raptly starring out the family room windows in the afternoon. So I quietly crept up behind them to see what they were seeing.  It was a nice variety of birds at and near the feeder :) I watched with Brysco and Wyatt for a bit then, for a change actually thinking, I grabbed my camera and took some photos. I had particular reason in mind, it was strictly, just because. Which is an excellent reason all on it's own. And now, well it's not a photo safari report and these aren't exotic or unusual birds and they weren't in a preserve or state park, just our backyard.  Still counts!

So I leave you today with wishes for a great weekend and a few birdie photos.  I hope all the places around the country today that are desperate for rain, finally get some! I'd send you ours if I could, but stamps do not stick to it!

​

Way back toward the beginning of July when I was writing about Tim's and my birthday, I neglected to mention the biggest and most unexpected gift I got on my big day.  My washer broke down after the very first load.  Dang. And before you ask why on earth I was doing laundry on my birthday and isn't that against my own birthday rules, let me remind you that the rule is that I get to do exactly what I please on my birthday and one of the things I was pleased to do (initially anyway) was laundry.  It was my dang day, I'll spend it the way I wish.

The way I knew that the washer was broken was that it was holding my laundry hostage.  That's right, the cycle was complete, the door was locked and it refused to unlock.  Well, that was unexpected.  My first thought was to try to trick the washer into unlocking by running a second, shorter cycle and surely, when the cycle was complete, the door would pop open and all would, once again, be well with the world.  Great idea.  Except for the part where it didn't work.  Double dang.

So I went online, typed in the model/serial number/etc  to check for trouble shooting tips.  Door that refuses to unlock was a category (not those exact words, but close enough) and they had three ideas for how to correct the problem. The first was to unplug the washer, let it sit a minute and think about what it had done, replug it and voila, the door should magically unlock.  It did not.  Is there a triple dang?

The second tip was what I had already done, run a different cycle.  It did not work the first time I did it. It also did not work the second time. And in fact, the second time it not only did not unlock the door, it also did not run the cycle.  Clearly things were not only bad, but getting worse.

The third tip involved opening some mysterious hidden panel that was beyond my ability OR interest.  By then I had given up. Feeling dejected and a little bummed, I told Tim about the issue.  Of immediate importance was getting that door unlocked so that I could rescue the clean wet clothing.  The dryer still works, after all. But if the wet stuff sits too long it'll become moldy wet stuff and that is never good.  

I suspect that Tim tried the 3rd tip and was able to find the secret hidden panel because he was able to open the door. Huzzah!  I quickly tossed everything into the dryer and was feeling pretty good about things.  Tim suggested that before I attempted to actually wash anything else, I should run an empty cycle first just in case the door locked me out again.  Good Thought!  

Once again, I set the washer to run the shortest cycle, hit start, it lit up and then about 90 seconds later, turned itself off.  Well crap.  Just to be thorough, I tried every cycle available and the same thing happened each time.  Insert big annoyed sigh here.

I really didn't want to even think about it for another moment on that particular day and so I did not.   Except to book a repair person. It turned out that the washer was still under warranty so yes, I abso-freakin-lutely was going to go the repair route.  our washer, by the way, is only two years old. I know that appliances do not last like they used to in the olden days, but two years is crazy.  I called the number on the warranty paperwork and got a robot phone answerer.  It asked pertinent questions, I answered them and then it sent me a website and an identification code.  So I went to the website, answered more questions, put in my secret decoder ring code.  The website authorized the repair, acknowledged the warranty *yay* and offered me dates for the repair person to come out.  I took the first one which was Tuesday.  (remember this all began on my birthday which was a Thursday this year).

  Obviously I was going to have to do somthing I realllllllly did not want to do and that was, go to the laundromat.

 I waited until the next day, gathered baskets full of the remainder of the wash that did not get done the day before, laundry pods, dryer sheets and my keys and headed to my local laundromat.  It had been probably ten years since I'd been there and things change so I wasn't positive what I was walking into and I'm sure that I showed my hesitation on my face.  I stood there like a statue, two very full baskets in my arms, purse slung cross body, sunglasses popped on top of my head and cast my eyes around the room trying to, I don't know orient myself to a new environment?  Within about 5 minutes, a very nice lady came up to me, introduced herself, told me that she ran the place and she kind of toured me around.

The last time I was there, quarters were the thing. A person had to have quarters to run the machinery. Lots and lots of quarters.  I used to go to the bank first and get a couple of rolls of quarters before going.  This time I was able to get the job done with a credit card.  So Much Easier!  Every machine had it's own card reader and it was just a matter of getting the knack of making that particular machine pleased with the speed of the swipe. Not too fast, not too slow.

So I got the laundry done, the lady was nice, the machines were easy to use, the laundromat is ON island which means I was able to drive there without having a heart attack and so I really have nothing to complain about. But I will anyway.  

First of all, I am grateful beyond measure that we have a laundromat and, again, that is was reasonably clean and easy to use and the lady who runs it was so nice BUT I do not like going to the laundromat. Not even sure why, just know that I don't.  And I never have.  There have been huge portions of my life when going to the laundromat was a regular bi-weekly thing.  During college when I'd take text books with me to study while the machine hummed along and during the warmer seasons, walk over to dairy queen to get a cone to eat while waiting.  When the boys were babies and I'd carry baskets of laundry, handfuls of toddlers and a hipful of baby to juggle while taking care of laundry business.  Again, when I was a single mom and the boys were older and we would go early on a Sunday morning when nobody else was there, the boys could entertain themselves and help fold/carry baskets/keep me company.  And of course, as I said earlier, when we first moved here and the house didn't have a washer/dryer hooked up yet.

So I'm familiar with the concept.  And to be honest, some laundromats are more disgusting than others.  I'm thinking way back now, to a particular laundromat when someone had relieved themselves in an "inconspicuous" inside corner despite there being bathrooms on site, there were remnants of gum in a dryer that I did not notice until I took the dried clothes OUT of the tumbler (sigh) and someone walked off with one entire load of my stuff out of the dryer.  (bigger sigh). In comparison, our local laundromat is heaven sent. But it is still a laundromat and I have to load stuff in the car, drive over, haul it out of the car into the building, afterward haul it back out into the car, drive home, carrying it inside and THEN put things away or in the ironing pile.

I think the worst part is the inefficiency.  When I do laundry at home, once the loads are started I can then move on to doing other things.  As every woman knows, multi-tasking is how things get done around the house.  Laundromat is single tasking. Humph.

ANYWAY, Eventually Tuesday rolled around and the repair guy showed up, found the problemS  yes, that's right plural problems.  There were three issues.   Told me he had to order parts and would be in touch to schedule the actual repair once they had come in and no, he had no idea when that would be.  I felt as if I was held hostage by the washer once again.

So I continued going to the laundromat  multiple times a week, getting better and better at the swipe timing as time went by and then one glorious day Tim got the call and booked it, Dan-O.  Last Friday, late afternoon, a repair guy came with three boxes (I assume the parts in question) and spent a few hours taking out the old, putting in the new and making sure it all worked. Beefore he left,  I told him he was my new favorite person. He grinned.

I do not believe I have ever been so happy in my life to do laundry as I am right now.  I have not only done the usual clothes and towels but blankets, comforters, mattress covers.........basically anything that fits in the washer has now been washed.  I am absolutely delighted.

Y'know it occurs to me that I ought to be at least a little embarrassed by how affected I was by not having a working washer.  After all, I'm just a few generations out from women who used to wash board to scrub clothes and boiled them in big pots.  I'm not sure if they would think I was weak and spoiled, or if they would be envious of how good I have it.  Maybe a little of both

This is familiar experience around here during Rainy Season, which is right now.  Actually it began June 1st but we honestly didn't see all that much rain for the first six weeks. In fact, we saw so little rain for the first part of 'rainy season' that we were official under drought restrictions especially regarding such things as sprinkler systems and garden watering.

It got worse too.  Wildfires began to pop up almost every day or so  primarily due to lightning strikes (lighting yes, rain no which is a bad combo) and smelling that acrid awful smokey air outside was beginning to be a regular thing.  You knew immediately who was flouting the lawn watering rules just by walking down the street.  Any good looking beautiful green carpet of a lawn was somebody who was sneakily watering more. OR they had artificial turf, it was for sure one or the other. The rest of us had patchy, brownish, crispy looking lawns.  Things that normally blossom like mad this time of year were stretching themselves to blossom at all.

It was all getting to be pretty sad.

Then last week, just in time to save us all, the rain finally came.  Huzzah!  But then it kept raining.  And raining.  And Raining.  Eventually every day was gloomy, dark & grey with thunder in the distance and lightening strike notifications pinging on my phone continually.  It was either currently raining, had just finished raining or was about to rain every moment of the day or night.  There were a few nights where we woke up from such rockin' and rollin' and full  orchestration that we couldn't sleep. It sounded as if the storm were directly above our house (and who knows?  Maybe it was!)

I was reluctant to leave the house at all because, seriously, who wants to dash through rain coming down so hard it looks like a wall?  Once while driving, Tim - who is an excellent driver and never flinches - actually pulled over into a parking lot to wait until it let up a wee bit.   That's how you know  was a gullywhomper of the first order.  

Umbrellas are fairly pointless in that kind of rain. The wind will pull it inside out in no time flat and even if your bumbershoot remains whole, the rain is often coming in sideways and you are going to be wet regardless- umbrella  or not!

The green growing stuff was delighted.  Suddenly all the blooming things began blooming like mad, colour in every direction.  The lawns are filling back in looking green and lush and the birds are responding enthusiastically.   Lakes, creek, rivers and ponds are filling back up too and that's loverly to see though it also means, beware of gators. They are sneaky and can literally be in any body of water you can see, whether it's a just a gully on the side of the road or a full sized lake.
​
Last Sunday, even though it was rainy with a prediction of yet more rain, we went for a drive.  We ended up by the water up in Sarasota and stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the view. I hopped out of the car between rain bands and took a few photos:

Today is sunny, at the moment and 88 degrees, and not quite a humid as it might be for a Florida July, but rain is expected this evening once more and that will keep the green stuff green.

I'm sure eventually things will settle into the normal rhythm of the daily 4 o'clock rain band coming through and then going on it's merry way until Rainy Season is once again over and things cool off and the humidity lifts a bit. That would be Tourist Season which is a whole other thing.

Wishes you a balance of the perfect amount of rain and sun!

​Have a great weekend!

We are lucky enough to have a live performance theatre here in our city. Not just in our city, mind you, but right here on Venice Island.   We can easily walk there, which I love. While were aren't season ticket holders by any stretch, we have seen a number of terrific shows there and had hopes to see at least a few more.

But back in 2022, Hurricane Ian tore through Venice and, as you can clearly see from the above photo on the left, pretty much destroyed the nearly 100 year old building.  Everyone, theatre go-er or not, wondered what the future would bring regarding our theatre.  There were loads of theories and gossip, of course.  That's what always happens.

But now here we are, six years later and, after some very impressive fund raising, donations,  grants and Government assistance it appears that the Venice Theatre is repaired. Well that's what it looks like in the photo on the right, right?  

The truth is that it's only partially repaired.  There is still a ways to go.  And Tim and I found that out, up close and personal, last week when we were able to tour the building!  I adore "behind the scenes" stuff.  Our tour guide, a very personable and knowledgeable soul took us through all of the "do not enter" and "staff only" doors that I've long wondered about (I'm so nosy!)  We were even able to don hard hats (check out photo at the end to see Tim and I sporting very fashionable hardhats) and witness the part that remains under construction.  It was so much fun and quite the transformation.

Lets go backwards before we go forwards.  I will begin at the beginning. It's a very good place to start.  Our adorable little city of Venice Florida is only just now one hundred years old. So there you go, we were official in 1926. The roaring twenties!  And as such, it was a beautiful and very fun place that had quite a good number of Enormous and Gorgeous Grand Hotels for the folks with enough money to travel and vacation.   In 1927, on the exact site of the Venice Theatre, was an automotive garage (to take good care of the vehicles of those grand folks). It was called the Orange Blossom Garage.  Things were rolling along beautifully in this amazing gulf-side city filled with Mediterranean Architecture, lots of things to do, palm trees galore and a gorgeous beach.

By the time of the Stock Market Crash that changed the world in 1929, the city of Venice was already in trouble due to some iffy financial decision and mismanagement of funds. The Crash just finished it.  The city went from a thriving community of about 4000 people to around 400 virtually overnight.  It was practically a ghost town filled with huge empty hotels and so many other business closed down, including the Orange Blossom Garage.

In 1932, the Kentucky Military Institute (KMI), a military school, first rented and then bought several of the big empty hotels and the garage, among other buildings, to use as the winter quarters for their school which began to breathe new life into the city.  The KMI continued to house those building until the school closed in 1971.  The garage, which was being used as an armory, a chapel and a basketball arena, once again, sat empty.

Meanwhile, as the city had begun to revitalize itself over the years, the Venice Little Theatre, as an organization  was created in 1950 in borrowed space at our little airport which had previously been used during WWII by the Army Aircorps.   The community loved having its own live theater and eventually, in 1973, bought the old Orange Blossom Garage and slowly turned it into the Venice Theatre.

And now,  ack in current day, the Venice Theatre is actually a little campus of three separate buildings and once repairs are complete, there will be the one large stage, one smaller stage and in a separate building that will primarily be used for education, several other yet smaller stages. It is a genuine marvel!  And a serious one at that.  The folks involved are so very serious about the business of entertainment and education that in the world of Community Theatre, the Venice Theatre ranks #2 in the entire USA by the official organization that ranks such things.  Wow!  By the way, the #1 ranking community theatre in the US is in Omaha Nebraska.

Now that the history lesson is complete, I would love to share a few of the behind the scenes photos that I took:

I'll start with the under construction area which will ultimately be the main theatre.  What I neglected to get a photo of was the fly bridge which is where that massive staircase goes. It is incredibly high up and is such a lovely big space that it will be able to accommodate dozens of backdrops at a time along with catwalks, lighting and so much more:

Then some of the smaller rooms that I remembered to take pictures of (some of them I was too busy ogling instead of snapping):  

First here is the costume design studio. It is a surprisingly huge room@ One wall alone was just one sewing machine after another (with people manning several while we were there), the other three walls were lined with bin-stuffed shelving.  Every bin was labelled with such things as "sequins", "buttons" "lace"  "zippers" and far, far more.  The room was further crowded with worktables, some of which had partially completed projects laid out, mannequins in various states of dress, and rack upon rack of colours of threads. It was glorious!

One of my favourite rooms was the costume closet which is actually an entire room full to overflowing with carefully labelled and organized garments, hat, shoes and jewelry:

Another of my favorites was the Small Props room which, as the title suggests, holds small *but essential* props.  It was so quirky and fun:

One of the three building encompassing the Venice Theatre campus is the Set Design and Construction building. It is a builders paradise with a dedicated paint room, at least one of every tool ever created, storage of the pieces currently unused but possibly useable again the future and it was filled with one of my favourite scents, sawdust!

Some of the rooms I neglected to get photos of were: the backstage waiting area, where the actors and dressers wait for their cues to go on; the orchestra pit which is really just small room with a video screen so the musicians and singers can see what is going on and prepare for their turns to perform; the music directors office which has a grand piano in it - of course it does - and so many more.

We also got to sneak into the smaller theatre which is up and running and watched the builders and electricians prepare for the next show:

It was a fascinating and so very fun peek into what goes into creating these award winnning plays that the audience gets to enjoy.  I had to laugh a little bit because the tour, which was touted as a 90 minute show 'round turned out to take more than 2 1/2 hours. We were actually nearing the 3 hour tour mark and well, we all know how that worked out for Gilligan and his friends eh?

If you are lucky enough to live in close proximity to a community theatre, I urge you to, at least once in awhile, go see some of the shows.  The people who work there, hundreds (literally) of them volunteers, really do put their hearts and souls into creating some magic for their audience.  And the shows themselves are a perfect escape from our real, stressful, normal lives for just an hour or so. I believe we can all benefit from a little bit of that ;)

In case you wondered, these are all flowers from around our yard.  It's like living in a botanical garden!

Wishing all of you a Beautiful Weekend!  See ya'll next week!

Hugs all 'round

You knew that my birthday was last Thursday, but I'm not sure that you also knew that Tim's birthday was last Saturday.  Yes our birthdays are the 9th and the 11th of July which is kind of crazy, eh? It has been Birthday Central at our house, lately. Tim and I, both separately and together, have been thoroughly birthday-ed every single day for about a week now.  And it has been absolutely Awesome!

We have been treated to brunches, lunches, dinners and desserts. We've received phone calls, and texts and emails, mostly from folks far away who we love and miss so much.  There were also lots of cards (some sparkly, some funny, some sweetly sincere) which are currently on display on the kitchen table defying any resident kitties attempts to knock them down.  There were shopping expeditions, gifts and surprise visits. We received a homemade and absolutely luscious pie (see above - it was exquisite) and a birthday card that was also a puzzle, so fun, so cute, so clever and unique!  We were hugged and celebrated and made much of.  And I think Tim and I both have gained at least 3 pounds from being so very wonderful-ed. 

"Why yes, I believe I will have that ice cream, thank you. After all it is my birthday"  and "Thank you yes, I'd love a bit of that pie/cake/cookie!  Birthdays come but once a year". It may take me 'til next birthday to work all those goodies off. BUT it was totally worth every calorie :)

Every single special effort that anyone made for us, was special and heart warming and often brought me to tears. We both feel so very loved and what could possibly be better than that?    It was a lovely, magical, amazing birthday week for us both.

In fact it was so wonderful that it completely balanced out the fact that Tim's car is back in the shop and my washing machine quit (I spent way fun time at the laundromat today yay).  And honestly, neither of those usually really annoying things which would normally have set me off are making me give much more than a shrug and a sigh today because we are still riding our Birthday Specialness High :)

Thank you one and all for EVERYTHING that made us feel like we are important in your lives and helped make our birthday truly a celebration!!  We feel as if you all  love us and I promise you, we love you right back  
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Today is July 10th which means that yesterday was my birthday. Wow! Another year, gone, *snap* just like that.   As of yesterday, I now have to answer "73" when asked my age. Dang that sounds old.  Which is only because it is.  That said, there lots of different sorts of age 73!  I consider myself to be very fortunate to be the sort of 73 that is still active, as social as I ever was (which isn't all that much really), capable of getting into all kinds of trouble AND with most of my facilities still intact.  Not too bad.

I have interests and hobbies, family and friends, a sense of purpose and a calendar filled with loads of things that are not just doctor appointments.  For this I am truly thankful though I couldn't say exactly why I have been so lucky. It could be due to some really great genetics I suppose - my family tends to be quite long lived, historically.  Or perhaps I can take a little credit on my own because, outside of a penchant for cookies and ice cream, I have taken pretty good care of my health.  Or maybe it's simple blind stubbornness in my refusal to give in or even acknowledge the carnage associated with being elderly.

Wait a minute, 'elderly'?  Whoa!  I am not elderly. Am I? Okay I just looked it up. Yes, I am. Apparently, a person is considered elderly past the age of 65.  And I definitely qualify for that.  Dang!  Elderly?  I don't think I like that word.  I'm okay with old.  I'm fine with senior. (I don't like either one, but I can deal with them). Elderly however feels fragile and vulnerable and kind of decrepit.  Not a pretty picture. 

So I'm tearing up that picture. I've mentally put it through the shredder and it's gone.  Yes, I am now Seventy-Three Freakin' Years Old!  But I'm also fabulous!

And now, as per tradition, the Birthday Rules because they will ALWAYS apply regardless of age:

BIRTHDAY RULES

1. Number one and most important on this hit parade:  It's all about the birthday person.  It really is.  No exceptions. If it's your birthday, everything that day is about you. Period.

2. Of course, to be absolutely fair, I am not a person who really likes being the center of a big crowd of people. But a small, comfortable, familiar crowd is fine. In fact it's awesome.  A small group of people that I really care about it absolutely perfect.  If that group consists of me and one other person, sometimes that is the best group of all.

3. And there should be at least one treat that a person rarely has, like cake. Or ice cream.  Or cake AND ice cream.  And for heaven's sakes, if a person is going to indulge, it should be the good stuff. The real deal. No fake, crappy substitutes.  And speaking as a person with Lactose Intolerance, if I'm going to suffer later, I want the suffering to be worthwhile, which means the ice cream must be primo.

4. There should be a few cards, some of them should have sparkles, some flowers, some funny, some touching or maybe thought provoking. I like cards.  I set them up on top of the big display cabinet in the living room and admire them for far too long afterwards.

5. There should be some sort of contact from people far away, whether it's phone calls or emails or texts or facebook posts or telepathic thoughts, heaps of good wishes from folks far away makes a birthday extra special.  To think that all of those people bothered to take the time to acknowledge your existence on your birthday shows that you matter in this life.  That's important.

6. There should be no chores on your birthday.  Not one single solitary gotta-do should be done by the birthday celebrant.  Those things can either wait a day to be done, or someone else needs to do them.  I'm immovable on this fact.

7. The birthday person gets to choose what or where to eat for dinner.  And no matter what they choose, that's what dinner is.  Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.  It is the ONE day of the entire year where nobody else's likes/dislikes/or personal opinion should take precedence regarding food.

8. It should be a happy day.  Only positive comments and thoughts please.  It should be a day of smiles and laughter. If there is something negative or sad that needs to be said, keep it to yourself for one more day.  Not even boredom is allowed.

​Happy Birthday to ME!

You see before you, Exhibit A, an ordinary pump dispenser.  This one happens to be body lotion. We use a lot of moisturizing lotion in this house.  Both of us. Even Tim.  I know this comes under the header of TMI, but since we have moved to Florida, Tim and I have fallen into the habit of taking 2 showers a day.  The first one, in the morning, is just part of waking up. While Tim drinks coffee, I do not. So for me, my morning shower is my "perk me up" instead of caffeine.  But, again, as Florida residents who spend actual time outside year 'round, we get sweaty, so before bed, we shower again.  We do this year 'round.  In the hot weather it is a necessity. In the cooler months, I suppose it's just habit.  The point remains, we shower, twice a day.

Which means we are very clean. But it also means we are drying out our skin which makes our skin itchy.  I hate itchy. I would rather be in pain than be itchy and I mean that seriously. Moisturizer, especially a super de duper moisturizer, applied liberally and often, helps tremendously (as does taking a less hot shower interestingly, but that's a different future post).

Anyway, that means we go through a goodly amount of moisturizing lotion on a regular basis.  We've tried a number of brands and kind of landed on Gold Bond in the end as one that we both liked.  As a product, I am a fan. A big fan.

However, the pump dispenser itself, as a means of accessing the lotion, is seriously flawed.  I mean it starts out just fine.  Tralalala, merrily we go on our way, pumping out lotion willynilly, until the bottle is about 3/4 empty. Then, suddenly, nothing. It seems to be kaput!  No matter how firmly or gently pumped, nothing else comes out. The bottle appears to be empty.  

Turns out, it is not. It was my friend Marsha, who cued me in on this.  "Good heaven's," she said to me when I whined about it to her, "it's not empty, don't just throw it away".  When I questioned her, she explained that she just cuts open the container to get access to the remainder. I raised my eyebrows with interest and curiosity.

On the one hand, I do like getting my money's worth.  Not a big fan of waste. On the other hand, is there enough leftover cream in the container to make it worth all of the pain-in-the-assidness of cutting open the bottle?  Only one way to find out.

First, I needed my tools, the most important of which was something to cut it open with.  I tried a number of things but it turned out that a box cutter was the best option.  As little scary, as I am not graceful and the bottle is every so sightly curved and I could easily imagine it slipping out from my clumsy hands and accidentally cutting something that bleeds rather than the container.  I vowed to myself to be extra careful.

Also got some paper towels because I anticipated at least a little bit of a mess and a different empty lidded container to hold any leftover moisturize.  Then I gathered up all no longer producing bottles of moisturizer that were in the house. Turned out to be two.

I laid each one carefully on it's side and took a deep breath, got a good grip on both bottle and boxcutter and began. Turned out to be more a series of punctures in the bottle than straight forward cutting as one might do on a cardboard box. But it worked so I suppose it doesn't matter.  In the end there were two half bottles of lotion and no blood lost so that's a win!

I was truly surprised at how much lotion remained at the bottom of the bottle.  At least a week's worth of application, would be my first guess. Easily. Probably more.  That's how much I was wasting by assuming that the pump dispense knew what it was doing when it stopped producing.  The container, after all isn't clear. I cannot see in!  And even if I unscrewed the top and peered inside, the lotion and the bottle are both white.  It would be somewhere between difficult and impossible to know for sure if the bottle were empty or not.

I suspect this is by design. I hate to be that suspicious of anyone's motives but come on!  I began to think about other pump dispenser products that I have used throughout my entire life and it's a crazy big number.  I wondered if it were true of ALL pump dispensers or just this one.  Well, I did a little investigating, and it turns out that the reason it happens is one of three things:

1.  a tube that is too short
2.  the bottle shape. A flat bottomed bottle tends to result in more residue 
3.  pump suction loss.  As the bottle empties, the pump loses suction and draws air instead of         product 

I hmmmmed on that for a wee bit because all of those reasons seem to be easily resolved with a design change so what the what?   I continued to read, perhaps there is something mechanical or physics related that I was missing in my thought process.  Turns out, Nope!  

"This design is a manufacturing and cost‑reduction choice — automated filling machines often round up to the nearest volume, so bottles are filled slightly over the labeled amount to ensure the pump delivers the stated volume. It’s also a practical compromise for mass production, as it’s easier to fill and test bottles at the factory."

And that is a direct quote. 

Ok, since I am not in charge of the world but also do not want to pay even more for the moisturizer, nor do I want to go without it (and making the necessary design changes would absolutely result in charging customers more), I guess I will just continue to do what I'm currently doing and preforming surgery on all pump dispenser bottles to garner every last pennies worth of product !!!!

You doubt me?  Here is what I scraped out of the two bottles I just cut open yesterday:

As an aside, I also learned that the pump dispenser design itself is literally thousands of years old.  Ancient Egyptians used it way back in 2000 BCE. The design has, of course, been refined  and modernized since then but still, I'm kind of impressed that the same basic concept used by Cleopatra and Ptolemy is still sitting on our bathroom vanity!  

Anyway, I guess the whole point here was to suggest to any of you who have noticed the same issue and maybe wondered if it was worthwhile that yeah, as lazy as I basically am, even I see the value in putting forth the effort to get every last drop in this particular case.  

No actual surgical license necessary  :)

Today is only the 3rd but I wish you all a safe and very fun 4th of July tomorrow!  And Oh my Goodness, It's not just the anniversary of our Independence Day but the 250th birthday of The United States of America!  That's a big deal.  Especially when consider that the concept of the way our country was originally structured, the idea of it all, the hard tack and whimsical ideals that became our Constitutional Republic, was really an experiment.  Nobody had ever done it before.

Oh other countries have created something perhaps a little similar here and there around the edges, but nobody ever in history has done it the way that we have.  And what we have, particularly as compared to most other places in the world, is pretty amazing still, 250 years later.

Oh it's not all rainbows and roses for sure.  There have been some moments of great tragedy where many people feared that it was all over for us. But somehow, someway, we managed to bandage the country back together. We are not a perfect nation by a long shot. But, we seem to keep adapting and changing as the years pass, while still holding on to those core beliefs that the whole idea of us sprang from. We constantly take the temperature of the times, the needs of the people, the state of the planet and adjust accordingly.  Maybe not as fast as many folks would prefer but eventually, it always seems to happen. 

For the naysayers in the crowd, ask yourselves why so Very Many people from other countries want to live in our country?  Because it's better than what they have. Very simple.  

I absolutely refuse to argue politics these days.  It is a very rare individual anymore who is willing to have a discussion, a simple exchange of ideas with someone who doesn't feel exactly the same way without it devolving into a screaming  match, a severing of ties, and pointed accusing fingers. I don't need or want that in my life so I keep  my political opinions to myself.  But honestly, I do not feel that I have to believe the same way as everyone else (freedom, remember?) to love my country.  I don't have to turn a blind eye to any flaws to still be proud to be an American.  I can hope for and work toward, changes that I believe should be made and still say the Pledge of Allegiance without feeling like a hypocrite. We are all works in progress, so why would our country, which was created by people who were also flawed (because we all are) be perfect? That's just kind of ridiculous.

I love that we all have a voice. We have opportunities to try to change things, we can freely speak our minds, ask questions, and agree to disagree.  But considering that there are about 350 millions souls in the USA right now it is flatly impossible to please every single one of them every single day.  Just won't happen.  That's 350 million opinions on how to do it right, how to interpret the laws, the constitution, the Declaration of Independent for heaven's sakes. We are never ever going to all agree on one thing.

But maybe the majority can agree that tomorrow is the 250th Anniversary of one of the Greatest Countries that ever existed!  Perhaps in 250 more years, we can come together more on topics, agree more, or at least disagree more politely.  But probably not because people are people and in this country, the people have had generations of training to be free with their thoughts, their opinions, their ideas and their rights to expression.  

What a beautiful thing.

Happy Birthday America!

Absolutely NOT wedding related, but still it was something old, something new - well new to me anyway, and that counts!   Ever hear of a spatchcocked chicken?  That doesn't sound right, does it?  Well it 's a real thing and I cooked a couple of them on Saturday for the very first time!

First of all Spatchcocking is not new at all. It harkens back to the 18th century in England and Ireland, which means I am very late to the party.  But I'm glad I finally got there :) And Second of all, what it means is that the birds backbone is removed and then it's all butterflied or flattened out.  And when cooked, it looks a little something like this:
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Spatchcocking, allows the chicken to cook faster and more efficiently which also means juicier and more flavourful. All good things.

It was Tim's idea. Not mine.  I had only ever heard the term once while sort of watching an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown.  I like the show, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the time, (to be honest most of the time) I'm only ever sort of watching any TV show while also doing other things.  At any rate, all I remembered about that show was the funny word.   "Spatchcocking" is a funny word, let's face it, and that it looked very complicated. And since I am, to be perfectly honest, kind of lazy, mentally I wrote it off as something I would never do and then continued doing whatever else I was doing while sort of watching the show.

Never say never.

This past Saturday we had guests coming for luncheon.  So obviously during the preceding week, Tim and I were discussing the menu.  I had thrown out the idea of cooking chicken on the grill, probably thinking chicken breasts or tenders.  Tim asked what I thought about the idea of doing spatchcocked chicken.  I said, "excuse you?" before I remembered that I sort of knew what it meant.

After a quick google search I courageously said, "Why not?"  I had never made it before but I can be brave.  Well, not the kind of brave that jumps out of airplanes but the sort of brave that means cooking something I've never made before for guests!  That is it's own sort of courage. It is, I swear!

Anyway, I landed on a recipe that sounded do-able and Tim found a place with chickens already cut and flattened and ready to go so I didn't have to do the hardest part. Woohoo, Even Better! I was ready to roll.  

I read through the recipe multiple times to be absolutely sure what I thought I was doing and then, I took a deep breath and commenced. 

The particular directions I was following required "dry brining" which was another thing I had never done before.  If you've never done it, it means pulling the skin gently from the meat of the bird so that the brine which is a salt/pepper/baking powder mix, can be tucked between the skin and the meat first and then rubbing the mixture all over the outside of the skin as well and then putting the uncooked, brine bird, on it's  foiled tray into the fridge overnight, uncovered.  

About an hour before serving the entire bird comes out of the fridge and is then rubbed thoroughly with herbed butter.  After that it's into the oven for roasting for 45 minutes,  broiled for 5-10 minutes, let it sit out of the oven for about 5 minutes and voila, it's done and ready to be served.  

Yes its true there is a little more prep work than usual, but not difficult work. The hardest part was pulling the skin gently away from the meat while not tearing it but I did the best I could.   I will be honest,  I didn't do a particularly good job of it, but I did the best I could and since it all came out great, I suppose it was good enough.  Perhaps next time I will do better?

And I promise you, there will be next time because it was so tasty!  And a little impressive looking!   Our guests could not stop talking about how good it was, so I guess it really was good and not just me being full of myself.  I am so glad that Tim had the idea and that I was brave enough to try it.  

I find it so easy to fall into a same old, same old kind of routine with cooking. Everything is so expensive that if a new dish doesn't turn out well, it is money down the drain and that hurts!  Ouchie, right in the tender wallet. I totally understand the why behind constantly making the same tried and true dishes over and over again. But I definitely feel the need to be braver and try more new dishes, more new techniques even if we don't have guests. Just for us.  As long as I'm very careful and judicious in my choices, why not?

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that a person should  do one thing that scares them every day.  I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about spatchcocked chickens but, who knows, maybe she was?

Try new things.  Even new things that are really very old ideas :)







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Howdy do you all of you!  Happy Friday!

What we have here, as you can probably guess, is another Photo Safari Report.  Joy and I went to Myakka State Park this time.  We found out that they had rebuilt the towers  and that's what you see here, the two of us at the tippity top, me on the left and Joy on the right, pointing out the horizon line (as if you cannot see it for yourself).  And since we, so very bravely did indeed climb all of those freakin' stairs, I am calling this one the Taller Than the Trees Hike!  And if you truly knew the enormous height of some of those trees, you would be very impressed with us.

I will go ahead and start with the towers, since I've already mentioned it.  The first tower is a mere 74 feet high.  The Second tower reportedly is 76 feet though at that point it feels like a lot more.  There is also a bridge between the two which is only twenty-five feet above the ground and about 100 feet long.  In the pictures the bridge appears to be stationary but I can only assure you that it is not, you can feel the movement beneath your feet as you cross.  At one point while navigating the bridge, there is a branch that most folks have to  duck under. Joy and I being shorties had no issues - heh.   The view at the top was worth every step I promise even though I mumbled to Joy at one point that it felt as if we were going to just keep climbing that thing for the rest of our lives.  The crazy part is that I was the one who said, "I think we have to do the towers". Yup me.  what was I thinking?  hehheh

Here's a few more photos of the tower, the bridge and the view from the top:

  It was one of the best hikes we've done in awhile as far as variety of photo subjects is concerned so that was an unexpected delight.

We both heard and saw loads of birds, but as per my usual, I only captured a few. Sometimes I get so caught up in just seeing what I see, that I forget to take a picture!  Silly me!  As I said, there was such a huge variety of birds there which I did not get photos of and that is a shame. In fact, I even missed out on one of my favourites, the Kite.  I could just stand and watch the Kites soar for hours. AND I have no photos to show for it, dang! Oh well. Anyway, here are some other birdies:

Finally I got some dragonflies. I like butterflies and there were loads of those too though I got no photos to prove it. But Dragonflies are my favourites so I was tickled when to get even one photo.  There were so many and in such vibrant and beautiful colours everywhere around us, all zooming about, busy with their day, I was delighted with this group. I swear to you that this is 4 separate dragonflies. Oh and one bee!  Bees are also tricky, too quick and their paths too random to predict:

There were far more flowers than we've seen in other places too so that's a big yay!  Not what it normally would be right now, but it's looking up and it's looking colourful:

Other wildlife that we saw?  Well there was a bunny, a squirrel, a turtle, lots of alligators and a snake.  All of them were a surprise, there is no rhyme or reason to what we might come across or where, but the snake was the biggest surprise of the day.  Joy was ahead of me on the trail and there we are just stridin' along and suddenly she comes to a toe-stop. That is to say a sudden, unexpected halt that started at her toes and made her heels come up off the ground. It was so abrupt that I nearly crashed into her. She said not a single word, so I peered around her silently, saw the snake in question and very softly said, "oh". I'm not certain who was more shocked, us or the reptile in question.  We backed up a few feet and allowed the snake to do whatever it wished and what it wished to do was turn around, and return from whence it came.  whew!  That was a close one:

All that remains now are the randos, my favourites!  Got some great ones this time too!

And there you have it, the Taller Than the Trees Hike! Thanks for coming along :)  Hope you enjoyed.

Have a Terrific Weekend!

I think it's fair to say, especially as we cruise our way into the summer months, that one of the best inventions ever have to have been thought up, is Air Conditioning.  And Further, I think it is of particular importance, survival-wise, if you live in a place that is hot and humid. Hot is bad enough, humid just is that little extra dollop of crap on a dumpster fire.

I know, I know, I'm spoiled and pathetic and oh well.  I believe that if the original inhabitants of this area, the Caloosa Indians, had access to Air Conditioning, they would have loved it.  I am absolutely positive that the homesteaders who arrived in the late 1800's would be been delighted about.  I look at the old (very old) photos of the people who built this city and one generation back, the men in their dark jackets and high collars, the women in long sleeves, long dresses with petticoats for heaven's sakes and I marvel at how they survived at all.

Before you write me off as a total wimp, I want you to know that not every house I ever lived in throughout my life had Air Conditioning. Of course some of those houses were in areas of this country that don't really require it. Even when I lived in Connecticut, there were never more than a couple of weeks through the summer where the heat and humidity made it hard to sleep and any physical activity at all, including showering, caused us to sweat.  A few fans in windows and we managed just fine.   Doesn't mean we wouldn't have appreciated AC on those miserable days. We absolutely would have!!!  The same way that we, even here in Florida,  on very rare winter days, appreciate having a heating system. Rarely used but always grateful it was there.

 All that said, Florida summers are an entirely different kettle of hot pockets fresh out of the microwave.  Not just hot but molten hot and of course there are the days when the humidity is so high that when outside it feels as if we are trying to breathe underwater. Unpleasant is the mildest term I can think of to describe it.  All that whining about the heat and humidity is firmly balanced out by how gorgeous it is the entire rest of the year so in case you wondered why anyone lives here,  that's why.

Air Conditioning, by the way, was invented by Willis Carrier way back in 1902 in New York City of all places!   But it wasn't until after World War II that the concept began to be integrated into commercial enterprises such as movie theatres and department stores and then, eventually into residential buildings.  We seem to come around to accepting new ideas slowly, even really really good ideas.

When we bought this house, ten years ago, one of the first things we did, even before we physically  moved our stuff into the house, was to have the existing AC system updated.  Because we had never lived in Florida before, we relied on the expertise of the fellow we hired to do the job. His recommendation was the one we took and honestly, for awhile, the house was much much cooler. The improvement was instantaneous and glorious.  And it served us very well, for a time.

The past few years though,  even though we are very good about having it checked out by the professionals every year and maintained exactly as instructed, the system was working harder and harder but the room temps were getting higher.  We adapted to the slightly less comfortable levels, as people do but we could not ignore the rising cost of electricity.  And no, it was not just, prices are higher now. Well  yes, they are, but it wasn't the sole reason that the monthly bill as becoming astronomical. It was a slowly failing system trying like crazy to do what it really could not do anymore.

There was a notable and increasingly uncomfortable shift in temperature throughout the day and night as the system cycled, high and slightly lower, back and forth, from acceptable to almost tolerable. And clearly something had to change.

Tim did his research, as he does,  and we ended up having an entirely different sort of AC system put in which meant the old one had to come out.  All of it, including the miles of ducting in the attic, the condenser outside and the great hulking brut taking up a considerable bit of real estate  in the utility room, gone!  In it's place is a non traditional, unconventional system called a Mini Split (for reasons unknown to me).  There are 5 units through the house hanging on walls, that look exactly like the one at the top of the page; one in each bedroom, one in the family room and the last in the living/dining/kitchen area.  Two condensers this time, wall mounted outside and elevated (in case of flooding) .

The system is quiet, the entire house is comfortable, does not cycle up and down constantly,  and in fact, for me, maybe a wee bit too cool for me (not Tim) sometimes but that's why sweaters were invented and each room can be a different temperature if we wish and Tim can adjust right from his phone (or with the remote).  It's a lovely change.  The big old AC on the wall are, well, they aren't art.  BUT I suspect that after a while, I probably won't truly notice them.

It seems that this Mini Split AC concept was invented in Japan in the late 1950's-60's to accommodate their small, closely spaced homes and apartments.  The idea spread through parts of Europe first and now is slowly making its way into American Homes. 

Well, so far, we are impressed.  It was a huge decision and a big investment but theoretically, our electric bill should be noticeably smaller now and, most importantly, we are finally cool and dry once again in the house.  I don't even think about the AC anymore, we just live our lives, comfortably even when it's truly hot and miserable outside.  We've been "testing' it unintentionally lately as we've been under a steady stream of Heat Advisory Days.  Inside is gorgeous.  Once we step outside, it's all bets off.

Oh, and while the kitty boys were NOT happy about strangers in the house making a racket for multiple days in a row, they are loving the cooler air.  Fair Trade I'd say.

Anyway, that's what's new at our house.  How about you?

Well howdy do folks! Haven't talked at ya since Monday's blogpost, so I suppose that means this will be another one!  And as you can probably guess from the photo above of Joy on a hiking trail, Yes, this will be a Photo Safari Report!  I'm calling this one the Yellow Flowers and Cardinals Hike. The reasons will be obvious, shortly.

 Our part of Florida is currently under a heat advisory, so even though we do set out pretty early in the morning, we were also clever enough to choose a preserve with a lot of shade. The little breeze off the river was a nice addition.    And even though we have had some rain, technically, far less than normal, which makes us still smack dab in the middle of a drought.  Despite that we were delighted to see not just a higher level of water in the river but also a few boggy spots here and there and one place where we had to step over water moving across the trail.  Yay!  Never thought I'd be happy to see swampy stuff!

Once again not a lot of wildlife. We saw one squirrel, two lizards and a few birds. I only captured one lizard, zero squirrels and only one sort of bird. Lots of photos of that ONE sort of bird tho. Obviously, from the title, cardinals.  Here are a few of those. None of them are great shots but hey, is what is y'know?

oh yeah, and two lizards:

 No squirrel photos. He was moving way too fast, leaping from branch to branch, tree to tree clearly on a mission!

Because we were hiking primarily along the river I got a lot of photos of two specific things:  Reflections because the river was especially slow moving which made the surface like a mirror:

And Obstacles.  In this particular preserve, the trail is narrow  and cluttered with downed trees which Joy and I go either over or under, as best we can.  This was also where we had the tiny rivulet of water crossing the trail at one point. Naturally I had to take a picture of it to celebrate More Water which is so desperately needed right now. Anyway, obstacles of one sort or another:

    The other thing we found, in abundance, was yellow flowers!  Masses of them, everywhere.  Sometimes in surprising places!  Of course I clickity clicked on those.

There were a couple of other colours of flowers here and there and I didn't want them to feel left out so I snapped those too:

I suppose all that's left now are the randos, which, as you know, is my favourite category:

OH!  And one dragonfly!  I was especially tickled that i got this one because while there were a zillion or so dragonflies zipping around, they were all moving at light speed. I move more at donut speed.  When they finally did slow down or stop, they would be in the most difficult spots to capture.  I always try anyway and usually end up deleting the picture in the end. But this time 'round, I got him!  (or her, I have no idea)  Anyway, here it is. Hard won but nonetheless a Taadaa!

Anyway, have a great weekend! Celebrate all fathers while doing so!  They deserve it!

​Hugs all 'round

I'll give you three guesses what Tim and I did this past Friday.........give up?  We met our friends, the Minocks, up in Tampa to visit the Titanic Exhibit!  Woohoo!

It was the travelling version of the exhibit not the permanent structure one and I've been told how the permanent one is even more awesome than the travelling version, but Honestly, I find that hard to believe coz this one was Awesome!

Well start with, yes, Tim played hookey so that we could go on a weekday, the assumption being that it would be less crowded on a Friday. It was also toward the end of the exhibits run which, presumably also helps there be smaller crowds.  And it worked!  While there were other folks there enjoying it all, it was very do-able and Sam-friendly!  

If you haven't been, I'll tell you a bit about it.  We were given our lanyards to begin with AND a paper that assigned us the identity of an actual passenger of that fated ship. I was Mathilde Weisz of Belgium - a Second Class passenger.  Tim was David Bowen of NYC and he was travelling third class.  Much like Jack of Rose and Jack fame.

As we walked through, we saw actual Titanic artifacts and also wonderful photographs that really help to tell the story.  We learned all about how the Titanic and her sister ships, the Gigantic and the Olympic, came to be, who the officers were on the ship and where she sailed from with all stops along the way.​

We learned all of the crazy unexpected things that happened along the way, each thing unfortunately, leading directly, though unintentionally, toward it's tragic end.  For example, at the last minute, one of the officers was re-assigned to a different ship and naturally he followed orders and immediately headed to his new post, without realizing that he had the key to the binocular locker in his pocket! Oh no!  Additionally, it all happened in the dark of night, on a flat calm sea (which makes distances harder to determine) AND there was a hazey fog kicking up.  None of those things were ideal for spotting ice bergs!  We also found out that there was an unprecedented amount of ice berg activity in the area.  Oh there were more small things that all added up to disaster, but  I'll leave a few for your own eventual discovery.

 Just for fun, we also got a pose on "deck" of the great ship:

We also got to pose at the bottom of the Grand Staircase.  Not the real actual staircase of course and oddly there were no photographs taken (that anyone ever found) of the real Titanic Grand Staircase.  The one seen below is of the Grand Staircase of the Olympic!  

At Eventually we made our way to a total surround video that was brilliant, very sad and made me kind of dizzy.  It wasn't just on all four walls but also the floor and ceiling!  Total Immersion.

At one point we got to look up our New names to find out what happened to our people. Were they rescued?  Did they survive?  (mine did, Tim's did not - very impactful)

The second to last part was an oppportunity to do a Virtual Reality deep sea dive to explore the wreckage!  Wow~!  I actually declined that part.  I'm clumsy enough in The real reality, I don't need an extra opportunity to damage myself.  But everyone else had a blast :)  Here's Tim getting into it.  By the way, He LOVED the VR experience.

At the very end, of course, we ended up in the gift shop, which is where the posters came from.  But my favourite part was an AI thing that, if you wished, took your photo and then after a moment produced multiple version of your face in Titanic era fashions.  That was fun.

It was a terrific history lesson, interactive, interesting, and creative!  if you have the opportunity and have not yet done it, I recommend it highly!  Rank super high on the Sam-Scale of museums.

Hey there!  How was your weekend?  Our Sunday was a day of adventure!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we had such uncharacteristic weather that I felt the need to be out in it to fully enjoy it before summer heat and humidity once again reared it's ugly head. Tim was up for it so I grabbed my camera and we headed to Felt's Audubon preserve.  It's up in Palmetto, about 40 minutes North of us so not a place we go often but one that never fails to result in birdie photos.  It's right in the name after all, "Audubon" named after the famous bird conservator James Audubon!

Well I did get a few bird photos. Very few. But they count!

​

We set out to hike a few of the trails just in case we happen to see something photo worthy.  The trails were fun, a few low bridges where we had to nearly crawl under a fallen tree but mostly just normal hiking trails:

And then we wandered down by Olive's Pond.  Normally this is a huge pond and related creeks that is absolutely teeming with wildlife of all sort.  Sadly, here is the current state of Olive's Pond:

If anyone ever doubted that Florida is currently experiencing drought conditions, here is some very sad proof. No water means no wildlife :(

We did see a couple of cute squirrels, some interesting fungus and a few bee hotels!  yes that is a real thing:

It didn't take very long to make our way through all of Felt's so rather than just return home, Tim did a quick search on his phone and found a place we'd never visited called Emersen's Point in the same town only about ten minutes away!

Off we went!  As we knew nothing at all about Emersen's, I read aloud about it on our way over and learned that, as the name suggests it's on the water with amazing views and a surprising number of hiking trails.  The biggest surprise were the Indian Mounds which had steps and ramps to go up to the top.  It's especially cool to us because Florida is so very flat. Obviously there was no question about whether or not we were climbing up!

A few shots of the lovely water:

We read all of the signs that told the story of the original inhabitants. Fascinating Stuff!  admired a grasshopper that patiently waited for me to get the shot. And some truly lovely tropical flora.

So glad we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and spent the day outside on Sunday. Especially happy now because the weather has returned to the normal hot and humid and, at the moment, cloudy, dreary and grey. Rain is on the way!

By the way, in case anyone wonders: Tim and I did not feel any tremors from the earthquake in the gulf yesterday even though, if you look on the impact map, Venice was one of the spots that supposedly felt it.  Not sure why we didn't but, neither of us knew a thing about it until we read it in the news!    Oblivious!

Wishes to everyone for a great week!