Lighting Like Manna From Heaven

 A funny thing happened Saturday morning on the way to The Jay Starkey Park. A flea market caught my eye, which caused a knee jerk response from Mi Miguel. The next thing you know, we're strolling through the booths in our hiking boots and cargo shorts.

We've been looking for lighting for the living room, dining room and over the counter in the kitchen. This flea market was so much nicer than the one we had been to a few months ago. It's not as big as the Wagon Wheel but the merchandise is more of what you would expect to see at a flea market. As we neared the end of the booths and shops, I saw lights strewn about in boxes outside one of the shops on each side of the entrance. The big boxes didn't intimidate me, I'm not afraid to rummage, I'll dig if I have to, and so I did. Until, Mi Miguel poked me on the shoulder, pointed and said, "Look in the doorway." My eyes rode down his arm, then along his hand to the tip of his his index finger. It was like manna from heaven. This is what I saw...                                        

 more lights than you could ever imagine. We all use the word, amazing so often without any real reference to it's meaning. I can honestly say, this lighting store is absolutely amazing!
  

There are more lights than you could ever take in with just a glance. There are so many lights that it made me dizzy. It was so overwhelming that my blood sugar levels dropped which forced us to have to leave just half way into looking at the lights. I tried to fight it off but Mi Miguel knew I was about to go down. Not taking no for an answer, he made me go with him to get a sugary drink from a snack booth.

While waiting in line at the snack counter, we spotted my dear cousin Brian's throne. Standing there in front of it, sipping our drinks we realized we needed to get a picture of it for him. Before Mi Miguel could swipe his phone screen, a little five year old, sitting with her grandpa at one of the booths announced, "Just so you know, that's my chair." We smiled at her and she kindly gave us permission to proceed with the photo. Half way into the Fanta orange soda I found myself back in business. We returned to the light store with a mission of not leaving until we found all the light fixtures that we needed.

We searched for three hours and found four lights all for under $100.00. It's my new favorite store. That's the owners in the picture above. They are incredibly helpful and all about customer service. Each piece is carefully checked to make sure that it works and to point out any flaws.  

If you're ever in Northern Florida, add the Gunn Highway Flea Market to your list of things to do while visiting the Sunshine State. Make sure you stop in the Leppert Lighting store, you'll feel as though you've died and gone to heaven. I know I did. 

 We never found the park, all we could see were construction signs announcing new homes being built and their price range. The acreage was laden with concrete piping to be  installed. In truth a subdivision is being built. But in reality what's happening is that the residents of this county are losing such a beautiful view. We got frustrated with our GPS trying to find an entrance to a park that seemingly no longer existed and ditched the trail hiking idea. We did see this moss laden tree along the road.

It's cool to look at but sad that the moss eventually suffocated the once thriving tree.

Colorful turkeys reside in Florida, who knew? The Midwestern turkeys are always brown or some variation of it. I'm not sure if you can see the multi-colored feathers in this photo above, but now I know why kindergarten teachers have students make each finger a different color when we making hand print turkeys. 

On our way out of the park...I mean new home construction zone, we saw two black, grumpy looking birds. I'm not sure of their species. Maybe our friend, Steve knows. "Steve..."

Here's a few more shots of the birds. And as you can see in the photo below, they got frightened and flew away.

Their wings are huge. When I said black earlier, it's a deep rich black, lacking the sheen of a crow. 

They flew to safety in the tree and waited for us to leave and then returned to their watering hole.

We made it home, gobbled down food (turkey pun) and decided to head out to Lowe's to look for concrete stain. We found everything we needed. But, they wouldn't accept the driver's license veteran status as our proof of being prior military. So, we abandoned our goods at the checkout and proceeded to Home Depot. We bought our stain, concrete patch, cleaner and other supplies for our bathroom floor staining project. Home Depot kindly gave us our veteran's discount. I've always been a Lowe's customer, but I'm liking Home Depot more and more. 

The next morning, yesterday...Sunday, Mi Miguel went to the electric box, found the dining room switch and shut 'er down. Within an hour he had our flea market chandelier illuminating the planks with a cool design. I love it when light cascades something artsy on the ceiling and/or walls like this.  We chose this particular light because I convinced Mi Miguel that it had a Restoration Hardware Store look about it. I know that my description of this chandelier showed him that it had a gaslight feel to it too. He nodded in agreement, but I'm pretty sure he liked it simply because it meant one light down, only three more to go.   

The moment this one caught my eye, I knew it would look great in the living room. It has a jellyfish look to it. Can you see it? Mi Miguel couldn't either.

Maybe you can see it now. Doesn't it have the feel and look of a jellyfish underwater? Mi Miguel tried to see it too. He even squinted and got closer but he still couldn't see it or feel it. 

 

I've been looking for anything glass that has fish scales on it. I need it in order to create a certain ambiance that I'm going for in the living room and dining room. Mi Miguel came climbing at me through all the light fixtures to show me this beauty. I asked if there were another. He said, "Yes." 

I dove in this time, with a little persistence I gently collected a second one out from underneath several pendant lights of all colors shapes and sizes. As you can see Mi Miguel got both of them installed as well. While he did this, I finished the second coat of paint in the bathroom and I put a first coat of paint on our foyer closet. 

After experiencing Leppert Lighting, I now know what it's like to trip the light fantastic! I highly recommend that should you ever get the chance, you should trip it too.

With all of our concrete staining supplies sitting in our bathroom, we need to figure out how the heck you stain a concrete floor. It was too much to process after all the lighting chores. I should mention that we started organizing the garage yesterday and clearing out more clutter that's now sitting on the curb. 

We're tired, our minds are muddled with comprehending what technique to do with the bathroom floor. I made us each a nice cup of hot chamomile tea. Mi Miguel provided us with a mindless movie so we could kick up our feet, relax and enjoy marmalade toast and chamomile tea. We then went to bed thinking of nothing at all.