Releasing the pressure, it's good for the teapot and the water. Try it sometime. ~Jeb Dickerson
We spent the day again out on the beach in the chairs...under the umbrella....moving every few minutes toward the left in order to stay in the shade....the breeze was 'delicious' as hubby often calls it!!I didn't get up early, decided to sleep in a bit...
Today's lesson in relaxation is about clouds....they were forming all around us, but we never saw a drop of rain....I always say it rains everywhere, but Sanibel...you know that can't REALLY be true since Sanibel is so lush and green, but most of the time when it does rain (at least when we're here) it's during dinnertime or night time...or some other convenient time!! I love to watch the clouds transform and build against the beautiful blue sky!
Aren't they beautiful??
We went shelling last night around 6:00 and headed down to the tidal pool we found the night before...found some more teenies!!
Trying out my new closeup lens...works well, don't you think?
Pear Whelk
Teenie Weenie Alphabet Cone
Lace Murex Hubby found
Teenie tulips!
I decided to try out my zoom lens, this is how well it works!!
Without any zoom......
Click on the picture to enlarge it....see the tiny blue circle in the middle?
Could you see him?? How neat is that??
Dinner was at Gramma Dots for the world's best Fried Grouper and homemade chips, and popcorn shrimp Caesar salad!! ....with of course the world's best homemade key lime pie!! You have to try it if you are ever here!!
The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. ~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris
This is an actual photograph taken on Sanibel Island Florida on Sunday!!....this is the exact spot where we intend on spending our time for the next few days!! Hubby decided that he had not had a REAL vacation yet since he had to work most of the last trip down here, so we packed up our swim suits, bought some steaks on sale, threw them in the cooler (the steaks, not suits) and jumped on the Auto Train and here we are!! Even the trip down here was an adventure!! The train engine had some issues, and we never really could get up to speed....finally they had to bring in another engine, and away we went....we didn't even get out of Virginia until bedtime!!
We arrived in Florida about noon on Saturday, by the time we got our car...we left around 1:00, stopped for lunch and got on Sanibel around 5:00....we went immediately to our favorite Restaurant to see one of our favorite waitresses..Lori, and she greeted us both with a big hug!! I think she was really surprised to see us!! Okay, so now the relaxation officially begins!! We didn't even go out on the beach, we just picked up some groceries, unpacked, took showers and kicked back!!
Sanibel Sunset
I got up early yesterday (6:00) and took a look on the shore, there was nearly nothing out there....lots of small stuff, no 'twirls or whirls' just scallops, jewel boxes, kittens paws...but that's all fine....I just love the walk!
We brought our umbrella this time, since the supplies seem to be getting short at the condo, and setup early....and we went out there around 11:00 and stayed ALL DAY!! It was absolutely wonderful!! There was a cool breeze blowing off of the water that kept it so nice!!
I went out a couple of times and took a dip, and the water was crystal clear!! The lowest tide is in the evenings so we decided that since we would grill out, and mosey on down the beach that evening....! I took several pictures of the Sanibel birds...I could watch them forever!!!
These guys enjoyed the beach too!
This guy even stole a sip or two of someone's coke!!
We walked on out around 7:00 and begin walking toward the east, (I had gone west in the morning) besides, that's Junonia territory to the hubby since he got one near Sundial Resort a couple of years ago!....we looked up and saw a tidal pool that had formed....we headed over there with only an hour or so of daylight left and saw so many pretties!!! It's funny, you have to be in a hurry because it's getting dark, you want to cover more area, but you want to be thorough!! What a wonderful predicament to be in!!! We did quite well!! They are all very small....but I need small for this year's project!!
How nice is that!! Pretty good for not having good shelling huh!? The shells were 'embedded' in the sand...we will definitely be going back this evening!! What fun it was....and so relaxing!! That's the theme this time....RELAXATION!!
I know all of you need some relaxation of your own, so I thought I would share....sit back, turn up the volume, turn off the lights, adjust your desk fan so it blows right in your face and enjoy!!! Come back as often as you like!! Don't forget to rinse the sand off your feet!!
We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons. ~Alfred E. Newman
I came home today and announced to my Hubby that he was going to be a guinea pig once again at dinner....most of the time that is a good thing, but I suspect he might get a little nervous when he hears that...I love to try recipes!! A co-worker of mine gave me some homemade tomatillo sauce that his wife had canned and I have never had a sauce like that, so he told me it was used on enchiladas and burritos... so I thought Okay, I'm game!!
Hubby wanted to know a little more about what to expect, so the conversation went something like this:
I told him I was going to make some burritos... he said "that sounds good"... and I followed it with "*coworker* gave me some Tomatillo sauce today, and I want to try it,"... "what's that?" he says I followed with "it's a green sauce" .....you should have seen his face, he scrunched up his nose and obviously was now much more nervous!! He says "I'm not too fond of GREEN sauce!" but quickly followed it with, "but I guess I can try it."
Later, when he came into the kitchen, I took off the lid and let him smell it (BTW it smelled wonderful!) , and he says "it smells like pickles!!".....so I guess green means pickles!! :)
So here we go....this has to be the World's easiest recipe!! (I took pictures this time...I still feel silly doing that!!)
As I mentioned before, we try to stick to veggies for meals during the week, at least for supper, it is healthy, and hopefully it will cut down on some of the weight gain that has been happening around here!!...(Sorry, I digressed!)
I got a can of fat free refried beans, low fat sour cream, shredded mild cheddar cheese, flour tortillas and medium salsa and a sweet onion at the store on the way home from work....oh and spanish rice mix.
I mixed about 1/4 cup of medium chunky salsa with the refried beans....
I then added 1/4 of the mixture into the center of one Medium size flour tortilla and topped it with about 1 Tbsp of the cheese...
Then I rolled it up (this takes practice, believe me!) and put it in a glass pan sprayed with nonstick spray, flap down...
I did this with 4 tortillas..... (I got better at it as I went along)
I then poured the Tomatillo sauce over the top, and added the rest of the cheese from the package....~1/2 to 1 cup or so I would guess....
Cover tightly with aluminum foil sprayed with nonstick spray....
and put into an oven preheated to 425 degrees for about 20 minutes....
While that is cooking....thinly slice 1/2 the sweet onion, and saute in butter or olive oil (I use low fat margarine) until transparent...
after 20 minutes, remove foil....(be careful not to burn yourself on the steam!!) put back into oven for about 5 minutes or until tortillas begin to turn slightly golden.
It was REALLY, REALLY good!!!...and So easy, it even looked sorta fancy!! This was the final result for both of us.... Hubby thought it was good too!! :)
I made 4 of them, but one each was more than enough!! so I froze the other 2 for another time!! You can spice it up as much as you like, maybe garnish with peppers, or even roll them in the filling....I wanted to make sure not to overpower the sauce so we could taste it!! It was great!! Thanks Deb....of course you know now I want the recipe!! :)
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Meanwhile......Outside the kitchen window
While I was playing in the kitchen, I kept one eye out of the window on the new setup of bird feeders....the squirrel ruined feeder number 3, so I regrouped and decided to try something different!! I got a new feeder on Monday....
I also strung a thin cord across about 6-1/2 feet high and hung the finch sock and the new feeder on the string. Obviously the feeder is still too close to the shed, but that is an easy fix!! (and I think a little grease on the 'hat' to the right will be a help too!! )
I know, it looks a little bit like West Virginia, but I am determined to feed my birds, and not the squirrel....at least from the bird feeders!!
While I was cooking....I saw his silhouette on the shed!!
...Cue Theme Song "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly"
..... I grabbed my camera, and this is what I got!!
I think I won the battle this time!! Yahoooo!!! I'm going to 'tweek' things, and we'll see how it goes!!
"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it" ~ Greg Anderson
I started working at NASA over 30 years ago. The shuttle was all the rage back then, though we didn't work on it much in my facility. I saw some of the new shuttle tiles and saw a few checkout tests on those, but we continued testing different types of structures for aircraft. I remember as an apprentice, several of us brought in our portable TV sets to watch the very first shuttle launch....everything was riding on this launch, I mean EVERYTHING. We had no administrator at NASA and the vice president wasn't going to appoint one until after the first launch. If it made it okay, NASA would continue...if not, it didn't look good!! Mind you, this was before cable TV, so we adjusted the rabbit ears on our portables in the middle of our shop and watch it lift off flawlessly!! It was the prettiest thing I had ever seen!! When it landed, we did the same thing, it almost brought tears to your eyes!! NASA was back in business!!
Since that time, I have seen a whole lot of changes, the shuttle went from being broadcast from the time it was rolled onto the pad until it landed...then it got to be old news, and no one carried the coverage. I was 3 months pregnant when Challenger came apart, we sat in the cafeteria and everyone watched it on TV, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, it was devastating to us all!! We all remembered exactly where we were when we heard the news!!
We all worked on the repairs, and ran tests on booster rocket joints, we now belonged to the shuttle program. Once again, when liftoff occurred, it was covered on every channel!!
Then it happened again, we all watched while Columbia came back down to earth in pieces...devastated once again!! We all had more in it this time, so it was even worse, if that is possible.... I had the opportunity to go to Texas to assist in recovering pieces of the shuttle, to help with the reconstruction, so we could find out what happened!! It was and experience I will never forget, and one that I will forever be honored to participate in. I spent 9 days in and around Palestine Texas, collecting shuttle debris, friends and co-workers covered the area all the way to Louisiana, we all became a true team, all working together to help!!
A few years later, budgets were getting slashed, if they managed to be approved at all, we had to learn to do more with less. Then they decided it costed too much to do this...and we lost our vision. It's so sad to think about, it truly is an end of an era, I grew up at NASA and with the Shuttle. Now we don't get budgets to operate, we have to be innovative without funding and we don't know where we are going....How sad!! They have begun tearing down operating facilities, and putting up administrative buildings, everything is calculated and modeled, and we don't have the same ownership we used to. We have to depend on someone else to take us to the space station, or into space....Hey guys, we are (were) NASA!! So Sad....but I must say, I am very proud to have participated in all of this, but I never saw it launch in person, except one night from Sanibel Island, Hubby and I did get to see it streak across the sky. We were there again when it came in and I got to see it fly over and hear the sonic booms!! I will miss the Shuttle, and all of the adventures that went with it. I only hope that before I retire....(which hopefully is very soon) that NASA will manage to have a vision and mission that makes sense, that we all will be able to see, and buy into....and that we will finally have a budget!!
Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that. ~Michael Leunig
It is really hard for me to believe that it has already been 3 years since Brad and Jess were married!!
How time flies....it started speeding up my freshman year of high school, and continues to soar right on by!! According to my nearly 85 year old Dad, it just continues to pick up speed!!
Jess and Brad have been married 3 years ago today (July 19)!! I'm posting this early because it is already July 19th in India, where Jess is!! Their life has been one adventure after another, it survived a long distance relationship with Jess going away for 4 years to college, then they got married and the adventures continue with her in Vet School, buying houses and life in general....he had to become a Virginia Tech Hokie, (even though he graduated, and got his masters at Christopher Newport University in Newport News!!) He moved to Blacksburg and now teaches History at Blacksburg High School, and is the lead coach of the debate team....all the while wearing his maroon and orange Hokie colors!! He even got to travel to China on a Fulbright scholarship from Virginia Tech....during their last anniversary!!
We sure are proud of you two, and the life (and the adventures) that are built into your life together!! We continue to follow your many adventures with our chests stuck out like proud parents do!! Here's to more fun adventures and a life filled with Lots of Love and Understanding!!
I couldn't resist, had to play with the software and make you guys a little video of your own!! Enjoy!! We Love you Both!!
A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn. ~Author Unknown
I know you all remember my buddy mr. squirrel, well he has one the battle....but mind you, not the war!!
For now we will say Squirrel 1, Shelllady 0!!
He has completely destroyed the finch socks by eating holes in them, I repeatedly darned them until the 'darn' things aren't worth fixing!! So I took down that feeder, and we truly miss our gold finches!!
Now he has figured out how to get to the new (#3) bird feeder!! I happened to be looking out today and decided to grab my camera to film him.....just in case....this is what I saw!!
So Mr. Squirrel, you have given me a challenge....tomorrow is another day, and we will regroup and I have a new plan!!
