I made oatmeal cookies yesterday.  They look pretty good I think.  (what do you think?)  I know that raisins in Oatmeal cookies is traditional, but I do not do that unless I want to make absolutely certain that I can resist  eating them.  Tim likes raisins, I do not.  Wait a minute. It's not mere dislike for me with raisins. No, no, it's much bigger than that. I despise raisins.  I loathe them. I cannot even bear the smell of them.

Joy shares my dislike of Raisins.  I vividly remember once when we were both very young, someone offering her raisins and Joy politely declined.  When pushed a little bit, Joy said no again and that she didn't care for raisins.  The hostess, looking shocked said, "Why do you not like raisins?"  and Joy famously (well famous in our family) answered, "they taste like dead people".   The woman was shocked. Open mouthed and wide eyed,  just frozen in place as this little tow headed angel of a child (I'd say roughly  3 or 4 years old at the time) said such a thing.

Now personally that's not my reasoning. In fact, I have no reason. I just don't like 'em.  I feel about raisins much the same way that I feel about licorice with is to say disgust is too mild a word.  And I have always felt this way about poor raisins (and licorice for that matter) Oddly, Tim enjoys both of those things. I certainly never stop him from enjoying either one. In fact, when I grocery shopped yesterday, I bought him some raisins. But I have rules. (of course I do)   When he eats any of those things which turns my stomach, 1: do not ask me to taste it, try it, smell it, cook with it.... and 2:  do not breathe on me immediately after eating it coz I can still smell it.  And to me it is gross.

I suppose it's the "Cilantro Effect".  Apparently for some people Cilantro tastes wonderful but for other people it tastes like soap.  Oh dear!  I'm in the 'loves cilantro' group but I appreciate the 'tastes like soap' group and if someone were coming to our house that I knew felt that way I certainly wouldn't cook anything requiring cilantro!

I am, what some people call, a picky eater.  I don't think I'm picky. I think I just know myself.  By this point in my life, I know what I like and what I don't.  I also know the foods that do not especially like me!  For instance, I actually quite enjoy sauteed onions and peppers on, for example, a hot sandwich.  In fact, if I were making that sort of sandwich for myself it would mostly be onions and peppers with a little cheese.  I would eat it with delight, I would relish every single bite and then later I'd be curled up in abject misery.  Peppers and onions do not like me.

Sometimes my likes and dislikes make no sense even to me.  For instance, oatmeal since I brought it up.  I love oatmeal cookies, they are kind of old fashioned, I know but they are also both crispy and chewy, kind of earthy and brown-sugar sweet - not too over the top.  They are terrific on their own but also wonderful as a side to an apple or a peach.  I am also a huge fan of oat bread which is basically oatmeal with honey and leavening.  BUT I do not like oatmeal, the hot cereal.  Really really REALLY do not like oatmeal the cereal.  If it were forced into my mouth, I would be incapable of swallowing it. Maybe it's a mouth-feel thing?

Another truly inexplicable like/dislike food for me is tomatoes. I actually love tomatoes. I even love the smell of the plants!  I like seeing slightly green tomatoes sitting in the windowsill as they finish ripening. I love them on a sandwich, in a salad and sometimes just eaten straight from the garden like an apple.  I love tomato sauce on spaghetti and pizza and a good tomato based vat of chili. I have been known to enjoy some ketchup with my fries (also tomato based)   BUT I do not like tomato soup.

I know, I know, it makes no sense. And yet it's true.  And I no longer fight it.  There was a time when I could be swayed by other people.  "here, just try a bite, I promise that you will love it"  I did not.  I never have. Any time someone coerces me into trying a food I'd rather not try, I regret it.   So nowadays I simply decline. "No thank you" with a smile and no explanation.  As they say nowadays, "no" is a complete sentence. So true, so true.

And even if someone demanded an explanation, I don't really have one. At least not one that makes any sense. Just "I don't particularly care for it, but thank you", which is polite-speak for  I hate it, if you force me to eat it I will gag".  And nobody wants that.

I'm happy to report that at this august age, very few people try to push me to eat things I do not want to eat and that is lovely.  One of the very few benefits of being old.  But every once in awhile it still comes up. I get the very disappointed face, the look that says I'm being a picky pain in the arse (and while I certainly am capable of being a picky PIA,  at that moment I am going out of my way to not be).  I don't make a big deal out of being a picky eater.  I usually don't say anything about it at all in fact, unless someone questions me or pushes me (verbally) Normally I say nothing about food at all. And I have no problem whatsoever eating nothing at a gathering if nothing appeals to me. (and still have a Great time!)  I'll eat when I get home in those circumstances.  But I will not be forced to eat foods that I do not like (or that do not like me)

I know that many of us grew up in an age where we were forced to eat everything on our plates regardless of our preferences or hunger levels.  We got that "children in Africa or China or Tibet  are starving"  guilt trip (tho I never once understood how my eating food I did not like helped them in any way)  I honestly believe that those food and eating rules led to some pretty awful food-related issues later in life.  

Meanwhile, this picky pain in the arse just made some excellent oatmeal cookies and will enjoy every single one :)

Have a Great Weekend!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! At least I hope yours was a good one!

As you can see, Tim celebrated by getting us a new flag!  It started out being in the front of the house. There was this very clever flag pole that went down pretty deeply into the ground to hold it in place.  It looked like this:

It didn't look bad there either but there's always the concern that with an unexpected strong wind/rain storm during the night, the ground would get super saturated the sand would loosen up and we would wake up to find the flag in a soggy puddle on the ground come morning.  Very disrespectful!  This way, on the post in the courtyard, feels far more secure.  AND is uplighted too.  Awesome.

You might notice underneath the flag, on the courtyard wall is a 'No Solicting" sign.  That's also new. And somewhat overdue.

It's a new issue.  We do not live in an HOA community and 99.9%  of the time we are happy about that. It was intentional. BUT part of the price you pay for not paying HOA dues is the occasional door to door salesperson.  A once in a long while dingdong from a nice person who can take no for an answer pleasantly, is not a problem.  But lately it's been more of an infestation of solicitors. I swear, sometimes it's multiple times a day!  And while some of them are kind and thoughtful and no issue with rejection, others are absolutely horrible.  Pushy, aggressive, refuses to accept "no", making demands (seriously, demands??) and in general pissing me off.

I am a nice person, or at least I really try very hard to always be but with pushy sales people who come, uninvited, to my door, usually at the worst possible time of the day, I will answer the bell, stand on the inside of the screen door, I will listen politely and then I will say, "No thank you" with a smile no matter what they are attempting to sell to me. The ones who push, who keep getting closer to the door, which means also closer to me, the ones whose voices either raise or get "gritty" with their aggression, the ones who demand that I give them reasons why not, I shut them down pretty quickly with a less polite,  "I already said no" and move to 'you really need to stop talking' followed by one more "no" as I shut the door, quietly. I never shout but I am firm. AND YET they still keep coming to the door. sigh.

Tim put up the sign in the hopes that at least some of them will read it and move on. The ones who persist anyway?  I have no idea.   But at least we are trying.

Over the long holiday weekend, we did some fun things. One of them was taking a walk around a water front park that, even though it's right here, on island, we haven't been to since we first moved here. We've driven by it a zillion or so times, but we haven't stopped and taken the walk in ten years. That's kind of crazy. 

It's pretty park with a goodly number of covered pavilions with picnic tables, all of them filled with celebrating families and friends on this holiday weekend. There are clean public bathrooms, a decent amount of parking, and there is a big old pond in the center with a paved roughly one mile path that goes all the way around it with several overlooks to see the beach and the Gulf of Mexico beyond.  There is one beach access point too that was pretty well  travelled that day.

We saw a lot of different birds though a disproportionate number of ducks,  huge grasshoppers, people walking their dogs, lots of little ones being silly, loads of picnics and picnic-ers, the pier, and of course the beach with loads of canopies, umbrellas, and people. Lots and LOTS of people. There was so much great music playing, lots of laughter and snippets of conversation as we passed by. Everybody was having a great time, including us :)

​

Hope Your Memorial Day was a great time and that you honoured everyone, (at least in your hearts) both past and present, who have served to protect us and this great country.

I guess it's fairly obvious that this post will be a Photo Safari Report.  You see Joy there by the Carolton Reserve  sign  being silly for my camera :)  But that's also typical foro us. We just aren't all that serious, especially when we are together.

I think I will just go ahead and call this one by it's actual name, the Carlton Reserve Hike.  I mean that's what it is after all and every once in awhile, I make a point to be excruciatingly accurate. This can be one of those times.

We had a good time. We always have a good time, even though we are getting to the really hot and humid part of the year with frequent rainfall which means mucky and sometimes flooded trails.  But there weren't a lot of spectacular photos taken, at least by me. I haven't seen Joy's pictures yet.  

But there was one thing that I dont' recall ever seeing before.  Steaming trees.  What?  Because we always get there in the early part of the day when the temps are about as cool as they are going to get (which is not to say actually very cool) and it gets hot and humid quickly, if you catch the light just right, you can see steam literally rising from some of the trees!  Big Wow!  It looked so much more impressive in person of course, but here are the camera's versions of it:

We actually heard and saw a LOT of birds, but I only captured three. And I shocked that I managed to get those!  They are so busy in the early morning and apparently I am super pokey slow.  Oh well.  Here are the three :

The trails were beautiful.  We are slowly entering our rainy season and the showers have perked up the green stuff a bit.  Always makes me happy :)  (makes the green stuff happy too)

Also caught one adorable squirrel, having a little bath. He didn't seem to mind that I took his picture. There was an enticing bridge with a frightening canted floor that I declined to cross.  We are not quite as intrepid as we used to be, sadly.  A few flowers and maybe another rando or two

It took us about three full hours to walk a mere three miles, stopping to observe and take pictures along the way.  We left, sweaty, dirty and very happy even though it produced not so many photographs.  Oh well.  It is what it is and what it was, was a good time.

Hope you enjoyed the Carlton Reserve Photo Safari Report.

Have a Very fun and Very safe Memorial Day weekend!

 It's Spring now and in fact it officially turned from Winter to Spring in late March. so I suppose that what I'm currently in the midst of counts as Spring Cleaning.  I have to also add that here in Florida right now it's feeling more like summer than spring but that's not unusual, just doesn't have the same familiar ring...summer cleaning?...spring cleaning?  

No matter, it's not even truly 'spring' cleaning that I'm doing although there is some cleaning involved.  What I'm actually knee deep in is what my Nana used to refer to as 'culling out'.  That is sorting through your belongings and only keeping what you really need and/or want and getting rid of the rest.  The way I was raised, was that when you 'culled out', the stuff in the OUT pile went literally out. We could throw it away, give it away, or sell what we weren't using, but we could not keep it.  Nana had some pretty strict rules!  But she wasn't wrong.  We 'culled out' about every six months probably because, growing up we were always moving and the less you have the cheaper the move!  Makes sense!

While I no longer go through my stuff twice a year, I had the culling out feeling come upon me and decided to take advantage of the mood. I'm finding myself digging into boxes and baskets I haven't thought about in while.  I am climbing up onto step stools to investigate the inhabitants of high up and then even higher up shelves, making decisions, sorting through and then cleaning whatever is left behind including the boxes, baskets and shelves.  Ultimately also myself becoz is the sort of task that, even if I look clean afterwards, I feel gross and dirty.

The decision making part is the hardest part. I suppose that isn't a surprise. Oh some things are no brainers, like the shampoo I bought experimentally that turned out not so good.  My hair didn't feel clean, it wasn't shiny, and the smell was, ummm, let's say, less than desirable.  Which makes the reason why I stopped using it super easy to understand but makes the reason that I didn't immediately throw it away far murkier. I'm not even certain why I tucked it into the far recesses of the cabinet under the sink instead of tossing it into the garbage directly.  Probably guilt.  I spent the money but I didn't get the expected return on the investment.  Leaving me to now, after far too much time has passed, drop kick it into the Out It Goes garbage bag with no remorse.

A decision that was a little harder were the skin care products.  First of all, there is not one single thing wrong with any of these products.  All of them are terrific brands and useful to me.  But I haven't been using them. Why? Because I'm an idiot.  All of them are things I do not normally buy, things  that were lovely, thoughtful gifts.  And I have been "saving them."  And now here I am, much later looking at these lovely gifts and asking myself what exactly it is that I have been saving them for?  I mean they don't have the shelf life of bananas,  but neither do they have the shelf life of gravel.  At some point, they will need to be either used to thrown away.  I decided that as of today, I'm using them all. Every damned one of them and when the bottle or tube is empty, then so be it!  I think that's probably better than eventually throwing away an expired full container of a good product, right?   

Before I began this massive spring clean project, I went around the house sizing up the scale of the thing.  Which shelves need to be investigated, what exactly do I think is in various drawers and baskets, which rooms contain the worst offenders.  That way I could make a mental schedule for completion and be certain that I had everything I needed meaning, plenty of garbage bags for things thrown away, enough boxes to hold the items being donated and the actual cleaning products I'll be hauling from room to room to clean up after myself. 

And while doing that initial walk-through, I noticed this:

That is the top shelf of My side of our closet.  I see a couple of evening bags, that is clutch style purses, both of which I can probably donate as I do not anticipate being invited to any red carpet events any time soon: my green toiletry travel case which I will hold on to at least for now just in case I ever travel anywhere; my kitty ears headband I am keeping just becoz and I don't want to hear any crap from anybody about that; but there are also four shoeboxes.  And that kind of surprised me.

Four shoeboxes?  I could have sworn there were only three shoeboxes.   What is in the 4th box?  No way around it, I had to get out my handydandy step stool, climb up there, haul them all down and figure it out.  

As it turns out the 4th box holds hearing aid supplies which sounded great until, on closer examination I realized that the supplies went with my last pair of hearing aids, not my current ones. Dang!  Useless to me.  BUT I can (and will) donate them via my audiologist to someone else who needs supplies and cannot afford them. ok. That goes in the donate pile so that was easy but what about boxes 1 through 3?

Well those actually do hold shoes.  It's the remainder of my collection of high heels.  Back in the olden days, when I was still working and needed to look professional and put together, I actually put a lot of thought and care into my hair, my nails, my make-up routine and wardrobe including shoes.  Hard to believe I know considering how I look these days but it's true.  I had quite the collection of footwear.  When I retired, I went carefully and thoughtfully through the entirety and donated most of it as I anticipated spending most of my days on the beach and heels on the beach are stupid.

I kept three pair.  Two pair of very high end, excellent quality pumps, one black and one red and one pair of strappy silver sandals. Ooo lalala!  I actually have worn the black and the red heels once or twice since we moved to Florida but it was awhile ago.  Nowadays with my, apparently, permanently broken foot (I say that because I am still having trouble with it and it's now been 7  months since the original injury) my shoe wardrobe consists of 3 pair of lace up sneakers that I have to put an orthotic into before wearing and 3 pair of sandals that I can wear around the house but if I am plan to walk further than from the kitchen to the living room I need to put on the "real" shoes, that is my sneakers.  At this point I'm not positive I could even get my foot INTO the heels let alone attempt walking in them.  I'm very sad to say that all of the heels will have to go ;(    Bye Bye Shoes!

They don't look too bad considering how old they are now, right?  Well, that's because I take good care of my things.  Each shoe was kept wrapped in tissue paper and put in shoe bags and then their original boxes.   Hopefully someone else will love them and care for them as I did.  It is the end of the high heel shoe era for me and for some reason I am finding that to be very sad.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to lately.  How about you?
​

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Howdy do and what's new?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a good day.

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

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

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

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

I reckon that's all the news for today.  

Hope all is well with all of you!

​Hugs all 'round

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not much farther long we came across:
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Oh Me, Oh My!  There were two of them!  Siblings, clearly.  This was way off the coolio scale. If I had ever seen a juvenile eagle before, I had no idea what I was seeing then. But I can absolutely swear to you that I'd never seen 2 of them at the same time! Wow!

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

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

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

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

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

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

What an amazing start to a hike!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And speaking of laughter:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laughter. Highly Recommended. 1000 stars out of 10!