The past week I met someone so fascinating that I just had to share my experience.
The first day I met this great lady was at my friend, Karen's house. We all three sat poolside and got to know each other.
The
next thing you know, Mi Miguel and I are headed up the lake in our
Tahoe Pontoon to gather up our friends for our version of a dinner
cruise.
Once the boat was docked and everyone was on board. We headed out onto the lake. Karen and Steve have been wonderful friends. I can't imagine living in Florida not knowing them. They've been our refuge when we simply can't take anymore work with this fixer upper of ours. They've brought so many blessings into our lives.
We were truly honored when we got the opportunity to meet and take their friend, and now our friend, Susan out on our boat. She is from London, England and I find myself calling her, m'lady. It just seems like the "Downton Abbey fan" thing to do.
The dinner cruise menu: Hooseir hors d'oeuvre Greek salad, roast beef and swiss cheese sandwiches, fruit kabobs and honey roasted peanuts with candy corn candies mixed with it. It gives you a Payday candy bar effect, only better. It was a big hit. Susan had never seen or had candy corn before.
Saturday morning we went to the dog park with our McDonald's iced coffee. Mine got knocked over by a dog that is more rambunctious that Banjo, if you can imagine that. Then we went to a sponsored showing of Independence Day. If you love special effects you will enjoy this movie.
The next evening Mi Miguel suggested we do our letter P restaurant. So off to Pinocchio's we went. The write up about our experience is on my Facebook Page: Florida Restaurants A-Z.
Sunday afternoon we had tea and lunch at 
William Dean Chocolates - Fine Hand Made Artisan Chocolates
It was a "lovely" place to visit and enjoy tea, lunch and of course chocolate.
Our server placed this beautiful display of sandwiches, scones and treats before us.
The sandwiches included, cucumber, egg salad, Chicken salad and salmon.
The scones...who doesn't love cheese, raspberry and strawberry scones. They were perfect.
This tray was my favorite. The macaroons and mango jellies were amazing.
Mi Miguel picked me up from lunch and we took Banjo to Wall Spring Park. We've been working with her so that we can peacefully walk with her on the trails. She nailed it on this walk. She was so well behaved that when we came across a little boy that was fishing with his dad. He asked his dad if he could get a dog like Banjo. Yeah, Banjo really is that cute.
Sunday evening (last evening), I made a tasty broccoli soup for Mi Miguel. Great end to a fabulous week.
This little guy was by our back door a few nights ago. Love his dotted digits. There is so much nature in our yard. It makes me happy because we have no time for the trails or any thing fun lately.
We do have the 9x11 master closet all built and finished. We can't figure out why there is a smudge in the fresh paint on the closet wall. She can be a little rambunctious and precocious.
But, she is "ring the bell" potty trained so the paint smudge isn't that big of a deal in the bigger scheme of things.
We do have the living room filled with furniture at this point. Mi Miguel still needs to pull out three things that he doesn't want in there. I will do the same and pull out three things that I don't want in there. Once we have it all set, the search for a rug will begin.
I love this little piece but not quite sure what to do with it. I think my inspiration has been running a little dry lately. Is it a coffee table, a foot rest or best left in a closet someplace?
Even though the every day person doesn't see the little 0's and 1's in the computer world, it doesn't mean that they no longer exist. They are still alive and well inside your computer. I'm thinking about trying to make one of these necklaces so Mi Miguel will look my way more often. It's an IT software engineer thing...you wouldn't understand unless you're married to one.
We've been feeling so extremely tired lately. I know fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods are the best thing to eat in order to stay alert, active and happy. However, the easy to grab and go foods have been our diet lately. We're feeling it too.
While begrudgingly finishing our closet. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go for a more neutral, clean look...
or a fun coastal look. But, we've chosen our color and painted the wall units and such. Now, we are happy to announce that we've went with the neutral look. As soon as I get all of our clothes, shoes and whatnot organized, I'll post photos of it.
We are all so very tired. We really do need to take a break and get out more. A full time job sounds like such a vacation to me right now. Banjo, has no clue what it's like to live without all this chaos. She really doesn't mind. She sleeps through it all.
This plain fireplace, we bought from an online selling site. It was a fourth of the price for the same one at retail price. We got a great deal but it looks so plain.
The fireplace just wasn't making a statement with shiny white paint.
So I painted it this lovely, vibrant shade of red.
Wow, what a difference a little bit of paint can make.
I got a suggestion to maybe not have the table floating around so much. So, I worked things in a little better and even unpacked some more of out things.
Here is the before picture of the living room. We cleared out all the furniture, carpet, popcorn ceiling and window treatments. What do you think? Does it look fun, relaxing and oh so, Florida?
This is the before photo of the living room in our fixer upper that we bought last July. The entire house was original to the year it was built.
We pulled up the carpet, scraped the popcorn ceiling, put in porcelain plank tiling, planked the ceiling and painted the walls a nice soft coastal shade of blue.
Here is a different angle. We wanted a coastal feel but not too elegant.
Here is a close up of the dresser I painted. I added fabric to the curtains (sister stitched them for me) to give them something a little extra. This photo was taken in the evening with flash.
The shelving is a project that I painted in while still in Indiana. It gives the dining room a fun and whimsical feel. This photo was taken in the morning with natural light through the window. The walls look very different depending the time of day.
If you've read my previous posts, you know that we're trying to get away from the uptight, museum style home. We've lived that rigid lifestyle, 4600 sq. ft. brand new home with all the high dollar furnishings. There is nothing relaxing or comforting about it. Even though we had to give up a lot to achieve the simpler life, it's been well worth the hard work and effort to renovate this fixer upper into a quaint and charming home. The stale museum feel of a home where everything is on an uptight display doesn't feel warm, welcoming or inviting.
If the paint color looks familiar, it's the same color that we used in Indiana. We had an entire gallon left over and I absolutely love this shade of turquoise. The hardwood floors made it look a lot richer. But I love our porcelain floors for living in Florida.
It's been a year since we left Indiana. Those two years in the ice, cold and snow were enough for Mi Miguel. But gosh, I miss having our own bridge. That was one of my favorite things about that piece of property. Mi Miguel just couldn't make Indiana his home.
He is from Florida, born and raised here and wants to retire in his home state. Oh the things I could've done with that beautiful bridge. The heat here in Florida can be unbearable for me. But, after much discussion of the pros and cons of living in the Midwest (we lived in the St. Louis area for 28 years) we've come to realize that there is no perfect place to live. No matter where you go there will always be a downside to living there. Florida is hot, very hot in the summer.
Even still, I like Florida and hope to spend the rest of my days here. Our kids live in different states, so there is always that angst of wanting to live where you want to live but also wanting to be near your grown children.
Happiness? We're there. Or, at least as close to it as we've ever been. I'm not even sure if there is such a thing as perpetual happiness. Going from a huge house with acreage to a small house with a small yard that sits on a canal, has definitely put us on the path of a clutter-free destination to happiness.
When we first bought the furniture filled house, the wall units that you see in the photo were for sale. I wanted them. Mi Miguel said, "No, we don't need them." He always says that. So, we bought them.
We knew that we would be taking a fourth of the Florida room and turning it into the master bedroom closet. All I kept thinking is wouldn't these units make great closet organizers?
Now that we've been here a year and we are building that closet, these wall units make great organizers. I chalk painted them. Next, all the hardware will be painted a dark silver. Banjo, as you can see, finds the cubbyhole quite comfortable. The closet is 9'x11' plenty of room for these handy dandy pieces. The opposite wall will have a long double rod for hanging clothes.
This is a truer color of the units. The glare from the windows makes daytime photography too bright. I think they will fit nicely and make for great "his and her" space.
The dining room rug didn't match with the floor and the paint. With sisal rugs being all the rage right now, I decided to flip the rug over and paint it.
I love the muted colors of the original design. It flows much better with the floors and walls. No paint needed, this works better than anything I could paint.
The corner cabinet, bench and linen dresser will now be washed over with dill paint and hopefully I can be done with the dining room.
While Banjo and I were on one of our several backyard breaks, we discovered this colorful beetle. I ran inside and got a dice to show the size better.
I'm not sure exactly what type of beetle this is, but it's a dandy.
I wasn't sure if it could fly, so I didn't mess with it too much. According to how the sunlight hit the shell, it could look more brown or more yellow with the green.
The face on this beetle is fierce. I'm not sure what his place is in our delicate ecosystem, but he/she looks capable of carrying out the beetle duty.
The legs look intricate and had a death grip on the blade of grass.
Who knew that all that detail was hiding in this one little beetle?
After our group walk last evening, we decided to try the dog beach with Banjo. She hasn't been in over a month with our first few tries ending in disaster. Due to the recent tropical storm we saw a few sailboats that were either dry-docked or lost at shore.
Even though the tropical storm, Colin has come and gone, the sky is still showing some tumultuous clouds over the gulf.
Mi Miguel spotted something in the water. He thought it might be a manatee.
It came out of the water several times, maybe for air which manatees do that.
We weren't sure what it was so we chose to leave it alone.
Whatever it is, it's huge and found the warm shallow waters to be just as relaxing as we did.
Banjo made it all the way down the dog beach trail and into the water for the first time.
As long as the water didn't touch her belly, she was cool with it. I can so relate with my own love/hate relationship with the deep water.
We got this picture of her and then she was DONE. The water is fun to her, but sniffing for endless hours on the beach is way more fun for a hound dog like her.
The grainy photos, including this one was taken with Mi Miguel's phone. The clarity just isn't there. Even though this isn't a very clear photo, I wanted to post it for my son. As we were leaving the dog beach, this C-130 flew across the gulf.
Yeah, we still have problems in Florida. But the way we handle them now is so much more stress free. We never found a way to deal with the cold weather, but we sure have found a way to deal with the heat.
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