President's Day full of Life and Sunshine!!!

Today, fill your cup of life with sunshine and laughter.  ~Dodinsky

Yep, you guessed it!! We are back down to our house in Ft. Myers!! We just had to get away from the cold!! We actually saw snow until about the Georgia border and a lot of tree damage in SC due to ice!! 

So I sit here in my shorts and sleeveless shirt enjoying every minute of it I can for this short break from reality and I thought I would share some of it with you, knowing that most of you live where it is so cold!!

We opted out of going to Sanibel yesterday morning and just slept in. We did go today, and though we had very little shelling luck, it was a beautiful morning and is continuing to be a beautiful day!! Here is a little taste of it for you to enjoy too!! Turn up your speakers and just relax...it's 70 degrees!!!

We got there this morning just as the sun popped up...

As we walked on down the beach we ran across this guy....he had beached himself and was slowly flapping his wings....

I carefully picked him up and put him out into the water, he circled around and beached himself one more  time....I couldn't just leave him there so I picked him up one more time and took him out a little further.  He seemed to be having trouble but eventually made his way out into the gulf.  A lady in front of us came by and said we were her hero, she wanted to do something, but didn't know what!! It made me feel good!! ** Note: I just found out from visiting Capt. Brian's site here that this is a Manta ray....they have not been seen close to Sanibel in years!!! When I saw it, it reminded me of a manta, didn't realize they were that small!! So Cool!

When we got down the beach a ways we ran across this guy....a huge horse conch....live!! See the orange? That's the animal.....then i found at least 6 more!!!

Hubby went back the other direction and found at least 20 more he said.....all huge and all alive on a newly formed sand bar!! He came to get me but by the time I got there the water had begun to cover them...I tried to get a picture for you to see...conchs are circled in red.

Note to self: Tomorrow's adventure is that we go there and check this out more thoroughly but you know how that goes, it changes with each wave!!

The rest of the pics are just to bring you along on today's journey....

Today's finds:

A well worn auger, cone and nutmeg

A mussel

Both sides of a scallop

Both sides of a winged oyster!

Hubby always gets a turkey wing...this one is tiny! 

Daddy's favorite, a shark's eye

A purple sea whip

Coral

Life back at our place in Ft. Myers continued to thrive too!!

Great Egret with his plumage showing!

See the squirrel? He loves the maple 'helicopters'

Stick around here with me and I'll warm you up again tomorrow!! BTW it's 80 degrees now! :)

::Hugs::

Cheri

Happy Valentine's Day 2014!!

Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I don't know what it is about Valentine's day that makes me feel like I need to make homemade goodies for my Valentine!! I decided to make my Mom a fruit bouquet this time, to save some $. It's a lot more trouble than it looks!! But I think it turned out okay, and she seemed very pleased with it!!

Pineapple hearts

Not bad for a beginner huh??

All wrapped up and ready for delivery!!

 I watched "Pioneer Woman" the other day and she had a recipe for Chocolate cookies that looked really good to me, so I decided to try that for my Sweetie...Hubby.  The recipe didn't have any milk or milk chocolate in it so I figured I could make some of those for my Mom also since she has issues with milk products. I made the dough from scratch....

Wrap it and let it cool  in the fridge for at least 2 hours.....

Then roll it to 1/4" and cut shapes, there is no yeast so they won't rise and will be somewhat dense....

After they baked I decided to try one .....it was not my 'cup of tea'. Since it was made from cocoa powder and powdered sugar, they actually tasted like bittersweet chocolate, I am not a fan!! I like sweet chocolate, the sweeter the better.  

So I decided to make a glaze to add sweetness....(and of course beauty!) I tried my best, but I still was NOT a fan. 

 I decided to wrap them up in pretty little valentine bags anyway and see if they liked them!  They did!!

So I made some of the good ol' pillsbury sugar cookies too, to give them options!!

These are great if you cut them in half, they are very tasty.....and easy!!!

I decided instead of a fruit bouquet for Hubby, I would put the fruit in separate containers and slip them in his lunchbox!!

Believe me it isn't easy to make hearts out of pineapple and cantaloupe!!!!

I even tried to make the strawberries look like hearts!!

It was a lot of work, and I think it was appreciated.....but maybe next year I will try something else!! It was a lot of fun though!!

I hope ya'll have a great Valentine's Day!!

::Hugs::

Cheri

"Decorating" in Florida-- Long distance!!

“If you wait until you have enough money to decorate and make your home your own, it will never happen. If you wait until you can afford to buy everything new, you are missing the point. It is the old, the new, the hand-me-down, the collected, the worn but loved things in your home that make it your own.” Stacy Risenmay

I am constantly thinking about our house in Ft. Myers, even when we are not there! Thinking about what we will take next trip, and we usually have quite a few things we take down when we go.  I bought some new towels for all 3 bathrooms, of course in keeping with the "beachy" theme! These have got Sea Stars on them in a neutral tan and ivory, and some plain tan so it won't be too busy...and I can mix and match.  

I also wanted to take down the chairs to go with the table I refinished and took down a couple of trips back. The dining set was my parents that they bought each other for their first anniversary....which would have been January 1955!! If you remember I went from the 'blonde' that they had to walnut. I decided I wanted to cover the seats to match the 'decor' of our home in Florida and found that finding fabric these days is pretty difficult! When you do find something it is quite expensive!! I was wandering around in a fabric store and this fabric 'jumped' out at me, it was on clearance, and it is not normally my sort of thing!! It looks like tapestry, and I wasn't sure if there was enough for 6 cushions, so I bought all they had, and picked out a second choice, just in case.  The colors of the 'tapestry' were perfect with the other things in our room, and I had a pillow from there to compare colors.

The 'Tapestry' material

With the pillow....colors aren't showing up to well....they are 'teals' or dark aqua

This is the 'second choice' material, it has a silver highlight of flowers, they don't show up as bright in real life, it kind of looks like a batik material, couldn't get a true picture of it. It is also dark teal or aqua and it blend well with the tapestry.

I tried to take pics from several angles to show the colors, but didn't ever get a good one, just remember the teal shows up more than the highlight! Both materials go well with the pillow(s).

It turns out I had just enough of the tapestry for 6 cushions!!! Woohoo!!

I am not sure how well this material will hold up, but I am certain it will look awesome in our house!! Now all I have to do is cut it, and not make a mistake!!! This step took me a little while!!

First one done!!! Looks awesome....right??? I don't normally like tapestry type material, but this I did, kinda reminds me of "Old Florida" how appropriate is that since it is an "Old" table that has been redone!!

Second done!

All done!! For now we will only have 5 chairs....for some reason, don't remember why, I only refinished 5....so I have the material saved for the sixth!!! 

Now all I need to do is 'install' them onto the chairs, and load them up and take them down to our house and see how they look!! Hmmmm maybe a trip is in our near future!!! :D

.....to be continued!!

::Hugs::

Cheri