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Saturday, August 29, 2015

Yesterday was a beach day

Spent yesterday walking a few beach areas in St. Augustine and the surrounding area, the weather was just lovely, clear blue skies and a nice breeze coming in off the ocean. I spent about three hours walking the beaches, picking up a shell or two along the way.

little cave
beautiful blue sky
Love these rocks 
gifts from the sea
This photo is of someone's home well hidden behind green vegetation and a strong fence, I think I want to live in a little castle too. Okay so after I posted the bit about the castle I did a goodle search to learn more about the artistic fence and what do you know there are a few photos of the castle, I was so disappointed to find out its not a house. But its lovely to look at and now I have the potential to see inside.

Update Correction: This is Castle Otis http://www.castleotttis.com/ Yeah take a look, too bad it wasn't someone's house, either way its lovely.  My thanks to Jackie and Teri for letting me know.
There were other houses all around but this just caught my eye, I would love to have seen the entire building, instead I let my imagination take over.
The beaches at the northern end of St. Augustine were practically deserted which was fine with  me I love walking the beach when its just me and the sea.
sand, surf blue skies and fluffy clouds
A glimpse of the Castillo de San Marcos from the car
 This fence made the entire trip worth the few hours sitting in the car. I always find interesting things to photograph while waiting for the traffic light to change.
Lovely Art
Fence Joy
After leaving St. Augustine I headed for Flager beach and spent an hour or so walking the beach here too.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Just a bit of this and that

Subtle signs of Autumn are beginning to creep into the days here in central Florida, the early mornings begin with a misty fog, some places its just whispy ribbons in other areas so heavy it seems you can almost move it with your touch. With these misty mornings the air feel cooler, almost pleasant so I take my walk outdoors to the walking trail, always a more pleasant walk than the treadmill at the gym.

While walking this week I have noticed the bright green leaves of summer on the trees are starting to take on the faded dull green of fall and winter. It took me nearly 8 years living here in Florida to notice these subtle changes to the trees.

Oh the days are growing shorter too, funny how I didn't notice until I had tl drag the trashcan to the curb Thursday evening and darkness was closing in quickly at 8:20 the next time I take notice it will probably be full dark so I better leave a post it note to lug the trash can half hour earlier. After the brutal heat of the summer I am looing forward to a change.

Speaking of change I made a rathr significant change this week, I had instant oatmeal for breakfast, twice, for me its a big change. I am not a big fan of instant oatmeal but I do eat it when I am crunched for time so I keep a box of Quaker packets in my pantry right next to the oatmeal. I love oatmeal but have never really acquired the taste for instant oatmeal in those little packets, while I was walking through the breakfast aisle at Publix recently, I spotted a sale on some Quaker products and decided that I'd pick up one of the oatmeal products priced on sale at 2 for $3.00.

Quaker Real Medleys Apple Walnut oatmeal in a cup is pretty impressive, the different things Quaker jammed into this small serving beside the obvious oatmeal, are dried apples, walnuts, dried cranberries, cinnamon and brown sugar to add flavor many are some of my favorite oatmeal add-ins, so I was looking forward to trying this.

I chose the boil water method and after the 3 minute wait time the aroma when I removed the lid was intoxicating, the actual taste was delicious. There was just the right blend of tartness and sweetness of the apples and mild flavor of cranberries which re-hydrated with the water made added an additional sweet taste that made me devour each spoonful. These little cups of flavor will find a place in my pantry for those times when I need something quick.

Yesterday I spent a few hours purging old stuff I had in the garage, bits and pieces of craft projects, old office supplies, dried out markers, white out, tons of paper clips and a few dozen tiny notepads. I filled one large trashbag and have one box for donations and I found a few things I forgot about. After the purge I organized my stationery office supply cabinet, tossed out dozen of dried out pens and found my fountain pen cartridges. Yeah.


My allergies weren't as bad this week and I lost a total of 5 pounds since July 7th. I finally pushed past the 1 pound on off plateau that plagued me for 3 weeks. Yippe! 

Friday, August 14, 2015

TUSAL Report for August New Moon

The time has once again rolled around to the New Moon of the month so its time to post my orts for the August TUSAL ort report. Read all about what a TUSAL is here and how to join in the fun: http://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-totally-useless-stitch-long-2015.html

This month my orts are very scarce and almost all of one color thread, the off-white threads are from the fraying edge of a project I am working and the blue thread is from some mending I did recently.

I have finally begun the hand embroidery on the Hocuspocusville quilt which is where all the black threads are from.
I have had some fits and starts on this project, for the last week my allergies have been so bad my eyes have been watering so much my vision has been quite blurry so I haven't been able to do much stitching since I began.

For the last few years August seems to be one of the worst times I have with my allergies with each year getting worse.

Any way that is my ort report for August and hopefully I will have a big pile of threads by the next New Moon.

After months and months of test drives...

I finally found a car I love and drove it home yesterday afternoon.


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

A few pounds lighter and the new glasses.

Tuesday is weigh in day for me at Weight Watcher's and yeah I am down another 1.2 pounds, thanks to the treadmill at the gym because for the last few weeks with all the rain we have had its where I have been doing my walking.  I picked up my  new eye glasses after the meeting and everything seemed fine under those bright florescent lights however when I  put on the progressive lens pair the bottom half for reading was just blurry as can be, the top half for distance is great.  My reading glasses are fine so I have to return this week and have them take a look, may be I just need to adjust to them.

After leaving WW and picking up my new glasses the sun was shining so I took the longer way home stopping at one of the parks I like to walk and did a half mile just to soak in the sun, it felt great and yes when I left the park after my walk it started to rain.

Now I am off to the supermarket to pick up some fish and some fruit seems the last pear is a bit mushy.