We took a quick trip to North Carolina…first off…let’s put this out there…everyday is Saturday when you don’t have to go out and go to work…but we treated this trip as a weekend of Saturday’s and it was lovely…what did we do??? glad you asked….
We sat on our friends back porch and did…NOTHING…except…talk…read…have wine & beer…talked some more…and enjoyed the unseasonably cool temperatures for summer in NC…I did manage to get a few pictures taken…
Symon Sez and Archer Gray…they share a father and you can really see it in their eyes…Walter White looks more like his and Archie’s mother
I call this one…One of these is not like the others…Bodhi Good Boy is the wise man in this group of knuckle heads
We talked about planning another vacation this year…but…just not sure where to go. We went to Austria in May and we both love the idea of a beach destination but summer is not the time to head to the Caribbean with the humidity…any suggestions??? Nothing out west with their heat wave happening…I guess I just need to get that pool here at home and make it our own vacation destination.
I snapped this picture yesterday from our back porch…back porch living is the only way to go…screen to keep the bugs out, ceiling fan to cool us off if it gets too hot, party lights to add fun at night, HomePod Mini for music and tv for when the Nationals are playing…oh and did I mention that there’s a couch that is perfect for plopping down on for reading or for grabbing nap.
The sun is just what I needed to push me to get the plants I picked up yesterday planted in pots…
now to get the front porch power-washed…
We’ve gone from spring temps to summer over-night so by 11:30 I was done…I still need to clean up the the mulch and maybe go pick up a few more pots…tomorrow I’ll be getting out early to get another bed cleaned up and flower seeds tossed in so we can have some fresh blooms inside.
Pretty sure that back porch is calling my name…and that couch…with a book…hmmm…is it any wonder my book numbers are so high?
My last post was in January 2024 and I can’t really tell you why I haven’t written anything since.
Since the beginning of the year I’ve discovered….
I like whiskey…and have really enjoyed my Whiskey Wednesday’s…Andrew makes the perfect Whiskey Sour
I still love to read…
I’ve read 157 books since January 1st…80 weeks in a row of read…406 days
I cut my hair…
I really missed having short hair…
I have started cleaning and purging from closets and the basement…holding on to things really drags me down and is so freeing to let them go…but don’t get me wrong…I still have so much more to let go but each box that leaves the house…is freeing.
I’m trying to spool the business down so that “fingers crossed” it will be closed out by the end of the year…I’m down to just the Etsy store…so if you are a crafter and looking to add some wool and other sewing goodies to your stash…pop over and check out what I offer.
That’s about it for updates…for now…hopefully I come back before another five months goes by…and I might have a few surprises up my sleeve…but those are for another post!
Raise your hand if you’ve already written 2023 this year? Or better yet forgotten that we’ve flipped over to a new year…I realize it’s only the 5th day of the new year but jeeze didn’t we just say that about 2023?
I started this new blog journey in January of 2023, not knowing what direction I wanted to take it, and to be honest, I’m still not sure.
A different part of my creative side is waking up…and while I’m not turning away from being creative with fabric, my mind is wandering to different mediums…One minute I wanted to try and write, who wouldn’t love to weave a tale of love and intrigue? not a day later I’m thinking about water color painting…and before I know it I’m yearning for learning stained glass. I’ve done a good job of not jumping and purchasing a bunch of stuff that will sit because my brain is swirling all over the place…like glitter…so I sit…and listen and wait…
Who knows where 2024 will take my creative side but I know one thing…there will be glitter…and unicorns…and magickal things…see what I did there…yup…all over the map…and I’m okay with that.
Another thing…you might have noticed, if you’ve been following me for awhile, either here on this blog or my older one or even on social media…I love to use DOT DOT DOT…it’s a pause for my brain. I’m not going to get hung up on crossing my “i”s and dotting my “t”s…or placing a comma or not having a run on sentence, because that is not me and what you’ll discover if you hang around long enough, I will always be me, no pretending here.
So…are you in to see where 2024 takes me?
BTW…If you read my post about my obsession with reading in 2023…here is an update. In 2023 I read 127 books. People have asked where I found the time. We traveled a lot in Aug, Sept, Oct and I don’t really sleep well when away from home so I’m up early reading, in bed early reading and reading while on a plane or airport. I also read in the morning while the house is quiet, in the afternoons before dinner time and at nights in bed. I don’t obsess about how much time I sit reading because…it feeds my soul!
WOW…talk about a change in weather destinations…two weeks ago we were in the Caribbean and then on a plane headed to Seattle to travel up to Alaska.
Well…this trip started off a little rocky. With a 8:20am departure from Dulles airport scheduled we left home by 5am to park the car and check in for our flight to Seattle. As we are sitting in the departure lounge we notice that we aren’t boarding on time…no problem with think, we have plenty of time because we are flying direct. Well…that no problem turned into a very long delay, to cancelling the flight, to booking us on another airline to making it to Seattle just about 24 hours after our day started. But wait…there’s more…four of us traveling with 7 pieces of luggage total and leaving in a day for a 7 day cruise what are the chances our luggage arrives when we do…yup you guessed it…the chances were close to zero, I say close to zero because two of our pieces arrived on the plane with us leaving one of ours and four of theirs sitting back at Dulles airport…did I mention that we were leaving on a 7 day cruise???
After a few hours of sleep and lots of phone calls the rest of the luggage was determined to have arrived in Seattle so the guys headed to the airport to hunt it down. AND…Success…all luggage was found and the guys headed back to the hotel so that everyone could shower and put on clean clothes and we could head to dinner.
DINNER…OMGEE…Salty’s in Seattle was our destination and all I can say is WOWzer. Seriously, Scott wanted us to enjoy the view of the city from across Elliott Bay and the view did not disappoint…
The food was just as amazing as the view…so amazing that I forgot to take a picture but take my word for it, everything we ordered was a grand-slam, including the cocktails.
Bright and early the next morning we got up, had a bite to eat and headed to the cruise terminal. If you’ve cruised in the past but not since Covid, and traveled with Royal Caribbean, let me tell you, some things changed for the good. Quick and easy check-in and the muster-drill of lining up on the deck is a thing of the past, it’s all done on your phone with a check-in using your sea-pass card with a crew member at your muster station, easy peasy. It was all so easy we rewarded ourselves with the first cocktail of the cruise
A snapshot into our week on the ship…lots of inside deck sitting looking out on some beautiful landscape. While September may not be the best time to cruise to Alaska, Mother Nature showed us some beauty through the clouds and rain. We saw several pods of whales right off the deck, first the bubbles then these massive heads popping up. Lots of whales heading south, blows and a few tails slapping the water, they were on a mission so they didn’t hang around to entertain us. We did see a few otters playing and rolling around the ship, sea lions, some swimming and some hanging out snoozing on a bouy. We only saw a few eagles, but heck, even one out in the wild is enough to get me giggling like a kid. We pulled into Juneau and saw sun for the first time all week and the view did not disappoint, it was only for a few hours but the mountains surrounding the town showed off with various shades of green.
Our last night on the ship we dressed up and headed to the Chef’s Table for dinner…on your next cruise, take the time and make reservations at the Chef’s Table, it’s a foodie paradise.
Bright and early the next morning we packed up and pulled our luggage off and headed to the airport. We did have a good time with our friends and while waiting for our flight we decided that we would do another cruise to Alaska but making it a two week adventure and going in the summer when, hopefully, less rain and we’ll be able to see more…more of the landscape…more of the wildlife…and maybe a few glaciers (didn’t see one up close but did see Mendenhall Glacier from a distance.
And that wraps up trip 2…can’t wait to share with y’all trip 3 that might end up being two post with all the pictures I have to share.
Until Next Time
Be Kind
PS: No trip to Seattle would be complete without a trip to Pike Place Market…I’m always drawn to the flower vendors and this time, as usual, they did not disappoint.
August 2023 found us traveling to the sunny island of St Thomas. St. Thomas is the gateway isle of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. We traveled to St Thomas to celebrate our friends birthday with her and her family. We’ve traveled to St Thomas in the past but it was on a cruise ship, so this was our first time on-island and on our trip home we decided that it’s a great place to visit but next time we won’t be going in August, pretty sure August is one of the hottest and most humid times to be in the Caribbean.
But…
We had a great time and most places had a/c and who can really complain when you are floating in a pool or in the Caribbean Sea.
This was the view from our room…not a bad view to suffer a week of heat and humidity…LOL
Day 1 … poolside
Day 2…shade…pool side
Day 3…same pool side
Okay…I know what you are thinking…did you do anything but sit pool side?
Well…did you not see yesterday post about the update on how many books I’ve read so far this year? We had cocktails poolside and lots of reading and talking and laughing…
The whole gang on St Thomas to celebrate Leslee’s birthday…
Yes we had birthday cake…and yes Leslee made and froze and brought the cake on the airplane. We had a full kitchen and my plan was to make her cake but she had other plans and before I knew it she baked and frozen the cake and we all got to enjoy.
With the cake there were presents…I managed to surprise her with this quilt..along with other gifts I think she had a pretty good birthday.
Day 6…last day on island and a little different view. Leslee and I headed to the beach and decided to spend a few hours float in the Caribbean Sea, and when I say float, I mean float without any floaties. There is so much salt in the sea that all you have to do is pull your legs up and bob around. In the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea, in about longitude 68°W, the average minimum salinity is 34.73%….lots of salt in the water. I’m not a big fan of floating in water where I can’t see the bottom so I was a HUGE fan of floating in the Caribbean.
Before we knew it, after lots of good food and fun it was time to pack up and head home and plan our next adventure…off to Alaska with this guy
How many times have I written a blog post, either here or on my old blog, where it is either titled “time flies” or “time is flying” or I have written about time flying. I have really good intentions on sitting down to write about all kinds of stuff but then…you guessed it…time flies and the next thing I know it’s been two or three months and all those great post went out the window.
Chatting on the phone with my mother we talk about “where does the time go”… before we know it we are back to Friday and the week has flown by and we can’t remember what we accomplished.
I really believe half the problem of time flying is our attachment to our phones/tablets/computers…we get pulled in to either social media, Apple News (for me), reading on tablets (again me). You might remember this post from May where I talked about reading, as of that post I have gone from 26 titles of books I had read to 84…yes…84 books this year, so now we know where my time has gone…nose in my iPad on my Kindle app reading.
BUT….
That is not the only thing I’ve been doing…we’ve been traveling…if you are interested keep watching the blog and I’ll fill y’all in on where we’ve been and what we did on our travels…
I’m going to try and not fuss about where the time is flying to instead I’m going to try and live in the moment
I’ll admit that my music taste are all over the map…except classical, not the biggest fan…anyway…
Several years ago my friend Kathy, her blog is here, turned me on to the group Mipso. From the first time hearing them live at The Birchmere to countless hours to a wonderful road trip 4 years ago with Kathy to hear them play in Charlottesville and Raleigh I was hooked. I couldn’t really put my finger on what it was about their music that sucked me in, because this genre of music wasn’t really in my wheelhouse, but it didn’t take long for me to explore more artist along the same lines…newest favorite is Caamp. But what attracts me to this music alluded me … I just couldn’t put words to it till today
I woke up this morning to the news that Jimmy Buffet had passed away and sitting on the porch listening to ALL of his music and remembering buying one of his albums…didn’t we all want to live his lifestyle? Jimmy’s music spoke to all of us…they were ballads that most of us either wanted to live or could relate and then it hit me…Mipso, Caamp and Jimmy Buffet all sing ballads…it’s the ballads in the music that draws me to them. Now before you think I’ve lost my mind, no, Jimmy’s music is not like Mipso and Caamp in that they are more like Folk Ballads…Jimmy’s music is ballads of life, living, feeling and chillaxin.
So if you need me today I’ll be on the backporch listening to Jimmy and chillaxin with a book and a cold beverage or two.
Raise your hand if you look at the clock in the middle of the night and calculate how much time till you need to roll out of bed….
This happens to me EVERY-SINGLE-NIGHT…I try to say to myself “you don’t have a set time to get up” or “you can sleep as late as you want” but try as I might I still lay there and add up how many hours it’s been since I put down my book or how many hours till I need to get up.
As I was laying in bed the other night, well actually it was around 3am, this blog post popped into my mind. I got to thinking that it’s not only watching the clock and calculating how much time to sleep but also how long it will take me to…do the laundry…drive to town…weed the flower beds…you name it…I spend precious time calculating time. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that does this but I have to wonder why we do it…why are we always chasing the clock and calculating time.
I’m going to try and break this habit…mostly because I think it’s what keeps me from falling back to sleep easily but also because I want to enjoy the now and not watch the clock and calculate my time away.
In my mind I’ve looked at blogging as a sort of journal, one that I share with others, not one that I write in for my eyes only. This is my third platform for blogging, the original was blogger, and while I no longer post there if you are inclined you can go back and read all 805 post that go back to May 2008. I think at the time I started the blog it was more business focused but as time went I throw in all kinds of things, from owning a quilt shop, our pets, special occasions, new family members and those that have passed.
2015 rolled around and my quilt shop, Kelly Ann’s Quilting, was selected to be in Quilt Sampler Magazine as a top 10 quilt shop and I needed a website that could handle online sales. I had a website on the Wix platform designed and started blogging there. I closed the shop in 2019 and moved on…sort of…I hand my web-designer do another website on Wix for Neked Sheep Wool and started blogging on that website. Here’s the thing…Wix is a great platform but once you no longer have the business and close that website your blog goes away, so all the writing I was doing goes away. My original blog was tied to Kelly Ann’s Quilting and while I still hold that name close to my heart it was time to move along. This blog, Kelly Ann’s Blog, is not tired to any one thing….I’m kind of all over the map. There are times I post silly stuff and in the future you might see more serious writings because it is after all…ALL ABOUT ME…and while I can still be goofy there are some things that need to be taken seriously and you might see that side of me.
So back to Journaling…while I don’t sit down and write in a journal I do use blogging to sort of journal what’s going on or even sometimes my thoughts.
So I ask you…is blogging like a journal…do you enjoy following blogs?? I’m on the search for a good blog reader, one that I can use to subscribe to blogs and have them all in one place, do you know of one?
I’m still learning a lot about this platform so you may see things change up a bit or they may stay the same…only time will tell.
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