Yes it's true, we traded in our fake pine Christmas tree for real live palm trees this year. Yet again our house isn't ready for company for the holidays. With our tight budget right now, we weren't able to travel either. So, we decided to make the best of our situation.
One year ago Christmas we were visiting family in Florida, We were staying at the Hilton hotel. After several days of fun at the beach, warm weather and enjoying family we decided that Mi MIguel needed to be in Florida. He needed to be close to his family. Being precisely one year since we had that great epiphany, we decided to celebrate by going back to the Hilton.
Being residents of Florida this year, when Mi Miguel booked our room he told the receptionist our story. She thought the whole thing was so romantic she made us gold star members and gave us the honeymoon suite. Yep, that's where we spent our one year "Decision To Move Anniversary" at the Clearwater Hilton Hotel Honeymoon Suite with this grand view.
Once everything with our room got situated, Mi Miguel snapped this photo of me. It's the precise moment (December 24, 2015) that I decided to simply stop caring so much about what other people think of me. I've spent my whole life so afraid of offending others and always feeling like I'm on the defense when I invariably do. There's no happiness in it, so I'm moving on to what matters and leaving behind those that you'll never please no matter how hard you try. It was quite an event for me and for Mi Miguel. He's been trying to tell me for years to just let it all go.
Another spectacular event occurred on Christmas Eve, a full moon. There won't be another for thirty some odd years. It was incredibly bright and made for a great evening to walk to the same restaurant where we ate a year ago on Christmas Eve.
If it's amazing stone crab you're looking for Cooter's would be the place to go if you're in the Clearwater area.
Stone Crab, the one meal you'll need a wooden mallet to enjoy.
It's nothing fancy, but it's a fun place and the food is top notch. Love that full moon.
Sitting back relaxing on the beach after a wonderful meal with a nice bottle of champagne. Christmas Eve on the beach...it's awesome.
After a few glasses of bubbly, we walked along the shoreline, capturing this neat view of the ocean mist coming off of the rolling waves.
Life really is this good in Florida. Nothing like champagne flowing over your shoes and onto the fine white sand.
Yes, given enough champagne I can still do a cartwheel. It's just my way of letting it all go.
Christmas morning we got up early rode the hotel beach bikes. Aren't these beach bikes cool?
Riding along we stumbled across a beach bar. Wanting to cool off and relax, Sharky's was perfect for just that.
So, we parked the bikes by some shrubbery and sat out on the patio.
Ordering an Arnold Palmer, we found that there is nothing more refreshing than a half lemonade, half iced tea beverage to beat this Florida heat.
The shrubbery by our bikes is unusual. I have no idea what it is, do you?
With a few hours to spare before our Christmas dinner with Mi Miguel's family, he wanted to go early to St. Petersburg to walk around his old stomping grounds from his youth. We stopped by the Vinoy.
This hotel is so lavish and ornate. We strolled around enjoying the view. Even the entrance is gorgeous.
We were offered a complimentary mimosa so of course we obliged.
We had a wonderful visit with Mi Miguel's family; a nice dinner and then decorating our own little gingerbread man.
With another Christmas behind us,we'll continue working on our house, we're hoping that 2016 will allow us to let go of even more excess baggage. It's so liberating to free yourself of those people, those things and those thoughts that keep you from doing what makes you happy, healthy and satisfied. Goodbye 2015. Hello 2016!
We spent the weekend trying to get our ducks, or coots in a row as the case may be here in our Florida canal.
We've measured, marked and staked our spot.
Once everything was exactly the way we wanted it, we added an extra foot to the width and an extra two feet to the depth. You can never have enough space for a table and chairs.
This is a very basic draft of our game plan. I've been working on the details and drawing up a more specific plan in order to figure out a way to turn this simple draft into...
this charming patio with a pergola. We can do this, right?
We selected several different pavers and stepping stones to isolate on our cart. We began our usual process of elimination by taking turns removing the ones we didn't like. We've settled on what we think will work for us and brought half of what is needed to see if we like it in our own backyard.
We still have an incredible amount of work ahead of us. But all in all, I'd say we definitely have our coots in a row now. Before construction begins, we are off to celebrate our Christmas with a romantic getaway. Mi Miguel and I wish all of our gentle readers a safe and happy holiday!
When we moved to Florida we decided to downsize. Well actually, are plans were to become minimalists. But we're still working on that one. Downsizing we could definitely do, even though we were sad to see our memories go, we sold most of our heavy beautiful furniture. We did keep a few of our unique pieces though. I kept this "one of a kind" potting bench.
It never fit quite right in any of our homes. But I've held onto it for about six years because I knew that one day it would serve a purpose. It's now on it's way to becoming a delightful dry bar sitting right by the foyer.
Mi Miguel and I both knew for sure we wanted to keep this charmer of a corner cabinet. We used it in our St. Louis area home.
And we used it again in our Indiana home. And decided to hang onto it because it's always an eye catcher.
I can't decide which corner to put it in or what dishes to keep in it, but it is in our Florida home.
I've had this set for years. And it matches the walls really nicely. But there again, we've had it for years.
But this set is new to me. If I use this set I can incorporate that beautiful chartreuse green that I so love.
I was given a huge set of the chartreuse green pattern from a friend here in Florida. The cabinet and melamine cups came with the dishes. It's from a Florida restaurant, but I have no idea which one.
While trying to decide what to do with the decor on the inside, I've been plotting and planning my layout for the pergola on the outside. We have a lot of work to do on the exterior of the house and the backyard as you can plainly see.
These
beautiful azaleas are growing along the back of the house. I've never
seen apricot ones until we moved here. I'm hoping to find a way to work
around this bush. Once we get the house painted I think the azaleas will
really pop against a contrasting background. If you enlarge the photo above you'll see that it looks like two different bushes have fused into one.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't there both an azalea bush and a hibiscus bush intermingled here?
I have no idea what this is. I love that all the flowers are apricot. However, against the currently peach house, you don't notice the unique color so much. Is this a tulip? Does Florida have tulips?
We have a magnificent 5' fountain that was left with the house in the front yard. We absolutely plan on scrubbing this one down and get it working again.
But we can't decide if we should take the time to refurbish this 4' one and get it working as well. It's in pretty rough shape and we know nothing about fountains. What to do, what to do? Do we need to running fountains?
As you can see I've started pulling up some of the concrete edging. I'm really eager to get this back yard from looking like this to looking like....
this dream of mine. We have a lot of work to do before we reach this point. A balance of fun of work is required when renovating a home. It's that much work! Over the next few days we'll be going on a bike ride with some new friends and also checking out our letter J restaurant. If you missed our previous A-I restaurants just check out my Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/220701894778842/?ref=ts&fref=ts
Today while unpacking our home decor boxes, I noticed several stacks of cut planks from the ceiling. Of course my mind started thinking of ways that we could use these pieces. I discovered that if you flip them over they look like solid planks. Each piece is about 28" long and they are 5" wide. Why can't we stain them really dark, let them dry and then lightly whitewash them? Once that dries we can then do our master bedroom walk-in closet floor with them. It's like getting a free floor! When I presented the idea to Mi Miguel over the phone, he calmly said, "We need to build the walk-in closet first though."
Anyhow, I'm off to the back yard to finish clearing everything out of the way so we can build that pergola.
This will shock everyone. We have the tile all laid in the living room and dining room. Yes, you read that correctly. That's Mi Miguel putting in the last and final tile. It was a lot of work and I wouldn't recommend that anyone tackle that project if you're a tiling novice.
This is the view from the middle of the dining room and living room. This evening we'll be grouting. Come tomorrow I'll thoroughly clean the entire 500 and some odd square feet of it.
I removed the door and shelving from the coat closet. Living in Florida, I don't really see the purpose of having a space reserved for coats. Mi Miguel laid the same tile in the closet but staggered it rather than do the herring bone pattern. Much easier but you can see that the herring bone does so much more for the tile. A fresh coat of paint, a transitioning threshold and the closet will be transformed into a game nook with a shoe tray and a few hooks for lightweight jackets.
After grouting, Mi Miguel gets to take a break for several days. He certainly deserves it. I'm going to busy myself with painting baseboards and doing the touch up on the walls. After that, we can set up the rooms and finally put this favorite flea market find of mine in the dining room corner.
Once we get the two rooms set up, we're going to stop working on the inside and proceed to the outside. The weather is too beautiful to be cooped up in the house. Plus, Mi Miguel will never get me outside to help him build, paint and landscape in the heat come summertime. I really want a relaxing backyard like this one.
Through
advice from friends and neighbors that have been through what we're
going through, we know that we do need to take a break once in a while
and go have fun. Yesterday we took the morning off to go to our letter I restaurant. The photo above shows the entry doors to the restaurant. You can read about this on my Facebook Group: Florida Restaurants A-Z
Since we were in the area we drove to the resort hotel where we stayed over the Christmas holiday last year. It was then as tourists that we decided to become residents. We planned to buy a beautiful home on acreage. Little did we know that we would end up falling in love with a fixer upper on a sweet little canal.
Walking around the hotel lobby and the beach, I asked Mi Miguel if he thought it would be romantic to stay in the hotel this Christmas where it all started last Christmas. He immediately booked us a room with an ocean view.
