Before and After

After Hurricane Charley roared through destroying our home in Florida, we rebuilt this house on stilts.  But, because we were still working, we never had a chance to finish the downstairs...until now.

We just spent the last three months enclosing the bottom and building a shed.

I say "we" but my husband did most of it.  I was his helper

holding

fetching

hammering

nail gunning.

We didn't work every day and we didn't put in eight-hour days, either. 

Most mornings we were right out there by the crack of eleven, though.

And by three or four we were sitting on the porch with a beer or glass of wine relaxing.

But, we got it done...well, mostly.  We still have to stucco the posts.  We've started the process but it's going to take a while.  If we don't complete that until next year, it's okay.

So, NOW, does retirement begin?

Journaling On.....

Gary added a few tid bits to this page.

The beautiful vase of flowers was on the birthday card Anne sent me.

These pictures didn't come out so hot.  I think the sun was too bright.

It does feel good to be journaling again!

This and That

It's Sunday morning.

I'm sitting on the couch being lazy

and going through my photos

so I thought I'd share a few.

These birds sit on a sand bank at the entrance to the Burnt Store Marina.

I walked around our yard and took pictures of the little wild flowers growing in it.

Hibiscus

This lemon tree survived Hurricane Charley.

We took a ride yesterday and had to wait while this tortoise crossed the road.

I'll leave you this morning with last night's wonderful sky.

Have a great day!



Glendi

I drove up to visit my friend, Anne, and her two daughters today.

We attended a genuine Greek festival called Glendi.

It means celebration.

This is the beautiful Byzantine church:

They set up huge tents to hold the food and bazaar:

The interior of the tents was nicely decorated:

Here's Anne with her beautiful girls:

And here I am with them.  Anne was hiding behind the girls!  A helpful gentleman offered to take our picture with my iPhone but he had a hard time clicking the camera icon with his big fingers.  He tried a couple times and I didn't have the heart to have him try again to get all four of us.

We ate delicious food.

We watched children dancing.

We shopped.

We laughed.

We had a great time!

Full Moon Time

It's been more cloudy than sunny lately so I was worried about getting a photo of this month's full moon.

We sat out on the porch enjoying the beautiful clouds turning colors

and I felt good about getting a moon shot as the clouds dissipated.

And, sure enough, just as it got dark, that old moon peeked out at us.

I grabbed my camera

and, just as I clicked,

my husband accidentally jostled my arm.

We laughed at the outcome.

Then I tried again.

But, without a tripod

this was the result.

A cool mistake!

Have you experienced any cool mistakes lately?

A Bit of Journaling

A very little bit!

I only did five pages from Nov. 27-Jan. 30.

But, at least, I did something!

Michelle's pretty background.

I found all kinds of these "butterfly shells" at the beach.

The picture is of my sister, Nancy, and brother-in-law, Bill, at Cayo Costa.

The beautiful poem about friendship is from Anne.

The Irish stamps are from Anne who recieved them from her friend who lives in Ireland.

The black and white dotted thing on the left is the leftover sheet from some stickers.

The feathers came from Cayo Costa.

This is the only page I worked on the whole time Kylie was here...and I never even finished it until she left.  Boy, she kept me going!

My sister Sally made the "Lucky Earrings" for me to wear when we went to the casino.

Erin sent the beautiful thank you card after her visit in November.

Kylie supplied the artwork.

Erin got the nickname Tuts years ago.  On my way to school, I'd drop the kids off at the babysitter's where she would feed them breakfast then take them to school along with her two kids.  Erin, being the youngest, got a lot of good-natured teasing and when she'd whine, they'd call her TaTa, which got shortened to Tuts and somehow stuck.

Anyway, I just painted the background on a new page so I'll keep plugging away.  I really love going back through all five of my journals to see what was going on in my life.  Gosh, I so wish I'd stared doing these when I was a teenager!

Do you have any regrets?