Oceanic Wilderness

Garden Wandering and Beach Bumming

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:25:00 EST

Selby was gorgeous for our second visit. We visited last time in the winter and this time several things were blooming that weren't there last time. I love this garden because it is smaller and more intimate. I also like their butterfly garden.

I'm not sure on the caterpillar that made its chrysalis on the pole. The colors are interesting though.

After going to the garden we went over to Longboat Key, searching for a beach to visit before checking into our hotel and going to dinner. We came on a weekend that had a lot of bad weather and storms were all around us. We didn't get to stay for very long because of the storm further north and eventually a wind gust came through and Chris wanted the camera off the beach to keep the sand out.

Not before he got some fishing in, though! He was trying for mackeral and didn't come up with anything worthwhile to keep. We drove up the beach more and stopped on the southern end of Anna Maria Island for more fishing and then continued on our way until we crossed a bridge and we looked north we saw the main bridge over Tampa Bay and realized how far north we were. Driving back south we found our hotel, a cheap Quality Inn, and cleaned up for dinner. We found a place to eat in the information book in the room, Phillippi Creek Seafood, which was the apparent local happening spot. Sure enough it was and we grabbed a table before the real dinner crowd came in. After dinner we drove over to Siesta Key in hopes of finding a good spot for sunset and letting Chris fish a little more. Unfortunately I found it to be very touristy and though the sand was flour soft, there were too many people to really fish and to enjoy the quiet evening. So, we headed back to the spot we had found earlier in the day.

The sunset was amazing and I took a zillion photos, most with a tilting horizon, as if the sea was going to run down the Earth. I tried my best to keep it steady on my knee but had very little luck. A blue heron was hanging around waiting for the bait fish that Chris caught, which he gave to the bird, and was a good source of trying different camera seetings. I like to have a low f/stop but I turned it up high with a high ISO and tried to capture the sunset and then have the ocean blur a little bit. It was hard to do without a tripod and so the bird had some blurred parts. Oh well. That's why it is digitial, right?

I have more photos but they aren't downloaded; we had to use another card and so the second part of the trip will be posted later.

It is Summer Baby Watch '08. My friend is going in for an induction on Tuesday and my SIL is going to have Zoe sometime this month, it looks. Early, but poor Steph is having a rough go of it. You are one tough chica to still be working!!! On another note I have about six headbands ready. I want to make one or two more and I think I am going to shoot for Sunday to get them in the shop, or late tomorrow evening. I'll post a blog when I get them in. If they go well I will get some other colors and do some in those. They are an easy thing to do while I am carpooling to work or at lunch and I can usually finish one in an hour unless it is a more diffcult pattern. I still haven't decided on a price, but they will be between $5 and $10. I will also be putting two plants up as well, a rare hibiscus sapling and a division of a rare variegated ginger.

Leo in a Hat

Tues, 15 Jul 2008 22:25:00 EST

I made Leo a hat. Errr...Zoe. Leo said he wanted to model it first, though. I whipped this up on the way to Sarasota on Saturday and put the ribbon in tonight. Leo decided to make himself comfortable on the desk and so he was the first to try it on. I am surprised it stayed on as long as it did.

Baloo came to check it out and Leo threatened with a nose whack if he made fun of his pretty little hat.

I made my first new recipe tonight. Lime sugar cookies from the latest Cottage Living magazine. I am annoyed at Flickr Toys because it kept not displaying a few of the photos and then it actually got to only having one missing and I decided to heck with it! The only one missing was the photo of the recipe, but I have to say, they aren't ones I will make again. They were good, but they were super sticky when I tried to roll them in a ball and they cooked faster than I expected and just adding some lemon and lime juice and zest to a regular sugar cookie recipe will be fine next time around. I only subbed yogurt for sour cream, which could be a part of it, but other than that it shouldn't have made much of a difference. *oh well*.

And finally, a taste of the headbands I am making. They aren't all this pattern, though you can't even tell the pattern that well from this shot. I want to get a few more done before I show them and put them on Etsy. I have plants to add, too. Gah!!! I think I will shoot for a Saturday shop update.

It rained all day today. I mean, all day. Woo for no watering my yard!

Crocheting Headbands

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:25:00 EST

Last week Eliana emailed and asked if I'd ever made crocheted headbands before and if so, could I please make some in green? Eliana is a green addict. Sometimes you spot her in blue, but green is her signature color. Funnily enough, in Montana I had made a headband one night in my hotel room while watching the Golden Girls on tv. It was out of the leftover yarn from the hat I made and it worked up well. So well that I fell in love with it because I could wear it forever without is slipping or giving me a headache. I love headbands, but after a few hours my head hurts and I just can't stand them any longer. Anyway, because Eliana is such a nice gal, (she adopted a sea turtle for me for my birthday!! I'm a Momma Turtle!!! heh!), I said I could whip some out for her. Chris and I stopped by Michael's and I picked up some yarn that I ended up falling in love with. It's cotton, probably a lace weight/sockweight type yarn and it is awesome!

Well, now I am on a roll! I have a two made and I have hopes to get at least six total in a few days and then get them up on Etsy. Right now the colors are green, blue and white and I can probably find some other colors in my stash. This is an excellent way of crocheting through my stash, especially the smaller portions that are leftover. I also like it because I am playing with patterns and techniques and it is a great way of practicing on a smaller swatch than a larger piece.

This weekend we went over to Sarasota for my birthday. We hit Marie Selby Botanic Garden, or "Mary Selby" as Chris kept calling it. I like this garden because it is smaller than Fairchild and a little more intimate. They have a nice greenhouse with excellent orchids and just an overall good display on the bayfront. We stayed at a cheaper hotel on the mainland and went over to the beach for a bit in the afternoon and then were run off by the rain, so we drove up the coast a little more before checking into our hotel. I took a lot of photos and we did some wave jumping, shark teeth hunting and canopy walking, but I'll save that post for another day when I get the photos uploaded.

This weekend I also finished another book I was reading, Portion of the Sea, by a local Sanibel island author. I had seen the book around Sanibel when we went back in November but I didn't pick it up. I found it on BookMooch a few months ago and decided to start reading it. It was a great novel, a historical fiction, and though I found some typo's, I think it could have been part of the story when the two girls were younger, as in how they would have written, but then again...?? I recommend it if you are looking for a good beach read.

Slowly working on that list. It is going to be a doozy! Samson says "meow".

28 for 28

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:25:00 EST

My mom used to always tell me and Curt our birth stories. It was a hot summer the year I was born, like most summers in Texas where temperatures are a constant 100+ for weeks in a row. I envision it like I was there, stepping outside of the womb to see my mom in the front yard of our house in Hurst, Texas and she seems all comfortable with the big belly in front of her, the grass is a crisp, cool green and the sun is beginning to set and you can enjoy being outside. And then there's the labor part which sounds all gruesome enough for me, because I ended up being an emergency c-section. Yeah, I try not to envision the whole c-section part, with a belly open and all the guts and stuff out. Yeah. Nope. Not for me. Alas, I was born at 12:04am at on the best day of the year, free slurpee day at 7-11! :) Just a few minutes earlier and I would have shared a birthday with Jessica Simpson instead of enjoying a birthday slurpee.

So, it seems that I should jump on the bandwagon that I've noticed on several blogs. In fact, I thought about it a bit in June and then I decided to reinforce the idea and just do it. I've made up a list of 28 things to do before I turn 29. Similar to Hula Seventy, Elise Blaha, and Team Clark. Here they are:

Lose 15 lbs
Run in 3 5k's
Draw or paint 15 things
Do 50 pushups in a row
Start investing by saving $1,000
Pay of the credit card
Volunteer for Obama's presidential campaign
Do 14 self portraits, one on each birthday and then on the 28th of the month
Learn to Knit
Vote for President
Visit Dry Tortugas
Kayak the Turner River
Kayak the Peace River
Take a pottery class
Take a photography class
Backpack at the Sebastian Buffer Preserve
Backpack the Florida Trail from I-75 to the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation
Host a small party
Go Scuba Diving again
Kayak 10,000 islands
Finish any books I have started
Sew from a pattern
Make some cat blankets and take to the Humane Society
Use 1 new recipe a week
Visit the Sea Turtle Hospital in the Keys
Finish Curt and Stephanie's wedding scrapbook (almost two year into this one)
See a pine lily
The last is a personal one.

So, there you have it. Slightly ambitious, but accomplishable. The hardest will be that 15 lbs. I know it. I've been trying (not hard enough) since I started my job and put it on four years ago. To do the 50 pushups I am following a site I found on another blog, 100 pushups. It's a 3 day a week training program for a six week commitment. So far I've only done day one and my arms were too sore the past two days to do the second day, but I'm in for it today. Most will be accomplished on weekends when it cools off again and we can get out and do some things. The cat blankets will be easy enough because I have a lot of yarn to use in my stash! Oh, I guess I should say the other hard ones will be saving money and the credit card. I think they are doable though.

A few scenes from the yard last night:

Baby passionfruit. We are hand pollinating the flowers and should have 100+ fruits in a few weeks.

Summer

Tues, 08 Jul 2008 22:25:00 EST

1. Roping Nature, 2. You travel far to discover home., 3. pensive pug, 4. Summer at Stricker's Pond, 5. Summer, 6. Summer Berries Red Current01, 7. Summer mood., 8. Summer sunset / Puesta de sol de verano, 9. summer on symmetry Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

This is what I want summer to look like, instead of the hovering indoors during the middle of the day in the air conditioning. The only good time to do anything is after 7pm, and even then it is sometimes iffy. I was thinking about how much I miss Melbourne. Melbourne had awesome summers. We spent a lot of time watching sea turtles on the beach, Chris fishing while I walked or ran down the beach, geocaching when we were in our prime. It also helped that I was home 45 minutes earlier than I am now. It really does dampen the time you can spend after work doing things. Summer has been alright so far. I am enjoying the strawberries, blueberries and peaches and ohmygoodness the mangoes! We tried to pick up some lychee's at a fruit stand the other day but they said they were already out of season. Those are such a good fruit!

I suppose part of my problem is the self imposed deadlines I put in my head. I want to accomplish so much and yet I try to squeeze it into the little bits of time I have. Something has to go. Or I just need to ease up, I guess. I miss drawing and painting, but until I can wade through some more crochet I don't want to sit down and do it. I also feel like decades 'behind' in scrapbooking. I need to go through and organize. Working out. Spending time outside. Eating good ice cream to counteract the working out.

I did finish Zoe's cardigan the other day. The pattern was for longer sleeves and a hoody, but I figured that a cardigan was cuter! This is for a six month old. I have some bright blue yarn I am going to use for a 9 month pattern so she can have another. I am highly dissapointed that plane tickets are so expensive. I reluctantly decided to combine my trip in August into my trip in October, to Texas. I am hoping I can get two weeks off work so I can go to my reunion, meet Zoe, and then be in the wedding I am supposed to be in at the end of the trip. I just can't fathom spending $400 x 2! ARGH! The prices doubled in May. I should have bought tickets way back when.

The other day I noticed our broken 4 o'clocks were blooming, however they had two different colors on the same plant! Cool!

So, enjoy summer with me by listening to my favorite song of the summer: Strawberry Swing on my favorite album of the summer, Viva La Vida. "It's such a perfect day...It's such a perfect day"....

Happy Birthday to Stephanie, my sister in law!! Zoe's Baby Momma!! :)