happy new year's eve!!!!

Cleaning out continues, tree and ornaments and assorted holiday stuff have been put away (at least as far as the garage. . .), cookies are gone, refrigerator is empty of leftovers, studio is getting emptier (although it might be hard for someone else to tell), bookshelves are getting emptier, knick knacks and "decorator pieces" that we don't "love" are going to find new homes, upstairs is transformed and it feels great.

Went to Brenda and Rockey's for their annual new years party, food was great, fireworks were beautiful, house full of happy people. Great drive and home by 9pm to beat the celebrating crazies on the road. Fog rolled in again tonight. Made for some interesting lighting effects with the fireworks!

Played with the fireworks setting on the camera and wiggled it around the lights on the trees. Was fun!!!!




It has been a wonderful year for us. Lots of travel, visiting wonderful, caring friends and family, lots of growth, lots of love, and not so many of those hard lessons that hurt so much. For all your parts, thank you. We wish you all a healthy, happy, peaceful new year. love you all.

David is washing off the new boat after an exciting test ride!

turkey day

Saturday was another thanksgiving dinner. Martha has ferreted out a fabulous recipe for turkey and stuffing, gravy and an amazing salad (grapefruit, dates, olives,broccoli with a citrus dressing. It was a replay of a very successful meal in november. Bill was great company despite the plague of allergies.

Jonathan stayed home to welcome/supervise the landing of David's fishing boat in it's vacation home. Means we will see David and Denise more often! David started off in beautiful skies and took the outside route to get here. Unfortunately, before he got here, the fog (????) rolled in and cut his visibility drastically and there was a downpour. Adventures to be had. Both boat and David arrived safe and sound.

pics are from another foggy/rainy day, the ocean spray (white flowers) clung to the horses like snow.





New year's "word" (not resolution) will be "release". Letting go of things, ideas and situations that are no longer necessary, viable options, or are just plan clutter. Have made a good dent even before the "word"", but plan to continue for the next year. One of the projects already started is rearranging upstairs rooms. Office will become reading/meditation/guest room, studio gets the office computer desk and studio table goes outside to take its real job in life, patio furniture. . . All zip drives now on cd's (thank you jonathan) so the old computer will go to a new happy home somewhere. Of course, that mean filtering through all of studio "stuff". . . The horse pics are from one of the re(disk)covered zip drives!

yay 2008

friday kayak test day

Brenda and Rock came down with Kelly to test out the 2-person kayak. They did well, considering there was quite a bit of wind and it went happily into the back of their truck. Traded for a sewing machine! We all went to the Hurricane for lunch. Had flounder fish and chips, it was wonderful. Hurricane has been around since the 1930's although they did extensive renovation awhile back. 4 floors of inside and outside eating and drinking! Pass A Grille is my favorite beach, town is cute, still hasn't become condo city like St. Pete beach (think the limit is 3 or 4 stories). Should make it another 20 years before. . .

Had huge fish ball under the dock. The shrimpers are out in the bay at night. . .tearing up the grass beds, think all those little fish ran for cover. The shrimpers boats are loud rumble. Was afraid they were the mullet stealers, but guess they are legal. The surface fish activity that we have had for last couple weeks is down substantially. Not happy with them in here, but according to sheriff's department, they can be there.

Christmas morning treat

Snow came in the form of white pelicans. . .quite rare here.
Actually it was a complicated choreography. . .anhingas, diving and popping up, led the dance, followed by the white pelicans, relaxed and regal, dipping their beaks in the water while the browns launched and wheeled and dive-bombed the surface in small and large groups, highlighted by gulls above and the audience of herons and storks (hadn't seen them behind the house before. . .)and egrets completed the tableau. It was an amazing gift.

Almost full moon, solstice and wind brought us really low early morning tides to tempt this party in for the feast.

happy christmas eve. . .

finally found the cable to download the last few batches of pictures!




busy week. great company with sandra and alex here. tons of fun doing not much of anything.



Spontaneous generation in the back yard pool, a new yellow kayak appeared to keep the first company. Took them out on a windy, rough day and they worked admirably. 4 hour trek around tierra verde!!!




Tide was really low with the full moon and wind blowing the water out of the bay. Even the crab traps were high and dry. Mullet are schooling like crazy, jumping and making the water boil.
There were about a dozen sheephead under the dock (they are usually there, but not as easy to see. If you look closely at the piling shadow, one is lurking there! The stripey one!





Plants have been fun, The giant philodendron stalk looks like eyes with lashes



, the orchid (through no fault of my own) is blooming profusely.



violets just being happy


the aftermath of "a mighty wind did blow"!!!!! trees inside and out went down. . .



patio furniture bowling at its finest! gives new meaning to clear the decks!!!




left the "10" chair standing, now we have a spare (lol)

absence of sound is disturbing

After all the howling, the wind noise just stopped, no gradual fade, just stopped. Weird. Just checked Louie's blog and the tree looks so wonderful. Aimee, a friend from school, helped decorate ours, but at the moment, the lights, like old baggy nylon stockings are pooled around it's little tree ankles.



Never thought would need to attach to the ceiling (not that I could, but it's a great idea).
This is view down from second floor, so ceiling is 10 more feet higher. . .don't have a ladder that talll!!!!!

Here is tree from last year, decorations are basically the same, just collected in containers at the moment until Sandra gets here, she decorated with us last year so knows the drill and we shall get it dressed again!

storm is here!!!!

We lost both christmas trees to the wind , one on the porch, the other in the house, not even next to a window!!!!! (and my glasses, they were on the table outside and blew across the porch and down the steps. . .now I know how they disappear all the time. . .) Wind started about 2p on saturday and it has really howled. Had to close all the windows and doors. No 'possum visitor last night. Boys went to the beach for a walk.

Thunderboomers through the night and the rain is finally hitting this morning (5am), I'm upstairs in the studio and it sounds like a train coming through!


The water is so changeable here. Sometimes it doesn't look real. The wind patterns were around the mangrove island like rings around saturn. Took these a couple days ago when it wasn't quite as windy as the last 24 hours!. . .

Have had some amazing sunrises. . .one with the moon still up, reflections of island and skyway bridge, better than the postcards. . .

cookies galore

Brenda came down and we teamed up for 2 days and baked cookies:peanutbutter, choc chip, choc-choc chip, cakemix choc chip, black pepper (a new favorite), pumpkin raisin, oatmeal date, fruit , ginger, sugar, cherry winks, 2kinds of shortbread, nut balls, candied fresh cranberries and molasses. I think that was the whole list. We were tired and happy.


went out and test drove kayaks again. found a sit-on-top ocean kayak on sale. Made sense to use the one we have and just get a second one for now. The "good" ie fast and expensive kayaks were awesome, but the one we got is stable (so camera comfortable) and easy to get in and out of if we wanted to swim or just dink around the island. it's yellow!!! At some point, we might think about the other ones (they were made in WA) if we decide we want to do longer trips or surf, but as of now. . .it's play time.


you can see that we have to watch the tides to kayak. go out with water, stay out too long and it's a long way around to get home. Charts say there is a foot of water out there!!!!! now that winter (?) is here, water is really clear.

packages are wrapped and mailed. great accomplishment.

http://www.northpole.com/Kitchen/Cookbook/

What a great website. . .lots of cookies and holiday stuff. . .at your fingertips. The scottish shortbread recipe is just like GG's (great-gramma) except for the cooking temp. . . wonder how they regulated the temps on these ovens!!!!! Bren and Rock are coming mon and tues and we are having a cookie baking frenzy. If you have a favorite recipe, send it on!

Pompeii was amazing for a lot of reasons, but one was just the sheer magnitude of the area. Rooms after rooms after rooms. . .it was a large city! Beautifully painted and mosaic-ed.







Plans for the holiday here involve lots of pre-christmas company. A perfect time to visit, although the temp today will only reach 72, it's 60 now, sunshine, blue skies, sparkly water and wish I could send some to my NW family who are cold and very wet. Love you all.

i'mmmmm back

Well, it was a grand tour.  Had a great time in the Mediterranean.  Really glad to be home.  We take so much for granted here in the states.  The pollution was awful, especially in Cairo, big gap  between the "haves" and the "have nots" over a lot of the countries, the dollar was low against the euro and not unusual to spend 12 eu on a cup of coffee (about $18 and we think Starbuck's is bad. . .)    Favorite thing of all was the "smart car" coming to US this coming year. . . mercedes. . .and you don't have to parallel park, it will fit in a parking space the other way!!!!!

Have seen a pod of 7 manatees go by the dock, weather has been cool and wonderful, we are tearing into the house to clean and sort and pitch.  His, mine and ours, minus our house guests means a reorganization.  I spent Jonathan's Egypt time (he went back for 10 days) going through storage bins from the Cameron house, rearranging cupboards, making jewelry and painting.  It was a really good renewal time.  

We took over 5000 pics while we were gone.  The new sony worked great and we took the little nikon, too.  Beautiful spots, historic places, temples and cathedrals, mosques and lots of bus rides.  My favorites were Venice and (of all the places I wouldn't have thought. . .)Dubrovnik, Croatia.  Downloaded the 30 day trial of Adobe cs3 and only have about 10 days left and all I have managed to do is get the pics onto my computer. . .no play yet!!!