Life under the Beach Umbrella

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea."

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Summer Solstice

Happy First Day of Summer to Everyone, I wish for your clear sunny days, with some rain to water your gardens, cool summer nights with star lit skies.

Yes it is one of those days

Have A Great Weekend

Letters and Books

June is moving through days lightning fast, on Monday I did spent the morning hours sitting at the courthouse for Jury selection, I was not chosen this time around which is fine with me and I did get in several hours of reading while I waited which is always a pleasure.

Yesterday among the bills, sales ads and letters was the newest hand stamped stationery set I purchased from this Etsy shop:https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheSmilingMonkeyShop

I live in a city well known for its horse farms as soon as I saw this set I knew I had to buy it, a very fitting set to reflect that aspect of the city.  Again the paper quality is excellent, a good weight and quite smooth, I used a fountain pen with no ink bleed through.  Photos of the envelopes and the two designs included in the set.

envelopes

writing sheets

Also this week I managed to squeeze in the time to buy my copy of the Amanda Cooper book Tempest in a Teapot

I do like a good mystery and anything with a teapot or tea cup involved just peaks my interest even more.  Who knows this book may be a good choice to include in a future tea party gift bag.

My son lent me his copy of this interesting book, as a child if you ever sent away for anything advertised in the back of magazines or comic books you may find this a fun read.

Well I am off to the pool for an aquacise class and then some swimming and relaxing around the pool with a good book and some letters to write, its going to be another hot day here in central Florida.

Rainy day reading

Yesterday between the raining thunder storms I made it to the library to pick up the books I had reserved. Florida is in the rainy season and this week we have had some strong thunderstorms due to a weather front but so far no hurricane activity and checking the accuweather website the alert states rain will begin in 68 minutes.

I have a few books to choose from, Murder in Merino is the newest book in the Seaside Knitters series the other two books are by authors I haven't read before, Back Home Again was recommended by a friend as was the Tea for Two, well I'm always up for a story centering around tea, speaking of tea, this week while going through some stuff I came across an old issue of Tea A Magazine from winter 2000/2001

Either I was saving this issue for a particular reason now long forgotten or I will probably come across other issues.
And now before the rains come let me go have a cup of tea and run some errands.
Have a great day.

Fun with Buttons

buttons, beads and leaves

buttons and wire

books and beads

Can it really be the 10th of June?  I think I lost a few days somewhere.  Yesterday I was out running a few errands and came across a new and used bookstore A Novel Idea that a friend had mentioned a few weeks ago. It apparently moved locations a while ago and was thrilled to rediscover this hidden gem.
I spent some time slowly browsing the neat and orderly shelves looking for a few light mysteries to read and was thrilled to stumble on a few titles (20) not available at the local library.  I picked up these titles to get me started. I'm sure there are many more trips to this shop in my future.

I made my stop at the local library after the books store to pick up one of the books I had reserved, this one I'll bring along on Monday to read while waiting at the courthouse during the jury selection process which usually takes several hours.

 I had considered bringing along some crochet or knitting but with security the way it is now a days I would hate to be turned away at the entrance with pointy objects after the incident with my comb two years ago.
Speaking of libraries,  check out this link for some creative mail art being collected for display during an upcoming event to promote libraries: http://librarymailart.wordpress.com/

I have put away the yarn and quilt fabrics for a while and have pulled out my beads and jewelry making supplies.

These lovely pieces are both upcoming birthday gifts and will be mailed out today.

I have a few more pieces on the beading board and once I get the right setting I will get them put together too.

Books, tea and more

It's that time of the week when all the hustle and bustle are winding down for me and I can look forward to a quiet weekend. I'm planning on pulling out my drop spindle and some roving and try my hand at spinning some yarn, I haven't done any spinning in months so this should be a little bit of a challenge.

I finished reading the Vintage Teacup Club by Vanessa Greene, this is the book I included in the gift

bags for my Spring tea party guest which we agreed to read and discuss at the upcoming summer tea party. I enjoyed the book and I will probably pick up the next book when its available in October.

meanwhile there is a new Teapot themed mystery series by Amanda Cooper (akaVictoria Hamilton) which was just released, here is a link for more info http://www.victoriahamiltonmysteries.com/

so a trip across town to the bookstore is in my future, I love mysteries, I love tea I have a small teapot and teacup collection so you know I'm going to read this book. Speaking of tea my friend set my a tin of Twinings English Breakfast tea, I was thrilled by the 200 gram size as I've only been able to get a

small 100 grams tin at the market I may have to see if the market can carry the larger size tin. My

friend also sent the new tea cup above I just love the cottage among the roses, this little beauty gets lots of use this summer along with the violets teacup I just bought while away. I like using my teacups

according to the seasons, I stopped displaying them on shelves a few years ago when one of my shelves crashed to the floor unexpectedly leaving me a pile of broken china and a mosaic project I didn't really want, it save on dusting too. I keep a few on hand in the kitchen cupboard the rest are packed in a box.

I don't have a garden update except to say I pulled weeds and watered the remaining plants and I'm just ready to pull up everything and be done with it, for some reason mother nature is working against me this season.

Keep in mind June 14^th is Worldwide Knit in Public Day. Get your knitting needles, yarn and favorite pattern ready and encourage other members of your knitting group to do the same.

Wait a second doorbell is ring, postal carrier dropping off a package that wouldn't fit in the mailbox, along with a few letters and the newest issue of Tea Time magazine.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and leave you with another sweet illustration by Inge Look

Thinking back

The footprints we leave never truly disappear. They just take merge with other shapes, as the literal "sands of time" shift. So glad I've added my prints to this never-ending dance.

A good mail day

Today I was out running errands, picking up my car from the shop, yea I have turn signals and brake lights again. At the supermarket I bought several containers of raspberries, they are on sale this week along with jars of raspberry and apricot jam to use for Kolacki.

which as you can see turned out quite well and I used unsweetened jams not to be confused with sugar free jam with that awful Splenda added, ugh!
After the grocery store it was off to the post office to drop off  today's packages and to buy some more stamps, I chose the songbirds and the winter flowers, which were not available locally in the winter.

I returned home and the mail carrier was just dropping mail into my mailbox and today among the junk mail and catalogs, were a few letters and 2 parcels, in the larger package was an issue of

Shabby Lane Shops, my friend explained it was available through an advertisement in Romantic Homes magazine, anyway she thought I would like it, I paged through it briefly and found lots to peak my interest especially the recipe for strawberry jam.

The other package contained this lovely hand stamped stationery set I purchase from a shop on Etsy

Don't you just love the face on this fisherman, the paper is smooth and of fine quality, I can't wait to write my first letter on it.  There are other sports related themed paper to choose from and you can choose from of selection of ink colors. The link where I bought this fine stationery made by my pen friend Neil is here:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheSmilingMonkeyShop

There was one more item in the mail that I wasn't too thrilled to see, a summons for Jury selection, again.

I don't mind doing my civic duty, but I get called in every 3 years, and the last time I showed up I had to throw away a perfectly good comb because it had pointy ends like this one here, I didn't have to

throw it away but I wasn't about to slog back down 4 levels to my parked car, so I went back into the garage and tossed it in the trash, really worse then airport security, so I won't be bringing any knitting or crocheting with me to pass away the hours while waiting to be called.

June First

Some days are just right for feeling young at heart.