THIS IS IT!

The last day of November, the last day of the hurricane season in Florida, the last day before making life changes and the last day before we start with Reverb 14...that is a lot of last days but tomorrow starts the beginning of a lot of first days. 

I have a lot of loose ends to tie up before the end of the year. Among the things I want to accomplish are to finish my dress, finish my wedding book, and finish my knitting project. I will get the pirate doll I have for my daughter packed and ready to mail along with an antique sleigh and my baby doll from my childhood.  If those things are done completely I will be a happy camper. My Life Book 2013 will carry over into the next year but that is okay. It will be worked on off and on all next year and I will enjoy doing it by not stressing over whether or not I am on schedule plus I can start out the new year with a whole new set of projects. 

The first major project for January will be to enjoy an art retreat with my friend Ellen. We are going to work on two intuitive paintings in my garage. Mine will be about 30 x 48 inches and I am doing two at a time. It is necessary to do it that way so one can dry as the other is worked on...We are using the book BRAVE INTUITIVE PAINTING by Flora Bowley as our guide. We have been planning this retreat for a while but life has a way of getting in our way. This will be a fun way to kick start the creative juices and wake up my muse.

Ellen and I have a mutual friend who also wants to join us for a day of art so plans for that are in the near future. Maybe in February or March which will give me time to get my garden in tip top order before she comes up. Ellen takes a spring trip in her RV so we need to plan around that. But it will happen when it is suppose to happen. In the meantime I will be working on my new life changes of getting healthier!

LIFE CHANGES.. a new challenge

WOW! Here we are at the end of the month of November and almost to the end of the year. I enjoyed my Thanksgiving day activities and now I am looking forward to starting the month of blogging for Reverb 14 on December 1st. Blogging  is going to help me with a new challenge. 

I am  ready to make a major change in my life and my weekly progress will be published on my blog for every one to read and hopefully this will keep me motivated and on track. Also this life style change will help me get more done for myself in the way of my physical, mental and emotional health. I will not be staying up until all hours of the night because I will, in order to accomplish my goals,  need to get up early every day. Refreshed and ready to go. That will be something new for me. At least lately. I used to get up early every morning with no problem but I was younger and way more active. 

My new health plan gives me a membership in Silver Sneakers and   I intend to take full advantage of it by using the facilities for swimming, aerobics and strength training. In order to do this I will make a schedule, working it around and melding it with my every day activities.  That is what works best for me and will help me stick to it.

I have only two commitments on my schedule at this time, both of them are sewing groups that meet in the early mornings. On those days that will allow me to do my exercise program after instead of going out to lunch and eating food I don't care to eat and coming home to veg for the remainder of the day because for more then half the day I have sat and then eaten the wrong foods.  This will work out well since I will be out any way and in the right location. On the other days I will have the option of going in mornings or afternoons. I will look and see what works out best for me on my daily routine.

Today I will spend working out my schedule. I am excited to get started. 

THANKSGIVING 2013

To celebrate our Thanksgiving day this year we had decided to take a road trip in lieu of trying to decide which of our children we should bless with our company. So this morning after breakfast, the morning paper, crossword puzzle and coffee we packed a lunch and away we went. It was about an hours drive to the Devil's Millhopper Geological sight but we added several miles onto the trip up by taking wrong turns...

First, at the urging of my back seat driver and against my better judgment I turned onto the interstate going south, the wrong direction. That added 20 miles onto the trip since the closest exit for turning around was 10 miles the wrong way. But finally we got going the right direction and continued on our merry way. 

Next faux pas I, as the driver, did was to miss our exit. I thought from looking at the map that we needed to go one more exit north but it didn't show there was no exit at that road so we did another 12 miles north and turned around to come back the correct exit, Now we have almost 50 extra miles onto our trip and I have a bladder about to burst. Thankfully there was a McDonald's right in front of me when I got to the end of the exit ramp.  So we did a quick pit stop and continued on to the State park with no other missed turns.

It was all worth it. It is 120 feet deep and 500 feet across with 232 steps down to the bottom where there is a viewing platform. Now 'they' would like us to believe that there was a water table drop that caused the sink hole but I prefer to believe it was caused this way.

 The Legend of Devils' Millhopper 

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Indian princess who lived in a village near the location of the present day Devils Millhopper. The Devil wanted to marry the Indian princess but she wanted nothing to do with him. So one day he decided to kidnap her. He grabbed her and ran. On hearing this all the Indian braves were deeply saddened and began to chase the Devil and the Indian princess. As the braves began to get closer and closer the Devil created a huge sink hole for the Indians to fall into. When the braves tried to crawl out to ave the princess the Devil turned them to stone. To this day the water weeping from the stones along the slopes are the tears the Indian braves shed for the beautiful Indian princess.

Now isn't that a beautiful legend. Here are some of the many photos I took along the way.

This is the beginning of the walk down.

One of the areas of weeping water

Below is the bottom of the sink hole where they have found sharks teeth and other interesting artifacts. There are so many things to say about this site but mostly it is just a wonderful look into Florida's past which was once a sea leaving behind traces of the life that lived here.

Below are plaques along the board walk

Bob taking a break on the trek up the stairs.










Me after reaching the top again. The weather was perfect for an outdoor activity like this one. Cool and crispy but sunny...

Lunch after the walk to the bottom. 

After leaving the state park we drove home wit no wrong turns and stopped at our son's home and enjoyed dinner with him and his family.

MAKING PROGRESS

Today I made real progress on my dress. All of the darts are sewn in the main pieces and now as soon as the lining is finished washing I will cut and sew the darts in those pieces. But that is an after turkey day project. For now I am just  thankful those darts are done and look pretty good. Because of the type of fabric I am using the lining darts will go much faster since I can sew them all on the machine and not have to baste them. Time wise I think I am about one third finished with the dress. 

I am finished sewing for the day. I need to get ready for our road trip tomorrow. Prepare food stuff and find our rain ponchos just in case...I am going to make small individual Paleo apple pies to take for dessert. But I won't tell Bob. he might think I am trying to keep him healthy. I got the recipe from here  http://ancestralchef.com/no-bake-paleo-apple-pies-guest-post/   http://ancestralchef.com/5-minute-paleo-chocolate-pumpkin-pie/
It sounds perfect for a picnic. I might make the pumpkin pie evening with coffee. That sounds like the perfect ending to a perfect day. 

A FRUSTRATING DAY OF LEARNING

I crawled out of bed this morning at 5 to get my body ready to walk but Mother Nature had a better idea for me. She had a lovely downpour going on. No thunder and lightening but enough water coming from above to restock the Florida Everglades. Needless to say we stayed in our nice dry homes and contemplated the next walk on our schedule. I thought I would get out later in the day but got busy and the day was over before I realized it. 

I spent the day sewing, reading a couture book on how to sew certain parts and wishing I knew more about the fine art of couture sewing. If so I would have been done with the whole garment by now. Or at least the basting part. In stead all I completed today was to get the darts in the back of the dress completed. That may not seem such a big deal but to accomplish that I had to first read how to do it.

For starters I had to cut the dart opening out of the pattern leaving a wedge then mark it with tailors chalk which promptly brushed off as I moved the fabric around. So I re read how to do it.

Next I fit the pattern back on the fabric and thread traced the dart opening. That means to stitch, with long stitches, on the line around the opening of the dart...Finally accomplished that feat on one half of the fabric piece.

Now I have to fold the dart and pin it first then baste it with another thread and then press it then machine sew it...Feat accomplished...

After getting all 4 darts sewn I needed to take out the basting thread and the stitch trace thread..but in the process of machine sewing I stitched over parts of both threads so it took for ever to get the temporary threads out...but feat accomplished and now after one day of sewing I have one piece with 4 darts sewn perfectly and one piece with the thread tracing done waiting to be finished.

I still have two sleeves with 5 darts each and the front with a total of 8 darts. That is 18 more darts. The only good thing is I now know how and most of the darts that  are left are short which makes them easier. Only 4 long ones like I did today. 

I have the option of putting the darts on the outside or the inside as is usual so I think I will put them on the outside. It makes a nice fashion statement. 

Good thing Christmas is a month away.

JUST AN ORDINARY DAY

Not much going on today. I walked early this morning in the cold morning air, before sunrise, but not complaining. Not too long ago it was hot...I much prefer the cold. Tomorrow we are walking if there are no thunderstorms. Rain is okay just not lightening.

When I got home I finished the crossword puzzle, had coffee and breakfast then I fitted the pellon sloper of my dress. Using it for a pattern I cut my dress out and am now ready to get started sewing.

Bracelet, earrings and Coach bag

Here is a photo of the jewelry I bought to wear with my new dress and the "Coach" bag that was given to me last Christmas from my grandson and his fiancee...A perfect match.

 In a few days we are going to start our REVERB 13 so will gear up for that...A blog each day for the month of December should be pretty easy since I have missed only a couple of days in several months. In the meantime I am plugging along with my sewing and looking forward to another ordinary day.

FUN, FOOD AND FESTIVITIES

 Victorian Village Festival.

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause

Maybe two of them..

along with snow in Florida

and.........

and real  live carolers,

and carriage rides

 and hot coffee

and food,

and holiday lights,

and a zither band

and more holiday lights

and more food..

A good time was had by all!

STILL IN SEWING MODE

I am still in the mood to sew and after searching through all my fabric (hard part) and patterns I came up with 4 that I want to make before the end of the year. None of them are difficult but will take time. If I stick with it I should have them finished as planned and I will be sure to take accurate measurements this time so they fit when finished. 

Here is the first one I plan on making since I have this wonderful woven fabric I bought years ago and never used. That was at the end of my quilting days and beginning of my mixed media art days and sewing was not on my agenda at that time. I will need to shop for some lining fabric and matching thread before I cut it out so will drive in to Joann's on Sunday. That way I can get started right away on Monday. I think this is going to be my holiday dinner dress. Maybe Steinmart will be having a nice sale on costume jewelry and I can check while there. Earrings and a bracelet would be about all. Not fond of necklaces.

The neighboring town is having their annual  "Victorian  Festival" this weekend so we are going to drive in and see the festive lights, wander the shoppes and have a bite to eat. It should be fun since the weather is balmy and dry out.

FOILED BY LIFE again

Today was not at all like I had envisioned it was going to be when I got out of bed at 5 this morning. It started out pretty okay with only a drizzle to get in the way of walking though by the time we left at 7 it was only a mist. Not enough to prevent us from a brisk morning walk.

After returning from our walk and making plans for our next one on Monday I had coffee, vitamins and breakfast. So far everything is going as planned. Laundry got put in washing machine, Bob got off to his volunteer job which then should have left me a nice long free day to do as I wanted. 

I searched the garage for a box of yarn I knew I had stashed out there and finally found it then came in and finished the tie for the dress, threaded it through the casing and put all the sewing stuff back in their proper place. By now I am really proud of myself. No mess, exercise completed and yarn is waiting for my decision on what to make. After browsing some of my free patterns I just got I decided on a cute cowl collar/ scarf for my daughter in Washington. Sure do not need one around here. So I sat about casting on 52 stitches...end of perfectly planned day.  

Because...

I got a phone call that took the remainder of the day to figure out. My health insurance has dropped my clinic where I get my skin cancer tended to. It is always popping up on my face so do not need quack surgeon to do the work... My surgeon will no longer be in my network after the first of year. Now I need to either find another good one or change to a health program that will have him in it. Took me all day of phone calls along with research on the internet of local doctors and so far have come up with zilch. Also needed to find a new primary care doctor for same reason. Worked on that at same time and came up with two that were acceptable...Then I got a call  from my daughter. 

She called to find out about Thanksgiving  Bob and I had already decided to do something different rather then try to decide which family to spend the day with. We are going to take a road trip on Thanksgiving day.

There is a giant sink hole in Gainesville, Fl that has become a park called  Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park..You can read about it here http://www.floridastateparks.org/devilsmillhopper/ We are going to take a picnic lunch with and make a day of it.  It has a bowl of 120 feet deep with a trail leading down and a rain forest at bottom. Doesn't that sound wonderful...I am most excited to do this since it has been one of the places we wanted to visit since reading about it several years ago.

Now to decide on Christmas. 

  

CALLING IT A DAY

I started this morning about 9 and worked until 3:00 to get my dress sewn. It is almost finished. Leaving it for now to have a cup of coffee. I still need to thread the tie through the casing around the high waist and I need to hem it. First I need to take off a few inches from the length and at the same time trim a few inches from my body for it to fit nicely. Here is how I am working on that problem. 


Yesterday, while at Bob's surveillance  luncheon I struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to me and learned we both have the same desire. That is to have a walking partner. Some one who will keep each other on track and motivated. Well, guess what,  and we are starting tomorrow to walk each morning or at least most mornings. 

Back to my day. After I finish sewing or art or anything I do  I always have a big mess to clean up. Today I have only a small one. 



This is my sewing machine with the tie waiting to be stitched...


Here is my serger that I used to finish the seams of the garments unless they are couture and if so I finish differently. This dress is definitely not couture so the seams got serged. 

I try to move around and not sit for too long so today I took a walk around my garden and took a couple of photo of late blooming flowers. 





I never can remember the name of the flowers we plant but this is one that we transplanted before my daughter got here. I was afraid it was dying but looks like it will make it after all.

I do remember the name of this one. A weeping bottle brush tree. I thought the nursery said it would bloom in the spring but it is looking pretty colorful so maybe it thinks it is spring since we are having so much warm weather. Not at all like fall is suppose to be. 

PEACE AGAIN AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD

Nothing much going on today other then we went to Bob's Surveillance luncheon and installation of officers. Our contribution to the lunch was a home made  recipe of mac and cheese from Eating Well. It was very good and I managed to bring enough home for our dinner tonight which saved me from having to cook. And that's a good thing!

We got home early enough that I had time to cut out my dress instead of waiting until tomorrow. Now it is ready to sew and I should be able to finish it with no problem by weeks end.

As I mentioned in a previous blog we have a 'Smart TV' and there are times I think it is way too smart or the operator, me, is way not smart enough...I love messing around with my electronics which many times gets me into trouble and today it did just that. 

When ever I have time with out Bob around watching TV I play around trying to learn how things work. Today I was trying to find out how to get movies from my prime account at Amazon. In the process of doing this I was able to get movies from a different source then Netflix, but not sure how, and so we watched Thor.

During the time I was playing around I tried to get my Wii to pick up Amazon and in the process of doing that did a bunch of other things which I have forgotten but when we finished with Thor I could not get the regular TV to come in again. Spent the next hour playing around trying to figure out what setting I changed and how to 'fix' it...I finally gave up and stopped to put some dinner on the table. As we were eating I thought about what was on the screen and realized it said Av instead of HDMI or what ever it usually says...so went back to settings and saw it was set on TV instead of the HDMI setting. When I changed that it was fixed. Needless to say I was relieved but not as much as Bob. I have much to keep me busy but Bob does enjoy his TV at night.

Good thing I don't have too much free time or I would be in trouble all the time.

GETTING STARTED

Today was sort of a mixed bag of activities. I wanted to get started sewing but had to pay bills first. Then I was going to look for my fabric and pattern to use and needed to re organize and put away things from some of the previous days of looking for patterns and fabric. Then because of all the things I moved around to make room for my daughter I needed to undo all of that which involved furniture and other items. Finally I got to the end of the afternoon and, after a much deserved cup of coffee I was able to look for what I wanted to make. 

I have a ton of patterns and fabric so just had to match something up. This is what I finally decided on and have the right amount of fabric to make it with. 

I have to go to a potluck holiday party tomorrow afternoon with hubby so won't start on it until Wednesday. It is an easy pattern and will probably take longer to cut out then to sew. It will be nice and comfy this winter for evenings of lounging around reading or even crocheting or knitting which I am going to start up again. Something I can do while watching TV. 

A LIST FOR SANTA BABY(not)

Today I traveled with my sewing group to several boutiques to do a little browsing and, if we so desired,  to shop for the holidays. I didn't do any shopping but did find a few things I am putting on my list for Santa Baby. These are items I just do not think I can do with out. 

Here is the first thing on my Santa Baby list. A bra made of seashells.  Just what the well endowed matronly figure needs for the holidays.

Then I found this lovely little shirt to wear over the seashell bra. Love the feathers on the bottom as well as all the beautiful fake diamonds cascading down the front. They help cover drips from eating. And, with the feathers on bottom and if I tug it down a bit it is long enough to cover all the important parts. Well, almost.






Then after all that shopping my feet were feeling a little tired so thought these fur covered flip flops were just the ticket...at $80.00 a pair I thought I might get several pairs in different colors and furs.




After shopping the high end boutiques we had lunch at the Highland Cafe in Crystal River where I enjoyed a curry chicken salad on a bed of Romaine lettuce and fresh fruit. Oh my goodness it was wonderful.

From there we headed over to the local thrift stores to see what they had. Of course after all the browsing we just finished this was a tad tame on the pocket book. One member of the group found a handful of silk men's ties for a nominal 0.50 each. She has a design in mind for a dress made of all silk ties. A couple of the girls bought tees to be used in a class we are doing in December but again I did not buy anything. 

I did come home with a splitting headache from  the shops with strong odors of perfumed candles and soaps and the old stores with dust and mold in the walls and floors. It is nothing new... happens to me all the time. By the time I got home it was almost gone and the cup of strong coffee took care of what remained.

All in all it was a nice relaxing day out with friends doing what friends do. Have fun!

GETTING INSPIRED

This month has been so discombobulated I am having a hard time getting organized or inspired  and I am not getting anything constructive accomplished.  

For a couple of days now I have diddled around with my hand sewing and today, after returning 4 pillows for my new bed, I still have 8 on there, I sorted my knits looking for something that sparked an interest in me. I have one shirt cut out and want to do hand sewing on it but decided it needs to be longer in the front and back so now I need to work out a creative way of doing that which is not going to be easy since it is curved on both front and back...Either that or find The Fountain of Youth and turn my 75 year old body into a svelte model(esque) type...And we all know that ain't gonna happen. Maybe I can give it the layered look by making the bottom layer longer. 

Then I looked for some fabric to make a particular shirt I made years ago and loved but couldn't make up my mind on which one to use so put all the fabric back on the shelf. 

I did make some progress in getting stuff stashed from the wedding over a week ago...I reorganized some high shelves in my hall closet and put them there since it is all dishes seldom used . In the process I found a couple of items I wanted to give my daughter that just left so now I will have to mail them along with all the stuff she left for me to send her. 

My day is coming to an end and I can only hope tomorrow will be better or at least not worse.

A WALK IN THE GARDEN

Today after reading a post on The Creative Practice I was inspired to go out and check out my garden...see what is going on. I see I have lots of flowers blooming and some that shouldn't be but will enjoy them any way.

Above is my India Hawthorn that is supposed to bloom in the spring.  

I think these yellow flowers are African Irises

I have no idea what the blue ones are. They are the same ones growing out of the side of my palm tree

My Sunflower trees are finally blooming 

Below are flowers Bob planted earlier and all are blooming nicely

 Dollar store rubber fly adorned with jewels and paint and providing an attractive patch for the screen Marshal tore while attacking the squirrel climbing on the screen

A real live Golden Orb Garden Spider. We have several making homes near enough to watch them catch and eat and repair their webs. This one has a moth wrapped and waiting for dinner time.

Me reflected in the mirror taking a picture